Global Warming Is Causing The Cost Of F

Global Warming is causing the cost of food to increase worldwide

Global warming is causing the price of food to increase all over the globe because of severe weather changes. Over the last few decades, the world we know has had drastic changes. The price of food has been affecting us all globally, and now scientists believe they know why. Global warming was thought to be a myth, or a hoax to scare people all around the world. Now scientists have found out that farmers are forced to charge more because the cost to grow food is increasing every year. This is because severe climate change has caused hotter days, colder nights and less rainfall. These factors are important to farmers because growing products such as wheat, corn, maize and rice rely heavily on the climate. In the end it affects everybody in the supply-chain, if the cost to manufacture these goods continues to rise, the price that we pay to purchase these products will also inflate. This essay will detail how global warming is affecting us all, and how we can all do our part to make a difference. The primary source of information will be articles written by climate change experts such as James Edward Hansen, Margaret Hilda Thatcher David Suzuki and some other recognized authors from newspaper articles.

Global Warming is the increase of the Earth 's average surface temperature due to effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels or from deforestation, which trap heat that would otherwise escape from Earth. The Earth 's climate is mostly influenced by the first 6 miles or so of the atmosphere which contains most of the matter making up the atmosphere. This is a very thin layer if you think about it, but yet nobody is doing anything to control the amount of greenhouse gases we are spewing into the atmosphere. We have released so much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that our planet 's atmosphere is now like a thick, heat-trapping blanket. “By disrupting the atmospheric balance that keeps the climate stable, we are now seeing extreme effects around the globe. It 's like a thermostat that 's gone haywire — it just doesn 't work the way it should. The result is that the climate changes are more severe, and it gets warmer in all parts of the globe. Extreme weather events also become more common”. (Suzuki)

Scientists at Stanford University said warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns have pushed up the cost of wheat, maize, rice and soya by 5 per cent since the 1980s.This weather is causing the farmers that grow these products more money to produce them, because they end up watering the crops themselves. This is very important because farmers are now forced to raise the price for their products, causing a domino effect in the supply chain. The drop in the productivity of crop plants around the world was not only caused by changes in rainfall but was also because higher temperatures can cause dehydration, prevent pollination and lead to slowed photosynthesis making it much more expensive to maintain. “Wheat production in Russia showed the biggest drop, with yields 15 percent lower than what they could 've been. This is tens of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity because of Global warming”. (Lobell)

Since 2008 the world average prices have risen by 217 percent for rice, 136 percent for wheat, 125 percent for corn, and 107 percent for soybeans. “Scientists predict that corn prices, adjusted for inflation, will rise by 42 to 131 percent by 2050. Climate change is expected to diminish rice yields, lifting prices from 11 to 78 percent and wheat prices may rise from 17 to 67 percent” (The Guardian) Wheat, rice, corn and soybeans account for the majority of calories consumed by the human race, either directly or as meat from animals raised on grains. One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people. New analysis suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 has a big impact on world food supplies. Since then, the number of hungry people in the world has increased to over 1 billion people, according to the UN 's World Food program. The grain grown to produce fuel in the US in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. Last year 107 tons of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol.

A recent study presented at 2010 's UN climate summit in Cancun predicted that global warming could double grain prices by 2050 and leave millions more malnourished. All of the studies suggest the worst impacts will be felt by the poorest people. “Climate change is already having a domino effect on food and nutritional security for the world 's poorest and most vulnerable people”. (Robinson) Child malnutrition is predicted to increase by 20% by 2050. Climate change impacts will disproportionately fall on people living in tropical regions, and particularly on the most vulnerable and marginalized population groups. This is the injustice of climate change; the worst of the impacts are felt by those who contributed least to causing the problem. This is not fair because countries like The United States, Canada, Mexico and China that are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses are not even experiencing the effects of climate change yet. It tends to be countries based in the Middle East and Africa where poverty is at an all-time high that face the negative effect of global warming. Until it was recently overtaken by China, the U.S. was the world 's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas thought by scientists to be responsible for man-made global warming. From 1980 to 2008, temperatures increased briskly in many of the world’s important agricultural regions. A notable exception was the United States: for reasons climate scientists do not fully understand, temperatures in the Midwestern corn and soybean belt during the summer crop-growing season have not increased in recent decades.” (Lobell)

The Kyoto Protocol was an agreement negotiated by many countries in December 1997 and came into force with Russia 's ratification on February 16, 2005. The reason for the lengthy timespan between the terms of agreement being settled upon and the protocol being engaged was due to terms of Kyoto requiring at least 55 parties to ratify the agreement and for the total of those parties’ emissions to be at least 55% of global production of greenhouse gases. Participating countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol have committed to cut emissions of not only carbon dioxide, but of also other greenhouse gases. These other gasses are Methane, Nitrous oxide, Hydro fluorocarbons, Per fluorocarbons and Sulphur hexafluoride. The goals of Kyoto were to see participants collectively reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% below the emission levels of 1990 by 2012.

