Bits of Food & Health

Climate & Agriculture 6: Global agricultural benefits of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees (IPCC)

Yes, while the human population keeps growing, climate change is likely to cause various detrimental effects on global agriculture and thereby food security. Like other climate change impacts these effects will increase with the magnitude of the warming, and most … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 4: Yes, heat stress also affects wheat – recent European summers show

Part 3 of this series about the impacts of climate change on global agriculture was centred around a climate model study that indicated major global crop belts could experience production declines as a result of increased heat stress. These authors … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 3: Temperate and subtropical agriculture equally affected by heat stress

Our previous post focused on a study indicating climate change can lead to a net decline in African agricultural productivity – at least for five major food staples, with maize being the most important. The study also showed that it … Continue reading →

The Syrian drought of 2006-2010 fits in climate trend of lower precipitation and higher temperatures, this graph shows

Over 2006 to 2010 a prolonged drought, unprecedented in modern documented history, caused a farming collapse in Northeastern Syria. Winter rainfall in the otherwise green & productive ‘Fertile Crescent’ decreased by at least a third in Syria (and up to … Continue reading →

Global 2015-2016 winter forecast: comparing NCEP model runs to NOAA’s ‘typical El Niño patterns’ – Brazil in for shock, little relief for California

Normally we think of droughts over South East Asia (i.e. Borneo) and north-eastern Australia (Queensland) associated with strong El Niño events. This for instance led to dramatic fires through the tropical rainforests of Borneo, during the last ‘Super El Niño’ … Continue reading →

He who controls ENSO rules all: even flu pandemics now connected to La Niña – 2012 virus forecast

If this is true best stack up on your supply of antiviral drugs, because there would be an above-average chance of experiencing another influenza pandemic during the approaching northern hemisphere spring or summer of 2012 (as indeed La Niña is … Continue reading →

World food demand could double by 2050 – if so agricultural intensification could save 2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year

A new projection by the University of Minnesota and the University of California Santa Barbara shows global food demand could rise by 100-110 percent between 2005 and 2050, which would pose a grave threat to remaining tropical rainforests and would … Continue reading →

Metastudy shows current climate change makes flora and fauna shrink

The paleoclimatic record shows it has happened before – and now two well-read researchers illustrate it is already happening again: species across life’s kingdoms are decreasing in size, due to warming, droughts and acidification. It’s a sign ecology is feeling … Continue reading →

#Longevity lesson 1: How to add 14 years to your life?

So you stay fit and healthy longer at a lower cost to society – and stop complaining about that 65+ retirement age. There, we’ve said it. Usually when people think of Sustainability they think of garbage and how to recycle … Continue reading →