Is the world being destroyed?

She has some solutions to avert the oncoming crisis: reform the agricultural industries in Africa and India by changing how farmers farm, how people buy and consume food, decrease food waste, improve infrastructure, and increase farm yields exponentially. But she also emphasized the importance of data to inform and influence this decision-making process. (...) "We have the solution. We just need to act on it."

She is claiming that Oxfam is saying will "run out of food by 2050". This is simply a lie.

The factual basis of this ridiculous articles are made up.

By 2023, the population in China, India, and Africa will combine to make up over half the world’s population. Africa already has to import food, and by 2023, India, which currently doesn’t import food, will have to start.

You are also missing the incredible progress we have made in the past 50 years.

There was a dramatic worsening of world hunger in 2020, the United Nations said today – much of it likely related to the fallout of COVID-19. While the pandemic’s impact has yet to be fully mapped, a multi-agency report estimates that around a tenth of the global population – up to 811 million people – were undernourished last year. The number suggests it will take a tremendous effort for the world to honour its pledge to end hunger by 2030.

This year’s edition ofThe State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is the first global assessment of its kind in the pandemic era. The report is jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Previous editions had already put the world on notice that the food security of millions – many children among them – was at stake. “Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to expose weaknesses in our food systems, which threaten the lives and livelihoods of people around the world,” the heads of the five UN agencies write in this year’s Foreword.

They go on to warn of a “critical juncture,” even as they pin fresh hopes on increased diplomatic momentum. “This year offers a unique opportunity for advancing food security and nutrition through transforming food systems with the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the COP26 on climate change.” “The outcome of these events,” the five add, “will go on to shape the […] second half of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition” – a global policy commitment yet to hit its stride.

The numbers in detail

Already in the mid-2010s, hunger had started creeping upwards, dashing hopes of irreversible decline. Disturbingly, in 2020 hunger shot up in both absolute and proportional terms, outpacing population growth: some 9.9 percent of all people are estimated to have been undernourished last year, up from 8.4 percent in 2019.

More than half of all undernourished people (418 million) live in Asia; more than a third (282 million) in Africa; and a smaller proportion (60 million) in Latin America and the Caribbean. But the sharpest rise in hunger was in Africa, where the estimated prevalence of undernourishment – at 21 percent of the population – is more than double that of any other region.

On other measurements too, the year 2020 was sombre. Overall, more than 2.3 billion people (or 30 percent of the global population) lacked year-round access to adequate food: this indicator – known as the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity – leapt in one year as much in as the preceding five combined. Gender inequality deepened: for every 10 food-insecure men, there were 11 food-insecure women in 2020 (up from 10.6 in 2019).

Malnutrition persisted in all its forms, with children paying a high price: in 2020, over 149 million under-fives are estimated to have been stunted, or too short for their age; more than 45 million – wasted, or too thin for their height; and nearly 39 million – overweight. A full three-billion adults and children remained locked out of healthy diets, largely due to excessive costs. Nearly a third of women of reproductive age suffer from anaemia. Globally, despite progress in some areas – more infants, for example, are being fed exclusively on breast milk – the world is not on track to achieve targets for any nutrition indicators by 2030.

Other hunger and malnutrition drivers

In many parts of the world, the pandemic has triggered brutal recessions and jeopardized access to food. Yet even before the pandemic, hunger was spreading; progress on malnutrition lagged. This was all the more so in nations affected by conflict, climate extremes or other economic downturns, or battling high inequality – all of which the report identifies as major drivers of food insecurity, which in turn interact.

On current trends, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World estimates that Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger by 2030) will be missed by a margin of nearly 660 million people. Of these 660 million, some 30 million may be linked to the pandemic’s lasting effects.

What can (still) be done

As outlined in last year’s report, transforming food systems is essential to achieve food security, improve nutrition and put healthy diets within reach of all. This year’s edition goes further to outline six “transformation pathways”. These, the authors say, rely on a “coherent set of policy and investment portfolios” to counteract the hunger and malnutrition drivers.

Depending on the particular driver (or combination of drivers) confronting each country, the report urges policymakers to:

• Integrate humanitarian, development and peacebuilding policies in conflict areas – for example, through social protection measures to prevent families from selling meagre assets in exchange for food;
• Scale up climate resilience across food systems – for example, by offering smallholder farmers wide access to climate risk insurance and forecast-based financing;
• Strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable to economic adversity – for example, through in-kind or cash support programmes to lessen the impact of pandemic-style shocks or food price volatility;
• Intervene along supply chains to lower the cost of nutritious foods – for example, by encouraging the planting of biofortified crops or making it easier for fruit and vegetable growers to access markets;
• Tackle poverty and structural inequalities – for example, by boosting food value chains in poor communities through technology transfers and certification programmes;
• Strengthen food environments and changing consumer behaviour – for example, by eliminating industrial trans fats and reducing the salt and sugar content in the food supply, or protecting children from the negative impact of food marketing.

The report also calls for an “enabling environment of governance mechanisms and institutions” to make transformation possible. It enjoins policymakers to consult widely; to empower women and youth; and to expand the availability of data and new technologies. Above all, the authors urge, the world must act now – or watch the drivers of hunger and malnutrition recur with growing intensity in coming years, long after the shock of the pandemic has passed.

