Global Warming's Agriculture Impacts

Not everything gets to market

WeatherDem, you mentioned the Russian drought and its impacts on global markets. Russia can have such a profound effect international markets because they only sell their surplus. Last year their agricultural output dropped by a third, but their agricultural exports dropped much more than that. Under the current system in Russia, food is only exported after everyone within Russia has enough to eat (more or less).

I think that we think that we are immune to climate change; that other people are the ones who are going to suffer. But international markets are moving less and less of the world's goods, and eventually we won't be able to use our money to insulate ourselves from the results of our actions.

---

by: trainstar @ Sun Mar 27, 2011 at 23:22:05 PM UTC

Very good points

Up until now, those impacted by relatively benign global warming effects have been those in less developed countries (coincidentally those who have done the least in contributing to the problem they're now facing).  That will be less and less the case moving forward.

That also speaks to a substantial driving factor in the U.S.'s lack of global warming action.  We've been insulated from the effects witnessed so far.  I think it's human nature to not be very concerned with what doesn't affect your life directly.  Thus, the primary danger to the world in the 21st century is the extent to which Americans are insulated from the effects we have generated.  Add to that our frustrating tendency to freak out about symptoms and not root problems and it could very well be some time before we seriously address these and other problems.

---

by: WeatherDem @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 16:03:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Just finished watching The Power of Community:

How Cuba survived peak oil which related to your diary but primarily about how Cuba was able to become economically independent from a massive shortfall of oil which is coming on a global scale one day soon. It doesn't deal with the problems that occur when you take that hundred million years of photosynthetic energy and pump it into the atmosphere but it's a good watch if you haven't yet. Here's part 1 and the link above is the movies webpage.

Have you seen anything that shows how hot it possibly could get if we burned all easily accessible oil, coal, and natural gas?  

---

by: Fong @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 02:38:06 AM UTC

How hot can it possibly get?

I haven't seen anything that directly addresses that.  As I've written, it's been hard enough to find research results based on the emissions path we're on (A1FI) instead of the `Goldilocks` path (B1 or A1B) that has received the most attention because of decisions made years ago to spend more computing resources on those paths.

I think the answer shouldn't be terribly surprising, however.  We have geologic-based references of past climatic conditions.  On our current emissions path, global surface warming could hit 12F (7C) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures (or 11F/6C warmer than 1981-2000 temperatures) by 2100.  Those projections are likely to occur if we do not have global greenhouse emissions peak in 10 years or so.  A significant lack of information regarding methane outgassing from "permafrost" regions on land and under water in the high latitudes exists.  If significant portions of these methane deposits enter the atmosphere, the speed at which temperature increases occur could be faster than even these frightening projections.

That kind of temperature increase would be most similar to the Cretaceous, Permian, Devonian and Cambrian periods.  These periods were characterized by a lack of polar ice sheets and extensive deserts.

---

by: WeatherDem @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 16:21:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

On a related note

Our old Senator, Kenney-Boy Salazar, who now heads the Interior Department, announced last week that 758 million tons of Wyoming coal would be auctioned off.  The BLM subsequently announced an additional 1.6 billion tons of coal being auctioned at some future date.  This effectively enables more than 300,000 megawatts of coal-fired energy to be burned.

In contrast, 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy development were authorized in 2010.  12,000 megawatts are planned for 2011.

I just want everybody to know what "pragmatism", "centrism" and incrementalism are getting us.  At one point, I thought Obama understood the dangers of global warming and was willing to take action.  It's clear neither he nor his Cabinet is willing to take the kind of action needed to address this developing crisis.

h/t ClimateProgress

---

by: WeatherDem @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 17:11:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]