LONDON — More than half of all the world’s maize crops and around a third of all wheat and rice will be grown in regions vulnerable to climate change in the next 50 to 100 years, according to new research.
At the same time, the world’s population will grow to 9 billion, and global food production will need to rise by from 60% to 110% by 2050 to keep up with demand.
Such changes will inevitably hit the poorest nations hardest, and will put at hazard the planet’s remaining wilderness areas and the surviving wild plants and animals that keep ecosystems stable.
But a second study argues that humans could have it both ways: they could produce enough food and still support sustainable development, protect the environment and meet food security targets at the same time.
However, this would mean a change of diet for Western nations, and reducing meat consumption would be the simplest way to free up water and land resources.
Crops per hectare
Researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change, […]
I think a better way to go about sustaining humans nutritionally is to require a license to have a child and to limit people to one child per married couple. Unmarried people should be required to obtain a license when producing a child, and the named male should be unable to reproduce again. I know this sounds awful. But in order to keep stable ecosystems and wild places, and in order to feed the humans already here, for a couple of decades this has to be done. I don’t know how these restrictions turned out in China. But with birth control available, no one has to change their lifestyle in any other way. Everyone could eat. Everyone could enjoy the planet. And animals in the wild don’t have to be eliminated for people to survive. The the natural world is a lot more beautiful than cramped and overcrowded cities and starving populations. We have to step up to reality and deal with it.