Climate change could lead to global food crisis, scientists warn

[RedEarth]

Source: Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary: Scientists warned Thursday that climate change in coming decades will cause more floods in the Northern Hemisphere and droughts in the south and in arid areas, which may lead to a global food crisis.

Areas that will suffer water shortages include the Mediterranean Sea basin, the western U.S., parts of southern Africa and northeastern Brazil.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at the end of a meeting in Budapest that the rising frequency and intensity of floods and droughts could lead to a food crisis.

"This is a serious concern," Pachauri said. "We may see a decline in agriculture production, but as could be expected with higher incomes and population growth, we could get an increase in demand for food."



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/10/europe/EU-GEN-Hungary-Climate-Change.php

[no_hypocrisy]

1. It's happened before.

The Sahara Desert used to be the lushest farmland on earth.

[OKthatsIT]

52. This was DESIGNED by the Globalist...'Controlling Food Production'

It's CLASSIC. It's been done to powerless people for thousands of years.

It's nobody's fault but our own for not watching the WTO and our own country's acquiesence...

DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE!

[SpiralHawk]

2. The operative word is not "could" but "is" leading to global food crisis

It is already happening. 2009 will make 2008 look like a feast.

Get your open-pollinated seeds now, plant them, and then save the seeds...

A word to the wise is sufficient.

[Nederland]

3. Nonsense

The current situation is caused by rising oil prices, not global warming.

[kestrel91316]

4. Many crops are failing due to extreme heat and drought.

Are you saying that high oil prices are causing extreme heat and drought???

[Nederland]

9. There is always drought somewhernce

Global crop production is typical, the only difference is more is being diverted for biofuels.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdgetreport.aspx?hidReportRetrievalName=BVS&hidReportRetrievalID=425&hidReportRetrievalTemplateID=2

[Hannah Bell]

14. For once, I agree with you. For some reason, someone's pushing

the famine story. I suppose to divert people from the real reasons for price hikes & starvation.

[Hannah Bell]

15. The link though - they're "reviewing" their stats & methods.

Recent data not available.

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Barrett808]

22. But utilization is ever-increasing - stock-to-use is at all-time low:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah881e/ah881e05.htm


More:

A few happy facts about this year's wheat crop
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3254763&mesg_id=3254793

[Hannah Bell]

31. stocks have been drawn down because of policy changes

& free trade agreements: removal of gov't price supports, mandated trade, & dumping of surplus grain in the third world when prices are low.

[Barrett808]

32. "Surging utilization is likely to absorb most of the anticipated gain in world 2007 production"

FAO global cereal supply and demand indicators

The ratio of world cereal ending stocks in 2007/08 to the trend world cereal utilization in the following season is forecast to fall to 19.2 percent, the lowest level of the past five years. Surging utilization is likely to absorb most of the anticipated gain in world 2007 cereal production, hence keeping world ending stocks at very low levels. The ratio for wheat is forecast to plummet to 23.1 percent, well under 34 percent observed during the first half of the decade. Contrary to expectations earlier in the season the ratio for coarse grains is now also expected to decrease further from last year’s already low level, to just 15 percent. Likewise, for rice, latest information points to a tighter supply and demand situation than earlier predicted and the stock to use ratio is now forecast to decline to 23.5 percent, also the lowest level in the past five years and well below the average during the first half of the decade.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah881e/ah881e05.htm

[Hannah Bell]

56. What is the source of this surging utilization? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

57. China: wheat

Chinese government policies on wheat production have shifted several times during the past two decades, as policy makers strive to satisfy both national security concerns and market needs.

In the 1980s, the country imported as much as 13 million tons.

Then, in 1995, Chinese policy-makers decided that the nation should be self-sufficient in grain. To this end, local officials raised the price they would pay for wheat, an incentive that led to huge wheat harvests in 1997-98 — harvests that were more than double those of the early 1980s. With such bin-busting numbers, inventories soared and imports dropped off the charts.

...Production has fallen, a reflection of a reduction in incentives and of farmers switching to other cash crops, such as horticulture products and cotton, which bring a better return.

A soil and water conservation program that provides incentives to farmers to revert cropland, particularly sloped or otherwise fragile fields, to natural vegetation has also led to reductions in sown area. T

The Chinese government has also shifted from a call for complete self-sufficiency to one of primary self-reliance, where farmers would produce 85 percent or 90 percent of China’s wheat needs instead of 100 percent.

http://www.asiakan.org/ag_products/wheat_production_china.shtml


Gov't policy is the prime determinant of grain production in every country, & grain is the most tightly managed foodstuff on eath. If we want bigger harvests, we can have them. We don't have them because they're managed to produce PROFIT, not food.

