Food ShortagesGlobal Warming/Climate ChangeSocietySoil Erosion & ContaminationWater Contaminaton & Loss

A Hotter Planet Means Less on Our Plates

In the Sunday November 22, 2009 issue of Outlook in the Washington Post, Lester Brown discusses the significant implications of food security in the upcoming Copenhagen Conference.

by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute


China walks a tightrope between
feast and famine.

As the U.N. climate-change conference in Copenhagen approaches, we are in a race between political tipping points and natural ones. Can we cut carbon emissions fast enough to keep the melting of the Greenland ice sheet from becoming irreversible? Can we close coal-fired power plants in time to save at least the larger glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau? Can we head off ever more intense crop-withering heat waves before they create chaos in world grain markets?

These are all climate-change issues, but they have something else in common: food. Copenhagen will be about climate, of course, but in a fundamental sense, it must also be about whether we will have enough to eat in the decades to come.

We need not go beyond ice melting to see that the world is in trouble on the food front. As the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets continue to shrink, sea levels will rise, threatening rice harvests around the globe. Recent projections show that the sea could rise up to six feet this century (if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would rise by 23 feet). According to the World Bank, it would take only a three-foot rise in sea level to cover half the rice fields in Bangladesh, a country of nearly 160 million people. Such an increase would also inundate much of the Mekong Delta, which produces half the rice crop in Vietnam, the world’s No. 2 rice exporter. And it would submerge parts of the 20 or so other rice-growing river deltas in Asia.

Melting mountain glaciers are even more worrisome. The World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland recently reported the 18th consecutive year of shrinking mountain glaciers around the world, from the Andes to the Rockies, from the Alps to the mountain ranges of Asia. Of these, the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau threatens to shrink food supplies most sharply. Their annual ice melt sustains the major rivers of India and China – the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers – during the dry season. And this water in turn supplies irrigation systems.

Yao Tandong, one of China’s leading glaciologists, warned last year in the journal Nature that two-thirds of the country’s glaciers could be gone by 2050, and has said that "the full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe."

It will also lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. China is the world’s leading producer of wheat. India is No. 2. These two countries also dominate the world’s rice harvest. But unlike in the United States (the third-largest wheat producer), where wheat is watered largely by rainfall, most crops in China and India are irrigated. The vanishing of mountain glaciers in Asia therefore represents the biggest threat to the world food supply that we have ever seen. .

For complete article, please click here.

13 Comments

  1. the dramatic chinese photo is at least 60 years old

    the article from which it is derived drew quite different conclusions from those of lester brown
    here is the conclusion…

    “The battle to feed mankind is over ” … “The food problem in the developing world represents a ‘nearly insoluble problem’.”, as Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown have been yelling from their Watchtower of Doom since the 60s and 70s. Ehrlich runs down what he calls the “professional optimists”. According to Ehrlich, “They say, for instance that agricultural output to feed some 120 million more people than they cannot feed after all feed today. To put such fantasy into perspective we one need to consider only that …” and Ehrlich presen-ted a whole list of reasons why this could not be achieved. And sure enough, the figure of 120 million turned out to be wrong. Eight years later India produced enough food for 144 million more people, according to FAO’s data in its agricultural production index. And since the population had grown by “only” 104 million, this meant there was more food to go around and feed another 20 million.

    Lester Brown is a remarkable Prophet of Doom, and as all prophets has failed miserably in every one of his prophecies. In 1965 he wrote that “the food problem emerging in the less-developing regions may be one of the most nearly insoluble problems facing man over the next few decades.” Both Ehrlich and Brown have been proved mistaken beyond any doubt. Although there are in the world twice as much people than in 1961, every one of us has more to eat, in both developed and developing countries. As Lomborg states: “Fewer people are starving, Food is cheaper these days and food-wise the world is quite simply a better place for more people.”

