Climate Change Costs: 25 Million More Starving Children by 2050

Conservatives love to whine about perceived costs of climate legislation, but they’re clearly more worried about their own bottom lines than about the true costs of catastrophic climate change. A new report issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that the world will have 25 million more starving children by the year 2050 as climate change causes food shortages and soaring food costs.

From The Guardian:

The grim scenario is the first to gauge the effects of climate change on the world’s food supply by combining climate and agricultural models.

“The food price crisis of last year really was a wake-up call to a lot of people that we are going to have 50% more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050,” said Gerald Nelson, the lead author of the report. “Meeting those demands for food coming out of population growth is going to be a huge challenge – even without climate change.”

After several years in which development aid has been diverted away from rural areas, the report called for $7bn a year for crop research, and investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure to help farmers adjust to a warming climate. “Continuing the business-as-usual approach will almost certainly guarantee disastrous consequences,” said Nelson.

The G20 industrialised nations last week began discussing how to invest some $20bn pledged for food security earlier this year.

Some regions of the world outlined in the report are already showing signs of vulnerability because of changing rainfall patterns and drought linked to climate change.

And this is the great irony about religious conservatives in particular: they’re so worked up over abortion, yet they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the people who already live on our planet. Twenty five million starving children in addition to the millions that already exist – now that’s something to be angry about.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: MiaFarrow.org

Climate Scientists: Get Ready to Fight Over Resources

Prepare to fight over vital resources like water as climate change dramatically alters life on earth, climate scientists are warning. There’s a 50-50 chance that temperatures will rise high enough to reach dangerous levels over the next century even with heavy cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 3% a year from 2015.

Researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre will give more details in statements at a conference being held this week in Copenhagen in preparation for a United Nations summit in December, when world leaders will try to agree how to tackle greenhouse gases in an effort to control climate change.

From Times Online:

Scientists fear that temperature rises above 2C would lead to wars over key resources, including water supplies, falls in crop yields in southern Europe and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Almost a third of animal and plant species could become extinct. Warm-water corals are among the species most at risk; animals that will struggle to survive include polar bears and emperor penguins.

Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Hadley Centre, said that a 2C rise could be delayed but it was extremely unlikely that it could be avoided.

“In order to stabilise at a 2C rise we have to make very drastic cuts,” she said. “But however drastic the emission cuts are, there is going to be a rise in temperatures.

“We are pretty much going to head towards 2C whatever we do. There are some impacts that are already happening and we are going to be living in a very different world.”

The places that will experience the worst of this will be regions where people are already suffering from extreme weather, poverty, hunger and social unrest. These things are going to start happening in years, not decades. Does that mean we should just give up? Of course not. We’re going to see some effects of climate change no matter what at this point, but we can still prevent the worst from happening.

Link [Times Online]

Photo credit: CharityWater.org

Colony Collapse Disorder Appearing Again in East Coast Hives

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting unsettling losses to their hives – up to 90%, in some cases. The phenomenon, called Colony Collapse Disorder, was first reported in Western honey bee colonies in North America and has since cropped up around the world. Late last year, however, bee populations seemed to be growing again, and beekeepers reported that things were going just fine – until now. CCD is appearing once again in hives on the East Coast.

In Florida, one beekeeping operation went from nearly a thousand colonies to just 50 in only three weeks – a loss of about two colonies an hour, 24 hours a day for three weeks. Samples showed that the ‘Nosema’ disease was present, but not at deadly levels.

From The Daily Green:

Initially, in colonies that were apparently healthy, samples indicated that there were usually two to four viruses present … garden variety types, the researchers said. But when the colonies began to show signs of problems, the samples indicated there were seven to nine viruses present in the bees. As the colonies continued to rapidly dwindle, virus samples showed that at the end, only one or two viruses remained … the same as were there at the beginning. So were these tiny villains the killers? Did they provide the stress that allowed others to take advantage, weaken the bees, then finish them off at the end? The Nosema disease that’s attracting attention was part of the complex … but what part? There wasn’t pesticide or nutritional stress. If, indeed, colony collapse disorder is a pathogen, this is the prime example of what it looks like. No cell phones. No pesticides. No bad food. A complex of viruses, bacteria and … and what?

Colony Collapse Disorder is still largely a mystery to scientists, but for all our our sake, let’s hope they figure out a way to stop it soon. Last year, it was reported that CCD was a threat to the world food supply and might drive up food prices. It’s easy to forget how much we depend upon bees to pollinate crops.

Link [The Daily Green]
Photo credit: Flickr user Todd Huffman

Japanese Government Urges Citizens to Eat Locally

Did you know that Japan only produces 40% of the food it consumes? That is the lowest percentage among developed nations and puts the island nation at considerable risk amid a global food shortage. That’s why Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is getting serious about encouraging citizens to buy and grow their food locally. And as far as government messaging goes, this video is pretty darn cool:

How a Tortilla Crisis is Causing an Energy Innovation

The ‘Great Tortilla Crisis’ of 2006 is having an unexpected effect two years later – helping to determine the fate of ethanol as an energy source. Ethanol got the blame for rising food prices as American farmers used the corn they grew for fuel instead of food, making it too expensive for Mexico’s poor. Now, biofuel producers are searching for sources of energy that don’t take food off the table, turning to grass, grain stalks left behind by the harvest, garbage dumps and dinner table scraps.

