Science - U. Wash Study Projects Half World Population Faces Hunger By 2100 As Climate Breaks Down

[hatrack]

SEATTLE, Washington, January 14, 2009 (ENS) - Climate change will desiccate crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century, leaving half the world's population facing a food crisis unless methods of adaptation are found quickly, new research shows.

The area at risk stretches from the southern United States to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia and all of Africa. Currently three billion people live in the tropics and subtropics, and their number is expected to nearly double by the end of the century. Many people who now live in these areas subsist on less than $2 a day and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

"The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor and lead author of the study in the current edition of the journal "Science." "You can let it happen and painfully adapt, or you can plan for it," he said. "You also could mitigate it and not let it happen in the first place, but we're not doing a very good job of that."

Battisti collaborated with Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, to examine the impact of climate change on the world's food security. The National Science Foundation and the Tamaki Foundation funded their research.

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2009/2009-01-14-02.asp

[aquart]

1. And we still don't realize that some of that hunger will be here.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. But try to raise the subject of overpopulation and people freak out.

Even on DU.

[GliderGuider]

3. Africa will see these effects well before the end of the century.

I think the human population will begin an overall decline before 2040. There are only about 75 million excess births per year at the moment. The combination of widespread famines, a continuing economic depression and spreading literacy among women should be able to neutralize that fairly readily.

[Bigmack]

4. Nice to be able to be proud

of one's alma mater even if it IS because they're shining light on the gloom and doom in our near future. Tho I suspect this gloom and doom is ALREADY upon us. Ms Bigmack