Global warming starts to hit critical crops

[GliderGuider]

World's most important crops hit by global warming effects

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 19 March 2007

Global warming over the past quarter century has led to a fall in the yield of some of the most important food crops in the world, according to one of the first scientific studies of how climate change has affected cereal crops.

Rising temperatures between 1981 and 2002 caused aloss in production of wheat, corn and barley that amounted in effect to some 40 million tons a year - equivalent to annual losses of some £2.6bn.

Although these numbers are not large compared to the world-wide production of cereal crops, scientists warned that the findings demonstrated how climate change was already having an impact on the global production of staple foods. "Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future, but this study shows that warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on global food supply," said Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California.

I think we'd better save some of that ethanol for drinking...

[kestrel91316]

1. K&R

[Dogmudgeon]

2. The first victim of the Brave New World: Mexico

The Cantarell oil field is collapsing. Petroleos de Mexico, which depends on Cantarell for nearly half of its income, is near bankruptcy.

Speculation in corn for the production ethanol has caused the price of many Mexican staples, like tortillas, cornmeal, and feed for farm animals, to increase dramatically. Gasoline in most of the USA is required to contain as much as 15% ethanol, replacing MTBE as an oxygenation additive; there is more money to be made selling to fuel producers than to campesinos, so Mexico loses. Rioting over food prices and shortages, in small groups but widespread, has already been occurring.

The major political parties are still corrupt to a degree that astonishes even the cynics. Revolutionary politics has shown a resurgence, and some of those revolutionaries are not pleasant people and do not revere Ghandi, King, or the Dalai Lama. There is, of course, significant drug crime involved in major, minor, and revolutionary parties alike, funded largely by the USA's drug market.

Speaking of the USA, its immigration policies are becoming more punitive, increasing pressure on the poor of Mexico. American (as in U-S-American) financial interest in Mexico is almost entirely exploitative, with very little going into long-term capital development and improvement, let alone "human resources".

Most people in the USA have some idea that the Saudi royal family is corrupt and their vassals are close to rebellion, but are mainly uninformed that Mexico is so close to a breakdown. Almost all the (North American) news dealing with Mexico is about illegal immigration, stoking anger and resentment against the most desperate of their country.

As Turkey is to Kurdistani Iraq, the USA could soon be to Mexico, living in fear and dread of its oppressed neighbors, eager to strengthen that oppression, and paranoid of even the slightest spill-over.

Mexico is likely to be the first casualty of the future. It is unlikely to be the last.

--p!

[brokensymmetry]

3. Thanks for the analysis, Pigwidgeon

I suspect every word you've written is true...
unfortunately.

[hunter]

4. I suspect the U.S. is as fragile as Mexico.

In some ways our situation might be uglier.

Our history isn't all that great. During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression economic refugees were not welcome in places where the economy had not collapsed. Read John Steinbeck.

We couldn't handle the flooding of New Orleans, we're not going to be able to handle refugees from places like Kansas and Nebraska. Red State refugees may be less welcome than Mexicans in many places, and Canada may end up loathing the whole lot of us.

[NNadir]

5. I suspect you're on to something here.

[bighughdiehl]

6. If there are refugees from red states.....

Once and if their economies collapse....I will not feel sorry for them.
THey gave us (or at least exasperated)this mess by electing king bumblefuck. The rest of the country that is not quite as stupid needs to shout them down into their place. Likewise for the bornagains wherever they live. Those brainwashed idiots need to be pushed into irrelevance once and for all now matter how loud they scream "persecution". I am so goddamn sick and tired of them distracting with prayer in schools, the supposed evils of gay marriage, etc. This morning I heard Joyce Meyer say it's bad that the supreme court decided we can't "force anyone to pray" in school. Fucking crazy cunt! That is what these people are all about! I am so goddamn sick and tired of them-even though some are my own family! They are fucking crazy! They exacerbate certain problems like poverty, then complain about violence crime that spikes up as a sign of the end or something! Those fucking morons....sorry, but your post just hit me in the gut. In that scenario I would just find it REEEAAAALLYYY hard to feel sorry for them. Those people may be distracted(deliberately by people behind the scenes) by their megachurches and American Idol...but a lot of them have the net and have libraries...there is just no fucking excuse with all the information out there. Fuck them!

[NNadir]

7. I curse like a sailor, but I hate the "c" word.

I don't think I've ever used it. It's kind of like the "n" word.

[Kolesar]

8. Tens of thousands of war disabled, multiplied by $millions in health-care & pensions they each need

You do the math.

[hunter]

9. Yeah. We owe something to the disabled veterans...

...but the those Fox News Republicans who supported Bush to the bitter end, who only "supported" the troops by putting a yellow tail-walking fish ribbon on their SUV, they are going to think it's the government's duty to support them. They'll be standing in the soup line thinking they deserve a fast pass because they were always some kind of flag-waving patriot, and despising and blaming even more those people ahead of them in line who are not like them, even the veterans.

These self-proclaimed "conservatives" can never accept any responsibility for their own failures. Bush is one of them them. Being that kind of Republican means that nothing is ever your fault, and you never overcome your sense of entitlement no matter how far you've fallen.

[Kolesar]

10. Vigilance and anger is the only thing keeping me ahead of depression these days

Need a cause, need a cause.