Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

There is plenty of scientific evidence for what will happen in the future. That is a major purpose of scientific predictions !

What? What kind of scientific evidence is there for what will be bioengineered 10 or 20 years from now? There's no evidence for what will come next year.

What I am looking for is citations to the sceintific evidence that convinced you that bioengineering will can fix the problem of changing climate affecting food production.

There's no such thing as scientific evidence for what will happen in the future. Sometimes you see articles in magazines for what might happen in the future, but there's no "scientific evidence". Is that what you mean?

Where in this post is your evidence that bioengineering can fix the problem of changing climate affecting food production?

There's no evidence, it hasn't happened yet. That's the nature of prediction.

So far it looks like wishful thinking on your part.

No, it's called prognosticating. But I'm hopefully optimistic if that helps.

 

[Furcifer]

You seem to ignore the disasters which will resullt from the plan of doing nothing.

You seem to think throwing money at something will make it go away.

Thankfully the carbon scheme you've been backing have essentially collapsed. What a joke, billions traded and it did absolutely nothing to reduce emissions. There's still somewhat of a market in Europe but that should implode late this year early next.

The exact nature and cost of those disasters are not quantifiable to anything like your exacting demands. The cost of this year's Mississipi floods and Texan drought won't emerge for years, and then not with great precision.

Well unlike carbon trading, when you spend 50 billion on repairs to infrastructure you actually get something.

 

[Mikemcc]

Of course there's no scientific evidence for what will happen in the future.

The question posed was what will allow us to "dodge the bullet" of GW. The biggest "bullet" is probably the combination of changes in precipitation and growing regions affecting growing conditions. This isn't entirely new to agriculture, as we've already begun to engineer crops to grow in less hospitable regions. In fact the regions we're trying to grow in such as Africa are already less hospitable than what GW is alleged to do in the regions we currently grow in.

Yet again, please provide a link to this research into producing variants of staple crops that are able to grow in more arid regions. As far as I'm aware theres none.

 

[Trakar]

...Canada represents an insignificant portion of CO2 worldwide, the issue isn't ours to bear at this time...

As the 7th largest producer (circa 2007) of anthropogenic CO2 on the planet, Canada's contribution is far from insignificant, and in fact, in today's world, there are very few emissions that are truely "insignificant."

Additionally, Canada's vast resource recovery efforts over the last decade or two have heavily increased the accelerating rate of increase and overall levels of its contributions. And considering that much of these efforts are focussed on recovering and exporting carbon based fuels,...it is definitely Canada's issue to share in the burdens of their decisions and actions. Accountability, individually and socially, is becoming more and more the standard.

...The solution is a strong economy, not one debilitated by unnecessary taxes which have no measurable effect.

Exactly who is claiming "no measurable effect?" Please cite and reference this assertion.

 

[BenBurch]

Yet again, please provide a link to this research into producing variants of staple crops that are able to grow in more arid regions. As far as I'm aware theres none.

There are none.

And intensive agriculture is already destroying soil productivity in lands we can use NOW.

 

[Reality Check]

There's no such thing as scientific evidence for what will happen in the future. Sometimes you see articles in magazines for what might happen in the future, but there's no "scientific evidence". Is that what you mean?

No. The simple fact is that science makes predictions for things that happen in the future. Some of the predictions are very accurate (e.g. solar eclipses), some less accurate (e.g. the future CO2 levels) and some are vague.

You still do not get the question so lts try again.
What is the scientific evidence that convinced you that bioengineering can fix the effects of climate change?

This is a quite easy question to answer. All you need to do is give the sources for your assertion.

 

[Mikemcc]

What? What kind of scientific evidence is there for what will be bioengineered 10 or 20 years from now? There's no evidence for what will come next year.



There's no such thing as scientific evidence for what will happen in the future. Sometimes you see articles in magazines for what might happen in the future, but there's no "scientific evidence". Is that what you mean?



There's no evidence, it hasn't happened yet. That's the nature of prediction.



No, it's called prognosticating. But I'm hopefully optimistic if that helps.

