Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Forecast for Disaster: Global Warming Could Devastate Harvests| Malnutrition, Climate Change & Greenhouse Gases

If emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase unchecked, they could push the Earth's surface temperature up by at least 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) by 2020, and have devastating ramifications for global food production in a more crowded world, according to a new report.

By the end of the next decade the global population is projected to increase by about 900 million. Meanwhile, the report projects a 14 percent gap between production and demand for wheat, meaning demand will be 14 percent greater than production. For rice, this global gap is 11 percent and for corn, it's 9 percent. Only soybeans increase, with an estimated 5 percent surplus, according to The Food Gap – The Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production: A 202 Perspective, a report produced by the Universal Ecological Fund (Fundación Ecológica Universal, or FEU-US), a nonprofit.

Source: Forecast for Disaster: Global Warming Could Devastate Harvests Malnutrition, Climate Change & Greenhouse Gases LiveScience

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