How the World's Agricultural Boom Has Changed CO2 Cycles

An anonymous reader writes Every year levels of carbon dioxide drop in the summer as plants "inhale," and climb again as they exhale after the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the last 50 years has seen the size of this swing has increase by as much as 50%, for reasons that aren't fully understood. A team of researchers may have the answer. They have shown that agricultural production, corn in particular, may generate up to 25% of the increase in this seasonal carbon cycle. "This study shows the power of modeling and data mining in addressing potential sources contributing to seasonal changes in carbon dioxide" program director for the National Science Foundation's Macro Systems Biology Program, who supported the research, Liz Blood says. "It points to the role of basic research in finding answers to complex problems."

Comments

be fruitful and multiply

[Anonymous Coward]

we'd all have more liberty if our ancestors had used birth control

1st Poop!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

cooooooool!

Problem?

[WalksOnDirt]

How is this supposed to be a problem? The plants are sucking out more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while they are growing, then releasing as they decay. It's interesting that it is noticeable, and bravo for measuring it, but I don't see any troubles that this will cause.

Re:Problem?

[Crashmarik]

It's not a problem, it's propaganda. Sort of along the lines of predicting the Nile floods to help your case out for being Pharaoh

Re:Problem?

[growingtedium]

It's an academic problem. The problem is: our models don't explain the variation in the CO2 cycles that we were seeing. The solution to the problem is to include this research and adjust the models.

Re:Problem?

[blue trane]

Scientists want to build themselves pyramids as burial tombs?

Re:Problem?

[lego_boy_aus]

Now if only they could also manage to have their models reflect observed temperatures as well, then everyone would be happy.

Re:Problem?

[wiredlogic]

It's also worth pointing out that those fertile fields growing our crops used to be covered with wild vegetation doing the exact same thing.

Re:Problem?

[WalksOnDirt]

It's an academic problem.

True enough, and perhaps the scientists think so, but it's being reported as "...this will directly correlate to an exponential rise in the levels of atmospheric" carbon dioxide (from the article).

I don't think so.

Re:Problem?

[Crashmarik]

Scientists want to build themselves pyramids as burial tombs?

Hey there this should help you out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... {wiki Pharaoh}

http://examples.yourdictionary... {Analogy examples for kids}

Re:Problem?

[ChunderDownunder]

Northern Hemisphere bias? The gist seemed to be that the wealthy '1st world' of the north is disrupting the carbon cycle. Less crops, more trees?

Food miles and all but perhaps the north should focus on importing food from the agricultural powerhouses of Argentina and Australia (plus those NZ apples I've seen in supermarkets in Europe and North America). China just signed a FTA with AUS.

(where I live, Australia is a bit of a dumping ground for excess production of Italian tinned tomatoes and Spanish olive oil, pricing locally grown alternatives out of the low end. But that'd require ending E.U. agricultural subsidies)

Re:Problem?

[able1234au]

True but slower growing and slower dying. Less in, less out.

Re:Problem?

[davester666]

so we have to grow lots of corn, then either send it all to the bottom of the ocean or into outer space.

Re:Problem?

[able1234au]

There is no Northern Hemisphere "bias". It is just that there is more land in the northern hemisphere and more cropland. So it influences the seasonal cycle more. There would be no CO2 advantage to moving the crops from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere. It would be nett neutral.

Re:Problem?

[blind biker]

In this context, "problem" was meant as in "mathematical problem", not environmental.

Re: Problem?

[Quantum Jim]

More volatile climate in the short term as Artic Ice recedes faster. In the longer run, warmer winters than by Global Warming alone due.

Re:Problem?

[michelcolman]

And more animals in them, producing more CO2.

Re:Problem?

[michelcolman]

How about pumping it into oil fields to replace the oil we're pumping out? Carbon neutrality at last, and in a million years or so we've got oil again.

Re:Problem?

[michelcolman]

No if we can just prevent the release of CO2, we'll actually be reducing CO2 levels in a really easy way! Just bury all the plant material deep enough, or pump it into empty oil wells or something like that.

Re:Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I read that, I heard it in the voice of Tina, from Bob's Burgers.

Somebody help me, please!

Re:Problem?

[sugar and acid]

Artificial fertilizers, irrigation and modern farming methods have massively increased the productivity of farming over the natural state. Essentially turning energy (Coal, Oil, nuclear etc.) into higher yields.

Re:Problem?

[Vintermann]

No, wild vegetation doesn't behave very much like a cornfield, that's the point. An oak tree binds up carbon for much, much longer. Thus you don't get the same wild swings.

Re:Problem?

[The Grim Reefer]

And more animals in them, producing more CO2.

Possibly. But when that was the case, there was also significantly less domestic livestock too.

Re:Problem?

[The Grim Reefer]

I don't know the numbers, but it was my understanding that Brazil has become a huge farming country. I would think it should start to offset this swing. Of course they are reducing rainforest land to do it. But you would think that would make the swing greater in co2 sequestration toward their growing season. Thus negating the swing caused by the northern one.

Re:Problem?

[lxw56]

Nope. (posting to remove accidental mod)

Re:Problem?

[king neckbeard]

The average amount of CO2 would be about the same, but if there were greater parity of crops between the hemispheres, there would be less of a swing. That might be advantageous if there are negative effects to a big swing such as health problems or extreme weather (although I have no idea if there are any such ill effects).

Re:Problem?

[silentcoder]

That's a very significant assumption.
Different plants have very different growth and death rates. Aggriculture tends to plant vast areas with very similar vegetation, while natural ecologies tend to have a much more mixed vegetation (grass and trees and flowers of all sorts).
So certainly it can be assumed that farm-lands would have a different CO2 impact compared to natural vegetation.

It can get even further than that: the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon these days is chopping down the forest to open grazing land for cattle, that is - replacing tropical rainforest tree coverage over vast areas with grass for cattle. Surely you aren't suggesting that the CO2 usage and patterns of grasslands are the same as that of tropical rainforest are you ?

Re:Problem?

[Waffle Iron]

And more animals in them, producing more CO2.

Those animals got all of their carbon from the fields they were standing in. If the animals hadn't been there, that same carbon would have been turned into CO2 by organisms like insects or fungi. The overall amount of CO2 released would have remained almost exactly the same.

Re:Problem?

[dave420]

They have, but you don't know about it, as you prefer to be against trying to do anything about global warming, than to educate yourself. Either that or you were lying when you posted that. Or you are just intellectually lazy. It's got to be one of those... your choice ;)

Re:Problem?

[Khyber]

You're forgetting about the carbon-intensive resources that go into production and harvesting and processing.

Fuel-sucking harvesters being the first thing that comes to mind. Those emit a lot of carbon compared to what they're harvesting.

Re:Problem?

[Khyber]

No, the solution is to quit being so narrow-minded and think of EVERYTHING in the entire process, instead of cherry-picking and focusing upon the plant itself.

Huge land fields of corn require HUGE amounts of carbon fuels (currently) to harvest and process. Given their per-pound yield per acre in relative comparison to many other crops SUCKS, no surprise given tons of corn-based fuel/food production areas.

Re:Problem?

[operagost]

Fruit and vegetable growing is not a problem. We grow a lot more food on far less land than we used to. If by "used to" you mean in the 18th century, yes.

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

They didnt say that this is a problem.
What they said is "human agriculture production has changed the CO2 cycle, causing higher highs and lower lows in the fluctuation of CO2 levels over the course of a year."
Which makes sense. Vast swaths of land are forced to be much more biologically active than they otherwise would be.
And it throws yet more cold water on the notion of "we can't affect the planet."

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

Done:

http://www.skepticalscience.co...
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Next question?

Re:Problem?

[serviscope_minor]

Next question?

OK, AGW is falsiable, right? So, can you please falsify it? I'd ve very greatful, thanks!

Re:Problem?

[Curunir_wolf]

Why do people keep referencing a propaganda site? Rather than point out all the fallacies present in their arguments, I'll just point you to some more current research showing how poorly climate models have been doing: Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years.

