# The future of farming and Global Warming?



## Brian G Turner (Aug 30, 2003)

Here’s an interesting article that tackles the issue of Global Warming in connection with modern farming practices:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994072

* Heatwave's warning for future of farming *

Europe may be breathing a sigh of relief as its record-breaking heatwave eases, but there is still plenty to worry about. Temperature changes caused by global warming are likely to transform agriculture on both sides of the Atlantic. 

While the heatwave claimed thousands of lives in France, started bush fires in Portugal and toppled temperature records from London to Baghdad, the European Commission (EC) issued a little-noticed bulletin. 

It showed a prolonged drought was causing drastic changes in agricultural output, especially in southern Europe. And the changes almost perfectly match predictions of the effects of global warming over the next century.

Meanwhile in the US, the latest forecasts are confirming that, whatever the prevarications of the Bush administration, climate change will have a very real impact on the country.

The eastern and western seaboards of the US will become much wetter over the next century, while some central states will become so starved of water that they will be unable to support agriculture at all. 

*North up, south down *

The European report by the EC's Joint Research Centre in Brussels reveals that the prolonged heatwave has caused crop yields to drop across southern Europe. For example, high temperatures and water shortages have cut maize and sugar beet yields in Italy by a quarter, and wheat yields have fallen by a third in Portugal. 

However, yields have risen in northern Europe, which has not been affected by drought. For example, the warm weather has helped increase sugar beet yields by a quarter in Ireland and by up to 5 per cent in Denmark and Sweden. Yields of oilseed rape, or canola, rose by 12 per cent in Finland. 

This shift in productivity is almost exactly what was forecast in 2002 by Jørgen Olesen of the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Tjele and Marco Bindi of the University of Florence in Italy. Their analysis predicts that agricultural productivity will soar in northern Europe as the region becomes wetter. Higher temperatures and increased carbon dioxide levels will further boost yields in the region (European Journal of Agronomy, vol 16, p 239). 

But in southern Europe, temperature changes will lead to water shortages and lower crop yields, and agriculture could cease altogether in the most parched regions. 

"With drier conditions in the south, it will be difficult to maintain dairy production, for example, and there will be parts of southern Europe where agricultural production is no longer viable," says Olesen. "If there's competition for [water], urban areas will probably win over agriculture."

*Wet, wet, wet *

In the US, analysis by a team at the Joint Global Change Research Institute - a collaboration between the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland in College Park - predicts that rainfall will increase across much of the country, especially towards the end of this century. 

"The eastern part is likely to be the wettest," says lead researcher César Izaurralde. Overall, the team expects global warming to deliver better yields to US farmers. 

But Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska are just some of the central states that could suffer drought, the researchers say in two papers published in June this year (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol 117, p 73 and p 97).

Both groups of researchers warn that the recent heatwave is a salutary warning of the changes to come. "It's dangerous to push these things under the carpet because we need to start planning now for the impacts of climate change," says Olesen. Izaurralde agrees. "It's not too soon to begin building a more resilient agricultural system."


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## littlemissattitude (Aug 31, 2003)

This is interesting in light of the fact that one of the national news programs this evening here in the States had a huge feature story on how wonderful the heat wave in Europe was for the production of wine grapes.  I guess they were trying to look on the bright side or something?

This is also interesting to me because I live in one of the most highly agriculturalized areas of the world.  It sounds from the article you posted that the changes might actually not hurt this area, but it worries me that they make it sound like the Midwest is being set up to go into another Dust Bowl sort of situation.  That will cause economic devastation, not to mention the crops that will be lost that just aren't grown in other parts of the country.  It was ugly when it happened in the 1930s, and I'm afraid that it will be even uglier if it happens again.

