The World Trade Organization believes the answer to the global food crisis is international trade, as stated on Sunday. WTO director General Pascal Lamy believes that “global integration representation by trade enabled food to be transported from where it could be produced efficiently to where there was demand.” (Jonathan Lynn, Reuters)
Due to geography, certain countries, like Egypt, could never be self-sufficient in the food marker, according to the International Food and Agriculture Trade Policy Council conference in Salzburg, Austria. “International trade was not the source of last year’s food crisis,” Lamy claims. “If anything, international trade has reduced the price of food over the years through greater competition, and enhanced consumer purchasing power.”
Many people suspected trade as the reason for rising food costs in 2007 and 2008. Prices have slowly come down since then but many experts argue that agricultural trade made the problem worse and wasn’t interested in the needs of poor farmers or consumers in third world countries.
Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, has condemned an ‘excessive’ reliance on trade in the pursuit of food security, while some farmers’ groups had also called for greater self-sufficiency.” (Reuters) Agriculture currently accounts for less than 10 percent of world trade, and only 25 percent of world farm output is traded globally, compared with 50 percent industrial goods, compared with 50 percent of industrial goods, according to Lamy.
“To suggest that less trade, and greater self-sufficiency, are the solutions to food security, would be to argue that trade was itself to blame for the crisis,” he told the press.
Farm trade is becoming more competitive amongst developing countries, with agricultural exports from developing to developed countries rising 11 percent a year between 2000 and 2007, “faster than the 9 percent growth in trade in the other direction.”
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Global Warming Damages Tourist Destinations
According to a travel article found on Yahoo!, some of the most popular travel destinations are disappearing, thanks to climate change and tourism.
The Maldives, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean is about three feet above sea level. Despite an attempt to bolster the islands, scientists fear they could sink as soon as 2050. The failure of the $63 million repair has left the government of the Maldive Islands in talks to relocate its population of several hundred thousand to other countries: Sri Lanka, Australia, or India. The loss of the island would also be an end to the nation’s tourism, which brings in 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The Great Barrier Reef is not only a natural treasure, it is also one of the premier tourist destinations in Australia. But thanks to heavy tourist traffic, ocean acidification, and rising water temperatures, the 135,000 square miles of live coral is growing smaller. Despite measures taken by the government to slow the reef’s loss, scientists still estimate that by 2050, the reef will have lost an estimated 95 percent of its living coral, thanks to an increase in water temperature.
Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is one of the world’s most popular climbs. But since 1912 the glacier-covered mountains have lost 84% of their ice and scientists estimate that the remaining glaciers could be entirely gone by the year 2020, making Tanzania’s tourist attraction more popular than ever.
The Swiss Alps are the most popular mountains to ski. But wi html_removed th rising temperatures from global warming, more and more resorts are looking to other attractions to cover up the lack of snow on the slopes. The official outlook is that 40 percent of the Alps’ skiing areas will disappear by 2100.
Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands may have inspired Darwin, but they’ve also inspired an influx of travel to visit the birthplace of evolutionary theory. With Darwin’s 200th birthday looming this year, more plant, marine and animal species are at risk than ever before.
To learn more about the effects of global warming on the world’s natural wonders, read the original article here.
Pic Source:TCNJ
The Maldives, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean is about three feet above sea level. Despite an attempt to bolster the islands, scientists fear they could sink as soon as 2050. The failure of the $63 million repair has left the government of the Maldive Islands in talks to relocate its population of several hundred thousand to other countries: Sri Lanka, Australia, or India. The loss of the island would also be an end to the nation’s tourism, which brings in 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The Great Barrier Reef is not only a natural treasure, it is also one of the premier tourist destinations in Australia. But thanks to heavy tourist traffic, ocean acidification, and rising water temperatures, the 135,000 square miles of live coral is growing smaller. Despite measures taken by the government to slow the reef’s loss, scientists still estimate that by 2050, the reef will have lost an estimated 95 percent of its living coral, thanks to an increase in water temperature.
Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is one of the world’s most popular climbs. But since 1912 the glacier-covered mountains have lost 84% of their ice and scientists estimate that the remaining glaciers could be entirely gone by the year 2020, making Tanzania’s tourist attraction more popular than ever.
The Swiss Alps are the most popular mountains to ski. But wi html_removed th rising temperatures from global warming, more and more resorts are looking to other attractions to cover up the lack of snow on the slopes. The official outlook is that 40 percent of the Alps’ skiing areas will disappear by 2100.
Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands may have inspired Darwin, but they’ve also inspired an influx of travel to visit the birthplace of evolutionary theory. With Darwin’s 200th birthday looming this year, more plant, marine and animal species are at risk than ever before.
To learn more about the effects of global warming on the world’s natural wonders, read the original article here.
Pic Source:TCNJ
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