The Impact of Climate Change on Population Growth and Food Security

Assignment 1 – The Impact of Climate Change on Population Growth and Food Security (220 points)

The United Nations has hired you as a consultant, and your task is to assess the impact that global warming is expected to have on population growth and the ability of societies in the developing world to ensure the adequate security of their food supplies.

Case Assessment

As the world’s population nears 10 billion by 2050, the effects of global warming are stripping some natural resources from the environment. As they diminish in number, developing countries, in particular, will face mounting obstacles to improving the livelihoods of their citizens and stabilizing their access to sufficient amounts of food. The reason these governments are struggling even now is that our climate influences their economic health and the consequent diminishing living standards of their peoples. Indeed, climate changes are responsible for the current loss of biodiversity as well as the physical access to some critical farming regions. As such, these changes in global weather patterns diminish agricultural output and the distribution of food to local and international markets. These difficulties will become even more significant for these countries as the Earth’s climate changes for the worse, because temperatures are already increasing incrementally and polar ice caps are melting, so the salient question is: what does this suggest for developing societies?

The issue before the developing world is not its lack of food, but rather how to gain access to it. Simply put, changes in our climate are affecting the global food chain, and hence, the living standards of entire populations. Added to this is the fact that food is not getting to where it is needed in time to prevent hunger or starvation, and in many developing countries, shortages are due to governments’ control over distribution networks rather than an insufficient supply of food itself. In effect, these governments are weaponizing food by favoring certain ethnic or religious groups over others, so when added to dramatic climate changes that we are experiencing even now, the future for billions of poor people looks increasingly dim.

In this whitepaper (another term for a position paper) for the UN, you are to write a minimum of six pages that include the following:

• You must include a cover page with your name, title of course, date and the name of your instructor. This does not count toward your total.
• You must write at least a one-half page introduction to the subject.
• Your paper will contain a body that is divided into five one-page sections, numbered 1-5, each of which will address the following questions, respectively:
  1. What are greenhouse gases and how do they contribute to global warming?
  2. What kinds of economic challenges do these emissions pose to the people of the developing world? (Note that this question does not ask about conditions in the developed world, only the developing).
  3. What is food insecurity (as opposed to hunger) and what is the relationship between it and population growth?
  4. What role do developing world governments play in aggravating food insecurity?
  5. What factors specifically interrupt the flow of food from its sources to populations in the developing world?
• For the assignment, cite at least five credible sources excluding Wikipedia, dictionaries and encyclopedias. These must be full citations using the Strayer Writing Standards (see below). Do not list sources by their URLs (i.e., www.______.com).
• To earn full credit for your responses, each of the five question must be at least a page long (double-spaced).
• You must include a one-half page conclusion, for a total of at least six pages.

This course requires use of Strayer Writing Standards (SWS) for the citation of your sources (you may no longer use APA), so please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details. (Note: the link for SWS is located in the top, left-hand column of your Blackboard shell under ‘Getting Started,’ and you may be prompted to enter your login credentials to view this file.)

The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is to:

• evaluate the proposed impact that climate change will have on the population growth in developing societies.

Note: Grading for this assignment will be based on the quality of your answers, the logic and organization of the paper, your use of language and your writing skills.