As The Planet Warms, We'll Be Having Rice With A Side Of CO2 (npr.org)

Grains are the bedrock of civilization. They led humans from hunting and gathering to city-building. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the fruits of three grasses provide the world with 60 percent of its total food: corn, wheat and rice. Aside from energy-rich carbohydrates, grains feed us protein, zinc, iron and essential B vitamins. But rice as we know it is at risk. An anonymous reader shares a report: As humans expel billions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere and raze vast swaths of forests, the concentration of carbon dioxide in our air hurries ever higher. That has the potential to severely diminish the nutritional value of rice, according to a new study published this week in Science Advances. For people who depend heavily on rice as a staple in their diets, such a nutritional loss would be devastating, says Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington and an author on the study.

Comments

Re:Fiddly Di Fiddly Do Potatos

[Immerman]

I'd be strongly in favor of banning all gene patents: lets get the direct profit motive out of developing GMOs, so that the ones we do get are at least mostly driven by less thoroughly corrupting impulses. Lots of good work has been done in academia - sometimes misguided, but at least they're generally aiming to improve the human condition.

The stuff coming out of corporations on the other hand tends to be entirely focused on improving their own profit margins, with no regard for the consequences.

Here's the bottom line

[rsilvergun]

inflation eats away at my income a little every year. I'm being told that addressing climate change would kill jobs and in turn wages. And you know, it probably would for a lot of people. Even if it makes new jobs there's no guarantee I'll get them or that they'll pay the same as I make now.

We've got too many people living hand to mouth who can be easily kowtowed with threats of job loss. They'll come out and vote in any democracy against climate change because climate change is years from now and the rent's due today.

If you want to do something about climate change you need to fix their economy first. Until then they'll fight you tooth and nail and they've got the backing of the billionaires (who don't want to pay taxes to fix things) so they'll win.

Re:Good thing the world embraces GMO rice then!

[religionofpeas]

It isn't enough, but it would have given a lot more time to deal with the problem

We had plenty of time, but nobody cares about dealing with problems until it's too late.

Simle minds expect simple solutions

[DanDD]

Nuclear power and GMO foods are going to save us? Really?

Solar is dwarfing nuclear.

As for GMO crops, um, no. Just no.

Do you realize the connection between the nitrogen cycle, fossil fuels, and the 1973 oil embargo?

In a nutshell: World populations grew faster than land based plants can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. The natural carrying capacity of this planet using sustainable traditional agriculture is about 2 billion humans. Oddly enough, about the time that the world population level reached 2 billion humans, the most technically advanced society at that time created a process to make large scale artificial fertilizers (and explosives) and a major engine of the industrial revolution. Both powered by fossil fuels. Farming commenced on a massive scale. And war, but that's just entertainment for idiots and of no real importance.

Fast forward to 1973. A new world power (USA) pisses off the a little Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and finds itself with insufficient energy to function. Everybody scrambled to find a way to fuel airplanes, cars, and tractors. Monsanto discovers that a chemical chelator that removes calcium, manganese, magnesium, copper and zinc (trace elements essential for most forms of life on earth), also kills weeds. Go figure. This seems to suggest a way to conduct large scale farming without having to till the earth, which greatly reduces the fuel needed to farm. Fast forward a bit, and now we have GMO crops that survive occasional applications of this new miracle herbicide. And then there's the unregulated application of this new herbicide on wheat. Because Profit.. And it seems to be everywhere.

Sadly, many forms of animal life that come in contact with Monsanto's creation get cancer, have the epithelial lining of their intestines die, and get misdiagnosed as having Celiac disease. And those that aren't so lucky end up morbidly ill and dying prematurely due to complications of a diet high in high fructose corn syrup (high cholesterol, heart disease, etc.)

Now connect the dots... stay with me here:

GMO foods today have their origin in a lack of energy and environmental planning. These are contributing to CO2 levels and a whole collection of ensuing health and environmental disasters.

Stop spewing carbon, stop processing food with short sighted techniques that result only profit for some and misery and death for most. And please realize that messing with plants has the potential to cause death and misery on a truly global scale. Do you really want to go there, for profit?

Re:Scapegoat much?

[93 Escort Wagon]

The waste from the power generation is the same radioactive and poisonous mix of roughly 1000 elements that comes out of every reactor.

1000 elements?! My periodic table is apparently way, WAY out of date...