From The Huffington Post:

Carlo Bakker’s tiny biofuel operation, World Mobile Plants, avoids edibles. He says his mini-refinery, loaded into a 40-foot shipping container on a flatbed truck, roams South Africa making biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil, or from sunflower seeds or the jatropha shrub, which grows in poor soil with little water. He says he plans eventually to use organic household waste as well.

Bakker says one mobile unit can make 260,000 gallons per year, which he sells for the equivalent of US$3.79 per gallon, on a par with regular diesel prices.

“We don’t compete with the food chain,” Bakker said during a biofuels conference in Amsterdam. “We see opportunities not only to make money but to help people.”

Now, we’re seeing a shift toward second-generation biofuels – those that use waste streams. Universities and corporate research laboratories are pouring millions of dollars into finding a way to break down woody or grassy biomass into cellulosic ethanol. We’re still a few years away from commercial plants, however.

Biofuel proponents are upset that all biofuels have been lumped together in this backlash, when some forms made from things like sugar cane don’t have an effect on the food supply. In Europe, biodiesel is made largely of rapeseed grown on disused land. Only 40% of crushed rapeseed is used for biodiesel while the rest is processed into animal feed.

However, biofuel still requires plenty of water and is sometimes grown on fertile cropland which, many argue, could be put to better use for food.

A long-term solution could still come from the biofuel industry, if they can solve these problems. Many people view biofuels as a ‘band-aid’ solution, however – only useful until we can move on to something that’s truly sustainable. There are those who believe that turning to genetic modification is the answer, but that’s a whole other can of worms and one that we hope will not be opened any time soon.

Link [The Huffington Post]
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Intelligence Reports Warn of Global Warming Consequences

Global warming will help Russia gain power as the U.S. and its dollar declines, according to a new U.S. intelligence report on what the world will likely be like by the year 2025.  The report, Global Trends 2025, warns that the warming earth will extend Russia’s growing season and allow it access to northern oil fields, strengthening its economy. Canada will also benefit for the same reasons.

From MSNBC:

It also says countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves unstable and ungoverned, as state regimes collapse or wither away under security problems and water and food shortages brought about by climate change and a population increase of 1.4 billion.

The potential for conflict will be greater in 2025 than it is now, as the world’s population competes for declining and shifting food, water and energy resources.

The report, a year in the making, also suggests the world may complete its move away from its dependence on oil, and that the U.S. dollar, while remaining important, will decline to “first among equals” among other national currencies.

U.S. global power also will likely decline, as Americans’ concerns about putting resources into solving domestic problems may cause the United States to pull resources from foreign and global problems.

Well, it’s no surprise that global warming is going to mess things up, big time. We’ve already been warned that climate shifts will cause major food and water issues across the world, and that the stability of African nations in particular will decline.

What is surprising is that the Bush administration let this one through the ol’ global-warming-isn’t-real filter. They’ve been stifling research that affirms global warming as a real and serious threat for years, and Bush has certainly proven that he’s not going to go out quietly.  January 20th can’t arrive quickly enough.

Link [MSNBC]
Image credit: Flickr user AlphaTangoBravo

Green Meme Killers: Ethanol Is Causing The Food Crisis

I’m sure you’ve heard it, just as we have, from self-righteous sounding friends and family. You know the sort: they think that global warming is a Marxist conspiracy to take over the world, and that environmentalists must be stopped. “The reason food prices are so out of control is because we’re sinking so much into ethanol and biofuels.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The meme generally goes like this:

Last year, food-to-fuel policies led to ¼ of U.S. corn being turned into ethanol. That number will rise to over 30% this year. By 2012 as much as 40% of our corn and 30% of our vegetable oils could be be diverted to fuel production.

This diversion of food crops is reducing the supply of food and feed and contributing to food price inflation. Today, food prices in the US are rising at twice the rate of inflation. Globally, food prices rose 83% in the last 3 years.

Compelling evidence, right? Not quite. The reality is that while the U.S. is embracing ethanol on a growing scale, that’s not what is driving food prices through the roof. First, we have to consider that–and we don’t say this lightly, being a resident of a state the neither the midwest nor the south seems ready to claim–the weather in the farm belt has been batshit crazy lately. Why does that matter? It means that the 25% of corn that went to ethanol in 2007 isn’t the same 25% of corn that was cheaply available in, say, 2000. Last year it was the drought that almost killed Atlanta. In 2006? Another drought. 2005? A third goddamn drought. And of course, to make up for all of this in 2008, we so far have been having rains that would make Noah blush–if you think food prices are high now, wait until the next harvest–there’s 4 million acres of corn that didn’t get planted this year because the weather was too bad. The farmers have insurance and soybeans to fall back on. What do we have? Stocking up.

Which segues nicely to the second point: despite all of these shortages, food would still be cheap if it weren’t for futures trading. This is America, man! We make money off of everything, including corn crops that aren’t even in the ground yet. Shares of corn futures–bushels, just like a barrel of crude oil– are sold like stocks in a company, and the more crazy the weather acts, the more intense the demand is going to be for those shares. In 2004, futures closed at $2.4175. In 2008? $4.28. This isn’t about ethanol sucking up all the available corn–it’s about that corn being bought for, and in turn having to be sold for, way more money. Because the weather in the places that grow corn (see also: flyover country) has been biblically bad.

It’s not just corn, either–wheat is up, and so are soybeans, a reflection that this is a problem that’s striking in systemic fashion, not merely a symptom of the evil environmentalists convincing everybody that oil is bad. Not that we’re not trying to do that, too. But biofuels are innocent, and anybody that says otherwise has tunnel vision.