In a warming world we may get overun by cheap soy and corn

New research shows that the impending climate disaster puts the world in danger of growing too much corn and soy. People won’t know what starving is!

H/t to CO2Science

Qiao et al discovered that when temperatures are raised by a “catastrophic” 2 degrees C, and CO2 is raised to 700 unthinkable ppm corn (aka maize) increases its yield by a remarkable 25%. When hit by both high temperatures and extra CO2, soy bean yield increased even more — by 31%.

Presumably this means crop prices will fall and corn and soy may take over your garden. (So make sure you put in a solar panel to control those new weeds!)

Rumour that nutrient densities will fall — proved to be false. Increased temperature raised the oil content of both crops. And the combo of warmer weather plus CO2 increased most of the nutrients as well. Both crops had more phosphorus, potassium, iron, and zinc. There was a statistically small decrease in calcium in maize, so small it may not be there. The only mineral that definitely declined was manganese in soybeans, and as far as humans go,  there is apparently no one on Earth who has a clinical manganese deficiency due to diet. Not too concerning then.

Maize likes warm weather.  But soy likes extra CO2. Might have something to do with maize being a C4 plant with hot newly evolved genes for using CO2 and soy being one of the common old-model plants on C3 and in need of an upgrade.

Corn and Soy benefit from warming temperatures and co2. Graph. 2019

  • eT = elevated temperature
  • eTCO2 = elevated both T and CO2
  • Control = the poor plants that had to make do with normal temperature and CO2.

Abstract

The increases in CO2 concentration and attendant temperature are likely to impact agricultural production. This study investigated the effects of elevated temperature alone and in combination with CO2 enrichment on grain yield and quality of soybean (Glycine max) and maize (Zea mays) grown in a Mollisolover five-year growing seasons. Plants were grown in open-top chambers with the ambient control, 2.1 °C increase in air temperature (eT) and eT together with 700 ppm atmosphericCO2 concentration (eTeCO2). While eTeCO2 but not eT increased the mean grain yield of soybean by 31%, eTeCO2 and eT increased the yield of maize similarly by around 25% compared to the ambient control. Furthermore, eT and eTeCO2did not significantly affect grain protein of either species but consistently increased oil concentrations in grains of both species with eTeCO2 increasing more. The eT increased grain Fe concentration relative to the control treatment but decreased Ca concentration, while the relative concentrations of P, K, Mn and Zn varied with crop species. The elevated CO2 enlarged the eT effect on Fe concentration, but decreased the effect on Ca concentration. The results suggest that crop selection is important to maximize yield benefits and to maintain grain quality to cope with elevated CO2 and temperature of future climate change in this temperate region where the temperature is near or below the optimal temperature for crop production.

REFERENCE

Qiao, Y et al (2019) Elevated CO2 and temperature increase grain oil concentration but their impacts on grain yield differ between soybean and maize grown in a temperate region, Science of The Total Environment,Volume 666, 20 May 2019, Pages 405-413

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.149

9.5 out of 10 based on 50 ratings

116 comments to In a warming world we may get overun by cheap soy and corn

  • #
    Jacques Lemiere

    it is a catastrophy, for some reasons.

    60

    • #
      Mal

      The only looming acopalypse is if the green activists getting into power and destroying western civilisation.

      120

  • #
    ivan

    Next question, how are the doomsayers going to spin this to make it appear as a bad thing?

    I am thinking this information will not go down well with those that follow the doctrine of ‘Limits of Growth’ and so hope to cull the world’s people.

    220

    • #

      They can point to the fact that too much plant growth is bad for the planet. Clearly anything caused by global warming has to be bad for the planet. This could also be terrible for green house manufacturers.

      130

    • #
      Sambar

      Allergies Ivan, allergies. More soy and maize will mean that more children will develop allergies to these products. You wouldn’t want to inflict that on the children.
      Gee they may even need to consume that other white liquid, you know, MILK. The real stuff, mammal fluid, as opposed to “healthy” redissolved soy and maize starch isolates.

      140

      • #
        Another Ian

        If that were going to happen wouldn’t there already be a spike in such allergies showing in the greenist sector?

        10

    • #
      Geoff

      Plants will evolve. Grow legs and arms. Build weapons. Take over the Earth from mammals. We deserve this to happen because we committed plant genocide. To mitigate our guilt we need to pay the UN ten of trillions to properly represent the plant in court. Plants MUST become sustainable and we bneed to give plants a vote. If not, they may start eating our young or worse, ceasing to produce oxygen. A plant strike. No pay, no oxygen.

      Coming to a government, sorry an UN rep near you as soon as its enacted on social media!

      Carrots Rule!

      200

    • #
      Lance

      That’s easy, ivan:

      “Manmade CO2 causes obesity”.

      “Big Oil and Big Ethanol profit from increasing CO2”

      “Increasing maize harvest from excessive CO2 contributes to increased ethanol production and alcoholism”

      /sarc off.

      I think now I’ll go bang my head on a wall.

      170

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Jo it always helps to look sideways when reading academic research

      CO2 seems to be rising – yes

      BUT….Most of the planet seems to be cooling slightly…. The USA & Canada are still freezing In June and farmers have not been able to sow their soy & corn crops… What is not cold is flooded…there in the Mid West…In China there are huge flood and cold weather..

      And soy & corn futures are showing major rises in crop prices coming soon.. Ummmmmm ?

      E M Smith has a post about this here : https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/06/13/crop-failure-year-looms/

      And given that most of Australia’s crop growing areas have now got rain, our farmers should benefit from those higher prices.. Along with some help from a lower A$.

