Public Release: 2-Aug-2017
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Key Takeaways:
- Human-caused carbon dioxide emissions lower the nutritional value of staple crops, increasing the risk for dietary deficiencies among the world’s most vulnerable people.
- This study provides further evidence for the need to curb human-caused CO2 emissions.
Boston, MA – If CO2 levels continue to rise as projected, the populations of 18 countries may lose more than 5% of their dietary protein by 2050 due to a decline in the nutritional value of rice, wheat, and other staple crops, according to new findings from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers estimate that roughly an additional 150 million people may be placed at risk of protein deficiency because of elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is the first study to quantify this risk.
“This study highlights the need for countries that are most at risk to actively monitor their populations’ nutritional sufficiency, and, more fundamentally, the need for countries to curb human-caused CO2 emissions,” said Samuel Myers, senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health.
The study will be published online August 2, 2017 in Environmental Health Perspectives.
Globally, 76% of the population derives most of their daily protein from plants. To estimate their current and future risk of protein deficiency, the researchers combined data from experiments in which crops were exposed to high concentrations of CO2 with global dietary information from the United Nations and measures of income inequality and demographics.
They found that under elevated CO2 concentrations, the protein contents of rice, wheat, barley, and potatoes decreased by 7.6%, 7.8%, 14.1%, and 6.4%, respectively. The results suggested continuing challenges for Sub Saharan Africa, where millions already experience protein deficiency, and growing challenges for South Asian countries, including India, where rice and wheat supply a large portion of daily protein. The researchers found that India may lose 5.3% of protein from a standard diet, putting a predicted 53 million people at new risk of protein deficiency.
A companion paper co-authored by Myers, which will be published as an Early View article August 2, 2017 in GeoHealth, found that CO2-related reductions in iron content in staple food crops are likely to also exacerbate the already significant problem of iron deficiency worldwide. Those most at risk include 354 million children under 5 and 1.06 billion women of childbearing age–predominantly in South Asia and North Africa–who live in countries already experiencing high rates of anemia and who are expected to lose more than 3.8% of dietary iron as a result of this CO2 effect.
These two studies, taken alongside a 2015 study co-authored by Myers showing that elevated CO2 emissions are also likely to drive roughly 200 million people into zinc deficiency, quantify the significant nutritional toll expected to arise from human-caused CO2 emissions.
“Strategies to maintain adequate diets need to focus on the most vulnerable countries and populations, and thought must be given to reducing vulnerability to nutrient deficiencies through supporting more diverse and nutritious diets, enriching the nutritional content of staple crops, and breeding crops less sensitive to these CO2 effects. And, of course, we need to dramatically reduce global CO2 emissions as quickly as possible,” Myers said.
###
Funding for the study was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and by the Winslow Foundation.
“Estimated Effects of Future Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations on Protein Intake and the Risk of Protein Deficiency by Country and Region,” Danielle E. Medek, Joel Schwartz, and Samuel S. Myers, Environmental Health Perspectives, online August 2, 2017, doi: 10.1289/EHP41
“Potential rise in iron deficiency due to future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions,” M. R. Smith, C. D. Golden, and S. S. Myers, GeoHealth, Early View article, August 2, 2017, doi: 10.1002/2016GH000018
Visit the Harvard Chan School website for the latest news, press releases, and multimedia offerings.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives–not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America’s oldest professional training program in public health.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
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Global warming is like throwing water on the wicked witch of the East — it makes us all shrink and melt into nothing. Well, maybe a bit of steam…
8% or so less protein will be compensated for by 10-15% greater affordability.
SR
… and higher productivity. The “challenges for Sub Saharan Africa, where millions already experience protein deficiency” for example, are that not much grows there. Well, it didn’t in the past. A lot more is growing there now, thanks to increased CO2 levels. So the challenges aren’t continuing – CO2 is fixing them. I think the people of Sub Saharan Africa will be very happy with 8% less protein than others, given that they had next to nothing before.
Spot On. Well said. And don’t forget the better yields due to all that plant food
And of course better varieties. If the seed companies are able to produce a wheat with 5% greater protein contend the entire issue disappears.