The evidence, therefore, indicates that the current generation of climate models (when run as a group, with the CMIP5 prescribed forcings) do not reproduce the observed global warming over the past 20 years, or the slowdown in global warming over the past fifteen years. This interpretation is supported by statistical tests of the null hypothesis that the observed and model mean trends are equal, assuming that either: (1) the models are exchangeable with each other (that is, the 'truth plus error' view); or (2) the models are exchangeable with each other and with the observations (seeSupplementary Information). Differences between observed and simulated 20-year trends have p values (Supplementary Information) that drop to close to zero by 1993–2012 under assumption (1) and to 0.04 under assumption (2) (Fig. 2c). Here we note that the smaller the p value is, the stronger the evidence against the null hypothesis. On this basis, the rarity of the 1993–2012 trend difference under assumption (1) is obvious. Under assumption (2), this implies that such an inconsistency is only expected to occur by chance once in 500 years, if 20-year periods are considered statistically independent. Similar results apply to trends for 1998–2012 (Fig. 2d). In conclusion, we reject the null hypothesis that the observed and model mean trends are equal at the 10% level.

Re:Problem?

[KeensMustard]

Having models able correlate to observed temperature is certainly advantageous. Because if what you say is true and models can't be made to correlate to the observed temperature, then we have no mechanism to describe the impact our emissions will have on the climate, and are forced to mitigate against the worst possible case: violent swings, snowball earth, runaway venus type scenarios. This would be far more costly than merely mitigating to the timeframe suggested by our models.

Re:Problem?

[KeensMustard]

Are you oafishly trying to say that AGW is unfalsiable? If that is your assertion, then state that clearly - and then prove it.

Re:Problem?

[budgenator]

The problem I see is some science hack, Ryan Wallace, writes some incoherent drivel, seemingly against convetional wisdom and doesn't reference the either the paper, or the press release on the research. We have no clue whether they are talking about CO2 from the decay of the corn stover left in the fields, or some mysterious CO2 release in the plants respiration.

Re:Problem?

[serviscope_minor]

Are you oafishly trying to say that AGW is unfalsiable?

Sigh, poe's law strikes again. No, it is falsifiable. That often leasds through the chain of reasoning (by creationists and AGW deniers) of falsifiable = something that DOES falsify it = false

I was mocking that.

Re:Problem?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Why do people keep referencing a propaganda site? Rather than point out all the fallacies present in their arguments, I'll just point you to some more current research showing how poorly climate models have been doing: Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years.

And even that paper acknowledges that there was warming in that period. Why don't you?

Re:Problem?

[Curunir_wolf]

Why do people keep referencing a propaganda site? Rather than point out all the fallacies present in their arguments, I'll just point you to some more current research showing how poorly climate models have been doing: Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years.

And even that paper acknowledges that there was warming in that period. Why don't you?

WTF are you going on about? "There was warming in that period." Happy? Am I on the list now?

The warming does not fit the models, nor is there a correlation with the increase in CO2. Can you acknowledge that??

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

the statement "the models do match the observations" is factual in nature. that is, it is falsiable. it is either true, or it is not.

I said it is. and provided evidence for that.
its not a proganda site, but even if it were, it wouldnt matter.
Factual or falsifiable statements stand or fall on their own on the basis of evidence.

And you failed to provide any evidence that the models do not match the observations.
What you did, was to link without understanding. All you did was cherry pick one paper published in Nature, out of the dozens they have, that sounded like it confirmed your beliefs based on the title. Which is what a lot of deniers did, without undestanding what the paper is actualyl saying. That paper is about one data set, specifically the HadCRUT4 set. One of the major factors in that papers conclusions is El Nino/La Nina events that have both amplified and dampened temperatures in relation to expectations.

If you'd even bvothered to read the provided links you'd have seen that they actually deal specifically with the data set that that paper is about. And they talk about that dataset's relation to both models and actual observations. in other words, i already addressed your concerns, but you dont know that because you didnt bother to actually read before linking something that you dont understand. So you didnt see statements that address the issues raised in that paper, such as:

Climate models, however, cannot predict the timing and intensity of La Niña and El Niño, natural cycles that greatly affect global temperature in the short-term by dictating the amount of heat available at the ocean surface.
By failing to account for these and other factors, the CMIP5 collection of climate models erroneously simulate more warming of Earth's surface than would be expected.
When the input into the climate models is adjusted to take into consideration both the warming and cooling influences on the climate that actually occurred, the models demonstrate remarkable agreement with the observed surface warming in the last 16 years.

You missed another Nature article ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncli... ) that partially address the concerns in the one you linked, and is about better addressing El Nino/La Nina events.

You also didnt see this handy GIF, which clearly illustrates the situation, and that the models are still within the expected envelope: http://skepticalscience.com//p...

That paper you linked wasnt an indictment of global warming or the models.
It was a climate scientist saying to his fellows "hey guys, we under/overestimated a few things, this is what we need to tweak in the models, especially in regards to El Nino/La Nina".

This isnt a definititive process, it is an iteritive one. And as time goes on, the tweaks get smaller and smaller, and the conformance between observations and expectations gets closer and closer. But some things cannot be accurately predicted yet, specifically El Nino and La Nina events which have a very large impact on observations and carry a significant impact on global weather and climate. It appeared for a bit that an El Nino was building for this year, though it never materialized, which would have dramatically altered global observations, making various places hotter, cooler, wetter, or drier than normal. These events cause short term spikes (higher highs, lower lows) in observations, but are not themselves invalidations of either observations or models.

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

in other words, your sig is completely accurate.
you are a crackpot.

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

No, because its not true, for all the reasons i just stated int he other post. ie, you linked to something based on the title without understanding what it was saying, and without realizing that the provided links already addressed what you tried to say and accomplish.

and yes, there very much IS a correlation between temps and CO2. therefore, your assertion cannot be acknoledged, and to state otherwise at this point is to blatantly lie.
ie, you are lying. and you are a crackpot.

Re:Problem?

[dywolf]

In fact, let me expand further on that Iteritive part, as it refers both to the process of refining the models, but also to the models themselves.
and better explains how you ( Curunir_wolf ) are wrong.

Again referecing the quoted text:

Climate models, however, cannot predict the timing and intensity of La Niña and El Niño, natural cycles that greatly affect global temperature in the short-term by dictating the amount of heat available at the ocean surface.
By failing to account for these and other factors, the CMIP5 collection of climate models erroneously simulate more warming of Earth's surface than would be expected.
When the input into the climate models is adjusted to take into consideration both the warming and cooling influences on the climate that actually occurred, the models demonstrate remarkable agreement with the observed surface warming in the last 16 years.

That last statement is the important part.
The models themselves are iteritive. That means starting at say the year 1900 the model simulates a period of time, lets say one year. Its given a starting condition and then spits out an end state after one year. That end state then becomes the starting condition for the next iteration for the next simulated year. And so on down the road.

This leads to to a Garbage In, Garbage Out situation. Which is where that article about the mismatch and overestimation between models and observations caused by things like El Nino comes in. Because those events arent predictable they werent well represented in the models that paper examined. This led to a mismatch in the starting conditions the model would use and actual observations, resulting in an expectation that would deviant from observations, and that deviation would grow over time as more events occured. Basically we're talking a compounding error over time (or how 0.0005 arc seconds of angle deviation in a line produces no discernible deviation over very short distances, but stretched out to a few light years, and the deviation becomes quite significant).

And thats what those articles in skeptical science were showing: that when initial starting conditions for runs of the model covering periods of time immediately after such unpredictable events in the real world were adjusted to account for such events, ie include them in the starting conditions for the next run, the model's predictions were brought in line with observations.

But like I said.
You didnt bother to read the articles.
So you missed that part.

Re:Problem?

[Curunir_wolf]

Back to the propaganda again? You don't have any other records to play? Critical thinking failure. You obviously didn't read the paper. It establishes a much better correlation between certain types of radiation that reaches the earth than has been shown in recent observations than CO2 can show. All you've got is "LaLaLa I can't hear you", and rehashing a bunch of propaganda. It's carefully written to only talk about certain observation of solar OUTPUT, and ignores studies such as this one that use real measurements of radiation at the earth's surface.

But you don't want to hear anything that might challenge your ideology. Go back to preaching the faith, man.

Re:Problem?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Back to the propaganda again? You don't have any other records to play? Critical thinking failure. You obviously didn't read the paper. It establishes a much better correlation between certain types of radiation that reaches the earth than has been shown in recent observations than CO2 can show.

