UPDATE: Willis Eschenbach eviscerates Bill McKibben on the global food production issue here
Despite paid agenda driven bloviations of “Climate-driven food insecurity“, even environmental media king The Guardian sees the real reasons behind it, and it isn’t global warming aka “climate change”. Instead, blame gets squarely placed on weather, a new virulent strain of wheat rust, the U.N.’s policies related to GM regulation, shifting economies, and biofuels.
Here’s some excerpts and rebuttals:
There are several causes of rising prices. First, large-scale disasters have precipitated localised crop failures, some of which have had broad ripple effects – for example, Russia’s ban on grain exports through at least the end of this calendar year resulted from fires and drought.
We know now and for certain that was not caused by global warming, it was simply weather. NOAA’s Climate Science Investigation team came squarely to that conclusion, and found global warming blameless.
Second, deadly strains of an evolving wheat pathogen (a rust) named Ug99 are increasingly threatening yields in the major wheat-growing areas of southern and eastern Africa, the central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America.
In the FAO 2008 International conference on Wheat Stem Rust UG99 – A threat to food security report (PDF), neither “global warming” or “climate change” are even mentioned in the report. So there appears to be none of the usual irrational “global warming causes everything” linkage, even within the U.N.
Third, rising incomes in emerging markets like China and India have increased the ability of an expanding middle class to shift from a grain-based diet to one that contains more meat.
A lot of this comes from environmental policy, pushing manufacturing jobs there. While the US and EU have gotten cleaner, China and India have absorbed wealth and the manufacturing pollution of the west.
And fourth, against this backdrop of lessened supply and heightened demand, private investment in R&D on innovative practices and technologies has been discouraged by arbitrary and unscientific national and international regulatory barriers – against, in particular, new varieties of plants produced with modern genetic engineering (aka recombinant DNA technology or genetic modification, or GM). Genetic engineering offers plant breeders the tools to make crops do spectacular new things. In more than two dozen countries, farmers are using genetically engineered crop varieties to produce higher yields, with lower inputs and reduced impact on the environment.
Irrational green fears of “frankenfood” cause regulation of what they fear most. That affects the poor the most, which are traditionally the ones who vote for the left and their policies.
And finally, the biofuels link:
In fact, the United States and Europe are diverting vast and increasing amounts of land and agricultural production into making ethanol. The United States is approaching the diversion of 40% of the corn harvest for fuel and the EU has a goal of 10% biofuel use by 2020. The implications are worrisome. On 9 February, the US department of agriculture reported that the ethanol industry’s projected orders for 2011 rose 8.4%, to 13.01bn bushels, leaving the United States with about 675m bushels of corn left at the end of the year. That is the lowest surplus level since 1996.
Stop burning food, stop blaming “global warming” for just about everything, and face real problems head on, and the world’s poor might get fed.
Full Guardian article here
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Anthony, it’s nice to see you in the sandbox with the rest of us!
GM crops have been a godsend for the environment….by engineering crops to require less pesticide application, the general environment benefits greatly.
http://www.foodsafety.k-state.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=16&sc=129&id=484
Hoser says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:40 am
A concern about GM food is not that it is modified, but that it is being used by some to gain an exclusive market. The government has enacted new laws and imposed new regulations to support their corporate partners. Together, they gain control over our food, and us.
_ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _
That is my concern; but not only that. I do not wish to eat food that has been genetically modified. It is not a natural process, unlike hybridisation, or even spontaneous mutation. Has anyone proved, to complete certainty, that these ‘foods’ are safe? I think not. There seems to be a huge experiment going on with the human population. How much are they contributing to the excess weight and poor health of so many in our modern, supposedly civilised nations? What is causing all the trouble with bee colonies? We need bees as well as CO2 to keep up our food supply. In addition, once these new, unnatural organisms are out in the general population they can’t be brought back under control. Is this what anyone intelligent really wants? I am definitely not convinced that there has been proper testing to prove their safety before release from the lab.
I am appalled at the control over agriculture in the third world that this technology gives to the likes of Monsanto. Far from helping the poor of the world I believe that it will be a terrible stranglehold over their ability to be self-sufficient in locally adapted seed. As far as I can see, the wretched stuff will also only be able to grow with the help of monstrous doses of pesticides, supplied by guess who? Why is GM ‘food’ bred to be highly resistent to pesticides if they are not required?
