article for school magazine on climate change
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In a collaboration that came about over drinks, an international team of climate researchers has modelled the effects of climate change on barley and beer production. Their predictions, published today (October 15) in Nature Plants, include a drop of 3 percent to 17 percent in barley yields by 2099, a decrease in the supply of beer, and sharp increases in prices.
“Climate change will affect all of us, not only people who are in India or African countries,” coauthor Dabo Guan of the University of East Anglia in the UK tells Reuters.
CNN reports that Guan and others hatched the idea for the study when they went out for beers in China after a series of lectures. They used climate change data to model the projected effects on barley yields and the economic response to those changes. Under the most severe scenario for a decline in crops, the price of beer could as much as double in some countries, they found.
The study "raises a lot of important [questions] about how our food supply is going to adapt to a changing climate," Caroline Sluyter of the nonprofit advocacy group Oldways Whole Grains Council who was not involved in the study tells CNN.
“When we have these shortages, our models suggest people are going to feed the barley to the livestock before they make beer,” coauthor Stephen Davis of the University of California, Irvine, tells Wired. “That makes sense. This is a luxury commodity and it’s more important to have food on the table.”
Climate Changes in India
Industrialization, urbanization,
mismanagement of natural resources have affected the climatic conditions in our
country adversely and their signs are visible everywhere.
The oppressive heat of the sun every
summer is becoming more scorching. The mercury has begun to rise up to 47° C,
making environment akin to a heating furnace. The climatic phenomena are
becoming uncannily bizarre. Dust-storms and gales accompanied by thunderstorm are
rampaging across northern states of Himachal, Uttrakhand, U.P., Bihar, Haryana,
Rajasthan, and Delhi. Many people are losing their lives! Such occurrences are
ominous.
Are these signs a warning of the
hellish inferno of predicted global warming? Are we prepared for the hell march
of this man-made menace? Should we wait for its arrival to see it singe our
delicate life?
It is high time we took proactive
action to nip the evil of global warming in the bud. Mass afforestation drives,
stopping use of fossil fuels, switching to green ways of life, and shouldering
the responsibility of saving the environment are some of the measures people
must take across the globe. Otherwise, we all shall be roasted alive!