Nicholas Stern: 'I got it wrong on climate change – it's far, far worse'

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos


Lord Stern now believes he should have been more ‘blunt’ about threat to economies from temperature rises. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Lord Stern, author of the government-commissioned review on climate change that became the reference work for politicians and green campaigners, now says he underestimated the risks, and should have been more "blunt" about the threat posed to the economy by rising temperatures.

In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Stern, who is now a crossbench peer, said: "Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then."

The Stern review, published in 2006, pointed to a 75% chance that global temperatures would rise by between two and three degrees above the long-term average; he now believes we are "on track for something like four ". Had he known the way the situation would evolve, he says, "I think I would have been a bit more blunt. I would have been much more strong about the risks of a four- or five-degree rise."

He said some countries, including China, had now started to grasp the seriousness of the risks, but governments should now act forcefully to shift their economies towards less energy-intensive, more environmentally sustainable technologies.

[cantbeserious]

1. It's Not Nice To Fool With Mother Nature

eom

[PATRICK]

2. At the risk of

again pointing out an old speculation, I would say that here is more evidence supporting my "theory" that institutional science has in general- even if sincerely and disinterestedly pursued according to cautious and dispassionate process- has a deeply ingrained bias which would lead to pushing rosy scenarios versus bad ones, optimistic versus realistic, blindness toward undesireable consequences. And is commerce financed, purposed, driven.

That would mean that worst case scenarios would likely have more validity overall than the "mainstream" and the proponents of truth would be affected by "popular" opposition away from their simple points.

And that this naive process of inevitable "discovery" would begin to be engaged once results become wildly undeniable.

These stages of awakening in the "conservative" institutions appear to me predictably imbecilic and self-serving even if sincere. It is all pretty dramatic how a professional has wasted his life and admits "mistakes". How is the human race to survive? Or must we endure our history of post Ice Age stupid in despair or a cat fight all the way to extinction? Instead we are getting ridiculously weak warnings and more deferential restraint to the money market endgame for Life.

[caseymoz]

5. Actually there's a good reason for that.

In the '70s Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome pushed incredibly pessimistic scenarios, and when they proved untrue within a decade, it brought all warnings of worldwide environmental catastrophe and resource depletion into question and suspicion for the next 30 years.

If scientists sound overly pessimistic, it's mostly because of overcompensation. They don't want to repeat that mistake. They know if they make it too pessimistic, their projections will just be rejected out of hand because of Ehrlich and the Club of Rome exaggerating their gloominess.

As the catastrophes begin to accumulate, I think you'll see less emphasis on the rosy scenarios.

[pscot]

15. Ehrlich's Population Bomb

was defused by the Green Revolution, which in turn encouraged the unfortunate, but widely held belief that there is a tech solution to every problem. Borlaug's interventions let us push far beyond the limits of sustainability, but there's no free lunch. There was a chance, in the 70's for us to re-invent ourselves. We didn't, and now we're going to have to pay up.

[caseymoz]

16. We were already beyond the limits of sustainability

He set us up for a larger crash, but then again, he kept people from starving.

People don't realize how much the a tech fix depends on luck. No matter how intelligent people are, sooner or later, the right solution isn't going to be found just on time.

And nothing grows exponentially forever.

[GliderGuider]

17. The population bomb was *temporarily* defused by the GR.

The system we are living in will continue to grow until it hits an external limit that we can't find a way around. Borlaug found a way around the Malthusian trap, but that merely freed us to continue growing. Borlaug said in his Nobel address that he'd just given us breathing room to get our shit together. We didn't, and now other limits are coming up, not the least of which is climate change. That may undo all Borlaug's hard work - we're open to hitting the same Malthusian limit again, but this time in conjunction with another one (or two or three, if you count Peak Oil and the world's economic instability)

That convergence will continue until we can't overcome it, because the system does not contain any internal constraints. It appears that civilization can't "slow down" of its own accord, so its growth will continue in one fashion or another until the bus goes off a cliff.

So it goes.

[Nederland]

20. No internal constraints?

That convergence will continue until we can't overcome it, because the system does not contain any internal constraints. It appears that civilization can't "slow down" of its own accord, so its growth will continue in one fashion or another until the bus goes off a cliff.

There are internal constraints and there is no cliff. The internal constraint is money. People who cannot afford to buy food will starve, people who can will live. The picture is therefore not one of a cliff, but a ceiling above which population cannot rise. The fact that a sizable majority of the world's food is produced by countries that have falling or flat population growth actually points to a perfectly sustainable system.

[NickB79]

26. It's called overshoot

Come on, you've been here long enough to know about this, and understand how populations will typically drop far BELOW their original carrying capacity when they go so far over it for so long. You really think we'll just tiptoe up to the edge, and then slowly back away again?

Maybe that's what the reindeer of St. Matthew Island thought too....

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/#page-1

[GliderGuider]

27. But we're *human beings*!

Overshoot doesn't apply to us, just to non-sapient animals!

