A generation after leading scientists and experts warned the world of an escalating series of horrendous famines, the crop gluts continue. The latest kick in the pants to the Malthusian doomsayers is a bumper global wheat harvest. Defying not only the Club of Rome doomsayers, but also the climate Chicken Littles who have been warning about damage from rising temperatures to world agriculture, food production is booming even as meteorologists call July 2016 the hottest month ever.
h/t Ken (Kulak)
And a bumper crop for Ukraine. Hands off Putin.
I guess all that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might not be so bad after all. Maybe the eco-nut slogan should be:
“Grow crops and save a polar bear”
Nah. That would mean that someone might actually profit and prosper from it, someone who just might not easily submit to their doomsday ideology.
I’m still waiting for the promised “peak oil”, that was to happen by the end of the 80T’s :-)))
Grain crops like warm temperatures. Who knew (well, except for farmers for the last 7 thousand years)? When, not if, we slide back into a cooling trend (maybe a Maunder minimum event; maybe not), whom will the catastrophists blame then? Western societies have largely cleaned up the particulate pollution that was the bane of the late ’70s “Impending Ice Age” scare; so what’s left to blame? I’m sure that the carpet-bagging hucksters, er, um, “climate scientists”, will find something.
In many ways we’ve passed that, but that was for oil readily available in easily accessible formations. Few, if any, of the current methods of drilling or recovery were even around when that prediction was made. Also, that prediction was based on consumption rates at the time. Using the available energy more effectively didn’t appear to be considered.
Yeah, I remember all those ads during the early 1970s in which city streets were shown to be completely empty of cars and forecasts of doom were made. We were supposed to be completely out of oil a generation or so ago. I’m still waiting.
I’m still waiting for peak copper. We’ve only been mining it for around 5000 years. The deposit types we’re looking at now were just background rock for the original collectors of shiny metal bits.
Belief in Malthusian shortages depend upon choking most of humanity to prevent progress. I find it ironic (peak irony any time soon?) that those who want to keep people down because of impending shortages and doom are the most likely to cause the impending shortages (regardless of whether it’s a doom) by the very act of keeping human ingenuity and creativity down.
Perhaps Ukraine could send wheat to Russia in exchange of payment on some of the $3 billion owed to Russia.
Unless you don’t believe this credible source.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/09/what-ukraine-owes-russia
Not according to a Stanford University study that found CO2 and warmer weather does not make plants grow more.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/future-climate-change-field-test-make-earth-greener-41877606
That’s why they get those big bucks!
The people who pump CO2 into their greenhouses to enhance plant growth must be feeling pretty stupid, now.
Don’t forget that there’s a lot of scrap that can be recycled, so we’re not about to run out of metals any time soon. There has to be a means of acquiring the material and a suitable return on the investment.
A few years ago, copper was ridiculously high in price and thieves were stealing it from wherever they could. I heard lots of stories about radio stations suddenly going off the air because someone came along, cut into certain cables during transmission, and carted them off. They were lucky they weren’t electrocuted, though there were reports that some who pulled similar stunts actually were.
The market sometimes brings out the strangest behaviour in people.
It’s like trying to figure out what is killing all the bees. Isn’t it supposed to lead to non-pollination of plants causing starvation. Problem is honey production keeps going up.
Anyone who thinks heat doesn’t help agriculture. Don’t they wonder why the US production per acre is way higher than Canada and they produce ten times the food? Snowballs raise hell with your pineapple crop.
my point is that “predicting” is a mugs game. They do not know what they do not know. At the end of the 19th century there was the fear of peek horse sh*t in cities like NY NY and London GB. The mode of city transport was horse power and keeping up to clearing the streets to a staging point and then out of the city was a huge job. Then along came electric trollies and the problem went away. And this is so with many “scare” predictions.
These predictions are really extrapolations based on previous trends and current data. Even then, there will be a degree of uncertainty due to the accuracy of the information that’s used.
Any half-decent course in statistics teaches this. Then again, those same statistics can often be filtered and manipulated–quite legitimately, in fact–to say just about anything. Remember what Mark Twain said on the subject.
What’s irritating about the prognosticators of doom (who really should be considered to be in the same league as astrologers and similar such fortune tellers) is that they present these findings not as estimates but as solid certainties. People like Dr. Fruit Fly (who should understand this as surely he must have had some background in statistics) should know better.
The bees are dying and yet the honey crop bumpers up.
Another oddity is the move to monoculture and the lack of wild flowers and weeds that bees rely on including rag weed, an important source of food for bees in late summer, early fall. Yet, according to the allergy people there has been a massive increase in rag weed pollen so we need to load up on our allergy pills. Less rag weed for bees, more rag weed for allergy sufferers.
It makes sense if you believe that all scientific research is just a form of advertising.
Defying the Club of Rome. Heh. Until you get rid of the Catholic Church,this crap will continue.
Captch…kennedy and catholics…biggest murders in 1500 years.
I’m reminded that several years ago that Davey Suck-zuki was moaning about the outrageous water usage that Canadians are guilty of… he had included the water used in hydro-electrical generation in his equations, cause everyone knows that the water used in that process is no good for anything else…
He lives in Vancouver (in the Endowment Lands, I believe, which, technically is under Victoria’s control, or was while I was at UBC). That part of B. C. gets its power from Lake Williston which was created by the construction of the Bennett Dam.
Such water is useful for him, but not those of us who comprise the Great Unwashed, silly intellectual peons that we are.
