Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

Do let us know how that works out for you. In the meantime, have you heard of any work being done on that now?

Every day. Crops are engineered to thrive in today's climate. Take a look at the yields 20 years ago and today.

 

[macdoc]

Still in denial of reality 3b - you claim, with no source or support all will be "jest fine" when those who actually do the science for a living argue otherwise

Just what didn't you get about this??

20% Decrease in Nutritional Value of Foods Could Occur in 20-50 Years

The researchers say that if new fertilizers are not produced to counteract this response (and CO2 levels increase as predicted in the next 20-50 years), this 20% decrease could occur on a great scale in the coming decades.

“Wheat grain that has been exposed to conditions that we expect in the next few decades declines about 20 percent,” says Bloom.
http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2010/05/20...value-of-food/

original paper
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/32...ref&siteid=sci

and another article on the same topic

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/rising...-in-crops.html

snip

Quote:
Gerald Nelson, an agricultural economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, United States told SciDev.Net that the new study "reinforces the point that we cannot count on CO2 fertilisation to offset the negative productivity effects of climate change on agriculture

in addition the rise in temps will eliminate wheat growing from most of the current major producing areas ...notably the western US and vitally the Indian sub-continent....there are limits to engineering and perhaps you didn't notice the drop in nutritional value.

In addition you overlook the extreme weather events - in particular hydrological that accompanies climate change - farming is weather fraught at the best of times
....or are you proposing just cover the farming areas with a greenhouse

 

[BenBurch]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/020211.html

January had the lowest average ice extent since the start of satellite records.

The decline is unabated.

 

[Furcifer]

oh I see - so you don't bother to try and validate any of your "arguments" with support.....and denigrate others that so support their contentions.

It's pretty obvious the responders don't have any clue about the science being presented.

You can't "talk science" unless you know the science which you patently do not - having to be corrected in your continuous misperceptions or even misrepresentations...

I've already asked specific questions which nobody has come close to addressing. They obviously can't or they would.

and others had to correct your misunderstanding of the implications of increased C02.

No, I find the significance of one article in a field that fully understood meaningless.

So don't try and diss others when they offer support and references for their argument and then have to explain to you the science of your own few references.

More handwaving. Every time a scientific discussion arises posters go silent unless they can copy and paste opinion from a propaganda site.

I don't claim to "know the science" like some people do. I'm smart enough to know I don't know. It's obvious the believers believe and the skeptics wait for more information.

 

[macdoc]

Crops are engineered to thrive in today's climate.

That is NOT the climate we will have nor will climate regime that's coming including atmospheric gas mix resemble anything the biome has seen for 12 million+ years.

There is a limit to GM engineering, there is a limit to tolerance of extreme weather and we KNOW high C02 reduces nutrition.
So making the argument that high C02 is somehow a "good thing" or even an "okay thing" is wishful thinking in the extreme.

 

[Furcifer]

Adaptation, without evolution, to environmental conditions beyond the range of viability for a given species is impossible,...but that is touched upon in the papers I listed previously and in full accord with accepted mainstream scietific understandings.

Global Warming has been going on for a while, as has the rise in ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Where's the empirical evidence supporting this study? You know, a measured decrease in plant growth due to global warming.

I can give you crop yield increases over the same time span. HUGE crop increases.

I'd suggest not being so naive you believe everything being fed to you. Even if it's from educated farmers

 

[Trakar]

Complete rubbish, even after atmospheric CO2 doubles it's well below the threshold of becoming toxic to plants.

I suggest you go to a greenhouse and ask to see the CO2 system.

I presented peer-reviewed biological science that supports the statements I made, and you wave your hand and deny it.

 

[Trakar]

...This is why we don't "talk science". Unless you can copypasta from a propaganda site there isn't much to be discussed.

That explains much, ...particularly why some only seem to reference political blogs and pseudoscience propaganda sites instead of linking to actual published science and authentic, reviewed science sources of information.

 

[Trakar]

BTW - In my response to BadBoy, I didn't mean to slight any of the other wonderfully intelligent and dedicated posters who contribute enormously to the discussions here! They are all welcome and appreciated. And this doesn't apply just to those who share my perspective on this issue, many of those of different perspectives on the issue of climate change, are equally valuable and appreciated. Without them we wouldn't be afforded the circumstances to share our understandings and the sources of our information. It is in the discussion and sharing of information from a diversity of subjective positions that we all learn and improve our individual understandings.

