When I saw that headline on a story in The Guardian, it was like I’d been waiting for it. It struck me as both amusing, in its implication that vegetarianism would be a tough fate even though we’d likely be healthier for it, and also as an inevitability, with which I’d already come to terms.
But the story itself is not funny.
Here was the lead paragraph:
Tags: · animal agriculture, BarbaraKesslerBlog, Food Shortages, Hunger, plant-based diet, vegetarianism, water scarcity, water shortage, water use
In 1994, I wrote an article in World Watch magazine entitled “Who Will Feed China?” that was later expanded into a book of the same title. When the article was published in late August, the press conference generated only moderate coverage. But when it was reprinted that weekend on the front of the Washington Post’s Outlook section with the title “How China Could Starve the World,” it unleashed a political firestorm in Beijing.
The response began with a press conference at the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday morning, where Deputy Minister Wan Baorui denounced the study. Advancing technology, he said, would enable the Chinese people to feed themselves. This was followed by a government-orchestrated stream of articles that challenged my findings.
Tags: · China's food and agriculture, desertification, famine, food scarcity, Food Shortages, grain, greenrightnow.com, Lester R. Brown, loss of farmland, monoculture, OtherVoicesBlog, soybeans
New York City has one of the most recognizable skylines in the world. It’s famously tall buildings provide maximum occupancy for minimum space, making an ideal situation for a rapidly growing population.
When millions of immigrants flocked to America in the late 1800’s, the need for space to put them all caused the city to grow up instead of out and skyscrapers sprouted like weeds.
The human population is growing. By the year 2050, it is estimated that we will be another 3 billion people. By that time 80 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas.
Tags: · Dr. Dickson Despommier, Farming, Food Shortages, land erosion, loss of farms, New York City, small farms, urban agriculture, vertical farming
(The following is adapted from Lester R. Brown’s Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), which is available at the Earth Policy Institute website. Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute.)
As oil and natural gas reserves are being depleted, the world’s attention is increasingly turning to plant-based energy sources. These include food crops, forest industry byproducts, sugar industry byproducts, plantations of fast-growing trees, crop residues, and urban tree and yard wastes—all of which can be used for electrical generation, heating, or the production of automotive fuels.
Tags: · Biofuels, biogas, corn ethanol, crop fuels, Food Shortages, land loss, landfills, Lester R. Brown, Methane, OtherVoicesBlog, Photovoltaics, Solar Power
The U.S. space agency NASA says this year has been the warmest for the earth in 131 years. And a new study of hot weather in the U.S. released by the National Wildlife Federation predicts that extreme heat will be the norm by 2050. The private environmental organization says as the planet warms, there will also be heavier rainfall and drought around the globe. But not all scientists agree on the impact of global warming or a solution to its effects:
Tags: · climate scientist Amanda Staudt of the U.S. based National Wildlife Federation, climatologist Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, Food Shortages, health problems from more allergy causing plants, La Nina, NASA says this year has been the warmest for the earth in 131 years, National Wildlife Federation predicts that extreme heat will be the norm by 2050, rain soaked China, record setting heat in Russia
By Bill Sullivan While most Americans remain fixated on sagging real estate prices and rising gasoline expenses, much of the rest of the planet wrestles with a more pressing concern: The skyrocketing price of food, and the social and political upheaval it is creating in many poorer countries.
Tags: · Biofuels, Food Prices, Food Shortages, Hunger
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift