Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns

The world’s land and water resources are being exploited at “unprecedented rates,” a new United Nations report warns, which combined with climate change is putting dire pressure on the ability of humanity to feed itself.

Cattle grazing outside Sokoto, Nigeria, where
large-scale farming is in conflict with local communities.

The report, prepared by more than 100 experts from 52 countries and released in summary form in Geneva on Thursday, found that the window to address the threat is closing rapidly. A half-billion people already live in places turning into desert, and soil is being lost between 10 and 100 times faster than it is forming, according to the report. 

Climate change will make those threats even worse, as floods, drought, storms and other types of extreme weather threaten to disrupt, and over time shrink, the global food supply. Already, more than 10 percent of the world’s population remains undernourished, and some authors of the report warned in interviews that food shortages could lead to an increase in cross-border migration.

Read the story from The New York Times by Christopher Flavelle -  “Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns.”

Shell about to exploit the world's last wilderness

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ossil fuels have disrupted the world’s climate system to such a degree that wilderness areas once inaccessible are now about to be exploited as global warming has freed up areas that until now had been naturally locked away.

News services around the world, among them the BBC, have reported that the oil and gas giant Shell is expected to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic within the next two weeks.

The BBC said. “Thirty ships left Dutch Harbor in Alaska on Thursday for the Arctic to support two initial exploratory wells.

“The company has already committed about $7bn (£4.5bn) to the controversial project, and is confident it will find huge quantities of oil in the region.

“But if the initial wells do not find oil, Shell will contemplate walking away from the region entirely.”

Climatologists, and many others, hope that Shell does walk away from the region entirely as it is clearly understood that considering the world’s damaged climate system, the only rightly place for fossil fuels is in the ground.

Beyond that the world’s environmental groups fear an oil spill that, in the Artic would cause imaginable damage.

Most argue that whatever the profits might be from such a project, that they are simply not worth the inevitable risks.

Read the BBC story - “Shell Arctic oil drilling to commence within weeks”.

Shiny packaging covers corporate sins of palm oil

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alm oil is a much sought after product, so much so that frequently we disregard human and environmental costs.

Easter sees a continuation of how the corporate ills of the world are hidden beneath some shiny packaging, with many of the traditional chocolate Easter eggs being made use palm oil.

Dense and climate sustaining forests are often cleared to allow for palm oil farming and frequently child labour is exploited to ensure production costs are kept as low as possible and, of course, corporate profits at the maximum.

In its story - “Child labour and palm oil lend chocolate Easter eggs a bitter taste” – the Sydney Morning Herald says that a growing number of ethical consumers are looking beyond the shiny packaging to buy chocolate made without the use of child, forced or trafficked labour, and palm oil, an ingredient linked with deforestation, animal cruelty and climate change.