Rapid global heating is hurting farm productivity, study finds(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Rapid global heating is hurting farm productivity, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/01/climate-crisis-global-heating-food-farming-agriculture
180 comments
For the record, I've been what could accurately be called a climate change alarmist for over three decades now. More concretely, I've felt that there was a least a fair chance that climate change would, by the year 2070, cause enormous harm to human civilization, where 'harm' could be seen, in part, as over a billion premature deaths. Over the decades, my internal estimate of the odds has changed from "a small but statistically significant chance" to "more than 50%" today.
I've also been of the mind that, most likely, there's little chance that humanity will be able to substantially change these probabilities.
Yes, that's pretty doomy gloomy, on the surface at least.
"But the progress ... etc., is really remarkable. It ain't over 'til it's over."
This! We CAN NOT know what the future holds. A primary 'doomer movement' in the 1970s when I was growing up was population. Even among the most forward thinking, optimistic people of the time, few if any could imagine our planet being able to feed 8 billion people. None could imagine the possibility that the world population could naturally (without either huge die offs and/or draconian controls) stabilize at 10 billion people, which many solid models are now indicating. (And I get that there are valid arguments against the sustainability of our current and near future food production methods.)
The point is that we can not know what miracles technology and sociological progress can bring, and we're expanding in both areas exponentially. (I'm not using that word, exponentially, lightly or incorrectly.)
Is all of this 'hopium'? Perhaps. I agree with those that argue acceptance is important and healthy. Yes, accept that, from what we can see right now, things look very bad. Yes, accept that there's a strong probability that human civilization will collapse in the lifetime of Millennials. At the very minimum, all of the steps/hours/days between now and then will be interesting, and there's an unlimited amount of joy to be found and created.
I've also been of the mind that, most likely, there's little chance that humanity will be able to substantially change these probabilities.
Yes, that's pretty doomy gloomy, on the surface at least.
"But the progress ... etc., is really remarkable. It ain't over 'til it's over."
This! We CAN NOT know what the future holds. A primary 'doomer movement' in the 1970s when I was growing up was population. Even among the most forward thinking, optimistic people of the time, few if any could imagine our planet being able to feed 8 billion people. None could imagine the possibility that the world population could naturally (without either huge die offs and/or draconian controls) stabilize at 10 billion people, which many solid models are now indicating. (And I get that there are valid arguments against the sustainability of our current and near future food production methods.)
The point is that we can not know what miracles technology and sociological progress can bring, and we're expanding in both areas exponentially. (I'm not using that word, exponentially, lightly or incorrectly.)
Is all of this 'hopium'? Perhaps. I agree with those that argue acceptance is important and healthy. Yes, accept that, from what we can see right now, things look very bad. Yes, accept that there's a strong probability that human civilization will collapse in the lifetime of Millennials. At the very minimum, all of the steps/hours/days between now and then will be interesting, and there's an unlimited amount of joy to be found and created.
Look, I strongly favor fighting climate change. Any reasonable view of future lives having any moral worth makes it an imperative. But predictions like "accept that there's a strong probability that human civilization will collapse in the lifetime of Millennials" are alarmist and not backed by the science.
There will be huge impacts on global productivity by the end of the century, but the very, very large impacts are not going to happen until everyone currently alive is dead and gone.
This is what we need to confront - that the sacrifices that we need for climate change will mostly not benefit us, they will benefit the children of our children, and their children as well.
There will be huge impacts on global productivity by the end of the century, but the very, very large impacts are not going to happen until everyone currently alive is dead and gone.
This is what we need to confront - that the sacrifices that we need for climate change will mostly not benefit us, they will benefit the children of our children, and their children as well.
Have you moved on to accepting what will happen? I'm coming to terms with it. I had a long conversation about the thermodynamics of the situation with an oceologist and it set me straight on what will happen.. all I recall was her emphasizing I just mix dyed blue ice water and dyed red warm water in an aquarium and voila, witness the turbulence. Scale that to oceans, and concede that thermal mass governs the global weather patterns high and low.
> Have you moved on to accepting what will happen?
Yup. For someone who became aware of the existential risks that human produced CO2 and CH4 are causing back in the 1980s, full acceptance is, in my case at least, literally the only long-term, sustainable approach.
> ... the situation with an oceologist ...
I think that's been happening with a lot of scientists these last couple of years. Many I've spoken to are basically, "I don't see a way forward, a way out of this." For many, it brings a sense of calm.
In my mind, the next necessary step is to embrace and accept uncertainty. That one's very well informed view isn't necessarily correct. This is an ideal shield against despair, which must be avoided at all costs.
Yup. For someone who became aware of the existential risks that human produced CO2 and CH4 are causing back in the 1980s, full acceptance is, in my case at least, literally the only long-term, sustainable approach.
> ... the situation with an oceologist ...
I think that's been happening with a lot of scientists these last couple of years. Many I've spoken to are basically, "I don't see a way forward, a way out of this." For many, it brings a sense of calm.
In my mind, the next necessary step is to embrace and accept uncertainty. That one's very well informed view isn't necessarily correct. This is an ideal shield against despair, which must be avoided at all costs.
Hope vs despair is often within our power to chose and it is a political choice. Choose despair and you make bad outcomes more likely as it is a contagious feeling. Choose hope and you make good outcomes more likely, and make the process of fighting for the good outcomes more effective and more fun for all.
It is the social form of the prisoners dilemma: choose your response assuming there is nothing special about being you in particular, and assume that you are choosing form any. Do you want to live in a group where everyone does A or everyone does B. This also leads to more flexible choices: I’d like to live in a world where most people pick up trash a few percent of the time. Where most people lobby for carbon tax and electric cars and whatever the solution for cement and steel are.
It is the social form of the prisoners dilemma: choose your response assuming there is nothing special about being you in particular, and assume that you are choosing form any. Do you want to live in a group where everyone does A or everyone does B. This also leads to more flexible choices: I’d like to live in a world where most people pick up trash a few percent of the time. Where most people lobby for carbon tax and electric cars and whatever the solution for cement and steel are.
I really appreciate your comments in this thread, Diederich. They have helped me distill my own similar feelings of uncertainty and uncertainty in my understanding of uncertainty. Thank you.
Hey cool, glad I could help...though I'm not sure how. (:
there's also exponential stuff going the wrong way, too. all of cryptoland, for example. this stuff just works in logspace or logexpsum space
> there's also exponential stuff going the wrong way, too
That's quite true, and that 'bad exponential' stuff is the main source of my pessimism.
That's quite true, and that 'bad exponential' stuff is the main source of my pessimism.
The "bad exponential stuff" that the online doomers seem to cling to is almost always:
1) permafrost melt, albedo feedbacks, etc., which has been considered in the most recent IPCC reports and is still being researched
2) sudden mass extinction due to biodiversity loss
As far as 1) goes, read the IPCC report and get back to me. 2) is scarier, for sure, but there is not enough research done to conclude that we have breached or are about to breach an extinction tipping point. Some recent models suggest phytoplankton extinction (the usual tipping point in doomer arguments) may be reversed in lower latitudes in a warming climate. But no one knows.
“Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were,” he wrote me in an email. “It is absolutely critical to recognize that I am NOT claiming that humans haven’t done great damage to marine and terrestrial [ecosystems], nor that many extinctions have not occurred and more will certainly occur in the near future. But I do think that as scientists we have a responsibility to be accurate about such comparisons." https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/the-ends...
1) permafrost melt, albedo feedbacks, etc., which has been considered in the most recent IPCC reports and is still being researched
2) sudden mass extinction due to biodiversity loss
As far as 1) goes, read the IPCC report and get back to me. 2) is scarier, for sure, but there is not enough research done to conclude that we have breached or are about to breach an extinction tipping point. Some recent models suggest phytoplankton extinction (the usual tipping point in doomer arguments) may be reversed in lower latitudes in a warming climate. But no one knows.
“Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were,” he wrote me in an email. “It is absolutely critical to recognize that I am NOT claiming that humans haven’t done great damage to marine and terrestrial [ecosystems], nor that many extinctions have not occurred and more will certainly occur in the near future. But I do think that as scientists we have a responsibility to be accurate about such comparisons." https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/the-ends...
As far as sudden mass extinction, I believe we've already reached the tipping point, but the unraveling processes of ecosystems take decades or even centuries. Big systems crash slow (even in computers! compare a nanosecond-scale hardware fault with a microsecond-scale SIGSEGV with a millisecond-scale NullPointerException with a seconds- or minutes-scale crash of a large web service; that's literally 9 orders of magnitude difference). Earth systems are starting to crash. Look at recent articles about the Great Barrier reef or the loss of kelp forests off the coast of California. These are just the leading edge of things coming apart, the snapping and cracking of support lines starting to come apart. Other things are coming apart at different timescales. Like the forests in Utah and Arizona that dying from higher elevations down due to warming, or being invaded by invasive species. In the midwest where I am, over just a few decades, farmland and forest turned into subdivisions. Raccoons, possum, deer, turtles, frogs, all disappearing. Lightning bugs disappearing. In California again, Monarchs disappearing.
Fire up Google Maps/Earth. Turn off all labels, and just pick a random place on Earth that isn't a desert. Chances are it's farms or turning into farms or suburbs or city. And land use change has accelerated. We've more tractors, backhoes, bulldozers, dumptrucks, roads, and gasoline than ever before. The ability to move dirt, cut down trees, landscape, build--growing exponentially. The Amazon is going, square mile by square mile, never to return. And with it, all the intricate little things alive there. We need meat!
We'll either crash or keep going. If we keep going, most life on this planet is threatened. And we aren't slowing down. We are speeding up. Like growing a watermelon in a lightbulb.
Our entire society is a tech machine that's eating it all. Bye, rabbits.
Fire up Google Maps/Earth. Turn off all labels, and just pick a random place on Earth that isn't a desert. Chances are it's farms or turning into farms or suburbs or city. And land use change has accelerated. We've more tractors, backhoes, bulldozers, dumptrucks, roads, and gasoline than ever before. The ability to move dirt, cut down trees, landscape, build--growing exponentially. The Amazon is going, square mile by square mile, never to return. And with it, all the intricate little things alive there. We need meat!
We'll either crash or keep going. If we keep going, most life on this planet is threatened. And we aren't slowing down. We are speeding up. Like growing a watermelon in a lightbulb.
Our entire society is a tech machine that's eating it all. Bye, rabbits.
> ... read the IPCC report and get back to me ...
As I stated elsewhere, I'm not inclined to debate the particulars, but I will note that we've learned a LOT since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report came out seven years ago. The sixth report, due to come out next year, which will still tend toward extremely conservative conclusions, is going to crush the findings in the previous report in terms of 'bad news'.
As to the other particulars, I've been researching and reading about those and many other categories for literally decades now. That doesn't make me right, and it doesn't make you wrong, but it has led me to realize and embrace the simple truth that even unlimited, good faith energies applied to debate over the details has basically no impact on anybody's opinions.
