Sunday, August 26, 2012

necessary changes may force necessary changes


Water shortages in coming years, combined with a growing world population, could easily force changes in humanity's dietary habits within the next few decades.

In an article in the Sunday Guardian, Environmental Editor John Vidal tells us Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortage.

One of the biggest factors contributing to world hunger today is the amount of grain fed to cattle and other meat animals, an inefficient way to use a resource under stress. The article goes on to say: Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit.

This is one of those cases when we can see that the unavoidable pressures brought to bear by reality will inevitably crush fantasy, delusion, and their spawn, the various manifestations of political backwardness such as global warming denial.

Hey, that's reality.

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