Climate Change Induced Food Scarcity: A Threat to Agricultural Sustainability

One of the least appreciated mechanisms by which climate change will affect infectious diseases is via increased violent conflict. Climate change will diminish agricultural and pastoral resources and increase food scarcity in many areas, including already impoverished equatorial regions. Many in the defence and public health fields anticipate that climate change will increase conflict by fuelling competition over scarce resources. Already, some commentators argue that the conflicts in Darfur and Syria were partially caused or exacerbated by climate change. Conflict facilitates a range of conditions conducive to the spread of many infectious diseases, including malnutrition, forced migration, unhygienic living conditions and widespread sexual assault. Flight or killing of health personnel inhibits vaccination, vector control and disease surveillance programs. Emergence of new diseases may go undetected and discovery of outbreaks could be suppressed for strategic reasons. These conditions combine to increase the risk of pandemics.

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Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Malaysia: Issues for Agricultural Sector

10.31219/osf.io/gjcd5 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽

Chamhuri Siwar ◽

Basri Talib ◽

Mazlin Mokhtar ◽

Mohd Ekhwan bin Toriman

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Climatic Changes ◽

Agricultural Sustainability ◽

Climate Factors ◽

Adaptation Policy ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Agricultural Adaptation ◽

Adverse Impacts

Malaysia is one of the highly vulnerable countries due to climatic changes. Here the changes in climate factors cause adverse impacts on agricultural sustainability and relevant livelihood sustainability. To adapt to these changes a prudent adaptation policy is very important. Several countries follow different adaptation policy based on their localized socioeconomic and geographical status. While defining its adaptation policy, Malaysia also needs to consider several crucial factors. This study discusses issues relevant to the farmers’ adaptation to climate change in Malaysia and also provides few recommendations that will help policy makers to prepare the agricultural adaptation policy for climate change

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Analysis of the Effects of Water Management Strategies and Climate Change on the Environmental and Agricultural Sustainability of Urmia Lake Basin, Iran

Water ◽

10.3390/w10020160 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 160 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Jamal Ahmadaali ◽

Gholam-Abbas Barani ◽

Kourosh Qaderi ◽

Behzad Hessari

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Urmia Lake ◽

Agricultural Sustainability ◽

Lake Basin ◽

Urmia Lake Basin

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Crisis Communication, Anticipated Food Insecurity, and Food Preferences: Preregistered Evidence of the Insurance Hypothesis

10.31234/osf.io/nkzv5 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Michal Folwarczny ◽

Jacob Dalgaard Christensen ◽

Norman Li ◽

Tobias Otterbring ◽

Valdimar Sigurdsson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Insecurity ◽

Food Preferences ◽

Environmental Cues ◽

Time And Space ◽

Insurance Hypothesis ◽

Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Food Scarcity ◽

Food Shortages ◽

Current Psychological

While overconsumption of energy-dense foods contributes to climate change, we investigated whether exposure to climate change-induced food insecurity affects preferences toward such products. Humans’ current psychological mechanisms have developed in their ancestral evolutionary past to respond to immediate threats and opportunities. Consequently, these mechanisms may not distinguish between cues to actual food scarcity and cues to food scarcity distant in time and space. Drawing on the insurance hypothesis, which postulates that humans respond to environmental cues to food scarcity through increased energy consumption, we predicted that exposing participants to climate change-induced food scarcity content increases their preferences toward energy-dense foods, with this effect being particularly pronounced in women. Three experiments—including one preregistered laboratory study—confirm this prediction. Our findings jointly demonstrate that receiving information about food shortages distant in time and space can influence current food preferences in a potentially maladaptive way, with important implications for public health.

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