Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Rice yields falling under global warming


Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come.

Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.

The group of mainly US-based scientists studied records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and China.

This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population by cutting yields.

Climate Change is such an obvious phenomenon now, with so much evidence clearly showing that the climate is changing and that we will have to adapt accordingly, that you have to wonder why people still want to argue.

On the one hand it is all us, we are the ones changing the climate and we should do everything in our power to slow the process down giving us more time to develop solutions that will ensure that ourselves and/or as many species as possible don't become extinct as a direct result of our actions.

Or; if it isn't us and the climate change is instead a direct result of natural changes, ice age cycles, volcanic dust clouds, etc. then surely it makes even more sense for us to start making the necessary changes to our technologies and resource use to ensure that we don't exacerbate these changes with our own man-made causes. Ultimately giving us more time to develop solutions that will ensure that ourselves and/or as many species as possible don't become extinct as a result of our actions.

Sigh.

Read the Article

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