Thank-you ALL!

 

[Trakar]

Every day. Crops are engineered to thrive in today's climate. Take a look at the yields 20 years ago and today.

Actually the IPCC is somewhat rosy on this in its early assessments, but the field specific studies of the last few years seem to reveal the beliement inherent to the conservative nature of IPCC assessments, and scientific assessments in general. Not that this is a bad thing, but it explains why there is a tendancy for science assessments to underestimate effects and impacts.
We'll just have to wait and see how the new IPCC evaluations and assessments, which should pay especial attention to effects and impacts, will deal with Agronomy studies and researches like the following:

"More than taking the heat: crops and global change" - http://ddr.nal.usda.gov/bitstream/10113/43307/1/IND44387011.pdf

"...In
contrast to IPCC projections, these facts suggest that
capacity for continued increase is approaching a ceiling.
Increase in yield potential over the past 50 years has
resulted by increasing partitioning of biomass into grain
(harvest index; HI) and increasing the proportion of
available sunlight energy that the crop intercepts during
the growing season [3]. Today’s best germplasm
partitions over 60% of total biomass into grain and intercepts
over 90% of growing season radiation by the crop
leaf canopy, suggesting little room for further improvement
here [3]. Improved photosynthetic and respiratory
efficiency, remain the only theoretical major routes for
further substantial improvements in genetic yield potential.
These traits have proved far less tractable to conventional
breeding than HI [3]. So while the ceiling might
be raised, it will require considerably more effort while
simultaneously adapting to climate change..."

"Weed Biology and Climate Change" - http://books.google.com/books?id=rj...&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

"What have we learned from 15 years of free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE)? A meta-analytic review of the responses of photosynthesis, canopy properties and plant production to rising CO2" - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01224.x/full

...Summary
Free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments allow study of the effects of elevated [CO2] on plants and ecosystems grown under natural conditions without enclosure. Data from 120 primary, peer-reviewed articles describing physiology and production in the 12 large-scale FACE experiments (475–600 ppm) were collected and summarized using meta-analytic techniques. The results confirm some results from previous chamber experiments: light-saturated carbon uptake, diurnal C assimilation, growth and above-ground production increased, while specific leaf area and stomatal conductance decreased in elevated [CO2]. There were differences in FACE. Trees were more responsive than herbaceous species to elevated [CO2]. Grain crop yields increased far less than anticipated from prior enclosure studies. The broad direction of change in photosynthesis and production in elevated [CO2] may be similar in FACE and enclosure studies, but there are major quantitative differences: trees were more responsive than other functional types; C4 species showed little response; and the reduction in plant nitrogen was small and largely accounted for by decreased Rubisco. The results from this review may provide the most plausible estimates of how plants in their native environments and field-grown crops will respond to rising atmospheric [CO2]; but even with FACE there are limitations, which are also discussed...

of course, this isn't to say that there is nothing science can do to help ameliorate some of the problems faced, merely that such efforts are difficult, expensive and generally perceived to fall short of what will be needed going forward into the next century and beyond.

"How Do We Improve Crop Production in a Warming World?" - http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/154/2/526

"... Conclusion
There is now overwhelming evidence that "business as usual" crop development will be insufficient to adapt crops over the wide range of growing regions that will be required to meet expanding global agricultural demand. Moving crops pole-ward seems an inevitable element of the multifaceted adaptation to increasing global temperatures that must be implemented, but it would be misleading to believe that this alone can maintain yields. For example, migration of the North American Corn Belt into Canada vacates the high-quality prairie soils for the less productive soils farther north. And in many important agricultural areas of the world, pole-ward migration is not possible, such as the Wheat Belt of Australia, where an ocean lies to the south (Long and Ort, 2010). Even adapting crops in the highest priority regions will require broad investment, the integration of new technologies with conventional selection-based breeding, and the coordinated involvement of public and private sectors of the agricultural enterprise. Current and future increases in temperature portend perhaps the most significant and most urgent challenge for the adaptation of crops to global change.[/quote]

"Climate Change and Crop Production"
http://books.google.com/books?id=wj...&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Biochar, reducing and removing CO2 while improving soils: A significant and sustainable response to climate change" - http://www.eeo.ed.ac.uk/homes/sshackle/WP2.pdf

 

[Trakar]

A few more Agronomy studies related to climate change, for those interested.