Dr. Dave says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:41 am
Anthony,
Sir, you are on a roll this morning! Your comments on this thread are fantastic. I especially want to thank you for your comment on GM food. Mankind has a multi-thousand year history of genetically modifying foods. Consider cattle, swine and domestic fowl. Think they started out that way? Does anyone think domestic corn, wheat or rice crops bear any resemblance to the very same crops grown 200 years ago? How did we get seedless grapes and seedless oranges?
___________
You really think that developing these things by natural selection over many years equates to artificially inserting foreign genes into the DNA?
Anthony Watts say:
The point is that you wrote:
A reasonable interpretation from your putting blameless in quotes is that they actually used that word. However, they didn’t…and now you admit that they did not rule out the possibility that global warming played a role. The fact that you interpret this as “the obligatory language so as to not upset the whuffos” does not give license to say that they said something different from what they actually said.
Also, you talk about it being weather (a blocking high) and not climate as if the two are mutually exclusive. They are not. If global warming makes high temperature extremes more likely, when those extremes actually occur one will ***always*** be able to identify a weather event as the proximate cause (by the very nature of an extreme event). However, that does not mean that the extreme was not worse than it would have been in the absence of a change in climate. (Also, it could be, for example, that global warming changes weather patterns and makes such a blocking high more likely…I am not saying this is necessarily true, but it is another conceivable way in which your statement about the cause being a blocking high would not be mutually exclusive with it also being attributable to global warming.)
REPLY: The blocking high was a synoptic feature, not a climate feature. That my friend, is weather. So it’s still weather, not AGW. And, AGW is in fact blameless in the Russian heat wave. But I get your point about the quotes. I was quoting my own viewpoint, but can see how you could see it based on your worldview. Easy fix, quote marks removed, whining appeased.
As for your other claims, while I don’t have data for Russia (presumably NOAA does), I see no evidence of increasing frequency of hot weather events, at least in the USA.
Graph By Bruce Hall
– Anthony
Natural gas, natural gas, natural gas. Really, what the hell is wrong with us? Are we led by complete idiots? We are sitting on one of the largest sources of fuel in the world and it produces about %30 less CO2 than gasoline, why don’t we start using it as a transportation fuel and leave growing things for eating. That giant sucking sound is our fuel dollars headed for the middle east. Why not spend them here on fuel produced in America by Americans?
DirkH says:
March 26, 2011 at 12:47 pm
R. Gates says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:34 am
“The best solution to any problem is based on understanding all the causes, and this means taking the most broad perspective, and then every thing comes down to putting your resources where they can do the most long-term good. AGW skeptics seem to want to deny any role in the food supply disruption to climate change, ”
Thanks – given the enormous prize tag attached to fighting AGW, you have just convincingly argued to fix the other, real problems first
____
Good, since I’ve never argued the case for spending even one dime on fighting AGW.
Annei:
“You really think that developing these things by natural selection over many years equates to artificially inserting foreign genes into the DNA?”
If I remember correctly, Darwin got his term “natural selection” from human selection of traits in animals and plants. Human selection is what Dr. Dave referred to, and in geological terms has only occurred very recently. You appear to be confusing the two kinds of selection. I personally am not sure whether GM crops are on balance a good thing – it’s something I ought to research further.
I wonder if it is actually “selection” as opposed to “purposeful design” and I do have some qualms about that as nothing we have ever designed has turned out to be completely predictable. There will doubtless be unforeseen issues, but it’s a question of whether those will be outweighed by the benefits. I hope we proceed with suitable caution.
R Gates says : “The best solution to any problem is based on understanding all the causes, and this means taking the most broad perspective, and then everything comes down to putting your resources where they can do the most long-term good.”
Absolutely. Well, almost absolutely. It’s not “where they can do the most long-term good“, it’s “where they will do the most long-term good“.
Time and time again we see ideologically-driven (or plain unrealistically-driven) actions, with the inevitable unexpected consequences.
We need to apply the law of predictable consequences to all proposed actions, in order to avoid the law of unexpected consequences.
For example : What will actually happen if we encourage vast areas of good arable land to be used to produce fuel instead of food?
