2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

Mass starvation is humanity’s fate if we keep flogging the land to death

The Earth cannot accommodate our need and greed for food. We must change our diet before it’s too late 

Mass Starvation Graphic: George Monbiot Guardian 

 Illustration: Thomas Pullin

Brexit; the crushing of democracy by billionaires; the next financial crash; a rogue US president: none of them keeps me awake at night. This is not because I don’t care – I care very much. It’s only because I have a bigger question on my mind. Where is all the food going to come from?

By the middle of this century there will be two or three billion more people on Earth. Any one of the issues I am about to list could help precipitate mass starvation. And this is before you consider how they might interact.

The trouble begins where everything begins: with soil. The UN’s famous projection that, at current rates of soil loss, the world has 60 years of harvests left, appears to be supported by a new set of figures. Partly as a result of soil degradation, yields are already declining on 20% of the world’s croplands. 

Mass starvation is humanity’s fate if we keep flogging the land to death, Opinion by George Monbiot, Guardian, Dec 11, 2017


Links posted on Facebook

Sun Dec 10, 2017

Mon Dec 11, 2017

Tue Dec 12, 2017

Wed Dec 13, 2017

Thu Dec 14, 2017

Fri Dec 15, 2017

Sat Dec 16, 2017

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 16 December, 2017


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