You seem to deny the degree of the problem claiming too much uncertainty, yet cling to bio-engineering as a holy grail without backing up any of the claims. You hope and wish that it will provide answers, yet this is not a forgone conclusion. The bulk of the work being done is not even in the field that you insist is one of the answers to our problems (lack of water).

Have Monsanto, Syngenta and all of the other GM firms suddenly lost their business acumen? Can they be so blind to what would seem a blindingly obvious gap in the market... Or is it that there is no silver bullet?

 

[Furcifer]

Yet again, please provide a link to this research into producing variants of staple crops that are able to grow in more arid regions. As far as I'm aware theres none.

There are none.

Developing Drought Resistant Crops: Possibilities and Realities

"Genetic engineering already has contributed to more yield" pg. 7

"2007 field tests demonstrate increased yield in drought‐stressed conditions" pg. 14

"Technology will play an important role in meeting the future demand for agricultural products" pg. 16

"Significant increases in yield from advanced breeding, better agronomics and biotechnology" pg. 17

That's literally the first hit when you google "engineering drought resistant crops". Is it really necessary to lie?

 

[Furcifer]

You seem to deny the degree of the problem claiming too much uncertainty, yet cling to bio-engineering as a holy grail without backing up any of the claims. You hope and wish that it will provide answers, yet this is not a forgone conclusion.

It's only a Holy Grail to those who believe in this Apocalyptic nonsense. To me it's all part of the natural progression of technology. I'm not afraid of the future, I take things in stride and don't allow myself to be mislead by alarmists.

 

[Furcifer]

No. The simple fact is that science makes predictions for things that happen in the future. Some of the predictions are very accurate (e.g. solar eclipses), some less accurate (e.g. the future CO2 levels) and some are vague.

Really, OK, what does science say the 2015 GM line-up will be? What scientific evidence is there for the Tigers in the 2020 World Series?

What is the scientific evidence that convinced you that bioengineering can fix the effects of climate change?

This is a quite easy question to answer. All you need to do is give the sources for your assertion.

There's no "scientific evidence". I think you're confusing educated guesses with scientific evidence. I believe what I saw was on Frontline, but I can't recall. The article linked in the previous post discusses bioengineering, perhaps that's what you're looking for. It's certainly not scientific evidence.

 

[Furcifer]

Exactly who is claiming "no measurable effect?" Please cite and reference this assertion.

You, and several others

The rate of emissions is accelerating.

And the science says that not only is the rate increasing, but that it is still accelerating in its increasing rate of increase.

Excepting of course for the little inconvenient, to your dismissives, truth that emissions levels and effects/impacts have matched or exceeded BAU senario conditions for most of the last 2-3 decades with no indication that they are, or will, slow toward your perceptions of "reality."

You're claiming it's "business as usual" and the rate of emissions are increasing at a super exponential rate, and then you're begging "Who said carbon credits aren't working". Don't you find that the least bit contradictory?

In any event the scheme (how appropriately named is that?) has tanked in North America. While it remains a 140 billion a year market in the EU it's been tanking ever since someone scammed 7 billion. They've imposed taxes to prevent the scam but all the trading has dried up. Not that it matters, it's obviously not working.

 

[Halsu]

Which is perfectly fine for a countries half the size of a province or state here in North America. The cost of doing business here would be astronomical if the price of fuel was $5/ litre.

This is a common excuse i've heard in many other topics too: "sure you can have good social security in a small country but not in a big one" etc.

I fail to see the logic here. I fail to see what difference does the country's size make.

This kind of costs are of course orders of magniotude bigger in a bigger country, but at the same time, there's orders of magnitude more people to share the costs - which cancels the difference.

It's the per capita (or per other unit, like an individual business) costs that matter, not the lump sum.

 

[Furcifer]

I fail to see the logic here. I fail to see what difference does the country's size make.

This kind of costs are of course orders of magniotude bigger in a bigger country, but at the same time, there's orders of magnitude more people to share the costs - which cancels the difference.

