Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Get scared, get very scared

I justed edited a report a FAO about the future of food securtiy looking at issues of climate change, energy use, and population growth. This is some terrifying shit.
  • By 2050, the global population will grow to 9.2 billion people and all of that growth will occur in developing countries (that's in our lifetime).
  • In the next decade, the majority of the world's population will live in cities.
  • Agricultural production will have to increase by 80% in the next 40 years to meet growing food need and global climate change, water scarcity, and increase climate extremes will present new challenges to agricultural production.

Add to this all of the scary things we already know about climate change and the fact that biofuels (using agricultural products for energy, such as corn for ethanol) have recently exploded into the global sector and it becomes very complex and frightening.

And solutions? Well, I guess that's our job to figure out how in the hell we are going to deal with this.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude, how come I didn't know you had a blog until now???!!!! I can't wait to read on.

Jack Slowriver said...

Um...should we make a plan to return to the land, build composting toilets and learn to grow our own food? Or build a spaceship? Stop eating altogether? I don't know, do you have any bright ideas?

Jack Slowriver said...

Seriously, it's weird to think that I'm living in a time where we can see the end of the planet's ability to support human life. It's also weird becuase people have been thinking about end times for a long time. Do you think humans have a collective death wish? Some days it seems like we must.