This information
was posted on the Internet: some of the conclusions
that were presented at a two-day Royal Society meeting,
"Food Crops in a Changing Climate," attended
by "leading scientists in the fields of meteorology,
climate science and agriculture, to report on the
latest research."
It had been thought that greenhouse gas might act
as a fertilizer to increase plant growth. However,
large-scale experiments have now been conducted
in the open air, rather than in laboratories, using
a new technology called Free-Air Concentration Enrichment.
These experiments treat large areas of crop with
elevated levels of CO2 and ozone. "Growing
crops much closer to real conditions has shown that
increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
will have roughly half the beneficial effects previously
hoped for in the event of climate change. In addition,
ground-level ozone, which is also predicted to rise
but has not been extensively studied before, has
been shown to result in a loss of photosynthesis
and 20 percent yield loss." (Steve Long, Illinois
University) "Additionally, studies in the UK
and Denmark show that just a few days of hot temperatures
can severely reduce the yield of major food crops,
such as wheat, soya beans, rice and groundnuts,
if they coincide with the flowering of these crops.
These results suggest that there are particular
thresholds above which crops become very vulnerable
to climate change."
Another article on the same
subject is "The Irony of Climate" by Brian
Halweil in the March/April 2005 issue of World Watch
magazine. We reprint here a few segments of this
much longer article. If readers are able to access
this magazine, the article has very interesting
pictures titled "Desertification in China."
"Archaeologists believe that the shift to a
warmer, wetter, and more stable climate at the end
of the last ice age was key for humanity's successful
foray into food production. Yet, from the American
breadbasket to the North China Plain to the fields
of southern Africa, farmers and climate scientists
are finding that generations-old patterns of rainfall
and temperature are shifting."
A researcher at the University of Florida "found
that while a doubling of carbon dioxide and a slightly
increased temperature stimulate seeds to germinate
and the plants to grow larger and lusher, the higher
temperatures are deadly when the plant starts producing
pollen. . As plant researchers refine their understanding
of climate change and the subtle ways in which plants
respond, they are beginning to think that the most
serious threats to agriculture will not be the most
dramatic: the lethal heatwave or severe drought
or endless deluge. Instead, for plants that humans
have bred to thrive in specific climatic conditions,
it is those subtle shifts in temperatures and rainfall
during key periods in the crops' lifecycles that
will be most disruptive."
"In essence, farms will best resist a wide
range of shocks by making themselves more diverse
and less dependent on outside inputs. . And they
will tend to be less reliant on fertilizers and
pesticides, and the fossil fuel inputs they require.
. In other words, as climate tremors disrupt the
vast intercontinental web of food production and
rearrange the world's major breadbaskets, depending
on food from distant suppliers will be more expensive
and more precarious. It will be cheaper and easier
to cope with local weather shifts, and with more
limited supplies of fossil fuels, than to ship in
a commodity from afar."
According to Alberto Cardenas, Secretary of Mexico's
Department of the Environment and Natural Resources
(SEMARNAP), at least 47.7% of the country's land
has become eroded and the rest is in danger of desertification,
much of it the result of deforestation and harmful
agricultural practices. In 1987 a little over 64
million hectares were affected and today it is 93
million. Cardenas reported that there are areas
in the states that are presently affected that will
be hard to rescue or where there are no possibilities
to do so. He noted they would have to put down a
30- or 40-centimeter layer of soil, a process that
would take decades. To help work on this problem
SEMARNAP is joining with other related departments
of the national government to create a National
System to Fight against Natural Resources Degradation.
This information
comes from the April/May 2005 issue of Organic Gardening: "Monsanto is buying Seminis, the world's largest
producer of fruit and vegetable seeds. . Until now
Monsanto has not been a presence in the vegetable
seed business. Monsanto's buyout of Seminis creates
an ethical dilemma for everyone involved in organics.
Many of the Seminis vegetable seed varieties are
classics, essential to the planting program of many
farmers. Should seed purveyors stop buying from
Seminis to protest genetic engineering? Should they
have a labeling system so customers can avoid seeds
from Monsanto if they want?"
This comes
from "The Price of Hunger" in the March/April
2005 issue of World Watch magazine: "For
the first time since it began keeping track in the
1970s, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
reported that the number of hungry people around
the world has increased. According to the latest
edition of the agency's annual State of Food Insecurity,
852 million people go hungry every day, about 18
million more than during the mid-1990s. Put another
way, hunger kills more than 5 million children each
year, or about one child every five seconds."
A beautiful
article by Dr. Vandana Shiva, "The Lessons
of the Tsunami", appears in the March 2005
issue of The Ecologist. We briefly summarize the
lessons she has drawn from this catastrophe and
then reprint verbatim some of her ending thoughts.
First: Areas that were impacted
the worst by the tsunami are those coastal regions
that have been developed "for hotels and holiday
resorts, shrimp farms and refineries. Mangroves
and coral reefs, which previously acted as protective
barriers in the face of storms, cyclones, hurricanes
and tsunamis, have been relentlessly destroyed."
Second: "A
world that puts markets and profits before nature
and people is ill-equipped to deal with such disasters."
Third: This "tsunami
is a foretaste of other environmental disasters
in the making."
Finally: "The
public good and the social responsibility of governments
cannot be sacrificed for private profit and corporate
greed."
"The tsunami reminds us we are not mere consumers
in a marketplace driven by profits: we are fragile,
interconnected beings inhabiting a fragile planet.
The tsunami reminds us that we are all interconnected
through the earth. We are earth beings: compassion,
not money, is the currency that connects us. Above
all, it brings a message of humility: that in the
face of nature's fury, we are powerless. The tsunami
calls on us to give up arrogance and to recognize
our fragility." |