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Brits Ready Crops For Global Warming
Anonymous Coward writes "Not wanting to come up short at the dinner table, British researchers are developing new crops for a dryer, hotter UK. Starting with barley, they're turning genes on and off to help plants overcome their affinity for the country's cool, wet summers."
Unless of course the other half of climatologists are right and global warming shuts down the north atlantic current and "buried under ice" is what they get instead of "hot and dry".
Whatever happened to old-fashioned selecting crops? If you plant enough of them and grow them for a few years, you'll be able to get seeds that are suited for your area, if I'm not mistaken. Is it just the shortcut factor that makes the GM appealing in this case?
Not that I'm against genetic modification in principle, but I'm just curious if it's really that much superior to simple selection.
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Instead of worrying about all this climate change nonsense we can just genetically modify ourselves and our food to suit. Oh, except if these guys had spent half an hour ringing round a few climatolagists they would have found out that the most likely outcome isn't a smooth, predictable change in temperature but wild, chaotic swings in climate caused by a million climate systems and feedback loops (not limited to the gulfstream) going totally out of whack.
Well, a whole bunch of people have already pointed out that the current widely accepted hypothesis is that global warming will shut down the gulf stream, and make Britain colder. However,
The Gulf stream tends to have a moderating effect on Britain. It makes the winters warmer and the summers cooler. If the Gulf Stream shuts down, won't that just eliminate the moderating effect? Wouldn't you have colder winters and warmer summers? If that's the case, then developing plants that can survive in a hotter climate (during the hotter growing season) is the right move.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
It matters on a lot of things. Take South Africa for example. Early European settlers were shocked by the treeless terrain so they spread pine, oak, and other water hungry plants around the country side. Those trees drink a lot more water then the native plants and have cause rivers to dry up to nothing more then trickles. With less water flowing down stream other plant life suffers and the landscape is drying out.
There are now government programs that are going through cutting back these huge trees. The effects have been amazing. Not only have the rivers started flowing more water, but the native plant life is bouncing back and some of South Africa's unemployed are getting jobs and training.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
No doubt this type of change could also be accounted for with genetic engineering, but I was under the impression that the British and most Europeans in general were pretty dead set against about "frankenfoods" that had been genetically modified. Does this project really stand a chance of getting off the ground if it depends on this sort of technology?
As for the slelective breeding option, I'm not convinced that would work, either. Selective cultivation depends on having some sort of genetic variablility in the current population. The more desirable traits are slected for. Current stocks of seed are not terribly genetically diverse, and if they don't mutate fast enough, you may not be left with enough genetic variants to choose from. Also, this type of selection requires a lot of time--something which may or may not be available as the climate changes.
So they are developing crops for summer conditions. The (corrected) link about the effect on the gulf stream, OTOH, states:
So, while an interuption in the gulf stream may result in colder UK winters, it may have less of an effect on the summers, which then may be warmer due to general global warming. Lower water temperatures in the north atlantic will also mean less moisture in the air, and a drier climate. So, if you actually take the time to read both of these articles (the original and the second one liked by the AC), you'll find that they are not in conflict at all.
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Debunk the Monk!
Starting with barley
In other words, "Forget the orphans, save the beer!"
Err, I mean no. Sorry about that.