Dramatic Depletion of World Food Production Linked to Wildfires
World climate events these past days have been so extreme and have caused so much destruction and loss of life, you might think you’re sitting through a bad disaster movie. But as tragic as the terrible flooding in Pakistan, China and Eastern Europe has been, the heat and wildfires in Russia will have a very serious long-term effect, that of drastically increasing atmospheric CO2 and Methane concentrations and thereby increasing the risk of drought and wildfires in many parts of the world.
Another long-term effect will be that of severely depleting world grain supply, already at a low level. Gwynne Dyer explains the implications of this in his disturbing article for Straight.com, “Gwynne Dyer: Russian response to wildfires gives an early glimpse of climate change impact.”
Dark Commentary by Gwynne Dyer on Failure of US to Act on Climate Change Legislation
On the most optimistic timetable, there might be US climate legislation in 2013, and a global climate deal in 2014, and we really start reducing emissions by 2015. By then, we would need to be cutting emissions by 5 or 6 percent a year, instead of growing them at 3 percent a year, if we still want to come in under +2 degrees C.
Gwynne Dyer Speaks About Climate Wars on Democracy Now
A new book by geopolitical analyst and columnist Gwynne Dyer imagines what the politics and demographics of the world might look like if temperatures continue to rise. Dyer writes ‘In this world our worries are not just hotter summers, bigger hurricanes, rising sea levels, and polar bears swimming for their lives. We’re trying to avoid megadeaths from mass starvation and quite possibly from nuclear wars and the odds aren’t good,” he writes.The June 1, 2010 edition of his book is called “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats.”
An Optimistic Take on the Copenhagen Climate Conference by Gwynne Dyer
It is hard to celebrate a process as clumsy, and occasionally as ugly, as the horse-trading and arm-twisting going on at Copenhagen, but that is how human politics works. We may all recognize that there is a global emergency, but every government still has its own interests to protect.
Nevertheless, we have come a long way.