Very interesting indeed - and all without mentioning the word "radiation" anywhere in its text.

Re:Problem?

[Curunir_wolf]

Back to the propaganda again? You don't have any other records to play? Critical thinking failure. You obviously didn't read the paper. It establishes a much better correlation between certain types of radiation that reaches the earth than has been shown in recent observations than CO2 can show.

Very interesting indeed - and all without mentioning the word "radiation" anywhere in its text.

I'm trying to keep up with too many threads. You're right - that paper simply points out how badly the climate change models have tracked to observations. I was thinking of a paper I linked in another thread that shows CERN experiments confirming Henrik Svensmark’s regarding cosmic rays and global warming. Read it here.

Re:Problem?

[KeensMustard]

Apologies.

In my defence I've actually had people use that argument in all seriousness. Satire becomes reality.

Re:Problem?

[gzuckier]

No, the solution is to quit being so narrow-minded and think of EVERYTHING in the entire process, instead of cherry-picking and focusing upon the plant itself.

Huge land fields of corn require HUGE amounts of carbon fuels (currently) to harvest and process. Given their per-pound yield per acre in relative comparison to many other crops SUCKS, no surprise given tons of corn-based fuel/food production areas.

True; the use of vast quantities of artificial ammonium nitrate fertilizer means that we've essentially converted agriculture from solar power to mainly petroleum power. And meat production even more so.

Re:Problem?

[serviscope_minor]

Apologies. In my defence I've actually had people use that argument in all seriousness. Satire becomes reality.

No worries. I've seen that argument too, which is why I was satirising it. I realised after that there is no way to tell that I'm satirising it rather than using it.

Re:Problem?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Sorry, but Svensmark has long been debunked , by simply showing the data after his cut-off date he omitted because his beautiful correlation went to shit. And we are not talking about models slightly disagreeing with future data, we see massive discrepancies in data readily available when the claim was made.

And of course your little - how would you call it - PROPAGANDA blog makes big claims I'll counter with mine:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/cern-cloud-proves-cosmic-rays-causing-global-warming.htm

CERN scientist Jasper Kirkby, about his recent cosmic ray experiment:

"At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step"

But what about now? Well, instead of a "warming hiatus", according to the Gospel of Svensmark we should actually see massive cooling: Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High

"In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech.

Was 2009 anywhere near the coldest year since the 1959? No? Then we can just forget about including Cosmic Voodoo Rays in any climate models if we want them to be acceptable to you.

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Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Barry Soetoro (who frequented bath houses in Chicago) pushes for gaydom. It's all part of the agenda.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anything that far-right reactionaries do that isn't weapons-grade projection?

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[epyT-R]

Why not just end welfare that encourages pumping out babies by poor, uneducated people?

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[epyT-R]

no worse than far-left reactionaries..plenty of dogmatism to go around.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or end welfare for big companies who pay minimum wage to their employees and then teach them how to claim food stamps and other government support?

You know, stop taxes being spent helping businesses rip people off.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[guises]

Because that wouldn't actually reduce the number of babies, it would just make them poorer and less educated. We certainly do need to reduce the population, but there's no evidence to suggest that welfare programs, daycare, foodstamps, etc., are contributing to the birth rate. Even when the payouts of those programs are tied to the number of children that the recipients have. In fact there's some evidence for the opposite, that using welfare to alleviate some of the very worst effects of poverty can lower the birthrate.

Not enough though, clearly, welfare isn't the magic bullet that's going to bring the population down. Unfortunately, a lot of people use the fact that greater prosperity goes hand-in-hand with lower birth rates as an excuse to ignore the problem... I suspect that this is something that isn't going to be even widely acknowledged, let alone solved, until an awful lot of people have died violently.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Anonymous Coward]

They ignore it because its true, in most major industrialied wealthy nations the birthrate is below the replacement rate. This is true of the USA and its true of much of tradtionally defined western Europe. They populations are only growing because of people migrating to these places. They tend to be comming from less industrialized less wealthy places as a rule.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[itzly]

This wealth slowdown in reproduction is only a temporary effect. People who only take 0 or 1 children will die out in a few generations, while people who take 4+ children will grow exponentially. It just takes a while for genetics to catch up with the new environment.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[morgauxo]

I've lived in a neighborhood where there were many women that made more babies with more fathers specifically to get more benefits. I have no doubt that eliminating welfare WOULD decrease the birthrate.

However... I agree, people aren't going to just stop making babies just because the money tap is turned off. There may be fewer but there would still be many. Those children would suffer greatly and it's not their fault their parents made bad decisions.

So... that's how the real world works liberal and conservative kiddies. There are NO easy answers and your ideologies are all bullshit!

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[SourceFrog]

Because we wouldn't want starving masses to revolt against the corporate-welfare-enriched 0.1% .. gotta keep peasants satiated with bread and circuses or they tend to revolt.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[silentcoder]

Because rightwingers are too stupid to figure out that if you allow companies to outsource most of their wagebill to the taxpayer then you are getting cheaper goods DESPITE the goods having a lower sticker-price. You're just paying the difference via a rather inefficient middle-man called the government.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[pnutjam]

That's hardly true either. From my anecdotal evidence, people from large families have less then their parents. They might have a larger family, but they know the problems that occur with too many.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Khyber]

From my experience working in plenty of pro-Republican/GOP leaning retail stores, they're not the problem.

I've been invited to several churches by friends while living in Texas, Tennessee, and California. Many of the times I've gone, they're not preaching the gospel. They're talking about how to bypass and abuse the system. And then you realize that about 65% of that congregation is welfare-dependent, and that they're more than willing to drop tens of dollars out of that gov't cheese cheque towards that person just because 'Jesus told him how to make my ends meet.'

No, first we end religious welfare, then we end corporate welfare. A good chunk of the corporate welfare part is almost guaranteed to stem from the religious welfare part.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[Khyber]

"It just takes a while for genetics to catch up with the new environment."

We've seen lizards of the same species evolve different reproductive systems (Australia, same lizard species, one does live birth, the other does eggs, genetically identical) within the span of 50 years.

Don't think evolution is cosmically slow. That's a HUGE mistake.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[dywolf]

That's easy...considering it doesnt exist.
Or were you simply unaware that throughout human history high birth rates have nearly always been assocaited with the segments of society made of up of poor and uneduated? Perhaps you also never heard of the phenomenon where as people make more money and achieve higher education levels, birth rates naturally fall?

It has nothing to do with welfare, and everything to do with societal stratification and peoples' economic health and well-being.

After all, if welfare were the cause, then why are birthrates in actual welfares states like Norway, Sweden, France, or just basically most of Europe, so low that they are below replacement levels? In fact, those countries are now actively encouraging people to have more babies.

So much for that theory, huh?

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[dywolf]

Myth 1. Poor women have more children because of the "financial incentives" of welfare benefits.

Repeated studies show no correlation between benefit levels and women's choice to have children. (See, for example, Urban Institute Policy and Research Report, Fall/93.) States providing relatively higher benefits do not show higher birth rates among recipients.

In any case, welfare allowances are far too low to serve as any kind of "incentive": A mother on welfare can expect about $90 in additional AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits if she has another child.

Furthermore, the real value of AFDC benefits, which do not rise with inflation, has fallen 37 percent during the last two decades (The Nation, 12/12/94). Birth rates among poor women have not dropped correspondingly.

http://fair.org/extra-online-a...

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[dywolf]

Its old, but largely still applicable.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[blue9steel]

Or perhaps admit that maybe contraceptives are a good thing after all?

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[operagost]

The problem with both of you guys is that each of you hates the programs the other guy loves. That's how we end up stuck with both of them, and liberty and prosperity go by the wayside.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[drfred79]

Because rightwingers are too stupid to figure out that if you allow companies to outsource most of their wagebill to the taxpayer then you are getting cheaper goods DESPITE the goods having a lower sticker-price. You're just paying the difference via a rather inefficient middle-man called the government.

Us stupid right wingers didn't ask Jonathan Gruber to draft an unsustainable health care bill. Nor did we ask the Federal government to raise food stamp access to multiple times above the poverty level. Maybe you're trolling but I think you meant "getting more expensive goods DESPITE the goods having a lower sticker price. You could possibly be right if there wasn't a deficit.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[itzly]

No, it's not slow, but it will take a few generations. After 4-5 generations, I bet you can already start to see the effect of increasing birth rates.

