Star One Smart Blog's

By 2050, the world's population is expected to top 9 billion souls (7 billion by 2012). Our current supply and output of foodstuffs is mostly adequate; meaning that only 1 of 7 people today aren't adequately fed; by 2050, fears are that there may be many more hungry persons. Unless we prepare now.

As luck would have it, we've these enhanced levels of CO2 (AKA plant food) in our atmosphere (amazing coinkydink, wouldn't you say?).

The Royal Society has released some 21 papers (reported in the Guardian.co.uk) in an ongoing study of global population and the feeding and sustainability of same. From the Guardian...

A team of scientists at Rothamsted, the UK's largest agricultural research centre, suggests that extra carbon dioxide in the air from global warming, along with better fertilisers and chemicals to protect arable crops, could hugely increase yields and reduce water consumption.

"Plant breeders will probably be able to increase yields considerably in the CO2 enriched environments of the future … There is a large gap between achievable yields and those delivered ... but if this is closed then there is good prospect that crop production will increase by about 50% or more by 2050 without extra land", says the paper by Dr Keith Jaggard et al.

Just a minute here. Al 'Freakinout' Gore has gloomed and doomed for decades now that increased CO2 level would doooooooom! the planet. Now we hear that increased CO2 levels might in fact help feed people and save lives?

Unintended consequences, or intelligently designed for our convenience? How many barrels of oil are left? Oh, and good thing they were there in the first place, I'd say...

Dunno about eating meat grown in a vat, though...

Instead, says Dr Philip Thornton, a scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, two "wild cards" could transform global meat and milk production. "One is artificial meat, which is made in a giant vat, and the other is nanotechnology, which is expected to become more important as a vehicle for delivering medication to livestock."

Thank God there's no mention of other, less palatable foodstuffs, as some '70's creative thinkers imagined.