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Poverty and hunger loom in global warming’s wake

23 Oct 2016 - Preaching the News for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

“The Lord hears the cry of the poor” is the psalmist’s plaintive and memorable refrain this Sunday. The question is will we here on earth hear their cry in time to drastically slow the pace of global warming? If not, up to 122 million more people worldwide could be living in extreme poverty by 2030 as a result of climate change and its impacts on small-scale farmers’ incomes, a major UN report warned on Monday. Climate change is a "major and growing threat to global food security,” said the report, warning that it could increase the global population living in extreme poverty dramatically, with farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa among the hardest hit. The 2016 State of Food and Agriculture report, published by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), calls for “deep transformations in agriculture and food systems” and for the world’s half-billion small-scale farms to receive particular support. The report warns that without “widespread adoption of sustainable land, water, fisheries and forestry practices, global poverty cannot be eradicated.” It adds that action must also be taken to reduce farming’s own contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Because a majority of the world's poorest citizens are sustenance farmers and herders, climate change and its agricultural consequences pose a unique threat to the livelihoods of some of the most vulnerable populations. The majority of the world's small-scale farmers are found in rural regions of the developing world. Some of these regions will be especially susceptible to heat waves, droughts, and rising sea levels. “In some particularly vulnerable places, such as small islands or in areas affected by large-scale extreme weather and climate events, the impact could be catastrophic,” the report's authors point out. “There is no doubt climate change affects food security,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in a news release. “What climate change does is to bring back uncertainties from the time we were all hunter gatherers. We cannot assure any more that we will have the harvest we have planted.” Higher temperatures and more extreme weather events will affect the ability of small-scale farmers to provide for their families. But climate change won't just threaten the world's poor. It will also affect the ability of all types of farmers to grow food for the rest of the world. A more volatile climate will result in unpredictable agricultural yields. “Everybody is paying for that, not only those suffering from droughts,” Graziano da Silva added. October 14 was World Food Day, and this year’s theme was “Climate is changing, food and agriculture must too.” Events held that day at the Rome headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations focused on the need for countries to address food and agriculture in their climate action plans and take action to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers to guarantee food security. World Food Day has been held annually since 1945. Lessons drawn from the readings “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds,” the first reading assures us. We here on earth also have to respond to the cry of the most vulnerable among us. We can start by pressuring our political leaders to take concrete, significant steps to curb global warming, as well as examining our own lifestyles to see where we can be more “carbon neutral” and eco-friendly. The personal is the political! Final thought in light of the news Though the potential impact of climate change paints a bleak picture, present day progress in tackling extreme poverty worldwide is more encouraging. In fact, the number of people living in extreme poverty during the past decade continued to fall, despite the 2008-09 financial crisis and slowing global economic growth, according to a World Bank study released Sunday. In the report, “Poverty and Shared Prosperity,” the World Bank says the progress proves that eliminating extreme poverty is an achievable goal. The study found that in 2013, fewer than 800 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day. That's less than 11 percent of the global population. As recently as 1990, about 35 percent of all people lived in such extreme poverty. That means about 1.1 billion people rose out of extreme poverty in the past quarter century. So there is hope. But we must act now on climate change to continue moving in the right direction.

food security climate change global warming poverty small scale farmers sustenance farming world food day

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Word of the Week

17 November 2024

Presider’s Chair

\'pri-sīd-ərs 'cher\

Also known as the presidential chair, the seat in a parish church from which the celebrant leads the assembly during Mass. Its meaning derives from the chair, or cathedra in Latin, from which the diocesan bishop presides (from Latin meaning “to protect” or literally “to sit before”). The chair is a liturgical symbol of authority and pastoral leadership.

Pronunciation Read more

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