Yes, the grains will grow more rapidly and efficiently, thus needing less enzymes (protein) to make their growth happen. And, yes, the nutrient content is not necessarily lower per plant product, but the density will be lower and that means more will need to be eaten.
However, what we really should do is feed the extra grains to livestock and create more high quality protein, with nutrients galore. Vegans hate the idea but the best protein is animal protein, called complete protein.
Of course while all this happens, increase in CO2, hardier growth, better water utilisation, plant breeders will do nothing? Hell, with two pluses, it should make their job earlier. I always hate this kinds of studies, always assuming current state with no change and project out 20-30 years. Yeah, that will work…
I personally do not believe this crap for a second.
Consider the source.
Also consider who ran these experiments.
It may be true, but believing it because these known liars are saying it is ridiculous.
They lie about everything, all the time.
It is all they do.
The world’s population dependent on protein from these foods is very fortunate you get three squares a day.
Right now, due to the increase in CO 2, they are getting 20 percent MORE bio- mass with other nutrients and a NET INCREASE in protein of about 13 to 14 percent. This study is idiotic. Yes, the density of protein decreases slightly but the NET PROTIEN increases!
This may seem a bit obvious, but what is the ‘elevated CO2 concentration’ they tested these plants under? Whatever it was, I harbour some doubts that it will be reached by 2050.
The reason I say that is because the drop in protein at elevated growth rates is real, but very small. To get a drop of 5-10% would require a dramatic change in the growing environment, really large. So to say that this ‘shortfall’ will be reached by 2050 is something you should check before accepting.
The idea that a) the world’s population will remain in the same state of nutrition for 32 years is silly and contradicted by evidence for each of the past 6 decades at least; b) the idea that agriculture will stand still in terms of breeding varieties that can take advantage of this new growing power is silly too. Increasing the protein content of food is not necessarily a good thing, but it can be done. If that is what we need, that is what will be done.
Food is a balance of all sorts of things, not just protein.at some % of total. What kind of proteins? C? S? Eating 5-10% more food does not hurt under-fed people very much. Slightly increasing the intake of nuts would completely offset any such drop mentioned. In a warming world (if it warms) it rains more in deserts. The food supply will continue to increase for centuries to come. Getting a balanced diet will be easier and easier because we will know a lot more about how to do it, and advances in agriculture will continue.
A related article is available here free
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GH000018/full
“Potential rise in iron deficiency due to future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions”
“…demonstrated that the edible portions of food crops grown in open field conditions under elevated atmospheric CO2 of 550 parts per million (hereafter eCO2) have significantly decreased iron contents by 4–10%. These CO2 levels are projected to occur by roughly 2050, even if interventions are made to curb emissions [Fisher et al., 2007]. Specifically, C3 grasses (rice and wheat), legumes, and maize showed significant iron losses, while no effect was found in sorghum.”
The ‘forecast’ of reaching 550 ppm in 32 years means an increase of more than 4 ppm per year.
Likely?
So why is a relative decrease in vegetable protein going to cause problems during an increase in the availability of food? Note the caveat early on that the analysis assumes the diet (per capita consumption of food and its variety) will remain unchanged. Like that ever happened for 30 years in a row…
And you can bet they held back nitrogen fertilizers in their experiments.
When plants are growing more efficiently from raised CO2, they need more available nitrogen.
Farmers will adjust, something pseudo-scientists are unable to do.
Plants use of nitrogen increases with more CO2. They become more nitrogen efficient.
Same actual amount of protein – but more carbohydrate perhaps – percentages are deliberately misleading.
And not a single legume studied?
