Global Environmental Environment

After learning about the statistics of how much agriculture consumes our planet, I was appalled to see how destructive it is. Jonathan Foley put into perspective the increase and rapid demand for food. Agriculture alone consumes 40% of our land surface, 70% of our irrigation system, and

Over the next forty years, global population is expected to reach nine billion people. This increase in population, combined with expected economic growth, will cause an increase in food demanded and inevitably drain the resources we use for food production. So far, agriculture has been able to respond positively to the rising demand for crop and livestock products. However, farmers are already faced with many new challenges associated with feeding an expanding global population. Farmers must now meet strict new emissions requirements and produce more food on fewer acres while minimizing their environmental footprint. The demand for food is expected to grow substantially in the next couple decades. Some of the factors affecting an increase in food demands are population growth, rising incomes of individuals, food supply factors, and biofuels.

To conclude, our current way of agricultural life is not sustainable. The article “What’s for supper” has made me realize that if I hope for a better future for generations to come I should support a locally sourced lifestyle. This article is an eye opener to me and proved to me the importance of supporting locally grown produce. Locally grown produce supports the environment as well as jobs for people in the community. The current system takes a toll on every species on the planet. Humans are overproducing on a massive scale and are wasting close to half of our supplies and

In his paper, Pollan discusses the reliance on fossil fuels for agriculture, public health issues, and food security problems. He proposes policy that promotes alternative, local farming. Lyson describes a shift from craft to mass production, the consolidation of farms, and the disembedding of agriculture from the community. He discusses how civic economies challenge the market based agriculture system. Kloppenburg discusses how our current foodshed is built on a market economy and distances people from their food sources. Berry describes the problems of land consolidation, the industrialization of agriculture, and a culture of distancing people from farms. He proposes instituting more community based food systems. Although these authors discuss important economic, social, and environmental problems

As the growth rate of the population steadily increases, a surge in consumption of commodities will additionally increase . One basic commodity that will have an escalated demand would be food. Innovation within technology has allowed the process of mass production of goods. Production of goods on a large scale allows farmers to meet the needs of the majority of consumers capitalizing on market share. In order to meet consumers forever growing needs, land must be acquired in order to generate new farms for agriculture. Although the needs of consumers are being meet, the act of mass production of agricultural is contributing to the destruction of our planet. Consumers need to be aware of the repercussions of mass production on a global scale, in order to create a sustainable outcome while still continuing to let needs be met. With contributing factors of global warming , the population needs to be informed of harmful processes through agricultural farming such as deforestation, livestock, and crop emissions.

Today’s world is facing many challenges given the growing concerns and current repercussions of environmental climate change and demands of a growing global population. Not only is climate change effecting the worlds ecosystems, human health and fresh water resources, it is drastically effecting the worlds agriculture. Unpredictable weather such, as rising temperatures, colder temperatures, excessive flooding, and droughts are just a few of the increasing weather instabilities, which are challenging and threatening today’s agriculture growth and production. As such, crop yields continue to decline and present a risk to future food security. As a world, we are facing an adaptation deficit leaving us very vulnerable and thus, we must seek to

With the global climate rising, human population progressively increasing, and our current administration peeling away environmental regulations, taking care of our earth has become more of a priority than ever before. A growing issue is finding a sustainable agriculture method: one that meets society’s food needs whilst also keeping in mind future generations to come. Finding an efficient and effecte solution has been a controversy for years. The debate stems from the idea of survival versus morality and preservation. Regardless of conflicting views and standpoints, the issue regarding agricultural practices affects all.

One of the widely discussed issues, nowadays, we must tackle sooner rather than later is scarcity of food on our planet. Today our population growth is rising , and as Jonathan Foley says “ In 2050 there will be nine billion people in Earth “. Our planet does not have sufficient amount of food to feed whole world’s population. It is obvious that, the planet has a problem with the food supply to 2050 and to rectify this problem we need to stop expanding land, increase crops on land that we already have, use water efficiently, use less animal products, and to save food- as Jonathan Foley suggests in “ Feeding Nine Billion “. I feel fearful, but I do not want to change my habits.