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Actually, perfect sense

rising oil prices and the ethanol fiasco are big factors, but so is climate change.

"The earth's average temperature has been rising since the late 1970s, with nine of the 10 warmest years on record occurring since 1995<6>. In 2002, India and the United States suffered sharp harvest reductions because of record temperatures and drought. In 2003 Europe suffered very low rainfall throughout spring and summer, and a record level of heat damaged most crops from the United Kingdom and France in the Western Europe through Ukraine in the East. Bread prices have been rising in several countries in the region."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_agriculture#Shortage_in_grain_production

[Nederland]

10. Need to be careful

There is a lot of junk science on both sides of the global warming debate, and much of it is posted on wikipedia. The reality is that every reputable scientist says that global warming is not significantly affecting weather patterns yet. Harvest numbers have always fluctuated, and the recent fluctuations are well within historical norms.

[SpiralHawk]

11. I know republicon homelanders like Limbaugh & allied propagandists hate fact-based reality

but I value it.

[Nederland]

12. If you like facts

Go to the UN website and look at global food production numbers. You'll see that what I've said is true--food production numbers have not declined outside normal ranges. Don't rely on websites like Wikipedia, go to the source, look at the raw data and make your own judgment. When you do that, you'll see the truth. Check it out:

http://faostat.fao.org/

[SpiralHawk]

16. Here's the most recent pronouncement from the UN - global climate IS a factor

Deny it all you want, and then go hungry. Global climate change IS real. And it IS already impacting agriculture and food supply.

I know it from the fields and orchards I work, but there's far more than just my direct perception...


"In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

"The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization...

"...Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay.

"On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.

International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/europe/food.php

[Nederland]

24. How do you explain a record harvest then?

The facts do not support your assertion. The reality of global warming is that it merely shifts the band of productive land toward the poles. Yes, places nearer the equator are seeing smaller harvests, but places further north are seeing larger ones.

http://www.enn.com/climate/article/31970

[Barrett808]

27. Global warming changes the distribution of precipitation, leading to mega-droughts and monsoons...

Essentially it disrupts seasonal variation, which makes agriculture much more difficult. We risk moving the global climate from the remarkably stable Holocene "climate optimum" into another regime that doesn't support agriculture fully -- or at all.

[Nederland]

29. Where is your evidence?

To repeat, we are coming off a record harvest. If global warming is in fact distrupting agricultural, there is no evidence of it at this point in time.

[Barrett808]

30. Happy facts about desertification:

• 1.9 billion hectares of land degraded.


• 65% (500 million hectares) of African land degraded.


• Arable land loss is 30-35 times the historical rate.


• Loss is equal to 20 million tons of grain per year.


• 70 percent of the 5.2 billion hectares of drylands used for agriculture are already degraded and threatened by desertification.

United Nations Environment Programme: Land degradation
http://earthwatch.unep.net/emergingissues/desertification/landdegradation.php

Australia seems to be the first industrialized nation to be hit hard by climate change:

Grim harvest for Australian farmers
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Grim_harvest_for_Australian_farmers_999.html

Australian heat wave breaks records
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20080320.shtml

Don't kid yourself; the crisis is real and imminent.

[Nederland]

34. Nice try

None of your links even mention global warming. In fact, your own UN link specifically says that the desertification is caused by desperate poverty, not global warming.

[Barrett808]

35. You're suggesting global warming will improve the situation?

And what about the Australia stories?

[Nederland]

40. Yes

I explained why in post #24.

Look, you need to square your premise with the facts. The fact is, global food production in increasing, not decreasing. If global warming was causing harm to agriculture, why are yields increasing? You are wasting your time pointing to isolated places like Australia where production is temporarily falling. You need to look at the BIG picture, and in the BIG picture harvests are getting bigger, not smaller.

[Barrett808]

47. Here's what the UN Convention to Combat Desertification says:

Message on the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
The Secretary General
17 June 2007

...Global warming is expected to lead to a further rise in the number of extreme weather events, such as droughts and heavy rains, which will have a dramatic impact on already weakened soils. This trend will, in turn, worsen desertification and increase the prevalence of poverty, forced migration and vulnerability to conflicts in affected areas.

http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/june17/2007/menu.php?newch=l6

Convention to Combat Desertification

The effects of another major environmental phenomenon, climate change, meanwhile, are hitting the headlines with increasing frequency. And there is growing recognition of the important links between climate change and desertification. This was reflected in the theme forthis year’s World Day to Combat Desertification “Desertification and climate change – one global challenge.”

