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from the climate-needs-some-serious-debugging dept.
Pests to eat more crops in warmer world
Insects will be at the heart of worldwide crop losses as the climate warms up, predicts a US study. Scientists estimate the pests will be eating 10-25% more wheat, rice and maize across the globe for each one degree rise in climate temperature.
Warming drives insect energy use and prompts them to eat more. Their populations can also increase. This is bound to put pressure on the world's leading cereal crops, says study co-author Curtis Deutsch.
"Insect pests currently consume the equivalent of one out of every 12 loaves of bread (before they ever get made). By the end of this century, if climate change continues unabated, insects will be eating more than two loaves of every 12 that could have been made," the University of Washington, US, researcher told BBC News.
Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate (DOI: 10.1126/science.aat3466) (DX)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:32AM (1 child)
We'll run out of food, and then the bugs will eat us, and then the earth will return to "normal," and the temperature will go up and down on its own like it has for millions of years, and some of the bugs will go extinct, and then some more will evolve, and then the sun will expand and eat the earth, and then none of it will matter, anyway.
So what are we worried about? Humans are just an anomaly, and the planet would be better off without us, so just let us cook ourselves to death, and then the planet can get back to normal! The sooner the better, right?
Oh, but then some species would go extinct, and we can't have that, because they're holy and must be preserved.
And they say scientarians aren't religious.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday September 10 2018, @08:28AM
On the great scale of things, what does matter? Why do you care about eating today, if I may ask?