    Aren’t you happy to be living in this world, just now, in the 21st Century? Or you rather be living in those Golden Days of Yesteryear, when diseases and famines were the norm, and people reaching old age the exception that confirmed the rule?”
    end quote

    stop scaring small children! and please get on with the garden

  2. LOVE OR FEAR, AT THE END OF THE DAY WHAT WILL MOTIVATE YOU? LOVE IS THE ONLY TRUELY SUSTAINABLE EMOTION. QUIT USING THE SAME TACTICS THAT BUSH DID TO GET RE-ELECTED. PLEASE GET OFF THE DOOM AND GLOOM. HOW BOUT MORE STORIES CONCERNING DESIGN. GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIE, ITS NOT CO2 WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT. GIVE IT UP ALREADY. DID WE NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM TRANSITION TOWNS, A PROTEST MATCH OR A PARTY. THIS ARTICLE IS A PROTEST MARCH NOT A PARTY. ARTICLE ABOUT KEYLINE AND SWALE COMPARISON-PARTY.

  3. The problem with starving people in 3rd world countries is not caused from the global climate change hoax. Many countries that have problems with starving are merely not producing anything other than export and relying on the money they make to import their food. Many times big banks go in to these countries and offer money for infrastructure and other developement purposes and when the countries can’t afford to pay back the money they begin focusing on export crops to make their payments to these banks. When they do this they are only growing a few crops such as coffee or bananas and so they have to rely on importing the rest of their food supply.

    As countries begin to not except certain currencies and get into further financial problems where they can not import these countries exports. Those countries that do not grow their own food will starve. We haven’t even begun to see the coming problem of starvation that could hit world wide. It’s not that we can not grow our food, its that we have gotten away from it to grow economic crops mainly for export. Here in the United States many farmers only grow a few crops. If other countries quit accepting the US Dollar, the majority of the country will be hurting for food. I believe our country has gone from 80% of the population growing at least part of their own food supply to less than 10%.

    We need to quit worrying about fake problems such as climate change that is only being used to create a global tax that is intended to fund a global government, and begin worrying about our own security. We need to get away from the fiat currencies and begin trading amongst ourselves and our communities. We all need to be productive but at the same time we also need to be good stewards of our planet. We do have many environmental problems, and we need to focus on those REAL problems.

  4. For some reason song lyrics just popped into my head…

    “The freaks come out at night…”

    “Aren’t you happy to be living in this world, just now, in the 21st Century? Or you rather be living in those Golden Days of Yesteryear, when diseases and famines were the norm, and people reaching old age the exception that confirmed the rule?””

    This statement is awful and incredibly limited in view. Why is it that those who would protest any sort of change assume this change would be a step BACK rather than a step forward? The majority of us who are sane and concerned about climate change aren’t advocating a return to a past filled with higher mortality rates and widespread famine, but rather a more practical and sustainable form of existence. What ever would make you think that addressing climate change would involve giving up modern medicine, or any of the knowledge we’ve acquired over the past 200 years for that matter?

    “every one of us has more to eat, in both developed and developing countries”

    Really? if that’s the case then WHY is there still famine in the world? Why are there malnourished people? Another point worth considering is that along with our growing food production is growing food waste. Food that never reaches mouthes it’s intended to feed. What good is increases production if it is offset by wastage?

    “ITS NOT CO2 WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT”

    Actually it is. Granted CO2 is only one detrimental product of a short-sighted society but it’s also the primary catalyst in climate change. We should be VERY worried about CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

    “We need to quit worrying about fake problems such as climate change that is only being used to create a global tax that is intended to fund a global government”

    Seriously? There are several articles available illustrating that if climate change were a hoax it would have to have begun over 150 years ago and stretched across an international network of completely unconnected players. The notion that climate change is simply a scam for creating a new world order is absurd at best.

    We need to think critically. No matter what side of the argument you stand on, if you take what you’re told on faith rather than taking a hard look at the factual and scientific validity of the information you preach; then you’ll be no closer to the truth than the fanatics on the opposite end of the spectrum.

  5. “We should be VERY worried about CO2 levels in the atmosphere.” Jeremy, do you realize that you are exhaling CO2 right now. Carbon Dioxide is one of the primary elements on earth. Plants need it in order to survive. Where has the common sense gone? If anything would be affecting the earth temperature it would be water vapor.
    Global Warming has been proven as a lie. It is another sham created to rob more money from people. Enough is enough. Excuse me, but true scientists assert the science “facts” behind Global Warming is weak and faulty. There are other more important and REAL forms of pollution occurring today. Why waste time on fiction?

  6. I noticed my comment was deleted. I am now beginning to wonder if ‘Permaculture.org’ is buying in to the ‘suppress the truth’ campaign for it’s own monetary goals.