Wait, what?

[Nederland]

30. Exactly

I know you are being sarcastic, but ironically you are correct. How humans obtain and distribute food is radically different from all other animals, and those differences make all your analogies to collapse invalid.

[GliderGuider]

32. "You believe" it makes the analogies invalid.

There's a difference. A whole lot of people believe we're not different or exceptional in any fundamental way. You believe you have The One True Truth on this. What if you don't?

[Nederland]

36. True, and I provided an explanation for my beliefs

To break down my reasoning, I basically said:

1) Humans are different than animals.
2) Those differences matter.

Which of those two things do you believe are incorrect?

[NoOneMan]

40. Using that reasoning, I cannot fathom why any past civilization has collapsed

I mean, we aren't animals after all. We should always be clever enough to unlock earth's cornucopia.

[GliderGuider]

43. I think both are only partially true.

1. We are somewhat different from animals, yet somewhat similar..
2. The ways we are different from animals (mainly our intellect) can extend the time during which those differences matter, but they cannot do so indefinitely.

How do you explain the collapse of previous civilizations based on your two principles?

[Nederland]

46. Previous civilizations were not global...

...and did not have our level of technology. And most did not collapse from lack of food.

BTW, I'm not saying that our society will not collapse. I'm just saying its not lack of food that will do us in.

[GliderGuider]

50. By the same token, I'm just saying

that the fact that we're global is a distinction without a difference. It's still a finite land area.

I don't know if lack of food will do us in either, but I will say that being definite about it one way or the other is a faith-based position (I held the opposite faith for a while, that it would do us in). The fact is, we just don't know out of all the many potential candidates we face today which one might trigger for decline. All we can do is keep an eye on how things are unfolding, and hold all possibilities open.

[Nederland]

54. A distinction without a difference?

The globalization of food production has dramatically changed the incidence of food shortages. In the past, when populations were dependent on extremely local sources for food, drought or other negative weather impacts could completely devastate a civilization. However, because weather impacts are randomly distributed around the globe, the globalization of the food supply has created a situation where local famine has little impact. History has shown that there is no such thing as a global drought. Since climate change is predicted to result in increased precipitation, the likelihood will decline even further in the future.

[GliderGuider]

58. Yes

The world's large but still finite land area means that we were able to kick the can further down the road. It's still finite though, so if we keep growing, we'll hit that limit sooner or later. It gives us wiggle room, not a third wish.

Climate change is now predicted to cause an increase in weather extremes: more precipitation in some areas, droughts in others. I'd have thought that as a scientifically inclined sort, the recent crop-affecting droughts in the US, China, SE Asia, Russia and Australia might be giving you pause.

[Nederland]

89. You need to get up to date

Climate change is now predicted to cause an increase in weather extremes: more precipitation in some areas, droughts in others. I'd have thought that as a scientifically inclined sort, the recent crop-affecting droughts in the US, China, SE Asia, Russia and Australia might be giving you pause.

As the most recent IPCC draft shows an almost complete reversal from AR4 on trends in drought, hurricanes, floods:


IPCC AR5 Draft: “we have high confidence that natural variability dominates any AGW influence in observed/historical TC records”

Draft IPCC Ch2 bottom line on extremes: “generally low confidence that there have been discernable changes over the observed record” on lack of trends in extremes, exceptions are trends seen in temperature extremes and regional precipitation (but not floods)

On XTCs “unlike in AR4, it is assessed here..there is low confidence of regional changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones”

Bottom line IPCC trop cyclones same as SREX: “low confidence that any reported long term increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust”

More IPCC draft Ch2 on trop cyclones: “current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency”

IPCC on trop cyclones “AR4 assessment needs to be somewhat revised with respect to the confidence levels associated with observed trends”

IPCC draft Ch2 on drought: “The current assessment does not support the AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in droughts”

More IPCC Ch2: “low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”

More IPCC draft report: Ch2: “there is currently no clear and widespread evidence for observed changes in flooding” except timing of snowmelt

[NoOneMan]

59. "most did not collapse from lack of food"

Plenty collapsed from lack of food. Some collapsed from making solutions to lack of food (raising armies to invade agrarian lands, fed by increasingly expanding outward to capture more land that is storing the sun's energy).

Checkout this guys theories on collapse...very applicable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter

[NickB79]

33. Radically different how?

Yes, we've learned to exploit a previously untapped energy source to fuel our species' population boom (farming).

However, I don't see this as fundamentally different from the rise of the first photosynthetic plant cells from their chemosynthetic ancestors, or the rise of the first aerobic bacteria from their anaerobic ancestors. Both found new energy sources, exploited them, and their populations soared.

I also don't see any difference in how we manage the consequences of our newfound fuel in our populations. Despite our intellect, we still pump our waste products into the environment with no thought for how they'll impact future generations. We may individually realize what we're doing must stop, but as a species we still behave like a plate of E. coli bacteria in a lab, crapping in our beds until we choke on our own shit.

