A new report from the United Nations paints a bleak picture of the future of food.
The Global Food Supply is Delicate. Climate Change Is Making Things Worse.
- By itself, humanity is pushing the bounds of how much food can consumed.
- Climate change will significantly alter every aspect of food, from apples to steak.
- If humans can halt deforestation and alter food patterns, things could be way better, says the new UN report.
A new report on climate change and land use from the United Nations shows over-exploitation of land resources at a rate "unprecedented in human history." If there are no changes in humanity's attitudes toward land resources or climate change, the study says, there will be a dire threat to humanity's global food supply system.
The societal and environmental problems facing the world's food supply are vast and multi-faceted, according to the report's first chapter. They include the "conversion of natural ecosystems into managed land, rapid urbanization, pollution from the intensification of land management and equitable access to land resources," as well as "technological development, population growth and increasing per capita demand for multiple ecosystem services."
As a 2018 study showed, 100 years ago, humans used just 15 percent of the world's surface to grow crops and raise livestock. Excluding the frozen wastes of Antarctica, that number is now 77 percent.
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FOOD CRISIS IN TEN YEARS
