Slashdot Mirror
Climate Change Could Lead To Nutrient Deficiency For Hundreds of Millions (smithsonianmag.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Smithsonian: According to new research, rising carbon dioxide levels will sap some of the nutrients from our crops and lead to dietary deficiencies in millions of humans. In 2014, field trials of common food crops including wheat, rice, corn and soybeans showed that as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased, the levels of iron, zinc and protein decreased in the dietary staples by 3 to 17 percent. While the decrease in a few nutrients may not seem important in food secure countries, it could have a big impact in poorer nations.
In the new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers calculated the impact of declining nutrients on human health. According to a press release, the team looked at the impact of rising CO2 on 225 different types of food. Based on population estimates for 2050 and an expected rise of carbon dioxide from about 400 parts per million today to 550 ppm by mid-century, the team found that the nutrient deficiencies of those already suffering will worsen, and 175 million more people could join the 1.2 billion who are zinc deficient and 122 million people would be added to the 622 million who don't receive enough protein. About 1.4 billion women of childbearing age and children under 5 could see their iron intake drop by about 4 percent.
In the new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers calculated the impact of declining nutrients on human health. According to a press release, the team looked at the impact of rising CO2 on 225 different types of food. Based on population estimates for 2050 and an expected rise of carbon dioxide from about 400 parts per million today to 550 ppm by mid-century, the team found that the nutrient deficiencies of those already suffering will worsen, and 175 million more people could join the 1.2 billion who are zinc deficient and 122 million people would be added to the 622 million who don't receive enough protein. About 1.4 billion women of childbearing age and children under 5 could see their iron intake drop by about 4 percent.
This isn't good but fortunately I just bought a $60,000 Tesla so I am sure things are going to turn around real soon now for the environment.
Information taken personally by simple man, feels guilty and emotionally inconvenienced. Blames conspiracy as means to emotionally divest. News at 11.
"Old man yells at systemd"
There are simply too damn many people on earth.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Obviously, it's not "climate change" that lowers nutrients, it's carbon dioxide. And the "nutrients" that are being lost are zinc and iron, trivial to supplement even in the unlikely event that people don't get enough from their diet and the issue can't be addressed by simple breeding.
This isn't new, I read about this last year. The result is humans will need to consume more food to achieve the same level of nutrients.
This is essentially the same story as on may 25th slashdot
what do you mean by "overall increase of nutrition"? Do you want to eat 25% more bread to get the nutrients you need? This will lead to obesity and diabetes if people need to eat more carbohyrates.
We know from the past to blame everything on George Bush.
Historically, the church was responsible for telling you what is good/bad, and the bible written in Latin/Greek/Aramaic was not readable by the masses. So they would make up what it said to control people, but you could "pay money" to be absolved of sins. Martin Luther translated the bible and all that crap came to an end pretty quick.
AGW appears to be the same. They tell you what is good/bad, you are not allowed to question them because they are "experts" and you are not. However, you can pay them money to be absolved of your AGW sins. With the number of times they have been caught outright lying, I am beginning to believe they desire to become like the Catholic church before the Lutheran revolution.
For example, Al Gore is one of their "Popes". He flys in private jets, with a huge house, and large SUVs, telling you that you are the problem. Just like the old corrupt Popes of the Catholic church (are they better today?).
If the alternative is dying, then yup, yup I do want to eat 25% more bread and I'll take the obesity and a side of diabetes.
It sounds to me like they are trying to tie the nutritional woes of the lack of proper soil, lack of crop rotation, and over planting to CO2 levels. The study is completely flawed and total rubbish and can be explained by so many other factors that it isn't even worth debunking it.
This is right down the same line as ice cream and shark attacks. I can produce believable evidence of their link. When you look at statistics, ice cream consumption and shark attacks do correlate very well together. I can say, with an array of "empirical" evidence, that eating ice cream increases your chances of being attacked by a shark. But the statement is not correct. The two items are not related in that way at all directly. The climate during the time of the year yields more ice cream consumption and more people in water which explains how these two situations are linked.
