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Global warming will severely damage crop output in tropical regions and deprive half the world of food by the century-end, according to a study.

The population of the equatorial belt will bear the brunt of unprecedented shortages, home to the poorest on earth.

Currently three billion people live in the tropics and subtropics, and their number is expected to nearly double by the end of the century. The area stretches from the southern US to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia and all of Africa.

In the tropics, the higher temperatures can be expected to cut yields of the primary food crops, maize and rice, by 20 to 40 percent, the researchers said. But rising temperatures also are likely to play havoc with soil moisture, cutting yields even further.

“The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn’t take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures,” said David Battisti, University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor, co-author of the study.

He collaborated with Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford University’s Programme on Food Security and the Environment, to examine the impact of climate change on the world’s food security.

By combining direct observations with data from 23 global climate models that contributed to Nobel prize-winning research in 2007, Battisti and Naylor determined that there is greater than a 90 percent probability that by 2100 the lowest growing-season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics will be higher than any temperatures recorded there to date.

They used the data as a filter to view historic instances of severe food insecurity, and concluded that such instances are likely to become more commonplace.

Those include severe episodes in France in 2003 and Ukraine in 1972. In the case of Ukraine, a near-record heat wave reduced wheat yields and contributed to disruptions in the global cereal market that lasted two years.

The serious climate issues won’t be limited to the tropics, the scientists conclude. As an example, they cite record temperatures that struck Western Europe in June, July and August of 2003, killing an estimated 52,000 people.

The summer-long heat wave in France and Italy cut wheat yields and fodder production by one-third. In France alone, temperatures were nearly 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term mean, and the scientists say such temperatures could be normal for France by 2100, said a Washington release.

“This is a compelling reason for us to invest in adaptation, because it is clear that this is the direction we are going in terms of temperature and it will take decades to develop new food crop varieties that can better withstand a warmer climate,” Naylor said.

Brown clouds of pollution are hanging over Asia, making “cities from Beijing to New Delhi” darker, melting glaciers in ranges like the Himalayas faster and turning weather systems more extreme, the UN said on Thursday.

Formed as a result of burning of fossil fuels and biomass, the Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs), made of soot and other manmade particles, are more than three km-thick, said a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The layer that stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the western Pacific Ocean, are in some cases and regions aggravating the impacts of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, a team of experts drawn from research centres in Asia, including China and India, said.

Globally, however, brown clouds may be countering or “masking” the effects of climate change by between 20 and up to 80 percent, said the report.

The cloud is having impacts on air quality and agriculture in Asia increasing risks to human health and food production for three billion people.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UNEP, said: “I expect the Atmospheric Brown Cloud to be now firmly on the international community’s radar as a result of today’s report”.

The five regional hotspots for ABCs identified in the report includes the Indo-Gangetic plains in South Asia from the northwest and northeast regions of eastern Pakistan across India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, the UNEP said in a press statement.

New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai feature in the list of 13 megacities where ABCs are reducing the sunlight hitting the Earth’s surface, making the cities “darker or dimmer”.

“‘Dimming’ of between 10-25 percent is occurring over cities such as Karachi, Beijing, Shanghai and New Delhi,” said the ‘Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Regional Assessment Report with Focus on Asia’.

For India as a whole, the dimming trend has been running at about two percent per decade between 1960 and 2000 — more than doubling between 1980 and 2004, the report said.

“In China the observed dimming trend from the 1950s to the 1990s was about 3-4 percent per decade, with the larger trends after the 1970s,” it said.

At the same time, ABCs shield the surface from sunlight by reflecting solar radiation back to space and by absorbing heat in the atmosphere. “Global temperature rises — linked with greenhouse gas emissions — may currently be between 20 per cent and 80 percent less as a result of brown clouds around the world,” said the report.

If brown clouds were eliminated overnight, this could trigger a rapid global temperature rise of as much as to 2 degrees C. “Thus simply tackling the pollution linked with brown cloud formation without simultaneously delivering big cuts in greenhouse gases could have a potentially disastrous effect,” it said.

The masking of greenhouse warming by ABCs may in part be the explanation for the lack of a strong warming trend over India since the 1950s during the dry season.

