Climate Sunday: The IPCC Reminds Us that We are Shitting Where We Eat

This unlovely blog-post title brought to us courtesy of my Dad, who, dispairing of my chronically untidy ways as a youngster, advised me that it was only a sick animal that shits where it eats--in other words, cleanliness matters for survival. And it is very true, as the recent IPCC report lets out, that our love of dirty energy is going to impact our ability to eat.

Here's some of what they have to say:

Observed impacts relate mainly to production aspects of food security rather than access or other
components of food security. See Figure SPM.2C. Since AR4, several periods of rapid food and
cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions indicate a sensitivity
of current markets to climate extremes among other factors (medium confidence). 11 

Bold print mine--the deal is, the markets, the transportation, the rest of it, will be there--the food just won't be. Because crops can't grow when there's a drought condition that prevents those crops from growing. And changes in climate can also leave crops susceptible to disease.  This change because of global warming is being experienced sooner rather than later.  And as we all must be aware, food insecurity leads to political and social unrest. 

There's a real question whether our food production has been way too dependent on fossil fuels and industrial farming techniques.  I'd say it has, and add that we need to be more conscious of sustainability, even if that means contracting our food supply (a lot of which gets wasted, and, incidentally, adds to the carbon footprint) and even realizing that we might have to cope with falling, not rising populations. 

Humans are greatly adaptable, and I think we can survive. I think we just need to start really gaming out how we are going to.