Spare a thought for the farmers in Australia whose agricultural industries are being threatened by the the large scale extraction and depletion and contamination of the aquifers from coal seam gas extraction. And those many many "dryland" farmers who do not irrigate but still produce magnificent crops on the Liverpool Plains (NSW) and the Darling Downs (QLD) who will simply will be unable to operate due to the enormous amounts of infrastructure that are necessary for an industry which our NSW state government has granted a "royalty holiday" for five years from initial production. This industry will destroy the aquifers with it massive amounts of drilling and "fracking." Water is our most significant natural resource and should be protected against these destructive industries.

But.. but.. I thought Global Warming was going to INCREASE rainfall.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2007/05/070531-warming-rain.html

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0827-nasa.html

So we're all right, then.

You see, once you start to claim that ANYTHING can be blamed on global warming, you can expect to see exactly the same tactic used against you. I confidently expect Global Warming to bring in a worldwide utopia of abundant food, biofuels, and world peace. And cure cancer.

If it's happening, of course.

Jon J is correct of course, the increasing rainfall from all the additional water vapor in the atmosphere, will replenish those aquifers .. so all will be well!

Isn't global warming great?

Maybe we should do something to speed it up, you know, make it go faster, so there's even MORE rainfall .. and additional crops.

If only we knew for sure, if anything we're doing is or might contribute, get away from the maybes, the fudging the tweaking of data and really know for sure how to do it.

I look forward to the Sahara being a great green jungle yet again, (I hear by as early as 2200!)

(thank you JonJ .. I go off to increase my carbon footprint today a happy man, knowing I am possibly assisting in creating rain somewhere .. not too much of course, just enough)

Not to worry. Whenever any species increases beyond the capacity of the earth to support it natural means will cut the numbers down. Humans can expect conflict, famine and pestilence to do the job. It will as we are apparently incapable of reducing our numbers in a rational and humane manner. If we are not completely wiped out our numbers will increase until the next crunch.

totally agree david f, these things go in cycles, climate, madness of crowds, wealth and poverty, feast and famine.

all we can do is adapt to whatever is happening, to think we could actually control all this is just fantasy

we may be one harvest from famine, but with all the hysteria that goes on and all the failed predictions, who is going to put any faith at all in such doom saying

you'd be mad to subscribe to all the forecasts of doom getting around, and have been around for so long

weren't we all meant to starve to death by 2000 according to some forecast from an eminent person from the 1970s?

Forecasts of mass starvation have a long and venerable history of being believed when they were made and then the reverse happening.

In this case the author points out that food prices are rising, apparently without fully realising it is because more Inidians and Chinese have moved out of poverty and can afford to buy more food. so his dire predictions of people being unable to buy food don't take into account the fact they have more money (relatively speaking) it with.

As for aquifers beding depleted this may well be true, but then the scare story of a decade or so ago was that topsoil was being depleted, and the farmland still seems to be there. We really need an independent body to sort through these stories. The UN's job is to play them up, and even the world bank can come out with the most extraordinary nonsense.

We need a skeptics institute to examine claims. Until we do I'm not taking this stuff seriously.