Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A press release for a new study suggests milk production in Britain will drop by 18.6% if we don’t mend our wicked ways. But buried in the study itself is an obvious mitigation strategy.
How climate change will affect dairy cows and milk production in the UK – new study
August 22, 2018 10.23pm AEST
The unusually hot summer of 2018 has proved challenging for farmers across the UK. Among other things, the scorching weather and lack of rain has damaged crops, and the grass used to feed farm animals too.
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For our recent study, our team looked at how climate change might impact UK milk production, given what we already knew about how it affects dairy cows. In particular, we wanted to quantify the effects of heat stress on milk production.
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Using 11 different climate projection models, and 18 different milk production models, we estimated potential milk loss from UK dairy cows as climate conditions change during the 21st century. Given this information, our final climate projection analysis suggests that average ambient temperatures in the UK will increase by up to about 3.5℃ by the end of the century. This means that This during the summer, in some parts of the country, will lead to significant heat stress for cows if nothing is done to alleviate the hot weather’s effects.
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However, climate change projections also suggest the UK would experience more heatwaves, and these would lead to even greater losses of milk. For example, the hottest area (south-east England) in the hottest year in the 2090s is predicted to result in an annual milk loss exceeding 1,300kg/cow, which is about 18.6% of annual milk yield.
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The abstract of the study;
Spatially explicit estimation of heat stress-related impacts of climate change on the milk production of dairy cows in the United Kingdom
Nándor Fodor, Andreas Foskolos, Cairistiona F. E. Topp, Jon M. Moorby, László Pásztor, Christine H. Foyer
Published: May 8, 2018Dairy farming is one the most important sectors of United Kingdom (UK) agriculture. It faces major challenges due to climate change, which will have direct impacts on dairy cows as a result of heat stress. In the absence of adaptations, this could potentially lead to considerable milk loss. Using an 11-member climate projection ensemble, as well as an ensemble of 18 milk loss estimation methods, temporal changes in milk production of UK dairy cows were estimated for the 21st century at a 25 km resolution in a spatially-explicit way. While increases in UK temperatures are projected to lead to relatively low average annual milk losses, even for southern UK regions (<180 kg/cow), the ‘hottest’ 25×25 km grid cell in the hottest year in the 2090s, showed an annual milk loss exceeding 1300 kg/cow. This figure represents approximately 17% of the potential milk production of today’s average cow. Despite the potential considerable inter-annual variability of annual milk loss, as well as the large differences between the climate projections, the variety of calculation methods is likely to introduce even greater uncertainty into milk loss estimations. To address this issue, a novel, more biologically-appropriate mechanism of estimating milk loss is proposed that provides more realistic future projections. We conclude that South West England is the region most vulnerable to climate change economically, because it is characterised by a high dairy herd density and therefore potentially high heat stress-related milk loss. In the absence of mitigation measures, estimated heat stress-related annual income loss for this region by the end of this century may reach £13.4M in average years and £33.8M in extreme years.
Read more: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197076
Here’s a thought – even if the predicted warming occurs, why not import heat tolerant dairy cattle from regions which have already had to adapt to warm conditions?
NZ heat-tolerant breed launched in US
06 Jul, 2017 04:00 AM
New Zealand’s Dairy Solutionz launched its Kiwipole breed at the Tulare World Ag Expo event in California earlier this year, in partnership with STGenetics.
Slick Pathos, Slick Eros and its brother Slick Himeros are believed to be the world’s first homozygous slick dairy-type bulls available for export semen sales. The bulls will transmit the heat tolerance associated with the “slick gene” to all of their daughters.
Dairy Solutionz has developed the Kiwipole through natural breeding and introgression of the Senepol slick gene. The aim is a 100 per cent Bos taurus animal that potentially has the same heat tolerance as Bos indicus breeds, but without the negative milkability traits that can be present in the Bos indicus breeds.
The slick genes better regulate body temperature while maintaining milk yield under heat stress. University of Florida research shows the cows can generate up to four litres more milk a day (Dikmen 2014) with a calving interval improvement of almost two months (Ortiz 2015) for cows under heat stress.
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The scientists who wrote this handwringing climate study are aware of the potential for importing warm climate varieties of dairy cattle, and the potential of future genetic advances. Not one word of this in their press release, though they mention this possibility in their study.