I know for sure that the climate is changing here.  When I first moved to this part of the country in 1978, winters were dark and dank - the fog was so thick and persistent that it was not unusual to go a month without seeing the sun.  We still get fog in the winter, but I can't remember the last time it persisted for even a week at a time.  Summers, interestingly enough, seem often not to be as hot as they were when we first moved here, or when we visited here when I was a child.  Oh, it still gets very hot in the daytime, and if it is humid it doesn't cool off much at night - we've had a few nights this summer when the low temperature didn't go below 80 degrees F.  But in the past it was not unusual at all for it to still be 100 degrees F. at midnight.  It hasn't done that in years and years (and I hope it doesn't start doing it again; that was miserable).  I don't think I even remember a time in the past few years when it has still been 90 F. it midnight.  Today, for example, the high temperature here was 99 F., but it is expected to go down to 62 F tonight.  Not at all the way it used to be.

I think the adminstration is taking the fairly irresponsible position of saying that if they don't admit that the climate is changing (whether because of human activities, geological and climatological variation of a normal kind, or a combination of both), then it won't change.  Stupid, if you ask me.


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## Twelve (Sep 1, 2003)

*tosses a monkey wrench*

http://www.junkscience.com/


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 1, 2003)

Heh, I'll stick to the New Scientist reports for my scientific input on the matter.


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 2, 2003)

Twelve...I couldn't get the link you posted to come up.  Said "Web Site Not Responding."  Could you summarize what the link said?  Please.


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## Twelve (Sep 2, 2003)

Hmmm...it didn't work? Strange. It's working now.

Basically, it's a webpage that represents valid, provable issues of science that you won't quickly find in the liberal-infested media. When you read some of the articles there, and see how well they are represented, you might have to admit that _PERHAPS_ the Bush Administration has good reasons to doubt the global warming propogandists/naysayers.

Here, see if this works:

[EDIT: by *brian* - URLs with commas don't paste well, so I've reformatted it so that it should work:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,68667,00.html
]



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## Brian G Turner (Sep 2, 2003)

Certainly there are a lot of areas within environmentalism that are exaggerated beyond their proper representation. What amazes me is the political investment put into debunking Global Warming, especially from North America - as if science has somehow become some backwards liberal sellout.

I'm not sure who Wigley is, reported in the article, but the overall reading doesn't make a case for or against Global Warming - but instead against the ideas and perceptions of a particular group of people.

As for the Kyoto Protocol - certainly there's pessimism - mainly because there's a very real danger it will become transferred into a CO2 sales program to allow polluters to continue polluting (generally, undermine the protocol), rather than it actually being a basis for international co-operation for the controlled reduction of CO2 emissions - especially from heavily industrialised nations.

The comments about there not being a replacement prospect for fossil fuels - certainly renewable sources have limits - but I have never read anywhere that there is "only a 30-year supply of uranium for fuel". 

It would be nice to see the article calmly deal with the issues, but it simply reads as an unqualified rant. 

My own personal reference for information on Global Warming would be something like this FAQ from New Scientist magazine:

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climatefaq.jsp

Whether or not people believe that facing Global Warming is a reality or not, I certainly am taking it seriously. I have to: the place where I live - Hull - is built on on big long floodplain. We had outselves a tidal barrier for protection long before London even began construction. We've already had serious flood issues in less well protected areas of Yorkshire, but for the moment Hull is safe.

Is there a consensus of panic about Global Warming in Hull? No - and probably most people aren't thinking about it. But we've been warned by the government that our home is at risk from flooding. And Global Wamring will apparently accentuate that risk. You can certainly be assured, that when we eventually move, we're aiming at somewhere that's definitely not in a known flood-risk area. Global Warming or not, I don't intend to be one of the first to get my feet wet.


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## Twelve (Sep 2, 2003)

[quote author=brian link=board=10;threadid=580;start=0#msg4376 date=1062500592]
as if science has somehow become some backwards liberal sellout.


[/quote]

Science always has and always will be a thing used to prove what different movements in society want to hear. You don't have to go very far back into history to see the utter foolishness that science has "proven" before. If we think that today's scientific discoveries are absolute truths, then we're really fooling ourselves.

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## Brian G Turner (Sep 3, 2003)

Absolutely true on the issue of paradigm shifts. Not quite my intention, but a very valid point indeed.

After all, if I remember right, in the 1970's/early 80s Global Warming was originally Global Cooling.

I'm still figuring on moving to somewhere in an area with no immediate history of flooding, though.


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