Re: Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[itzly]

For some families that may be true. Other families will have different genes, and some of those genes will direct behaviour towards making larger families despite any problems. As long as the extra babies don't die, these genes will grow exponentially.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[silentcoder]

Actually the typo was "aren't" instead of "are".
The goods at Wallmart are NOT cheaper than anywhere else, they cost the same or perhaps even MORE than elsewhere.
You just don't realise you're paying the difference because what Wallmart has done is to outsource most of their wagebil onto the wellfare system. By allowing Walmart to pay slave wages you aren't saving money on goods - you're just paying that money to the same people walmart would have paid it to - only you're doing it through the government instead of through walmart.
In the end - you're still the one paying it though and the only people who gain from this are the executives of walmart because on THEIR balance sheet a major cost has been removed.
The cost still exists - they've just externalized it onto to their customers through the tax system.
Externalities are ALWAYS market failures, they are one of the defining types of market failure. The market cannot accurately price things when part of the costs have been externalized which leads to inefficient economic outcomes.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[TemporalBeing]

I've been invited to several churches by friends while living in Texas, Tennessee, and California. Many of the times I've gone, they're not preaching the gospel. They're talking about how to bypass and abuse the system. And then you realize that about 65% of that congregation is welfare-dependent, and that they're more than willing to drop tens of dollars out of that gov't cheese cheque towards that person just because 'Jesus told him how to make my ends meet.'

Well, technically they're not being good stewards (per Christianity) in doing so, but legally they have probably jeopardized their "church" non-profit status as a result.

No, first we end religious welfare, then we end corporate welfare. A good chunk of the corporate welfare part is almost guaranteed to stem from the religious welfare part.

Funny thing is - the conservative right-wingers will typically take money if you make it available, but they don't typically want it made available as they'd rather not pay the higher taxes that cover it to start with. However, it's the liberal left-wingers that want the higher taxes and all the "free" money programs that everyone (especially the liberals) abuses. The right-wingers would prefer the "market" handle things instead; most will agree that some level of oversight is necessary when it comes to safety, etc but that it should still remain minimal; unlike the left-winger "you didn't build that" sentimentality.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[drfred79]

I'm just glad I didn't fall for a troll. I'd expect a smart conservative to plant a subtle joke like that.

Your argument about external costs in welfare is hard to agree with when no one pays the full budget deficit anyway. If both progressives and conservatives agreed to a balanced budget and we agreed to a compromise on the size of the safety net and size of the military and then raised revenues to match expenditures then I'd agree this is a problem. I think inherently, progressives are worried that if Americans knew the total cost of these expanded welfare programs they wouldn't want them.

But progressives want it both ways. They want to complain that current minimum wage laws are putting people on welfare and then they want to raise welfare poverty level requirements to add more people. That seems like the bigger issue than poor people affording vegetables at Walmart.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[silentcoder]

The thing is - you can't act as if all costs are equal. At least you recognize that NEITHER side have actually done a balanced budget so you're not one of those who thinks Obama is a big spender (when in actual fact his deficit run-up is the lowest since Nixon) with a completely one-sided view.

But as I said, all costs aren't equal. Progressives are hugely in favour of cutting military spending - a LOT.
And that could solve the problem easily - without actually putting America at any risk. America right now has a military spending 13 times bigger than the next biggest, and 6 times bigger than the entire rest of the world COMBINED.
Nobody needs that.
Just the part of the military budget that goes to contractors - that's not barracks or feeding soldiers or even bullets and guns, just the part that's spent on contractors is 700 billion a year.
The total budget for social security is 70 billion.
One welfare-ish program, is about one TENTH of one part of the military budget.
Cut the military budget in half, you can have the same number of soldiers and the same level of military prowes (do you really think it makes a difference whether you buy 11 new aircraft carriers a year or 5 - when almost nobody else has even one ?) while at the same time paying for every welfare and safety net program you need without running up a deficit.
You may EVEN be able to do it without actually making the rich pay taxes (though you SHOULD anyway because nobody should get the benefits of living in a country without contributing to it's upkeep).

But show me one conservative who would even consider that ...

Now here's the real problem - America doesn't have a liberal party in government. The greens are liberal but they aren't on the hill, the democrats sure aren't progressive or liberal, they are center-right, the reps are just batshit insane.
The real problem America faces is that the 60% progressives in the population have no party actually representing them, Liberals don't vote democrat because democrats are liberal, they vote democrat because center-right is better than batshit insane.

And just how center right ? Compare actual policy and the following presidents were ALL more leftwing than Barack Obama:
Millard Filmore (refused to grant Utah statehood until governor Brigham Young created a welfare system).
Richard Nixon - created the EPA, supported welfare reform.
Ronald Reagan - argued for matching the capital gains tax to the income tax (basically he was trying to pass the Buffet rule 3 decades before Buffet was). Ran up a massive deficit.
Truman - tried to pass universal healthcare (and single-payer at that - which is a hell of a lot more liberal than Obama's version which made everybody a customer of an insurance company).
Gerald Ford - tried to pass Nixon's healthcare reforms but wasn't in power long enough to succeed.
Rooseveldt - the one who sent in the army to protect UNIONS from corporate thuggery and called for a second bill of rights that could have come right out of a democratic socialist country like Denmark.
Eisenhower - by a huge margin.

And ultimately - this is the wrong time for your suggestion. Despite what Austrian economists say - there's a reason they are a tiny fringe group in economics who get laughed at a lot. A recession, by definition, is CAUSED by a LACK of spending. Nobody spends, means nobody else has INCOME - so THEY don't spend either.
The only way OUT of a recession is for SOMEBODY to start spending - a LOT. And the only actor who can do that is the government.
Every government that tried austerity made their recessions worse, MUCH worse. The biggest economic problem in the USA today is that your government is underspending, massively. The stimulus package was no more than 40% of what economists were recommending.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[drfred79]

No idea where you got your facts. Your numbers are completely wrong. https://static.nationalpriorit...

Those are OMB numbers. The military budget is part of discretionary spending. Most the social programs are mandatory spending. We spend way more of our budget on social programs combined than the military.

https://static.nationalpriorit...

I'm not interested in arguing whether the balance is correct. Hopefully seeing the real numbers gives you a better insight that your idea of the budget is orders of magnitude wrong.

Russia has one aircraft carrier and China has at least one being refurbished from Russia. http://rt.com/news/china-super...

Since the 2014 election the only congressional representatives that are Democrats are Progressives. Greens, liberals, progressives, government unions all vote Democratic. The reason Congressional Democrat's voting record might look center right is because the absolute majority of America is center right. The modestly watered down progressive goal of government run Healthcare caused a huge repudiation of the Democrat's fortunes. America does not want progressive policies that's why Democrats in Congress can't push the ideas.

Ask the Weimar republic how spending out of a recession helps. Or better yet, we just had a huge stimulus. Did that get us out of a recession?

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[silentcoder]

Now go ask an actual economist about the Weimar republic and they will tell you that not in Weimar nor anywhere else in HISTORY has spending in a recession EVER caused hyperinflation.
What DOES cause hyperinflation is severe social upheaval. Weimar republic had just come out of a massive civil war. Zimbabwe - just came out of massive unrest. Rome in Nero's time: just concluded a massive war while dealing with a famine caused by bad weather.

Spending in a recession does not, by itself, cause hyperinflation - I'm not saying it CAN'T but we have mathematical methods to work out how much you OUGHT to spend to get the results without causing problems.

Now consider that the MOST common cause of hyperinflation has nothing to do with monetary policy at all ! It's social inequality ! Yes, some of the worst cases of hyperinflation were caused by severe social inequality. A prime example would be the destruction of the Spanish economy right at the height of Spanish power.
The conquistadors were using slave labor and getting very, very rich in the New World- coming back and spending their fortunes the way sailors do - in giant short-bursts far apart.
So traders raised their prices to meet this high demand, which benefitted traders, and so OTHER traders raised prices since THOSE traders could afford it.
Very soon - traders and conquistadors were making fortunes, while everybody else were poor, but the prices were being set by the rich minority - pricing everything out of reach of almost the entire population.
A loaf of bread came to be about a week's average wages !
That's when the Spanish economy entirely collapsed because do you know what happens when people who work hard all week can't afford enough food for a week ? They stop working. What's the point of working hard if you aren't EVEN able to meet your basic needs ?It makes no economic sense. The opportunity cost of going to work is higher than the value of your wages.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[drfred79]

My bachelor's of science in economics from a reputable university qualifies me to say I know of which I speak.

