While the alarmists wail over 400PPM of CO2, and push doom and gloom crop failure scenarios, in the real world where people risk money and livelihood, the news is far, far, better.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/world-grain-harvest-seen-jumping-7-by-igc-on-corn-crop-surge.html
Of course Paul Ehrlich thinks the world will end (again).
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Contemplating Collapse
by Paul Ehrlich
It’s been three months since Anne and I summarized our views on this topic for the Royal Society, and we’ve been pleased that it has generated a fair amount of discussion and particularly, invitations to share our take on the future in various forum in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. So far the paper has not elicited any significant attacks, save one “rebuttal” based on climate denial that was rejected by a journal. But it has also not yet generated some of the discussion we might have hoped for, especially on key issues such as how to buffer the global agricultural system against global change so as to retain a real possibility of at least maintaining today’s nutritional situation and steps that need to be taken to increase human security against vast epidemics (such as that which now may be threatened by the H7N9 “bird flu” virus).
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Source: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=22001abf1d&e=f8b6a6b78b
I’d love to see him explain how the world agricultural system will collapse in the face of gains like this, it should be entertaining.
Every university has their own nutty professor. As long as people recognize that Paul Ehrlich is just that, and that none of his gloom and doom scenarios have come true, we’ll all be fine.
Ehrlich is the poster child for why tenure shouldn’t be a permanent thing, but one that you have to be reviewed at some interval to keep.
“… key issues such as how to buffer the global agricultural system against global change…”
How about how to protect the global agricultural system against panic-stricken carbon strangulation policies that would at least drive up all of the input costs (transport, fertilizer, etc) of farming, and in many areas cripple the industry entirely.
OK. So they write a paper. Then they get to travel to cool places (Australia is cool, right?) and explain what they said. Sounds like a pretty neat idea. Wonder if I could get a similar gig writing about wine-making.
Paul Ehrlich still prophesying doom, and still wrong
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100153735/paul-ehrlich-still-prophesying-doom-and-still-wrong/
And how much of that corn will go to make biofuel. Perhaps food production is not up after all since we now burn a significant fraction of what we produce.
Good news for all those who live on a few dollars a day or less.
It’s worth pointing out that an important limitation on food production is the cost of energy for irrigation, fertilizers, food storage, etc.
Those wish to increase the cost of energy are making millions to go hungry.
It’s too soon to tally this year’s corn crop. The cooling in Minnessota and adjacent parts of the upper Midwest could make their growing season too short for corn. The seed companies may have been fooled by the global warmers into thinking that abnormally long growing seasons will continue. Farmers could find themselves with immature corn when the frosts hit this fall.
Trivia Question for all you WUWTer’s what year did Professor Paul R. Ehrlich write:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…” ?
The answer of course is EVERY YEAR. 🙂
Paul Ehrlich FRS, please.
See how much more authoritative his doom sounds now?
Oh good grief…
Sowing the most corn in the US was the plan but since spring has been non existant…it’s not happening anymore.
If Paul Ehrlich is soooooo worried about the ability of the people of the world to feed themselves in the face of such imminent disasters as ‘Global Warming’ (setting aside the fact that historically, mankind has benefited greatly from every warming period), the sky falling, or whatever other panic-attack he’s suffering from, he might do us all the favor of achieving voluntarily discorporation, which would save a seat at the table for someone more deserving (or at least more congenial—I mean, wow: what a buzz-killer he is…)…
I’m just sayin’….
Of course Ehrlich predicts collapse, it’s a psychological necessity for him: he’s predicated his existence on the prospect of mass starvation and eagerly awaits the Malthusian apocalypse for which he is the John the Baptist figure.
Corn is a C4 grass and, therefore, increased CO2 won’t help it much except in very, very dry conditions.
Wheat, Barley, Rice and Potatoes are C3 plants and will benefit greatly from increased CO2, especially in dry conditions.
That’s the big 5.
Past quotes from Dr Paul Ehrlich:
A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.
Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.
Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.
Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years. (Earth Day 1970)
By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s. (Earth Day 1970)
Removing tenure wouldn’t have the effect that you think that it would. It would make it harder for other professors to speak out against Ehrlich and would give the faculty unions more, not less power.