Typical pseudo statistical data that quite often leads to some pretty fucking stupid conclusions.
As gleaned from the linked article. Quote;
The precise biological mechanism that causes nutrient levels to fall is not well understood as yet. But Professor Brian Thomas, a plant develoment (development...their editors suck too) expert at the University of Warwick and not involved in the research said: "The work is convincing and consistent with what we do know about the plant physiology."
end Quote;
If we are going to be cited in an article that make claims like this, Professor Brian Thomas had better understand and produce some convincing evidence and be directly involved in the project.
Do you want to eat 25% more bread to get the nutrients you need
The answer to that is "yes" for the groups we are talking about. People in places where there is significant food scarcity and nutritional insecurity absolutely could stand to eat more calories and still be healthy. The vast vast majority of them wish the could!
In places that are not food insecure; that wont be necessary at all making small variations in diet will more than likely fill any nutrient deficits without increasing calorie count. Sure some westerners do manage to get scurvy even in the 21st century - but that is because they make stupid choices like eating nothing by Kraft MacnCheese all week. Its not because they don't or won't have other options. Even if you are way below the poverty line in the west you could still eat a fist full of dandelion greens and chew on some pine needles - to supplement you bread and cheese.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Obviously this is a click-bait headline. Regardless of your views on climate change, this is not really an article about climate change. It says that increased CO2 has a negative effect on nutrients produced by these specified crops. I think they do a good job of making their point. Now, if people want to debate the effect of human produced CO2, that's a different discussion.
Wow that was difficult to think of. Feel free to go back to flagellating yourselves with stories of imminent doom.
I guess soil depletion wasn't the cause after all!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I remember reading about this or a similar study a little while ago, and that was my takeaway - that yields would rise, but nutrient density decline, leading to people on the edge getting less nutrition per calorie intake. So like you said, if you keep eating the same quantity you get malnourished, if you eat more you get the ill effects of over consumption.
Past, more in-depth studies on this topic have concluded that the effect varies by cultivar (with some nutrients actually increasing in some cultivars). This study briefly acknowledges that concept, then layers on several other ways to keep the sky from falling:
Beyond stepping up nutritional surveillance, there are a variety of actions that could be taken to reduce nutritional vulnerability.
Different cultivars of certain food crops—particularly rice and legumes—have shown differential sensitivity to CO2 for specific nutrients, showing that it may be possible to selectively use or potentially breed cultivars with reduced sensitivity to these effects.
In addition, biofortification of crops with nutrients and the use of developing agricultural techniques that optimize the uptake of iron, zinc or nitrogen may be possible and have shown some early promise. Also, national fortification and supplementation programmes may ameliorate nutritional deficiencies, particularly for targeted vulnerable groups.
Finally, encouraging dietary diversity through the consumption of greater quantities of nutrient-rich grains and pulses, or even through relatively small increases in animal-sourced foods for developing countries where intake is low and it would be culturally appropriate, may offset nutritional inadequacy with relatively little government intervention.
Can I have a show of hands who still cares? Nobody? Thought so.
Let's face it. Those that did actually care are by now simply done with trying to convince idiots. I know that I am. Enjoy your planet once you managed to fuck it up beyond repair, I probably won't be here anymore anyway. I'm done trying to inform and teach.
I sit back with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the flooding. I'm up here on my hill, enjoy your beach front house. But don't try to climb my hill.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
More people to feed = Higher Yields If they achieve that by ignoring the simple process of crop rotation then it's entirely normal the soil is low in minerals year after year...
Says the AC providing no evidence, let alone convincing evidence, and with no link to the project; but I'm sure your rant is going to be far more persuasive than the backing of a biology professor who has been doing research on environmental impacts on plants for over a decade, and who to quote his university profile "Current work involves a study of water and nutrient use efficiency in Brassica and wheat at ambient and elevated CO2 levels."
If only there was a pill people could take to help.
