"GlobalWarming" news and stories

If you were planning to break the records and live well into your 100's, you might want to rethink that plan. USA Today reports that there's a new doomsday study making waves from Science.

Basically, the study states that the Earth will keep warming to the point where our hottest seasons on record will become the norm, and thus drastically reduce crop yields -- meaning a "disastrous food shortage for billions of people by the end of this century."

The piece does include naysayers, but even they don't necessarily offer a future-full-o-food scenario. Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute says that the agriculture industry will adapt -- citing the US increase in crops as temperatures rose. And Linda Mearns, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it will be "less grim."

Less grim. How's that for a comforting thought?

Said to have aphrodisiac properties, this fragile species is suffering from drought on Southern European farms and will continue to suffer if predicted temperature increases come to fruition.

But as Southern farms are suffering, some Northern plantations are thriving from the increase in temperature (truffles are very sensitive to both frost and drought). But by the end of the century, scientists predict that in Toulose, France, temperatures will exceed 95 degrees F on 25-55 days out of the year (currently, it's only that hot about four days out of the year).

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I haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet, so I don't know if Al Gore covers this, but it looks like one of the biggest contributors to global warming is the food we eat and the processes that give us that food.

According to this press release from the Bon Appetit Management Company, "the average American creates 2.8 tons of CO2 emissions each year by eating - even more than the 2.2 tons each person generates by driving." The company is pushing a "Low Carbon Diet" and trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The first "Low Carbon Diet Day" will be held next April.

So the moral to the story? Just stop eating completely and drive your car more, you selfish jerks!

It appears that global warming may not be that bad on our food plants. According to New Zealand scientists, who are writing a report for the UN on ozone layer depletion and its consequences, plants are developing a protective layer.

This poisonous layer acts as a shield against harmful ultraviolet rays. It is a pigment that can be toxic to predators and help with disease prevention thus reducing, they suggest, the use of pesticides and fungicides. They are are not sure if these toxins have a negative effect on us and what effect they may have across the whole food chain; so maybe not that good.

Like everything connected with global warming no one seems to know for sure. What most agree on though is that while the pollution that causes ozone depletion is declining, the warming of the atmosphere will see a continuing thinning of the ozone layer across the world.

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