These two environmental concerns impact upon each other at several levels. An increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts and heavy rains, as a result ofglobal warming will lead to further land degradation,

http://www.unccd.int/cop/officialdocs/cop8/pdf/inf6eng.pdf

There is no reason to be optimistic about agriculture in a warming world.

[NickB79]

36. Shifting productive lands towards the poles?

Land productivity is based on more than just average rainfall and temperature patterns. Try shifting farmland from the deep, black soils of the American Midwest to the thin, rocky soils of the Canadian wilds and see how your yields do.

[Nederland]

41. Fair enough

Maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to hear your explanation for why yields are increasing.

[NickB79]

58. There are numerous reasons yields have increased a small degree

Better plant genetics, more intensive farming techniques that rely heavily on petroleum, fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, land being taken out of conservation programs, large areas of rainforest being clear-cut for soybean production, etc.

The problem with your argument, that yields are still increasing so everything is OK, is that yields aren't increasing FAST enough to keep up with projected demand. Despite the small overall increases in yield, globally we've used more grain than we grew for the past 6 years: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/05/1741/

"For the 50 years between 1945 and 1995, as the world’s population more than doubled, grain production kept pace–but then it stalled. In six of the past seven years, the human race consumed more grain than it grew. World grain reserves last year were only 57 days, down from 180 days a decade ago."

The even bigger worry is that the techniques we've been using for the past 50 years to increase crop yields are not sustainable. Diesel fuel and fertilizer prices are spiking, yet these are what made the original Green Revolution of the 1970's successful. We're rapidly approaching the point where we see diminishing returns on investment in the farming community.

[lapfog_1]

18. I moused around that website and their data

is NOT very up-to-date. A lot of data stops at 2003. 2006 seems to be the latest that they have on anything and that is just limited to a products (data products, not food products).

Perhaps if one becomes a subscriber you can gain access to more tools and to more recent (like 2007) data plus projections based on current estimates.

I suspect that climate change AND oil prices AND biofuel production have all contributed to the current shortage, plus a speculation bubble that has created a rapid price increase... not to mention the rapid inflation of the dollar (which, for many products in the world, is still the standard currency, but not for long).

I expect that many world commodities will soon be trading in euros... right after the speculation bubble runs its course.

[Hannah Bell]

17. From 2006 FAO report:

"We have emphasized first and foremost that reducing hunger
is no longer a question of means in the hands of the global community.
The world is richer today than it was ten years ago. There is more food
available and still more could be produced without excessive upward
pressure on prices. The knowledge and resources to reduce hunger are
there. What is lacking is sufficient political will to mobilize those
resources to the benefit of the hungry."

It's not global warming; it's propaganda & politics.

The 2007 global rice harvest was a record, but you won't hear that in the news. The reports talk of failed rice harvests due to weather, soaring prices, riots.

But there's more rice than there was last year. What's going on? And why such a concerted effort to divert attention from the reality of a record harvest?

Question your attachment to apocalyptic scenarios.

[SpiralHawk]

20. "You are so, RIGHT. Climate change is just a lib-rul Apocalyptic fantasy. Smirk." - Rush Limbaugh

"Doubt the veracity of my republicon homelander propaganda? Just pop some homelander Oxycontin in your gob, then flush it down your gullet with a big, frosty glass of kool aid. You will see the homelander LIGHT. It works for me. Smirk."

- Rush Limbaugh

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

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[Barrett808]

23. Why would you doubt that climate change will cause crop failures?

It's most obvious and immediately dire effect.

[Nederland]

26. I don't doubt it

Climate change will cause crop failures in some places. However, climate change will also cause records harvests in other places. In the big picture, it's a wash. Of all the terrible things that climate change will produce, bad harvests is not among them. In fact, there is a beneficial effect in having the band of productive land shift toward the poles. Old land near the equator that is overworked and exhausted will no longer be tilled, and land nearer the poles that was never productive before will be used instead. It's like leaving a field fallow on a global scale.

