Moderated Global Warming Discussion

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Trakar said:
Sounds reasonable, so I should have asked "... ratio of crop yeild to acreage cultivated harvested compare to those other seven years...," which would have still forced the same point I was aiming for, primarily that yeild per acre is actually decreasing in many areas of the globe due to weather extremes, and that farmers are actually putting larger amounts of acerage into certain crop production in the hopes that they can produce the same (or greater) net yeild.
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Something I noticed in the Farm and Dairy article linked earlier that farmers in Ohio are planning to sow more wheat and less corn next year. As I understand it, wheat is more of a dryland crop than corn but produces a lower return (hence the recent preference for corn). It seems farmers are voting with their seed-drills as to the way things are going in the Mid-West.

In the world of smoke and mirrors which is the global food industry extra bushels of wheat and fewer bushels of corn will be lumped under "grains" to demonstrate for the willing that everything is fine (or would be if governments would just stop interfering with agricultural grant procedures). Whatever the problem, there's someone somewhere who'll provide the figures to prove it ain't so.
 
CapelDodger said:
In the world of smoke and mirrors which is the global food industry extra bushels of wheat and fewer bushels of corn will be lumped under "grains" to demonstrate for the willing that everything is fine (or would be if governments would just stop interfering with agricultural grant procedures). Whatever the problem, there's someone somewhere who'll provide the figures to prove it ain't so.
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Take that to the CT forum.
 
bobwtfomg said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_R._Brown
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From the Wikipedia
In this book, published in 1995, Brown highlights the pressure on world resources as more countries, especially China, become developed. He writes, "To feed its 1.2 billion people, China may soon have to import so much grain that this action could trigger unprecedented rises in world food prices."
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But in realityland, there are completely different problems.

In recent years, China has become a major food supplier to Europe. But the low-cost goods are grown in an environment rife with pesticides and antibiotics, disproportionately cited for contamination and subject to an inspection regime full of holes. A recent norovirus outbreak in Germany has only heightened worries. http://www.spiegel.de/international...azards-of-cheap-food-from-china-a-861406.html
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More confirmation-bias from the climate conspiracy mongerers over at the Galileo Movement:
facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=606802102668787&id=101728306584541

So far people on this page have said that these sources are unreliable:
- BOM
- IPCC
- CSIRO
- UN
- Met Office
- NASA
- Journal Nature
- Journal Science
- Skeptical Science
- Source Watch

And that these sources are reliable:
- Concoius.com.au - site run by Galileo Admins
- "Lord" Monckton
- Andrew Bolt
- YouTube Conspiracy Theorists
- notrickszone.com
- populartechnology.net
- Alan Jones
- Alex Jones/InfoWars
 
r-j said:
From the Wikipedia

But in realityland, there are completely different problems.
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ok so China exports a lot of strawberries and garlic, however as noted in the article you linked to
There are some bizarre aspects to the global flow of food products. In some parts of China, the population still doesn't have enough to eat. To address the problem, the country is buying up farmland in Africa and importing massive quantities of powdered milk, chicken and pork. EU-based companies sold 393,000 metric tons of pork to China last year, an increase of 85 percent over the previous year. Food companies see China as an attractive growth market.
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But when it comes to grains
In north China, where wheat fields have dominated the landscape for centuries, the crop is becoming increasingly difficult to grow as the land gets drier and warmer. In southern China, droughts in recent years have replaced rainy seasons, drying up rice paddies on a large scale.

Experts are scrambling to understand the problems and to predict how serious they might become. Although forecasts for crop output vary, most agree that the future climate won't be as favorable to agriculture. While China's hunt for adaptation measures is on, little progress has been made so far.

That raises the question of whether 1.34 billion Chinese -- accounting for almost one-fifth of the world's population -- would be able to feed themselves. Currently, China produces slightly less grains than its people consume. Crop losses caused by extreme weather events, insect attacks and other problems associated with climate change are rocking the already delicate balance.

In 2011 alone, droughts claimed grains that could have been sufficient for nearly 60 million Chinese to eat for a whole year, official statistics show.

There is also the issue of rising crop production costs being driven higher by climate change. For one, as temperatures rise, many insects that used to be killed off by the cool of winter now live longer, forcing farmers to spray more pesticides.
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...in-so-does-chinas-ability-to-grow-enough-food


China has long restricted its food imports to limited quantities of high-quality rice, wheat and corn, placing the emphasis on self-sufficiency. Official policy still mandates that 95 percent of these three staple crops should be produced locally.