Or: What will be the actual impact on climate, and on the world’s various economies, if the developed world manages to reduce CO2 emissions by x%? And the actual cost?
GRANT HILLEMEYER says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Natural gas, natural gas, natural gas.
Well said. Wind, solar, geothermal, and other alternatives cannot make a dent in our use of foreign oil as we are energy independent in our production of electricity.
The most available, and economically competitive fuel for vehicles is natural gas. Here in Atlanta, MARTA converted busses to run on natural gas. The following can be found at the MARTA web site.
Q: 5b. How Does MARTA Help Atlanta? (The Environment)
A: A study conducted by the American Public Transit Association found that in 2001 alone, public transportation use in the Atlanta area saved 19.3 million gallons of gasoline, and kept more than 300 million pounds of pollutants out of the air. MARTA has one of the largest fleet of compressed natural gas buses in the nation, increasing mobility while reducing pollution. The availability of MARTA as a transit alternative saved Atlantans approximately 25 million man-hours in traffic delays.
Annei,
You wrote, “I do not wish to eat food that has been genetically modified. It is not a natural process, unlike hybridisation, or even spontaneous mutation.”
If that is your take on the world, go for it, but to avoid being a hippocrit:
Do not get a flu shot. For that matter, don’t take any prescription medicine, whatsoever. They are created by processes decidely not natural. To be safe, you need to completely stay away from doctors.
Forget about chlorinated water for drinking. I have never seen naturally chlorinated water, and surely you must treat fluoridation as a poison.
Do not cook your food. Not only is raw the ‘natural’ way to go, heating food changes some of the chemical composition of the food, breaking chemical bonds and creating new combinations.
Don’t use soap, shampoo, deodorant, or any type of lotions on your body. Your skin can and will absorb all sorts of “unnatural” chemicals.
Don’t use toothpaste. Have you read the list of ingredients? I doubt if they came about in a natural fashion.
Don’t eat foods grown with fertilizers or pesticides, or the meat of any animal given antibiotics or hormones, most of all of which are synthetic, not natural.
Man has spent the last 10,000 years, or so, divorcing himself from nature. As a reward, our life expectancies are increasing, and our health getting better. Nature is not good. Nature is not bad. Nature doesn’t give a whit about you, and will kill you without remorse. But at least you will die a ‘natural’ death.
I prefer to live a lot longer and healthier with my ‘unnatural’ lifestyle. And when I die, it will not be from hunger resulting from shallowly thinking that GMCs must be harmful since they are not the result of an ‘unnatural’ process.
All markets manipulated by specultors crash.
Those of you interested in growing crops under drought conditions, whether caused by aquifer draw-down or the vagaries of nature, should investigate http://www.originalsonicbloom.com. It shows a plant-growth breakthrough used to give farmers the biggest crop of their lives even in drought conditions. Plus the site is a lot of fun and you can order a sample kit to play with in your own yard.
I have a meter-tall indoor Avocado tree I started with my own kit. All my other seeds died.
Sonic bloom doubles a crop over time in one to four generations with an increase in nutrient content. Developed to solve world hunger, it still needs carbon dioxide to work. We are carbon-based life forms.
Jack says:
March 26, 2011 at 8:20 am
Maybe the goal is to NOT feed the world’s poor.
How succinctly put! And how true without being cynical: the type of crops, the amount and what they are used for are not determined by social agendas or government fiats, but by the individual in conformity to his personal interests relative to, principally, his economic environment. The part that has a government or social agenda of sorts is tax or subsidy based: even then the individual determines whether or not he plays there.
The rich and the middle-class, not just the poor, enter into the food equation at the sharp end known as the cash register. There is no focus going in or coming out on the consumer here in the First Western or the 3rd Eastern, and nor should there be in a democratic capitalist economy.
Our governments could, of course, express a social agenda to helping the poor feed themselves if they wanted. They could purchase food grains, equipment and talent at market prices and introduce them into those areas unable to help themselves in ways that avoid killing the local economies. And they could get rid of tax or subsidy based incentives that encourage food-for-fuel that is both unnecessary and market distorting to the detriment of cheaper food. But, as Al Gore admitted, they would have to do so in reverse of buying political support in the food-growing areas (of the EU, Canada and the US). Which is not what doing things for individual self-interest is not about.
