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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(4)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(10)
Resource Depletion: (4)
Biology Breach:(7)
Recovery:(3)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change  ~ deniers  ~ koyaanisqatsi  ~ efficiency increase  ~ oil issues  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ economic myopia  ~ carbon emissions  ~ food crisis  ~ stupid humans  ~ short-term thinking  



ApocaDocuments (3) matching "food crisis" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "food crisis"]
Sun, Nov 7, 2010
from Los Angeles Times:
Grim outlook for grizzlies in Yellowstone region
With milder winters affecting their food and hibernation habits, they're forced into a meat-dependent diet -- putting them at odds with humans and livestock. They could end up as despised as wolves. It's been a bad year for grizzly bears, and, if forecasts prove correct, it's only going to get worse. The tally of grizzly deaths in the states bordering the greater Yellowstone region is fast approaching the worst on record. And that's before the numbers come in from the current hunting season, a time when accidental grizzly shootings are traditionally high. Here in Wyoming, more bears were killed this year than ever, including a bear shot by a hunter last week. A number of complex factors are believed to be working against grizzlies, including climate change. Milder winters have allowed bark beetles to decimate the white-bark pine, whose nuts are a critical food source for grizzlies. Meanwhile, there has been a slight seasonal shift for plants that grizzlies rely on when they prepare to hibernate and when they emerge in the spring, changing the creatures' denning habits. ...


I'm not sure any organisms -- other than invasive species -- are having much of a year.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Nov 2, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Expanding Croplands Decreasing World's Carbon Sinks
Nature's capacity to store carbon, the element at the heart of global climate woes, is steadily eroding as the world's farmers expand croplands at the expense of native ecosystem such as forests. The tradeoff between agricultural production and maintaining nature's carbon reservoirs -- native trees, plants and their carbon-rich detritus in the soil -- is becoming more pronounced as more and more of the world's natural ecosystems succumb to the plow. The problem, experts say, is most acute in the tropics, where expanding agriculture often comes at the expense of the tropical forests that act as massive carbon sinks because of their rich diversity and abundance of plant life. The seriousness of the problem is documented in the most comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of the world's existing carbon stocks and global crop yields. The study is published online this in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota, Stanford University, Arizona State University and The Nature Conservancy.... "The main news is that agricultural production by clearing land in the tropics releases a lot of greenhouse gases per unit of food produced." ...


"Eating ourselves out of house and home" takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Nov 1, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Scientists Prepare for Confined Field Trials of Life-Saving Drought-Tolerant Transgenic Maize
Crop specialists in Kenya and Uganda have laid the groundwork for confined field trials to commence later this year for new varieties of maize genetically modified to survive recurrent droughts that threaten over 300 million Africans for whom maize is life, according to a speech given Oct. 14 by the head of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) at the World Food Prize Symposium, being held in Des Moines, Iowa.... Scientists working with AATF believe it's important to explore the potential of biotechnology to maintain and increase food production in Africa, given the large number of families dependent on maize, and warnings that maize yields could drop dramatically as climate change increases drought frequency and severity across the continent. There is preliminary evidence that the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) varieties, which were developed through a public-private partnership, could provide yields 24-35 percent higher than what farmers are now growing.... The push to develop drought-tolerant varieties has been given added urgency by threats likely to come from climate change.... If the transgenic corn is found to be safe and successful, the new varieties will be made available to smallholder farmers royalty-free. Under its agreement with its partners, any approved varieties would be licensed to AATF, which would then distribute to farmers through local seed supplies at a price competitive with other types of maize seed. The project partners expect that pricing will not be influenced by the requirement to pay royalties, as none of the partners will receive any royalty payment from seed companies for the drought tolerant lines/transgenic trait incorporating their intellectual property protected technology. ...


Transgenics developed without a profit motive? Monsanto must be pissed.

ApocaDoc
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