Environmentalist Mark Lynas sifts through the climatic changes of the last 25 years
Curved sticks laid around river boulder took longer to collect materials than to make the work Woody Creek, Aspen September 2006 Andy Goldsworthy
 Food
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 Acid Rain
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 Birds
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About 815 million people in developing countries do not have enough food in today’s world, a figure that has dropped only slightly from 1982, when about 900 million went hungry. Because of population growth in this period, the proportion of the overall population lacking sufficient nutrition dropped much more – thanks almost entirely to economic development in Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, things largely got worse over the last 25 years in terms of food resources.
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Although acid rain is still a major problem in eastern Europe and China, the UK has seen a substantial improvement since the 1980s. Between 1987 and 2004 sulphur dioxide emissions fell by 82 per cent, and resulting acid rain by half. This is largely due to new regulations forcing power stations to scrub sulphur pollution from smokestacks, and the switch away from coal to gas.
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In the last 25 years, many UK bird species which were once thought of as common or even as pests, have seen their populations decline dramatically. These include starlings, house sparrows and herring gulls, which join cuckoos, willow tits, yellowhammers and several others on the 2007 ‘Biodiversity Action Plan’ list of birds that have seen their populations fall by half in the last quarter of a century. Woodland and farmland species are worst-hit due to development and intensive agriculture, but some garden species are doing well. Blue tits, great tits and collared doves all increased their populations in recent years.
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