From ‘Plant Physiology”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2773101/
CONCLUSION
Current evidence suggests there are three key features of the response of legumes to elevated [CO2]: (1) unlike other nonleguminous C3 plants, only legumes have the potential to maximize the benefit of elevated [CO2] by matching stimulated photosynthesis with increased N2 fixation; (2) this potential can only be realized in the absence of limitations on productivity such as nutrient deficiency, low temperature, or drought; (3) rising [CO2] may offer some protection from drought-induced decreases in N2 fixation, which will be become more prevalent with projected changes in precipitation intensity and frequency that are projected to accompany the rise in [CO2]. However, despite the considerable importance of legumes to both agriculture and the function of natural ecosystems, there are still key knowledge gaps. There have been very few long-term studies of the response of field-grown legumes to elevated [CO2]. This greatly limits characterization of the environmental conditions under which N2 fixation can or cannot be stimulated at elevated [CO2]. The feedback effects of nutrient limitation on N2 fixation and photosynthesis have not been quantified. Only a single leguminous food crop (soybean) has been the subject of a fully open-air CO2 enrichment experiment, and this study has not yet reported the effects of elevated [CO2] on N2 fixation. No study we are aware of has quantitatively assessed the flow of C to nodules at current and elevated [CO2]. These and other challenges create the prospect of many new and exciting findings in this subject area.
Spot On. Well said. And don’t forget the better yields due to all that plant food
TAG LINE…”And of course we need to reduce CO2 emissions”
And of course, the tag line was needed to have the article published
Simple solution for Africa and South Asia…Eat more bugs, an excellent protein source
It’s how studies get funded. There is a bag of money for this research. It’s how all industries work, when my wife was in social work, the agencies she worked for – when the AIDS epidemic was in swing tailored their mandate and support to include those with AIDS to be able to get grants for funding from this bag of money. You can’t blame the researchers much, it’s how things are done. Watch movies, some of them are made by how they get funded and it shows.
The best prescription for feeding the world, besides adding bug protein to gruel, is to keep adding the vital plant nutrient CO2 to the air, while also producing more N fertilizer from fossil fuels and the air.
Rotating grain with legume crops is also an ancient method of boosting N in grains.
…and drive your VW diesel car more often. They produce nitrogen oxides that, when reduced, can be transformed into aminoacids. Same thing happens with the nitrogen oxides formed during a lightning.
Driving diesel tractors around a wheat field also helps.
Letting clover grow in your lawn also helps, and reduces the need for commercial fertilizers.
Sara,
I do that in my lawn, but it also helps the weeds. The wild rabbits like it though.
In a state of nature, wild wheat and other grains didn’t grow in monocultures, as in our commercial fields, but in association with legumes, such as vetch.
Although sadly every year most of the bunnies fall prey to dogs and boys.
But they breed like rabbits.
Co2 causes a net increase in protein, just less dense relative to bio- mass.
The famous Diet of Bugs, referred to by writer Terry Pratchett.
But us poor benighted non-bug eaters will be deprived of our proteins. We’ll have to be on steroids! We’ll all be Schwarzeneggers! Now that is as scary an aspect of CAGW as any I’ve seen.
Not exactly, see: http://www.co2science.org/subject/p/summaries/protein.php
So in other words, the protein deficiency chicken littles have found a way to say that increased plant growth and grain yields is a bad thing.
Co2 causes a net increase in protein, just less dense relative to bio- mass.
I wonder how the current paper deals with the fact that the protein content was affected almost exclusively by the nitrogen availability in the soil? With absolute protein production in a plant reliant on the amount of nitrogen available to the roots, when you produce more grain beyond the nitrogen limitation, proteins produced track the nitrogen. This would mean that if we crank up the usable nitrogen levels in the soil, CO2 is not linked to protein concentration. It looks to me that the alarmists have found a new scare story to claim “it’s worse than we made you fear!” without any real science. It is hard to evaluate that without the actual paper though to see what they controlled for and what they “assumed was irrelevant”. It is amazing what you can find when you eliminate the real independent variable from the analysis as irrelevant!
Astute comment: “eliminate the real independent variable from the analysis as irrelevant”.
The real independent variable assumed to be irrelevant in the climate models is the measured water vapor for which the trend is still increasing at 1.5% per decade. Instead the temperature increase is blamed on CO2.
A creative way to spin crop yield increases from increased CO2 into a bad thing. It is also hypocritical, as a goal of the green blob is to keep third world peasants poor, and deficiency diseases are almost entirely diseases of poverty.
Precisely. This is nothing more than a recognition that crop yields increase under higher CO2 and if you don’t increase available N (from fertiliser), then you will have lower protein concentration – not amount. Another case of research designed to find a bad answer.
