Sunday, August 19, 2012

Climate Change And Crop Production

Big Picture Agriculture points to an article on climate change and plant growth:
Ken Caldeira (Stanford) wrote “The Great Climate Experiment – How far can we push the planet?” for the September 2012 issue of Scientific American. In my opinion this was an outstanding article and I liked his style of presentation from his huge picture outlook on the amount of carbon which humanity will most likely continue to extract from the Earth’s crust, to the maps, to his comments about food.
“In a high CO2 world, plants can grow more using the same amount of water. … The outlook may be for increased crop productivity overall, with increases in the north exceeding the reductions near the equator. Global warming may not decrease overall food supply, but it may give more to the rich and less to the poor.” (Statement based upon geography.) “Climate change may usher in a world of weeds.”
Some of the bean fields are starting to look like a world of weeds, as the marestail gets heavier and heavier.  The possible outcomes of climate change are innumerable, but I have a feeling they won't be overly positive.

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