How ironic. Ehrlich could wind up being right because global cooling trends make it harder to plant on time and frost may damage yields. If he is right the AGW movement might take a huge hit. What exactly is the problem with that?
It’s not that Paul Ehrlich’s tenure should be reviewed. It’s that no one should take him seriously.
The problem is that he has the ear of policy-makers. It’s secular religion. The guys yelling repent the end is near were respected figures in the prior societies hag-ridden by superstition. The common mentality gave them credibility. Now they’re relegated to street corners and soap-boxes. That’s where Paul Ehrlich should be. But policy-makers are seduced by a brand of religious thinking that takes on the disguise of modern reasoning. The fault is theirs, not Paul Ehrlich’s.
Paul Ehrlich’s assumptions are nonsense, but the external form of his reasoning has an analytical facade. He’s a soap-boxer yelling repent. But his high language flummoxes policy-makers, who typically have little analytical skill. Their lack of understanding means they can’t see through foolishness and can’t stand up to academic doomsayers.
So policy-makers take the easy route and let themselves be spooked by modernist scare stories. Better to give in to stories about bad times, because if the bad times do come you’ve covered your backside, and if they don’t come no one cares if their leader was stupid. So, policy-makers and governors go off into alarmist never-never land, just as their predecessors did, getting spooked by soap-boxer warnings that the crops failed because they had made god (climate) angry.
This combination of weaknesses has made policy-makers incompetent. We all know that the frantic fear of global warming would be over the day after a full-fledged engineering report came out about the reliability of climate models and about the measurement error of historical surface temperature sensors. Policy-makers should have demanded those studies 20 years ago. But they didn’t because they are functionally incompetent. They lack the mentality to think to the standards of a techno-scientific age. So, honestly, does Paul Ehrlich.
So there’s the problem, folks: mediocre hag-ridden medievalesque mentalities running things in a scientific age. They can’t keep up.
We have lots of food on this planet but some people still starve to death every year. We have lots of energy on this planet but some people still freeze to death in the winter. The system of distribution is broken, not the means of production.
Why is that? What is it about the way that resources are distributed that lead to starvation when there is an abundance of food?
Did anyone else notice the subtle amplification of the slur “climate change deniers” to “climate deniers?
“So far the paper has not elicited any significant attacks, save one “rebuttal” based on climate denial that was rejected by a journal….
You should always keep a few lunatics in your circle of friends. When the lunatics begin to make sense, you will know that there is deep trouble and that should seriously start looking at a change of venue.
Who gives a blurry frock what Paul Error-like says? He’s like a roulette player using a martingale strategy. “Croupier, another five hundred on Doom, please…Oh, dang, lost again.” And again. And again. Anyone who believes him is delusional.
Pat Frank says:
May 13, 2013 at 6:07 pm
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Thread winning comment.
After his “Population Bomb” bomb, a lot of people consider him to be irrelevant. Not worth even a comment on his work.
I noticed that he claimed that 90% of the people favored the Obama gun control effort. That’s obviously false. Politicians are always testing which way public opinion is trending. Very few politicians would vote contrary to 90% of his constituents. Remaining a part of the ruling class trumps principle in most cases. No legitimate poll could come up with 90%. Maybe it was 90% of a very carefully selected sample.
I am still trying to figure out what global epidemics such as H7N9 or any other version of the bird flu have to do with nutrition and global food supply. Talk about changing the subject!!!
Bill Illis says:
May 13, 2013 at 5:51 pm
Corn is a C4 grass and, therefore, increased CO2 won’t help it much except in very, very dry conditions.
Wheat, Barley, Rice and Potatoes are C3 plants and will benefit greatly from increased CO2, especially in dry conditions.
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Historically all food grains were referred to as “corn”. What USians call “corn” is a contraction of “indian corn” or what the rest of the world calls “maize”. The article quoted in the beginning of this post specifically notes that wheat and coarse grains, such as maize, are predicted to have a bumper harvest.
Suddenly I feel a modicum of respect for Harold Camping, who at finally (granted, after 4-5 missed Apocalypses/Apocalypsii/whatever) noticed the world wasn’t ending, and even apologized.