What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Carbon footprints today affect hunger in 2100
A study by David Battisti (University of Washington) found that higher global temperatures in the year 2100 could lead to a 20-40% loss in production of rice and maize (staple crops) in the tropics. As an example, a heat wave in France in 2003 caused wheat production to decrease by 33%. This suggests that higher temperatures wreak havoc in upper latitudes, too - and the study does not factor in loss of soil moisture. In addition, the UN estimates that Earth’s population will reach 11.2 billion by 2100, meaning that compared to today there will be more people to feed and less food with which to feed them. The tropics may be particularly hard-hit because their population is expected to double by 2100, and many residents earn less than $2 a day. These statistics offer a great example of short-term thinking - by creating food waste and consuming large amounts of meat or non local foods today, we are contributing to temperature rise through our carbon footprints. In th e future, this will result in a severe shortage of food of any type.
Source: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/jan … 11409.html