B1 · Intermediate
15 min
climatefoodcultureeconomicsspain
El clima y la comida: cuando el calor cambia lo que comemos
Climate and Food: When Heat Changes What We Eat
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So the World Meteorological Organization dropped its annual State of the Global Climate report this week, and I want to talk about it, but not the way it usually gets covered.
Not the graphs, not the parts-per-million.
I want to talk about what it means for food.
Bueno, mira, es una buena idea porque la gente escucha las noticias del clima y piensa en los glaciares o en los osos polares.
Good, look, that's a good angle because people hear climate news and they think glaciers and polar bears.
Pero el clima cambia lo que comemos.
But climate change changes what we eat.
Cambia los precios, cambia los sabores, cambia todo.
It changes prices, it changes flavors, it changes everything.
Right, and this report is specifically alarming because ocean heat content hit a record in 2025.
The oceans absorb most of the excess heat the planet is generating, and when they're that warm, you feel it everywhere, including on the plate.
Es que en España ya lo sentimos mucho.
The thing is, in Spain we already feel it a lot.
El aceite de oliva, por ejemplo.
Olive oil, for example.
Hace dos años, los precios subieron muchísimo porque hubo una sequía muy grave en Andalucía.
Two years ago, prices went up enormously because there was a very serious drought in Andalusia.
La cosecha fue muy pequeña y el aceite casi desapareció de los supermercados.
The harvest was very small and olive oil almost disappeared from supermarkets.
I remember reading about that.
Spanish olive oil went from being almost a pantry staple to being, in some places, locked behind a security case like it was a bottle of whiskey.
Sí, exactamente.
Yes, exactly.
En algunos supermercados pusieron alarmas en las botellas.
Some supermarkets put security tags on the bottles.
Fue una cosa ridícula, pero también muy triste.
It was ridiculous, but also very sad.
El aceite de oliva es parte de nuestra identidad.
Olive oil is part of our identity.
Nosotros no cocinamos sin aceite.
We don't cook without olive oil.
Here's what gets me though.
Spain produces something like half of the world's olive oil.
So when Andalusia has a drought, it's not just a Spanish problem.
It's a Mediterranean problem, it's a global pantry problem.
Sí, España produce casi la mitad del aceite de oliva del mundo.
Yes, Spain produces almost half the world's olive oil.
Cuando la cosecha fue mala, los precios subieron en Japón, en Brasil, en todas partes.
When the harvest was bad, prices went up in Japan, in Brazil, everywhere.
La gente no piensa en esa conexión, pero existe.
People don't think about that connection, but it exists.
And the WMO report says 2025 was the worst year on record for this kind of energy imbalance.
Meaning the droughts, the heat events, the disruptions to growing seasons, they're not a blip.
They're the new baseline.
A ver, esto es importante.
Look, this is important.
No es un problema de un año malo.
It's not a problem of one bad year.
Los agricultores en el sur de España me dijeron que las temperaturas en verano ahora son diferentes.
Farmers in southern Spain told me that summer temperatures now are different.
Antes el calor fuerte era en julio y agosto.
Before the intense heat was in July and August.
Ahora empieza en mayo y termina en octubre.
Now it starts in May and ends in October.
Five months of intense heat instead of two.
That's not a season anymore, that's most of the year.
And for something like an olive tree, which is ancient and slow and incredibly specific about when it flowers and when it sets fruit, that completely disrupts the whole cycle.
Bueno, y los olivos son muy viejos.
And olive trees are very old.
Hay árboles en España con quinientos, seiscientos años.
There are trees in Spain that are five hundred, six hundred years old.
Sobrevivieron guerras, sequías históricas, muchas cosas.
They survived wars, historic droughts, many things.
Pero el cambio de temperatura ahora es más rápido que antes.
But the temperature change now is faster than before.
I mean, there's something almost poetic and terrible about that, right.
A tree that outlasted the Reconquista, the Inquisition, two world wars, and it might not outlast us running our cars and factories for another century.
Es que sí.
It really is.
Y no es solo el olivo.
And it's not just the olive tree.
La uva también tiene problemas.
Grapes have problems too.
Las regiones vinícolas de España, de Francia, de Italia, todas cambiaron mucho.
The wine regions of Spain, France, Italy, they all changed a lot.
Las uvas maduran más rápido ahora y el vino tiene más alcohol.
Grapes ripen faster now and wine has more alcohol.
El sabor cambió.
The flavor changed.
So the wine is literally different now.
Not metaphorically, not in some abstract sense.
You open a bottle of Rioja from 1995 and compare it to one from 2022 and you're tasting a different climate.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Los enólogos, los expertos en vino, hablan mucho de esto.
Winemakers, wine experts, talk a lot about this.
Algunos lo aceptan y trabajan con las nuevas condiciones.
Some accept it and work with the new conditions.
Otros dicen que es un problema muy serio para la identidad del vino español.
Others say it's a very serious problem for the identity of Spanish wine.
Let's pull back for a second because I think there's a bigger historical story here.
The Mediterranean diet, the one nutritionists keep telling us is the healthiest way to eat, it didn't appear by accident.