You don't? Well let's say you're a contractor in New York City. You have a possible 8 million customers in a 790 km² area. In Canada if you were in the GTA you might have access to 5.5 million customers, but you'd have to cover 7125 km².

So you have 10 times the area to cover for a little over half of the customers.

That gets expensive quick. That's why when you look at the per capita consumption of gasoline in Europe it's 257.6 liters per person and in North America it's 1577.6 liters per person. Source

The country is just too big, you'd have to abandon the West coast and move everyone to Ontario or vice versa.

 

[CapelDodger]

You seem to think throwing money at something will make it go away.

How so? I'm not advocating anything, I'm commenting on what you're advocating - which is, of course, to do nothing.

Thankfully the carbon scheme you've been backing have essentially collapsed.

I haven't backed any schemes. This, I'm afraid, is in your head, as are these "carbons schemes" you think have collapsed.

What a joke, billions traded and it did absolutely nothing to reduce emissions. There's still somewhat of a market in Europe but that should implode late this year early next.

Emissions have been reduced by various schemes. They would have been greater otherwise. And the market in Europe is not about to implode just because you want it to.

Well unlike carbon trading, when you spend 50 billion on repairs to infrastructure you actually get something.

Throwing money at the problem. It's true that repairing damage done by weather events generates GDP but it's not the basis of a sound economy. The cost of the crops lost won't be recovered, of course.

Taller levees are not productive, but windmills and solar panels are. Increased efficiency is productive investment. Repairing damage is not. Building dikes to reclaim land is productive investment, building them to keep out rising seas is money dumped. The basis of a sound economy is sustained productive investment.

Your position (correct me if I'm wrong) appears to be that any problems that might occur can be engineered around because that's what we humans do. It's a simple, comfortable position held by very many people, usually the same people who are persuaded that any change to the economic status quo will be awful. They appear all through history (look under "losers").

 

[Trakar]

You, and several others

Cite: To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context.

Reference: a publication (or a passage from a publication) that is referred to.

Without supporting evidences, your assertions are without value, standing or merit.

You're claiming it's "business as usual" and the rate of emissions are increasing at a super exponential rate, and then you're begging "Who said carbon credits aren't working". Don't you find that the least bit contradictory?

No one in the post I responded to said anything at all about "carbon credits." Rather it was in the context of a general discussion about *carbon taxes*. why would you interpret my words to suggest that I was defending carbon credits, an idea that I've publically and consistently derided as worse than useless since they were proposed by free-market extremist whackadoodles back in the early '90s?

Please support your seemingly unfounded assertions and irrational commentary.

rational - Based on or in accordance with reason
(reason: the use of logic and evidences to support one's position)

 

[Trakar]

Developing Drought Resistant Crops: Possibilities and Realities

I've no problem with Dr Sach's presentation, but it doesn't appear to be indicating much more than marginal improvements in drastically gene-modified crops, under mildly water stressed conditions. The rest is all about what they hope they might be able to achive

"Genetic engineering already has contributed to more yield" pg. 7

Interesting, but "triple stack" corn has nothing to do with arid condition cereal crops. Triple Stack is a GM product engineered with corn borer protection, Liberty herbicide tolerance and the corn rootworm control of Agrisure RW. (http://farmindustrynews.com/triple-stack-approved)

"2007 field tests demonstrate increased yield in drought‐stressed conditions" pg. 14

This seems to indicate that some of their GM corn trials produced 18 bushels more per acre than other common hybrids in drought conditions at 94 bushels per acre. The problem here, however, is that the normal average yield of existent hybrid corns under normal conditions is double that amount between 160-200 bushels per acre (some lucky farmers are regularly topping 300bu/acre!!).

"Technology will play an important role in meeting the future demand for agricultural products" pg. 16

obviously, but I don't see any assurances that technology can or will be sufficient to offset the climate changes currently, much less over the coming centuries, ...which seems to be the position you are asserting.