The study also highlighted the impact on weather patterns and glaciers, noting overall decrease in monsoon precipitation over India since the 1950s and the fact that glaciers in India such as the Siachen, Gangotri and Chhota Shigiri are retreating at rates of between 10 and 25 metres a year.

The report also said that elevated regions of the Himalayas within 100 km of Mount Everest experience large black carbon concentrations ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand nano grammes per cubic metre.

South Asia’s tourism industry is in jeopardy, with reports indicating that the endangered great one-horned rhinoceros is in dire straits in Nepal.

According to a report carried out in a website, the Rhino is being driven out of its natural habitat in search of food into the hands of illegal poachers.

A meeting of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group in Nepal said that the massive animal’s feeding grounds were being invaded by “exotic species” of weeds and wild plants and the rhino could soon run out of natural fodder.

“Grassland is being invaded by weeds and other unwanted plants that are not suitable for rhinos,” Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, co-chairman of the group said from the Chitwan National Park, home to 408 rhinos.

“We have to concentrate on how best to control the weeds and for this we have to intensify research,” he added.

The endangered animal, whose numbers have been rising in Nepal and India, is found mostly in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, and in southwestern Nepal.

“The weeds and wild plants are an exotic species and how it came we don’t know. It is spreading fast in the habitat and we are looking into the reasons now,” said Shyam Bajimaya, an expert with Nepal’s national parks.

Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, located 81 km (51 miles) southwest of Kathmandu, is the second-biggest home for the rhinos after the Kaziranga National Park in the Indian state of Assam, which has 1,855 animals.

According to Talukdar, the number of rhinos in the Indian park has risen from about 1,200 in 1999, helped by a reduction in poaching. The rhino population in Chitwan was also on the rise.

Scientists have snapped the first images of a planet outside our solar system that is orbiting a star very much like the sun.

Nearly all of the roughly 300 so-called extra-solar planets discovered to date have been detected using indirect methods such as changes observed in a star when a planet orbits directly in front of it from the perspective of Earth.

But in findings announced on Monday, University of Toronto scientists said they used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take direct pictures of the planet, which is about the size of Jupiter but with eight times the mass.

It is also much hotter than Jupiter, they said.

This planet and the star it seems to orbit are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 500 light years from Earth, the scientists said. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, or the distance light travels in a year.

“It’s always been a goal to take a picture of a planet around another star. The challenge, of course, is that planets are much, much fainter than stars,” Ray Jayawardhana, one of the scientists, said in a telephone interview.

Of all known extra-solar planets, this one is orbiting the furthest from its star. It is located roughly 11 times further from its star than Neptune — the outermost planet in our solar system — is located from the sun, the scientists said.

They said they are working to confirm that the planet is indeed orbiting this star as it appears, but it may take up to two years to get that data.

“The star is very typical. It’s like the sun, just younger. But the planet is quite unusual. It’s on the high end of the mass of the extra-solar planets found so far. And it’s also very far away from its star,” Jayawardhana added.

Before this, the only planets or similar objects that have been directly imaged outside of the solar system were either free-floating in space and not orbiting a star, or orbiting a brown dwarf, a failed star that did not reach the mass necessary to spark the nuclear fusion typical of a star.

The scientists said they benefited from technology that reduces distortions from turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere.

Jayawardhana said the scientists have evidence of water and carbon monoxide in the planet’s atmosphere. The planet is not thought to be a good candidate for extraterrestrial life because it appears to be a gas giant, a type of planet inhospitable to life, and because it is too young.

The star is considered a newborn, forming an estimated 5 million years ago. The sun is about 4-1/2 billion years old.

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would it help with water if people wouldn’t throw away bottles with any liquid it like empty your entire water bottle out before you throw it away or pop bottles or instead of throwing out cans that expired or things like that let out everything?? because people are talking about water conservation. well everything that goes down the drain gets treated and then out into the atmosphere again things like bottles and what not it may get trapped in there and then just goes into a dump.. so why not just empty everything out and worry about that instead of showers and things along those lines… what do you think??

It would make more of a difference not using bottled water. It takes a lot more water and energy to make the bottles, fill them and transport than a drink from your faucet.

