source
The latest warnings about global climate change are dire. We're told that it could affect our food supply.
Which makes this good news:
Of course, it's not nearly enough, but it's a nice start.
But it points out something that I've been noticing for some time. We talk about alternative energies and fuel efficiency, reduced carbon emissions and carbon offsets, but one thing that seems to have completely dropped from the discussion is deforestation. Without addressing deforestation, we could become an otherwise carbon neutral world (i.e., one that reduces carbon emissions by the same amount as its carbon output) and still see a rise in greenhouse gases...source
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
The latest warnings about global climate change are dire. We're told that it could affect our food supply.
stuff.co.nz:
WASHINGTON: Urgent action is needed to make sure a warming climate doesn't slash crop yields, heighten the risk of famine and deepen poverty for the world's most vulnerable, international experts have said.
"Climate change is not just in the future. It's happening now," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a NASA scientist and co-chair of an international panel on climate change, told a meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Researchers held in Washington.
The group brings together experts from 15 agricultural research centres around the world funded by states, international organisations and private foundations.
By now, the threat of global warming is a familiar one: many scientists believe rising global temperatures, exacerbated by combustion of fossil fuels, will bring warmer, wetter and more violent weather. That in turn is expected to raise sea levels and threaten the life and livelihood of millions, especially in coastal areas.
But farm and food experts gathered for the group's annual meeting this week focused on how climate change will affect harvests.
They said warming could bring more drought and shorter growing seasons to places like Tanzania and Mozambique, increase flooding in coastal areas of countries including Bangladesh, and reduce crop yields in countries like Colombia.
Which makes this good news:
Associated Press:
A swath of Amazon rain forest the size of Alabama was placed under government protection Monday in a region infamous for violent conflicts among loggers, ranchers and environmentalists.
Known as the Guayana Shield, the 57,915-square-mile area contains more than 25 percent of the world's remaining humid tropical forests and the largest remaining unpolluted fresh water reserves in the American tropics.
The protected areas will link to existing reserves to form a vast preservation corridor eventually stretching into neighboring Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
Conservation International put up $1 million to facilitate the expansion, which preserves much of the jungle's largely untouched north. Still, it's far from clear how much the new reserves will do to stall Amazon destruction, since most of the deforestation is taking place along the rain forest's southern border.
"If any tropical rain forest on Earth remains intact a century from now, it will be this portion of northern Amazonia," Conservation International President Russell Mittermeier said. "The region has more undisturbed rain forest than anywhere else."
Of course, it's not nearly enough, but it's a nice start.
But it points out something that I've been noticing for some time. We talk about alternative energies and fuel efficiency, reduced carbon emissions and carbon offsets, but one thing that seems to have completely dropped from the discussion is deforestation. Without addressing deforestation, we could become an otherwise carbon neutral world (i.e., one that reduces carbon emissions by the same amount as its carbon output) and still see a rise in greenhouse gases...source
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
Tags: Science | Politics | opinion | news | International | Global Warming | environment | deforestation | U.S. | South America