There's pills for that, and condoms, and all kinds of things to limit population growth. Oh, you mean vitamins? That works too. Or we could make sure people eat more meat, which was suggested in the article.
I'm pretty sure much of the issues of starvation in the world is due to tyrants running their countries into the ground.
Expect the next nation to be overwhelmed by tyranny and the starvation that follows to be South Africa. They seem to think that European descendants that owned farmland for centuries is racist and so the government is just going to take their land. Well, those families owned the land because they know how to farm it. You remove the farmers from the land they cultivated with care and handed down over generations, then hand that land to people that don't know how to farm that land, and you will see food scarcity. In centuries past this might mean a nation getting sent back to the stone age but now it will probably mean wealthy nations coming in to feed everyone, proclamations of "mistakes were made" but no one will get punished, and no one will learn anything.
These land grabs in South Africa should be considered crimes against humanity and the people doing this be severely punished. We don't hear much about this in popular media because that would mean pointing out that people with dark skin can be racist.
There's no shortage of nutrition in the world that wasn't caused by idiots in government. I'm pretty sure that global warming is the fault of idiots in government too.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
How is that a different discussion? Research like wouldn't even be happening if the scientific community at large wasn't absolutely sure that CO2 levels will continue to rise due to human produced CO2. The research and take-away is political by nature. Click-bait is a term you can use dismissively on anything that's designed to attract attention, but "Comet about to hit earth" isn't a click bait headline if a comet is going to hit the earth.
Climate Change Could Lead To Nutrient Deficiency For Hundreds of Millions.
Rising levels of CO2 is climate change. Could. Not will, but could. Hundreds of Millions is a relatively modest percent of humans on earth. And that's click-baity to you? I really have no idea what you're fucking complaining about, short of the headline being "Don't read this, it's boring and has nothing to do with you."
"Old man yells at systemd"
Seriously, is the ANYTHING bad that hasn't been threatened to happen from climate change?
Halitosis?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
But the upside is that thc and bud production is increasing, so theres that.
You think new beaches will destroy the planet?
The aganda here is not what many think. The agenda is to get you to stop paying attention because you are tired of hearing about it, so you'll demand we start burning coal. Peace out.
While I agree with your sentiment about paying attention, coal is going away because of natural gas.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
In your rush to be offended, you seem to have missed my point. You claim that rising CO2 and climate change are the exact same thing. There are plenty of other things that can lead to climate change. If you wanted to create an accurate headline, you could say "Rising CO2 Could Lead To Nutrient Deficiency For Hundreds of Millions". That would accurately describe the research. I would find that to be an interesting enough headline to read the story. Instead, they try to entice more readers by using a click-bait type headline. In no way am I trying to say this is a story that does not deserve to be read.
No, actually, climate change makes your breath fresher. But, you're not going to hear that from the MSM!
sig: sauer
I'm more interested in getting the atmosphere's O2 above 30% again. We'd get giant insects again. Who wouldn't want giant insects? Should be easier to keep them out of my house... I hope...
The number cited in the report is closer to five or ten percent - and that also pushes the results into "not very significant" range. For example, with a 5% relative reduction in iron in a wheat crop, 100 grams of bread goes from 35% of the recommended daily allowance to 33% or so. The difference is tiny, when compared to the much larger increase in crop yield.
A lot of nutritional deficiencies could also be addressed by people being able to grow multiple crops for food, instead of concentrating on the one staple crop they go with because that's the one that actually gives them enough food to live at all.
This is a pretty pathetic study - "yeah, fewer people would starve to death, but they have to eat slightly more food to get a good diet!"
Due to the difference in nutrition, instead of eating 10 units of food, you'd need to eat 10.5 or 11 - but you'd have 13 or 14 units of food available.
Oh I dunno. There may be an issue with particular nutrients in particular crops in particular climates and soils. Meanwhile, greenhouses increase co2 to 1000 ppm to increase photosynthesis. Trouble is there are so many soft areas where research is not of the highest gold standard, but I am all for science being respected and well funded in general. But that doesn't mean it is all useful, and we have seen the news about how this or that science journal editor has concluded that you just can't believe at face value most of what is published.