      90

      • #

        I was really enjoying that global warming down here in south east Victoria, but it’s become a tad freezing lately and there’s this white stuff about. What happened?

        70

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          Well as the Greenists keep saying
          Global warming means Climate changing = Cooling !

          I’ve never understood the science of that logic.
          But it MUST be true.
          There’s a ‘consensus’ it’s true.

          🙂
          🙂

          41

        • #
          Sambar

          I much prefer the term “climate change” over “global warming”. Here in the low part of the high country just 3 weeks ago we had large dumps of snow on the higher mountains and the media went all gushing about the best start to the ski season in years and how it was going to be a bumper season for all concerned.
          Now, a mere 3 weeks later moderate temperatures and rain have washed most of the white stuff away. Skiing conditions on Mount Buller are poor, Lake Mountain has no natural snow and is relying on new technology to make snow, which, coincidentally uses the technology that is purportedly raising temperatures which will render snow “a thing of the past”. Weather forecasts suggest a return to cold conditions later this week and MAYBE snow to 1800 metres. I’ll see what happens.
          Now thats what I call climate change !

          40

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            It was also thus Sambar. That’s why those in the know ski in Australia in August.

            There’s always snow in August.

            20

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Strange how more plant food and warmer weather makes plants more productive. They were to die, turn brown, and burn if the average temperature went up by a mere degree or two. Yet they seem to thrive in face of a certain climate catastrophe. Maybe, just maybe, the long predicted climate catastrophe will not happen. It will be such that even more and better human life will be possible.

    I suggest the actual catastrophe is that the green blob will have to come to terms that humans and the earth will do just fine without vanishing from the scene. They were wrong all along. We can continue to do has we have been doing.

    We won’t have to return to becoming a few pathetic stone age hunting an gathering tribes. Just getting by with scratching a starvation living out of an unforgiving earth. We have made the earth able to deliver abundance and safety for humans to live and thrive on it.

    They should be condemned to the hell on earth they were so willing to force upon us. They should be REQUIRED to live by every principle and practice they demanded we use but refused to follow themselves.

    220

    • #
      Kevin Lohse

      Requiring them to live for a time on collective reservations in Namibia might adjust their values.

      170

    • #
      sophocles

      Lionel said:

      They were to die, turn brown, and burn if the average temperature went up by a mere degree or two.

      If that were true, greenhouses wouldn’t be such a “hot item” with gardeners in Auckland. Auckland is usually called “The City of Sails” but it could just as easily be “The City of Glasshouses.” An average glass house here, on a cloudless day, can have an internal temperature of ambient + 5°C or more on a sunny day! Plants are much more likely to be frost sensitive than warmth sensitive.

      It’s been my long and “arid” experience that water shortages do that much much much better and more reliably and effectively than any amount of warmth. In my historical experience, warmth, CO2 and water vapour accelerates plant growth many-fold. That house was heated with gas heaters and four adults in it’s living room in winter when I was able to observe the spectacular growth of the indoor plants.

      One has to ask these idiots the questions:
      Why are all the rain forests in the tropics?
      Why are the plants so thick and so big?
      Why do they grow so fast?
      Why are most of the life-forms on this planet in the tropics?
      Why are the poles white deserts?

      Although, to even up the ledger, I have met one plant, yes, just one, which does that (goes brown and shrivels up) if watered too much — “too much” being something more than a teaspoonful in a month. It might have thrived if I had imposed my normal `desertification’ on it, and if I hadn’t left it outside. Maybe Auckland’s normal rainfall did for it, not me! 🙂

      But then, what do I know? I don’t garden — I have “brown thumbs” instead of green.
      It took her a while, but my other half very quickly learned, many years ago, to ensure her (<–NOTE: operative word!) indoor plants remained for ever solely in her care. I wasn't to go near them. Of course that suited both myself and the plants very well. 🙂

      140

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    I prefer my maize and soya to be eaten after having been biologically transformed the natural way by meat animals. Getting more protein to the third world can be nothing but a good, which is why the Green Blob will have conniptions.

    180

    • #
      Ross

      I am with you Kevin. I like the red stuff for most of my protein.

      But we had James Cameron (movie producer) and his wife on NZ TV last night telling us we should be heading towards a meatless future –methane and all that stuff is bad for Gaia. Well all I can say is if Cameron does not like or support the New Zealand red meat industry he can go back to the USA. ( he has a farm in NZ which I believe he has a few fruit trees and probably a vege garden)

      I also saw a clip on Sky News the other night of vegan protesters on a Queensland feed lot –parading in between the pens scaring hell out of the cattle and about 10 of Aussie’s finest in blue just standing there watching ( or that is what it looked like ). Don’t you have trespass laws over there.

      170

      • #
        glen Michel

        Cameron is another of these posturing fools who use their not inconsiderable wealth to grandstand their virtuness.Yeah we’ll all end up looking like Hobbits.Come to think of it…..

        110

        • #
          glen Michel

          As for the jacks,they are next to useless.See what response you get from a break and enter on your property with theft!

          80

          • #
            GD

            As for the jacks,they are next to useless. See what response you get from a break and enter on your property with theft!

            Especially in Victoria. Daniel Andrews’ far left government has emasculated both the police force and the judiciary.

            00

        • #
          sophocles

          No, not Hobbits, Glen. Cameron was responsible for those tall blue savages with the long tails, the Na’vis — the ones which populated the moon Pandora and whose culture is close to Amerind. You seem to be confusing him with Jackson and Middle Earth.