There is no serious policy about alleviating poverty, hunger or civil disruption in the world by any country. All policies are about containment of threats to the homeland. If improvement in the 3rd world were a real goal even Bill Gates would be visible in its efforts. It is not a physical inability, it is an unwillingness.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 26, 2011 at 8:38 am
Logic fail:
1. As the glaciers melt, more water is fed downstream. Once they melt completely, the only water still going downstream is EXACTLY THE SAME AS BEFORE THE MELT. The water from glaciers does not come from the glacier fairy, it comes from precipitation. If the the glaciers are melting because of Global Warming, the precipitation will not get less magically, so the same amount of water flows.
2. The Himalayan glaciers are not melting. Patchy knew it and still tried to claim they were. Point (1) still stands, however.
Are we talking about rising food prices without mentioning inflationary government monetary practices? Don’t mind the elephant in the room – just give him all your peanuts and he won’t bother you.
Anthony,
I don’t think you’re giving the GM skeptics their due. Could it be you haven’t yet given this subject the attention it deserves?
Anthony Watts says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:43 am
Fear of modification wasn’t my problem. Government/corporate control is.
@Annei says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Annei, I’m sorry, you have it backwards. By inserting carefully selected gene fragments into selected crops, scientists are able to create crops that require LESS pesticides! The pesticides are toxic to the pests (insect larvae for example) and not to the crop itself. In other words, the GMO crop makes its own, very natural pesticidal products that work very nicely.
Please see: http://www.ask-force.org/web/Benefits/Phipps-Park-Benefits-2002.pdf
This reduces the environmental release of untold thousands of pounds of very toxic chemicals – organophosphate insecticides are essentially nerve gas compounds originally developed for bioweapons in WWII.
Admittedly, the origins of GMO crops had some interesting stories including animal genes inserted into crops (these stories were greatly exaggerated and did not result in any releases). Modern GMO crops are based on sound science, rigorously inspected and tested, and bringing a new green revolution to a hungry planet. There is no relationship to obesity, this is caused by people eating too much damn food.
If people want to eat broccoli grown in their own poop, well, I’m fine with that also. It’s just not a very efficient way to feed the world’s population.
Brian H
Hoser’s point is excellent. The possibly saving grace (which, however, pharmas and others generally sidestep when possible with newly patented “tweaks”) is that patents are only about 17 yrs. Their purpose is to force disclosure of their “secrets” without denying some discovery benefits.
For the cog dissonance file: The goal of cutting world poverty in half in 10 yrs. starting in 2005 was met in half the time, 5 yrs., by 2010, per the World Bank (IIRC). Mostly due to vigorous exploitation of fossil fuels in China and India.
In many regions of the developed countries of the world, it appears that misguided policies such as diverting food towards fuel is being called out as one of the biggest blunders of the green movement. And often it is done the very high priests of the agw theocracy.
It is precisely because 40% of all corn grown in the us is burnt in cars that the food supply is in the shape it is now. The problem is not restricted to corn. The real problem is the subsidies given to corn grown to make alcohol. This diverts other farmland that used to grow food towards the more lucrative alcohol-corn.
Even a child understands this.
So when poorer countries are unable to feed their poor, let’s not forget one of the biggest facilitators for this human tragedy is the green movement who asked governments to do this biofuels thing.
I think many elections at the municipal, state levels are starting to show a clear pendulum swinging away from the more extreme expensive interventionist governments. When you hit the taxpayers in their pocketbooks, when you make them pay 15% mor in electricity bills to subsidize furniture stores to put solar cells on their roofs, you will be routed in elections. Those who choose to ignore this will have lots of time to work on their memoirs.
sleeper says:
March 26, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Are we talking about rising food prices without mentioning inflationary government monetary practices? Don’t mind the elephant in the room – just give him all your peanuts and he won’t bother you.
Some folks just hate ethanol and no amount of facts will sway them. You are absolutely correct that the costs of all commodities (including corn) have been pushed up by QE. And, they will likely continue to rise. The good news is farmers will be planting as much as they can with these high prices.
BTW, the article states there is still a surplus of corn. That means it wasn’t purchased. Can you imagine what the surplus would have been without ethanol?