… These models were used to estimate milk loss in each grid cell without taking into account the type of dairy farming system (at pasture vs indoors). It was assumed that temperature and relative humidity were the same for all systems, and that no mitigation practices were implemented. We also assumed that cattle were not significantly different from the current UK breed types, even though breeding for heat stress tolerance is one of the proposed measures to mitigate effects of climate change on dairy farms …
Read more: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197076
Availability of milk for children is a serious issue in Britain; between Britain’s green policy inflated energy bills and ongoing housing affordability problems, a lot of people in Britain are having a very tough time.
Why frighten people by exaggerating the problem?
Of course, their actual agenda is probably for this to be a non-problem since everybody will be Vegans by then, based on the continuing war on mankind’s omnivorous evolutionary heritage. So, the CAGW agenda and that of their associated eco-loons remains intact…….stop burning hydrocarbons, stop eating meat and using animal products, stop using plastics, etc. etc.
Just die, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.
This bit here: Despite the potential considerable inter-annual variability of annual milk loss….
And another: but without the negative milkability traits…..
There are others densely scattered through the article.
Excessive use of polysyllabic vocabulary does not make the author of that bit of scare-mongering any less silly.
I’m not sure exactly how he thinks dairy cattle in Cornwall and Wales are going to be likely to have a lower volume of milk production than they currently do, nor am I under the impression that he even understands how lactation starts in any mammalian species. We have heat in the summertime here in the Midwest and I haven’t seen anything that indicates a shortage of dairy products of any kind because the cows have dried up, owing to summer temperatures. It’s usually the opposite. Sometimes, prices are considerably lower than in winter.
But he is prima facie evidence of someone doing “something” mostly useless to warn people about “something” that isn’t going to happen, especially when the Gulf Stream sends a nice warm current northeast to England and palm trees have been growing down there for some time. It would be nice if he had any idea about what it’s like in the real world.
Desk jockeys!!!! Gaaaah! Find them a spot on Mars where they can congregate and squabble with each other, PLEASE!
Sara, you are in the Midwest. We are in Florida. We had so many dairy herds move into Kissimmee River drainage because of the potential for production that the environmentalists were going nuts demanding that the dairies be closed. I can assure you that is a lot hotter in Florida than the southern UK.
All bullshit. Even if the temperatures went up 3C bring them in when it gets too hot. Make sure your barn has good ventilation. Air condition it if you can afford it. Just like humans dont stay outdoors in the heat of a desert, you don’t leave cows out when it gets too hot. Another useless study by the climatologists. I am sure farmers are having a laugh over this one.
There’s no dairy cattle in Florida or Cuba……….McArthur Dairy…in south Florida Miami… was the largest privately owned dairy in the world
In 1976 we had a hot dry summer in the UK, much like the current one.
Cows went back to their barns in the heat of the day, and went out to pick over what grass there was when it got cooler.
Some cows suffered sunburn on their white bits, but on the whole they got through the hot period without serious problems. The main problem was the shortage of feed for the following winter as silage cuts were down, and some had to be fed in midsummer.
Farmers who were used to dry July/ August were growing fodder crops to feed their herds in midsummer.
When the rains returned in September the cattle stayed out in the lee of the hedgerows enjoying the rain on their backs. Then the rain didn’t stop for months so arable farmers had problems getting their winter wheat sown.
Milk yields then averaged 5000 litres per cow, now 7500 litres plus, as a result of improved genetics and feeding.
Research work done in the1980s showed that with good pasture management 4000 litres could be produced from forage, mainly grazed grass and grass silage.
Low milk prices have forced the trend to larger dairy herds of several hundred, compared to herds of 80 to 120 in the1970s.
Warmer weather doesn’t seem to be a problem, the main problem is caused by lack of rain, or too much!
So, your answer is to build and air condition enough barns to accommodate all the dairy cattle in affected areas, then provide them with food and water, and remove their waste. Wow. Milk prices would skyrocket.
What would be achieved by good ventilation if exterior temperatures are high enough to affect milk production? It would be worse than leaving them outside, considering the body heat of all those animals. You’d be far better off simply providing shade.
Air conditioned barns! This is a very good example of a cost of climate change – just one, mind you. (Replacing the herds with heat-resistant ones would also entail a cost – stud fees are not cheap.) Yet somehow all these individual costs are ignored when people say that mitigation is a wasted expense.
“However, it is well established that temperatures in dairy barns are 3 to 6°C higher than those measured outdoors ” (From the publication)
Cool your jets Kristi…
They can just plant a few shade trees for goodness sake.
I’m responding specifically to Alan’s idea of putting the cattle in barns. I agree shade trees are a far more practical alternative.
The problem with shade trees is that they don’t grow well on the desert. Shade structures work just fine. They are built over automated feed troughs and have a life span of decades. Dairies are heavily automated these days. Welcome to the 21st century. Barns are huge structures where the cattle only stay for milking. The milk is piped straight from the cows to air conditioned rooms for processing.
