Millions and even billions of people will face food and water scarcities in the coming years if the current trend of global warming continues. This is according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body established by the World Meterological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program.
Temperatures across the globe are rising. If nothing is done, they will continue to increase in the future. By the year
 |
The report indicated that an additional 200 million to 600 million people across the world will experience food shortages in the next 70 years, while another 7 million homes will be flooded in coastal areas. China, Australia and parts of the United States will have water shortages as a result of the change in climate.
“The message is that every region of the earth will have exposure,” stated Dr. Graeme Pearman, former climate director of Australia’s top science body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
“If you look at China, like Australia they will lose significant rainfall in their agricultural areas,” said Pearman, who helped write the report.
While Australia and the United States are large and relatively wealthy nations, Pearman stated that Africa and poor countries such as Bangladesh would be more seriously affected by the changes because they were least able to cope with increased drought and coastal damage.
Some specifics in the report suggest that Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, may be facing “accelerated climate change.”
Australia is currently in its worst recorded drought. Natural features such as the Great Barrier Reef and the snow in Australia’s southeast alps may disappear. A 10-25 percent decrease in water inflows to the Murray-Darling river basin, Australia’s main agricultural region, will have a major impact on food production.
In Europe, glaciers would disappear from the central alps. Pacific island nations would suffer from rising sea levels and more frequent tropical storms.
On the positive side, Pearman said there was an enormous amount the international community could do to avert climate change if swift action was taken.
“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.”
However, if the nations of the world continue to operate under a capitalist “business as usual” model, things will continue as they have in the past.
The scientific community has reached a general concensus that climate change is being caused by carbon emissions. The biggest producers of these so-called greenhouse gases are the energy and transportation industries.
Viewed by nations, the United States is the biggest producer of carbon emissions. Current efforts under the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions have set very minimal goals, which the U.S. government has refused to adopt.
As Pearman has pointed out, “swift action” is needed to save millions of people from intense suffering as a result of global climate change. Capitalism has no incentive to act to prevent such suffering because the practice of creating emissions—largely unfettered by regulations—is still profitable.
Socialism—a system based on economic planning for the greater good—is the only way that we can save millions from needless hunger and drought.