[Barrett808]

28. See my post #27. n/t

[NickB79]

37. Except that soils aren't uniformly fertile across the planet

Very deep, fertile soils are concentrated in certain areas of the planet, and these areas have become our global breadbaskets. The areas that will see increased rainfall an beneficial temperature increases generally will produce large yields only if they have large amounts of synthetic fertilizers applied to the soil. Unfortunately, global fertilizer prices are already skyrocketing as we are starting to see natural gas supplies reaching peak production and high demand in many areas of the world as well.

For example, look at the graph shown in post #25 of this thread. Look where the wheat production belt is predicted to shift to by 2050. Now tell me that the soils in Canada are in any way comparable to the soils of the US Midwest in regards to fertility. The areas wheat production is predicted to shift to are composed of thin, rocky soils currently supporting boreal forests.

[Barrett808]

38. Indeed, and the warming itself is probably bad for most crops:

Crops feel the heat as the world warms

..."Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future,” said Christopher Field, co-author on the study and director of Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif. “But this study shows that warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on global food supply."

The study is the first to estimate how much global food production has already been affected by climate change. Field and David Lobell, lead author of the study and a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, compared yield figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization with average temperatures and precipitation in the major growing regions.

They found that, on average, global yields for several of the crops responded negatively to warmer temperatures, with yields dropping by about 3-5 percent for every 1 degree F increase. Average global temperatures increased by about 0.7 degrees F during the study period, with even larger changes in several regions.

“Though the impacts are relatively small compared to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate that negative impacts are already occurring,” said Lobell.

The researchers focused on the six most widely grown crops in the world: wheat, rice, maize (corn), soybeans, barley and sorghum—a genus of about 30 species of grass raised for grain. These crops occupy more than 40 percent of the world’s cropland, and account for at least 55 percent of non-meat calories consumed by humans. They also contribute more than 70 percent of the world’s animal feed.

(more)

http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/field-lobell/default.html

FAO Warns Climate Change Could be Major Threat to Food Security

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says climate change could become a “major threat to world food security.” It calls climate change one of the “main challenges humankind will have to face for many years to come.”

About 140 international experts are meeting in Rome this week to discuss the issue. One of them is Jeff Tschirley, chief of the FAO’s Environment, Climate Change and Bio-Energy Division. From Rome, he told VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua that a fourth assessment report on climate change is about to be released.

“It’s the fourth time that scientific experts have come together to assess the data related to climate change. What we have now between this fourth report and the third report is …a validation that the climate change impacts we’re now starting to see already. And we know quite surely that the countries that are at risk from climate change, at more risk, are the developing countries rather than the developed countries. And when you look at that in the context of food security and institutional capacity it really does face, at least the agricultural sector, with a significant new set of challenges over the short and long term,” he says.

(more)

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-09/2007-09-11-voa12.cfm?CFID=224840978&CFTOKEN=42268965

Experts worry warmer Earth will slash farm yields
04 Dec 2006 18:00:22 GMT
By Missy Ryan

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Urgent action is needed to make sure a warming climate doesn't slash crop yields, heighten the risk of famine and deepen poverty for the world's most vulnerable, international experts said on Monday.

"Climate change is not just in the future. It's happening now," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a NASA scientist and co-chair of an international panel on climate change, told a meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Researchers held in Washington.

The group brings together experts from 15 agricultural research centers around the world funded by states, international organizations and private foundations.

By now, the threat of global warming is a familiar one: many scientists believe rising global temperatures, exacerbated by combustion of fossil fuels, will bring warmer, wetter and more violent weather. That in turn is expected to raise sea levels and threaten the life and livelihood of millions, especially in coastal areas.

But farm and food experts gathered for the group's annual meeting this week focused on how climate change will affect harvests.

They said warming could bring more drought and shorter growing seasons to places like Tanzania and Mozambique, increase flooding in coastal areas of countries including Bangladesh, and reduce crop yields in countries like Colombia.

The effect of global warming on farmers will be spotty, said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

It might boost potato yields in the northern hemisphere, he said, but cut them across Africa, South and East Asia, and northern South America, where the potato is a staple crop and people are more likely to go hungry.

(more)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04174990.htm

[Zhade]

33. Your evidence? As opposed to the evidence from literally thousands of people smarter than you?

You know, who actually study this for a living?

Idiocy like yours is helping to kill the planet. I recall you're also against a woman's right to control her own body, too.

[Hannah Bell]

61. He's right though. Last year's harvests were big. Why the

shortages? Why did prices spike concurrent with the meltdown in the global real estate bubble?

Hey, plenty of people study Social Security for a living too. Nevertheless, most of what you read in the paper is profoundly wrong, which you can prove for yourself by looking at the data.