Carbon Dioxide In Greenhouses
Nah, but the smell of the people who drowned, you know what corpses that float in water smell like? Really disgusting.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's possible I'm both racist and ignorant. Oh, and sexist. Probably sexist too. Because I'm a man, with skin so white it's nearly translucent, therefore I must be ignorant, racist, and sexist. Oh, and homophobic too, I almost forgot about that.
I've been accused of so many things that it means nothing any more. How about instead of providing insults you provide some information?
The BBC has been giving some reporting on this and they aren't exactly a small time blog known for right wing conspiracy theories.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world...
The government is planning to take land from people without compensation, and amending the constitution to make it "legal". This will have long lasting effects on people in the country that produce food and conduct business. We've seen how things like this play out and it never goes well. There will be food shortages, unemployment, and all the "fun times" that come with both. This is simply blatant racism against the white minority and it will not go well for South Africa and their neighbors.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Problem is , there is probably some truth behind what they are saying, but the hyperbole and hype are there to try and gain political control. If it was absent and people we discussing , practical , real , everyday solutions, then there would be change. Because in order to be practical a solution has to solve 'enough' of the problem the current tech does and do so more efficiently ( aka for less total money).
What people seem to want, is quick answers that let them continue doing what they have always done and the government types just used the environment as a political hokey puck.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
No, there is no truth. Overproduction causes depletion of nutrients in soil. Nothing to do with co2, just greed driven creation of low quality products in quantity.
Just run it through a cow or a chicken to concentrate the nutrients.
Some theorise that this is already happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The root cause of almost all the problems of pollution, resource exhaustion and crowding is simple: too many human beings sharing a planet that could comfortably and sustainably support one, or maybe two billion.
It's very easy to wave arms and make facile comments about how foolish Malthus was - but, in principle, he was completely right. Thanks (perhaps) to human ingenuity, we have staved off the moment of crisis for a few decades. But perhaps the final consequence will just be a far worse collapse.
Think. As population grows, the need for food obviously grows with it. So does the amount of manufactured objects and services demanded by the larger population. Which is mainly responsible for higher CO2 levels? It's hard to say; but one thing can be said with certainty. If the human population were still one billion (or three billion even) we would not have most of these problems.
Why are crops getting poorer in vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients? Largely because too many harvests are being taken out of a fixed area under cultivation. The Green Revolution produced much greater yields - with generous application of artificial fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides - but the soil can only produce nutrients at a given rate. Quadruple the weight of your annual harvest, and pretty soon you have sucked most of the vitamins and minerals out of the fields. After the food is eaten, anything left over goes down the sewer and is lost. It definitely doesn't go back on the land, as animal and human manure used to.
For a little more information, I suggest reading Philip Lymberry's "Farmageddon" and Richard Manning's "Against the Grain".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Yeah. CO2 stimulates faster plant growth, thus accelerating the depletion of the fixed amounts of minerals in the soil.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
You nailed it, my friend. When I want to see deniers get all ragey and weird, I just point out that the US military and the insurance industry (quintessential, nut-cutting corporate hardasses) have completely accepted the fact of human-caused Global Warming and incorporated it into their strategic plans.
I wouldn't be surprised if 50 years from now, people are looking up some of the high profile deniers and hanging their offspring from the nearest (dead) tree.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
What's your point? That agriculture is more interested in size then the nutrients in the crops? I think that is well established that when someone gets paid by weight, they'll try for increasing the weight of what they're selling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
No, there is no truth. Overproduction causes depletion of nutrients in soil. Nothing to do with co2, just greed driven creation of low quality products in quantity.
You don't think they accounted for such an obvious factor, which is so very simple to account for using soil samples? You really do think you're smarter than everyone else, don't you?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Look, if these environmental doomsayers had their way, the evil, disgusting scourge of humanity would be wiped form the face of Mother Gaia. They should be cheering this as good news. Thin the herd.
