General / Off-Topic Recycle or Die! (the elite environmental thread)

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Ok, you asked. Climate change and therefore; global warming, is NOT the issue with growing crops. As you say; it will probably increase yields. However: Climate change and Global warming; DOES create extreme weather conditions. More wind, more water in the atmosphere; thus, larger and more destructive storms and more extreme weather day to day changes, happening, more often. This WILL cause harvests to fail and crops; no matter how good their potential yields are, to be wiped out etc. etc.


That is pure speculation, since at present, no such impact on the "global" crop yields shows that.
That's the problem with confounds and cherry picking data points.
 
Regarding population we agree Bob, but I know enough about basic rhetoric to know that I'm not doing a strawman.

Did any of you read the article I linked to about "The Event"? Those guys thought they were onto something, but it did not include Africa sinking on it's own?

https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1



Sure you did.
You attributed claims to me that I did not make or imply.

You are also cherry picking data points, ignoring confounds and taking a too narrow perspective.
 
Another reason why the crop yield has increased is technology. Even though a lot of agriculture is done by hand even today, there has also been a revolution (you could call it a paradigm shift) towards machines, and the agricultural systems those create.

@Bob
I pretty sure, that you are the one cherry picking here. You can't use the current situation and say that it will continue. It's like driving towards a wall saying "We haven't hit it yet"
 
I know Philosophy of Science from ancient times up to now, and I know Popper and Kuhn. My personal favorite was Feyerabend, but that can't come as much of a surprise I presume? :)

You also know the term consensus.

"Unvalidated model outputs mean nothing."

What exactly do you mean?

"It's simply an outrageous claim and, unless there's some drastic piece of knowledge that I'm not aware of "

Trust me, there a lot to learn for both of us, and I'm pretty sure you already know that.

Edit: Do you have any argument against the theory that more energy in the atmosphere causes more extreme weather?

Well there's a very obvious argument against the theory that more energy in the atmosphere causes more extreme weather; despite an approx 1C increase in the global temperature anomaly since the mid-19th century, it hasn't happened yet. It certainly has been projected but there's no conclusive data which, if the climate responds as sensitively as you're postulating, shouldn't be possible.

Certain actors have a very bad habit of equating all extreme weather events with climate change; but these things have been with us well before manmade CO2 emissions became significant. I'll concede that increased temperatures certainly might be changing the nature of these events (in fact it's difficult to imagine that they aren't) but all we're doing is swapping one set of events for another.

Re: Model outputs - anyone can make a model. Anyone can make a model which has convincing internal logic and makes predictions. But until those predictions are tested (verified to produce useful results, in this case; accurate future predictions) you can't place any faith in their outputs.

Re: The Outrageous claim - that's not an answer. Can you justify your rhetoric? In any way.

You do not seem to understand that the World is developing exponentially, almost where ever you look. In that case you're not alone.

That brings me to a point that I wanted to make. To my eyes, much of the dispute/debate in this topic comes from weak claims being used to push strong agendas; when actually there are huge amounts that I expect that we agree on and much that can be done with "no regrets". Much of the more traditional environmental/ecological agenda are things that far more people will agree on and get behind because its self-evidently logical.

Habitat protection, re-forestation, more sustainable living (with a hat-tip to WingardiumLevicoaster). Investment in R&D. Investment in more efficient plant/materials and consumables. Investment in disaster hardening and general infrastructure. Rational policies. Rational solutions which aren't solutions to irrational problems.

The grand re-engineering of our energy systems and/or abolishment of capitalism are distractions compared to the things that actually could be pushed slightly higher up the agenda; compared to unsubstantiated claims of immediate doom.
 
Another reason why the crop yield has increased is technology. Even though a lot of agriculture is done by hand even today, there has also been a revolution (you could call it a paradigm shift) towards machines, and the agricultural systems those create.

No kidding?

LOL.
Yes, that's exactly what my quoted passages said.

@Bob
I pretty sure, that you are the one cherry picking here. You can't use the current situation and say that it will continue. It's like driving towards a wall saying "We haven't hit it yet"


No, I just understand burden of proof better than you do.
 
@Bob
So did you just disagree with what I wrote to disagree?

@Talarin
I honestly believe that running out of phosphorus is maybe even a bigger challenge than the climate, and I'm seriously worried about both. The combination is rarely mentioned.


The contra argument to this is that the market will solve it. Their argument being that increased demand will mean a higher price, thereby upgrading resource to reserve. In my model I have tried different scenarios for this, but as Albert Bartlett shows, that is just a small deferral. The estimates saying that we will reach a peak phosphorus production in 2050 are aligning "well" with what I see. By that time population is still increasing rapidly, according to the UN estimates.
 
That's interesting. That claim about increased weather-induced disasters is in direct conflict with the data as I understand it (including the IPCC's own prose on the topic). Going to dig about that a bit to get at the source...