"Herbivory in global climate change research: direct effects of rising temperature on insect herbivores" - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2002.00451.x/abstract

"How will plant pathogens adapt to host plant resistance at elevated CO2 under a changing climate?" - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1469-8137.2003.00842.x/full

"Plant–pathogen interactions and elevated CO2: morphological changes in favour of pathogens" - http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/11/3123

"Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming" - http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002/

Abstract Changes in the global production of major crops are important drivers of food prices, food security and land use decisions. Average global yields for these commodities are determined by the performance of crops in millions of fields distributed across a range of management, soil and climate regimes. Despite the complexity of global food supply, here we show that simple measures of growing season temperatures and precipitation—spatial averages based on the locations of each crop—explain ~30% or more of year-to-year variations in global average yields for the world's six most widely grown crops. For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002. While these impacts are small relative to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate already occurring negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at the global scale.

 

[Trakar]

Tweeting to end human climate corruption


“How cavemen did social media”
A comparative case study of social movement organisations using Twitter to mobilise on climate change - http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/7119/1/Campbell.pdf

Abstract

In the face of widespread public disillusionment with traditional politics the internet is emerging as a popular tool for increasing public participation in social and political activism. Little research has been performed, however, on how social movement organisations are using the internet and in particular increasingly popular social networking services to mobilise individuals. Accordingly, this thesis presents a comparative case study of three climate change campaigns’ Twitter accounts aiming to identify and analyse the ways they are using it as part of their mobilisation efforts. Use of Twitter varied across all three, reflecting campaign design. However, each case displayed efforts to establish and use online ties and networks to facilitate and sustain participation in low-risk, moderate and symbolic forms of online and offline action. Such findings will provide inspiration for movement activists seeking to use the internet to mobilise on climate change, and open up to greater academic attention the role of social networking services in movement mobilisation.

 

[Trakar]

In pursuing the idea to broaden the discussion regarding AGW, I ran across this link in my private database. I don't know how much personal merit I account these authors or their proposal, but it is not the first time I have heard such proposed and they do offer a rather interesting collection of supporting references as well as an intriguing, if not completely compelling, argument.

"End Times Theology, the Shadow of the Future, and Public Attitudes regarding Global Climate Change" - http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/8/2/2/4/pages482249/p482249-1.php

AbstractWe examine public attitudes regarding global climate change in the US,
addressing the puzzle of why support for governmental action on this front is
low relative to what existing theories predict. We hypothesize, and show,
that citizens who believe in Christian End-Times theology are less likely to
support government efforts to curb global warming than are other
Americans, even after accounting for various other religious, political, and
information-based controls. In so doing, this analysis provides the first
empirical evidence supporting the logic that citizens who possess shorter
time horizons tend to resist policies that trade short-term costs for
hypothetical long-term benefits. Such shadow of the future logic and
empirical assessment can be applied broadly to future examinations of other
long-term policy attitudes

 

[Trakar]

I also ran across a 2009 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article "Global warming: How skepticism became denial." Very good piece pointing out how climate experts were initially strongly skeptical of the theory of global warming and how it took a variety of evidence to gradually convince them that warming due to human emissions was likely.
It was in the Dec. 13, 2009 edition. It is behind a paywall, but for those of you who aren't subscribers and don't live near a decent public library or substantive university (tell me ain't so!), I can at least share the abstract with you:

The conversation on global warming started in 1896, when a physical chemist estimated that the mean global temperature would rise several degrees if the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was doubled. The topic eventually became one of the most passionate in the history of science. The author points out that climate experts were initially strongly skeptical of the theory of global warming; it took a variety of evidence to gradually convince them that warming due to human emissions was likely. The public, however, was guided away from this conclusion by a professional public relations effort, motivated by industrial and ideological concerns. Deniers of the scientific consensus avoided normal scientific discourse and resorted to ad hominem attacks that cast doubt on the entire scientific community—while disrupting the lives of some researchers. The author points out that scientists have failed to mount a concerted public relations campaign to defend their position. When trust is lost, he asserts, a determined effort is needed to restore it.