...apparently we've looped back to the beginning and you guys are starting to repeat the same fears again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Didn't he pretty much say the exact same thing in 1798?
Didn't happen.
Won't happen this time either..
What's next, are you guys going to start crying about "peak oil" again (in 1909 you guys were saying we only had oil for maybe 25-30 years left)? (http://paleofuture.com/blog/2009/6/14/oil-and-gas-will-eventually-be-exhausted-1909.html)
-Styopa
... and it turned my brother into a newt!
A warmer climate means a MUCH wider farmable region of earth, with longer growing seasons in many northern climates.
You want proof? What has more vegetation, a jungle or Canada. You might say, but Canada is dryer (ha!), but that person would be forgetting what a warmer climate means in terms of increased evaporation across the entire surface of the ocean...
Anyone who claims that global warming leads to less food is absolutely lying and worst of all, KNOWS they are lying to try and scare you. What you should do is tar and feather an pillory them until they wind up living under a bridge, which is where troll belong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Alarmists serve an EXTREMELY important role in society and we shouldn't encourage the fools who always dismiss them!
Smart people get motivated by an impending crisis and by thinking ahead (possibly even long term thinking) they find solutions to a future necessity. When the crisis has been averted the fools all spew hot air and probably are not even grateful to those who solved the problem.
NOTE: Humans can't always solve every problem in time; and some problems will prove to be beyond human mental capacity.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
When I want to see deniers get all ragey and weird,
Yeah, that's a great way to get buy in to your political goals. Well done.
Do you want massive fire storms? Because that's how you get massive fire storms. If the level of O2 in the atmosphere was 30% it might be impossible to effectively fight fires.
Ooh, Big Studies and Research. Who's the market leader in that space?
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
You claim that rising CO2 and climate change are the exact same thing. ...
Nitpicking again?
Yes, there are plenty of other things
However we have the year 2018. The most important thing on the planet at the moment is human introduced climate change, aka global warming caused by CO2. Obviously we are talking about that, and not other reasons like a nuclear war or an comet impact.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The primary driver for climate change is the sun. If we're exiting the Quaternary Ice Age after a couple hundred million years (and it sort of looks like we are. starting 10k years ago), it's not because of CO2.
You can blame CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gasses) for the rapidity of climate change if you like, and that's important to us humans. But if the pattern for the past millions of years was holding, rising CO2 would mean temps were falling slowly rather than plummeting. It's not human activity that broke that pattern.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
To qualify to make a study in "climate change" you have to have studied in an university first for 5 - 10 years and made a diploma in climate and meteorology ... and then you need to be a member in a research team or found one. So: "no, there is no research industry"
You are an idiot. Researchers usually don't earn money. They barely can pay the bills, moron!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So you want everyone to eat 30% more to compensate for the lack of some trace elements, vitamins and essential oils/fats and amino acids?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
110010001000 spent 60 grand -- there are Tesla Model 3 configurations you can get for that amount.
But maybe the person posting that drives a 15 year old Honda Civic when not taking the city bus or walking and is having fun at the expense of people who think that a car is that labor and mineral resource intensive that it costs 60 grand is going to Save the Earth.
You aren't going to get "buy in" from those morons anyway, so there's nothing to lose. Besides sometimes it's actually beneficial to call an asshole an asshole, and not apologize for it.
Consider your head patted and a lollypop duly handed out, along with an invitation to have a nice day. Run along, now. This is an adult conversation.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Often it is, but it's useful to judge things on their own merits, otherwise you end up with:
Therefore, I'm immortal.
An Australian company was researching dispersal and monitoring of renewable energy via block chain.
Further, the Venezuelan government we're introducing their own fossil fuel backed crypto currency. Block chain will reduce emissions in that country once hackers short the price making petroleum too expensive to purchase.
