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Scientists Race To Develop Livestock That Can Survive Climate Change
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Evan Halper writes in the LA Times that with efforts to reduce carbon emissions lagging, researchers, backed by millions of dollars from the federal government, are looking for ways to protect key industries from the impact of climate change by racing to develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming. ""We are dealing with the challenge of difficult weather conditions at the same time we have to massively increase food production" to accommodate larger populations and a growing demand for meat, says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. For example a team of researchers is trying to map the genetic code of bizarre-looking African naked-neck chickens to see if their ability to withstand heat can be bred into flocks of US broilers. "The game is changing since the climate is changing," says Carl Schmidt. "We have to start now to anticipate what changes we have to make in order to feed 9 billion people," citing global-population estimates for 2050." (More below.)
"Warmer temperatures can create huge problems for animals farmed for food. Turkeys are vulnerable to a condition that makes their breast meat mushy and unappetizing. Disease rips through chicken coops. Brutal weather can claim entire cattle herds. Some climate experts, however, question the federal government's emphasis on keeping pace with a projected growing global appetite for meat. Because raising animals demands so many resources, the only viable way to hit global targets for greenhouse gas reduction may be to encourage people to eat less meat and point to an approach backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates that takes animals out the process altogether. "There's no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people," says Bill Gates. "Yet we can't ask everyone to become vegetarians. We need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources.""
It is NOT climate change anymore. It is called climate disruption.
http://politics.slashdot.org/s...
So the basic idea is : Cows produce methane that participates to the global warming. But because cows might not survive the climate change, we are going to create super-cows than are immune to this self-regulating mechanism instead of let's say switch to bugs.
Really sounds like a great idea.
I imagine that when we have really screwd the climate for us, we will have to come up with genetically engineered human beings that will drive heavily modified cars that are working OK when it's 60C.
Are you kidding? Earth's atmosphere is:
78% Nitrogen
21% Oxygen
1% everything else and of that 1%, 93% is argon and 3.6% of that 1% is CO2, that is how little CO2 is actually in the atmosphere, and CO2 is a necessary ingredient for plant life. Google CO2 generators and you will see that they are for sale to increase plant growth in green houses and aquariums. More plant growth = more food for humans.
It's long past time that we got out of the nationalist, playground bully mentality that we're stuck in, and start collectively working together to address global warming, resource depletion, and the fact that we will go extinct much sooner if we don't start looking at ways to get off of the Earth permanently. I don't really know how to get that ball rolling, except to say that people need to start decoupling these issues from politics and moral/religious squabbles, and recognize that it's a matter of shared survival.
Already, chickens are about 10x more efficient for production of meat calories than beef is. Most of the world does not consume milk like European descendants do. 40% of the world's arable land is already being used for agriculture. Red meat offers very little and is harmful to the human body in many ways.
I'd prefer we just leave beef alone, let the price increase as demand increases, and place artificial limits on production. Seems like everyone would be better off, and the environment would be as well.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
We've already passed "Peak Child" and the human race is in decline.
Non sequitur. People are not dying fast enough. Life expectancy increases everywhere.
So, the premise that we need to ramp up food production to cope with a growing population is a false one.
Non sequitur. Even if the population decreases, demand for meat is currently soaring, especially in the so-called emerging markets. This means drastically more land area and more water is needed than for growing traditional, primarily vegetarian diets.
If there's not enough meat for everyone in the short term, we feed the young and able bodied first, then the parents of the young and able bodied, then whoever is left, in that order.
More like, people with money will get the meat by paying for the land and water in other countries, while the people there starve. All this is already happening.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Hate to be the one to point out the obvious... but the solution is not in changing the meat it is in reducing and/or eliminating the meat. A very large part of world has done very well for a very long time on limited or no meat, eating beans and rice, lentils and rice, and tofu and rice. Meat requires vast quantities of water, creates vast quantities of waste, and is a huge caloric loss if you are feeding the animal grains or other foodstuffs that humans can eat directly. Beef being the worst offender for water use, and pollution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Nope. The future is synthetic food if you can get it. Algae and worms will be the expensive treats for the top 1%. .
Why else would you want to be a liberal Hollywood actor, sports star, reporter, or politician?
You want a side of cactus fries with that?
Gently reply
Latitude.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
LOL "grant money". Oh, this magical, bottomless well of moolah that exists solely to tempt scientists into lying for decades. I'll bet energy companies had wished they'd thought of that! Those poor, struggling corporations dream of someday being able to bribe scientists and op-ed writers and politicians to make dishonest statements that benefit their bottom line. But you know, greed and profit just aren't motivators for dishonesty the way... Uh.... "grant money" is??? (Oh, right, I forgot, those evil liberals want to be enslaved by the government and to destroy America forever. That's actually why liberals do anything. Totally makes sense as a motivation.)