At the same time, the country is already the second largest importer of rice in the world, among the top 10 and 20 buyers of corn and wheat, and the biggest importer of soybeans. Chinese rice imports have increased about fourfold this year, and in November it signed a memorandum of understanding with Thailand to import more. Analysts expect the figures to jump further as the economy grows.
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http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/4...duction-global-crisis-agriculture-economy.htm

Meanwhile worldwide grain prices rose by 12% in 2012

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pr...inst-complacency-amid-high-food-prices-hunger
 
Thanks. I think I'm giving up. Was mostly trying to put information out there for by-standers and make them aware of the conspiratorial nature of their thinking... but it devolved when they got very personal.

It always hurts to see great people like Galileo plastered all over the cause of pseudoscience.
 
So far people on this page have said that these sources are unreliable:
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doing a broad brush condemnation like that certainly doesn't clarify a thing. I for one have no idea what you are talking about and I'm sure I'm not alone. You seem to be having a dialogue either with yourself or from another forum.
 
The BBC are running an article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21437680) about initial results comparing PIOMAS with Icesat and Cryosat data, the paper is published in GRL.

The abstract:
Satellite records show a decline in ice extent over more than three decades, with a record minimum in September 2012. Results from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation system (PIOMAS) suggest that the decline in extent has been accompanied by a decline in volume, but this has not been confirmed by data. Using new data from the ESA CryoSat-2 (CS-2) mission, validated with in-situ data, we generate estimates of ice volume for the winters of 2010/11 and 2011/12. We compare these data with current estimates from PIOMAS and earlier (2003-8) estimates from the NASA ICESat mission. Between the ICESat and CryoSat-2 periods the autumn volume declined by 4291 km3 and the winter volume by 1479 km3. This exceeds the decline in ice volume in the central Arctic from the PIOMAS model of 2644 km3 in the autumn, but is less than the 2091 km3 in winter, between the two time periods.
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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50193/abstract
 
macdoc said:
You are relying on a 1995 reality to make a point?? :boggled: that's 2 decades ago - hardly relevant other than showing the problem of resource use has not gone away.
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China imports of wheat
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=cn&commodity=wheat&graph=imports

US imports of wheat
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=us&commodity=wheat&graph=imports

China wheat imports 2011 2933 (1000 MT)
US wheat imports 2011 3050 (1000 MT)

China wheat imports 2012 2500 (1000 MT)
US wheat imports 2012 3538 (1000 MT)
 
lukefreeman said:
More confirmation-bias from the climate conspiracy mongerers over at the Galileo Movement:
facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=606802102668787&id=101728306584541

So far people on this page have said that these sources are unreliable:
- BOM
- IPCC
- CSIRO
- UN
- Met Office
- NASA
- Journal Nature
- Journal Science
- Skeptical Science
- Source Watch

And that these sources are reliable:
- Concoius.com.au - site run by Galileo Admins
- "Lord" Monckton
- Andrew Bolt
- YouTube Conspiracy Theorists
- notrickszone.com
- populartechnology.net
- Alan Jones
- Alex Jones/InfoWars
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We're all too aware of the deniosphere (it used to intrude around here back in the day) but more than a few of us feel we've done our time in those trenches. Denial will have a long tail, supported by a necessary backbone of conspiracy, but they can be left to their own devices, like hollow-Earthers.
 
r-j said:
From the Wikipedia

But in realityland, there are completely different problems.
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Your two quotes are completely compatible. What you've done is include the high-value (but relatively low-cost in Europe given the income differential with China) with staples, which are what keep populations alive. Cereals, potatoes, manioc, a few more minor ones. Not garlic. China is not an "important food supplier" to Germany because it's keeping the German population adequately fed. Cereal imports into China and the US, on the other hand, are keeping the population adequately fed.

You're doing, by confusion, what I suggested earlier would happen by intent. Strawberries and wheat are both food, compare them by value and they seem even more similar. However, delicacies and treats are not equivalent to staple foods. The latter is what you should be concentrating on.
 
macdoc said:
doing a broad brush condemnation like that certainly doesn't clarify a thing. I for one have no idea what you are talking about and I'm sure I'm not alone. You seem to be having a dialogue either with yourself or from another forum.
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It's about some Facebook thing which sounds much like we used to get here way back. I think we've done our bit in that department, don't you? There's nothing new in it these days. Same cast, same arguments, same expanding conspiracies, same personalisations. Same refusal to acknowledge that it's here, now, and in the open.
 
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