All that really matters is personal background and personal experiences. And your personal background (including, in large part, your DNA) and personal experiences are different from mine.
Going forward, however, we will share awareness of more and more frequent 100 year/500 year/1000 year weather events, for example.
I have no way of predicting how that will affect your view on things, and that's fine. Full and deep acceptance is a very useful tool.
To cherry pick one item:
> ... as scientists we have a responsibility to be accurate ...
Amen and amen. It's easier than ever to represent real problems in a hyperbolic fashion, but we must not do that. First: because inflated threats and predictions will cause those among us who are slower to accept the realities ahead to entrench, and be even less likely to see what's really happening. Second and most importantly: our best chance to beat this is to, together, focus on being clear, understanding and calm.
As I stated elsewhere, I'm not inclined to debate the particulars, but I will note that we've learned a LOT since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report came out seven years ago. The sixth report, due to come out next year, which will still tend toward extremely conservative conclusions, is going to crush the findings in the previous report in terms of 'bad news'.
As to the other particulars, I've been researching and reading about those and many other categories for literally decades now. That doesn't make me right, and it doesn't make you wrong, but it has led me to realize and embrace the simple truth that even unlimited, good faith energies applied to debate over the details has basically no impact on anybody's opinions.
All that really matters is personal background and personal experiences. And your personal background (including, in large part, your DNA) and personal experiences are different from mine.
Going forward, however, we will share awareness of more and more frequent 100 year/500 year/1000 year weather events, for example.
I have no way of predicting how that will affect your view on things, and that's fine. Full and deep acceptance is a very useful tool.
To cherry pick one item:
> ... as scientists we have a responsibility to be accurate ...
Amen and amen. It's easier than ever to represent real problems in a hyperbolic fashion, but we must not do that. First: because inflated threats and predictions will cause those among us who are slower to accept the realities ahead to entrench, and be even less likely to see what's really happening. Second and most importantly: our best chance to beat this is to, together, focus on being clear, understanding and calm.
How would climate change bring about the collapse of human civilization?
Widespread crop failures due to extreme conditions during growing seasons and collapse of pollinator populations
Collapse of fisheries globally due to ocean-acidification. Some 1 billion people currently rely on seafood as primary protein
Frequent extreme weather events cause frequent large scale property destruction
Higher sea level + extreme weather ravages coastal cities, which will also disrupt global supply chains
*Heatwaves will push into lethal territory in parts of the world
All of these things put together will put severe strains on unstable parts of the world first, but if the trends are not abated and we end up in 'Hothouse Earth' territory, modern civilization will not be sustainable.
The worst stuff comes when we're talking 3, 4, 5 degrees C of average warming. But the tricky thing is that we don't have a full understanding of all the planetary feedback loops and tipping points.
All of these things put together will put severe strains on unstable parts of the world first, but if the trends are not abated and we end up in 'Hothouse Earth' territory, modern civilization will not be sustainable.
The worst stuff comes when we're talking 3, 4, 5 degrees C of average warming. But the tricky thing is that we don't have a full understanding of all the planetary feedback loops and tipping points.
> All of these things put together will put severe strains on unstable parts of the world first, but if the trends are not abated and we end up in 'Hothouse Earth' territory, modern civilization will not be sustainable.
I hear this a lot from people online. But how realistic is this really? Say we enter 4 degrees of warming. I assume that we will experience food losses in both agriculture and fishing. The expectation seems to be that we will make no adjustments to our supply chains, no adaptations, no restrictions on food waste (currently over 50% in the developed world) or any other attempt to mitigate these factors.
Heatwaves/wet bulb stuff is worrying, and so are hurricanes. I don't want to diminish the problem. But it seems that this argument really rests on an understanding that we don't understand feedback loops, and that they are much worse than we anticipate, and that they lock us in to a Hothouse Earth scenario that pushes us into much higher levels of warming that we anticipate, and etc.
Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. But I haven't seen any evidence for it, despite how often people parrot it from other Reddit comments or whatever.
I hear this a lot from people online. But how realistic is this really? Say we enter 4 degrees of warming. I assume that we will experience food losses in both agriculture and fishing. The expectation seems to be that we will make no adjustments to our supply chains, no adaptations, no restrictions on food waste (currently over 50% in the developed world) or any other attempt to mitigate these factors.
Heatwaves/wet bulb stuff is worrying, and so are hurricanes. I don't want to diminish the problem. But it seems that this argument really rests on an understanding that we don't understand feedback loops, and that they are much worse than we anticipate, and that they lock us in to a Hothouse Earth scenario that pushes us into much higher levels of warming that we anticipate, and etc.
Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. But I haven't seen any evidence for it, despite how often people parrot it from other Reddit comments or whatever.
> I hear this a lot from people online. But how realistic is this really? Say we enter 4 degrees of warming. I assume that we will experience food losses in both agriculture and fishing. The expectation seems to be that we will make no adjustments to our supply chains, no adaptations, no restrictions on food waste (currently over 50% in the developed world) or any other attempt to mitigate these factors.
It's hard to put in context the scale of the problem, but you have to understand that certain forces of nature are far beyond our ability to adapt to in a way that avoids widescale misery and death.
The plants and animals alive today have evolved over many millions of years to live in a climate that operates in a certain range, on a certain schedule (seasons). Shifting climate across the planet by 4 degrees C means millions of species will be put into a climate they are not adapted for, and along with other pressures of pollution, and habitat loss, these species will go extinct.
As far as fisheries go, higher seat temperatures will cause hypoxic zones with mass fish die-offs and at a certain level of acidity, phytoplankton can't form their shells and that whole food chain collapses. It also means coral not only will die off, but it will dissolve the reefs.
For terrestrial crops, we have some ability to engineer crops that are more drought resistant and can stand some level of heat waves. Not only that, but the pollinators that many crops depend on will be severely impacted. When droughts wild fires, floods, sudden cold snaps, and the like are frequent and severe, it is very unlikely human kind will be able to sustain agricultural yields in a way that won't result in famines, particularly in the developing world.
There are already parts of the world that are unstable and have difficulty supplying resources to their populaces. Add these stressors and it is all but certain that basic order will break down in those parts of the world on a scale that is hard to fathom.
It's hard to put in context the scale of the problem, but you have to understand that certain forces of nature are far beyond our ability to adapt to in a way that avoids widescale misery and death.
The plants and animals alive today have evolved over many millions of years to live in a climate that operates in a certain range, on a certain schedule (seasons). Shifting climate across the planet by 4 degrees C means millions of species will be put into a climate they are not adapted for, and along with other pressures of pollution, and habitat loss, these species will go extinct.
As far as fisheries go, higher seat temperatures will cause hypoxic zones with mass fish die-offs and at a certain level of acidity, phytoplankton can't form their shells and that whole food chain collapses. It also means coral not only will die off, but it will dissolve the reefs.
For terrestrial crops, we have some ability to engineer crops that are more drought resistant and can stand some level of heat waves. Not only that, but the pollinators that many crops depend on will be severely impacted. When droughts wild fires, floods, sudden cold snaps, and the like are frequent and severe, it is very unlikely human kind will be able to sustain agricultural yields in a way that won't result in famines, particularly in the developing world.
There are already parts of the world that are unstable and have difficulty supplying resources to their populaces. Add these stressors and it is all but certain that basic order will break down in those parts of the world on a scale that is hard to fathom.
You're just assuming that everything will work out because it has for you so far and basically asking people to disprove a solution that you're assuming some people (i.e. not you) will come up with in the future before you're willing to believe that it is truly a problem.
> I assume that we will experience food losses in both agriculture and fishing.
You're underestimating the scale of losses and assuming that whatever we do (other than preventing it in the first place) will actually have any significant effects on this, which there is no evidence for.
Think about fresh water losses, irrigation, and then try growing all your food inside and you'll understand.
> I assume that we will experience food losses in both agriculture and fishing.
You're underestimating the scale of losses and assuming that whatever we do (other than preventing it in the first place) will actually have any significant effects on this, which there is no evidence for.
Think about fresh water losses, irrigation, and then try growing all your food inside and you'll understand.
I'll violate my decision to not get into the weeds on this material briefly by offering this very quick summary: whatever all the details are, what's undeniable is the rate at which extraordinary weather events are happening around the world: the rate is increasing, and the rate of increase is increasing.
If you're feeling compelled to act, now is a great time to look for jobs in CleanTech.
https://www.angellist.com/blog/inside-the-venture-climate-te...
https://www.angellist.com/blog/inside-the-venture-climate-te...
Pity that most of this is still fuelled by oil, in one way or another; shoving that oil energy through several intermediaries does not actually decrease entropy.
It's like the use of oil to make fertilizer to grow corn to make ethanol to supplement gasoline; would have been better to just burn the oil to start with, economically, environmentally, and in the long term politically, too. Corn subsidies in America wrecked the Mexican corn production market, resulting in waves of illegal immigration as poor farmers who don't know how to do anything else moved north to continue to ply their trade in a place where it is still profitable.
Too many cleantech projects are catabolic: consuming more energy than they produce, while spreading the blame and consumption around and giving people a way to claim carbon credits. Might as well just call them 'carbon indulgences' for all of the emissions they actually save in reality.
Only an economist could pretend that someone who owns a bunch of land doing nothing has an invisible commodity of carbon the government allocated for them to emit, that can be sold to a factory somewhere else that is actually emitting carbon, and pretend that it is somehow helping the environment to shuffle those dollars around.
Somehow, production processes continue; with the exception of those that shut down, only to open elsewhere in the world where there are fewer regulations on environment and labour. The result is a lose-lose, where we no longer have the ability to actually decrease emissions, no longer have any of the economic advantages of the emissions, and of course no longer have any way to ensure the people working in those facilities get a living wage or any of the other benefits of the labour laws our ancestors fought for.
Go ahead and take a CleanTech job, just remember, there's a 95% chance it's a circlejerk that doesn't accomplish anything at all in the real world besides spreading the problem around and grifting off of it in the process.
It's like the use of oil to make fertilizer to grow corn to make ethanol to supplement gasoline; would have been better to just burn the oil to start with, economically, environmentally, and in the long term politically, too. Corn subsidies in America wrecked the Mexican corn production market, resulting in waves of illegal immigration as poor farmers who don't know how to do anything else moved north to continue to ply their trade in a place where it is still profitable.
Too many cleantech projects are catabolic: consuming more energy than they produce, while spreading the blame and consumption around and giving people a way to claim carbon credits. Might as well just call them 'carbon indulgences' for all of the emissions they actually save in reality.
Only an economist could pretend that someone who owns a bunch of land doing nothing has an invisible commodity of carbon the government allocated for them to emit, that can be sold to a factory somewhere else that is actually emitting carbon, and pretend that it is somehow helping the environment to shuffle those dollars around.
