butterfly
28th January 2009, 05:21
Monday January 12, 2009
Lately, we hear a lot of predictions about future energy shortages. Yet, while energy is certainly important, oil and electricity can’t hold a candle to food when it comes to sustaining life. And scientists now are predicting that food soon may be in short supply for billions of people worldwide.
According to a study published in the journal Science, half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages (http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/food_shortages.htm)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 (http://environment.about.com/od/kyotoprotocol/i/kyotoprotocol.htm), 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 will all perish.
http://environment.about.com/b/2009/01/12/billions-of-people-face-food-shortages-due-to-global-warming.htm
Lately, we hear a lot of predictions about future energy shortages. Yet, while energy is certainly important, oil and electricity can’t hold a candle to food when it comes to sustaining life. And scientists now are predicting that food soon may be in short supply for billions of people worldwide.
According to a study published in the journal Science, half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages (http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/food_shortages.htm)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 (http://environment.about.com/od/kyotoprotocol/i/kyotoprotocol.htm), 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 will all perish.
http://environment.about.com/b/2009/01/12/billions-of-people-face-food-shortages-due-to-global-warming.htm