Calling him a hypocrite would be paying him a compliment that he clearly doesn’t deserve.
There are three places in the west that I have seen quite regularly this growing season and driven to Ontario through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I have also driven west to Vancouver via Edmonton and back home via Calgary. Great crops everywhere. Normal summer in my opinion. Locally, we only had six inches of rain, a half-inch at a time, every two weeks, and a great crop. One of the best crops I had in my farming career was on 5″, each small rain was timely and adequate until the next small rain. Timing is everything.
All of North America, except Ontario has a good crop. So does Russia and Ukraine.
A local fellow, in business for over thirty years and who we get our honey from and who is contracted to Bee Maid, which is 100% Canadian Honey unlike some labels only marked Canada #1, says there are more bees and hives than ever and the biggest killer is our winters. Also, there is some bee kill due to some chemicals in some areas.
As always, it’s the details that matter. So, according to this study, SOME plants will not do well when CO2 in the atmosphere is around 700 ppm and global temperatures have risen 3.6 decrees C. Draw your own conclusions as to its value.
I like to read the source paper that these “science writers” interpret for us morons but I could not find it. Apparently, Ol’ Seth Borenstein (notoriously biased AP Science writer) has been privy to a study which is not yet available to the general public.
Let me know when you have something of value to contribute………
July 2016 warmest on record? Where the hell was that? Certainly not on the prairies. The hot April weather was replaced by winter from May to now.
The ‘record’ they quote from only goes back to the ’50s.
It’s AGW propaganda, don’t believe any of it.
“Perhaps Ukraine could send wheat to Russia in exchange of payment on some of the $3 billion owed to Russia.
Unless you don’t believe this credible source.”
You, set you free from reason, are not a credible source.
Tell me about another time in history when a nation which had another nation making an ongoing war against them(and Russia is still fighting against Ukraine) sent the belligerent part of their grain crop after the invader took part of their sovereign territory, without first total surrender to that invader?
Ukraine has paid in full, with territory lost. Russia is a thug nation and you, set you free, are a thug agent.
Humans are becoming more efficient at using resources. Imagine that.
Human impact on environment may be slowing down, study shows
Using data from satellites and on-ground surveys, scientists have created maps that show how the impacts of human activities on the environment (or human footprint) have changed over a 16-year period, between 1993 and 2009.
The team found that while human population increased by 23% and the world economy grew by 153% during this period, human footprint increased by only 9%.
Every month, Fortis (natural gas supplier here in the Kootenays) includes a monthly temperature comparison with the previous year.
June 2016 was, on average, 5 degrees C cooler than June 2015. I missed July’s, which was definitely colder here, but August was 2 degrees C cooler than last year, too.
…not that that’s newsworthy for an MSM hellbent on pumping global warming up the populace’s collective arse.
Sorry, August was 1 degree C cooler.
Nice weather-wise, this summer was pretty much a bust here in BC.
My suggestion for all your home brewers – do your part for humanity … pull up the slack. Together we can overcome this glut.
What a crock. How many coal fired power plants alone did the ChiComs build during that period?
I watched an episode of ”Mythbusters” where they compared grain alcohol to gasoline in 70’s, 90’s and 2010 cars. I didn’t understand why they tried different proofs, (151, 170 and 192 proof.) 151 and 170 would have way too much water in it to be an effective fuel.
On 191 proof, the 2010 EFI engine ran very well. I don’t recall if it was an Eco-Boost.
As for their statement that ethanol gives poor mileage, that is true, however the BTU per gallon of ethanol is much lower than gasoline. (Gasoline, 125,000 BTUs per US gallon, Ethanol,
76,000 per US gallon.) The highest is residential fuel oil at 150,000 per US gallon.
while I am unable to predict shortages of anything I am able to say that the earth is a finite piece of real estate and eventually, as populations continue to grow, there will be shortages. nature may cause a die off and prevent such shortages but hey, I can’t predict that either.
It’s not just warmer weather and more fertilizer, I’m sorry to say. It’s GMO’s.
You know, those evil crops that evil corporations that have taken over the food supply chain are forcing us to eat have bumper crop yields.
At the moment, or actually for the past 4 weeks,I have been cutting down a field of roundup ready sweet corn to feed my steers. I have been cutting sweet corn stalks for an extra fiber source for my steers for -oh- 20 yrs or so. I Have never seen on heirloom or traditional sweet corn grow two, three and four ears after the principal ear has been picked. And this is growing in a not so great year – drought. We haven’t had rain in three weeks.
Some of the stalks might only be a foot and a half tall but they have ears growing extra ears.
And the nice part is I dont have to fight ragweed and 5′ tall lambsquarter to get the ears cut down.
Well said.
So, the Economist is not a credible source?
Doomsayers?
Reminds me of the article about that UN guy yesterday, Zeid, who was explaining to everybody how dangerous people like Trump, Farage and Wilders are because of the exploitation of people’s fears.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/2016/09/06/un-commissioner-warns-of-weaponized-populism-from-wilders-trump-farage-turning-into-colossal-violence/?singlepage=true
Sounds like Mr. Zeid should turn his attention to all those ridiculous big-fear mongers who are manipulating society regarding the effects of climate change.
Actually, no, the Economist is quite some distance from a reliable source when it comes to most things. I’d be willing to trust them on things like this, ie., quoting economic statistics released by verifiable sources. When they pontificate on matters of public opinion or reputation, or prevailing social conditions, they are almost always bullshitting.