With respect to health and the built environment it was disconcerting to find out that in Europe in 2003 70,000 people died as a result of the hot weather, most were victims in high rise buildings at night, and died as a result of hyperthermia (elevated body heat), dehydration and stroke. Why was this? It appears that apart from an unwillingness to open windows and heat being absorbed because of flat roofs, heat islands exacerbate this situation. So what is a heat island? An urban heat island, is when the urban area is hotter than the surrounding rural area, caused by the size and closeness of the buildings. Buildings in urban areas are efficient at absorbing and reflecting heat, the larger and taller the building, the more heat traps at street level, which bounces between buildings. Air conditioning can help but this has a big impact on CO2 emissions, so there is a vicious circle. So how can we address this Tristan Kershaw says more green spaces, painting buildings white and green roofs, even less flat roofs, which is rather thought provoking as we see cities expanding both upwards and outwards.
With a predicted global population increase from the present 7 billion to 9.2 million in 2050 Sarah Gurr says that 86% could be living less economically and the majority will be in developing countries. Presently 40% of the global agriculture is 3 types of essential crops, wheat, rice and maize. Rice is the most crucial crop as it is responsible for the main calorie intake of 50% of the world's population, although potatoes are growing in popularity, making this a 4th crop. The food supply chain needs to double in the next 50 years but it is under threat from climate change in particular the threat to water supply and also the threat of disease, pests and pathogens e.g. ash dieback disease and fungi, as a result of mooculture. In an attempt to deal with this scientists are looking at how to boost the immune system of plants to defend themselves against pathogens, for example bioprotection.
So the challenge is what can we do to address this increasing challenge, apart from possibly, use less water, waste less food, eat seasonally and move away from monoculture. The Global Food Security web site argues that to protect against catastrophic events the UK should produce over half of its own feed and import the rest, which also maintains the trade balance sheet because we export food. The web site also states possibly somewhat controversially that climate change may be good in some ways for food production as extra CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to plants fixing more carbon, resulting in increased yield. However, the increase in the amount of desert and drought may cause further problems in places like Austria and in particular Africa, which already faces major challenges with
Food security is a complex area with conflicting pulls of producing more food and protecting the environment. Within the UK 18% of UK greenhouse gas emissions are related to food production, half from farms, mostly methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilisers, in addition to this 60% of nitrates, 25% of phosphorous and 70% of sediments polluting water bodies come from farms. Now that's food for climatic thought!