  7. Hi Rob. Your comment was not deleted. It was just never moderated through. The reason for that is standard blog moderation practise – your comment was just a few words, then a link to another site. This is called spamming. The conversation should remain in this thread – comments that add nothing to the conversation and merely seek to send readers off elsewhere are always deleted. I fail to understand how PRI could make money from the current climate change argument going on in this comment thread, but this observation on your part is totally expected in light of the other conspiracy theories you like to promote (hey, conspiracies can be very real – but I tend to choose mine based on fact and believeable motive).

    And for Rob and everyone else, on the climate issue, please clear the multifaceted smoke screen surrounding the issue, and get back to basics for me.

    And for Jacob, although not on the climate issue (please see previous link in this comment on that one), I agree with you in many other areas. This post about the real reasons behind the food crisis may interest you.

  8. “do you realize that you are exhaling CO2 right now”

    Umm, yes. It’s called respiration, and NEARLY every living organism that isn’t photosynthetic does it. However, my mouth isn’t a tail pipe or a smoke stack. I don’t respire millions of tons of CO2 (amongst other things) on a daily basis.

    “Where has the common sense gone?”

    Respiring creatures (you, me, birds and bees, etc.) have been on Earth doing our nasty resipiration for millions of years. Autos and smoke stacks have not. Which do you think is more likely to upset the balance that creates the global environmental conditions we’re accustomed too?

    “Carbon Dioxide is one of the primary elements on earth. Plants need it in order to survive.”

    Plants also need the limited environmental conditions to which they are adapted to survive. Did you know that all across western North America old growth forests are weakening and dying due to climate change? Want to know why? It’s because as average temperatures rise less water falls as snow during the winter (falling instead as rain). This accumulated winter snow pack is what hydrates our forests during the summer drought, but because the winter snow pack has been decreasing there is less water available to nourish our forests and they’e become weaker as a result.

    This is only one example of how climate change will affect our environment.

    “If anything would be affecting the earth temperature it would be water vapor”

    True, water vapour does play a role in the greenhouse effect. However, water vapour is continuously cycled through the environment in a process known as the hydrologic cycle, therefore atmospheric levels of H2O are in constant flux (but maintained within an equilibrium). Here’s another tid bit: As CO2 levels rise and average temperature follows, MORE H2O vapour will enter the atmosphere which will alter rainfall patters, global atmospheric energy transport, and (surprise) average global temperatures.

    “Global Warming has been proven as a lie”

    Really? That’s funny, this news hasn’t reached me yet, nor the scientists I learn from every day, or the VAST majority of REAL scientists (ecologists, atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, etc.)that claim the opposite.

    “It is another sham created to rob more money from people”

    Please, enlighten me as to how reducing my consumption or choosing to bicycle over drive (amongst other things) is meant to “rob me of my money”? Because on the surface it would seem the opposite is true and therefore one of us must be crazy or lacking in our analytical capabilities.

    “true scientists assert the science “facts” behind Global Warming is weak and faulty”

    Again, I’d REALLY like to meet these people. It amazes me that the vast majority of scientists whose work actually relates to our climate/environment are saying the opposite.

    “There are other more important and REAL forms of pollution occurring today”

    Could you elaborate on these REAL forms of pollution (other than the spread of misinformation and corporate propoganda)?