          Now Jackson is definitely a New Zealander, Cameron is a new immigrant from the USA with more money than brains — he now resides in NZ, so I rest my case 🙂 — and is yet to prove himself …

          80

      • #
        Annie

        I saw that too Ross and was disgusted by the fact that the police did nothing to enforce the law.

        101

        • #
          beowulf

          Even if they got arrested the judge would let them off with a pat on the head and a 10¢ fine.

          30

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        ‘Don’t you have trespass laws over there.’ Yes they eventually got arrested. AND the election just didnt go their way ,in QLD, OH DEAR.
        The ranchers werent very impressed either with the vegemites.

        10

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          ‘Yes they eventually got arrested’, I think it was delayed tho come to think of it or some body got charged.

          00

          • #
            shannon

            Funny if “security” breaches in regard to the media and journalists occur…..all Hell breaks loose…
            But………if “Biosecurity Laws” are broken ie Vegans tresspassing on farms and stealing livestock..
            Police…authorities and the media rarely react..!!
            Total fools…Farmers feed ALL of the population…. GRAINS as well as MEATS.
            If THEY are forced from the land…..WE are forced to import food !

            30

  • #
    David Maddison

    With more soy there will be more feminised men, as if we don’t already have enough “soy boys”. And too much corn will cause an even bigger obesity epidemic.

    180

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    You had me at “impending climate disaster”.

    I drowned in a sea of corn.

    40

  • #
    Robber

    Don’t forget more droughts, more floods, we’ll all be “rooned”.

    60

  • #
    joseph

    The plants were/weren’t GMO?

    20

  • #
    WXcycles

    Qiao et al discovered that when temperatures are raised by a “catastrophic” 2 degrees C, and CO2 is raised to 700 unthinkable ppm corn (aka maize) increases its yield by a remarkable 25%. When hit by both high temperatures and extra CO2, soy bean yield increased even more — by 31%.

    This may be somewhat counteracted by a burgeoning global population of bovines and their planet threatening levels of flatulence. We may have to up the steak intake and eat more nachos.

    Sucks.

    90

    • #
      sophocles

      WXCycles said:

      This may be somewhat counteracted by a burgeoning global population of bovines and their planet threatening levels of flatulence.

      Think of the titanosaurs … 45m long, standing 12 – 15m high 45 – 90 tons in weight BD, and Herbivorous. They mowed the Cretaceous forest. (Jungle?)

      Evolution moves in jumps. It’s very sensitive to Magnetic Pole Excursions. There are extinctions often associated with these and there could just as easily be mutations from the huge increase in GCR exposure giving rise to new species. Maybe, in the new plenitude, we’ll get bigger better elephants! Real Heffalumps! 🙂

      Good grief. With the huge increase in soy and corn … imagine the farts …
      Walking with the titanosaurs could have been umm … suffocating!

      Terms:
      BD = Before Dinner
      GCR = Galactic Cosmic Ray(s).

      20

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        And big herbivores mean..BIG carnivores to have dinner on them..10 tones with BIG teeth. Hello Sue! (Sue was a female T Rex found in Montana whos bones did a world excursion few years ago).
        Cant imagine them, titanosaurs , feeding on soy tho. 😀

        10

        • #
          sophocles

          theRealUniverse said @ # 9.1.1

          Cant imagine them, titanosaurs , feeding on soy tho.

          Fresh out of the egg? They’re only little mobile appetites with a mountain of growing ahead of them. Some of those small dinosaurs have been reclassified as junior whatevertheyweres after having been thought to be new species. Some T-Rexs in there too. T-Rex pups(?) whelps(?) junior monsters(?) grew rapidly over their first quarter century as seen in their bones. Handy things, bones.

          They could mow whole paddocks of soy as juveniles 🙂
          But I can’t see the adults doing it. Nor corn.

          10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Paleozoic times… to 7000! unthinkable ppm..

      10

  • #
    James Murphy

    Greenpeace has already committed to destroying modified wheat crops, so I guess they must approve of bumper corn and soy crops?

    40

  • #
    WXcycles

    Not much sign of a “warmer Earth” here, or even a Cent-Pacific El-Nino here:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-156.00,-17.80,300

    The eastern half of the south Pacific SSTAs are cooling, Australia is also surrounded cooler waters, SEA is likewise cooler, and there’s a cold anom surrounding all of Antarctica (just like all of last winter) and there’s no convincing anom-warmth within the Central Pacific basin area either.

    Latest BOM Pacific sub-surface temp anom:
    http://www.bom.gov.au/archive/oceanography/ocean_anals/IDYOC007/IDYOC007.201906.gif

    And even the ECMWF forecast precipitation levels within the central pacific are not impressing anyone.
    https://on.windy.com/2f682

    This looks like a bit of a flop for the CP el-nino as the T difference is mostly relative that and due to most places surrounding being cooler than normal.

    Good news is we may not get that TOFU glut after all.

    70

    • #
      glen Michel

      If the Easterliies pick up and we have some interface activity with the atmosphere- unlike the last event.All worth keeping an eye on. After all the rains that fall will not fill the dams………. blah.

      00

    • #
      Roger

      UK Central England Temperature record (CET) shows June 2019 as set to be in the 17 COLDEST of the last 350 years!

      Seems pretty clear that a Solar Grand Minimum trumps CO2 in controlling global temperatures.

      10

    • #
      Roger

      UK Central England Temperature record (CET) shows June 2019 as set to be in the 17 COLDEST of the last 350 years!

