Millions To Go Hungry, Waterless - Democratic Underground

RestoreGore

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Wed Jan-31-07 06:51 AM
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Millions To Go Hungry, Waterless

I am going to expound on this later on my blog, and also include some news regarding the drastic measures Australia will now take to give people drinking water. The one thing I did want to type in response to this report now however, is to the U.S Congress: STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE OF YOUR COUNTRY AND THIS PLANET AND STOP THIS GD WAR IN IRAQ/IRAN/AFGHANISTAN AND WHEREVER ELSE, AND START WORRYING ABOUT THE FUTURE NOW. And that goes for all of us actually. It is time to wake up. More later.
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Millions To Go Hungry, Waterless

Published on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 by Reuters
Millions to Go Hungry, Waterless: Climate Report
by Rob Taylor

Rising temperatures will leave millions more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States, according to a new global climate report.

By the end of the century, climate change will bring water scarcity to between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people as temperatures rise by 2 to 3 Celsius (3.6 to 4.8 Fahrenheit), a leaked draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said.

Rising temperatures will leave millions more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States, according to a new global climate report. The report, due for release in April but detailed in The Age newspaper, said an additional 200 million to 600 million people across the world would face food shortages in another 70 years, while coastal flooding would hit another 7 million homes.

"The message is that every region of the earth will have exposure," Dr Graeme Pearman, who helped draft the report, told Reuters on Tuesday. "If you look at China, like Australia they will lose significant rainfall in their agricultural areas," said Pearman, the former climate director of Australia's top science body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

Africa and poor countries such as Bangladesh would be most affected because they were least able to cope with greater coastal damage and drought, said Pearman. The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program to guide policy makers globally on the impact of climate change. The panel is to release a report on Friday in Paris forecasting global temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a "best estimate" of a 3C (5.4 F) rise.

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"The projections in the report that comes out this week are based on the assumption that we are slow to respond and that things continue more-or-less as they have in the past."Some scientists say Australia -- the world's driest inhabited continent -- is suffering from "accelerated climate change" compared to other nations.
© Reuters 2007