[Nederland]

34. These ways

Last edited Mon Jan 28, 2013, 03:32 PM - Edit history (1)

1) We grow our food, animals forage.
2) Our food sources are global, not local.
3) Our food is distributed by markets, animals distribute basically on geographic luck.

This combination has created a situation where the people that grow the most food live in populations that are either shrinking or relatively flat. These populations produce way more food than they need to survive, so it is difficult to see why they would ever suffer from famine unless grain production dropped radically and swiftly. All of the things that could effect grain production negatively--rising oil prices, topsoil depletion, climate change--all happen extremely slowly and will impact market prices for food in a way that ensures that adjustments will be made far in advance of when they are needed.

[NoOneMan]

39. "in a way that ensures that adjustments will be made..."

What if we cannot feasibly make adjustments?

I like to post this, because its a great visualization:



1) Will the land up north be as productive as the US farm land?
a) How has glacial activity impacted the potential productivity of the soil?
b) How will the Canadian winters (with substantially less winter daylight) impact our normal expectations for winter crops?
c) What will be the feedback from deforestation to turn forest land into farm land?
d) How many years will it take to raise this land to the productivity needed to feed everyone?
2) What will this do to US trade activity, once it has to import masses of staples produced with lower subsidies and Canadian policies (which make food prices much higher up north)? Will the economy be able to produce enough wealth so that all citizens have access to the quantities of food they need, at imported rates, presuming enough can even be harvested?
3) If we are running out of things to pour on soil (like potash), and running out of soil that we can throw it on, are you sure we can even find enough acres (probably more than current) to produce the same amount of food we currently do at our agrarian apex?
4) What makes you think the market will magically adjust to fulfil everyone's needs? Markets adjust to make the most amount of profit for shareholders. That may or may not include keeping everyone fed.

Your faith that our markets or technology will find a super-duper fix is akin to religion. Many past civilizations have fallen when they could not find fixes to their limits. Suddenly, your faith has declared we are exceptional.

[GliderGuider]

44. Humans have always been exceptional.

Just ask the leaders of any modern faith, they'll tell you.

[hatrack]

45. Market forces will replace the Laurentian Shield with 24-36" of rich, loamy topsoil . . .

Just you wait and see!

[Nederland]

47. Where does that pic come from?

Is it from a peer reviewed paper? Has its conclusions been replicated by others?

[NoOneMan]

51. That's a BBC article using data now published from Ortiz of Cimmyt

Replicated? Its damn well already happening. Where is the magic market to fix this?

[Nederland]

55. Did you actually read the article?

Its says that farmers are simply switching to different crops as climate changes. Sounds like the market is adapting to the changes just fine...

Agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. is investing in northern U.S. facilities, anticipating increased grain production in that part of the country, said Greg Page, the chief executive officer of the Minneapolis-based company.

“The number of rail cars, the number of silos, the amount of loading capacity” all change, Page said in an interview in New York. “You can see capital go to where there is ability to produce more tons per acre.”

Losses in some areas will mean gains in others, Page said. A native of Bottineau, a small town on North Dakota’s border with Canada, Page said that when he was in high school in the 1960s, “you could grow wheat -- or wheat. That was it,” he said.

“You go to that very same place today -- they can grow soybeans, they can grow canola, they can grow corn, they can grow field peas and export them to India,” he said. “A lot of that has been to do with the fact that they have six, eight days more of frost-free weather.”

[GliderGuider]

56. Ortiz, the author, is a research agronomist for CIMMYT

"Ortiz et al CIMMYT" is the credit on the bottom of the photo. He does work like this:

http://ibp.generationcp.org/confluence/download/attachments/23069648/Ortiz_et_al_2008-Can_wheat_beat_the_heat-AgrEcosystEnv.pdf

Here's what CIMMYT is:

CIMMYT is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific research and training organization.
Headquartered in Mexico, the Center works with agricultural research institutions worldwide to improve
the productivity and sustainability of maize and wheat systems for poor farmers in developing countries. It
is one of 16 similar centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR). The CGIAR comprises over 50 partner countries, international and regional organizations, and
private foundations. It is co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Financial support for CIMMYT’s research agenda currently comes from many sources, including the
governments of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy,
Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, the
United Kingdom, and the USA, and from the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the Inter-American
Development Bank, the Kellogg Foundation, the OPEC Fund for International Development, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Sasakawa Africa Association, UNDP, and the World Bank.

Ortiz looks as reputable as they come, and the map appears to be the product of actual science. The report including the map was put out in 2006. By CGIAR. Here's a BBC news story about it that includes the map:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6200114.stm

[Nederland]

60. That paper only deals with wheat

Farmers will adapt to new conditions and switch their crops. All the studies that consider the entire globe and all crop varieties predict little impact from climate change. This simply makes sense. Globally, climate change is expected to result in longer growing seasons, more precipitation and more CO2--basically everything plants crave increases as a result of climate change.