The actual of protein actually increased in those experiments.
whoops early morning ypis.
The AMOPUNT of protein actually increased in those experiments.
So the plant was more efficient in creating protein , its just that the extra growth out-stripped the extra protein.
Thank you Andy. That is a very important detail which is I suppose, why it is missing from the media meme.
I should have added that we can fairly easily develop and select for varieties that are higher in protein to compensate for the difference (and I don’t mean gmo’s just good old artificial selection). Also, you could grow categories of wheat that are higher in protein like hard red spring, for example . This is quite maddening because of the headline they used to whip up the alarms. It is really just a tempest in a teapot.
This study is completely idiotic, no surprise. The Gates family is squandering its ill-gotten gains.
C4 crops are largely unaffected by higher CO2, since they need so little in the first place. Among these corn, sorghum and millet, all popular in Africa. The protein content of C3 grains can be boosted by using more N fertilizer. That’s right, made from fossil fuels.
Moreover, grains, such as the wheat, rice and barley studied by these ignoramuses, cannot alone provide humans with all the essential amino acids we need to make protein. Legumes are also necessary.
And guess what? No surprise, legumes thrive under elevated CO2, thanks to their symbiont bacteria:
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108
“In contrast to C4 species, another group of plants, legumes (members of the botanical family Fabaceae) may be especially capable of responding to elevated CO2 with increased photosynthesis and growth (Rogers et al. 2009). For most plants, growth under elevated CO2 can alter the internal balance between carbon (obtained in extra quantities through enhanced photosynthesis) and nitrogen (either unaffected or taken up in decreased amounts due to decreased uptake of water). In contrast, most legume species participate in close mutualistic relationships with bacteria that live in nodules formed on the plant’s roots. These bacteria are able to “fix” atmospheric nitrogen, chemically reducing it to a form that can be taken up and used by plants. Under elevated CO2 conditions, legumes may be able to shunt excess carbon to root nodules where it can serve as a carbon and energy source for the bacterial symbionts. In effect, legumes may be able to exchange the excess carbon for nitrogen and thereby maximize the benefits of elevated atmospheric CO2. Many studies in controlled environments have shown that, compared to other plant species, legumes show greater enhancement of photosynthesis and growth by elevated CO2 (Rogers et al. 2009). Decreases in tissue nitrogen concentrations under elevated CO2 are also smaller for legumes than for other C3 species (Cotrufo et al. 1988; Jablonski et al. 2002; Taub et al. 2008). In FACE experiments, soybeans (a legume) show a greater response to elevated CO2 than wheat and rice in photosynthesis and overall growth, although not in harvestable yield (Long et al. 2006).”
Just to be clear, “protein” in studies such as this means nitrogen content, ie amino acids.
Humans get few full proteins the we can use from plants. We get amino acids, which we turn into the proteins that we do need, such as collagen, a protein characteristic of animals. Our ancestral sponges were the first to make it, but the gene for it already existed in our closest unicellular relatives, the choanoflagellate ancestors of sponges. (Choanoflagellates are practically identical to the choanocyte feeding cells of sponges and resemble sperm.)
So calling N content “protein” is misleading. To make collagen and other vital animal proteins, we need amino acids from both grains (either C3 or C4 plants will do) and legumes. Or from eating other animals.
I’m advising my Venezuelan friends to hoard black beans, lentils, rice, corn, kerosene and alcohol. According to what I see the beans and lentils should have enough proteins to keep them alive for a while.
Beans and rice make a complete protein. A side benefit is the production of flatus, which is largely sulfuric in its content, and is also flammable.
If you want my recipe for red beans and rice, let me know. It’s quite simple.
Sara,
Love to read it.
But my preferred combo is beer and nuts.
Any combo will do. Pasta and peas. Corn and Lima beans, ala *succotash”. String beans and oats. Rice and soy sauce. Barley and lentils. You name it. One from category A and one from Category B.