Germany was suffering from the global recession just like every country but the socialist government chose Keynesian stimulus to try to save the economy. Social upheaval was already fomenting from the loss of jobs but hyperinflation contributed to the social upheaval. Hyperinflation is caused by loss of investor confidence. We use fiat currency based on the trust in value. Overspending decreases trust in a currency. Just look at Greece's woes based on overspending and lack of revenue. Greece's social upheaval was also partly due to a recession and overspending. In both these cases the roots are just the opposite order chain of events then you mentioned.

Anyway. I take the time to refute closed-system people saying things like stupid right wingers, not for your benefit, but for others reading it. If you're reduced to ad hominem attacks against 51% of the country then you're mind is made up, which is fine. Some kids, learning in public schools, have no idea about the bias in public. They might have no idea some people want the government to stop "helping." But since no one benefits from reading this you can have the last word. I won't argue anymore.

Re:Gay Sex! Agenda 21.

[silentcoder]

And Paul Krugman's PHD in economics qualifies him to say he knows better than you - and he is the one whom I was just citing.

And no, there isn't 51% conservatives in America, in fact you're a minority - which is why you struggle to win presidential elections.
You need to factor voter-turnout in. Several studies concluded that voter turnout among conservatives is over 80%, among liberals it is around 50% and thats in presidential elections where turnout is highest. In things like mid-terms, it's much lower.
More-over liberal voter turnout goes down MORE in things like midterms because very few liberals are retirees, indeed a large number of them are the very people who are affected by voter-suppression laws or simply such low-income earners that they literally CAN'T go vote because taking the time off work means starving that day.

If the USA made elections public holidays like every other civilized country on earth - the republicans would never win another election.

The Science is Settled

[pipingguy]

CO2 is the cause of global warming/climate change.

Re:The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

So when CO2 data is collected, is the season accounted for? What about ice core samples where trapped air is found? What season did they become trapped?

Re:The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like dogma to me. Seriously, you keep chanting that, but you keep asking for more money for research. If the science is settled, then there's no need for research.

Re:The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct.

However you probably meant that as sarcasm.

Explain.

Precisely.

Re:The Science is Settled

[itzly]

So when CO2 data is collected, is the season accounted for?

Obviously. Here's the recent CO2 data: http://www.mongabay.com/images... Note the squiggly monthly line. Also note it only takes a few years before the seasonal low is higher than the previous seasonal high.

Re:The Science is Settled

[KeensMustard]

There's a bunch of people claiming that the science isn't settled, that the models aren't good enough, blah blah.

For some reason that is never fully explained they have knowledge enough to confidently dismiss the science, but aren't capabe of doing the science itself. So other people have to do that science for them. People who (quite rightly) are paid for their efforts.

So we'll have to keep pouring money into more research. Unless you think those concerns are not legitimate.

Re:The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/

It ends with his post here at slashdot showing some very interesting facts. In short, CO2 does not control the climate.

Re:The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not. That is called belief and you are welcome to your beliefs but don't call it science.

A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?

All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen
8-10%.

Here are 2 predictions. First I predict that CO2 will continue to increase because China and other countries don't care about CO2. They don't even care about real pollutants much less CO2. Second I predict it will get colder over the next 20-30 years. Why?

Dr Libby in the 1970s said that "looking forward it will stay cold until the mid 80s (it did), then it will warm by about 1/4 degree F until the end of the century (it did plus a bit more), then it gets cold". When asked how cold she was predicting a 1-2 degree F drop with an outside chance of a 3-4 degree drop.

Dr Easterbrook in 2001 said the PDO was done it's positive warm cycle and that we were in for 25-30 years of cold weather. How cold? We have his good, bad and ugly predictions based on previous negative cold phases of the PDO.

Why do I join with them and side with their predictions? While past performance is not a guarantee of future correctness it is a lot better record than the IPCC and their dozens of models of which none have been accurate. They are all based on CO2 controlling the climate and the other 2 are all cyclical natural cycles. I'll go with those who have a good track record at predicting future climate. Dr Libby is the most impressive as her prediction is 30+ years going and still accurate.

The power of modeling ?

[Crashmarik]

You know plants have a cycle of taking in and releasing CO2.
You know agriculture planting harvest lines up the cycle for a large amount plant matter.
You see a signal in your data.

I am shocked. /sarcasm

Re:The power of modeling ?

[blue trane]

Yeah it would be better to just take it on faith. Think of the money you'd save! You're always right, no need to check, deductive logic all the way!

Re:The power of modeling ?

[Crashmarik]

Why don't you give yourself a goldstar for being able to count while you are at it.
Here's some other things you can do to "Show the power of modeling"

Drop dye into water to show it causes it to be colored.

Verify that matter is neither created nor destroyed by combining substances in a container.

Show that adding two and two actually gives a result of 4.

Re:The power of modeling ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, our old models didn't know how the hell the real numbers were being created. So we fiddled with numbers in models and decided that we like the numbers which are corny. This shows the power of modeling.

Re:The power of modeling ?

[silentcoder]

And it's a proven model ! The Vatican used it for centuries !

Corn Subsidies

[Kaenneth]

The political influence of big corn is killing us; HFCS, Corn for fuel instead of growing food, lack of biodiversity... we should be growing a fraction of the corn we do.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Spy Handler]

Agriculture is killing you. You shouldn't be growing crops at all.

Studies have shown that the paleo diet is the healthiest way for humans to eat. And we all know that the earth is overpopulated. Any and all environmental problems, including greenhouse gases and climate change, all disappear if we reduce human population to < 100 million. That means going back to the lifestyle of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Have you seen the movie Avatar? If we all lived like the blue people, the world would be a better place.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

if we reduce human population to < 100 million.

Yes, but the people who propose this never volunteer to be reduced.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Mashiki]

Scratch an environmentalist, find a malthusian.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[king neckbeard]

I'm not sure if any of those claims have actually reaching anything close to scientific consensus. In fact, I was of the impression that we were or are near a point at which we will have to take active steps to control greenhouse gases, never mind the greenhouse gases that 7 billion human corpses will release. You seem to be using absolutely nothing but absolutes, which is a very strong indicator that you have no clue what you are talking about.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Spy Handler]

Nobody has to volunteer to suicide or murder. All we need is for each person to have 0 or 1 offspring. It wouldn't take many generations before population reaches optimum hunter-gatherer levels.

Most slashdotters are already doing this (0 or 1 offspring), we just need to convince the rest of humans.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Spy Handler]

never mind the greenhouse gases that 7 billion human corpses will release

Huh what? Nobody said anything about killing 7 billions humans. All you need is a reduced birthrate.

And those 7 billion humans are not gonna live forever. They're all gonna die at some point.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You've convinced Europe.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

All we need is for each person to have 0 or 1 offspring. It wouldn't take many generations before population reaches optimum hunter-gatherer levels.... we just need to convince the rest...

You need to tell the Chinese Communist Party about your idea.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[grim-one]

Have you seen the movie Avatar? If we all lived like the blue people, the world would be a better place.

Well it would certainly be a place. Whether or not it's better is subjective.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess... You think that market powers should decide about environmental policies?

Re:Corn Subsidies

[ChunderDownunder]

Aren't cows a leading cause of CO2?

If you paleos hunted cattle to extinction by 2040, we could meet our global emissions targets! :)

Re: Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

No. I just think leftist welfare policies encourage too much breeding by those least able to provide for themselves. Just cut the funding for that. No more ebt cards for babies.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

Yeah, while you all subsist on insects and worms. what a palatable future.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[WalksOnDirt]

Aren't cows a leading cause of CO2?

