Media Advisory for 11 am: Lester Brown on Rising Temperatures and Rising Food Prices - "If we continue with business as usual on the climate front, it is only a matter of time before what we are seeing in Russia becomes commonplace.”

First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.

ON TUESDAY,  AUGUST 10,  2010,  at 11 a.m. EDT,   in advance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s world grain harvest estimate on Thursday,  environmental analyst Lester Brown will discuss the heat and drought currently decimating Russia’s grain crops,  what Russia’s loss on grain exports means for world food prices and how this calamity foreshadows future climate-related crises.

Brown is  one of the world’s foremost authorities on the connection between climate and agriculture (see Ponzi redux: Scientific American asks “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?).

Details on the press  call below.   If a tape and transcript become available, I will post it

Prices for basic farm commodities – wheat,  corn,  and soybeans – are actually somewhat higher in August of this year than they were in August of 2007 at the start of the record-breaking 2007-08 run-up in grain prices that led to food protests and riots in some 30 countries. Meanwhile,  it is estimated that Russia could lose nearly 30 million tons of grain this summer.

“The global balance between grain supply and demand is fragile and depends largely on climate, ” Brown says. “With 80 million more mouths to feed each year and with increasing demand for grain-intensive livestock products,  the rise in temperature only adds to the stress. If we continue with business as usual on the climate front,  it is only a matter of time before what we are seeing in Russia becomes commonplace.”

Brown will discuss the outlook for the Russian grain crop and how it is expected to affect food prices worldwide in the months ahead. He will also discuss the effect of climate change on the global food supply and what can be done in response., WHAT:,     Teleconference on “Rising Temperatures and Rising Food Prices”, WHO:,     Lester Brown,  president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization., WHEN:     Tuesday,  August 10,  2010,  11 a.m. – 12 p.m. EDT

If you want to join this call, email Kristina Taylor at [email protected].

Read the original story at Climate Progress