For category, please read column:
Column A:
Cereal grains:
finger millet
fonio
foxtail millet
Japanese millet
Job’s tears
kodo millet
maize (corn)
millet
pearl millet
proso millet
sorghum
barley
rye
rice
oats
spelt
teff
triticale
wheat
Pseudocereals (starchy grains from dicots):
amaranth (Amaranth family)
quinoa
buckwheat (Smartweed family)
chia (Mint family)
kañiwa
kiwicha
Column B:
Pulses or legumes:
chickpeas
common beans
common peas (garden peas)
fava beans
lentils
lima beans
lupins
mung beans
peanuts
pigeon peas
runner beans
soybeans
Plus Chianti and liver!
I’m a big fan of mung beans, since their fields made such great LZs in Afghanistan.
Fernando Leanme August 3, 2017 at 2:50 pm
Other items to hoard against societal collapse are antibiotics, batteries and bicycles. Gasoline and diesel, of course, if you can. Guns and ammo are probably not an option in the socialist paradise, but matches and kerosene are. At least Venezuela is tropical.
The best outcome there is for Colombia to invade and liberate its neighbors from socialist slavery. Colombia even has ample reason for war, given Venezuela’s aid to its former FARC narcoterrorist rebels.
Or we can feed the lower-N content grain to animals which also get alfalfa or other good N sources, then eat the animals.
Humans can make, at varying degrees of efficiency, eleven of the 20 amino acids used by our proteins. Of the nine which must be obtained from diet (tryptophan, valine, methionine, phenylalanine, isoleucine, threonine, leucine, histidine and lysine), grains are particularly low in lysine, but also deficient in threonine, leucine and histidine. Conveniently, legumes however provide these four essential amino acids.
But animal protein is the way to go.
The frequency, predictability, and simplicity of these climate impact scare stories invites an AI approach to automating them and the reasoned, fact checking response algorithm. Then we can all get on with more meaningful science and leisure while the robots do all the pseudoscience and fact checking with a lag routine.
The claims become more outlandish every day.
Will climate change cause vegans to cheat?
By eating their children you mean?
Industry and the worlds fossil fuel power plants are the largest contributors of CO2 emissions. The Sidel Carbon Capture Utilization System is designed to remove over 90% of the CO2 out of the combusted exhaust and transform it into useful-saleable products.
My previous question that you never answered:
he’s just become a daily drive by cut & paste poster
I’d say more accurately, the Sidel Carbon Capture System is designed to make Sidel rich! …… and hence, the support for CAGW.
Sidabma- How do we turn one off if we ever come across it?
So green house raised veggies are fake food?
Right, they didn’t mention what the ‘elevated concentrations’ of CO2 was in their experiment.
And is the ‘drop’ in protein concentration directly linked to increases in overall yield? Does the annual crop yield have more total protein but at a smaller percentage of the total?
The protein is limited by the nitrogen content of the soil, so there is an absolute limit to the amount of protein that can be synthesized by the plant in a set amount of time. Due to reduced stomata opening, total protein may actually be slightly reduced by the reduced water uptake unless the available nitrogen at the roots is cranked up.
Bingo. Also plants become more nitrogen efficient. However they need more nitrogen as NET total protein does increase.
Barley protein down 14%? Switch from six-packs to seven-packs, problem solved.
…more plants…more to eat….problem solved
If those 18 countries get most of their protein from plants…they are food starved…not protein starved
Most people who try to live on a vegetarian diet do so because of poverty, Pellagra or beri-beri- or the like are diseases of the poor.
The news release makes superficial statements about the lowered content of plants in terms of protein, iron and zinc, and wraps in layer upon layer how many countries and people will suffer due to these alleged drops. The statements of the food content is thrown out there with absolutely no evidence, other than the claim that “… the protein contents of rice, wheat, barley, and potatoes decreased by 7.6%, 7.8%, 14.1%, and 6.4%, respectively.”. Any references to these studies and methodologies?
This is just an unabashed effort to panic people, not unlike the TV reverends scaring people into sending in money to save their soul.
News releases are not only not science, they’re generally so incomplete as to tell you nothing useful in terms of understanding a purported problem.
There seems to be a dearth of information regarding the study.