It emerged from a specific climate, specific soils, specific rhythms of heat and rain.
Sí, la dieta mediterránea no es solo una lista de alimentos.
Yes, the Mediterranean diet is not just a list of foods.
Es una forma de vivir que viene de siglos de adaptación.
It's a way of living that comes from centuries of adaptation.
Las personas en el Mediterráneo comieron aceite de oliva, pescado, legumbres y verduras porque esas cosas crecieron bien en ese clima.
People in the Mediterranean ate olive oil, fish, legumes, and vegetables because those things grew well in that climate.
And now that climate is shifting.
So it's not just that prices go up or harvests get smaller.
The very foundation of that diet, the conditions that made it possible, those are changing underneath it.
Mira, hay regiones en España donde antes no crecían los aguacates.
Look, there are regions in Spain where avocados didn't grow before.
Ahora crecen muy bien porque las temperaturas subieron.
Now they grow very well because temperatures went up.
En Málaga, en Granada, los agricultores cambiaron los olivos por aguacates porque son más rentables con el clima nuevo.
In Málaga, in Granada, farmers switched from olive trees to avocados because they're more profitable with the new climate.
Which sounds like a silver lining on the surface, but that's a huge amount of water that avocados need, right.
And southern Spain is already in serious water stress.
La verdad es que sí, es un problema grande.
Honestly, yes, it's a big problem.
Los aguacates necesitan mucha agua y en Andalucía el agua es cada vez más escasa.
Avocados need a lot of water and in Andalusia water is increasingly scarce.
Entonces cambiamos un problema por otro problema diferente.
So we trade one problem for a different problem.
The extraordinary thing is that this is happening at every level of the food system simultaneously.
The crops are stressed, the fishing grounds are disrupted because ocean temperatures are shifting where fish go, and the supply chains are already brittle from everything else going on in the world.
El pescado también.
Fish too.
En el norte de España, en el País Vasco y en Galicia, los pescadores dicen que el atún y otras especies llegaron antes y se fueron antes.
In northern Spain, in the Basque Country and Galicia, fishermen say that tuna and other species arrived earlier and left earlier.
Los ciclos cambiaron.
The cycles changed.
Es difícil para las comunidades que viven de la pesca.
It's difficult for communities that live from fishing.
Look, I spent time in Galicia years ago, doing a piece on something completely unrelated, and I ended up in this little port town and I ate the best octopus of my life.
Pulpo a la gallega.
I've been chasing that meal ever since.
El pulpo a la gallega es extraordinario.
Pulpo a la gallega is extraordinary.
Pero el pulpo también siente los cambios del océano.
But octopus also feels ocean changes.
Los pulpos son muy sensibles a la temperatura del agua.
Octopuses are very sensitive to water temperature.
Cuando el agua está más caliente, su comportamiento cambia.
When the water is warmer, their behavior changes.
So the meal I had in Galicia, that specific combination of cold Atlantic water producing that particular texture and flavor of octopus, that's not guaranteed to exist in twenty years.
That's a strange thing to sit with.
Es que la comida es memoria también.
Food is memory too.
Cuando como algo típico de mi región, recuerdo mi infancia, recuerdo a mi abuela.
When I eat something typical from my region, I remember my childhood, I remember my grandmother.
Si esos productos cambian o desaparecen, perdemos algo más que comida.
If those products change or disappear, we lose something more than food.
Perdemos una parte de nuestra identidad.
We lose a part of our identity.
That's a really important point and I don't want to rush past it.
Because when economists talk about climate and food they talk about yields and prices.
They don't talk about the fact that a grandmother's recipe stops working because the tomatoes taste different now.
Bueno, el tomate es un buen ejemplo.
Well, the tomato is a good example.
En España, el tomate de temporada, el tomate de verano, es completamente diferente al tomate de invernadero que vendemos en invierno.
In Spain, the seasonal tomato, the summer tomato, is completely different from the greenhouse tomato we sell in winter.
El sabor es otro.
The flavor is different.
Pero la temporada del tomate bueno es cada vez más corta.
But the season for good tomatoes is getting shorter.
Right, so now let's talk about implications, because this is where it gets politically complicated.
The WMO report says 2025 broke records across the board, which means governments have to respond.
But the responses to climate change and the responses to food security don't always point in the same direction.
A ver, sí.
Look, yes.
En España hay debates muy fuertes sobre el agua.
In Spain there are very intense debates about water.
Los agricultores necesitan agua para producir comida.
Farmers need water to produce food.
Pero el agua es escasa.
But water is scarce.
El gobierno quiere regular el uso del agua, y los agricultores protestan porque dicen que no pueden trabajar sin agua.
The government wants to regulate water use, and farmers protest because they say they can't work without water.
I covered a version of this story in California years ago.
The Central Valley, which feeds much of America, sits in a state that's been in drought for years.
And the fights between farmers, environmentalists, and cities over water rights were vicious.
I can imagine it's not so different in the south of Spain.
No, no es diferente.
No, it's not different.
La situación de Doñana fue muy famosa.
The Doñana situation was very famous.
Doñana es un parque natural muy importante en Andalucía, cerca del mar.