      Seems pretty clear that a Solar Grand Minimum trumps CO2 in controlling global temperatures.

      00

  • #
    WXcycles

    Really? Three links puts you into moderation? lol

    30

  • #
    TdeF

    Soon the chickens will return to their role as Dinosaurs and giant Pterodactyls will rule the skies, stealing sheep. Tusked herbivores will rule with spines on their backs and plates for protection as the predators will evolve. Back to the CO2 rich time of the endless jungles and dinosaurs when the oil and coal was laid down. Too bad we are not allowed use it, but perhaps that is wise. We are no match for a Tyrannosaurus and the last thing we want is Australia covered in jungle, high rainfall, giant ferns and lush vegetation. All due to rising CO2. It will certainly tackle the overpopulation problem as humans become the prey. Perhaps the IPCC is right and the ice age was better for us, but it is coming soon enough.

    70

    • #
      TdeF

      This will all seem very silly as the rapid drop of global temperature in the 2020s starts and the government has to hand out blankets in tropical Bangladesh. Or was that last year?

      80

      • #
        TdeF

        Although Al Gore will tell us that is Climate Change, which is why he has stopped talking about Global Warming. And cooling is a result of warming as we were told last year with the incredibly cold winter in the US and Europe. All caused by coal and gas. And oil. And bad language at the football. And people having opinions of their own, which makes them Alt Right Fascists, apparently.

        140

      • #
        Roger

        Antarctic Dome A yesterday recorded its Lowest Temp ever of -82.7C.

        UK on course for 17th COLDEST June of the last 350 years – bearing in mind the others were during the Little Ice Age !!

        10

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I recall the aussie joke of ” may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down”….with monster chooks, they may kick our house down…..but one roast chook will feed a small town for a month….

      10

    • #
      R2Dtoo

      Never fear! The volcanasaurs, and their related earthquakasaurs will once again rise up and wipe the slate clean.

      00

  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    Off topic if I may but in news this morning Argentina just experiencing a massive power blackout.
    Sure enough a quick look at websites shows in 2016 government launched ‘RenovAr’ RE program.
    Push for 20% reneables by 2025 to be driven by private investment.Oh yes we know what that means.
    Too early for me to call but it sounds like Argentinians have been dudded.
    GeoffW

    140

    • #
      Destroyer D69

      Test run for the Australian chapter??????

      110

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Not sure Geoff.
      Argentina gets most of it’s power from Gas and Hydro.
      I doubt that there has been much investment in renewables since 2016. Argentines with money are busy getting their cash out of the country into hard foreign currencies due to the inept policies of the Macron government.

      In 2014 when I was there a while the A$ was worth about 12 pesos. Now it is about 35 pesos..

      Big problems in Argentina will see Macron given the steel capped boot in November’s elections.

      50

      • #
        beowulf

        Macron is an idiot too but I’m not sure we can blame him for Argentina’s woes. You’re talking about Macri.

        130

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          “Glad you were watching B. Too early in the day for me.No coffee !
          🙁

          40

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Macron is an ex sacks of gold bank employee…just like our own favourite champagne socialist, Malcomn Turncoat….

          40

  • #
    Vladimir

    Hey, our network experts !
    What is happening in South America?
    Sorry about off-the-topic kick..

    30

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      From BBC
      “Citing official sources, Argentine media reported that the outage was linked to a failure in the transmission of electricity from the Yacycretá hydroelectric dam.”

      40

  • #
    pat

    it seems like only yesterday, FakeNewsMSM was hyper-ventilating about –

    6 May: NationalGeographic: One million species at risk of extinction, UN report warns
    By Stephen Leahy
    Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on Earth…
    They ranked the major drivers of species decline as land conversion, including deforestation; overfishing; bush meat hunting and poaching; climate change; pollution; and invasive alien species…

    IPBES is often described as the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change for biodiversity and does scientific assessments on the status of the non-human life that makes up the Earth’s life-support system…
    Protecting half of the planet by 2050, with an interim target of 30 percent by 2030, is the only way to meet the Paris climate targets or achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for the world, Baillie said…
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/ipbes-un-biodiversity-report-warns-one-million-species-at-risk/

    with all roads leading to:

    29 Nov 2018: Guardian: China urged to lead way in efforts to save life on Earth
    Delegates at UN biodiversity conference turn to Beijing to avoid point of no return
    Jonathan Watts in Sharm el-Sheikh
    China must play a leading role if the world is to draw up a new and more effective strategy to halt the collapse of life on Earth, according to senior delegates at the close of this week’s UN biodiversity conference…
    With the US absent, Europe distracted and Brazil tilting away from global cooperation, the onus has shifted towards Beijing…
    China will host the next high-level negotiations, in 2020, which will be the most important in more than 10 years. This is the deadline for nations to agree on fresh global targets for the protection and management of forests, rivers, oceans, pollinators and other wildlife…
    Conservationists hope this “new deal for nature and people” becomes as much of a priority as the Paris climate accord and helps to reverse the current wave of extinction, which is at the highest rate the world has seen since the age of the dinosaurs…
    Over the coming two years, China should champion the cause of nature as France championed the cause of climate in the run-up to the Paris deal in 2016, urged the diplomats.
    “China is very important. It can be a great leader,” said Hesiquio Benítez Díaz, Mexico’s director general of international cooperation…

    This message was echoed by the executive secretary of the biodiversity convention. “We tell China that the biodiversity agenda needs a lot of championing,” said Cristiana Paşca Palmer. “They were instrumental in the success of Paris and they can play a very important role.”…