India and China, which have ratified the Kyoto protocol, are not obligated to reduce greenhouse gas production at the moment as they are developing countries. This is a little odd given that China is about to overtake the USA in emissions. As a result of this loophole, the West has effectively outsourced much of its carbon emissions to China and India. This phenomenon, whether intended or coincidental is a major hole in the Kyoto Protocol. To satisfy the Kyoto protocol, developed countries would be required to cut back their emissions by a total of 5.2 % between 2008 and 2012 from 1990 levels. Specifically, the US would have to reduce its presently projected 2010 annual emissions by 400 million tons of CO2 . One should keep in mind though, that even Kyoto would only go a little ways towards solving the problem. In reality, much more needs to be done.

When realizing how serious global warming is and how climate change is re-shaping our lives, we are always wondering what we can do to help or fix this ongoing problem. Some say it is too late to fix the problem but it is not too late to control it. There are many things we can collectively do to contribute and try to help lower green-house emissions. Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. Adding insulation to your walls and attic, and installing weather stripping or caulking around doors and windows can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy you need to heat and cool your home. Also replacing just one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a CFL will use two-thirds less energy, and give off 70 percent less heat. If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

After analyzing all the research and examining all the information, we can conclude that Global Warming is becoming a bigger issue every single day. Some of us have the privilege to live in North America and barely feel the effects of climate change, but too many people around the world are suffering because of our mistakes and our lack of care for the environment. Our prices for food are increasing every year, and more and more people are dying because of mal-nourishment. How are we going to live in a world where food is becoming harder and harder to grow and where people are more concerned with making a profit than feeding children that are starving. Lots of things need to change if we want to continue living here for thousands of years to come. If we don’t begin enforcing laws on countries that are emitting ridiculous amount of green-house gasses, our world as we know it will be stripped of all its resources and we will be left with nothing but problems.

Bibliography

Derbyshire, David. "Consumers Are Already Paying the Price of Global Warming in Higher Food Bills, Scientists Warn." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, May 9, 2011. Web http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385035/Global-warming-caused-higher-food-bills.html Gibbons, Erneld. "Climate Matters." State of the Planet Climate Change to Exacerbate Rising FoodPricesComments”ColumbiaUniversityN.p.,22Mar.2011. http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/03/22/climate-change-to-exacerbate-rising-food-prices/

Donovan, Travis. "Food Prices Increasing From Global Warming: Study." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost. 05 May 2011. Web http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/food-prices-global-warming-study_n_858192.html Vidal, John. ""One Quarter of US Grain Crops Fed to Cars - Not People"" The Guardian, 22 Jan. 2010. Webhttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofuels-food?guni=Article:in%20body%20link&guni=Article:in%20body%20link
Gillis, Justin. "Global Warming Reduces Expected Yields of Harvests in Some Countries, Study Says." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 May 2011. Webhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/science/earth/06warming.html?_r=2&
Schmidhuber, Josef. "Global Food Security under Climate Change." Global Food Security under Climate Change. Cross mark, Feb.-Mar. 2007. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.http://www.pnas.org/content/104/50/19703.full
M.L Parry. "Download PDFs." Effects of Climate Change on Global Food Production under SRES Emissions and Socio-economic Scenarios. Science Direct, Apr.-May 2010. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378003000827

Bibliography: Derbyshire, David. "Consumers Are Already Paying the Price of Global Warming in Higher Food Bills, Scientists Warn." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, May 9, 2011. Web http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385035/Global-warming-caused-higher-food-bills.html Gibbons, Erneld. "Climate Matters." State of the Planet Climate Change to Exacerbate Rising FoodPricesComments”ColumbiaUniversityN.p.,22Mar.2011. http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/03/22/climate-change-to-exacerbate-rising-food-prices/ Donovan, Travis. "Food Prices Increasing From Global Warming: Study." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost. 05 May 2011. Web http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/food-prices-global-warming-study_n_858192.html Vidal, John. ""One Quarter of US Grain Crops Fed to Cars - Not People"" The Guardian, 22 Jan. 2010. Webhttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofuels-food?guni=Article:in%20body%20link&guni=Article:in%20body%20link Gillis, Justin. "Global Warming Reduces Expected Yields of Harvests in Some Countries, Study Says." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 May 2011. Webhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/science/earth/06warming.html?_r=2& Schmidhuber, Josef. "Global Food Security under Climate Change." Global Food Security under Climate Change. Cross mark, Feb.-Mar. 2007. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.http://www.pnas.org/content/104/50/19703.full M.L Parry. "Download PDFs." Effects of Climate Change on Global Food Production under SRES Emissions and Socio-economic Scenarios. Science Direct, Apr.-May 2010. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378003000827