No, that's methane. Any carbon dioxide cows produce will be transient. Methane will eventually decay to carbon dioxide, but it will take decades. Still, that's short enough that I don't particularly care about cows.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I just think leftist welfare policies encourage too much breeding by those least able to provide for themselves. Just cut the funding for that. No more ebt cards for babies.

How do you explain that people in countries without welfare policies gets more children then?
People living in poverty gets more children. People with education gets less.

Seems to me like you haw swallowed propaganda without applying critical thinking.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

You said it. The products of modern agriculture are such an unhealthy way to eat that you can only live 80-100 years on it. Moron.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[phantomfive]

Corn? HFCS was the thing to be outraged about last decade. We're on to the new thing now, man. It's wheat! All that gluten is a real boogeyman! In fact, let's get rid of carbs altogether, they never did anyone any good.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies have shown that the paleo diet is the healthiest way for humans to eat.

[Citation needed]

Many studies have shown that it is healthiest to eat mostly vegetables, which is more or less the exact opposite of the paleo diet.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

What I think would be more interesting would be giving women an allowance to stay home and not work. A basic income which is sufficient to raise children but no children are required to collect and the amount does not increase with the number of children.

Rationale is this: single mothers below an income threshold frequently already get government handouts to cover daycare expenses. Why? Because if they had to pay their own daycare expenses their shitty part time job working at Wal Mart or Subway would be a total wash and they might as well stay home. So what's the problem you might ask? If Mommy "x" is worth $80/day doing menial labor and she collects $80/day in daycare benefits from the government... What is the governments interest in paying Mommy "x" to spend time away from her children when they could simply pay her $80/day to be involved in her children's lives? Workforce development? Mommy "x" is never going to be a contributing member to society if she qualifies for these programs regardless. You might as well pay her to minimize the probability her kids grow up to be gang bangers...

Now instead of the government incentivizing impoverished single women to pop out kids via government handouts: they give a fixed allowance to stay the fuck home and GTFO of the job market. If they decide to use that money to have children: more power to them, but the number doesn't increase just cause they need to buy diapers. If they spend 100% of the money on lottery tickets and whiskey and never have children: even better for the cigarette and alcohol companies.

Unemployment #'s magically drop to something like 0% practically overnight and Uncle Sam stops giving 50% discounted labor to shitty employers via wage suppressing government assistance.

Now: Wal Mart and Subway have to pay ~$160+/day to get women interested in coming to work because they would need their existing income + the cost of daycare for it to even be a wash. Outcome: higher median salary, fewer single mothers, and lower unemployment.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[LiENUS]

Many studies have shown that it is healthiest to eat mostly vegetables, which is more or less the exact opposite of the paleo diet.

You sure about that? The Paleo diet I heard of involves only 19-35% of your alories from meats, the rest from vegetables. It just calls for non-starchy vegetables

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.

"Seems to me like you haw swallowed propaganda without applying critical thinking."

"How do you explain that people in countries without welfare policies gets more children then?"

RACE?

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Luckyo]

Nope. Poor in countries with weak or no social security breed far more than ones in countries with strong social security regardless of race.

Do try again.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[amiga3D]

Welfare keeps people in poverty. Why struggle to escape when you can subsist with no effort at all.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[ganjadude]

in poor countries it makes sense for people to have many babes as they tend to not live as long, lower child mortality rates etc etc.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Tagged_84]

No convincing needed, its happening naturally and just a question of when the peak is
Total fertility rate
1950–1955 : 4.95
2010–2015 : 2.36
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re:Corn Subsidies

[king neckbeard]

The paleo diet seems to usually be pretty ill defined, and often has no real relationship to what humans ate during that period.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[jbengt]

Have you seen the movie Avatar? If we all lived like the blue people, the world would be a better place.

One word: "Unobtainium"

Re: Corn Subsidies

[silentcoder]

Aaah the wonder of conjecture - it's so easy to be right when you don't have to check your facts.
Of course in reality, every study done has found that policies like that actually REDUCE the number of children poor people have and increases the age at which they have them.
This may seem counterintuitive to you (since you think with typical right-wing blinkers on) but it's been confirmed in study after study all around the world, including here in my home country of South Africa - recipients of child-grants and social grants have FEWER children, LATER in life and only 25% of the odds of falling pregnant before completing high-school compared to people of the same income who are not receiving those funds.

Why ? Because it allows young girls to upset the usual social dynamics - they aren't dependent on men to survive, so they don't need to offer sex for food. When you take away the power of unscrupulous men to take advantage of women sexually, they gain a LOT more control over their lives and the number one way men take advantage of women sexually is economically. Give young women access to enough money to guarantee survival (especially before they finish their education and have a shot at a decent job) - and you remove the sugardaddy problem.

There is some evidence that this is also a great way to reduce HIV infection rates, though in fairness, there are also some studies that cast doubt on this.
See the nice thing about being a leftist is - we use science rather than dogma to inform our policies and that means it's perfectly okay to say "We don't know" or "we could be wrong about this - the evidence isn't conclusive yet" - something markedly absent on the right (which is why the science-hating bible-thumpers are all on the same side as you).

Re:Corn Subsidies

[silentcoder]

Throw away Malthus - you have to give up the theory of evolution.

Darwin cites Malthus repeatedly in his books and for very good reason: without Malthus, there can't BE evolution.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[SourceFrog]

No, it's more accurate to state that some percentage of environmentalists are malthusians. Or, that malthunianism is simply one "path" of many to environmentalist views. I prefer to base views on fact and science. I'd like to keep a healthy "environment" and decent amounts of "nature" simply because it raises our quality of life, however, so does agriculture, but I think we could find a healthy balance if we worked harder at the "science" part. I think the earth can support 10 billion + and I'd be happy to see that many people, more even. But questions like whether or not global warming is occurring and the effects of that, that's a question of fact/science.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[SourceFrog]

all disappear if we reduce human population to < 100 million

OK, you go first.

Oh wait, it's only OTHER people who are the virus that need to be destroyed.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[pnutjam]

I've said for years that I have no problem with a mother collecting social assistance to stay home with her kids, good luck with that now that the GOP is back on top...

I like you suggestion, but there are too many mean, judgmental, jealous, and spiteful people out there. It's definitely not a majority, but their loud and they turn out to vote. :-(

Re: Corn Subsidies

[pnutjam]

Ask me how I know you've never "subsisted".
Must have been a nice childhood, sorry you grew up to be a dick.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course! The ones that don't see the problem are the problem.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[swillden]

No convincing needed, its happening naturally and just a question of when the peak is Total fertility rate 1950–1955 : 4.95 2010–2015 : 2.36 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Yes and no. What you say is true, and further it appears we've already reached and passed the maximum number of children born per year, in absolute terms. But the population is still growing because the world population is youth-heavy. Assuming we stay on the current trend of gradually declining births and assuming we don't start living longer than 100 years in large numbers, this means the world population will stop growing at about 10B, then start a very slow decline, but that will be far above the levels Spy Hunter thinks we should reach.

I don't think I'd want to live in Spy Hunter's world, though. I certainly wouldn't want to live the "hunter-gatherer lifestyle", which was fully Hobbesian (nasty, brutish and short). In some senses perhaps those people were "healthier" than we are today, but they experienced a lot more pain and died a lot sooner. I suppose Spy Hunter is theorizing some world in which we eat like hunter-gatherers but live in a technological civilization, but that seems like a silly approach when we can, instead, continue our research into human biochemistry to understand exactly what humans need (with much more precision than "eat like hunter-gatherers", who almost certainly never got an ideal diet) and into food production, until we can create food that is healthy (ideally so), safe and flavorful.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[swillden]

Throw away Malthus - you have to give up the theory of evolution.

Darwin cites Malthus repeatedly in his books and for very good reason: without Malthus, there can't BE evolution.

Randomly-driven evolution, no. But we aren't very far from being able to deliberately evolve ourselves, to achieve specific purposes.

There's a good argument, though, that deliberate, directed evolution is also evolution by variation and selection... it's just that the variation and selection is carried out in brains and in computers rather than in genotypes and phenotypes. In fact, there's a good argument that all knowledge creation is via variation and selection, including all knowledge created by humans, though there we call the process speculation and criticism and much of it happens internally so that truly bad ideas never get uttered or written.