    At the conference, Beijing sent mixed messages…
    “We were very nervous about their silence,” confided one foreign diplomat…
    China will have its work cut out.
    • This article was amended on 3 December 2018 because an earlier version converted absolute temperatures, rather than temperature increases. This has been corrected.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/china-urged-lead-way-efforts-save-life-on-earth-un

    20

    • #
      pat

      having forgotten the one million figure of recent times, a more modest 571 over 250 years is now just as “frightening”, in all FakeNewsMSM today:

      10 Jun: Guardian: ‘Frightening’ number of plant extinctions found in global survey
      Study shows 571 species wiped out, and scientists say figure is likely to be big underestimate
      by Damian Carrington
      A sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is under way, according to some scientists. A landmark report in May said human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems, with 1 million species of plants and animals at risk of extinction…

      12 Jun: Science Alert: Plants Are Going Extinct at Least 500 Times Faster Than if Humans Weren’t Around
      by CARLY CASSELLA
      Today, it appears that a majority of plant extinctions are occurring in biodiversity ‘hotspots’ in the Tropics and the Mediterranean, including places like Australia, India, and Hawaii…

      With habitat loss, climate change and human exploitation, newly-described plants could very well have higher rates of extinction, and some could even disappear before we know they exist…
      Because millions of other species, including our own, depend on plants for survival, Gray says we need to start asking not what biodiversity can do for us, but what we can do for biodiversity.
      The research was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
      https://www.sciencealert.com/plants-are-going-extinct-at-least-500-times-faster-than-they-would-if-humans-weren-t-around

      unfortunately, McLaren gives CSIRO an opportunity to push CAGW, which Sheppard brings up in his very first answer, and later repeats:

      AUDIO: 9min25sec: 17 Jun: 2GB: Michael McLaren: New study reveals hundreds of plant types are extinct
      Michael is joined by Dr Andy Sheppard, CSIRO Research Director Managing Invasive Species & Diseases & Senior Principal Research Scientist – Biological Invasions to discuss new research that reveals the extent of plant extinction.
      According to a recent study by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew & Stockholm University, 571 species of plant species have disappeared in the last two and a half centuries which is more than twice the number of birds, mammals & amphibians recorded as extinct.
      https://www.2gb.com/podcast/new-study-reveals-hundreds-of-plant-types-are-extinct/

      10

    • #
      Maptram

      “They ranked the major drivers of species decline as land conversion, including deforestation;etc”

      Including these activities for solar farms, wind farms, infrastructure and transmission lines

      50

  • #
    NB

    You mean the population of the world might increase? We’ll all be rooned (said Hanrahan).

    50

    • #
      WXcycles

      Population growth is trending down globally because listening to Al Gore produces remarkably similar effects as a combination of chemical-castration and chronic erectile-dysfunction plus an old-school lobotomy.

      We’re saved!

      30

  • #
    pat

    17 Jun: UK Telegraph: German Greens look to ban all industrial farming
    by Jorg Luyken
    The Green party in Germany has said it intends to ban industrial farming as part of a wide-ranging and costly package to combat climate change should they come to power.
    Katrin Goering-Eckardt, the party’s leader in the Germany parliament, said her party would establish a fund worth at least €100 billion to finance climate projects including dam construction, reforestation and environmentally friendly transportation projects.
    Ms Goering-Eckardt did not go into further details on a timeline for the prohibition of intensively reared meat.

    Last week Christian Lindner, the leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, warned that the Greens “dream of a meat-less country.”…
    “Many people have now understood that things are going to change fundamentally,” (Goering-Eckardt) said. “The question is whether we make the changes ourselves or allow ourselves to be swept over by the climate crisis.”…
    She said that no decision had been made on whether it would be financed through tax hikes or via an increase in public debt…
    Ms Goering-Eckardt also argued that it was a question of Germany doing it itself or facing fines of up to €60 billion (£53.4bn) from Brussels…
    https://news.yahoo.com/german-greens-look-ban-industrial-170938103.html

    11

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Do people remember I said the NWO mob would force humanity into thier way of “gaia-protecting” way of life if we didnt go along with the gentle nudge…..this is the “baseball bat” being deployed….

      Note all the fast food outlets pushing burgers that arent meat? This is deliberate…and as you can see in Germany, they are happy to destroy whole industries ( and put food supplies at risk ) to support thier lunatic ideology…

      20

  • #
    pat

    i posted ABC’s Jonathan Green lapping up Carolyn Steel’s “vision” on Bueprint for (not)Living on Jo’s previous “Unthreaded” thread – comment #28.
    listening to it evoked images of genocide on a global scale but, not to worry, that’s part of the agenda. Steel’s been at it a long time:

    2011: EcosMag: Carolyn Steel’s Hungry City
    by Michele Sabto
    Hungry City was published in 2009 and took Steel seven years to write…
    In pre-industrial cities, fresh food was a visible, social and political part of daily life…
    Says Steel: ‘It would have been very difficult to live in London and be unaware of where your food came from. In fact, if you were eating your Sunday lunch, chances are it would have been moving or bleating outside your window a few days earlier.’…

    Then came the railways, enabling the separation of spaces that food and people occupy: emancipating the city from its geography, and allowing ‘the governance of food distribution to be transferred from civic to private hands’. With industrialisation, ‘food is taken out of the city and put into supermarkets’, says Steel.
    Steel’s contemporaries in the popular sociology of food are writers such as Raj Patel, Michael Pollan and George Monbiot…

