Billions of People Face Food Shortages Due to Global Warming
According to a study published in the journal Science, half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of this century, as rising temperatures reduce crop yields in the tropics and when the population is expected to be double what it is now.
"You can let it happen and painfully adapt, or you can plan for it,” said David Battisti, a scientist at the University of Washington who led the study. “You could also mitigate [climate change] and not let it happen in the first place, but we're not doing a very good job of that."
No argument there.
The Kyoto Protocol, intended to unite the world’s nations in the fight to slow global warming, has done little to achieve that goal, and subsequent international conferences have also fallen short of creating a workable strategy that most countries will support.
Yet while climate change—and shortages of food, water, clean air and other life essentials—certainly affect individual nations, they are global problems that can’t be solved unilaterally. Eventually, the human race either learns to live and work together, despite national boundaries and cultural differences, or we all perish.
Comments
The thing is that nobody says that we can adapt by having less kids. The population predicting to double by the end of the century should be a major clue, especially as there is a lot of starvation already out there. Why does no one talk about population control?
How does an ordinary person in the street, or reading these despatches, get their head around such time indications as, for example,”.. by 2020 emisions will be reduced by 20%, or “..by the end of this century… people will be without food”, etc? Such vague, minimal and infinite indications mean nothing to those of us who have to confront daily challenges. Some kind of re-education needs to be given to whoever comes up with such almost irrelevant statistics if they really want us all to contribute our efforts to improving situations, which is the only way it will get done.
All of the hotels and shipping industries all over the world haul large quantities of food for their guest to feed in luxurious way. Foods are prepared in buffet at these hotels, cruise ships, restaurants in abundance. However, these foods are not eaten, maybe at least 30 to 50% and are thrown into the garbage, million of tons. You can just imagine how many people can be fed with this food but nobody seems to care. And this is one of the reason I believe why food becomes scarce: compounded with the global warming.
a)Food production goes up, not down, with warming climate and with increased CO2. GW is not the problem. Ever do the bean seed & candle in a jar experiment?
b)Increasing population in the face of decreasing energy supply is the problem. Modern, hi yield ag depends on fossil fuel.
Warmer temps may increase crop yields in some regions, Guido, but will reduce food supply significantly in others, as indicated by this study. Further, it’s more complicated than a simple matter of warmer air. Increased water scarcity and more periods of drought, combined with accelerating population growth, will make it harder and harder for humans to grow enough food–unless we devise new agricultural strategies. We can’t solve this problem by just carrying on as before.
True, modern agriculture depends heavily on fossil fuels, which is just one more reason that we need to get serious about finding a comprehensive energy solution that will end our dependence on a finite resource that continues to pollute the planet the more we use it.
Since I know you don’t put much stock in the whole notion of global warming, put that aside for the moment. Burning fossil fuels pollutes our air and water, two other finite resources that we can’t live without.
Pollutes our air and water? Technology has improved that quite a bit since Dicken’s time. We don’t clear cut anymore, either. Many of these arguements are anachronistic. GW is a socialist tool for control of our society. It doesn’t even exist. How’s the weather in your neighborhood these past 10 years since temps peaked out in 1998? Heard any belly-aching about the ruined ski season in the Alps latley? We’re headed for a 30 year run of cold weather predicted to be as bad as the Little Ice Age. Is that going to improve ag yield in your “certain areas”?
Global warming may reduce biodiversity as the distribution of species and their populations may shift towards the poles and higher altitudes, leaving those endemic to arctic and high mountain regions vulnerable. In addition, changes in the ranges of disease spreading species (aka vector species) may exacerbate the spread of disease among humans and other species such as malaria. A full discussion about global warming may be reviewed at http://www.onebiosphere.com
Actions to address the impacts of climate change may be beneficial or harmful to biodiversity. Carbon sequestration initiatives designed to mitigate impacts of greenhouse gases may lead to adverse impacts on biodiversity by creating monoculture forestry. Avoiding deforestation through forest conservation projects may be beneficial for climate change mitigation, forest biodiversity conservation, reducing desertification and improving economic functions. Climate change will also affect biodiversity conservation strategies. One half of the protected areas will shift from one climate zone to another and the effects will be very pronounced at higher latitudes and altitudes. Adjustment of protected area boundaries will need to occur to achieve stated conservation goals.
I belive that there’s no such thing called global warming, the earth was this warm afew years ago and i dont see it getting any warmer now, we as people just have to start savingt our resources and stop blaming the earth and it’s warmness
I belive that there’s no such thing called global warming, the earth was this warm afew years ago and i dont see it getting any warmer now, we as people just have to start savingt our resources and stop blaming the earth and it’s warmness