Have you sat down and read about the world’s climate change and how it’s impacting global hunger? If not, I’ll be the person to help you get information about it. I got this information from Action Against Hunger website “Climate change is causing extreme weather events like droughts, floods, wildfires, causing a long-term threat to food security and nutrition.” (https://www.actionagainsthunger.org.uk/why-hunger/climate-crisis)
Due to the extreme weather events that tend to occur, like recurring floods or droughts, soil degrades, reducing farmland’s amount and quality of food that can be grown. It can take years for agricultural production to recover, putting communities at long-term risk of hunger as saved food supplies get eaten. For example, in South Sudan, floods destroy crops and do not recede quickly enough for farms to recover.
While I was looking for more information about how climate change is affecting global hunger, I came across this website called, National Library of Medicine (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7869491/). As I was reading the article said, “Approximately 11% of the world population in 2017, or 821 million people, suffered from hunger.” The article included the percentages of the certain populations who were going through the issue of suffering from global hunger. The areas that were affected were “sub-Saharan Africa (23.2% of population), the Caribbean (16.5%) and Southern Asia (14.8%).”
As time goes on due to climate change it can raise agricultural prices and because of that it will expose an additional 77 million people to risks by 2050. If that were to happen it could jeopardize the UN Sustainable Development Goal to end global hunger.
I interviewed Shyanne, a senior at this school. When I asked her, “Do you think that our climate change is worsening? Do you think that it’s affecting our food?” She said, “I think climate change is 100% worsening due to air, water and land pollution increases. More factories have been made for fast fashion or fast materials in general, which release smoke and chemicals into the air which cause humidity. Trash and waste have increasingly been dumped into large bodies of water, which causes the water temperature and air temperature to both heighten. Land pollution is getting worse too, due to lack of care for the environment.”
The second question I asked her was “Do you think that it’s affecting our food?” She responded with, “It’s affecting our food. Because when weather is affected, it can affect the growth of crops and land quality. Air pollution causes too much heat and humidity, which can cause the soil to dry out. Land pollution can change the soil quality and that can also affect the ability to retain water and how the soil is able to handle the plant.”
The third question I asked her was “What other factors about climate change should we be thinking about?” She reminded me of the polar bears in Antarctica and how the ice is melting, making their homes inhabitable for colder climate animals.
The fourth question I asked her was, “Do you think Climate Change can get better or not?” She said, “I think climate change could get better due to human abilities to make change. Climate change wasn’t this bad all the time. We have the ability; we just need to utilize our brains and resources.”
The last and final question I asked her was, “Do you think humans were to come together we would be able to fix Climate Change or help it?” She said this, “Humans could 100% come together and fix climate change. No, because we, as a community, need to fix it. We can make changes like we have in the past. We do have the ability to make those changes we just have to try to.”
At the end of the day, we humans can do better in our world and help it. But no one does it. Our world is going to keep falling apart if we don’t try to make a change. We need to start taking care of the world and keeping it clean. So, if you see trash on the street or sidewalk, start throwing it away properly. Doing this will slowly help with climate change. It will also help people out who are suffering from global hunger.
