Global Warming Could Slam Food Supply - ABC (Actual Headline!)

[hatrack]

EDIT

The threat to the state's $30 billion agriculture industry has farmers and legislators battling over differing ideas about how to deal with what climatologists tell them future temperatures in the Golden State will likely be before mid-century. In the very short term, a number of food prices will be creeping up over the next few months as the impact of the 21-day double heat wave of 2006 works its way from withered fields to the market shelves.

In that double heat wave, Fresno County, Calif., alone suffered $85 million in beef, dairy and poultry losses. That's not surprising, as they had 20 days exceeding 100 degrees, including three consecutive days of 113 degrees.

Scientists have linked this latest heat assault to man-made global warming in a number of ways, most simply because it fit exactly the global warming pattern of more frequent and more intense heat waves predicted 30 years ago.

Scientists now calculate that man-made global warming makes the chances of events such as the deadly 2003 European heat wave, which killed more than 35,000 people, twice as likely — and that by 2040 Europe could well experience such serious heat waves every other year.

EDIT

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/GlobalWarming/story?id=2277893&page=1

[bananas]

1. How will it affect the California rice paddies?

http://www.daviswiki.org/Rice_Paddies

[Dead_Parrot]

2. ...

[kestrel91316]

3. What geniuses............maybe now they FINALLY GET IT. Sigh.

[smirkymonkey]

4. This is how I think the human race will start dying out.

It will start w/ massive crop failures, diseased animals, oceanic dead zones - which will all affect the worlds food supply. Combine that with oil and water shortages and we are doomed as a species.

[cezebrgr]

5. This is when the human race starts to adapt. We learned to...

Speak just before the last ice age.

[smirkymonkey]

6. You think we will adapt to living with no food or drinkable water?

I don't think everyone will die out, but I expect the herd to thin out quite a bit.

[niallmac]

7. The question I have is will there be humans left

after all the catastrophe business is over. We will be facing famine, disease
floods, droughts and the spasm of global wars that only humans can inflict upon themselves so well. Thinning of the herd,
I should say so.

[mccoyn]

11. An evolutionary adaption requires thinning of the herd.

We have, for a very long time had the ability to technologically adapt. We may be pressing the limits of that though.

[femrap]

9. So please people.....think very seriously about

reproducing. Tell your children and grandchildren to think very seriously about reproducing. Bringing children into a world that is dying is not a nice thing to do.

Tell them to adopt or get a pet.

[progressoid]

10. Don't forget about the wars that will erupt over arable land and

potable water.

The pentagon has been taking this seriously for a long time.

[niallmac]

8. One thing to keep in mind about "scientists now calculate"

We have never been here before. We humans have no experience with what is happening now.
Melting of the polar regions was fabulously mis calculated. (see Gores Movie.)
We are dealing with the laws of exponential chaos at some point.

The 'ol computer model is not the Holy Grail.

All I am saying is don't decide how long to subscribe to your
magazines based on what "scientists now calculate."

I guarantee they will 'now calculate' something different next year and the
year after that.

We are living this crap shoot by the seat of our pants.'