The action you are talking about would probably amount to maybe a quart of water per day per person. Taking 1 minute off of your shower can save 10-20 gallons. Not flushing once per day can save from 1.6- 5 gallons. Watering you lawn on alternate days can save up to 1000 gallons.

So I say switch to tap water, get a filter if you feel you need to and conserve water in other ways. Anyone who recycles knows they want every drop of liquid out of the bottles before they will accept them.

http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac…

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I agree. all these people who answered this going against you, i would love to see them getting chased by a polar bear. Then see if they have the same answer then

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Hey, we need the nasty and dangerous animals to keep the cute and cuddly ones’ populations under control. Look at deer for example, we have more of them in the U.S. today than when the pilgrims landed. There are so many that they are a danger on roads and many are underfed and sickly. Wonder what happened to all their nasty and dangerous natural predators??
So, save the polar bears, and sharks too.

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Like “coal” it could solve alot of our problems and buy us alot of time

I dunno. I prefer the 7 letter word Uranium (or Nuclear), which buys a few hundred years. It’s just that people are to dumb to realise that modern powerplants aren’t like Chernobyl. They can’t meltdown.

Besides, coal still mean CO2 output, nuclear power doesn’t.

Who still relies with the old fashion of carrying the plastic or the easily damaging paper bags? Certainly no one … biodegradable bags are the best and exclusive variety of bags that will help you to carry your loads of purchase during your massive shopping. Organic tote bags are completely safe, and they are not made out of chemicals, and other phosphates. You can visit any of the retail stores, or even surf with the net to find the best quality certified Organic tote bags.

The sports bottles are generally recycled and they are absolutely eco-friendly. These bottles are greatly used during the time of biking or hiking. They bottle come in different size and shape ranging from 9, 20, and other different cap size. The recycled sports bottles come along with their brand logos and some bottles have straps and clips for easy handling. Green promotional products are generally not distinctive with its real color, but they are usually described to be as “Green” in color. The green promotional products are made in such way, and it never harms the environment at any cost. They are undoubtedly environmental friendly and in the present business sphere, green have been the most publicized awareness and they push the real urge of active concern in mending the polluted and bruised earth.

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when you’re not using it, will it save you money on your electric bill?

Yes, most, if not all appliances use some electricity when unplugged; even phone chargers do so. However, don’t go unplugging your oven or refrigerator, obviously. But microwaves and many small appliances can make a big difference. After a month of my parentals nagging me about always having to plug things back in, they let it be after the electric bill was a whopping $35 less. Happy conserving!

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Many appliances are on standby - for example, a TV is actively waiting for a signal from the remote and power is used to operate this continual monitoring. The amount used is small, but adds up over a year. Total up computers, chargers, VCRs, and DVDS and it can cost you a months power every year.

Turn them off overnight.

House fires can also start from faulty appliances - but not when switched off at the wall.

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we need to get recycle bins for the lunchroom. we waste so many cans and plastic bottles. how can i get teachers and other students interested?

If you’re able to start clubs at your school, start a “Mother Earth” club, that’s what I did. I found a teacher to be our sponsor and then we called around and got the garbage companies to donate some recycling cans. BUT before we got the official cans, there were just regular trashcans (with lids) that had little holes in them so that aluminum cans could go into them…later we learned that plastic could also be combined. But we just put up some posters that reminded people to recycle, and then on the trashcan itself (laminated) we had signs that said, “Only cans + plastic bottles”

PLUS, at our school we have an “environmental science” class, so they were a big help and the students in there got a BUNCH of boxes and so in every classroom there’s a box for plastic/aluminum/glass, and one for paper, and this was before we even got the “official” bins…and I’m pretty sure there was a recycling dumpster. ANYWAYS, the kids in that class would come around once a week and recycle everything in the boxes. So, you don’t need to have anything official, I think as long as you’ve got a recycling dumpster (if not, call school’s garbage company, see if they can donate one or give you one for cheaper) then you’ll be just fine.
And trust me, I know how frustrating it is to see just how much waste piles up after lunches, but it’s awesome to see you interested in helping fix the problem.