Somehow, production processes continue; with the exception of those that shut down, only to open elsewhere in the world where there are fewer regulations on environment and labour. The result is a lose-lose, where we no longer have the ability to actually decrease emissions, no longer have any of the economic advantages of the emissions, and of course no longer have any way to ensure the people working in those facilities get a living wage or any of the other benefits of the labour laws our ancestors fought for.
Go ahead and take a CleanTech job, just remember, there's a 95% chance it's a circlejerk that doesn't accomplish anything at all in the real world besides spreading the problem around and grifting off of it in the process.
It isn't over until it's over. However, COVID and the response governments around the world made it's clear they are NOT treating climate like an emergency.
The issue with climate are feedback loops which cause non-linear responses. These are dangerous because they have a tendency to sneak up on you. We are being way too conservative in our climate response and the uncertainty around the future should not make us feel better.
I believe Michael Mann is wrong that scary headlines prevent action. Look at Greta and the youth climate movement and XR. It exploded BECAUSE of the dread and anxiety. Yes, it's true people on the sidelines might get scared away, but you only need a small group of REALLY committed actors to make real change. Those on the sidelines will come along after the fact.
The issue with climate are feedback loops which cause non-linear responses. These are dangerous because they have a tendency to sneak up on you. We are being way too conservative in our climate response and the uncertainty around the future should not make us feel better.
I believe Michael Mann is wrong that scary headlines prevent action. Look at Greta and the youth climate movement and XR. It exploded BECAUSE of the dread and anxiety. Yes, it's true people on the sidelines might get scared away, but you only need a small group of REALLY committed actors to make real change. Those on the sidelines will come along after the fact.
> It isn't over until it's over. However, COVID and the response governments around the world made it's clear they are NOT treating climate like an emergency.
How does the COVID response have anything to do with the climate response? The governments of the world have all responded differently -- some quite stringently -- and the speed with which we produced an mRNA vaccine (itself a technological marvel) is truly nuts.
>The issue with climate are feedback loops which cause non-linear responses. These are dangerous because they have a tendency to sneak up on you. We are being way too conservative in our climate response and the uncertainty around the future should not make us feel better.
It is true that feedback loops are dangerous, but what do you mean by "sneaking up" on us? There's always uncertainty in modeling and projections of any kind, but the most agreed-upon climate models and projected scenarios include feedback loops.
> I believe Michael Mann is wrong that scary headlines prevent action. Look at Greta and the youth climate movement and XR. It exploded BECAUSE of the dread and anxiety. Yes, it's true people on the sidelines might get scared away, but you only need a small group of REALLY committed actors to make real change. Those on the sidelines will come along after the fact.
Well, maybe. Everyone is different, so perhaps some people will be spurned to act by these sorts of headlines. A majority of people in the US agree that climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed, so hopefully we will see more and more political pressure in the future.
How does the COVID response have anything to do with the climate response? The governments of the world have all responded differently -- some quite stringently -- and the speed with which we produced an mRNA vaccine (itself a technological marvel) is truly nuts.
>The issue with climate are feedback loops which cause non-linear responses. These are dangerous because they have a tendency to sneak up on you. We are being way too conservative in our climate response and the uncertainty around the future should not make us feel better.
It is true that feedback loops are dangerous, but what do you mean by "sneaking up" on us? There's always uncertainty in modeling and projections of any kind, but the most agreed-upon climate models and projected scenarios include feedback loops.
> I believe Michael Mann is wrong that scary headlines prevent action. Look at Greta and the youth climate movement and XR. It exploded BECAUSE of the dread and anxiety. Yes, it's true people on the sidelines might get scared away, but you only need a small group of REALLY committed actors to make real change. Those on the sidelines will come along after the fact.
Well, maybe. Everyone is different, so perhaps some people will be spurned to act by these sorts of headlines. A majority of people in the US agree that climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed, so hopefully we will see more and more political pressure in the future.
The COVID response showed that governments (not all) can take drastic action when needed, both to limit the spread of the decease as well as to protect the economy. If they treated the climate emergency as the crisis it is, they would have acted as forcibly, or even stronger, to reduce green house gas emissions. They are not even close.
There are no technical or economical hurdles that stops us from strongly mitigate the climate change. It is pure politics. And it make me so angry.
There are no technical or economical hurdles that stops us from strongly mitigate the climate change. It is pure politics. And it make me so angry.
> If they treated the climate emergency as the crisis it is
They treat it as politicians that need to get re-elected, since that's linked to direct and indirect financial rewards. However, climate is something which is going to dramatically change in 50-100 years. The sea levels might not rise by 1 meter in the next 10-20 years. That means climate change isn't this government's problem. So no, there isn't a government on this planet that is going to treat climate change as an emergency.
They treat it as politicians that need to get re-elected, since that's linked to direct and indirect financial rewards. However, climate is something which is going to dramatically change in 50-100 years. The sea levels might not rise by 1 meter in the next 10-20 years. That means climate change isn't this government's problem. So no, there isn't a government on this planet that is going to treat climate change as an emergency.
It’s just enough that enough of their constituents do for them to start caring. A lot of young people and people with kids already care a lot. If people can worry about the deficit 10 or 15 years down the line people can worry about climate change.
> A lot of young people and people with kids already care a lot.
A lot of young people say they want to combat climate change and want politicians to do so.
But I've also seen the studies when those same people are asked about willingness to pay/sacrifice to accomplish that goal. They are... not good.
We will see if the next generation supports a carbon tax if it means higher prices for consumer goods and the benefits disproportionately accrue to people 2 generations down the line.
A lot of young people say they want to combat climate change and want politicians to do so.
But I've also seen the studies when those same people are asked about willingness to pay/sacrifice to accomplish that goal. They are... not good.
We will see if the next generation supports a carbon tax if it means higher prices for consumer goods and the benefits disproportionately accrue to people 2 generations down the line.
Which studies?
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/who-is-wi...
Interestingly, the younger generation is less willing to pay than the 30-44 age group, even though willingness to pay is uncorrelated with income.
Interestingly, the younger generation is less willing to pay than the 30-44 age group, even though willingness to pay is uncorrelated with income.
Talk about cherrypicking the results. Yes, slightly more 30-44 year olds are willing to pay more for renewable energy than 18-29 year olds. But both of those groups are much bigger than the two groups 45-59 and 60+. So the reasonable conclusion is the opposite of what you suggest.
I guess my thinking is combatting climate change is going to cost more than $10/mo on the electrical bill, I pay like $5k/mo in tax and apparently most people in a similar financial situation can't accept an increase of like 0.5% of what they pay in taxes to avert climate change.
$10/mo is very little, and the fact that we can barely get majorities of the younger generation to say that that would be okay is disheartening.
$10/mo is very little, and the fact that we can barely get majorities of the younger generation to say that that would be okay is disheartening.
If the government treated climate like they did COVID (lockdowns, etc.) it would trigger a civil war in the United States.
The sad thing is that the necessary actions would impact people’s life directly much less that the COVID restrictions. Petrol and flying would become expensive, and some jobs would disappear and be replaced with other jobs, sometimes somewhere else.
> some jobs would disappear
Some communities would disappear. Look at Canada. Without trucking, air or train with low-cost energy-efficient fuel combustion to move goods, you have no way to supply the vast majority of the inland for large countries.
Some communities would disappear. Look at Canada. Without trucking, air or train with low-cost energy-efficient fuel combustion to move goods, you have no way to supply the vast majority of the inland for large countries.
We already heavily subsidize rural living in the US, no reason we couldn't just offset the emissions necessary to deliver goods to rural areas and encourage urbanization (which is not where most emissions are coming from).
Yes, but that is nothing new. How many people do you need to run a mine today compared with 40 years ago. Or cutting down lumber or run a steel mill. So most communities far from cities are already gone.
In addition, trucking et c. will not disappear. The moment the economic incentives are there, there will be hydrogen fuel cell trucks on the roads in almost a blink. The technology is there.
In addition, trucking et c. will not disappear. The moment the economic incentives are there, there will be hydrogen fuel cell trucks on the roads in almost a blink. The technology is there.
>There are no technical or economical hurdles that stops us from strongly mitigate the climate change.
I think if actually work through a solution in just about any industry you'll find that it's actually fairly complex, both in terms of technical implementation and economic adaptation.
I think if actually work through a solution in just about any industry you'll find that it's actually fairly complex, both in terms of technical implementation and economic adaptation.
> both in terms of technical implementation and economic adaptation.
Can you elaborate with an example? Most industry has managed to completely transition from coal -> natgas in the last decade and a half so I find it hard to believe that the transition is just so complex it isn't possible.
If we price carbon at what it actually costs, seems like they'd figure out how to transition again.
Can you elaborate with an example? Most industry has managed to completely transition from coal -> natgas in the last decade and a half so I find it hard to believe that the transition is just so complex it isn't possible.
If we price carbon at what it actually costs, seems like they'd figure out how to transition again.
I didn't say, nor do I believe, that it's impossible. I even agree with your approach, pricing the externalities into the cost. A few challenges that come to mind:
a) We don't have a good way to normalize offset pricing, there's a nascent market but there is tremendous variability in pricing.
b) It's also not clear how much the offset market can scale on existing approaches and technologies. We can only plant so many trees, and we aren't in a position to run most heavy transport or ag off of current electrification technologies. Eventually we're going to need new technologies to reduce dependencies on petroleum and find alternatives or develop carbon capture technologies for processes that are difficult to reduce any further.
c) Economically, nothing happens in a vacuum. When one company our country or industry begins pricing in these externalities, they are placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Tariffs and regulation will likely need to be introduced to moderate the inevitable shift in trade and the increased prices will cascade to the consumer.
Ultimately I agree with most of what you're saying, including that political decisions are a large factor.
a) We don't have a good way to normalize offset pricing, there's a nascent market but there is tremendous variability in pricing.
b) It's also not clear how much the offset market can scale on existing approaches and technologies. We can only plant so many trees, and we aren't in a position to run most heavy transport or ag off of current electrification technologies. Eventually we're going to need new technologies to reduce dependencies on petroleum and find alternatives or develop carbon capture technologies for processes that are difficult to reduce any further.
c) Economically, nothing happens in a vacuum. When one company our country or industry begins pricing in these externalities, they are placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Tariffs and regulation will likely need to be introduced to moderate the inevitable shift in trade and the increased prices will cascade to the consumer.
Ultimately I agree with most of what you're saying, including that political decisions are a large factor.
I heard a podcast interview with Bill Gates recently on this subject, in which he identifies cement and steel as largely unsolved in terms of carbon impact. solar and electric cars is probably good enough for residential and transport. (Kara Swisher’s Sway on 15Feb)
Fossil free large scale steel plants are built in this moment:
https://www.ssab.com/company/sustainability/sustainable-oper...