"Significant increases in yield from advanced breeding, better agronomics and biotechnology" pg. 17

That's literally the first hit when you google "engineering drought resistant crops". Is it really necessary to lie?

and its a monsanto slide show that not only doesn't seem to support your contentions, but is also largely irrelevent to the discussion in general.

 

[Trakar]

You don't? Well let's say you're a contractor in New York City. You have a possible 8 million customers in a 790 km² area. In Canada if you were in the GTA you might have access to 5.5 million customers, but you'd have to cover 7125 km².

So you have 10 times the area to cover for a little over half of the customers.

That gets expensive quick. That's why when you look at the per capita consumption of gasoline in Europe it's 257.6 liters per person and in North America it's 1577.6 liters per person. Source

The country is just too big, you'd have to abandon the West coast and move everyone to Ontario or vice versa.

Of course the cultural penchant for 10,000 people to drive 10,000 cars and travel two-four hours a day to and from work as opposed to a different set of cultural values encouraging the same 10,000 to accomplish the same transportation with 50 busses, a train and a few hundred cars and live within 30 minutes of where they work has no impact at all,...seriously?!

It is the cultural distinctions and the marketing concepts designed to sell more cars and buy more gas that drive those distinctions that are more at the root of the differences than the fact that larger countries are bigger.

 

[Mikemcc]

You don't? Well let's say you're a contractor in New York City. You have a possible 8 million customers in a 790 km² area. In Canada if you were in the GTA you might have access to 5.5 million customers, but you'd have to cover 7125 km².

So you have 10 times the area to cover for a little over half of the customers.

That gets expensive quick. That's why when you look at the per capita consumption of gasoline in Europe it's 257.6 liters per person and in North America it's 1577.6 liters per person. Source

The country is just too big, you'd have to abandon the West coast and move everyone to Ontario or vice versa.

No shocks here. It just means that you have to adjust to the situation. The last big pulse in UK petrol prices three years ago caused me to move closer to where I work. Now I can walk in to work in 10min

 

[Furcifer]

How so? I'm not advocating anything, I'm commenting on what you're advocating - which is, of course, to do nothing.

This is a lie. I've never advocated doing nothing, because quite clearly we are "doing something".

Emissions have been reduced by various schemes. They would have been greater otherwise. And the market in Europe is not about to implode just because you want it to.

This is entirely inconsistent with the "super exponential" growth and "business as usual" claims made here continuously.

Your position (correct me if I'm wrong) appears to be that any problems that might occur can be engineered around because that's what we humans do. It's a simple, comfortable position held by very many people, usually the same people who are persuaded that any change to the economic status quo will be awful. They appear all through history (look under "losers").

Imagine demanding empirical evidence the billions being spent are actually reducing emissions.

 

[Furcifer]

No shocks here. It just means that you have to adjust to the situation.

And how do you propose to make the distance from the East Coast of Canada to the West Coast of Canada closer? How do you get the lumber to grow in cities, or move the minerals and ores in the ground closer to urban centers?

You can't.

Europe is 10180000 km² with 852 million people, Canada is 17075000 km² with 34 million. It's not quite as bad as it seems because of how the population is distributed here in Canada, but these numbers should give you a pretty good idea of how much ground is needed to cover here in Canada to make things functional. If you have a business or industry that needs to service 4 million people, unless you happen to be in the Greater Toronto Area, you're going to have to cover a lot of ground. Currently the only way to do this is with fossil fuel based machinery.

That's just talking about the area, that says nothing about the energy intensive industry here in Canada; mining, manufacturing, forestry, fishing, farming.

Think about it, if you live in a town that primarily deals with the service industry you're going to have considerably less energy needs than the same size town that smelts ore as its primary industry. You can extend that all the way up to the economies of countries; ones that manufacture need considerably more energy than ones that deal in services.

And what happens if Canada stops making steel? China picks up the business. But China's energy needs are more fossil fuels based than Canada's, so the net emissions world wide increase.

Heavily taxing fuel in an economy that relies on fuel as heavily as Canada and even the US doesn't make any sense at this time. The notion is absurd.