Walter, this is ridiculous. This article claims that "agricultural production has almosthalved since 1990"

Hightor doesn't get to pretend that he is on the side of the UN on this one.

What you are going is mixing these three things.

The prediction that Washington DC would be abandoned made me laugh.

Last week there was good news about renewables and about fusion power. You had none of that. You ignore news about reforestation or poverty reduction.

I am here to push back against a political ideology that exaggerates risks and ignores facts to paint an extreme narrative.

These apocalyptic doom and gloom stories don't do anyone any good.

Was it saying it was good news?

Being a fish was never easy, but a new paper reports that it’s been getting harder over the last 15 years or so. According to the findings, oxygen levels are dropping in the depths of the oceans, forcing fish to move ever closer to the surface.
New research from the University of California – Santa Barbara and the University of South Carolina is warning us that fish are slowly drowning. Changes in ecology, as well as the effects of climate change on seasonal patterns, water temperature, and its gradient over different depths, have been causing deeper layers of the ocean to lose their dissolved oxygen content. This, in turn, is forcing fish to either move closer to the surface, or asphyxiate.

It may seem like a trivial matter, but this shift is causing wide-scale changes in marine ecosystems and could have a very real impact on the health of the ocean as a whole. It also raises important questions for fishery management and conservation efforts, with the authors underscoring the importance of accounting for this shift with policy to avoid further damaging marine ecosystems.

Swimming out of breath

“This study finds that oxygen is declining at all the depths we surveyed: from 50 meters to 350 meters,” said lead author Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, “and so fish seem to be moving up to shallower regions to get to an area where the oxygen is relatively higher.”

The findings are based on 15 years’ worth of recordings, surveys, and measurements. These included measurements of dissolved oxygen in samples of water taken at varying depths, of temperature, salinity, and surveys of the average depth at which certain fish species tend to congregate. A total of 60 different species of fish were encountered often enough during these 15 years to be statistically relevant and included in the study.

Data was collected on a yearly basis, every fall, from 1995 through to 2009. The team focused on three reef features between the Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands in Southern California. These were the Anacapa Passage area, with an average depth of 50m, a seamount known as the “Footprint”, at around 150m, and the “Piggy Bank”, with an average depth of around 300m. During the surveys, the team identified all fish species that came within two meters of the submarine or were visible and within two meters of the seafloor. They also estimated the length of each individual fish.

During this time, they saw depth changes in 23 species. Four of these shifted towards deeper waters, while the other 19 moved towards the surface in response to low oxygen conditions (as shown by analysis of water samples).

The team explains that surface waters tend to be better oxygenated (have higher levels of dissolved oxygen) due to surface motions such as waves continuously mixing gases into the top layer of bodies of water. Over time, as waters mix, this oxygen also finds its way lower along the column of water. However, the team explains that warming climates make for warmer surface waters, which increases the buoyancy of these layers compared to those deeper down, reducing their ability to mix. This process is known as ocean stratification.

In addition to this, warmer water has a lower ability to dissolve and hold oxygen compared to colder water, so there’s less of this gas being mixed into the ocean to begin with.

In the end, this means less oxygen makes it to the bottom layers of water. Although salinity and temperature gradients along the column of water also influence the extent of vertical mixing, the team reports that both remained relatively constant over the study period. In other words, the trend towards lower oxygen levels seen at the study site is primarily driven by climate-associated changes in surface water temperatures. That being said, the other factors can’t be discounted completely either.

“A third of [the 60 fish species’] distributions moved shallower over time,” Meyer-Gutbrod said. “I personally think that’s a remarkable result over such a short time period.”

The team acknowledges that their study only included a relatively small area, but it did include a wide range of depths, which was the ultimate objective of the research. This narrower area actually helps reduce confounding factors, they explain, since it allowed for most conditions (apart from depth) to be constant across all the survey areas.

“Other scientists have used lab experiments to show that fish don’t like low oxygen water,” Meyer-Gutbrod said, “but what nobody’s ever done is just return to the same location year after year to see if there’s actually a change in the distribution of fish stemming from a change in oxygen over time.”

In closing, the authors explain that this trend can have quite severe negative impacts on marine ecosystems, and indirectly, on all life on Earth. Fish are simply forced to move away from their optimal depths, which will eventually result in them being pushed out entirely out of several ecosystems. According to co-author Milton Love, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute, we could even see a point in which species are forced into depth ranges that they simply cannot survive in.

They also cite previous research showing that many fish species also cannot tolerate high water temperatures, and are migrating towards lower depths. In the end, these factors can leave many species in an impossible situation — where they cannot breathe if too low, and can’t bear the heat if too close to the surface.

In the end, even if we start working to redress climate change right now, meaningful progress will take quite a lot of time. Until then, policymakers need to recognize and react to the pressures faced by fish species and issue regulation that protects them as best as possible, or risk wide-ranging ecological collapse in the world’s oceans.

“If you throw your net in the water and you get a ton of fish — more than you’re used to getting — you may think, ‘Oh, it’s a good year for the fish. Maybe the population is recovering,'” Meyer-Gutbrod said. “But instead, it could be that all the fish are just squished into a tighter area. So you could have fishery regulations changing to increase fish allowances because of this increase in landings.”

The paper “Moving on up: Vertical distribution shifts in rocky reef fish species during climate‐driven decline in dissolved oxygen from 1995 to 2009” has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.