This time around, though, extreme w

This time around, though, extreme weather events caused by global warming were the central factor, reminding people how extremely fragile are the links between the soil and the atmosphere. In the last year, massive wildfires in Russia devastated hundreds of thousands of croplands, forcing the government to impose a ban on grain exports; a stubborn drought in China ravaged 14 million hectares and left 14 million people short of water; unremitting rains in Pakistan have devastated the country’s croplands for the second year in a row; at the beginning of 2011, practically the whole state of Queensland in Australia, including its capital, Brisbane, was submerged, with billions of dollars’ worth of grain, vegetables, and livestock swept away; and in the last few months, the Horn of Africa has been paralyzed by a drought that has placed some 12.4 million people at risk of famine.