If you read that it's mostly talking about electrification of the steel mills and mining operations. It's a required step ultimately but is only as carbon neutral as the power coming into the facility.
It’s in Sweden, where almost all electricity already comes from renewables and nuclear. Also, the comment was a response to the claim that steel production was hard to do without fossil fuels.
Price carbon at the cost needed to offset that carbon, use the price to offset the carbon.
Such as?
> The COVID response showed that governments (not all) can take drastic action when needed,
If this is our rubric and measure of good governance, why don't we all just become fascists already? At least in that case we could pretend to be unified and proud of what we're doing, instead of this chaotic, bungled, arbitrary response that takes hints from authoritarianism without getting any of its benefits.
> There are no technical or economical hurdles that stops us from strongly mitigate the climate change.
This statement is absurd. Do you have some magic wand that is going to solve the car problem, or the international shipment problem? Have you got some secret battery technology that you aren't letting on about, perhaps one that doesn't require extremely expensive rare materials to produce?
Remember, as you drive your Tesla around, that nigh-indentured Chinese workers essentially engaged in mining actions arguably worse than classic colonialism in Africa are responsible for providing you with your "clean" vehicle, which will probably never make up for the emissions created in its production....
If this is our rubric and measure of good governance, why don't we all just become fascists already? At least in that case we could pretend to be unified and proud of what we're doing, instead of this chaotic, bungled, arbitrary response that takes hints from authoritarianism without getting any of its benefits.
> There are no technical or economical hurdles that stops us from strongly mitigate the climate change.
This statement is absurd. Do you have some magic wand that is going to solve the car problem, or the international shipment problem? Have you got some secret battery technology that you aren't letting on about, perhaps one that doesn't require extremely expensive rare materials to produce?
Remember, as you drive your Tesla around, that nigh-indentured Chinese workers essentially engaged in mining actions arguably worse than classic colonialism in Africa are responsible for providing you with your "clean" vehicle, which will probably never make up for the emissions created in its production....
The car problem is solved. There are huge battery factories built all over the world right now. Most major car manufacturers are releasing several electric cars this year. I’d bet you that few cars run by fossil fuels will be sold in Europe or North America in ten years from now.
The car problem is solved when I have a wide selection of used electric cars in the $10k price range that I can work on in my own garage. That's still a decade out.
> I’d bet you that few cars run by fossil fuels will be sold in Europe or North America in ten years from now
Pipe dream. I'd take that bet. You'll have to weasel out with creative definitions of "few".... not everyone lives in the city, man.
> I’d bet you that few cars run by fossil fuels will be sold in Europe or North America in ten years from now
Pipe dream. I'd take that bet. You'll have to weasel out with creative definitions of "few".... not everyone lives in the city, man.
> How does the COVID response have anything to do with the climate response? The governments of the world have all responded differently -- some quite stringently -- and the speed with which we produced an mRNA vaccine (itself a technological marvel) is truly nuts.
I read the point as that now we've seen what governments around the world are willing to do when they perceive a real emergency: Shut down entire industries, print money to subsidize everybody, and enforce exceptions for rent/debt payments for people affected. There has as yet been no willingness to take anything of the sort in response to climate change.
I read the point as that now we've seen what governments around the world are willing to do when they perceive a real emergency: Shut down entire industries, print money to subsidize everybody, and enforce exceptions for rent/debt payments for people affected. There has as yet been no willingness to take anything of the sort in response to climate change.
That mostly applies to the developed world. Countries like mine won’t be able to afford the necessary changes, and we’re set to keep growing.
How does your country intend to "keep growing". Will it do the export strategy that China and pretty much every other Asian country followed (Korea, Japan)? If yes, then it will be done by pegging the currency to the dollar with the end result of accumulating a reserve of US treasury bonds. The additional bonds that your country is purchasing will allow the US government to do more green investments, maybe even abroad, maybe even in your country. If these investments end up increasing the trade deficit even further then the green investment cycle starts again.
Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?
>How does the COVID response have anything to do with the climate response?
I can't speak for the parent poster, but the US COVID response made me pretty pessimistic about our country's ability to deal with complicated near-future threats that (a) are not immediately tangible, (b) require even modest personal sacrifices (see e.g., wearing masks.) Back in the earlier phases of the pandemic it was a near-term threat with an unknown IFR and a pretty high immediate body count, not some future concern where the worst effects are decades away.
I guess the good news here is that some countries were much more successful in organizing a coordinated COVID response. Unfortunately, slowing down climate change is a global effort: you can't just seal your borders to prevent it. TL;DR as a practice run for how we'll deal with the much bigger climate crisis, our global grade in this one was barely passing. Thank god we had a quick technical fix in the form of vaccination.
I can't speak for the parent poster, but the US COVID response made me pretty pessimistic about our country's ability to deal with complicated near-future threats that (a) are not immediately tangible, (b) require even modest personal sacrifices (see e.g., wearing masks.) Back in the earlier phases of the pandemic it was a near-term threat with an unknown IFR and a pretty high immediate body count, not some future concern where the worst effects are decades away.
I guess the good news here is that some countries were much more successful in organizing a coordinated COVID response. Unfortunately, slowing down climate change is a global effort: you can't just seal your borders to prevent it. TL;DR as a practice run for how we'll deal with the much bigger climate crisis, our global grade in this one was barely passing. Thank god we had a quick technical fix in the form of vaccination.
Likewise. I was already somewhat pessimistic, but was hopeful that there might be a cultural shift with the younger generations.
Covid made me much more pessimistic about the younger generation's willingness to sacrifice for greater good (IMO, the older generations are a lost cause).
Covid made me much more pessimistic about the younger generation's willingness to sacrifice for greater good (IMO, the older generations are a lost cause).
If politicians, left or right, thought of climate as an emergency, they would behave _completely_ differently. Just look at the Green New Deal. If they truly thought of it as an emergency, they wouldn't pass highly controversial legislation with all sorts of policies with zero bipartisan support. Legislation taking climate change seriously would instead look like:
- Carbon taxes and carbon capture incentives
- Nuclear power
That's not what it looks like, though.
- Carbon taxes and carbon capture incentives
- Nuclear power
That's not what it looks like, though.
> Just look at the Green New Deal. If they truly thought of it as an emergency, they wouldn't pass highly controversial legislation with all sorts of policies with zero bipartisan support.
That...makes no sense. If you think its an emergency, and a faction which includes all of the members in office in the opposing political party thinks it is not an emergency, pretty much any policy aimed at dealing with the emergency is going to be both “controversial” and “have zero bipartisan support”.
But the Green New Deal isn’t intended to address one such controversial emergency, but two current ones (plus a third, less controversial, one):
(1) A climate emergency (hence, the “Green”),
(2) An economic emergency not in aggregate output but distribution (hence, the “New Deal”),
and:
(3) The potential economic emergency, both aggregate and distributional, that would be produced by a narrow, naive approach to the first emergency.
So, yes, it has lots in it that isn’t germane to the first emergency, especially viewed narrowly.
That...makes no sense. If you think its an emergency, and a faction which includes all of the members in office in the opposing political party thinks it is not an emergency, pretty much any policy aimed at dealing with the emergency is going to be both “controversial” and “have zero bipartisan support”.
But the Green New Deal isn’t intended to address one such controversial emergency, but two current ones (plus a third, less controversial, one):
(1) A climate emergency (hence, the “Green”),
(2) An economic emergency not in aggregate output but distribution (hence, the “New Deal”),
and:
(3) The potential economic emergency, both aggregate and distributional, that would be produced by a narrow, naive approach to the first emergency.
So, yes, it has lots in it that isn’t germane to the first emergency, especially viewed narrowly.
There is a savings glut in the US. Automation, urbanization, pension funds, trade deficits, and dozens of more factors cause an excess of savings. Savings are just deferred spending. If someone doesn't spend, then someone else doesn't work. That's how you get an economy with high unemployment. Alternatively, you invest the savings. Yields go down, price earnings shoots up. Turns out, the market is already saturated and there are no investments left. There is nowhere for the money to go. So institutions buy government bonds even if some of them have negative yields. When you buy us treasury bonds, then you are saying "I want the US government to have my money because it can invest my money better than me". How does the US government tap into that money? They are bonds, the government has to go into debt to access the money.
This was the prologue so you understand that the US government absolutely must invest. So, what is the US government going to invest the money into? The goal is to produce a reasonable return (1% above inflation). The first obvious choice is education because it ensures that the USA will have a highly qualified workforce in the future. USA is the tech center of the world so anything that strengthens it will ensure a bright future for the US. The second obvious investment choice are green investments. It really doesn't matter what you invest here because fighting climate change is like defending your nation against a foreign army. If the nation is destroyed, there are no returns to be had. If nuclear power is effective then that's how it is but renewables look like a much faster way to deploy the savings. One should question why these obvious investments aren't being made if there is a savings glut. It's because they aren't considered investments. Fossil fuels are still too competitive even though it is obvious that they will fade away over the next 20 years.
Of course you can also do generic infrastructure investments. They'll probably net a reasonable return as well. I feel like stimulus checks do help with unemployment because they boost consumption but they aren't sustainable in the long term. It's possible that the savings glut goes away and then the debt becomes unsustainable, which is why the money should be deployed with an intention to net a return.
This was the prologue so you understand that the US government absolutely must invest. So, what is the US government going to invest the money into? The goal is to produce a reasonable return (1% above inflation). The first obvious choice is education because it ensures that the USA will have a highly qualified workforce in the future. USA is the tech center of the world so anything that strengthens it will ensure a bright future for the US. The second obvious investment choice are green investments. It really doesn't matter what you invest here because fighting climate change is like defending your nation against a foreign army. If the nation is destroyed, there are no returns to be had. If nuclear power is effective then that's how it is but renewables look like a much faster way to deploy the savings. One should question why these obvious investments aren't being made if there is a savings glut. It's because they aren't considered investments. Fossil fuels are still too competitive even though it is obvious that they will fade away over the next 20 years.
Of course you can also do generic infrastructure investments. They'll probably net a reasonable return as well. I feel like stimulus checks do help with unemployment because they boost consumption but they aren't sustainable in the long term. It's possible that the savings glut goes away and then the debt becomes unsustainable, which is why the money should be deployed with an intention to net a return.
Completely agree, the green new deal isn't about climate change. It's a jobs program.
Is it at all possible it could be both, as perhaps the phrases "green" and "new deal" clearly suggest?
> Is it at all possible it could be both, as perhaps the phrases "green" and "new deal" clearly suggest?
My thoughts exactly, and given the horrid post covid economy (specifically for younger millennials and Gen Z) and the need for a mass upgrade to the US' infrastructure this makes the most sense as it could solve both problems instead of giving trillions to bail out mega corps.