How high was the CO2 content of the test crop atmosphere? Is the elevated concentration a reasonable amount or one not naturally possible? Were there any other variances that are also omitted? Were all other factors the same, sun, temperature, water, fertilizer? How large were the sample and control crops?
If the water and fertilizer were the same – protein would drop slightly. It is the nitrogen that is limiting.
Plants grow to whatever their limiting factor is. If there is a shortage of iron, the crop will grow as far as that level will allow with the concentration reaching some asymptote to the value the plant dies at. In the case of nitrogen, the plant can still grow and photosynthesize until there is not enough nitrogen to support additional stem and leaf production at which point it ceases growth. The proteins stop production before the end of growth so you can have a larger yield, but have less protein in the final product.
It will be interesting if the paper defines elevated levels of CO2. I have read that other plant species will have increased protein. People may actually adapt and eat more of those plants.
The paper states “354 million children …… Maybe the 354 is important and be the level in PPM of CO2 as a goal to stop manmade climate change. sarc/
Have you ever tried to make 354 million children eat their vegetables?
Children not eating is a Western disease. In the third world they will eat – even if it is greens….
R
So, you are saying that people who are not particularly hungry get more selective about what they will willingly stuff into their overfed maw?
Whodathunkit?!
It will be interesting if the paper defines elevated levels of CO2. I have read that other plant species will have increased protein. People may actually adapt and eat more of those plants.
The paper states “354 million children …… Maybe the 354 is important and be the level in PPM of CO2 as a goal to stop manmade climate change. sarc/
Stupid study. Very disappointing but not surprising coming from the University that hired Naomi Oreskes. Satellites show an average 14% greening from CO2 effects past few decades. Each of the listed crops is C3, and increased at least that much. So eat 7% more of them. Better, take the 14% greening, feed to chickens, then eat the chickens. (Chickens and salmon are the most efficient animals at converting grain to meat, wt/wt basis.) Solves completely the protein deficiency in poor diets problem.
“Chickens and salmon are the most efficient animals at converting grain to meat, wt/wt basis.”
Interesting. Didn’t know that. Any links?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversion_ratios_for_livestock
It depends on age as well as species and other factors. Piglets are actually better than chickens, but they are usually let grow much longer, so their conversion ratio is higher by the time actually slaughtered, especially in some Asian countries. Birds are wonderful because, as dinosaurs, they grow so rapidly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversion_ratios_for_livestock
Some other fish are as good as Atlantic salmon, to include farmed catfish.
Sorry about the accidental double link.
The lower protein schtick is just an attempt to counter the 14%increased greening. They HAVE to make a negative out of that.
Yeah, but chickens make a lousy house pet.
Anyone know where they raise those chickens that have huge fingers?
Man, those things are tasty!
The key sentence in the article is “Because there was no reliable dose-dependent decrease in protein content with degree of CO2 elevation, we used meta-analysis to derive average response ratios comparing plants grown in aCO2 with plants grown in eCO2, where eCO2 was in the range of 500–700 ppm.”
They looked for a decrease in protein content, and used any means available to get it.
I am not reposting this. Too many people will believe it. Is this another plot by Al Gore and his crowd against the fossil fuel industry because people are wearying from their trite on climate change?
Just another justification to eat BEEF!!! Bet all those cows can convert this worthless plant stuffs into very nutritious meat, full of protein.
I’ll bet crop yields were up by more than protein dropped, if it really did drop, and while protein may have decreased as a percentage of harvested mass, it’s a smaller percentage of a larger amount and still more in total.
But then again, the left (note the study was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), considers decreasing the rate of growth in funding for government programs as decreasing the whole, when the whole is still growing far faster than inflation.
Correct. The dried grain consists of carbohydrate and proteins. When photosynthesis is rapidly increased due to a change in CO2, the carbohydrate growth increases more than the protein, because other micronutrients needed for the amino acids becomes relatively more limiting. The original paper is based on greenhouse scale experiments and not open field crop yields. In the real world, field crops show little change in protein levels relative to dry mass.
Direct link to paper
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp41/
The study is a “meta-analysis” of other papers, then uses a model to predict how the claimed protein delines will impact populations.