If we keep puking CO2 into the atmosphere, CO2 levels will rise. This ain't rocket science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Considering that some want to use insects as a staple food source, that'd be a boon. Then again, I wonder how big we'd get?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Conspiracy theories are over there next to the Flat Earth Society
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Actuaries have no political goals. They have purely economic ones. They exist solely to make sure insurance companies aren't vulnerable to tangible and measurable risks. AGW presents multiple such risks, and since they are not childish and unable to accept hard facts, they can see greater incidents of strong storm fronts, flooding, sea level rise, wild fires, and they have but one job, to either decide what will or won't be covered by the insurance companies, or if it is to be covered, to make sure the money insurance companies charge for coverage accounts for the greater risks.
It's you that is in fantasy land. Grow up. The laws of nature are not designed to make you feel better or more comfortable. The universe doesn't care about your ideology one little bit. To the physical laws, you're just a pack of atoms, and your feelings mean absolutely nothing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Yet more flawed science based on misleading and false facts. Liberal bias is a mental disease."
ROFL.. AC ignorant trolling is a mental disease
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
If you're looking for the actual research, you can find it in various places at Washington State University and the University of Washington.
Reality doesn't care about your failed fossil fuel religion.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
they are also trying to fix their CO2 problems, they are leading in renewable deployment unlike some "developed" countries we could name who are still trying to stop renewables
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Even if warming is part of a natural cycle, it does seem quite likely that man is exacerbating the situation. If nothing else, if we could run our societies without belching pollution into the atmosphere, it'd be the better alternative. I look forward to clean fusion plants (now supposedly only 20 years in the future!).
So please, folks, don't call me a "denier". My issue is that few of the proposed "solutions" seem to be based on science. I see the occasional discussion of carbon sequestration and that sort of thing, but far more often the "solution" is just a green cloak meant to hide the proposer's socialist SJW motives.
For example, the IPCC report on climate change...Let's see...it doesn't seem to be about the effect of climate on plants and animals (and humans). It does mention climatey things... It said that without action to address the problem, by the year 2100, hundreds of millions of people could be affected by coastal flooding and displaced due to land loss. "Impacts from recent extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires, show significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to climate variability," the report warned.
But mainly, the IPCC report seems to be about poverty and income inequality and funding needed to address it, with climate change to have the largest impact on people who are socially and economically marginalized. "Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low and lower-middle income countries, including high mountain states, countries at risk from sea-level rise, and countries with indigenous peoples, and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries in which inequality is increasing," But funding needed to offset the impact of climate change is lacking, the report warned, saying developing countries would need between $70 billion to $100 billion a year to implement needed measures. And efforts to reduce the effects of climate change would only have a marginal effect on reducing poverty unless "structural inequalities are addressed and needs for equity among poor and nonpoor people are met."
It's not about climate change or environmentalism, it really hasn't been for a long time...it's about socialist economic policy--redistribution of wealth. The leaders of the movement readily admit as much.
(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.
Christiana Figueres, leader of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.”
Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: “No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice an
When environmentalist say we need fewer people, they always assume that they--of course--would be included in the group that gets to keep on living when the rest are euthanized or however they envision accomplishing their population reduction.
P.S. Has Paul Ehrlich EVER been right?
Optimum Human Population Size
By Gretchen C. Daily, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich
Although the tremendous size and rate of growth of the human population now influences virtually every aspect of society, rarely does the public debate, or even consider, the question of what would be an optimum number of human beings to live on Earth at any given time. While there are many possible optima depending on criteria and conditions, there is a solid scientific basis for determining the bounds of possibilities. All optima must lie between the minimum viable population size, MVP (Gilpin and Soule, 1986; Soule, 1987) and the biophysical carrying capacity of the planet (Daily and Ehrlich, 1992). At the lower end, 50 to 100 people in each of several groups, for a total of about 500, would constitute an MVP.
At the upper end, the present population of 5.5 billion, with its resource consumption patterns and technologies, has clearly exceeded the capacity of Earth to sustain it. This is evident in the continuous depletion and dispersion of a one-time inheritance of essential, non-substitutable resources that now maintains the human enterprise (e.g. Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1991; Daily and Ehrlich, 1992).