Apologies for self-quoting, but the source of that claim is https://www.emdat.be/, which classes a disaster as 10 or more dead AND/OR 100 or more affected. So, a mild flood in a village in the West of Scotland could conceivably qualify as a stand-alone "disaster".

The short version of this is "that claim can not be trusted at face value". It's truer to say that there's an increase in reported disasters, while is as likely to reflect an expansion of people into new areas/more literate people in affected areas/better communications.

Even then, based on that same data we see natural disaster events aren't quite unfolding the way we're told. See: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters

@Talarin
I honestly believe that running out of phosphorus is maybe even a bigger challenge than the climate, and I'm seriously worried about both. The combination is rarely mentioned.

The contra argument to this is that the market will solve it. Their argument being that increased demand will mean a higher price, thereby upgrading resource to reserve. In my model I have tried different scenarios for this, but as Albert Bartlett shows, that is just a small deferral. The estimates saying that we will reach a peak phosphorus production in 2050 are aligning "well" with what I see. By that time population is still increasing rapidly, according to the UN estimates.

I'll confess that I know nothing about phosphorus, a shortage of it or what remedies might be used to address such a shortage.
 
It's all a red herring because we've already established modern famines aren't weather related by and large.

If you want to look at Africa, they just need to get their act together.
They have no infrastructure.
Most of their arable land isn't being utilized, and they have enough food already.
They could easily feed the world.
 
Apologies for self-quoting, but the source of that claim is https://www.emdat.be/, which classes a disaster as 10 or more dead AND/OR 100 or more affected. So, a mild flood in a village in the West of Scotland could conceivably qualify as a stand-alone "disaster".

The short version of this is "that claim can not be trusted at face value". It's truer to say that there's an increase in reported disasters, while is as likely to reflect an expansion of people into new areas/more literate people in affected areas/better communications.

Even then, based on that same data we see natural disaster events aren't quite unfolding the way we're told. See: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters



I'll confess that I know nothing about phosphorus, a shortage of it or what remedies might be used to address such a shortage.
Climate change and global warming and therefore weather extremes: Are just a small set, of the 'natural disasters' you are quoting. As has been said here before: Just one volcano, can put the whole planet into darkness.
 
I agree to a certain degree but people have to wake up. Right now the major issue on everyone's mind is the climate. However, that is far from the only issue we face. A Swedish group of scientist have made a list of issues. Each are potentially a threat humanity, called Planetary Boundaries:

Climate change
Biodiversity loss
Biogeochemical
Ocean acidification
Land use
Freshwater
Ozone depletion
Atmospheric aerosols
Chemical pollution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

I could personally add a few. Overpopulation, energy, pandemics and the occasional huge asteroid.

The problem, as I stated earlier is that these interact.

And here is one such interaction as reported in the media today:


Lead author of the study Alina Wieczorek, of the Ryan Institute, NUI Galway, said: "Our oceans are estimated to have captured one-quarter to one-half of all human-derived carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the last two centuries and this downward transport of carbon by salps and other zooplankton animals accounts for a major portion of this.

"These findings show that microplastics have the potential to lower the efficiency of one of the most important natural processes occurring within our oceans, that is, the biologically driven transport of CO2 to the sea floor."

Dr Tom Doyle, senior author of the study from UCC, added: "Our study highlights that marine litter and microplastics may impact on animals and even ecosystems in ways we just haven't considered yet."
 
And here is one such interaction as reported in the media today:


Lead author of the study Alina Wieczorek, of the Ryan Institute, NUI Galway, said: "Our oceans are estimated to have captured one-quarter to one-half of all human-derived carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the last two centuries and this downward transport of carbon by salps and other zooplankton animals accounts for a major portion of this.

"These findings show that microplastics have the potential to lower the efficiency of one of the most important natural processes occurring within our oceans, that is, the biologically driven transport of CO2 to the sea floor."

Dr Tom Doyle, senior author of the study from UCC, added: "Our study highlights that marine litter and microplastics may impact on animals and even ecosystems in ways we just haven't considered yet."
You need to read Stark, by Ben Elton.
 
Ok, you asked. Climate change and therefore; global warming, is NOT the issue with growing crops. As you say; it will probably increase yields. However: Climate change and Global warming; DOES create extreme weather conditions. More wind, more water in the atmosphere; thus, larger and more destructive storms and more extreme weather day to day changes, happening, more often. This WILL cause harvests to fail and crops; no matter how good their potential yields are, to be wiped out etc. etc.

Actually, there may well be a problem with higher CO2 levels and crops, in terms of nutritional value if not yield.


This, of course, in addition to the massive problem of soil depletion.
 
Actually, there may well be a problem with higher CO2 levels and crops, in terms of nutritional value if not yield.


This, of course, in addition to the massive problem of soil depletion.
One would hope that 'Dust Bowl America' would teach humans, about the importance or crop rotation etc..
 
I've not read that, does he predict something similar? I've heard it was good but never got round to it.
Read it if you can, not watch the stuff, made from it. If you read it, you get more of an idea about what is happening to the food chain etc.. It was written 30 years ago.
 
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