Any claims that higher atmospheric CO2 causes problems with crop protein levels is deceptive.
More CO2 always produces better crop yields in the real world. This is a basic finding through the entire history of the science of plant physiology and agronomy. It is an iron-clad fact that real world CO2 levels are so low that all plants are starved for CO2. That’s why plants have been evolving for many millions of years toward more efficient ways to extract CO2 out of the ambient air while competing with other plants. That’s why plants with the C4 photosynthetic pathway (and others) have begun to displace C3 plants, especially in the tropics and areas where water can be a limiting growth factor.
Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere is beneficial to real world agriculture
Deceptive? I would not go that far. RuBisCO, RuBPCase, or RuBPco, is an enzyme (protein) involved in the first major step of carbon fixation. With more CO2 available there is probably less need for RuBisCO. People green enough to photosynthesize would probably notice the difference when eating green leaves.
I didn’t say anything about rubisco which is found in the leaf, not the grain.
Real world grain crop yields show no change in protein levels over decades. Adding nitrogen is needed for the amino acid biosynthesis to maintain the protein proportion of the grain relative to the starch portion.
That’s where the meta-analysis comes in. They could not find a change of protein levels in grains. I guess that they had to include studies which analyzed whole plants, if not leaves only.
In the part of Canada where I live we produce copious amounts of hard Red Spring Wheat! Such grain rated #1 will have protein content around 14%. This is one of the highest quality wheat crops in the world. Prices are not so great these days because the world grows so much wheat. The protein content is the same for #1 now as it was in the 1960’s but yields are more than 50% higher now. More stuff-same great quality! What’s the problem again?
John,
Please don’t mess up a good scare story with actual scientific facts from the real world.
Growing conditions affect protein content, too. As do the varieties grown.
Another reason prices are not so great is that people are discovering that on order to become slightly less obese, cutting out the bread and excess carbs does wonders.
Add in the whole “gluten is poison” meme, and there you have it…lower prices for something with less demand and plenty of production.
I have not looked into actual overall demand vs production, though.
My perception may not match up with actual real world numbers.
It may be that the number of people who do not care how fat they are getting, outweighs (Ba-Zing!) the people who are trying to reign in the beast.
It also makes sense that if the marginal growing areas of the world are having fewer bad years, and higher production per acre is occurring pretty much everywhere for several different reasons, the places that overproduce will force down world prices.
This is what’ I’ve noticed regarding climate ‘science’… (For the most part), when there is a science fact or result of CO2 that doesn’t ‘work’ for “the cause”, (eq, Antarctica ice core data where temp precedes CO2 changes) a ‘science study’ will be commishioned on this topic and low and behold, the new study usually shows or suggests that this science fact or result that doesn’t help “the cause” isn’t real or there is a worse consequence.
This protein deficiency study is a perfect example.
And I just noticed this interesting technocracy phenomena in regards to the lawsuit where a bunch of kids of suing the government over climate change. Hansen and a few others recently came out with a ‘science study’ that says kids will be left with a bill for climate change up to $535 trillion dollars. Here’s the relevant quote from the WashingtonPost:
“The research was largely inspired by a landmark climate change lawsuit brought by 21 children against the federal government, which is scheduled to go to trial in February 2018, and will be used as scientific support in the case. In fact, its lead author, Columbia University climatologist and former NASA scientist James Hansen, is a plaintiff on the case, along with his now 18-year-old granddaughter”
Link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/19/climate-change-will-force-todays-kids-to-pay-for-costly-carbon-removal-technologies-study-says
What a freaking scam! They are using and abusing science to push their politics and policies.
And if anybody knows how to find who funds these studies, let me know. I bet dollars to doughnuts that many left-wing wealth sources fund these studies, my guess is that the wealth of the Rockefellers is a huge funding source.
Dollars to donuts aint what it used to be.
Hove you seen how much they are charging for donuts these days?
It is approaching an even money trade.
Don’t commercial greenhouses actually add CO2 to the air to make crops grow faster? Up to 1300-1400 PPM, I believe.
Yes, but they add enough fertilizer so that nutrients are not a limiting factor.
Nor is “protein” content always a factor for plants in greenhouses.