A world with 1.5 billion people using 4.5 TW of energy seems equally plausible and would carry a larger margin of safety. This is about the same number of people as existed at the turn of the century.
To summarize this brief essay, determination of an "optimum" world population size involves social decisions about the lifestyles to be lived and the distribution of those lifestyles among individuals in the population. To us it seems reasonable to assume that, until cultures and technologies change radically, the optimum size of the human population lies in the vicinity of 1.5 to 2 billion people.
Yep, it certainly appears that South Africa is on the fast track to ignoring all the lessons that should have been learned from the stellar success that was Mugabe's Zimbabwe experiment.
Brawndo! It's got what plants crave! It has electrolytes!
we have to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O) to slow down climate change and give us time to adapt
Maybe. How much will it help? How much will it cost to help? How much will it cost if we ignore the problem?
If we can agree to do this, we have a chance to survive.
Survive? Seriously? This sort of shit is where the science of climate change gets ignored in the religious fever of its True Believers.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Carbon Dioxide In Greenhouses Generally, adding CO2 has been considered to be a great benefit to plants. Its odd that this study disagrees with countless others. Just Google: greenhouses add co2
No, these young alarmists "scientists" don't account for it for they didn't use control soil sample. they're an embarrassment to the cause of lowering carbon (and radioactive ash) pollution
You don't understand the science at all. Increases in CO2 alters the chemistry of plant growth...which means that they store a lot less nutrients.
You don't understand the amount that CO2 is actually affecting nutrients in the STUDY (singular, the one that all other scaremongering references).
If you actually look at the study the plants diminish in protein about 10%. That is not a LOT, and is more than made up for literally millions of acres of land that can grow more food.
Not to mention this study ONLY looks at rice, and even then qualifies that there need to be more strains of rice considered to say what even happens to rice!!! They aren't even willing to say that the study properly covers rice and you are extrapolating this result to every plant across the world.... now THAT is ignoring the science, and engaging in truly deep scaremongering.
You an easily tell when someone is trying to scare you - just watch for words like "a lot" or belting you. That along with the lack of links and real data usually means they don't know what the hell they are talking about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With increased evaporation that means that inevitably it will be wet more often, and dry less often. That's how the atmosphere works. The earth getting warmer does not change the fundamental cycles based on physics. When water goes into the atmosphere it has to come back down somewhere eventually. What is likely in fact is that some desert areas will shrink, which is kind of sad on its own but beneficial to humans.
There is no desert area that will expand greatly because anywhere there is moisture now, there will generally be more even if weather patterns shift a bit. The temperature is not changing enough that the jet stream will be affected much. Nor would it change geography which is a large part of what dictates where condensed water ends up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The aganda here is not what many think. The agenda is to get you to stop paying attention because you are tired of hearing about it, so you'll demand we start burning coal. Peace out.
While I agree with your sentiment about paying attention, coal is going away because of natural gas.
Natural gas is a fine transition fuel, and I whole heartedly approve of it's use.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
We have the videos from the studio where the fake moon landings were filmed by Stanley Kubrick.
I saw that one. I love the part where the lunar module lands on the moon, and you see the astronaut get out and plant the Russian flag. Then you see the astronaut take his helmet off and it's Trump! Bigly!
Did you hear the one about how they hired Kubrick to make the fake moon landing videos, but he was such a perfectionist that they had to go to the moon so he could film it?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The study showed that vegetables grown in higher CO2 concentrations grew FASTER. A large carrot is less nutrient-dense than a small carrot which was grown more slowly, the same as fast-growing trees (like pine) produce weaker wood than slow-growing ones (like oak). The idea that more abundant food will result in fewer nutrients per cubic inch, and that's a bad thing, is absurd.
Research like wouldn't even be happening if the scientific community at large wasn't absolutely sure that CO2 levels will continue to rise due to human produced CO2
So much wrong in that post, I'll just start with this sentence :
1. There is nothing "absolutely sure" in science. It is the currently accepted hypothesis with large amount of support from observational data.