Maybe you should look at it, instead of reading "experts'" reports about it.

[Lorien]

45. Wrong. It's a combination of factors.

You've provided no documents to back up your claim, but here's one that affirms what spiralhawk has stated:

Published on Sunday, August 31, 2003 by the lndependent/UK
'A foretaste of what will happen as global warming takes hold'
Hot Summer Sparks Global Food Crisis
by Geoffrey Lean


This summer's heatwave has drastically cut harvests across Europe, plunging the world into an unprecedented food crisis, startling new official figures show.


Youngsters inspect River Elbe's low tide in Neu Darchau, Germany. Shifting harvests in Europe this year, triggered by extreme but local bouts of rain, heat and drought, eerily foreshadow predictions made last year that warn global warming will reshape European agriculture. (AFP-DDP/File/Jochen Luebke)
Separate calculations by two leading institutions monitoring the global harvest show that the scorching weather has severely reduced European grain production, ensuring that the world will not produce enough to feed itself for the fourth year in succession, and plunging stocks to the lowest level on record. And experts predict that the damage to crops will be found to be even greater when the full cost of the heat is known.

They say that, as a result, food prices will rise worldwide, and hunger will increase in the world's poorest countries. And they warn that this is just a foretaste of what will happen as global warming takes hold.

Sunshine and warmth are, of course, good for plants and there were hopes that this year's good summer would produce a bumper harvest. But excessive heat and low rainfall damage crops, and the heatwave - which brought temperatures of more than 100F to Britain for the first time, and gave France 11 consecutive days above 95F, killing more than 1,000 people - has done enormous damage.

The US Department of Agriculture has cut its forecast for this year's grain harvest by 32 million tons, mainly because of the European crop reductions. On Thursday, the International Grains Council - an intergovernmental body - reduced its own prediction even further, by 36 million tons, as a result of "heat and drought, particularly in Europe."

The damage has been most severe in Eastern Europe, which is now bringing in its worst wheat crop in three decades: in Ukraine, the harvest has been cut from 21 million tons last year to five million, while Romania has its worst crop on record. Germany is the worst-hit EU country: some farmers in the south-east have lost half their grain harvest. Official British figures will not be published until October.

The final tally of the summer's damage is likely to be worse still. Lester Brown, the president of Washington's authoritative Earth Policy Institute, predicts that it will cut another 20 million tons off the world harvest, making this a catastrophic year.

It has come at a time when world food supplies were already at their most precarious ever. The world has eaten more grain than it has produced every year so far this century, driving stocks well below the safety margin to their lowest levels in the 40 years that records have been kept. The amount of grain produced for each person on earth is now less than at any time in more than three decades.

Until about a month ago, this year had been expected to produce a reasonable harvest, allowing some recovery. But the heatwave has now ensured that it will make things even worse, and experts say that the crisis will deepen as global warming increases.

Grain prices have already increased, and Mr Brown warns that in coming years they may move to a permanently higher level. This would encourage greater production, he says, but at the expense of the world's hungry, who could then afford even less food, and of the environment, as farming intensified.

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Nederland]

46. Your document is 5 years old

And Lester Brown has a horrible record of predicting food shortages.

[Hannah Bell]

62. yes, i remember the world-wide famine of '03. n/t

[hunter]

5. Not just climate change, but oil and natural gas prices too.

High agricultural production and low prices are achieved by the use of fertilizers and pesticides made of natural gas, by machinery powered by oil and natural gas, and by world trade facilitated by oil fueled transport.

The people without wealth and political power are in for a very rough ride, and things may get unstable enough that even the very wealthy will have difficulty isolating themselves from the hungry.

[khaos]

7. ..and neofeudalism is born

good luck everyone!!

[fascisthunter]

8. This is a Very Big Deal

[tama]

13. May lead???

Global food crisis is what we are allready in the middle of, d'uh.

[bemildred]

19. Yeah, heck, there are a lot more people to feed than there used to be too ... nt

[Barrett808]

21. k & r

[bean fidhleir]

25. By 2050, US will no longer be able to meet our own demand for wheat

unless new strains of drought- and heat-tolerant wheat are available. The appropriate conditions for wheat will have shifted into Canada and Alaska(!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6200114.stm

(Map from International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico)

[Nederland]

43. Predicting yields in 2050

Is about as pointless as predicting who will win the SuperBowl in 2050.

Nobody knows the answer and people that say they do are lying.