    And, like Pollan and Monbiot, Steel believes that this invisibility leads to unrealistic expectations of cheap food – and allows us to ignore the land and water degradation that result from industrial farming…
    Seeing the world through food eyes can help us with issues of climate change and can help us resolve the impasse between organic and industrial food systems.’
    http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC11037

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    pat

    16 Jun: Deutsche Welle: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay suffer massive power blackout
    by cw,mc,ls,sm/amp (AFP, dpa)
    A massive power grid failure left all of Argentina and parts of Uruguay and Paraguay without electricity, affecting around 50 million people. Power was mostly restored by evening.
    Energy has been restored to nearly 90% of users after a massive blackout left nearly 50 million people in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay without power on Sunday.
    The problem in the energy network left Argentina cut off from power at 7:06 a.m. local time (10:06 UTC) in what Argentine energy company Edesur attributed to “a massive failure in the electrical interconnection system.”
    Argentine President Mauricio Macri said on Twitter the outage was “unprecedented.”…
    Paraguay’s National Energy Administration restored power by the afternoon by redirecting energy from the Itaipu hydroelectric plant…
    https://www.dw.com/en/argentina-uruguay-paraguay-suffer-massive-power-blackout/a-49225070

    cause still unknown, but thought this was worth noting:

    AP: Argentine energy company Edesur said that a failure in the Argentine interconnection system originated at an electricity transmission point between the power stations of Yacyretá and Salto Grande in the northeastern part of the country…

    18 Feb: PowerTechnology: How private investment is powering Argentina’s renewable energy revolution
    Argentina recently entered the top ten on the Ernst & Young global renewable energy index for the first time and, with help from the World Bank, is on target to produce 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Julian Turner takes a closer look at the country’s clean energy policies…

    “Yet, despite its potential, the country has fallen behind many of its smaller neighbours in turning these resources into a reliable power source,” writes Vanessa Bauza, communications officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank. “Argentina’s grid operates at near capacity, leaving Buenos Aires and other cities vulnerable to blackouts.”…

    “The solar and wind resources combined show a development potential for the immediate future, particularly limited by the current capacity of the transmission networks, which will have to be expanded to face the higher demand of energy,” says Marcelo Iezzi, associate partner in sustainability, PwC Argentina…

    PwC reports that investment in renewables in Latin America exceeded $16bn in 2015. Argentina aims to attract around $35bn in investments in energy in the coming years, about half of that for renewable power…
    https://www.power-technology.com/features/argentinas-renewable-energy-revolution/

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      pat

      6 Mar: Hydro-Review: Overhaul to proceed on 1,890-MW Salto Grande hydroelectric plant between Argentina, Uruguay
      The Comision Tecnica Mixta de Salto Grande is now advancing plans to modernize the 1,890-MW Salto Grande hydroelectric plant, on the Uruguay River between Argentina and Uruguay.
      BNamericas reports that the commission is seeking consultants to conduct technology integration studies for equipment and systems of the generation and transmission processes and draft technical specifications for the tender of the new control system.

      The hydropower complex boasts 14 turbine-generator units, the first of which came online in 1979 and the last in 1983, and it connects to the two countries’ grid via a 500-kV transmission system.
      This move comes three months after the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved US$80 million to modernize the plant…
      https://conexionintal.iadb.org/2017/08/02/avanza-la-integracion-energetica-suramericana/?lang=en

      Aug 2017: Progress on Energy Integration in South America
      https://conexionintal.iadb.org/2017/08/02/avanza-la-integracion-energetica-suramericana/?lang=en

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      Bill in Oz

      Argentina is in the midst of a massive Depression
      Massive inflation
      Massive unemployment
      Massive capital flight
      Major crops being sent to Brazil by truck
      Through ‘unusual’ boundary posts
      So major farmers can avoid export taxes
      And get hard currency for their sales.
      Nobody with any sense is investing foreign capital in Argentina
      Because the probability of getting money back out at anything like the same value is low.
      The World Bank is publishing pipe dream propaganda.

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Just in today..they (Argentina) have had a massive power blackout. Did they invest in windmills too?

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  • #

    It’s good that these cheap and important crops can kick on in higher temps…but didn’t we already know that? Corn and soy were around when America and Asia were warmer than now, and they were around in 1700 when things got chilly and they were around when Mt Laki made it hard to grow stuff for a year or two in much of the world. They didn’t just come online in 1979 like the satellite record.

    More oil, less oil, different nutrient levels…big deal.

    Corn and soy have been used successfully as human food for millennia, but only recently have we seen them turned into such monstrosities as soy milk and corn syrup. Soy requires fermentation of one sort or another. Drinking it “fresh” with a bunch of ingredients to enhance its milkiness is an unhealthy modern fad. Amerindian populations alkalised cornmeal with ash in the cooking for reasons that were tried over centuries. If you really want higher nutrient levels, consult the people who’ve been living off the stuff for yonks.

    But note the sharp little poison pill inserted into a “study” that is supposed to be scientific: “The results suggest that crop selection is important to maximize yield benefits and to maintain grain quality to cope with elevated CO2 and temperature of future climate change…”

    Is that the price they have to pay to get published? Put on a globalist clown suit and do a little globalist dance at the end of your article…or take up Uber driving, Dr Qiao.

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      theRealUniverse

      “..cope with elevated CO2 and temperature of future climate change…” that statement alone should be worth millions in research grants straight away!

      To the article Id say .. woopty doo..So food plants (crops) like 1. More CO2, Known for at least a century or more. 2. Warmer conditions, known for a few thousand years.