2. Plenty of research happens that doesn't have immediate / practical impacts. Noodle breaking physics is a famous example - Feynman himself was highly interested in it. It has recently been explained well by a physicist.
3. Even if we accept that only practical interest research is done - rising CO2 due to any reason would make it practical to study its impact on plants and therefore human nutrient consumption. It need not be "human produced CO2".
"Comet about to hit earth" isn't a click bait headline if a comet is going to hit the earth.
Yes, but "Comet hit could lead to water falling downhill" is clickbait. Or at least highly incorrect. See :
1. Climate change is caused (at least helped along) by rising CO2.
2. Nutrient deficiency is caused by rising CO2
But nutrient deficiency is not caused by climate change - at least for this research.
Similarly :
1. Comet hit is caused (at least helped along) by Earth's gravity
2. Water flowing downhill is caused by Earth's gravity
But water flowing downhill is not caused by comet hit - at least not all of it.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Zinc deficiency might increase halitosis : https://www.drstevenlin.com/ba...
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I'm done trying to get a "buy in". Since there's no amount of facts that would sway the people with their fingers in their ears going "nanana, I can't hear you", why bother wasting your time?
GP is dead on the mark, look what corporations are doing and where they put their money. When insurance for a shoreline real estate goes through the roof, there might be a reason for it.
Reality is. Whether you like it or not, whether you believe in it or not. That makes it different from religion and other wishful thinking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Come try me, wetfoot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well your skills certainly do need sharpening so keep trying. Once you move on from understanding false correlation you can step up to understanding that this doesn't mean all correlation is false, and then we can move onto why pointing out that the concept of false correlation exists is not, in fact, evidence of any specific claim of correlation being false. It always depresses me when I see examples on a relatively technical site like this of people's ignorance in an area leading them to massively underestimate the complexity of it and of the knowledge applied by people who aren't as ignorant as them.
So no evidence to back your ascertains and a handful of puerile diatribes... very persuasive.
No, white people don't get to build an apartheid state, oppress the black minority, take all the nation's wealth, then cry "racism!" when new policies are put in place to right the economy and extract wealth from the wealthy. If you think taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people is racist, it can only be because you are a white supremecist who believes the whites deserve the money they stole by right of their skin color.
...majority... meant to say majority...
Do they mean nutrient deficiencies as bad as those caused by government subsidies? Whoa!
This story is misleading. Is the concentration of nutrients going down? Yes. Is that a problem?
Well...
As it turns out, what's really happening is the carbon dioxide is promoting bulk growth, which is making more food (particularly, more carbohydrates) in the same amount of time. However, the nutrients are getting stocked into the food at the same rate.
So, the total carbohydrate loading is increasing, making food bulkier. But the total nutrient loading in the food is the same. Since the bulk is larger with the same nutrient loading, the concentration (nutrients per unit bulk) goes down.
Clearly by my verbiage, I'm not a botanist. And I'll say I'm not a climate change denier. But it's not clear to me why this specifically is a "problem" per se.
weylin
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....
and there are dollars to be had - but *vastly* more from causing and denying AGW than merely observing and reporting its effects. If you believe otherwise, let me know when "big green" gets within a couple orders of magnitude of the $2.3 trillion collected annually from oil and coal by 5 of the 10 richest companies in the world.
I do wonder at denialist intelligence - mostly how they keep saying "follow the money" with so little thought about where it actually leads.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Motivation is NOT relevant; even if 99% of them are 1 motive the definition covers 100% who are raising alarms more than normal which is why they are called an alarmist. For practical purposes, your definition may be fine for YOUR experience but other people have different experiences or may be more specific and technically correct in their use of certain terms than you are.
Even the badly motivated alarmists can serve SOME good as long as people don't let their emotions overtake their reasoning.... which is a HUGE problem for everybody but Vulkan wannabes. That is why appeal to fear is so popular; and commonplace at every level in the USA. If you are in control of your mind then these tactics are ineffective but can still serve a practical purpose beyond STUPID things like alien invasions, safety warnings on US products, etc.
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