Hey readers,
Bryan here. Butter chicken has disappeared from some restaurant menus in India. Sri Lanka declared every Wednesday a public holiday. Laos cut its school week to three days. Egypt ordered shops and cafes to close by 9 pm. In Thailand, government workers were told to take the stairs instead of the elevator. And in South Korea, the president urged citizens to take shorter showers. These are wartime policies, even though none of these countries are actually fighting a war. All of them, however, are caught in the blast radius of one being fought thousands of miles away. That's because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28, has detonated a crisis that reaches into kitchens, classrooms, hospitals, and fields across the Global South. Twenty-one miles wide at its narrowest point, before the war, the Strait carried 20 percent of global oil, 20 percent of liquefied natural gas (LNG), a third of seaborne fertilizer, and nearly half of the world's sulfur exports. Commodity shipments have fallen by 95 percent. The Strait is, in effect, closed, and the consequences are cascading through the lives of an estimated 3.2 billion people in countries now subject to some form of fuel rationing, power cuts, or energy restrictions. |
The food crisis Start with food. India imports the majority of its cooking gas through the Strait, and the disruption hit almost immediately. Black-market prices for a single liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder — the kind that powers a family kitchen there — have nearly tripled. Restaurants across the country have slashed their menus; a 70-year-old Mumbai institution trimmed its elaborate multicourse Ramadan offerings to just four dishes. A chain in the same city stopped selling dosa entirely, because the dish requires an open gas flame. A handwritten sign at a Bengaluru restaurant went viral: "There will be no roti due to gas cylinder crisis (due to war between Iran and USA)." Nearly 10,000 restaurants in the state of Tamil Nadu alone face closure. The fertilizer crisis hasn't yet had the same level of immediate effects, but the longer-term impact looks grim. The Gulf produces roughly a third of the world's exports of urea, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and the closure hit at the single worst moment in the agricultural calendar — just as Northern Hemisphere farmers need to apply fertilizer for spring planting. Bangladesh has shut down four of its five state-owned urea plants. Nepal, which produces zero chemical fertilizer domestically, has seen urea prices jump 40 percent ahead of its critical paddy season. In Brazil, sugar mills are diverting their new harvest toward ethanol — which is more profitable, with oil above $100 a barrel — which could tighten global sugar supplies for months. The World Food Programme warns that 45 million more people globally could be pushed into acute food insecurity — an increase of 15 percent on current hunger levels. As if that's not enough, the closure of the strait has stranded vital United Nations food aid in warehouses in Dubai, crippling the ability of relief agencies to get supplies where they're needed most. A scary climate Then there's the environmental fallout, which may be the single most consequential long-term effect of the crisis. The disruption of relatively clean LNG supplies has triggered a coal resurgence across Asia and beyond. Japan is planning to lift rules that required its oldest, dirtiest coal plants to run at less than 50 percent capacity, which means more carbon dioxide and other pollution spewed into the air. South Korea removed its own seasonal cap on coal power and delayed the retirement of three coal plants. Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia are all expanding coal operations. And in Europe, Germany is reviewing whether to restart mothballed coal plants. Coal companies — whose product is the single-biggest contributor to climate change — are reaping the benefit. Australia's Yancoal is up 40 percent since the war began, while Pennsylvania-based Core Natural Resources is up 30 percent. And once turned on, coal plants can be politically difficult to shut down again, which would risk a longer-term carbon lock-in. And it's not just about climate change. In India, the government has formally permitted restaurants and hotels to burn wood, dried crops, and cow dung — undoing years of clean-fuel progress and putting more lives at risk in the process in a single directive. If you squint, there could be an eventual silver lining to all of this. In Nepal, over 70 percent of new car sales are already electric. Electric rickshaws are selling out in Pakistan. The Chinese electric car maker BYD is now projecting overseas sales to be 15 percent higher than they were expected before the war. One energy analyst called this "Asia's Ukraine moment" — a shock that could accelerate the shift to renewables the way Russia's invasion pushed Europe toward wind and solar. Hastening the clean energy transition, however, won't put food on the table for billions of people throughout the Global South, and more coal and other dirty fuels in the short term will endanger more lives around the globe. The world's poor may not be fighting the Iran war, but they are surely suffering from it. |
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| Bryan Walsh Senior editorial director |
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| Bryan Walsh Senior editorial director |