[GliderGuider]

62. Wiggle much?

You're shifting the goalposts. You asked if the map was from a scientific, peer-reviewed source. It is. Cimmyt does research on crops primarily grown in Mexico - wheat and corn. Ortiz is reputable, and the fact that he doesn't right about issues that might help rescue you from the corner you're busily painting yourself into on the internet is neither here nor there.

Google "ortiz cimmyt" to see what they're about.

[NoOneMan]

64. This guy says much the same:

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/vitae.pdf

Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat

Record high daytime and nighttime
temperatures over most of the summer growing season
reduced leaf and grain-filling development of key
crops such as maize, fruit trees, and vineyards;
accelerated crop ripening and maturity by 10 to
20 days; caused livestock to be stressed; and
resulted in reduced soil moisture and increased
water consumption in agriculture (5, 13) (SOM).
Italy experienced a record drop in maize yields of
36% from a year earlier, whereas in France maize
and fodder production fell by 30%, fruit harvests
declined by 25%, and wheat harvests (which had
nearly reached maturity by the time the heat set
in) declined by 21%

Where is the magic market when you need it

[Nederland]

67. You are the one that is shifting the goalposts

The question is not whether or not wheat harvests in North America are going to increase or decrease. The question is whether or not global food production is going to increase or decrease.

[GliderGuider]

68. That question has been answered already.

The answer is a resounding yes, but we don't know exactly when or how fast. That will be up to mother nature to decide.

The best I can say is "I think that by 2050 we will have seen a lasting decline in world food production - a decline that could be significant to world population levels."

[Nederland]

70. By which post? (nt)

[GliderGuider]

71. By this one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112734522#post64

You could also peruse this:

http://www.fao.org/forestry/15538-079b31d45081fe9c3dbc6ff34de4807e4.pdf

The FAO has been concerned about food security due to climate change for most of a decade now.

ETA the foreword from the FAO document:

Climate change will affect all four dimensions of food security: food availability, food
accessibility, food utilization and food systems stability. It will have an impact on human
health, livelihood assets, food production and distribution channels, as well as changing
purchasing power and market flows. Its impacts will be both short term, resulting from more
frequent and more intense extreme weather events, and long term, caused by changing
temperatures and precipitation patterns,

People who are already vulnerable and food insecure are likely to be the first affected.
Agriculture-based livelihood systems that are already vulnerable to food insecurity face
immediate risk of increased crop failure, new patterns of pests and diseases, lack of
appropriate seeds and planting material, and loss of livestock. People living on the coasts and
floodplains and in mountains, drylands and the Arctic are most at risk.

As an indirect effect, low-income people everywhere, but particularly in urban areas, will
be at risk of food insecurity owing to loss of assets and lack of adequate insurance coverage.
This may also lead to shifting vulnerabilities in both developing and developed countries.
Food systems will also be affected through possible internal and international migration,
resource- based conflicts and civil unrest triggered by climate change and its impacts.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries will not only be affected by climate change, but also
contribute to it through emitting greenhouse gases. They also hold part of the remedy,
however; they can contribute to climate change mitigation through reducing greenhouse gas
emissions by changing agricultural practices.

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the resilience of rural people and to help
them cope with this additional threat to food security. Particularly in the agriculture sector,
climate change adaptation can go hand-in-hand with mitigation. Climate change adaptation
and mitigation measures need to be integrated into the overall development approaches and
agenda.

This document provides background information on the interrelationship between climate
change and food security, and ways to deal with the new threat. It also shows the
opportunities for the agriculture sector to adapt, as well as describing how it can contribute to
mitigating the climate challenge.

Your opinion is dramatically out of step with the position of the entire scientific community that is looking at the issue.

[Nederland]

72. How many times do you have to make the same mistake?

Despite the general perception that agriculture in temperate latitudes will benefit from increased seasonal heat and supply food to deficit areas, even mid-latitude crops will likely suffer at very high temperatures in the absence of adaptation.

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people make the same stupid assumption when it comes to almost any form of change. A person looks at what impact the given change will have, assumes that people will continue to behave exactly as they do today, and then writes up conclusions about how horrible it will be.

The problem is people don't behave that way.

They never have, they never will. When change occurs, people's behavior changes in response. The assumption that a farmer who is growing wheat will continue to grow wheat long after growing conditions have made growing wheat unproductive is idiotic. People are not stupid. If something stops working they do something different. That's why the papers that I linked to, which attempt to determine the impacts of climate change given the assumption that farmers will switch to whatever crop makes the most sense in the new conditions, give a better idea of what will happen as a result of climate change.