Honestly, I cannot fathom the notion where people see th massive amount of homelessness in the US, but specifically in the Bay Area, and think this model was sustainable or even desirable. At least this could put many people who have been displaced from the work force into a skills training program and a trade that could alleviate some of the needless amount of Human misery that has been normalized.
My thoughts exactly, and given the horrid post covid economy (specifically for younger millennials and Gen Z) and the need for a mass upgrade to the US' infrastructure this makes the most sense as it could solve both problems instead of giving trillions to bail out mega corps.
Honestly, I cannot fathom the notion where people see th massive amount of homelessness in the US, but specifically in the Bay Area, and think this model was sustainable or even desirable. At least this could put many people who have been displaced from the work force into a skills training program and a trade that could alleviate some of the needless amount of Human misery that has been normalized.
>If they truly thought of it as an emergency, they wouldn't pass highly controversial legislation with all sorts of policies with zero bipartisan support.
In the spirit of "never let a good crisis go to waste," one might argue that emergencies are typically EXACTLY when politicians are most likely to pass highly controversial and unilateral legislation.
In the spirit of "never let a good crisis go to waste," one might argue that emergencies are typically EXACTLY when politicians are most likely to pass highly controversial and unilateral legislation.
Ah yes, carbon taxes and nuclear power - very uncontroversial and bipartisan
I specifically mean controversial issues being tacked onto the bill that are at best tangentially related.
The Green New Deal literally has a stipulation within that guarantees "economic security to those unable or unwilling to work." If you thought climate change was an emergency, would you slip in a stipulation like this?
In regards to carbon taxes, there are many Republicans who are fully on board with this. Mitigating negative third party externalities is a role for the state, even within libertarian think tanks.
The Green New Deal literally has a stipulation within that guarantees "economic security to those unable or unwilling to work." If you thought climate change was an emergency, would you slip in a stipulation like this?
In regards to carbon taxes, there are many Republicans who are fully on board with this. Mitigating negative third party externalities is a role for the state, even within libertarian think tanks.
> The Green New Deal literally has a stipulation within that guarantees "economic security to those unable or unwilling to work."
Point me to that phrase in the text of the bill? Not to campaign slogans or Fox news hit pieces or whatever.
The gap between "libertarian think tank" and Republican electorate is larger than it has been the last 60 years. There are many people in the world, so I don't doubt that there are "many" Republicans fully on board.
Any significant chunk of the electorate though? No, polling doesn't indicate that.
Point me to that phrase in the text of the bill? Not to campaign slogans or Fox news hit pieces or whatever.
The gap between "libertarian think tank" and Republican electorate is larger than it has been the last 60 years. There are many people in the world, so I don't doubt that there are "many" Republicans fully on board.
Any significant chunk of the electorate though? No, polling doesn't indicate that.
The phrase "It guarantees to everyone: Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work" originated from the "What is the Green New Deal?" FAQ page published by AOC.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190207191119/https://ocasio-co...
The exact text within the final resolution is: "providing all people of the United States with economic security"
https://web.archive.org/web/20190207191119/https://ocasio-co...
The exact text within the final resolution is: "providing all people of the United States with economic security"
That exact text is from a draft by Ocasio Cortez. The finalized bill is here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolutio...
I've included highlights of the sort below.
> providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization;
> (E) directing investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits in frontline and vulnerable communities, and deindustrialized communities, that may otherwise struggle with the transition away from greenhouse gas intensive industries;
> (F) ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization at the local level;
> (G) ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition;
> (H) guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;
> (I) strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;
> (J) strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors;
> (M) obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;
> E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);
> (3) to counteract systemic injustices...
> (B) a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family; and
> (C) a gender earnings gap that results in women earning approximately 80 percent as much as men, at the median;
Is this the sort of legislation that you are going to try to get through Congress in an emergency? Not to mention the things directly related to climate, are carried out via overnight bans on certain technologies, and a commitment to rebuild 100% of all buildings in the United States to meet new compliance standards.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolutio...
I've included highlights of the sort below.
> providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization;
> (E) directing investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits in frontline and vulnerable communities, and deindustrialized communities, that may otherwise struggle with the transition away from greenhouse gas intensive industries;
> (F) ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization at the local level;
> (G) ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition;
> (H) guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;
> (I) strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;
> (J) strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors;
> (M) obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;
> E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);
> (3) to counteract systemic injustices...
> (B) a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family; and
> (C) a gender earnings gap that results in women earning approximately 80 percent as much as men, at the median;
Is this the sort of legislation that you are going to try to get through Congress in an emergency? Not to mention the things directly related to climate, are carried out via overnight bans on certain technologies, and a commitment to rebuild 100% of all buildings in the United States to meet new compliance standards.
I wrote the following comment before I read yours:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26679988
Don't you understand? The savings glut is actively causing unemployment. Investments of any kind will bring unemployment down, but people have this weird misconception that green investments will increase unemployment because of lack of competitiveness or whatever weird pet theory they come up. The entire reasoning behind any government investment program is to bring down unemployment. The fact that this lines up with the ability to fight climate change is absolutely fantastic but Trump and other republicans create the exact opposite perception and I honestly don't understand why. There is no logical or economic reason for that stance. It's purely perception/tribal thinking driven. There is no money to be earned by denying climate change. It's just reducing the number of options available.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26679988
Don't you understand? The savings glut is actively causing unemployment. Investments of any kind will bring unemployment down, but people have this weird misconception that green investments will increase unemployment because of lack of competitiveness or whatever weird pet theory they come up. The entire reasoning behind any government investment program is to bring down unemployment. The fact that this lines up with the ability to fight climate change is absolutely fantastic but Trump and other republicans create the exact opposite perception and I honestly don't understand why. There is no logical or economic reason for that stance. It's purely perception/tribal thinking driven. There is no money to be earned by denying climate change. It's just reducing the number of options available.
> If they truly thought of it as an emergency,
They who?
> they wouldn't pass highly controversial legislation with all sorts of policies with zero bipartisan support
The lack of bipartisan support has nothing to do with the emergency, aforementioned. The issue is that the US consumer doesn't believe it's an emergency. That's the THEY everyone addresses, even if someone believes their "they" means someone else.
Once the US consumer (70% or so) is afraid of something, political clout follows. See the slow adoption of Marijuana Decriminalization and Bike Helmet Law adoption across states.
They who?
> they wouldn't pass highly controversial legislation with all sorts of policies with zero bipartisan support
The lack of bipartisan support has nothing to do with the emergency, aforementioned. The issue is that the US consumer doesn't believe it's an emergency. That's the THEY everyone addresses, even if someone believes their "they" means someone else.
Once the US consumer (70% or so) is afraid of something, political clout follows. See the slow adoption of Marijuana Decriminalization and Bike Helmet Law adoption across states.
Earth Temperature Timeline for scale
https://xkcd.com/1732/
https://xkcd.com/1732/
The smoothing coefficient (or data resolution, however you want to look at it) on that chart is vastly different over different periods of time, leading to a misleading hockey stick type visualization.
So what you're saying is, even though it may have went high in the past, you believe that we have the possibility of dropping cool again in a short (decadal) period of time?
What I'm saying is, the human heartbeat looks very spiky when you sample it 250 times per second. When you collect data in minute-long periods though, it looks like a flat line.
We do not have daily, yearly or even decadal temperature data for the time period 15,000 BC the way we do for the modern day. There is a lot of historical variability that is not shown on the graph. That variability could easily reach today's levels or higher, for moments.
We do not have daily, yearly or even decadal temperature data for the time period 15,000 BC the way we do for the modern day. There is a lot of historical variability that is not shown on the graph. That variability could easily reach today's levels or higher, for moments.
From the linked study:
>The first thing we needed to understand was how temperature and precipitation influenced crop productivity in many locations. To do this, we analyzed data from up to 20,000 counties and districts around the world to see how crop yields varied in each place with changes in precipitation and temperature. Once we had constructed an empirical model connecting crop yield to weather variations at each location, we could use it to assess how much yields had changed from what we would have expected to see if average weather patterns had not changed. The difference between what we would have predicted, based on the counterfactual weather, and what actually occurred reflects the influence of climate change.
The researchers are throwing every deviation from "average" into "climate change" - including cooling, heating, more precip and less precip. Headline of OP would thus seem to be inaccurate. Also, hard to say with just this info how much of the farm productivity effects are driven by manmade carbon emissions.
>The first thing we needed to understand was how temperature and precipitation influenced crop productivity in many locations. To do this, we analyzed data from up to 20,000 counties and districts around the world to see how crop yields varied in each place with changes in precipitation and temperature. Once we had constructed an empirical model connecting crop yield to weather variations at each location, we could use it to assess how much yields had changed from what we would have expected to see if average weather patterns had not changed. The difference between what we would have predicted, based on the counterfactual weather, and what actually occurred reflects the influence of climate change.
The researchers are throwing every deviation from "average" into "climate change" - including cooling, heating, more precip and less precip. Headline of OP would thus seem to be inaccurate. Also, hard to say with just this info how much of the farm productivity effects are driven by manmade carbon emissions.
The huge problem is if we wait even longer for clearer, higher magnitude data to act, the delay in fixing the problem will lock in the problem for many many years.
The key is water management, that's why large mono-cultures are so bad, they're deserts without all the artificially added water and fertilizers. When you have a diversified environment, permacultures, you keep all the material for life
I know you'll think yes but how do I feed 7 billions people with small permacultures, I think we can, because for the same area a permaculture is really more productive, we'd need more people working in agriculture, and I think that's fine too, in this crisis context, people should consider job changes
Btw as a French man, I'm so disappointed by how agriculture is shaped in our country https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_en_France#Producti... I'd love to see many more orchards, bigger productions of figs, persimmons, clementines, peaches, tomatoes, etc.. Fruits are so marvellous for our organism. What destroyed our agriculture landscape is Marshall plan and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy
I know you'll think yes but how do I feed 7 billions people with small permacultures, I think we can, because for the same area a permaculture is really more productive, we'd need more people working in agriculture, and I think that's fine too, in this crisis context, people should consider job changes
Btw as a French man, I'm so disappointed by how agriculture is shaped in our country https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_en_France#Producti... I'd love to see many more orchards, bigger productions of figs, persimmons, clementines, peaches, tomatoes, etc.. Fruits are so marvellous for our organism. What destroyed our agriculture landscape is Marshall plan and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy
I’m not familiar enough with the science, but wouldn’t global warming open up new farmland in the north? Land that is currently not used as farmland, so it wouldn’t factor into any calculations.
Global warming is a technically accurate phrase to describe what we're dealing with, but I prefer 'climate change' because it captures the other, perhaps more important impacts beyond increasing average temperature.
Warmth is energy, and injecting energy into a large, chaotic system, like our planet's climate, certainly causes the average temperature to increase, but it also causes the system to become more chaotic.