  9. REAL forms of Pollution include Mercury, lead and arsenic that spew out of Coal fired Power plants. How bout the waste that comes from Aluminum production? Thats the sort of REAL pollution we are talking about. The stuff that Annie Leonard refers to in the Story of Stuff that claims human Breast Milk is one of the most dangerous substances to consume because of the accumulation of heavy metals in fatty tissue. CO2 is the only one they talk about far too often. I come from a coal state in America, my grandparents business which is a body of water is poisoned by this toxic stream of airflow.
    If you read the work of Victor Schauberger and those who have interpreted it since, like Callum Coats and Aleck Bartholomew, you will notice their interpretation of Global Warming. They clearly state how there is two different types of Hydrological cycles. One is the half hydrological cycle, which doesn’t have the ground absorption that permaculture is soooooo focused on(i.e. swales, keyline, then reforestation, and humus development). Furthermore the water rapidly re-evaporates or runs off very quickly. In Iowa in America they have 100 year floods every 7. Is it because of Global Warming, no? Its because of a broken Hydrological cycle. The other part of that is the rapid re-evaporation sending excess water vapor into our atmosphere in a broken fashion. This causes massive deluges in areas like Bangladesh that cause even more destructive flooding.
    Think about it like this- I used to sit in a sauna in New Zealand all the time with my neighbors. They would get it real hot and I loved the dry heat. I would sweat and sweat. But as soon as they threw the water onto the stove to humidify the air, I was out. Too much. Put yourself in a greenhouse. Pump it full of CO2. What happens, plants grow, hell ask the dopers how they grow. Then pump water vapor in and you will be wilting and more disease and problems will enter your greenhouse
    I think in the end we can recognize two things: we all agree change is needed and permaculture is a great tool to do so through connections. I don’t believe in Global warming but I love to drop a keyline plough into the ground so that I build carbon rich topsoil. In consequence I sequestered co2 and helped restore a hydrological cycle. Thats it- old growth is dying in America because of a broke hydrological cycle. Actually another possibility just entered. Do you know why the American Chestnut tree became virtually extinct?- blight, right. No because it was weakened physically and genetically buy two factors. First it died out when the boom of burning high sulphur coal really inefficiently in America began. The horrendously low pH of the acid rain that ensued weakened the immune system of the tree thus making it available as a vector for the blight to spread. Second, the passenger pigeon which was its main means for transportation and seeding had been killed by silly Europeans and americans having good times with shooting guns. So maybe alcohol or guns or ignorance is the reason the chestnut died not a blight. As people who study permaculture we must delve deeper into reasons why the old growth of the pacific northwest is dying. Could it be the acid rain that now comes from China, laden with mercury and other contaminants that this ecosystem has never dealt with before. Functional interconnections= permaculture, its a reflection of ecology.
    Second point after that little diversion- connection. We must not let a topic like Global Warming let them win- meaning divide and conquer. We can agree lets build top soil and improve social conditions throughout the world. We don’t need Global Warming to unite us. Lets unite under Peace to all around the world. For many of us we see global warming as a tool to further tear us from the connection to nature. To automatically blame warming temps on floods in Iowa is a cop out. Instead its a screwed up system of corn and soybean with anhydrous ammonium. At the end of day we need to sit down and say we are united by the Paradox of Our age. Look it up, its from the Dalai Lama who put me to sleep in India. Connect and Interconnect!!!!

  10. “REAL forms of Pollution include Mercury, lead and arsenic that spew out of Coal fired Power plants.”

    Can’t argue that those are forms of pollution, but I sure as hell can argue that those are the ONLY REAL forms (in the context of our CO2 problem).

    “If you read the work of Victor Schauberger and those who have interpreted it since, like Callum Coats and Aleck Bartholomew, you will notice their interpretation of Global Warming. They clearly state how there is two different types of Hydrological cycles. One is the half hydrological cycle”

    I’m not familiar with these authors, however I’m a bit dubious of the claim of a “half hydrolgic cycle”. The hydrologic cycle, put simply, is the movement of water through our environment. Evaporation, precipitation, snow/ice melt, ground water, run off, return of water to the ocean, etc. The cycle is not specific. ie. if you “don’t have the absorption of permaculture” that doesn’t mean you have a “half cycle”. The cycle simply is. It isn’t as much a quantitative measurement as it is a description of a process.

    “In Iowa in America they have 100 year floods every 7. Is it because of Global Warming, no? Its because of a broken”

    Actually it’s difficult to say whether or not this is caused by climate change (note the more accurate label), because you’ve given me no time scale to work with. The evidence for climate change is based on large scale trends. If you have a few cold years, even a decade, that doesn’t necessarily indicate that climate change is a dud. Look at the change in average temperatures over a 100 or 200 years time period and THEN we can look for trends. Oh, and the hydrologic cycle can’t be “broken”. It can change sure, but it’s not something we can really “break”.