Doñana is a very important nature park in Andalusia, near the sea.
Los agricultores de fresas usaron mucha agua del parque y los ecologistas protestaron mucho.
Strawberry farmers used a lot of water from the park and environmentalists protested a lot.
Fue un conflicto político serio.
It was a serious political conflict.
The strawberry fields of Andalusia draining a UNESCO World Heritage wetland.
That's a collision of two legitimate needs, food production and ecological preservation, and there's no easy answer.
The climate report just means the pressure on both sides keeps increasing.
La verdad es que es muy difícil.
Honestly, it's very difficult.
Los agricultores no son los malos de la historia.
Farmers are not the villains of this story.
Trabajan mucho y tienen familias que alimentar.
They work very hard and have families to feed.
Pero el problema del agua es real y el clima lo hace peor cada año.
But the water problem is real and the climate makes it worse every year.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
And this is something I think gets lost in how climate stories get told.
The people most immediately hurt by climate change are often the people who have done the least to cause it.
A small olive farmer in Jaén is not responsible for global emissions.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y lo mismo pasa con los pescadores en Galicia, con los agricultores de arroz en Valencia, con los productores de queso en los Pirineos.
And the same happens with fishermen in Galicia, with rice farmers in Valencia, with cheese producers in the Pyrenees.
Todos sienten los efectos del clima pero no crearon el problema.
They all feel the effects of the climate but they didn't create the problem.
The rice farmers in Valencia, that's interesting.
The paella connection.
And I know we have listeners who are now expecting me to mention chorizo in paella and I'm just going to let that one go today.
Bien, Fletcher, gracias.
Good, Fletcher, thank you.
Pero sí, el arroz de Valencia necesita condiciones muy específicas de agua y temperatura.
But yes, Valencia rice needs very specific water and temperature conditions.
La Albufera, el lago donde crecen las tradiciones del arroz valenciano, tiene problemas serios con la calidad del agua y la temperatura.
The Albufera, the lake where the traditions of Valencian rice farming grow, has serious problems with water quality and temperature.
So here's where I want to land this.
The WMO report is a data document.
It's full of numbers.
But what those numbers actually describe, if you follow them all the way down, is a threat to the way human beings have organized their lives around food for thousands of years.
Mira, yo no soy pesimista.
Look, I'm not a pessimist.
Los agricultores siempre se adaptaron a los cambios.
Farmers always adapted to changes.
Hay personas que trabajan con nuevas variedades de olivos que necesitan menos agua.
There are people working with new varieties of olive trees that need less water.
Hay proyectos para proteger la pesca.
There are projects to protect fishing.
La gente busca soluciones.
People look for solutions.
I want to believe that.
And I do think human ingenuity is real.
But the WMO report is essentially saying the rate of change is outpacing the rate of adaptation.
The ocean warmed faster in 2025 than any previous year on record.
Adaptation takes decades;
the climate isn't waiting.
Es que tienes razón en eso.
You're right about that.
El problema es la velocidad.
The problem is the speed.
La naturaleza puede adaptarse, pero necesita tiempo.
Nature can adapt, but it needs time.
Y ahora el cambio es demasiado rápido.
And now the change is too fast.
Para los olivos, para los peces, para todo.
For olive trees, for fish, for everything.
The thing is, when I was a correspondent, I'd land in a new country and the first thing I'd do after checking in is find the market.
The food market.
Because you could read an entire society in how it fed itself.
What's plentiful, what's scarce, what people argue about at the cheese counter.
Sí, el mercado es el corazón de una ciudad.
Yes, the market is the heart of a city.
En España, los mercados como el Boqueria en Barcelona o el Mercado de San Miguel en Madrid son lugares muy especiales.
In Spain, markets like La Boqueria in Barcelona or Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid are very special places.
Pero incluso allí, los productos cambiaron.
But even there, the products changed.
Algunos productos locales son más caros o más difíciles de encontrar.
Some local products are more expensive or harder to find.
And that's the story inside the story of this WMO report.
The record ocean temperatures, the energy imbalance, all of that eventually shows up as an empty shelf or a price tag that makes you put something back.
It's abstract until it isn't.
Bueno, y para terminar, creo que la comida es una forma muy buena de entender el clima porque es personal.
Well, and to close, I think food is a very good way to understand climate because it's personal.
Todo el mundo come.
Everyone eats.
Cuando el precio del aceite sube, todo el mundo lo siente.
When the price of olive oil goes up, everyone feels it.
Es más fácil entender el problema así que con números de temperatura.
It's easier to understand the problem this way than with temperature numbers.
Perfectly put.
The WMO can publish all the data it wants, and it should, but the moment it lands for most people is the moment they're standing in the supermarket doing the math in their head.
That's where the climate crisis lives.
Thanks for this one, Octavio.
Next time I'm in Madrid, you're buying the olive oil.
A ver, con los precios de ahora, es un regalo muy caro.
Look, at today's prices, that's a very expensive gift.
Pero sí, Fletcher, la próxima vez yo pago el aceite.
But yes, Fletcher, next time I'll pay for the olive oil.
Sin hielo, por favor.
No ice, please.