I have to wonder , I always see such uneducated comment in global warming thread. In the mean time I have come to the conclusion that people truly never try to educate themselves, they grasp at the slightest of the information they might have overheard in their live, without checking if that experience is actually supported, then stick to it forever.
To the op, it is not about absolute quantity but about relative effect. A very small change in CO2 is enough to retain much more warmth (trap IR longer). Same with other molecules by the way , like CH4, SF6... Only the half life of those limit their effect. But why bother, you (or any of the ignorant posting the same drivel) will simply skip it and post their ignorance again at the next GW thread.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Actually developed countries started to naturally reduce population growth... many were worried about this phenomena leading to many economists recommending people have more kids to keep the economy growing due to population growth... there is no real benefit to continuing to grow populations indefinitely with a resource constrained planet.. It would seem to be better adapt economies to a model more suited to static population size.
A 10% increase in atmospheric CO2 does not equate to a 10% increase in temperature. Not by a long shot. According to the IPCC, a _DOUBLING_ of CO2 will lead to an increase in temperature of between 1.5 and 3 degrees. (With a lot of debate as to where this number lies. The IPCC itself has declined to issue a "best guess").
The current rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 is somewhere between 2-3 ppm/year. (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_growth) At this rate, (and even taking into account that there is acceleration in the rate), the 400ppm will double in somewhere around 130 years.
So even at the more extreme case (3 degrees per doubling of CO2), we are looking at 1 degree increase in temp every 43 years.
I'm not really certain that this equates to a "race" to get poultry to adapt. (Especially if it would just mean a slow migration of poultry farming to more northern areas.)
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
They already tried that with lead in the gasoline but it was eventually proven that the lead in the gasoline was contaminating the environment so it had to come out.
But what's needed isn't more research into better form of carbon fuel use but alternatives like Thorium for the base demand and better batteries to store the excess from solar and wind generated power and to power things like cars and trucks. Once you can create a battery that is as energy dense as gasoline, can be recharged as quickly as a gasoline tank can be filled and costs no more to build and operate than an internal combustion engine then you'll have no reason to hold onto the old carbon fuelled economy.
develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming.
Currently we graze cattle from the frozen plains of North Dakota to the deserts of Africa. From the dry lands of Texas to the Alpine mountains of Vevey, Switzerland. From the Northern outback in Australia to the Amazon jungle of Manaus.
It seems to me that we already have the breeds for all possible climates and the whole article is just scientists doing whipping up yet another crisis to score more funding.
many were worried about this phenomena leading to many economists recommending people have more kids to keep the economy growing due to population growth...
Holy hell, we're finally bringing Earth's population numbers under control and they want to undo this progress!? Is there anything economists won't recommend to keep their stupid little game running!?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Switch to vegetarian,
I don't know about that. Vegetarians are pretty stringy and chewey. And they tend to stampede in panic whenever they read an inciteful article in Mother Jones.
Have gnu, will travel.
What a load of frog shit!.
Seriously, don't pay any attention to the beautiful mathematics and painstaking research that created the dancing hurricanes on the screen and go straight to the quote at the end of that Ted talk, roughly translated into politics, it means you're a luddite using creationist debating tactics.
Do you not realise that these models work on the same finite element analysis techniques and "physical laws" (mathematical models) used to successfully model everything from atomic bombs, to the flow of molten metal in an engine block cast. These everyday and exotic engineering models are so successful that over the last 30yrs (just over half my lifetime) it has become virtually impossible to finance an engineering project without them. And if you do realise that, then why are you so quick to argue these methods cannot provide useful insights into the behaviour of Earth's climate but are presumably ok with passenger jets flying around that were designed by these techniques? Perhaps Boeing added one molecule too many to the missing jet's wing tip? Turbulence is the physical manifestation of chaos , so it's like totally unpredictable, right? - Please, give rational discussion a fucking break and shut the fuck up with this tiresome "scientists are know-nothing morons" nonsense.
In the philosophy of Science ALL models are "wrong" by definition, what matters is the degree of "wrongness" (or "truthiness" as it's known in the US). When we look at observations of water vapour over the past few decades they are a very good match for model outputs from 1980's models, they are a much better match for the average of ALL 1980's model outputs. Why? - because the models are just as likely to be "wrong" in either direction.
There are plenty of solid examples on google detailing phenomena that were first seen in climate models and later observed in nature, but I doubt you have heard about phenomena such as "polar amplification" or "stratospheric cooling", Why? - because google will tell you "anything you want to hear", right?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I'll bet energy companies had wished they'd thought of that!
They have. And it's exactly because it's not bottomless that scientists fight over it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."