In the past two years, food prices have risen 83% across the globe, with some staples such as rice and wheat shooting up 141% and 130%, respectively, over the past year alone. Financially challenged populations in the United States have already felt the pinch, and in countries across Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America, skyrocketing food prices have led to widespread unrest. The World Bank recently warned that 33 nations are now at risk of conflict because of the high cost of food, and protests have already erupted even in developed nations such as Italy.

Many people believe that the first significant wave of global warming disasters will come sometime in the future due to rising sea levels. However, it is now clear that food shortages resulting from extreme weather patterns such as flooding and drought are already reflecting the damaging effects of climate change. The hunger that goes with food crises and its associated social unrest thus represents the true first wave of global warming disasters. The United Nations has even called this a “Silent Tsunami” because of the widespread devastation that can occur when poverty is combined with food shortages. In fact, it is the developing countries, the same ones that produce lower amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, whose people suffer first and most seriously because they have no latitude, or adaptation “buffer zone.” However, developed countries are by no means immune. With the planet warming at a much faster pace than previously predicted, even scientists cannot foresee what will happen next.

The changing weather patterns whose effects are seen in today’s agricultural productivity include temperatures that have been rising since the late 1970s, with nine of the ten warmest years on record occurring since 1995. In 2002, harvests in India and the United States plummeted due to record high temperatures and drought. In 2003, Europe’s spring and summer rainfalls were very low but temperatures reached record highs, with an affected growing region that stretched from the United Kingdom through the Ukraine in the east. Volatile weather in other key grain-producing countries has resulted in severely limited supplies. A study published in the journal Science suggests that, due to climate change, southern Africa is well on the way to losing more than 30% of its main crop, maize. And in southern Australia, which is entering its tenth year of drought, a rice mill that used to process enough grain for 20 million people, has been shut down completely.

The United Nations’ 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that the poorest countries would be hardest hit by the effects of global warming, with reduced crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions due to less water as well as new or changed pest infestations. In Africa and Latin America, many rain-fed crops are near their maximum temperature tolerance, meaning that yields are likely to fall sharply with even small climate changes.

But while politicians continue to argue the issues surrounding climate change, there is something that every one of us can do right now to help stabilize world food supplies and curb climate change at the same time. It is very simple and obvious: Just stop eating meat!

According to the 2006 United Nations report Livestock’s Long Shadow, activities associated with meat production such as deforestation and fuel-intensive farming, are responsible for over 18% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions. These livestock-related gases account for 9% of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions, 35-40% of total methane (chiefly due to animals’ intestinal fermentation and manure) and 64% of total nitrous-oxide (chiefly due to fertilizer use). In short, the livestock industry is responsible for higher greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation in the world. The UN report also found that producing meat causes many other problems and said it should be a main focus in every discussion of land degradation, air pollution, water shortages and loss of biodiversity.

Livestock activities contribute not only to greenhouse-gas emissions, but also require vast expanses of land. Worldwide, farmed animals occupy 70% of all agricultural land, or 30% of the land surface of the Earth. Moreover, crops are often grown for livestock, with 40% of the world’s cultivated grain feeding farmed animals, not people. Merely half this amount of grain would eliminate world hunger. The activity of raising animals for food thus deprives countless human beings of sustenance and is a direct cause of world hunger.

Forgoing meat has implications on even an individual level. For each person who eats an animal-free vegetarian diet, only 1/6 acre of agricultural land is required. By contrast, one meat-eater needs more than three acres. In terms of greenhouse gases, reducing meat consumption by just 20% would be the equivalent of switching from driving a Camry to driving a Prius, while going 100% animal-free for a full year would save 1.5 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

All of humanity is connected, so our lifestyles affect the wellbeing of people in faraway countries, and vice versa. A meat-free diet is the most effective means that any of us have to help rein in the food crisis and reduce global warming. It is time for us to make the obvious choice - for ourselves, for our children, and for all beings on our planetary home.

Source:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/05/food_crisis.html
http://world-wire.com/news/0804290001.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7220807.stm

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