Global Warming Threatens Many Region's Agricultural Viability

Rising global temperatures imperils long-term food production not only in southern Asia and Africa, but within two generations, China and Latin America as well. Meanwhile, substantial ocean acidification could threaten oceanic aquaculture, especially in sensitive species.

Of course, the series of agricultural disasters which have hit the world in the last 15 months have already been epic in their regional impacts. As I have said in the recent past...

"The droughts in Russia, the flooding in Pakistan, the drought in western Australia and the floods in eastern Australia, the desertification of cropland in China, the collapse of the "fossil" water tables in India... combined with more minor events, such as the Midwestern ice storm affecting winter wheat in the U.S., and major damage to vegetables in Mexico and southern China, these suggest a planet whose agriculture is already in crisis. In many less wealthy nations, people normally spend up to half of their income on food, and food prices have risen dramatically in the last year."
A number of the "potential, long-term impacts" of climate change already seem to be upon us, whether agricultural disruptions or wildly unpredictable and often dangerous weather. As individual harvests are destroyed on a national basis, and events such as half-mile-wide tornadoes hammer American towns, perhaps we should remember that according to the scientific community, climate change has still barely made an impact compared to the effects that a global heat-up of another degree or two would create.

Given how harsh these -- relatively mild -- events have been so far, perhaps we should change our path before we can find out fierce nature can be when she means business?