Global Warming will Leave 3 Billion Hungry
Climate change is a serious problem. It’s beyond anecdotal at this point. The dangers are real. And its not just animals that are at risk.
Warming temperatures raise sea levels, threatening islands in the Pacific, and climate change increases the spread of deadly diseases, such as avian flu, cholera, tuberculosis and yellow fever. All of which harm humans.
And now, a new study claims global warming could starve 3 billion people by 2100. The majority of the victims will come from developing countries, but the effects might stretch as far as Europe and Russia.
Published in the journal Science, researchers believe there is a 90% chance 3 billion people will go hungry by the end of the century, due to dried up farmland and higher food prices, and the tropics and subtropics will be the hardest hit, where most of the denizens rely on locally grown crops. These regions could face their highest temperatures ever.
Scientists claim areas in the Sahara, like the Sahel Belt, a semi-arid region stretching across Africa, where farming employs 60% of the population, are at increased risk for desertification and drought, forcing people to move away, which will cripple the economy, where farming supplies 40% of the gross domestic product.
Industrialized nations are also at risk. Temperature changes in Europe and Russia have already impacted local harvests. Maize yields in Italy dropped 36%, France had a 50% cut in fruit production and in the USSR grain outputs dipped 13%, disrupting global grain prices.
And farmers in China are in trouble too. Climate change is threatening their water supplies.
Via NewScientist.