So, no need to abandon the theory of evolution.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[operagost]

Some of the people with the highest birth rates can't even be convinced to stop killing other people for having a different religion.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[dywolf]

You dont have to convince anyone.
Increased economic prosperity, freedom, and quality of life does it on its own.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[operagost]

I've said for years that I have no problem with a mother collecting social assistance to stay home with her kids

I do. There shouldn't be single parents in the first place. One should be caring for children and the home while the other is employed. I don't care which one. The problem is that we discourage the father from sticking around, in many ways.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[TheGreatMcCluck]

Unobtainium... Ugh... you just ruined that movie for me all over again.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[amiga3D]

Really? Fortunately for me your opinion doesn't matter. I grew up in a working class household and I live in one now. I drive a 15 year old car and go to work every day. It's dicks like me that make this country prosper. I also donate to charities a portion of that money I make because I like to help those "in need." Not those the government decides are a special class of people that don't have to work. Yes I'm a dick alright. A tax paying working man is classified a dick nowadays and deadbeats are heroic. That's why the US debt is out of sight and getting bigger by the second. When we run out of money just what are all the deadbeats going to do then?

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Areyoukiddingme]

In fact, there's a good argument that all knowledge creation is via variation and selection, including all knowledge created by humans, though there we call the process speculation and criticism and much of it happens internally so that truly bad ideas never get uttered or written.

You're new here, aren't you? And by "here", I mean the Internet...

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Curunir_wolf]

You've convinced Europe.

Which is why they keep importing so many 3rd world immigrants to shore up the tax base, which has to grow continuously to maintain the central banking system.

The US is facing the same issue, and why they need to accelerate immigration - it's the only thing keeping the population growth from going negative.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't think people will accept a lower standard of living in order to not have to work you are mistaken. I did it for years.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

you kinda got to volunteer to suicide. just sayin'.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[silentcoder]

Okay... I didn't think I would need to spell this out - but a core part of the theory of evolution is the process of natural selection and the drivers of natural selection - which is scarcity and competition for resources.
Without scarcity, there's no competition and the species stagnates. Species at the top of the food chain can go millions of years without branching or any visible alteration.
According to fossils the Ceolacanths and great whites are identical to the ones that shared the oceans with ichthyosaurs - but both were in states of abundance.
If they evolved at all it was only things like their immune system - their physical structure untouched.

Where Malthusian dynamics aren't present - natural selection doesn't happen since there's nothing to select.
This doesn't mean (or say anything about) other forms of selection such a human-controlled breeding programs, but those didn't even come into existence until the last few thousand years. They aren't responsible for more than a tiny fraction of the earth's diversity - the force that did nearly all of it was competition due to scarcity as a result of Malthus.

Now that doesn't mean Malthus was perfect, I don't think anybody today thinks he was entirely right actually. At the time the ONLY mathematical series KNOWN was linear and exponential so he used those to explain the clear pattern he saw, that species always outbreed their foodsources (which of course ultimately restores the balance when food becomes scarce enough that most of the eaters die - and now the food can recover again).
Today's versions use much more complicated mathematical series which were unknown in the 19th century, but the basic principle remains entirely intact among biologists.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

Right. The only welfare offered by the taxpayer would be abortion and contraceptives. This way when one or both parents lose their job and the family needs assistance, they aren't encouraged to create more dependency.

People with education are smart enough to know when enough is enough, and in some cases, smart enough to know how broken DCF and 'family' court is. Welcome to the idiocracy where the uneducated and poor breed the most.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

Just rewrite the law (abolish all the affirmative action) so that it applies to everyone equally instead of treating one side as oppressed and the other side as oppressor by default. The only way women are going to have respect as equals is if they are forced to earn it like the men.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

Of course, they figure enough pressure from the poor will force redistribution..or maybe they live in rural countries where farm hands are always needed.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[epyT-R]

I should've stopped reading at 'right wing blinkers', but then I'd've stooped to an NPR level of reasoning.

I'm sure they do because countries that typically have no or weak welfare are rural, where extra hands on the farm are more valuable than the state aid.

The feminist narrative at the heart of your argument is flawed. I wasn't talking about the third world. I was specifically talking about the US system, where EBT cards are handed out to 'heroic' single mothers for the 'accomplishment' of having sex. The number one correlation for lack of maturity and success in poor children in this country is a lack of a father in the home. Then these kids grow up to repeat their parents' mistakes.

As far as 'sugar daddies' go, here in the states, the mother just waits until alimony kicks in, then divorces her 'starter husband' and the ivy league feminist indoctrinated judges award her disproportionate amounts of dad's paycheck, driving him into bankruptcy and then out of work and into debtor's prison for failing to pay. Mom, now 30ish, without any income, looks in vain for another man to latch on to (checkout dating sites for this phenomenon). Women in their 30s with children are undesirable to men who are looking for young, healthy wives to start families, so most of these women resort to fucking around on the side, purposely trying to get knocked up again so they can repeat the process.

If women want respect from and access to men's money, then they'll need to earn it as housewives while he's out making the bucks, or go out and earn their own the same way the men have to. In addition, making real life choices like the high power career OR having children, not both while expecting taxpayers and employers to prop her up, and others like her body, her right, her choice also being her responsibility, would go a long way towards earning mens' respect. This is equality of opportunity, and I have no issue with this. It's what I encourage for everyone. Until the state enforced feminist 'empowerment' is labeled as the hypocritical sexism it is, men have at least one perfectly justified reason for treating un(der)employed baby pumpers who game the system as the irresponsible dependent children they are. No one respects having to slave for another class who gets away with working less, even if it's a pauper's existence. Forcing people's hands makes them resentful. No group should be 'upsetting' any others' productive lifestyle, period, nor should the state engage in picking winners and losers.

HIV infection rate is controlled with judicious selection of sex partners. Most people, even the poor, in this country, know how to do this, but the left's insistence on destroying the family unit without suggesting viable alternatives has caused both sexes to look for sexual opportunity elsewhere, leading to dependence on the state for support, and misery on both sides.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[pnutjam]

I didn't make a distinction between single or married mothers. I don't see a problem with either getting some help.

Re: Corn Subsidies

[pnutjam]

sure convenient that an ac shows up to say that. I'm sure there are people who will, but most won't and are you still doing that today?

Working class spans the lower to upper income, nice try. Working class just means you don't have a trust fund backing you up, although you often have parents with some cash to bail you out. Again, must be nice.

Re:Corn Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

And other studies have shown that agriculture is healthier than the "paleo diet" (if you can define that rigorously, that'd be great) if you pick and choose what you eat. It's also nice to not have to worry nearly as much about food poisoning or parasites. Oh, and civilization is pretty neat; kind of hard to do science or practice modern medicine without the raw efficiency of modern agriculture and industrialization.

Corn husk

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Barry Soetoro (who frequented bath houses in Chicago) pushes for gaydom. It's all part of the agenda

I bet the corn husks are handy

Our greatest weakness is also our strength

[Anonymous Coward]

The computer science community, for years, have lampooned the "models" generated by arm-chair coders who go by the tag of 'climate scientist'. Not only are they riddled with 'fudge factors', but they do not calculate percipitation or model the increased take up of vegetation. One would think that with over 10,000 years of agricultural experiements and findings that a group of people more aligned to green peace than to science, would consider modelling what our sisters on the other side of the great tree of life were doing with increased "plant food" in the air. I guess noone has been listening to Patrick Moore for a *very* long time...

so we should grow more crop !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

let pipe water from up north down to the desert - and grow more crop

Explanation

[rossdee]

CO2 emissions increase in the northern hemisphere winter as everyone turns on their heaters. (which are powered by fossil fuels)

Re:Explanation

[itzly]

That's only half the explanation. You also need to explain why CO2 goes back down in the summer.

Re:Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

they also run their AC's in the summer. and a large portion of the spring and fall
i think youd be hard pressed to show winter heating being a bigger factor than AC.
at best, theyre about even.

Riiiight.

[rs79]

However, the last 50 years has seen the size of this swing has increase by as 50%, for reasons that aren't fully understood. "

The fact we've cut 40% of the worlds trees down in the past 100 years are nothing to do with this. What does NASA know anyway?

Who writes this stuff?

Plants producing net CO2 gain has to be the the most asinine thing I've ever read about Co2.