[GliderGuider]

81. The issue is the productivity and utility of the plants that might be substituted.

Generally speaking, food plants that are more tolerant to weather extremes will have lower caloric productivity. Most of our current high-yield food sources especially wheat and corn) produce best in stable temperate climates. Their productivity goes down as temperature increases or the climate becomes less stable (see Table 8 in this PDF).

This could prompt a general shift towards foods like potatoes, but even there high levels of drought (or alternating drought and flood conditions) will interfere with yields.

Yes, we're adaptable, and we'll keep finding ways to continue growing. Until we can't, of course, but who knows when that might be?

[Nihil]

93. One could ask you the same question.

> How many times do you have to make the same mistake?

Repeating the mistake doesn't seem to make it better does it?

> I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people make the same stupid assumption
> when it comes to almost any form of change. A person looks at what impact the given change
> will have, assumes that people will continue to behave exactly as they do today, and then
> writes up conclusions about how horrible it will be.
>
> The problem is people don't behave that way.

History proves you wrong.


> They never have, they never will. When change occurs, people's behavior changes in response.

That is the ideal and yes, a fraction of the people do indeed change their behaviour. A far larger
fraction muddle through (if they are lucky) and then go back to the same dumb behaviour that
they've always exhibited.


> The assumption that a farmer who is growing wheat will continue to grow wheat long after
> growing conditions have made growing wheat unproductive is idiotic.

So that's why we never hear about famine killing thousands in Africa any more?

Those times back in the 1970s must have just been a fluke that has never happened at any
previous point in the countries affected and they obviously learned from their experience so
that they haven't recurred at all.


> People are not stupid.

Wrong. Individual people may not be stupid but when you aggregate them they are very stupid indeed.


> If something stops working they do something different.

Again, a few do. They learn. They change their behaviour.

They also get constant background noise from the rest of the herd who are *convinced* that
there is no need to change "just yet" and that by changing they are giving in to "doomer panic"
or other derogatory phrases intended to promote the perceived superiority of the speaker,
who would otherwise find their peace of mind disturbed - perhaps even sufficiently to admit
that their Business As Usual approach is actually the "stupid" behaviour that they are trying
so hard to deny exists.

[Nederland]

94. Agreed, but now follow through

That is the ideal and yes, a fraction of the people do indeed change their behavior.

Perhaps this is true, depending what what you mean by "a fraction", but then let's consider the net result. Wheat farming becomes unproductive, and a fraction switch to something else. Those that don't are going to quickly go bankrupt and lose their farms--to people smart enough to try something different. You see, you have it completely backwards. Individuals are stupid, but in aggregate they are very smart. Read 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki.

[GliderGuider]

95. What, you've never heard of groupthink?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underates the abilities of their opponents (the "outgroup&quot .

Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.

Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory,[1] as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.[2]

The Challenger didn't blow up because the group of engineers that greenlighted the launch was "very smart". They were smart as individuals. As a group they became a herd of dumb animals, afraid to venture outside the boundaries defined by the herd leaders.

You are operating from a faith-based position, cherry-picking your support and criticizing group members who stray outside your desired consensus boundaries. That's classic herding behaviour.

[NoOneMan]

63. Primarily, but maize is mentioned

Coupling crop simulation models to predicted future
climate scenarios is one approach taken to determine the
impacts of climate change in agriculture. For example, Jones
and Thornton (2003) forecast for 2055 an overall 10%
reduction on maize production in Africa and Latin America;
i.e., a loss in maize grain worth approximately US $2 billion
yearly.

The great bread basket is soon to be the great chickpeas desert

[Nederland]

52. A peer review look at the issue

http://ecoethics.net/cyprus-institute.us/PDF/Rosensweig-Food-Supply.pdf

Whereas production in the developed world benefitted from climate change, production in developing nations declined.

This seems to contradict your pic which makes it seem as if the US would be negatively impacted.

And also this one, which basically reaches the same conclusion:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378099000187

Building on previous work quantitative estimates of climate change impacts on global food production have been made for the UK Hadley Centre's HadCM2 greenhouse gas only ensemble experiment and the more recent HadCM3 experiment (Hulme et al., 1999). The consequences for world food prices and the number of people at risk of hunger as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO, 1988) have also been assessed. Climate change is expected to increase yields at high and mid-latitudes, and lead to decreases at lower latitudes. This pattern becomes more pronounced as time progresses. The food system may be expected to accommodate such regional variations at the global level, with production, prices and the risk of hunger being relatively unaffected by the additional stress of climate change. By the 2080s the additional number of people at risk of hunger due to climate change is about 80 million people (±10 million depending on which of the four HadCM2 ensemble members is selected). However, some regions (particularly the arid and sub-humid tropics) will be adversely affected. A particular example is Africa, which is expected to experience marked reductions in yield, decreases in production, and increases in the risk of hunger as a result of climate change. The continent can expect to have between 55 and 65 million extra people at risk of hunger by the 2080s under the HadCM2 climate scenario. Under the HadCM3 climate scenario the effect is even more severe, producing an estimated additional 70+ million people at risk of hunger in Africa.

