Climate Change, Food Shortages and the Future

Record snowfall in the northern hemisphere, record heatwaves in the southern hemisphere; tornadoes in places they have never appeared before; constant flooding and persistent drought; record snow cover and unseasonal deep freezes … just what is UP with all this weird weather?

Is ‘man-made global warming’ to blame? Is ‘man-made global warming’ even real? Is the planet actually ‘warming’ to begin with? It's claimed that rising CO emissions are heating our planet and thereby altering its climate. It's further claimed that these excess CO emissions are the result of human activity. Reduce human activity by creating incentives to reduce energy consumption, they say, and we might prevent catastrophic climate change.

But is this a satisfactory explanation? Whatever is behind it all must also account for the bizarre reports of mass animal deaths and masses of animals on the move; countless eruptions of ‘previously dormant’ volcanoes, above ground and underwater; record numbers of earthquakes and methane outgassings; scary sinkholes and superstorms. While it's clear that something significant is happening to our climate, perhaps we need to be thinking in terms of ‘Earth change’ rather than ‘climate change’.

In this week’s show, we’ll be giving airtime to some alternative theories that explain why and how the climate – indeed, the whole biosphere – is changing. We’re also going to look at the likely implications for humanity, not least the knock-on effects of crop failures for the global food supply. The picture isn’t pretty folks, but forewarned is forearmed: if you have an idea of what’s coming, then at least you can prepare for it.