More concretely, climate change also means more frequent hot spells, more frequent cold spells, more frequent flooding events, more frequent droughts, more frequent storms, etc.
Along with certain average temperature ranges, crops need many months of stable weather in order to usefully produce. Even though, on average, the temperatures in more areas will move into the range needed by various crops, the average amount of necessary weather stability will also decrease, in the potential new growing areas as well as the old.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/global_weirding
Warmth is energy, and injecting energy into a large, chaotic system, like our planet's climate, certainly causes the average temperature to increase, but it also causes the system to become more chaotic.
More concretely, climate change also means more frequent hot spells, more frequent cold spells, more frequent flooding events, more frequent droughts, more frequent storms, etc.
Along with certain average temperature ranges, crops need many months of stable weather in order to usefully produce. Even though, on average, the temperatures in more areas will move into the range needed by various crops, the average amount of necessary weather stability will also decrease, in the potential new growing areas as well as the old.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/global_weirding
I can corroborate this, living in Virginia for the last 20 years. We used to get a lot of snow when I was younger, and now we get a lot more days where the heat/humidity is almost unbearable, and a lot more storms that result in less snow, and more ice. Charlotte county recently had about 80% of their electrical infrastructure taken down by an ice storm. Not fun.
Ive attempted to explain the weather as a pendulum, the highs get higher and the lows get lower as the system attempts to find equilibrium while having energy added from outside an otherwise closed system.
Ive attempted to explain the weather as a pendulum, the highs get higher and the lows get lower as the system attempts to find equilibrium while having energy added from outside an otherwise closed system.
Yup, that sort of thing is happening all over the planet.
Things get really confusing when, one winter in the future, your location ends up getting a record high snowfall total. On average, you're getting less, but the extremes on both sides also get more extreme. The winter I described very well might be sandwiched between winters where you received no frozen precipitation at all.
Things get really confusing when, one winter in the future, your location ends up getting a record high snowfall total. On average, you're getting less, but the extremes on both sides also get more extreme. The winter I described very well might be sandwiched between winters where you received no frozen precipitation at all.
The northern US receives a lot of sunlight (similar to southern, mediterranean France) but has been less profitable in growing certain crops due to its shorter growing season and frost risk.
But these are changing:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/frost-free-se...
logically one would expect agricultural output to increase in these areas as their solar potential is unlocked but there are other areas where the opposite will occur
But these are changing:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/frost-free-se...
logically one would expect agricultural output to increase in these areas as their solar potential is unlocked but there are other areas where the opposite will occur
No. Crops need light, excellent soil, heat, and water. Warming the north provides heat but none of the other 3. Canada and northern Russia are lands of rocks and trees. You can't grow crops on rocks, at least not in the way that commercial agriculture is used to.
An Old joke.
US scientists were explaining global warming to Russians in Siberia.
The Russians became very excited and asked what they could do to help speed up global warming.
US scientists were explaining global warming to Russians in Siberia.
The Russians became very excited and asked what they could do to help speed up global warming.
Now they are having think about having to evacuate some towns due to the permafrost melting making the surface unstable. https://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0280-w...
It increases the frost-free season but it doesn't make the sun actually shine more, and it is light, not heat, which grows plants. On the margin, there will be a growing season in places where there is not, and there may be places that get one extra crop where today there is one per year, but there aren't going to be olive groves in the Yukon.
But during the summer there’s actually quite much more sunlight in the north than closer to the equator. The growing season might be shorter, but it has potential to be very productive.
It will also make a wider band of hospitable climate for insects and tropical diseases. "Got my pills 'gainst mosquito death"
Malaria used to be common throughout the US.
"Although malaria was eradicated from the United States in the early 1950s, it had once been a prevalent disease, especially prior to the 1880s. Through-out the nineteenth century, malaria affected most populated regions in the United States, significantly undermining the health of the population and the U.S. economy. Above all, malaria was one of the country’s leading causes of death. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.7 out of every 1,000 deaths resulted from malarial fevers in 1850."
-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600412/
It was (and is) controlled by draining swamps and getting rid of standing water, the use of insecticides and window screens. If malaria can be controlled today in Florida, I think most of the rest of the country doesn't need to worry about mosquito death pills for quite a while.
"Although malaria was eradicated from the United States in the early 1950s, it had once been a prevalent disease, especially prior to the 1880s. Through-out the nineteenth century, malaria affected most populated regions in the United States, significantly undermining the health of the population and the U.S. economy. Above all, malaria was one of the country’s leading causes of death. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.7 out of every 1,000 deaths resulted from malarial fevers in 1850."
-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600412/
It was (and is) controlled by draining swamps and getting rid of standing water, the use of insecticides and window screens. If malaria can be controlled today in Florida, I think most of the rest of the country doesn't need to worry about mosquito death pills for quite a while.
The greenhouse effect is most noticeable in the coldest parts of the greenhouse, like putting a lid on food in the microwave to spread the warming effect. The most impacted places will be furthest from the equator, which is why glacial melt is so prominent already. It's the canary in the coal mine. Once all that ice is lost, the climate patterns we know and can predict may and likely will change and be irriversible. There may be some local good effects, like farming in VA, but extreme heat/cold storms or tropical pestilence may negate any farm yield. Climate science is way more interconnected than we can wrap our heads around. The second third and 100th order derivates are unpredictable.
I take those pills for an autoimmune disease. Not much fun.
Mosquito angle isn’t one I’ve heard before.
Mosquito angle isn’t one I’ve heard before.
Unfortunately, the northern lands don't have good top soil for growing crops. Top soil takes a LONG time to develop. We would need to ship a lot of soil north for us to use the land. Or we need to grow without soil.
Some northern lands are known for their rich, dark soil. The northern states and southern Canada, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem
Parts of Russia too.
"How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russ...
"How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russ...
You are right that there is some good soil in northern areas. I guess the general question is, is the soil health at more northern latitudes healthy enough to replace the loss of growing in the lower latitudes.
Isn't there a good chance that Southern soil deposits are depleted given the intensity of Agriculture?
Hard to know, but there is a decent chance that the migration of Agriculture further North could create even more food due to richer untapped soil.
Global-scale crop rotation.
Hard to know, but there is a decent chance that the migration of Agriculture further North could create even more food due to richer untapped soil.
Global-scale crop rotation.
For the top of lower 48, sun angle is literally the same as southern France... Really we're not that far north.
Solution? Bring millions currently remote office workers back to offices. Gigatons of fuel they'll have to burn on commute will supposedly negate the global heating.
This might be out of date, but this is my usual go-to for ideas or chances of actions regarding climate change.(http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)
No.
Crop yields are up (30-90%) for every single type of crop in the United States in the past 30 years.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornyl...
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/riceyl...
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/wwyld....
Crop yields are up (30-90%) for every single type of crop in the United States in the past 30 years.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornyl...
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/riceyl...
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/wwyld....
The article seems pretty clear that the story is about how productivity is worse _than it would have been_ without the global heating that industrialisation has incurred.
So this article's clickbait headline should read instead "While crop yields are up, they could be even higher..."?
Let's set aside the dishonest scaremongering headline.
No one can disprove a study that describes a fictional alternate reality based entirely on supposition of simulated outcomes.
Productivity is higher than it has ever been in human history and the trend line is up and to the right and the Guardian wants you to be terrified.
Let's set aside the dishonest scaremongering headline.
No one can disprove a study that describes a fictional alternate reality based entirely on supposition of simulated outcomes.
Productivity is higher than it has ever been in human history and the trend line is up and to the right and the Guardian wants you to be terrified.
I think the headline is fair. Would you have the same reaction to an article claiming smoking cigarettes hurts life expectancy? I don't think the argument that "life expectancy is up 30% since cigarettes were invented!" would be a good rebuttal against the headline.
When I read the headline I thought it was claiming that farm productivity was falling. It's a misleading headline: I was misled by it.
But people don't click on headlines telling you that things are the best they have ever been and getting even better, but are not quite as good as they could be. You've got to feed the doomscrollers.
But people don't click on headlines telling you that things are the best they have ever been and getting even better, but are not quite as good as they could be. You've got to feed the doomscrollers.
This is a false comparison because you can run longitudinal studies with smoking populations and compare them to control populations. Let me know when we can run experiments on climate change with multiple Earths and compare them to control Earths.
Of course we can? And do? It's trivial to run a greenhouse at different temperatures and see how the plants grow. Trivial to adjust light, rainfall, mineral balance, pH, etc. Kids do this in 8th grade science fairs.
Honestly HN. Here's an idea: when you encounter some topic area you don't know anything about, just consider for at least two seconds the possibility that there may be smart people working in that field, since before you were born. THEN start talking about it. Or don't. Maybe you don't have anything useful to add.
Honestly HN. Here's an idea: when you encounter some topic area you don't know anything about, just consider for at least two seconds the possibility that there may be smart people working in that field, since before you were born. THEN start talking about it. Or don't. Maybe you don't have anything useful to add.
Isn’t biology as simple as Unix? Just read the man pages and the source for the binaries for a a few weeks and I can grok it. How could plants be more complicated than software? I can make stuff happen in software. Plants just sit there.
That's true, but we do have populations that are closer to control. There's still quite a few people who engage in subsistence farming in less industrialized nations.
For example, the rice farmers in the northern Philippines (excluding Banaue which is heavily touristed). They've certainly benefited in the last century from medicine, a stable government that prevents their historical tribal warfare, and cheaper manufactured goods, but their actual farming hasn't changed a whole lot.
For example, the rice farmers in the northern Philippines (excluding Banaue which is heavily touristed). They've certainly benefited in the last century from medicine, a stable government that prevents their historical tribal warfare, and cheaper manufactured goods, but their actual farming hasn't changed a whole lot.
So then, the costs of fossil fuel emissions -- evaluated purely in terms of these results -- are less than their benefit? (That is, fossil fuel usage increased agricultural productivity, while warming decreased it by a smaller amount.)
Obviously, you wouldn't want to dismiss the concerns of GW on that basis, but this doesn't seem like a good reason to think GW is a problem, even as there are other good reasons.
Obviously, you wouldn't want to dismiss the concerns of GW on that basis, but this doesn't seem like a good reason to think GW is a problem, even as there are other good reasons.
However, I am sure a large part of the increase in productivity is due to fossil fuels. For example a tractor versus a horse is much better in farming, and electric tractors are much more expensive than diesel powered tractors.
Thus even their hypothetical would be better scenario doesn’t make much sense.
Thus even their hypothetical would be better scenario doesn’t make much sense.
Drought alone cost $10-14B in 2019 and are increasing due to climate change.
https://www.resources.org/archives/economic-impacts-drought-...
Similar with flooding, and increasing pestilence due to warmer winters.
As the saying goes, past events is no guarantee of future performance.
https://www.resources.org/archives/economic-impacts-drought-...
