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Only when the last tree has died. . . and the last river has been poisoned

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ProfessionalLeftist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 03:41 PM
Original message
Only when the last tree has died. . . and the last river has been poisoned
... and the last fish has been caught
will we realize that we can't eat money. -Indian Proverb


Food Supply Under Strain on a Warming Planet:

...

Consumption of the four staples that supply most human calories — wheat, rice, corn and soybeans — has outstripped production for much of the past decade, drawing once-large stockpiles down to worrisome levels. The imbalance between supply and demand has resulted in two huge spikes in international grain prices since 2007, with some grains more than doubling in cost.

Those price jumps, though felt only moderately in the West, have worsened hunger for tens of millions of poor people, destabilizing politics in scores of countries, from Mexico to Uzbekistan to Yemen. The Haitian government was ousted in 2008 amid food riots, and anger over high prices has played a role in the recent Arab uprisings.

Now, the latest scientific research suggests that a previously discounted factor is helping to destabilize the food system: climate change.

Many of the failed harvests of the past decade were a consequence of weather disasters, like floods in the United States, drought in Australia and blistering heat waves in Europe and Russia. Scientists believe some, though not all, of those events were caused or worsened by human-induced global warming.

MORE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/science/earth/05harvest.html?_r=2&hp
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LiberalEsto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 03:42 PM
Response to Original message
1. Nah, it's all these tofu-eating granola people.
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ProfessionalLeftist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yea.
Damn hippies. :sarcasm:
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 04:21 PM
Response to Original message
3. K&R
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Pooka Fey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 04:43 PM
Response to Original message
4. K&R
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blue neen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-05-11 05:13 PM
Response to Original message
5. That proverb is beautiful and so very true.
Do you mind if I use it?
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