[NoOneMan]

57. "Climate change is expected to increase yields"

Great, nothing to see here! Perfect

Billions could go hungry from global warming by 2100

[NoOneMan]

61. BTW, did anyone else notice those articles were from 1994 and 1999?

And today we are seeing agricultural shifts north already.

http://www.homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Historic-Warnings-of-Future-Food-Insecurity-with-Unprecedented-Seasonal-Heat.pdf

http://ibp.generationcp.org/confluence/download/attachments/23069648/Ortiz_et_al_2008-Can_wheat_beat_the_heat-AgrEcosystEnv.pdf

Forgive me but I think our recent scenarios aren't quite as rosy. This is a shifting situation and things are shifting to the "not good" column

[Nederland]

73. Good catch

The fact that the latest climate models predict less warming than those running at the time those papers were written means that their analysis of the impacts will likely be much less.

[NoOneMan]

74. Except those recent food scarcity studies directly contradict your lies

[TheMadMonk]

66. And yet time and time again, the animal model,...

...does a very good job of modeling collective human behaviour when you take into acount the various innovative patches we've applied over the years.

[Nederland]

28. There is no edge

You can't "tiptoe up to the edge, and then slowly back away" if there is no cliff. The fundamental problem is that you ignore the key difference between humans and reindeer. Reindeer do not grow their own food, humans do. We grow a certain amount of food every year, and if that food cannot feed everyone then a certain number of people die. There is nothing new here, that's the way its been for thousands of years, ever since we started farming. The only way that the human population could ever "crash" is if there was a sudden collapse of grain production on the order of 70%+. You've never explained why or how that would happen.

[NickB79]

31. You're ignoring topsoil depletion

Yes, we can grow our own food where reindeer cannot, but ultimately we are just as dependent on natural resources as they were, just one more step removed: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/The-lowdown-on-topsoil-It-s-disappearing-1262214.php

Also ignored, the depletion of fossil fuels that make it possible to for one man to farm 1000 acres of land and transport/process/package that food to thousands of others from that land.

And the introduction of climate instability that means those previously fertile regions may no longer be so productive in years to come.

I agree that there probably won't be a *sudden* die-off like the disaster movies like to portray, unless we see some outbreak of war or infectious disease. When I refer to a cliff, I refer to a collapse in population that will most likely occur over several decades, likely in the form of a crushing global economic depression that stifles exports of food and fuel to developing nations. Here in the US, I don't expect widespread starvation and war. Africa and SE Asia, I don't know. Since I tend to look at things long-term, this appears as a cliff on any graph that shows timescales in decades or centuries.

[Nederland]

35. No I'm not

I just don't see why you think that topsoil depletion can possibly happen fast enough to cause a drop in grain production. Right now topsoil depletion is not severe enough to affect food prices, but the minute it does food prices will rise and create an enormous incentive to stop the practices (described in your link) that cause the depletion. It is an inherently balanced system that prevents spiraling feedback loops that could cause a collapse.

[NickB79]

37. So, the Invisible Hand then?

It is an inherently balanced system that prevents spiraling feedback loops that could cause a collapse.

That sounds almost exactly like what the economists said about world markets, right before they went into a massive collapse.

[Nederland]

38. Massive collapse?

First of all, the world did not end as a result of what happened. Sure, the world dipped into recession, but let's not pretend that it was anything like what happened in the 1930's. In fact, all that happened with the financial collapse was a bunch of paper with arbitrary prices became a bunch of paper with slightly lower arbitrary prices.

[NoOneMan]

41. "create an enormous incentive to"...feed the people with the wealth to pay for the resource

What type of strange view of history tells you markets always distribute the most amount of goods to the most amount of people? Markets distribute a finite amount of goods the a target block of people determined to produce the most profit for shareholders.

There may be more money to be made--in the short term--from food scarcity than abundance.

[Nederland]

48. I agree

The poor are screwed. In fact, its worse than you describe. We do not have to experience any sort of dramatic decline in our ability to produce food for the poor to starve. All that has to happen is for our standard of living to rise enough to the point that the poor of the world cannot give the rich farmers of the world enough to make it worth their time. A first world farmer (or more accurately, a first world corporate farm) might very well find that growing food for the poor of the world simply isn't profitable any more. This is especially true if continued government cuts reduce the amount of money going to foreign aid.

My point and disagreement is only that I do not see famine spreading to the first world. Lots of other things might hit the first world, but not lack of food.

[NoOneMan]

53. The nation of "let them die" as a healthcare platform (still) will feed its poor?

Why, golly gee, if its only poor people dying in the third world, I guess we all have nothing to worry about. Sure, Ill government will goto bat and import loads of staples from Canada for us!