Similar with flooding, and increasing pestilence due to warmer winters.
As the saying goes, past events is no guarantee of future performance.
Only $10-14 billion?
According to this list, worldwide agricultural output is $2-8 trillion (nominal vs. PPP) so I’d have expected way more drought induced losses even as just seasonal noise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_secto...
According to this list, worldwide agricultural output is $2-8 trillion (nominal vs. PPP) so I’d have expected way more drought induced losses even as just seasonal noise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_secto...
I was unclear on the scope of those numbers, they were for US ag, so your number is comparing US drought numbers to the entire world output. Comparing an apple to the entire apple orchard.
If we wait to take steps until it’s an even larger problem then we lock in decades of yield being curtailed by weather extremes.
In your linked data, 2017 US Ag contribution to GDP is $175B, so almost 10% reduction of the entire nations agricultural output from just drought is significant, and expected to rise.
If we wait to take steps until it’s an even larger problem then we lock in decades of yield being curtailed by weather extremes.
In your linked data, 2017 US Ag contribution to GDP is $175B, so almost 10% reduction of the entire nations agricultural output from just drought is significant, and expected to rise.
On one hand, rising carbon levels in the atmosphere make plants grow faster, on the other, changing weather patterns, drought, frost, cause crop damage.
Also on the minus side: human cognition is impaired by higher CO2 levels.
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/continued-CO2-emissions-wil...
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/continued-CO2-emissions-wil...
I can't recall but I read a study once which had a look at how nutritients are affected by CO2 induced faster growth. The conclusion was pretty much that stuff grows faster but has less nutritients. (The study looked at rice I think)
There’s also a phenomenon that hotter conditions cause water to evaporate faster.
The term here is vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
VPD is the relationship between the amount of water in the atmosphere, temperature, and the rate of evaporation.
As temperature increases, rate of evaporation increases not linearly but exponentially.
VPD has been established as a major control on plant growth.
And there’s research showing that increasing VPD has already offset the gains we’ve seen from CO2 fertilization on plant growth:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396
The term here is vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
VPD is the relationship between the amount of water in the atmosphere, temperature, and the rate of evaporation.
As temperature increases, rate of evaporation increases not linearly but exponentially.
VPD has been established as a major control on plant growth.
And there’s research showing that increasing VPD has already offset the gains we’ve seen from CO2 fertilization on plant growth:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396
>On one hand, rising carbon levels in the atmosphere make plants grow faster
Just some plants grow faster.
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-higher-car...
Just some plants grow faster.
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-higher-car...
From the study:
>We develop a robust econometric model of weather effects on global agricultural
I don't think the US counts as global agriculture. Certainly a subset though.
>We develop a robust econometric model of weather effects on global agricultural
I don't think the US counts as global agriculture. Certainly a subset though.
Tomatoes taste like shit in America, hands down.
Most food in America is designed for transport durability and yield. So if you go for the nicer canned tomatoes which doesn't rely on the tomato itself for durability, they're quite good. On the same level as the imported DOP stuff.
Of course you're probably referring to fresh tomatoes. And by in large I agree but I would like to point out that California has some pretty darn tasty tomatoes. Sure you might have to go out of your way or pay a little extra to get them but they exist.
Of course you're probably referring to fresh tomatoes. And by in large I agree but I would like to point out that California has some pretty darn tasty tomatoes. Sure you might have to go out of your way or pay a little extra to get them but they exist.
Modern store bought tomatoes have been bred for size and firmness. Firmness in particular reduces losses during mechanical harvesting and shipping. Since 1968, the date of wide-spread use of mechanical harvesters, this has resulted in varieties that are not as flavorful. It is probably this mechanization of tomato farming and not global warming that has made flavorful tomatoes harder to obtain.
From [1]:
> Within five years [from 1963], 99.9 percent of the industry was using the mechanical harvesters, and most farmers were planting the comparatively tasteless hybrid tomatoes built to withstand them.
[1] https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-...
From [1]:
> Within five years [from 1963], 99.9 percent of the industry was using the mechanical harvesters, and most farmers were planting the comparatively tasteless hybrid tomatoes built to withstand them.
[1] https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-...
Absolutely. Garden tomatoes taste amazing and can be eaten on their own with just a bit of salt.
Right? They're night and day different in France. What exactly causes this? General store American ones often may as well be thin red latex bags of water.
They are picked before they are ripe and they are artificially ripened, like bananas. They are cultivated for fast growth and maximum size, and not given time to mature.
If you grow your own tomatoes, the results can be amazing.
30 years ago, my grandmother grew the most amazing tomatoes in her vegetable garden on the farm. When she died my uncles sold off the farm and a developer split it into 5 or 6 plots that are now mostly horse pastures with huge McMansions on them. So it goes.
If you grow your own tomatoes, the results can be amazing.
30 years ago, my grandmother grew the most amazing tomatoes in her vegetable garden on the farm. When she died my uncles sold off the farm and a developer split it into 5 or 6 plots that are now mostly horse pastures with huge McMansions on them. So it goes.
A lot of us don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. As far as I'm concerned, the closer they are to latex bags of water, the better. I only use them (generally sliced on sandwiches) to bolster my "eating vegetables" status to satisfy social pressures. I'm satisfied, whether I'm getting actual vitamins or not.
I'm American. Possibly there are a lot of people like me here, so the stores are actually providing what the people want.
I'm American. Possibly there are a lot of people like me here, so the stores are actually providing what the people want.
Your generic supermarket tomato these days is optimized for long shelf life and not flavor or nutrition.
From the article ...
> ACC has reduced global agricultural TFP by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth. The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1
> ACC has reduced global agricultural TFP by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth. The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1
It's worth mentioning that (in the USA) cheap (read: subsidised) corn led to cheap sweeteners (i.e., high fructose corn syrup). That made more foods sweeter and sweet ones cheaper. Increase of such consumption contributes to the obesity rate.
The point is, inexpensive raw food "materials" can have a downside. Maybe less corn isn't as bad as it sounds?
The point is, inexpensive raw food "materials" can have a downside. Maybe less corn isn't as bad as it sounds?
I wish corn/wheat weren't subsidized.
Half of a typical supermarket is filled with artificially cheap grain based product. The `stick to the perimeter` mantra about how to buy healthy food is directly related to the fact that grain based products tend toward the middle of most stores.
Half of a typical supermarket is filled with artificially cheap grain based product. The `stick to the perimeter` mantra about how to buy healthy food is directly related to the fact that grain based products tend toward the middle of most stores.
Unfortunately, that advice no longer helps you avoid artificially cheap grain based products. The meat counter, nearly always on the perimeter, is full of grain-fed meat. And the frozen aisle, former composed largely of frozen versions of the produce section, is now dominated by prepared foods that are fairly calorie-dense and nutrient-poor -- and made from those same grain-based products.
There are good choices to make in both those sections. (Or at least, better choices.) And better than the shelf-stable products that are even more calorie-dense (because water makes things spoil) in the middle aisles. But it's become a lot more complicated than it used to be.
There are good choices to make in both those sections. (Or at least, better choices.) And better than the shelf-stable products that are even more calorie-dense (because water makes things spoil) in the middle aisles. But it's become a lot more complicated than it used to be.
Why is crop yield an indicator of productivity? Does any research exist that correlates yield with productivity?
Productivity is output divided by input.
So in farming it can be yield divided by labor (labor productivity), yield divided by soil addenda (e.g. fertilizer), yield in dollars divided by all costs of production, etc.
Sometimes factor productivity will have a specific name. For example capital efficiency is the productivity of capital (output divided by cap ex) which, due to the very nature of capex, is usually used to find a change due to investment. The productivity of energy use, typically measured on a whole economy basis, is called “energy intensity” (gdp/GW) though some industries are called “energy intensive”
So in farming it can be yield divided by labor (labor productivity), yield divided by soil addenda (e.g. fertilizer), yield in dollars divided by all costs of production, etc.
Sometimes factor productivity will have a specific name. For example capital efficiency is the productivity of capital (output divided by cap ex) which, due to the very nature of capex, is usually used to find a change due to investment. The productivity of energy use, typically measured on a whole economy basis, is called “energy intensity” (gdp/GW) though some industries are called “energy intensive”
Fascinating, thanks.
Crop yield is how much food you harvest per unit of land. It's the definition of productivity for farming. The amount of arable soil is the chief constraint on production.
> The research measured productivity by inputs – such as labor, fertilizer and equipment – and the output in food they produce
When you highlight "yield", you're only counting the outputs, not all of the inputs that this study apparently models.
When you highlight "yield", you're only counting the outputs, not all of the inputs that this study apparently models.
When you're looking at something complex on the scale of the earth, it's easy to cherry pick data, even accidentally (we call that bias), to paint whatever picture you want. Right now there's immense institutional pressure against any research that is critical of climate change, so it's hard for me to trust anything in that field. There are indications that increased CO2 concentration is a huge boon to crop growth.
Unless rising vapor pressure deficit undoes your gains from CO2 fertilization:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396
Well it's kind of easy, if the downsides overweight the upsides your on a slippery slope earth-wise:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-d...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-d...
>there's immense institutional pressure against any research that is critical of climate change
There's also immense institutional pressure against "research" showing the Earth is the center of the solar system or "research" that evolution isn't real. It's not a conspiracy if the pressure is fighting falsehoods.
There's also immense institutional pressure against "research" showing the Earth is the center of the solar system or "research" that evolution isn't real. It's not a conspiracy if the pressure is fighting falsehoods.
This is my nightmare scenario, where we literally cannot produce enough food for everyone.
That's why I'm hopeful that artificial methods of food synthesis (e.g. startups like Solar Foods or Air Protein, or NASA's CO2->glucose prize) will be successful and allow us to begin to decouple food production from weather or soil fertility problems.
That's why I'm hopeful that artificial methods of food synthesis (e.g. startups like Solar Foods or Air Protein, or NASA's CO2->glucose prize) will be successful and allow us to begin to decouple food production from weather or soil fertility problems.
This isn't a concern you have to worry about in developed nations at least. Food is so cheap that most of our food goes into feeding animals, so that we can change them into tastier forms of food. 30-40% of that gets thrown out anyways.
Developing countries have bigger issues, but their priority right now is to exploit their local groundwater rather than pursue bleeding edge tech.
Developing countries have bigger issues, but their priority right now is to exploit their local groundwater rather than pursue bleeding edge tech.
1) I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet. Cheaper, reliable access to food is one part of that.
2) Famine causes stability problems, unstable countries are more likely to turn into problematic countries and humanitarian crises. See: Syria
3) With globalization, a rise in food prices on the far side of the planet still has (eventual) price effects in other parts of the world, including here.
4) I don't feel comfortable washing my hands of it and saying market forces will take care of the problem, when it means the price of food will fluctuate above the grasp of the least fortunate. The resulting easily preventable deaths are on our hands if some trivial amount of subsidy or technological progress would have kept prices low enough for those who need it.
