Climate change, it is now clear, will touch all of us as people. People traveling and people eating, that is.

 A couple of newsworthy editorial features worth highlighting this week.

The first one is the commentary The Economist made of two studies, representing two weather scenarios and their impact on the production of food worldwide. The change in rain patterns, and often the reduction of precipitation in poor areas, will push the daily calories intake of hundred of millions of people below what it is today - and into levels that cannot sustain such populations without massive risk of famine. Plenty of implications for supply chains in consumer goods, but even more importantly, plenty of impact for geopolitical stability. You can see the animation here http://audiovideo.economist.com/?fr_story=99c9766668c294ad7c6048b444de3785443dd6df&rf=bm&source=features_box4

It is worth every second of it.

The second is a feature of the New York Times on travel ("Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions"), describing how offsetting (i.e. purchasing offsets) doesn't change behavior. That is one of the reasons why SAP has decided to use offsets as a last resort, and not as the first point of entry. There was also an interesting quote:

"Passenger offsets purport to cancel out carbon dioxide emissions ton for ton through investments in green projects. But critics say there is no transparency about how companies measure whether that happens." Company stakeholders, NGOs and regulators will increasingly ask for these. This sounds like integration of Carbon measurement tools (like Carbon Impact) and company Financials.

See The New York Times

For more on Climate Change and COP15, see www.hopenhagen.org