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Scientists Say Climate Change Is Damaging Iowa Agriculture
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Radio Iowa reports that 155 scientists from 36 colleges and universities in Iowa are jointly issuing a call for action against global warming and calling on the US Department of Agriculture to update its policies to better protect the land. 'The last couple of years have underscored the fact that we are very vulnerable to weather conditions and weather extremes in Iowa,' says Gene Takle, director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State. Both years were marked by heavy spring rains followed by droughts that damaged Iowa's farmland. 'This has become a real issue for us, particularly with regard to getting crops planted in the spring,' says Takle adding that Iowa had 900,000 acres that weren't planted this year because of these intense spring rains. 'Following on the heels of the disastrous 2012 loss of 90% of Iowa's apple crop, the 2013 cool March and record-breaking March-through-May rainfall set most ornamental and garden plants back well behind seasonal norms,' says the Iowa Climate Statement for 2013 . 'Iowa's soils and agriculture remain our most important economic resources, but these resources are threatened by climate change (PDF)." When the Iowa climate change statement was first released in 2011, 44 Iowa scientists signed on and last year's statement was signed by 137 Iowa scientists. "It's easy to set up a straw-man argument, to say, 'Oh, well climates always change; there have been changes in the past. This might just be natural,' " says David Courard-Hauri. "And often that gets played on the Internet as, 'Maybe scientists haven't thought about the fact that there have been natural changes in the past and maybe this is related.' " Of course scientists have thought about that possibility, says Courard-Hauri, but the evidence strongly suggests the climate is changing faster than could be expected to happen naturally."
Is it any coincidence that Iowa is like right next door to Nebraska, and that both of these stories involve so called "scientists"?
I smell a conspiracy to pollute our precious bodily fluids. Or communists. Or something.
And Isn't Area 51 almost also next door to Iowa? You never can be sure, since the government also makes all of the maps.
Three Squirrels
So, 40 years of deliberate ignorance and acrimony is coming home to roost? Tough grid.
Shit. Not only do we see the promotion of ignorance and acrimony on the far right coming home to roost in the area of climate change, we see it in a general distrust of experts no matter the field. Look at the latest government financing 'crisis'. Most of those on the far right were in favor of a government default on the debt. They do not believe the consensus of economists that the results would be really bad. Also, look at vaccines, we're starting to see the results of all of the people who believe that somehow vaccines are harmful so they don't get their kids vaccinated.
The promotion of ignorance was a useful tool for some of the ruling class to promote their agenda, but now it's really starting to bite them in the ass. Unfortunately it's biting all of us in the ass.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
You know what's awkward for the deniers?
When you talk about the ozone layer.
The same people who said "if we stop using halons and CFCs, we can fix the hole in the ozone layer"
are the ones saying "hey, this global warming stuff is a problem"
Unlike the denial industry, the scientists have already been proven correct once.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Make what the fuck public? Jesus, fucktard, the evidence, the models, all of it out there.
How about you actually go look, instead of hiding up your own ass and only visiting denier sites that function as you're echo chamber.
You have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about, and worst of all, you think that's a good thing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Iowa agribusiness has been cultivating more land than ever due to high commodity prices. Between 2001 and 2011 Iowa went from under 1700 million bushels of corn to over to almost 2400 million, while soybean is nearly the same during that interval.
We did not become 40% more efficient at growing corn since 2000. That growth represents more land use; land that was considered marginal when commodity prices were low is now viable. Marginal means flood plain, land with poor drainage or limited access to water. What's actually happened here is that since the marginal land is now in the rotation, farmers incur higher risk of big losses during outlier years.
Two bad years after apparently 10 good years (at least) is not Climate. It's weather. And "Weather Is Not Climate." Or so I'm told whenever we get a cold spell.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
We're mostly growing crops that nutritionally not the best for our population, and by not rotating in crops of different nature (how about more green leafy veggies or other veggies that can be eaten fresh and not processed 1400 different ways before consumption?) or allowing fields sufficient time to recover...the soil depletion will likely be the death of the food basket section of the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Stop saying there is no consensus. There is a quasi consensus *on the science*. Once politics , denier, and teh conservative STARTS tio admit that point and stop trying to denie it with all their strength, we MAY take a step toward a solution. But as long as news media trump up some fake "let both side speaks" as if there were two side of the debate, and all the associated shenanigan to refuse admit the science is real, there cannot be any step toward a solution as long as people/politician deny the science. Once that hurdle is gone, solution will be found. But we haven't gone past that step.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Having lived in Iowa for awhile, I have to jump in and say that no, you're quite wrong. A typical Iowa farm does rotate crops between fields - usually between some variety of corn, soybean, and either alfalfa or wheat. They have even gone beyond and introduced no-till, contour plowing, and many other means of conserving the soil.
If there is a problem in farming there, it isn't in any alleged lack of crop rotation, but in the constant (and in many cases over-) use of Anhydrous Ammonia as a fertilizer - and in huge quantities.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If I were in Iowa I'd worry less about the impact of climate change on the agriculture, which will take decades versus the immediate impact diverting massive amounts of ground water into ethanol production for fuel, which scientists estimate will take centuries to replenish. Stopping climate change today won't refill the underground aquafiers and without water, there are no farms, nor rural communities to farm them.
Just as a point of reference, Iowa has been an incredibly fertile place to grow many types of crops. It is one of two places in the world that had huge loess deposits. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess:
"Loess tends to develop into very rich soils. Under appropriate climatic conditions it is some of the most agriculturally productive terrain in the world."
Now, it's another thing entirely that Iowa farmers have been systematically killing their soil with heavy application of ammonia, fertilizers and the practice of fence-to-fence planting rather than the traditional "steward of the land" approach that prevailed so long ago.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Hint : IT WASNT A THEORY
I guess you're unaware of what a theory is. Theories of gravity are still theories despite being confirmed to a lot of decimal places for the regimes where they apply. The speculated effect of surface emitted CFCs on the ozone layer is a theory.
Any rational person would be concerned about the lack of good data collection before the era of satellites. This problem cripples all of climate research.
I find it interesting how people babble about how bad "deniers" are while simultaneously demonstrating profound ignorance of scientific matters.
Has anyone published a comprehensive plan for world-wide replacement of fossil fuels? One that address the loss of the benefits of fossil fuels. Much of the quadrupling of the population of Africa in the last 50 years was fed by the over production of subsidized Western farms. A self impoverish West will not be sending food anywhere. India and China will not re-impoverish themselves, who is going to make them?
Posters on another thread voiced the dangers of a world wide economic collapse from an American debt default. The American money machine runs on oil, sun beams and unicorn farts will not power it.
I'm getting sick of chaos being used as the trump card to invalidate any measure that doesn't meet the expected values.
You aren't the only one. It was clear to me the moment the AGW High Priests invoked chaos to explain what was happening that they'd made it impossible to falsify their claims because if things go the way they predict, it's considered to be proof that they're right, and if it doesn't, they just invoke chaos. IANACS, but to me, at least, ever since they started explaining inconvenient events with chaos, AGW became, as Popper would phrase it, a meaningless noise.
That being said, I do think that cutting back on CO2 emissions is a good thing and that the farmers in Iowa should be taking better care of their topsoil, because that's just common sense, and AGW has nothing to do with it.
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