Dr. Dave says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:41 am
Mankind has a multi-thousand year history of genetically modifying foods.
___________________
True, but when you have farmers in different regions developing their own strains, you maintain far more diversity in the crops. When rust, for example, wipes out a crop in one valley, the crop in the next valley over may be resistant. Not so today.
We are putting our civilization at risk by reducing the genetic diversity of our crops. The random mutations screened and propagated using traditional agricultural methods are more beneficial in the long run because Nature can test them all. Nature selects the ones that survive diseases and other factors, while humans select the variants with properties we like.
There needs to be a balance between natural traits and those humans like. Grapes with tough skins and seeds are better in the wild, while we enjoy the opposite, propagate those, and in return we protect the grapes we cultivate. That is mutualism.
Our process for making crops more appealing does weaken them. Natural traits are there for good reasons. The biggest danger to us comes in growing progressively fewer types of crops with less genetic diversity.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_diversity, good examples.
Do we really want all farmers to have to purchase new seeds every year?
Is it wise to make seeds produced by a farmer’s crops non-viable?
What do we do if somehow the corporate seed supply is cut off?
Do we want to allow GM corporations to sue farmers who plant crops using their own seeds when their own crops are modified by pollens from GM crops grown by others miles away?
Do we want farmers to abandon their tradition seed stock if they become contaminated with ‘terminator’ seed traits?
Can nations barely feeding themselves now afford to lose any percentage of their crops due to non-viable seeds produced through pollen contamination from nearby GM crops?
I recommend you read this:
http://www.banterminator.org/The-Issues/Biosafety/Terminator-Technology-and-Genetic-Contamination
It is time for farmers to sue the GM corporations for failing to contain their damned GM pollen. A collapse of GM food production could produce starvation on a scale we have never seen. GM food itself is not the problem. It is the combination of “progressive” government control over populations using enthralled corporations that no longer need to compete due in a protected economic environment created by government laws and regulations.
Food is just another example of the total control government seeks. A parallel is AGW hysteria. Regulating CO2 allows government to control everything that breathes.
If you haven’t read enough already, try this:
http://www.infowars.com/senate-bill-s510-makes-it-illegal-to-grow-share-trade-or-sell-homegrown-food/
Douglas DC says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:03 am
James Sexton- I have been convinced for a very long time that greenies go to bed at night with the gnawing fear of healthy, happy,PROSPEROUS dark skinned
people…
(Being mixed race myself I have had issues with these Klowns for years…)
==============================================
I’ve known and interacted with some very bigoted people. I still do, we all do whether we know it or not. But their bigotry is born of simple ignorance, misconceptions and stereotyping. Sadly, this will be with us for some time. But what we’re seeing here, is something born of a different mother. I can’t quite see where its coming from. Its subtle. Its slippery. And much more sinister. I’ve considered this often. And I still can’t quite articulate what it is that’s happening.
OT….it is regarding glacial melt and crops so bear with me. ☺
Jer0me or someone knowledgeable. Thanks for your comment about glaciers. We keep hearing about “when the glaciers are gone there will be no more water in the streams.” Whatever… BUT if it was getting colder, and the glaciers were, growing would stream flows decline or stay about the same assuming precip remained constant? Ignoring possible reduced precip in a colder world, would river flows decline? It would seem so. Cold and dry sure is not good for growing things.
I suppose there is not “one” answer for all situations.
Thanks
Clive
It’s not the science of GM that’s frightening, it’s the motives of the companies who develop it. Hoser nailed those fears IMO.
Anthony says: “GM objections are based on irrational fear.”
Is it irrational to fear handing complete control of the food supply to corporate profit motives?
Is this guy irrational? http://stevemarshbenefitfund.com.au/
Can we have a thread discussing this science based on evidence, with references to papers (peer reviewed or not)? I’d especially like to see a cost/benefit comparison between selective breeding and GM for the whole cycle from lab/seed to my dinner plate. I’d like to know ALL the pros and cons from an unbiased POV, because without evidence the whole argument is “irrational” IMO.
I agree there is a lot of fear, it has been used by various agendas on both sides, can WUWT cut through the hype on both sides and present the facts so we can make our own minds up please?