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    Andrew McRae

    puts the world in danger of growing too much corn and soy. People won’t know what starving is!

    While I appreciate it was an opportunity to recycle the old Viner classic, this intro fell flat because it is based on a false assumption. More food will not by itself stop starvation. We’ve had more than enough food for everybody on the planet for the last 30 years. So much that nearly a 1/3rd of it gets thrown out without being eaten. Yet we still have millions of starving people in the world. The main cause has been unequal distribution of food due to unequal amounts of value-adding work (i.e. income) being available in still-developing countries. Increasing the total food supply doesn’t stop all people starving, it just means a slight reduction in starvation due to lower pricing plus the amount being wasted goes up.

    Given people will always be unequal in resources and abilities, there are two main classes of plans which can (and do) stop people from starving. These are welfare programmes of various kinds (taxed or donated), plus improvements in the food supply chain which reduce waste and loss. Another recent UN FAO report found:

    It is evident that there is a need to increase investment in post-harvest technologies in developing countries that would allow small holders to better produce, process and store agricultural commodities. Energy plays a pivotal role in bringing about this change. However, expanding grid connection to rural and isolated parts of a region can take a significant amount of time and investment. As discussed in the previous sections, many approaches and technologies can be employed at considerably lower cost compared to electric grid expansion and with important co-benefits to sustainable development.
    […]
    Economically viable decentralized energy systems like solar powered cooling and solar drying can be relatively quickly constructed and made operational. However, replicating and scaling up of these technologies through predefined packages is not advisable and thorough context analysis is required.

    They haven’t quite gotten around to doing the cost-benefit analysis on the low-tech versus high-tech options, but right at the outset they’re saying not to even attempt to scale up solar power to grid scale. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be a first world country that deploys energy solutions that developing countries are advised by the UN not to even bother with? Glad we’re not in that camp! ;-D
    They can try to solar-coat it as much as they like, but cheap energy makes lots of good things possible, affordable food preservation being just one. If the low tech options were really better we also would have stopped there instead of going on to deploy electric-powered refrigerators all over the place. The writing’s on the wall fridge door for starvation.

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    Peter Fitzroy

    Leaving aside the artificially of the experiment which uses a one of the most nutrient rich soils known, which would not be available in other areas, if the experiment is illustrative what could happen over the globe, then weeds, moulds, rusts, and other plants will also be effected in the same manner. So although you could get more production from the crop, you will spend more on herbicides and control measures, which will negate the bonus production. This is stupid

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      el gordo

      Soy and corn fields are good artificial carbon dioxide sinks and the soil is becoming invigorated.

      https://www.farmprogress.com/story-corn-carbon-sink-9-61548

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Corn also makes a good ethanol fuel E85, I’ve seen impressive results when you tune an EFI V8 to run on it.

        Problem is its only available in major cities at certain places, maybe with a corn boom more outlets will crop up…….sorry.

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        Peter Fitzroy

        The American experience of sequestering carbon in the soil only works where you get a truncated growing season, due to cold winters (snow etc). The reduces the activity of soil microbes which allows the build up of plant material.

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        • #
          el gordo

          Some plants are better than others.

          ‘Industrial hemp has been scientifically proven to absorb more CO2 per hectare than any forest or commercial crop and is therefore the ideal carbon sink. In addition, the CO2 is permanently bonded within the fiber that is used for anything from textiles, to paper and as a building material.’

          HoR Committee

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      Bill in Oz

      The increased CO2 leading to increased crops is due to plants needing CO2 to photosynthesise & grow.
      The higher levels of CO2 make the process easier for plants ..
      So yes weeds could also benefit
      But moulds, rusts etc ?
      No sure ! They are not plants.

      They are consumers of plants just like humans
      Along with cattle, sheep, and all the other herbivores
      Including elephants..
      So by that logic we will all be swamped by a massive mob of elephants !

      🙂

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        Peter Fitzroy

        CO2 is only one of the things a plant needs to grow. That is why I’m stressing the nutrient properties of the soil. Other limiting factors will include water, and temperature (particularly in Australia). For Plant pathogens there are around 100,000 scientific articles showing how pathogens like rust will be a much larger problem for crops like wheat, and corn.

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      Maptram

      At least it’s an actual experiment not a computer model

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      Another Ian

      ” So although you could get more production from the crop, you will spend more on herbicides and control measures, which will negate the bonus production.”

      Shouldn’t that have already happened with the bump from artificial fertilisers?

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      CO2 Lank

      Rusts and moulds and many fungal growths on food crops are commonly inhibited and show reduced growth in higher carbon dioxide atmospheres. This would be a double bonus …. and is not so stupid Peter Fitzroy.

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      Bobl

      Um no, the application rate is not dependent on growth rate, indeed herbicides generally work better on growing weeds than weeds that are biologically idle / in survival mode

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    Zane

    CO2 did it! That’s the perp! Call a cop!

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    OriginalSteve

    Pope francis showing what appears to be his marxist side….
    http://news.trust.org/item/20190614124558-n22zt

    By Philip Pullella

    VATICAN CITY, June 14 (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Friday that carbon pricing is “essential” to stem global warming – his clearest statement yet in support of penalising polluters – and appealed to climate change deniers to listen to science.

    In an address to energy executives at the end of a two-day meeting, he also called for “open, transparent, science-based and standardised” reporting of climate risk and a “radical energy transition” away from carbon to save the planet.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      ““radical energy transition” away from carbon (DIOXIDE) to save the planet destroy any hope of the third world having any good economy.” Just what hed like?

