Reply To: Global warming forecasts: disasters, diseases

#4579

From Time magazine:

Quote:
A study published in the Jan. 9 issue of Science shows that far from compensating for the other damages associated with climate change (heavier and more frequent storms, increasing desertification, sea level rise), hotter temperatures will seriously diminish the world’s ability to feed itself. David Battisti, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, and Rosamond Naylor, director of the Program for Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, analyzed data from 23 different climate models and found a more than 90% chance that by the end of the century, average growing season temperatures would be hotter than the most extreme levels recorded in the past.

That means that barring a swift and sudden reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, by the end of the century an average July day will almost certainly be hotter than the hottest heat waves we experience now. And the extreme heat will wilt our crops.

"I’m very concerned," says Naylor. "How are we going to feed a world of eight or nine billion, with the effects of climate change?"

Why Global Warming Portends a Food Crisis