 

[Trakar]

Again, looking at the issue of the drawbacks to climate change there are a number of recent papers which seem to lay out these issues rather well. Papers like:
"The nexus of host and pathogen phenology: understanding the disease triangle with climate change" - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03568.x/full

We have observed a remarkable increase in large-scale, sudden onset of decline (unknown causes) and known disease (bacterial, fungal, viral) outbreaks in the last few decades, with more predicted globally (Ganley et al., 2009). Increases in temperature, changes in the timing and effectiveness of precipitation, the change in the frequency and intensity of other, catastrophic events (e.g. windthrows, tornadoes, bark beetle outbreaks) and invasions of both native and exotic pathogens have thrown unlikely combinations of host plants, plant pathogens and environmental variability together with unpredicted outcomes. A recent canker outbreak in Alnus tenuifolia in interior Alaska, associated with the hot, dry summer of 2004 (Ruess et al., 2009), has refocused attention on the role of temperature and drought in canker incidence (Schoeneweiss, 1975). In this issue of New Phytologist, Rohrs-Richey et al. (pp. 295–307) open a new line of research in host–pathogen relationships with clarity: an experimental test of the intersection of the phenology of host susceptibility (Alnus fruticosa), the life cycle of the pathogen (Valsa melanodiscus) and environmental variability (temperature, drought).

 

[Furcifer]

That explains much, ...particularly why some only seem to reference political blogs and pseudoscience propaganda sites instead of linking to actual published science and authentic, reviewed science sources of information.

And yet when actual peer reviewed science with enormous implications is presented it's the exact same thing.

This topic doesn't seem to generate honest discussion, just rhetoric. I'm sorry but at times it's like people are being fed this information and not really digesting it before it makes a spectacular exit onto the pavement.

 

[Trakar]

And yet when actual peer reviewed science with enormous implications is presented it's the exact same thing.

This topic doesn't seem to generate honest discussion, just rhetoric. I'm sorry but at times it's like people are being fed this information and not really digesting it before it makes a spectacular exit onto the pavement.

Indeed it does. The only rational explanation I can come up with, is that those avoiding peer-reviewed science and the accepted mainstream explanations and understandings that accompany such, is because they are not interested in, or comprehending of the science and are therefore only looking for some "sciency" sounding pseudoscience mumbo jumbo to cloak their other agenda (political, conspiracy, woo or other) within. What do you think?

 

[Furcifer]

Indeed it does. The only rational explanation I can come up with, is that those avoiding peer-reviewed science and the accepted mainstream explanations and understandings that accompany such, is because they are not interested in, or comprehending of the science and are therefore only looking for some "sciency" sounding pseudoscience mumbo jumbo to cloak their other agenda (political, conspiracy, woo or other) within. What do you think?

I agree. AGW meets every definition of a pseudoscience, most notably: the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.

It's not so much the result of the actual scientists, but the distortion of facts by alarmists that cause it to be constantly referred to as a pseudoscience. When politicians are fronting your "science" it's time to do a self check. Politicians aren't interested in understanding or comprehending the science, they just use it to further their agenda.

 

[macdoc]

3b

Originally Posted by 3bodyproblem
And yet when actual peer reviewed science with enormous implications is presented it's the exact same thing.

You have made that claim any number of times without a shred of acceptable explanation supported by climate science - just a claim and even when people explain nicely that you are misguided in your thinking that this is a black swan - you persist in the claims.....and in the lack of evidence.

Any wonder your arguments are not taken seriously? You can't or won't support them and then complain about others that do support their positions with "copy/pasta"

Why don't walk the audience through the "implications" of your relevatory discovery in a documented manner that does not contravene established physics.

 

[Trakar]

I agree. AGW meets every definition of a pseudoscience...

So, I take it, you now embrace and publically proclaim your rejection of AGW and presumably, along with it the accepted mainstream science of which it is part and which supports its findings?