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      Bill in Oz

      Dumb Frankie speaks !
      No one listening.

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      Yonniestone

      Perhaps a return to the multiple Papal system of the middle ages would help counter a bad Pope?

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    • #

      It’s been but a short hop from junta collaborator to Marxist anti-pope.

      Globalists are busy little scamps, aren’t they? Every main info/news outlet is their mouthpiece, their operatives are near or at the top everywhere you look.

      Such a pity Francis can’t show up at Bohemian Grove for drinkies in the woods. Maybe if he retires to take a CNN gig…

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    • #

      Indulgences ..Indulgences for sale!

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      Greg in NZ

      An open letter to His [un]Holiness Pope Francis about the weather by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley:

      https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/06/15/lord-monckton-corrects-pope-francis-on-climate-change-the-totalitarians-got-the-science-wrong-carbon-dioxide-is-not-a-satanic-gas/

      And besides, ALL popes should be called Gregory – there’s only been 16 (sixteen!) so far and we know No.17 is the majick cosmic number, or is that Tibetan Buddhism? Il Papa Gregorious XIII – ‘Thirteen’ to his buddies and Ugo Boncompagni to his mama – authorised the Gregorian Calendar (which we still use today) by ‘disappearing’ 10 days from the old, out-of-sync Julian Calendar to balance it up with reality, ie. equinoxes and solstices and pagan catholic blood-money festivals –

      https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XIII

      This is the same scum cardinal who, on hearing of the massacre of French Protestant Huguenots (1572), celebrated by offering a “Te Deum (hymn of praise to God) at Rome”. Seems today’s Papa Frankie is keeping in character with the nastiest of his nasty predecessors.

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        Robber

        The Honorable Christopher Monckton of Brenchley nails it again. The Pope should stick to theology… oh wait, is climate emergency the new religion?

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    Asp

    With the increasing number of articles regarding the benefits of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the press generally, there may be a corresponding increase in the number of articles labelling methane as the new whipping boy (girl?) of the warmistas. Recent articles claiming methane level emission underestimated by 100x, that is 2 orders of magnitude, etc etc. As the facts regarding global warming, climate change or whatever are starting to come home to roost, the true believers will need to change their ground quite rapidly whilst maintaining that they are always been on solid ground.

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      theRealUniverse

      Natural sources outweigh any human sources of CH4. So they can ‘whip’ it all they like, wait till the next major eruption.

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        Asp

        That may well be the case, but somewhere in there, there is a story that humans eat beef, and cows fart methane, and therefore we must all become vegans, despite the risk of increased personal eruptions on our part. The fact that grass left to rot produces similar amounts of methane than would have been the case if the grass was digested by a cow is just another inconvenient truth that does not fit the narrative. Veganism is a strong candidate for the fastest growing religion amongst western millennials today.

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    pat

    Peta Credlin brought this up at the end of her Sky program just now:
    (btw love the AAP writer’s name “Kohlbacher”!)

    17 Jun: 7News: AAP: Queensland environment minister Leanne Enoch ‘devastated’ by Adani mine approval
    by Sonia Kohlbacher
    Queensland’s environment minister appears to have told activists opposed to the Adani mine she is devastated the miner has approval to dig a new thermal coal mine.
    Leeanne Enoch was filmed days after her department approved the Indian mining giant’s plans saying “I am devastated”” when a Stop Adani protester asked about the approval.
    The snippet on the Stop Adani Cairns Facebook page seems to show Ms Enoch telling the activist she had to obey the law, two days after Adani won approval for the mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland…

    17 Jun: Age: Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch says she is ‘devastated’ about Adani
    By Felicity Caldwell
    In a video posted to the Stop Adani Cairns Facebook page at the weekend, activist Zelda Grimshaw, who displayed her Stop Adani T-shirt to the Minister, questioned Ms Enoch, asking: “Is it devastating? You actually feel devastated? Well, I’m really sorry that you feel that.”
    Ms Enoch replied: “I am devastated”.
    Ms Grimshaw then asked: “Why did you have to do it?”
    Ms Enoch replied: “I had to obey the law.”
    “So now it’s all about making sure that (audio indistinct) every single step of the bloody way,” Ms Enoch said.
    Ms Grimshaw asked if Ms Enoch was going to “fight for us”, to which the minister replied, “absolutely”.

    Ms Grimshaw told the Brisbane Times she had asked Ms Enoch how she felt about “signing away Wangan and Jagalingou water sovereignty to a coal mining billionaire”.
    “And Ms Enoch replied ‘devastated’,” she said.
    “She looked me right in the eyes, she looked very pained, and it was one of those rare times that you feel a politician is genuinely speaking from the heart.”

    However, Ms Enoch has given a different account of events.
    “I was approached by a person who introduced herself as a union member and asked for a photo with me,” she said.
    “As the photo was taken, that person lifted up a layer of clothing to reveal a Stop Adani T-shirt”…READ ON
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/queensland/environment-minister-leeanne-enoch-says-she-is-devastated-about-adani-20190617-p51yj7.html

    Credlin allowed Campbell Newman to comment, but didn’t have time for Nicholas Reece, who jumped in with how we must look at the economics of the Carmichael mine (FakeNewsMSM incl theirABC’s meme), before getting cut off with a promise to discuss further another time.

    what business is it of anyone but Adani whether the economics works out?

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    Bob

    And if, as some climatology centers and astrophysicist’s are saying, that the reduced solar activity is bringing on a cooling period of several years, what then?

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