January 27, 2012 - Prentice Brownbag Series - Spring 2012 - #1 - Dr. James Byrne

1. Food Security
and Climate Change
James M. Byrne
Professor and Chair of Geography

2. Climate change is about the
poorest, most vulnerable and food
insecure people (WFP)

3. Impacts
• Sea level rise
– Millions of refugees
• Enhanced extremes = floods and drought
– Pakistan 2010, 2011
– Southeast China 2011
– African drought and conflict
• Changes in water supply
– Irrigation and food security
– Rain‐fed agriculture

4. GHG since 1960 tonnes per capita
• Chinese citizen = 100
• American = 830
• Canadian = 750
• Albertan = 1500
• Tar sands = 99 ppm GHG
• Goal < 350 ppm
• Current = 380 ppm

5. Climate Change Solutions
• Earth – The Operators’ Manual
– http://video.pbs.org/video/1855661681
• Mark Jacobson, Stanford University

6. 100 Nobel Laureates Issue
Dire Warning for Planet Earth
The most profound danger to world peace in the coming
years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or
individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's
dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the
majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates.
Global warming, not of their making but originating with
the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most.
Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.