    “Put yourself in a greenhouse. Pump it full of CO2. What happens, plants grow, hell ask the dopers how they grow. Then pump water vapor in and you will be wilting and more disease and problems will enter your greenhouse”

    This hardly suggests anything because there could be numerous reasons for this outcome. Also, no one is suggesting that climate change will kill plants off (due to excess CO2). (although it will to some degree due to alterations in the biogeoclimatic zones to which plants are currently adapted). What climate will do is alter climate (hence the title). Plants are adapted to particular climatic ranges and tolerances. Shifts in these will kill off some plants while causing others to shift geographically (if they are able). Climate change could also cause little problems like submerging Bangladesh due to rising sea levels, etc.

    “we all agree change is needed and permaculture is a great tool to do so through connections”

    I agree, but what is odd is that we are all essentially on the same side, yet for whatever reason people such as yourself refuse to believe in the overwhelming evidence that suggests climate change is happening and we are contributing to it.

    “Thats it- old growth is dying in America because of a broke hydrological cycle”

    Close but no. It’s being impacted by alterations in local hydrologic cycle patterns. In my area the alterations manifest themselves as warmer annual temps, which means less winter precipitation as snow (and more as rain–which isn’t retained as long) and longer, hotter summer droughts. And I should clarify, the winter snow that is the most crucial to my area is that which falls in the mountains, on glaciers, etc. Over the spring and summer this accumlation feeds the rivers which feeds the forest, etc.

    “As people who study permaculture we must delve deeper into reasons why the old growth of the pacific northwest is dying. Could it be the acid rain that now comes from China, laden with mercury and other contaminants that this ecosystem has never dealt with before.”

    This is a doubtful approach and wishfull thinking at best. the study which I referred to was conducted over 15 years by a large group of scientists. It was published in Nature last year and is probably much more thorough than anything we could muster.

    “For many of us we see global warming as a tool to further tear us from the connection to nature.”

    I can’t see from this perspective at all. If anything, anthropogenic climate change should suggest how intricately tied to nature we are, and how absolutely dependent we are on the environment for our continued survival.

  11. Jeremy I can send you a PDF version of the book I referred to concerning the work of Victor Schauberger. Brilliant man who had an enormous amount of insights about water and workings of Nature through his astute observation skills and having the luxury of managing Virgin forest in the Alps. Its really fun stuff to read, yea not 100% I agree with but its the same for me with the Designers Manual. I couldn’t find your email on the site so if you send it to me at [email protected] I can send you that file. I will tell you the pages to check out as there is some pretty easy diagrams and table to clearly illustrate the difference between the full hydrological cycle, when water is absorbed into the ground and recharges groundwater which feeds forested areas, and the half hydrological cycle where that process doesn’t happen. Yes the hydrological cycle is a massive worldwide process but it is also a local phenomenon. They talk a lot about this in Holistic management as well, which Darren Daugherty is a big proponent of and I recently studied at the Carbon Farming Course in America. Overgrazed pastures have a broken hydrological cycle they say as the run-off on these sites is extreme. I am not a scientist so I can’t measure CO2 or temperatures in our atmosphere. I am a permaculturist and trained ecologist who does lots of objective observation. I really don’t think floods in Iowa are from increased rainfall amounts. Its the fact that when you put out anhydrous ammonium it knocks out all the humus and biology in the soil. You essentially create concrete as that is what they used in Vietnam to make emergency run-ways in the humus rich jungle. And we use it to grow corn and soybean. If you look at the run-off coefficient for these pastures it rivals tarmac. So of course more floods are going to happen if the greatest biological store of water, the living soil, doesn’t ever receive one drop below the top 12 inches, depth of plow line that has created a hardpan. I just think our worlds problems are easier than this abstract thing that people call climate change. Yea climates are changing, look at pHoenix. Its hotter and drier, is that because of global warming. No its because we dried up all the springs, broke the hydrological cycle, overgrazed, cut trees, paved and no what do we have. No springs and river flow like it once did, we have really hot temperatures, thats from all the thermal mass of the concrete, and everybody is shut in their house consuming air conditioning, manufactured air to watch golf and CNN how the world is warming. So its just the other side of the coin you know, of course climates are changing. Of course places are warming but I wouldn’t automatically blame it on CO2. Our atmosphere really is one of the greatest gifts on this planet. It distinguishes Earth from other planets that we live in not such an extreme planet in terms of temperature swings in a day. So at least we can agree that we need to protect. You say CO2 I say water vapor. In the end we need to plant trees, build carbon rich soil and restore hydrological cycles throughout the world.

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