Global warming and its effects on agriculture

When Canadians start growing killer weed in the Yukon then we'll see who has the last laugh. They could also grow more food to feed all those starving people in Africa ever think of that?

 

I suggest any of you tell me how you can raise plants cheaper in a greenhouse than outside in soil. You can call names, huff and puff, but tell me. If you don't this is just another internet p #%% ing contest. I care not to waste my time trading insults.

 

Just answer the question. Wait, you can't.

 

The A1F1 scenario is the worst case prediction which clearly shows alarmism. The thought process is that the worst could happen based on computer models which justifies the application of the precautionary principle without consideration of the historical record or trends. Using the middle of the road A1B scenario and the historically based climate sensitivity of CO2 of ~ 1 deg C shows that the effect of global warming in the next 100 years is net beneficial.

 

Depending on conditions, greenhouses give complete control of all conditions that may not be available in the location grown. Where you might get close to 100% viability in a greenhouse, you may get much less outside exposed to the vagaries of things like the weather and you may also not get equal production. For high profit products, it makes sense to grow them in a greenhouse.

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Much of the temperature alarmism is based on the improbable worst case computer model. Fortunately observed science is nowhere close to the worst case.

 

Yes and this if perfectly illustrated by our ill mannered forum participant.

 

Greenhouses have their uses and can be profitable. They are useful for starting seedlings, rooting cuttings, and growing container plants. But they cost much more than growing plants in the ground. In a changing world greenhouses will not feed the billions of people on this earth. It will not happen.

 

You have that backwards.

Nations which can't feed themselves aren't going to be saved by Canada or the US.

Plus, the problems of agriculture and climate change are showing up all over the place. Bangladesh, South America, India - even our own drought conditions are tied with that.


One of the factors with the disaster in Syria is that their multi-year drought drove millions of people into the cities as their farming failed. When Assad had no answers, he used his military on his own population.

Neither Canada nor the US were in a position to head that off by feeding Syrians - for several very obvious reasons.

Our military sees climate change as a serious national security issue.

 

Yes and no. You may be right for now but the future may bring high yield food plants that may only be suitably grown in a greenhouse environment. Greenhouses can be built upwards like a building producing a smaller footprint.

The biggest danger to growing is a cooling environment so they may be needed sometime in the future.

 

Regions in food stress need wheat and rice.

And greenhouses are usually a little cramped for combines.

 

Thank you for your post. We have to increase farm production to keep up with a growing population. I sometimes watch a program called AG PhD. For the first time it was about refuse management and how to increase organic matter in soils and the benefit thereof. The problem and the solution is right under our feet IMHO.

 

Yes. It's amazing what can be done.

However, having rich nations make these changes is very different than what is required to bail out emerging disasters in nations which have inadequate income. And, even here, with all our wealth, we move slowly.

So, I haven't seen any reason to believe that this is some sort of solution to climate change. We've watched (and are watching) disasters in Bangladesh, Syria, areas of Africa and of South America, for example. We don't have solutions for them, plus we don't have a way of giving solutions to many of these people even if we had them.

 

Have you investigated what was done in the loess plateau in China? It did take substantial investment but it brought a starving population into a net exporting region.

 

I was not aware of that case. Interesting.

Still, that came with requirements of control and resources that don't necessarily exist.

For example, we were not in a position to direct Syrian agriculture (obviously) - so even if we had a solution it's highly doubtful that we could have caused its implementation. And, we really have no interest in solving problems in Bangladesh, even though it is a serious problem for India and even though China is working do redirect a river so that it doesn't flow to Bangladesh - a problem that is or will affect more people than we have in the USA.

We don't even have a way of insisting on rational water management in West Bank - where Israeli settlers are stealing the water rights of Palestinians, replacing that with a requirement that they buy water from a desalinization factory at high prices.

Basically, our interest in solving these problems is limited. To me, that adds to the moral argument that we need to stop being one of the worst actors in the known causes of climate change.

 

I just try to make the case. I can tell no one what to do. I just try to make people aware of the problems and possible solutions.

 

Absolutely - something that is definitely needed.

We need to work on dealing with the affects of climate change as well as working on limiting climate change.

There is no possibility of us stopping climate change, so working on limiting climate change is important, but NOT sufficient.

 

Considering this is a thread about agriculture and conventional agriculture contributes 30% of greenhouse gas emissions it would be a good thing to point out the benefit agriculture can provide. It can only do good and help mankind. Without agriculture we die. We can split the carbon atom off CO2 through photosynthesis and put tons of carbon back in the soil where it belongs. Done properly many tons of carbon can be sequestered per acre of soil. Instead we continue to deplete or most valuable resource..... The soil.

 

No, it's always far higher than for open-field agriculture.

That's what justifies the extra cost. The extra production comes from higher temperatures and CO2.

But there's no evidence that is happening. Climate has always been variable. And blaming global warming for spring frosts seems particularly idiotic.

 

You obviously know very little of the subject. Vegetables raised in greenhouses feed whole countries. I remember looking out the window of a train heading north out of Pusan, and the greenhouses were like an ocean. Thousands of square kilometers of them. Seedlings, cuttings and container plants?? No, they were growing the vegetables that kept the people fed.

That depends on the ground. In many places, greenhouse agriculture is supplanting open-field agriculture because it can be controlled.

Yes, it will. Guaranteed. It will happen because greenhouse agriculture makes agriculture possible in the majority of places on earth, where open field agriculture is not a paying proposition.

 

But there's nothing new about that. Climate has been changing as long as it has existed. Drought and global cooling drove the mass migrations that put paid to the Roman Empire.

It's been happening for thousands of years. Nothing to do with CO2.

As would the Romans, had they understood it.

 

Wheat and rice are too low density. Greenhouse potatoes and bananas are far more productive per area, and can feed those countries.

 

CO2 can be compared to food for people. Since deniers are saying CO2 is plant food.There comes a time when more food does no more good. And a closed greenhouse has more oxygen than CO2. Except possibly at night when plants take up O2.

 

A fact about which they are objectively correct.

But we are about an order of magnitude away from that point in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

?? The fact that you could imagine that could be relevant shows just how far beneath me you are in understanding this stuff.

 

Oh, I bow to your superior intellect. When production moves indoors and the price of food increases the outdoor farmer will make more profit. More people will grow their own food. That is all right with me. Your indoor farming solution is a pipe dream and will never feed the world. Just the startup costs are prohibitive. But you continue to think that man can continue to s##t in his lunch and continue to carry on as usual.

 

Good points. We do need to recognize that agriculture includes a cycle, as plants get their carbon from the atmosphere, not the soil, and when they are burned/consumed/etc. they return that carbon to the air unless something happens to break that cycle.

When we bury plant material we prevent the carbon from returning to the atmosphere - or at least delay that.

Simply plowing a field causes large amounts of carbon to enter the atmosphere, as exposure to oxygen causes carbon to combine with the carbon in the soil - the same process as combustion in a car. So, there has been a move toward reducing the amount of plowing we do in order to maintain soil quality, if not for reasons of co2 emissions.


In terms of tuning our actions for a warmer climate we also need to remember that some agriculture requires far more water. It takes more than 100 gallons of water to grow the beef in a quarter pound hamburger, for example. As a source of protein, that is incredibly expensive in water - which climate change can put in dangerously short supply.