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CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT... |
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| Title: Future Perfect fellow
What I cover: Emerging science and tech, space, diseases, and how we treat them
A movie that I just watched for the first time: No Country for Old Men (2007) |
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America can, should, must, and will return to the moon. We're heading back, baby, for the first time since 1972. The long-delayed Artemis II mission will take four astronauts on a trip around the moon — possibly bringing them farther from Earth than any human being has traveled before. They won't set foot on the lunar surface this time, but NASA aims to bring humanity back to the moon itself in 2028. The 10-day mission is set to launch Wednesday at 6:24 pm Eastern, assuming all goes as planned. There's an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions, and no, this isn't an April Fool's Day joke. Artemis I was an uncrewed mission around the moon that tested this technology in 2022, but the Artemis II crew will be the first people who NASA's newest moon rocket and Orion capsule will bring to space. The mission is a great opportunity to better understand how space travel affects human health. NASA plans to establish a $20 billion lunar base to ensure a long-term presence on the moon. There's a lot we can learn about our own planet from studying the satellite, and it's a stepping stone to interplanetary travel. We could one day see AI data centers on the lunar surface. But why are we doing this now? Well, there's a new space race on. China wants to return to the lunar surface, and America wants to beat it to the punch. "We find ourselves with a real geopolitical rival, challenging American leadership in the high ground of space," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. "This time, the goal is not flags and footprints. This time, the goal is to stay. America will never again give up the moon." The countdown is here. You can watch the launch live on NASA's YouTube channel, with the broadcast starting at 12:50 pm Eastern. You'll be able to see live views of the Orion capsule during the mission. |
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The Vox Membership program is getting even better with access to Vox's Patreon, where members can unlock exclusive videos, livestreams, and chats with our newsroom. Become a Vox Member to get access to it all. |
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And what happened when a nutrition influencer dared to eat tofu. |
Paige Vickers/Vox; Getty Images |
What caused a 24-year-old male meat-eating, weight-lifting nutrition influencer to incur the wrath of online trolling? He tried tofu. And posted about it. Jacob Smith found out the hard, and perhaps surprising way, that many people seem to have a problem with muscly men dabbling in plant-based protein. But why did it get to be this way? My colleague and senior Vox reporter Kenny Torrella digs into the fascinating cultural history of how meat and manhood got so (incorrectly) entangled in his latest feature. Along the way, Kenny talks with academics who have parsed the details of how early humans really hunted (it wasn't just a men's sport), as well as with athletes about their own experiences when they started incorporating more plant-based eating. As for Smith, he's still braving the online wilds with research-based nutrition videos. Including his new series he's dubbed — tongue-in-cheek — "The Soy Boy Chronicles." Read more here. —Katherine Courage, deputy editor |
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⭐ ONE WAY TO DO GOOD THIS WEEK |
This November, Washington, DC, voters might be able to decide whether restaurants in the district can sell foie gras — that is, if animal advocates can gather enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. Foie gras, a French delicacy, is made by force-feeding ducks with a metal pipe, a practice that's made it an easier target than most forms of animal cruelty, leading to bans in California, New York City, and Pittsburgh. Anyone, whether a DC resident or not, can help gather the tens of thousands of necessary signatures required between now and early July to get it on the ballot, and you can sign up here to help. (The advocacy group Pro-Animal Future is providing free housing and food to out-of-towners from April 13 to May 31.) While the number of ducks raised for foie gras in the US is tiny compared to other animal industries, I think it's an important campaign for a few reasons. First, you've got to start somewhere, and banning foie gras is winnable. Second, these campaigns get the public talking about farm animal welfare, and gathering signatures is an easy way for people to get involved in animal advocacy. And lastly, it's really hard to pass farm animal welfare laws through legislatures because industry has a lot of influence over policymakers; ballot initiatives are a way to bring the issue directly to voters, who virtually always vote in the animals' favor. — Kenny Torrella, senior reporter |
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Today's edition was edited by Katherine Courage, Seth Maxon, and Bryan Walsh, and was produced by Seth. As of this week, the Future Perfect newsletter is moving to weekly on Wednesdays. Stay tuned for Sigal Samuel's Your Mileage May Vary newsletter on Sunday. We'll see you next week! |
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