[Nederland]

69. News Flash: The Poor are Already Dying

The point is that there is nothing new here. Human populations have increased and decreased according to food production variations for thousands of years. The only difference is that now we produce way more food and have a global distribution system that mitigates the impacts of local famines. The situation is exactly the opposite of what you are claiming: we are at a lower risk today than in the past.

[NoOneMan]

75. At the apex of agrarian civilization, with mild headwinds

Wow, that bodes well

[Nederland]

78. What is your point?

The percentage of the world's population that is suffering from hunger is significantly lower now than it was 50 years ago.

[NoOneMan]

80. That its not going to be an uphill ride

A freeze frame of the present reveals a civilization at the peak of its power. Within the
space of a few decades, humanity will have experienced peak population, peak oil, peak
water, peak land, and perhaps even peak crop yields. Yet, even at the height of power,
having taken virtual control of the biosphere and having turned the arable Earth into a vast
feeding lot for our species, it still has not been enough. In what amounts to the greatest
perpetual famine in human history, nearly three billion people are without proper food and
water; 850 million lack the minimal bodily requirements of protein and calories; half the
world is chronically deficient in at least one of the essential micronutrients; nine million
die each year from starvation and diseases of malnourishment. Now, with deteriorating
conditions of planetary forests, soil, water, oil, climate, and ecosystems, we are expecting
to improve the quality of life for billions of more people in the coming decades. There is a
flaw with the logic of our expectations—one which may well translate into billions of
additional malnourished people by mid-century, or, indeed, could even augur a painful
population crash

Population crash: prospects for famine in the twenty-first century
Received: 1 October 2008 / Accepted: 7 April 2009 / Published online: 6 May 2009
! Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

[GliderGuider]

82. That's one hell of a paper you found.

Thanks for posting it!

It's fitting that you linked to it on Jay Hanson's web site...

[Nederland]

83. Deja Vu

The Population Bomb - 1968
The Population Explosion - 1991
The Population Crash - 2009

Apparently Malthusians feel its necessary to recycle the same old tripe every 20 years or so. Perhaps they've calculated that's the amount of time its takes for people to forget how wrong they were the last time.

[NoOneMan]

84. Climate change is "the same old tripe"?

I thought your original argument is that we just can't put a firm number on deaths, so we shouldn't spend money on preventing them. Now those predicted deaths are "the same old tripe"?

Its just fiction that climate change will have enormous consequences?

[Nederland]

86. Posted in the wrong place?

The same old tripe comment refers to Malthusian prediction of doom, not temperature increases.

[NoOneMan]

88. So temperature increases will not bring harm (doom) to some people?

Temperature increases and ocean acidification and droughts and rising water and extreme weather events and....

[Nederland]

90. Harm yes, doom no (nt)

[NoOneMan]

91. So when studies suggest that 3 billion face famine, or entire countries will be underwater

That's not doom to those people? A catastrophe of the worst kind to may regions doesn't qualify as "doom" to them?

Are only people in developed countries capable of experiencing doom?

[Nederland]

92. Over what time frame?

The changes you describe will occur slowly over the next 90 years. Given that context, no, it's is not doom.

[GliderGuider]

85. So how was lunch with Julian Simon?

I bet he made you pay. Again.

[Nederland]

87. Good. He paid with the money he won betting Paul Ehrlich

[TheMadMonk]

65. And wasted by those self same peoples.

What excess there is, is going to feed countries where populations are still rising steeply.

Like everything else, it's just been offshored.

Why should we be any different to any other boom-bust population?

[Nederland]

19. The 'Green Revolution' did not defuse the Population Bomb

Ehrlich was just wrong.

Defenders of Ehrlich would have you believe that all the signs pointed to disaster, but a sudden surge in agricultural output saved the day. In fact, when you look at the data you see that the 'Green Revolution' was not a revolution at all. Improvements in agriculture have happened at a slow and steady pace for the last 60 years. Ehrlich's mistake was to simply assume--with no supporting evidence at all--that those improvements would simply stop.

[GliderGuider]

22. So Norman Borlaug didn't deserve a Nobel Prize after all?

It's breathtaking how many people around the world disagree with you.

[Nederland]

23. He certainly deserved it

His innovations obviously helped transform the world. My point was simply that the transformations that occurred did not happen all over the globe all at once, so using the 'Green Revolution' as an excuse for why Ehrlich's predictions failed to come true simply does not fit reality. If Ehrlich had bothered to do some research before publishing The Population Bomb he would have found that the innovations that Borlaug introduced were still unused in many parts of the world, and as a result we could expect global yields to continue to rise for many years to come. Instead, he just flat out assumed that grain production had reached its peak and that global starvation was imminent. If he had bothered to ask any agricultural economist of the day what we could expect in the coming decades he would have learned that there we many proven advances already in use in certain places and just waiting to be leveraged elsewhere.

[GliderGuider]

25. No, you said "The Green Revolution did not defuse the Population Bomb".

Whether it was under way before Ehrlich wrote his world-shaking book is immaterial to your answer.