[Lorien]

44. According to the World Wildlife Fund, by 2050 all rain forests will be gone

and the ocean will have been depleted of every edible species. Without the "lungs of the planet" our species and millions of others will no longer survive.

[bean fidhleir]

48. I'm not sure, but I think the really suckiest part of that is that all the

beautiful, innocent non-humans (like your cats) will die too, because of the intransigent stupidity of humans like some of those in this thread.

[Barrett808]

49. Yes, watching beloved species go extinct at an accelerating rate will be very hard...

...or as we say in the Church of the SubGenius:

"Watching the world fall apart on television may be too much for even the stoutest brains to take."

"Bob" brings the salve that is Slack.

http://www.subgenius.com

[Lorien]

50. I find that to be the suckiest part too

All of this will be gone:

http://www.duiops.net/seresvivos/galeria/tigres/Creek%20Crossing,%20Bengal%20Tiger.jpg







http://wallpapers.free-review.net/wallpapers/42/Kalalau_Valley,_Kauai,_Hawaii_-_Pacific_Breezes.jpg

[bean fidhleir]

64. Those are heartbreakingly beautiful photos, Lorien

Especially that one of the polar bear and her baby. I have one of a sleeping tabby and her baby that's identical apart from species, right down to baby watching the photographer.

One could almost think that non-humans are people too.

[defendandprotect]

51. Notice as the patriarchy has pummeled the earth for resources that . . .

they have also --- coincidentally --- pretty much destroyed all the beauty of nature ---
and nature is, of course, always beautiful.

The most beautiful places seem to have been destroyed first --- probably the Garden of Eden!

Violence against nature - animal-life, natural resources ---
the patriarchal war on nature ---


why . . . ??

[defendandprotect]

39. Pollution is also working against us as Global Warming becomes ....

more serious --- we're still only in the early stages of GW --- though here in NJ our temperatures have increased by an average of 25 degrees!!!

It was 74-77 degrees in NJ yesterday ---

Global Warming has a 50 year delay --- that only brings us to 1958 on the gas-guzzler gauge.

And even at this point, melting is occuring at TWICE the speed with which the scientists originally predicted.

Naturally crop production is a concern and presumably that's what the "weather modification" is about, a la the Chem Trails you can regularly see in the skies.

Meanwhile, BEES and BATS are our lifelines with nature --- and they're not doing well.

In any battle with nature, NATURE will win --- while patriarchy proves itself suicidal in its continuing war against her.

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

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[Lorien]

42. That's a huge "no shit Sherlock". n/t

[Name removed]

55. Deleted message

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[TriggerGal]

59. Don't complain about it ... DO something about it ...

Plant trees!!

Trees for the Future: http://www.treesftf.org/main.htm

[ohio2007]

63. Price of oil has a lot to do with the global food crises also.

Only have to look at the price of rice in 3rd world countries and food riots from Egypt to Haiti as an indicator of peak population and transportation costs of food to the have nots.

[OKthatsIT]

68. It has everything to do with it...and the WTO free trade structure

[stcfarms]

67. Food crisis

The problem is atmospheric carbon, the solution is water, some
places have
too much and others too little. If we pump the water from
areas that have
too much water to the arid regions for irrigation we could
actually lower
the concentration of atmospheric carbon. I offer as proof the
NOAA CO2 chart
 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/carbonlevels/  the chart
clearly shows
that CO2 levels drop by 6 ppm every northern hemisphere
summer. I attribute
this to the fact that more vegetation is growing during the
northern
hemisphere summer. At the rate of 6 ppm per year it would take
about 18
years to reach the carbon level set in 1750 AD, after that a
certain amount
of carbon would have to be added to the atmosphere to keep the
carbon level
at that point. If carbon were allowed to drop below a set
limit it would
trigger an ice age.

 Cheap rafts made from waste plastic bottles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island  could collect
rainfall from the
oceans and produce energy at the same time. There are millions
of square
miles of arid land (expanding daily) that could be used to
grow vegetation
if only enough pure water were made available, the rafts could
supply all
the water needed. Since the rafts would cover millions of
square miles of
ocean they would lower the water temperature and provide a
breeding
sanctuary from overfishing.

 The reclaimed desert areas would provide small farms for
refugees and the
homeless. Since the islands can be made at almost no cost
using simple hand
tools there would be jobs for billions of third world workers
and ensuring
that they have good food, clean water and adequate housing. If
the rich
nations do not want to give up their lifestyle then they had
better take
notice of the world around them and fix the problem.