Where the World Is Hot, Food Is In Peril

Across the mid-section of the globe, throughout much of Africa and South Asia, a rapidly warming world could spell the end to farming as we know it, according to a recent study (PDF) from the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program. In the map above, red and orange areas indicate a greater likelihood of warming than the green and blue regions. The lighter the colors, the more prepared farmers appear to be in those regions.

A warmer world may hold the specter of greater microbiological turmoil, hastened by drought or flooding, as well as outright declines in staple grains. Looking at this picture, as Bryan Walsh writes on TIME's Ecocentric blog, it's clear that the politics of global warming resemble global food politics: "Those who are least responsible for the problem, those who are already living close to the edge, are those who will almost certainly suffer the most."

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