The GR did permit population to keep growing. Your beef is with Ehrlich, not with the GR. You seem to be saying that there has never been, and will never be a serious population problem.

[Nederland]

29. There is a population problem

The problem is that humans do not grow enough food to feed everyone. Your mistake is to think that this is somehow a new problem, when in fact it has always been this way.

[Downwinder]

6. They have always emphasized that their estimates are conservative.

So I take the estimates to be minimums.

A one meter sea level rise means no less than one meter.

[RadiationTherapy]

3. Lord Stark warns us that winter is coming.

Oops, er, I mean Lord Stern warns us that climate change is worse than he thought and regrets not being more blunt and harsh about his warnings. Oh well. Too bad for us.

This is also an example of the notion that there is no honest communication in a hierarchy. The more power one has, the less accurate the information reported to them becomes. This man spoke too gently to those in power and regrets it now.

[tavalon]

7. Yes, Winter is Comin' (love that show)

That crazy assed movie with Dennis Quaid in it is beginning to look just a little less farfetched.

[dreamnightwind]

21. Great point!

"This is also an example of the notion that there is no honest communication in a hierarchy. The more power one has, the less accurate the information reported to them becomes."

That is a fundamental problem humanity must resolve. It's true on many levels, too, from power within small social groups to power within large bureaucracies. Truth telling comes at too high of a price to the subordinates, so the truth is generally "sanitized" enough to not threaten the subordinate's membership in the group.

This flaw may well contribute to humanity's demise. Now that our activities are having impacts on a planetary scale, we no longer have the luxury of just going with the flow, going along to get along, that's a game that does not end well.

It's Gore's "inconvenient truth". We have to learn to value such truths rather than attacking the messengers.

[Berlum]

4. D'oh

Unless you have been swallowing wholesale the Right-Wing, Inc. 1% Corporate Propaganda hook, line and sinker for the last 20 years, you would have figured this out long ago.

Anyone who is still engorging their lower brain with right-wing propaganda has chosen the dark pathway of Planetary FAIL for themselves and their children, and their children's children.

It is beyond stupid to go on swallowing Right-wing, Inc. lies on this critical subject.

[tavalon]

8. It's not planetary fail, though

The planet lives on epochal time. Humans and all the other plants and animals do not. The bald ape has shown himself to be unconcerned with protecting the earth's inhabitants, so we will be shaken off of earth like fleas off a dog. Unfortunately, most, if not all of her inhabitants will also be removed. Millions of years from now, a whole new ecosystem will have been created by this bautiful living creature. We will not be here to see it though.

On the surface, that sounds morose, but actually I am grateful that we are too puny to really destroy the earth. We can and we do beat the shit out of her but in the end, she wins, we lose. Does that mean I don't advocate personal and global change? No, I do, but my reason is because it's the right thing to do, not because we need to save the planet. The planet has that covered.

[alterfurz]

12. "The earth is an organism, and that organism has a skin; that skin has diseases...

...and one of these diseases is man." -- Nietzsche

[tavalon]

13. I've never been compared to Nietzsche

I don't know what I think about that.

[pscot]

18. I think you're supposed to feel

mighty and disturbed.

[Fuddnik]

9. It's easier than thinking.

Hit them with a mountain of facts, and they retreat to "Well. I just don't know". But, then Jesus will be here before that, so why worry?

[mountain grammy]

11. Seriously, if I hear "it's in God's hands" once more

I'll scream. Kind of like the preacher whose home was flooding. As the waters rose, he put his trust in God and refused rescue by boats and helicopter. As he was drowning, he asked God why He had forsaken him and God replied "I sent you a boat and helicopter, fool, what more do you want from me?"

[Nederland]

24. Nice pic

It makes you wonder why climate change advocates aren't being taken seriously.

[NoOneMan]

42. "climate change advocates aren't being taken seriously"

Maybe not by you, but the message is loud and clear and people are listening.

I believe the "solutions" bucket is what is being not taken seriously. People don't want to give anything up on a pathway to solving this.

[Nederland]

76. I see

I guess that's why Obama talked so much about climate change during the campaign.

But hey, what do political campaigns know about what people do and do not want to hear...

[NoOneMan]

77. He's "talking" about it now

So do you suppose he is burning political capital for shits and giggles?

[Nederland]

79. Sure, now that he's never running again... (nt)

[CRH]

10. Once again, It is the bean counters sounding alarm, ...

while governments' actions, continue to wallow in denial.

When corporate CEOs and politicians finally have to admit the one way road we have taken to the extinction cliff, with an economic vehicle with no ability to brake, we will already have reached the point of no return from total social and economic collapse. Lucky for them, there will be no effective order remaining to hold them accountable for keeping the masses in ignorance of their own self inflicted consumptive demise.

Thus in terms of the planet's evolving history, the human experiment, fails.

[limpyhobbler]

14. well that sucks. nt