Many people have heard or seen the commercials about how a farmer feeds 155 people in today’s world vs 28 people in years past (http://www.sdcorn.org). Farmers need to produce more food in the next 40 years than in the previous 10,000 years combined. According to the United Nations, 1 billion people across the globe suffer from chronic hunger today. This number is expected to dramatically increase as the world’s population grows to a projected 9 billion by 2050, requiring a 70 percent increase in the amount of food the world’s farmers produce annually (). The problem the world faces is how to feed the ever-growing population off of diminishing acres of farm land. It is urgent that the world comes together to form a plan to control the amount of land consumed by urban sprawl.

As the human population continues to grow exponentially, researchers like David Jenkins, are looking into other possible food production. Jenkins proposes that eating plants would not only be beneficial for the body, since it lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, but it would also be more sustainable than raising meat. Jenkins’ research highlights three dietary methods and he explains how these dietary methods (especially Simian) can help us feed 9 billion in 2050. With the exponential growth in human population, there must be an increase in livestock (meat) to support the rapid growth. Jenkins’ data show that already livestock feed processing and production heavily contributes in the emission of greenhouse gases. Jenkins’ proposal is that

Global sustainability is multi-faceted topic and is very complex. However, at its essence, global sustainability is defined as using your resources wisely today to give your children a better life tomorrow. It is the balance between using enough to develop right now but leaving enough for future generations. For example, if we were only looking at preserving the environment and not developing it, we might use none of the resources and leave them to be. But the problem with that is that then there is no resources for us to use. On the other hand, if we were just looking to develop the land, we would use all of our resources, but then there would be no more left for the future. Thus, I want our

A 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the Himalayan glaciers were rapidly eroding and could dissipate as early as 2035. The global scientific community and the millions of residents in South East Asia that depend on the glacier's reservoirs for survival spent the next several years anticipating the effects of the change in global temperature that was deemed the cause of the dilemma.

By the end of this century, the planet world will be home to more than 11 billion people. Feeding all of them in a truly sustainable way remains undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of this generation. The population boom is sometimes feared as one of the major leading problems to the food security and malnutrition issue; this essay analysis shows that the reasons many suspects are not entirely true; it’s not the number, nor is it about enough land. The world has already what’s required to produce enough food, but doing it at an acceptable cost to the planet will depend on dramatic changes from how we eat, what we grow and how we do it. There is a need driven by the global political will to adopt and incorporate best ideas and strategies from successful existing and previous practices; green revolution, small-large agriculture, organic and local agriculture all combined with new innovations systems that focus on sustainable food production.

Throughout the majority of earth’s history, the environment influenced all living organisms. Not until the relatively recent evolution of human beings have we seen life effect the earth’s environment. This human influence comes with great responsibility since our negligence can negatively alter the environment we require to survive. By polluting our basic necessities, we will end up causing our own extinction. Polluting the air we breathe with toxins can lead to respiratory disease and cancer. Likewise, polluting our water with bacteria and parasites, developing waterborne diseases, will make it undrinkable. Even though these are serious issues, the public has a deep detachment that occurs when talking about our influence on the environment. For example, when environmental advocates preach to save the earth most people detach themselves from the problem by thinking that they will not be affected by this issue. However, ‘save the earth’ really means ‘save humanity and all other life on earth.’ The planet will not disappear, but the changing environment will be unable to sustain life. Additionally, the increase in floods, heatwaves, and droughts are all a warning sign and not a coincidence as some choose to believe. This miscommunication and misinformation results in negligence and apathy by the residents of earth. The science community needs to take the lead in properly educating the public to create an involved community. Although public engagement is not a priority for

As a result, climate change and its impacts are evident at both global and local scales (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2014). According to the Ontario Centre for Climate Impacts and Adaptation Resources (OCCAR), climate change impacts have induced negative consequences to the agricultural sectors as crops are highly sensitive to regional climatic conditions (OCCAR, 2011). Since agriculture is a fundamental sector as it generates food-crops to sustain the world’s populations as well as contributes billions of GDP to the nations’ economies each year, it is recommended that preventive mechanisms and adaptive measures to climate variations are to be implemented.