http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48689CLIMATE CHANGE: Food Supply Hangs in the Balance
Rocketing food prices and hundreds of millions more starving people will be part of humanity's grim future without concerted action on climate change and new investments in agriculture, experts reported this week.
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"Twenty-five million more children will be malnourished in 2050 due to effects of climate change," such as decreased crop yields, crop failures and higher food prices, concluded the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) study.
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The enormous glacier system of the Himalayas–Hindu Kush and high-elevation Tibetan Plateau are the main source of water for 1.3 billion people in Asia. Recent studies as reported by IPS revealed that these glaciers are shrinking faster than anywhere on the planet and could melt away by 2035, according to the International Commission on Snow and Ice in Kathmandu, Nepal.
(note that every time they give an estimate like '2035' the next report changes the date to a more closer time)
"There's been a super-rapid decline in the glaciers of the region," Charles Kennel of the University of California San Diego Sustainability Solutions Institute told IPS previously.
A similar situation is now evident in South America, where massive glaciers that provide water for tens if not hundreds of millions of people are melting away.
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Agriculture is location-specific and it is "far more complicated than rocket science", he added.
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"But business as usual will guarantee disastrous consequences for the human race."
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in a nutshell:
Agriculture is location-specific and it is "far more complicated than rocket science
But business as usual will guarantee disastrous consequences for the human race
true