5) Same thing goes for access to water -- we should support access to water while making it more sustainable and cheaper.
6) I'd like to get to a post-scarcity world, not just a post-scarcity country.
2) Famine causes stability problems, unstable countries are more likely to turn into problematic countries and humanitarian crises. See: Syria
3) With globalization, a rise in food prices on the far side of the planet still has (eventual) price effects in other parts of the world, including here.
4) I don't feel comfortable washing my hands of it and saying market forces will take care of the problem, when it means the price of food will fluctuate above the grasp of the least fortunate. The resulting easily preventable deaths are on our hands if some trivial amount of subsidy or technological progress would have kept prices low enough for those who need it.
5) Same thing goes for access to water -- we should support access to water while making it more sustainable and cheaper.
6) I'd like to get to a post-scarcity world, not just a post-scarcity country.
3) is way smaller than I think you believe.
It’s not that it doesn’t have any effect at all, but the raw ingredients themselves are what gets traded, and they are the cheapest bit for westerners — so much so that food prices were noticeably different moving from the UK to Berlin, even though I moved before Brexit.
If you’re actually focused on gaming the cheapest possible calories and nutrients, then it makes a difference; but even then, the last time I ran the numbers for that the best I found was (rice + lentils + frozen mixed vegetables), and the vegetables were both the most expensive and also grown fairly locally.
It’s not that it doesn’t have any effect at all, but the raw ingredients themselves are what gets traded, and they are the cheapest bit for westerners — so much so that food prices were noticeably different moving from the UK to Berlin, even though I moved before Brexit.
If you’re actually focused on gaming the cheapest possible calories and nutrients, then it makes a difference; but even then, the last time I ran the numbers for that the best I found was (rice + lentils + frozen mixed vegetables), and the vegetables were both the most expensive and also grown fairly locally.
> I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet.
Your fellow human on the other side of the planet is reproducing at crazy speed. The population of Africa is projected to double in the next thirty years. And they are the ones supposed to feel the greatest impact from climate change. If you're worried about their future access to food, the most important thing you should focus on is convincing them to stabilise their population, not climate change.
Your fellow human on the other side of the planet is reproducing at crazy speed. The population of Africa is projected to double in the next thirty years. And they are the ones supposed to feel the greatest impact from climate change. If you're worried about their future access to food, the most important thing you should focus on is convincing them to stabilise their population, not climate change.
Food is cheap until it isn't. We in "developed" America don't have the social or political framework to keep domestic food in domestic markets if need be, so it will just be an all-out global bidding war over American products if there is ever a global supply crunch.
What makes you say that? I thought Covid already proved that the US is more than capable of hoarding their own resources when in need. If there was famine, the political leadership would shut exports down immediately unless they want to get Bastilled.
The federal government could abrogate a contract (like an obligation to export a commodity) but they'd have to pay the same price, because of the takings clause. So food would not be "cheap".
Presumably in times of a global famine, that would be a good time to engage in heavy spending.
Increasing the deficit is a much smaller problem than not being able to acquire enough food to ensure your population doesn't starve.
Increasing the deficit is a much smaller problem than not being able to acquire enough food to ensure your population doesn't starve.
And yet a large portion of the US population is hungry. 20% of children are food insecure in the US. A change in prices could still disrupt a lot of people's lives. This is mostly because we distribute high quality food poorly to people.
The US is not designed or prepared for any food supply disruptions. An example is during early months of COVID store shelves became empty for flour, sugar and other staples. It would take about 4 days of disruption to create a food shortage in the US because it's highly centralized in distribution and production.
The US is not designed or prepared for any food supply disruptions. An example is during early months of COVID store shelves became empty for flour, sugar and other staples. It would take about 4 days of disruption to create a food shortage in the US because it's highly centralized in distribution and production.
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It's always going to be more complicated than that.
There's a TON of un-used ex-farmland in the US, and across the world, which fell out of use because prices dropped too low (the entire eastern part of the US used to be farms, and has now reforested).
So if food prices rise enough, we're going to start re-farming marginal lands. The world is never going to "run out of food", probably not even enough to affect most Americans / Europeans notably, but will result in hunger in the third world -- but it's not like that's a solved problem right now.
There's a TON of un-used ex-farmland in the US, and across the world, which fell out of use because prices dropped too low (the entire eastern part of the US used to be farms, and has now reforested).
So if food prices rise enough, we're going to start re-farming marginal lands. The world is never going to "run out of food", probably not even enough to affect most Americans / Europeans notably, but will result in hunger in the third world -- but it's not like that's a solved problem right now.
The world can and does already produce multiple times more food than is necessary to feed all of humanity. It's just that, currently, most of the crops mankind grows is used to feed animals which we then eat/use.
Decoupling is valuable because it lets you grow the food where it’s needed. Food distribution is hard.
But Elon Musk is gonna pump all this CO² with a new invention, just wait a bit.
He announced that years ago, and is planning to use a century-old invention. It’s why the Starship rockets run on methane, and I don’t even think he’s the first to suggest it specially for Mars rockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
Maybe farmers will finally stop voting GOP and hurting their own interests.
I can't imagine the mental gymnastics required to deny anthopogenic climate change at this point. The data is abundant and reliable, we can see the effects with our own eyes (how many "once in a century" weather events have we been having in the past decade?) and the evidence against anthopogenic climate change comes from organizations that benefit from denying it.
Well let's see if I sprain my cerebellum with this one.
Why is it there a lack of good research into critiques of anthropogenic climate change and its subsequent ill effects?
I would expect some kind of rigorous evaluation on at least the net positive or negative effects of climate change in top climate journals. However, I do not hear about this type of discussion. A lot of the publish science seems to serve only to confirm the consensus. Is this actually a good application of the scientific method or just humans circling the metaphorical may-pole?
What is worrying is that established researchers who have pushed back against this narrative have been brought low by their peers despite any good standing they may have had prior.
Of course the usual suspects will have their own agenda and money to subsidize it, but why is this the highest quality critique of climate change that exists? I would expect, if we are in fact doing 'science', that the highest qualities critique would come from top researchers who would still be respected in their field even after publishing such critique.
The stark lack of dissent may be simply a media narrative around science reporting. However, I have this ignorable itch at the base of my skull that what is being passed off as 'climate science' may in fact be the 'climate-science bureaucracy'; thus I remain skeptical.
Hopefully this is not a too disgraceful display of my mental flexibility.
Why is it there a lack of good research into critiques of anthropogenic climate change and its subsequent ill effects?
I would expect some kind of rigorous evaluation on at least the net positive or negative effects of climate change in top climate journals. However, I do not hear about this type of discussion. A lot of the publish science seems to serve only to confirm the consensus. Is this actually a good application of the scientific method or just humans circling the metaphorical may-pole?
What is worrying is that established researchers who have pushed back against this narrative have been brought low by their peers despite any good standing they may have had prior.
Of course the usual suspects will have their own agenda and money to subsidize it, but why is this the highest quality critique of climate change that exists? I would expect, if we are in fact doing 'science', that the highest qualities critique would come from top researchers who would still be respected in their field even after publishing such critique.
The stark lack of dissent may be simply a media narrative around science reporting. However, I have this ignorable itch at the base of my skull that what is being passed off as 'climate science' may in fact be the 'climate-science bureaucracy'; thus I remain skeptical.
Hopefully this is not a too disgraceful display of my mental flexibility.
I think a large chunk are people that know it's true, but think that humans can "out-build it" or "out-engineer it"... reality is that nobody understands how much our natural environment still impacts us.
You sit on your chair in a city, working on your dual 4k screens, getting a fresh burrito delivered in 20 mins, and it seems like humans can only get more advanced. But few think about the fragile supply chains that allowed all that to happen.
You sit on your chair in a city, working on your dual 4k screens, getting a fresh burrito delivered in 20 mins, and it seems like humans can only get more advanced. But few think about the fragile supply chains that allowed all that to happen.
>But few think about the fragile supply chains that allowed all that to happen.
I think this is an excellent point. One can draw a clear parallel to the Bronze Age Collapse and there's no reason we couldn't have a modern version today. We've eliminated all of the "slack" in our global systems and organizations in the endless pursuit for profits above all and our systems are now not resilient enough to handle a major problem. Imagine what will happen when our changing climate puts even more of a strain on our systems, both economic (e.g. the subject of the article) and political. Xenophobic nations are not going to get more tolerant when global conditions get worse.
I think this is an excellent point. One can draw a clear parallel to the Bronze Age Collapse and there's no reason we couldn't have a modern version today. We've eliminated all of the "slack" in our global systems and organizations in the endless pursuit for profits above all and our systems are now not resilient enough to handle a major problem. Imagine what will happen when our changing climate puts even more of a strain on our systems, both economic (e.g. the subject of the article) and political. Xenophobic nations are not going to get more tolerant when global conditions get worse.
> I think a large chunk are people that know it's true, but think that humans can "out-build it" or "out-engineer it"
Yeah, but a lot of those people held the "climate denial" view like 1 decade ago. This is just the natural evolution of the view as it becomes more and more undeniable.
Yeah, but a lot of those people held the "climate denial" view like 1 decade ago. This is just the natural evolution of the view as it becomes more and more undeniable.
Yeah good point, exactly. Now that the facts are so obvious, they are forced to say... "Well China isn't following through! And we can adapt anyway!!" which is obviously naive.
It's partly learned helplessness: mass media likes making claims "act urgently, next year it will be too late" [1].
And now the "next year" is here. It is too late. Done. Just relax and live (the rest of) your life to the fullest.
[1] https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-act-now-2650039989.h...
And now the "next year" is here. It is too late. Done. Just relax and live (the rest of) your life to the fullest.
[1] https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-act-now-2650039989.h...
In fairness, it was already too late when they were making the claim that "next year (or whenever) will be too late". That is, if you look at the data of the people doing the urging to "act now", the damage was already done by the time they were speaking.
There could be a case for saying "It's already going to be awful; act immediately before it's catastrophic" - but they weren't making that case. (Or, perhaps, the media wasn't reporting them as making that case.)
There could be a case for saying "It's already going to be awful; act immediately before it's catastrophic" - but they weren't making that case. (Or, perhaps, the media wasn't reporting them as making that case.)
The body of this article does touch on the actual claim of the paper -- that a myriad of factors linked to climate change have stymied agricultural productivity (particularly in less-affluent countries) compared to what that productivity would have been without those factors -- even though total agricultural output has grown due to better technology and so on.
However, if all you see is the headline the impression you get is: the world is getting hot and our farms aren't being productive enough. That's a different claim that inspires despair, not action.
Climate change is real and very, very scary. But the progress we've made in renewables, battery tech, agricultural yields, desalinization, etc., is really remarkable. It ain't over 'til it's over.