Based on what’s in the media, it seems that the only environmental problem facing the world is global climate change. It seems that everybody is talking about it, arguing about it and in some cases flat-out denying it. Personally, I think the that concerns are a bit exaggerated. Now I know that most people (all 3 of you) who read this are already preparing some brutal comment, but just keep reading.

I’m not saying that global climate change shouldn’t be ignored, but it’s time for it to move to the back burner for two reasons. First, there’s not much we can do about it at the moment. Most energy technology that people are talking about, other than nuclear, is decades away and developing nations have bigger worries. Additionally, we have bigger more pressing problems.

That’s right. We have bigger fish to fry.

Having no ice caps and horrible weather will suck even more if we have no food to eat. Most of the effects of global warming won’t reach critical levels for nearly 100 years, but in less than half that time our population will approach 10 billion people. Considering there are already millions of people on this rock dying of starvation, it’s only a matter of time before we reach the limit that current agriculture can support.

Both National Geographic and Popular Science ran articles about this very topic this month. Popular Science had a short piece on some interesting ideas for creating hydroponic farms in towers. National Geographic dedicated the entire issue to the state of agriculture, more specifically soil.

Soil erosion seems like a small problem; until you see things like this: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=19.03713,-71.743813&spn=0.15708,0.307617&z=12. The soil in Haiti is so stripped and ruined that the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is easily visible from space.

What makes it worse is that we know how to stop soil erosion, but we let it happen. We can make better use of our farm land, but we pay farmers to not grow food. We can grow genetically engineered foods that reduce spoilage and increase yields, but we give into baseless paranoia.

Improving agriculture and reducing hunger is frustrating a problem to deal with because we have solutions and choose not to implement them for financial and political reasons.

Global warming is an easy issue, because it’s easy to blame corporations and industry. It’s easy to find a bad guy in the climate change debate, but it’s time to drop the politics and start saving lives.