Contraindication: http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

Re:Riiiight.

[able1234au]

Best to read the source article http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

They are looking at the seasonal swing of CO2, it goes down in Summer and up in Winter. They are not saying it causes a net CO2 gain. It agrees with the book chapter you linked.

Cutting down trees which grow slowly and only few die each year, does increase the seasonal swing as you replace them by fast growing plants that die off every year.

Re:Riiiight.

[jbengt]

I would mod you up, but I've already posted.
From your link:

The atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) record displays a prominent seasonal cycle that arises mainly from changes in vegetation growth and the corresponding CO2 uptake during the boreal spring and summer growing seasons and CO2 release during the autumn and winter seasons

Using a terrestrial carbon cycle model that takes into account high-yield cultivars, fertilizer use and irrigation, we find that the long-term increase in CO2 seasonal amplitude arises from two major regions: the mid-latitude cropland between 25 N and 60 N and the high-latitude natural vegetation between 50 N and 70 N. The long-term trend of seasonal amplitude increase is 0.311 ± 0.027 per cent per year, of which sensitivity experiments attribute 45, 29 and 26 per cent to land-use change, climate variability and change, and increased productivity due to CO2 fertilization, respectively.

Why TFS didn't link to that, and why TFA didn't include that information, will remain a mystery in sloppy reporting.

Re:Riiiight.

[RockDoctor]

will remain a mystery in sloppy reporting.

I think you may have solved the mystery.

So, Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you and your family want to visit the Great Barrier Reef in coming decades I guess you'll have to reduce the amount of corn crops you're growing with which to flood the international markets in the name of reduced competition.

Awesome!

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Since ethanol is really lousy when it comes to fuel mileage

http://www.roadandtrack.com/rt...

And Ethanol is causing farmers to switch to corn growth

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

Please - Keep supporting ethanol. I love paying higher prices in the grocery stores, polluting more, and supporting the people in charge fighting for it!

Brought to you by the Amalgamated Association of morons

http://www.threestooges.net/al...

Re:Awesome!

[able1234au]

Growing corn for ethanol always seemed to me a poor choice. Better to generate biofuel from the inedible waste plant material.

Re:Awesome!

[tomhath]

Better to generate biofuel from the inedible waste plant material.

That was the goal, but it didn't work out because the processes to generate that biofuel efficiently don't exist. It can be done on a small scale but not in quantities that matter.

I have a different take

[argStyopa]

"What it points to" is that we know slightly more than "fuck all" about the climate, so the cowboys who think we should get started on megaengineering projects because we think that they'll stave off or reverse global warming...should be thrown right into straitjackets.

Re:I have a different take

[itzly]

Burning fossil fuels at the current rate is also a mega-engineering project.

Re:I have a different take

[KeensMustard]

"What it points to" is that we know slightly more than "fuck all" about the climate

Perhaps you don't. Ignorance on your part doesn't imply the rest of us are ignorant. In any way.

The Final Solution

[SuperKendall]

Studies have shown that the paleo diet is the healthiest way for humans to eat. And we all know that the earth is overpopulated.

So what you are saying is we know we all should be eating mostly meat, and there's way too much meat on two legs wandering around.

HMM...

the title of the article should be

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate Change Priests want to use their religion to reenact the holodomor on a global scale.

Editors schmeditors

[Hognoxious]

the last 50 years has seen the size of this swing has increase by as 50%

I'd run this through babelfish, but I can't work out what language it's supposed to be.

Re: Editors schmeditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Editors? Slashdot is now run and "edited" by 3 semi-trained chimpanzees and a golden retriever that prevents them from leaving.

Re:Editors schmeditors

[Rashdot]

That sentence has a 100% increase in has.

Re: Editors schmeditors

[Areyoukiddingme]

Editors? Slashdot is now run and "edited" by 3 semi-trained chimpanzees and a golden retriever that prevents them from leaving.

Now if only the dog had been writing the code, maybe Beta wouldn't suck so hard.

global warming doesn't get enough attention

[Anonymous Coward]

With the drastic swings in CO2 emissions it's very likely - almost a certainty - that 75% of the world's population will perish by March 2015. The time to act is NOW!

Bender's solution to climate change

[CoderFool]

"Kill all humans!"

Growth Nightmare

[JimSadler]

More population requires more crops be grown which causes a disturbance in the CO2 cycle. It comes back to the same thing as almost all our other woes. Allowing people to reproduce irresponsably is our downfall. If we had half the population we now have we would have half the pollution, half the energy demands, half the urban sprawl, and half of just about every other problem that we currently face. No just why does the nation and the world avoid confronting the real cause of our woes? Big business needs buyers. If we engineer society to have less people we then have a society that consumes less. Business loves runaway irresponsible consumption. Or put in a more ancient way business loves money. And being that one can not serve two masters business has taken on money as their god and rejected morality and faith.

When Did Slashdot become Green(no-think)Peace?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot seems to be straying from its "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters" by-line, and getting into the territory of "Envrionmentalist Appeasers." Of course there is more CO2 'exhaled' by plants in the northern hemisphere. There's more PLANTS in the northern hemisphere. If you wish to look at the real cause of global warming, look at the nuclear disarmament groups like Greenpeace. If they had stuck to "nuclear disarmament" - like "peace symbol" actually was designed to do (it's a combination of the semaphore signals for 'N' and 'D') - instead of railing against nuclear power in general, we wouldn't have a new coal fired power-plant coming on line every week.

Some stark raving trivia here folks:
- The amount of radiation released every 6 years by the world's coal-fired power-plants is equivalent in Curies/Grays/etc to the sum total of every single man-made nuclear reaction in history.
- A nuclear power plant, over its operation lifetime, generates as much radioactive waste (curie weight) as one coal fired power plant releases into the atmosphere in one year. It also does have the carbon, toxin, or blight footprint as a coal-fired plant.
- Nuclear half-lives mean just the OPPOSITE of what Greenpeace and other environmentalists tell you. A short half-life material is more dangerous than a long half-life material. Take a 1 Mole tube of Tritium (half-life 12 years), and a 1 mole tube of Plutonium 244 (half-life, 80 million years). Greenpeace logic will tell you that the Plutonium-244 is the big bad when it comes to radiation. Wrong. But Greenpeace made a ton of money off telling us that nuclear power is so horrible and dangerous.

In my opinion, Greenpeace has done 2, and only 2, things good for the United States: They convinced the NRC to require more stringent requirements for nuclear power. And they convinced people that "the solution to pollution is dilution" is a bad idea. That's it.

 

So, this raises a few points

[RogueWarrior65]

First, at what time of year are CO2 levels being measured for use in writing environmental research papers (and dictating policy)? Second, if corn is such a big contributor, then corn ethanol is adding to CO2 levels not reducing them. Third, by pissing away water on bait fish in California instead of allowing farms to grow CO2-inhaling crops (of plant types that aren't completely cut down each harvest), we are effectively adding to CO2 levels.

Re:So, this raises a few points

[itzly]

First, at what time of year are CO2 levels being measured for use in writing environmental research papers (and dictating policy)?

They just take the yearly average. And the corn isn't adding to (average) CO2 levels, it's just adding a little bit of extra seasonal swings to it.

More farmers growing corn, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing unusual at all, farmers have been growing more corn than ever before since it is more profitable (and exportable, i.e. China) than other crops.

The Final Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies have shown that the paleo diet is the healthiest way for humans to eat. And we all know that the earth is overpopulated.

So what you are saying is we know we all should be eating mostly meat, and there's way too much meat on two legs wandering around.

HMM...

As always, this topic has already been covered:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/105/

CAPTCHA: organic - ew...

And the problems with academic research

[pkinetics]

If the scientists are on the EPA panel, heaven forbid the research is valid or even useful and can be discussed.

....so if we.....

[OutOnARock]

Grew corn all summer and it "inhaled" carbon dioxide...

then we sequestered the dead stalks instead of letting them rot on the ground and "exhale" carbon dioxide....

wouldn't that start reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

and if we sequestered it deep underground under enormous pressure for long periods of time, we'd create new oil...

Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much of "Global Warming" is caused by taking samples during the peak of the annual cycle ?

Ask not ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask not what plants can do with CO2, ask what CO2 can do to plants :)