There are plenty of dairies located on the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. Sometimes the cattle are exposed to 115 plus heat. They spend their lives under already existing shade structures, cooled with fans and misters. So you are already paying for that infrastructure.
Hay and wheat are grown locally, sometimes next door to those facilities, specifically for feed.
The same applies for the tens of thousands of cattle who occupy feed lots here. You would know this if you traveled Interstate 8. When the wind is blowing from the right angle, the stench will leak through your car’s AC.
The article above talks about the effect of a 3.5 degree C increase in average temperature.
The barns used by cattle for shade were open sided allowing some air movement, and the cows were free to come and go as they wished. No air conditioning needed!
I agree about the BS. There are plenty of industrial cattle feed lots and dairies located around the Colorado and Mojave deserts of the Southwest in the U.S. and they are full right now. On occasion my wife and I travel to the Prescott pine country to cool off. Before climbing the Mogollon Rim, which separates Arizona between desert and pine country, we pass by a large DAIRY farm sitting out on the desert floor where the cattle are exposed to 100 plus temperatures sometimes 5 months of the year. There are several day spikes off and on where it reaches to 115 plus degrees. Milk production never stops. There are dairies located all over this region in Arizona and California. There are also major egg production facilities, both free range and regular. It does not cool off at night due to the monsoon season starting in mid-July.
There are also plenty of adults on this desert who work outdoors year round, some growing Johnson grass for hay and short-stalk wheat. Having feed grown locally almost year round is one of the reasons for locating cattle here. There is plenty of outdoor shade providing for the cattle along with misters when it really gets hot.
Ernest,
What breed are they? Makes a big difference. And just because there are dairies in hot areas doesn’t necessarily mean they are producing the same amount of milk that U.K. cows do. The amount of space required per cow, the type of feed they are given and where it grows…there are many variables here.
To me this paper is simply identifying a potential problem and where it is likely to be worst within the U.K. That helps in knowing what solutions to investigate and where to apply them.
It is Eric’s spin that turns this into alarmism. “A press release for a new study suggests milk production in Britain will drop by 18.6% if we don’t mend our wicked ways.” This isn’t even what the study says.
The most common dairy cow in the U.S. is the Holstein-Friesian breed. It is considered as the best milk producer of any breed in the world. I can’t confirm that. The U.S. is presently taken with everything Black Angus for meat production. Both do fine in a wide range of U.S. climate areas.
It’s in the “Bioclimate Envelope Model”
very very sophisticated model on very very big and sophisticated computers.
and these model runs are made by Scientists!
who’s crazy enough to argue with this kind of power?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/06/21/climate-change-impacts1/
also this
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/24/climate-scientist-proves-human-cause/
sophisticated : Definition:- Corrupt & adulterated! POED-1925!
While increases in UK temperatures are projected to lead to relatively low average annual milk losses, even for southern UK regions (<180 kg/cow), the ‘hottest’ 25×25 km grid cell in the hottest year in the 2090s
So they found that on average milk loss is relatively low, but ONE grid cell in ONE year hit 17%. So let’s talk about that ONE grid cell in that ONE year instead of the average outcome which is (their words) “low”.
One can only be surprised that they didn’t drill down to one month in one year in one grid cell.
No mitigation required. Their own study says there isn’t a problem.
Also, too much milk on the market means that producers don’t make a profit. LOL
To be pedantic, the study says there might be a problem with milk production in a small region of a computer simulated version of the UK–in the year 2090.
That quite a long term weather forecast!
” if nothing is done to alleviate the hot weather’s effects.”
Yup, if you sit around like puddings you will be crushed by bulldozers. Here’s a thought, perhaps the wetter colder parts of the UK might be used for cattle. Or get different cattle. Fortunately farmers aren’t as stupid as climate scientists.
The authors are agricultural scientists, not climate scientists. Does that make them any less stupid, or are all scientists who study phenomena related to climate change brainless idiots?
”… if nothing is done to alleviate the hot weather’s effects” is simply a caveat of the study. Without first identifying and quantifying a potential problem, how are you going to know whether and how to try to solve it? Is it better to just wait and see what happens, and if disaster strikes, look for solutions then?
I don’t think any child not living near a farm knows what real milk tastes like.
True. I can’t drink milk from the store. When I was growing up we drank freshly chilled milk…creamy!! What is sold at the store doesn’t taste like milk.
You mean that you do not like the things added to milk to make it white after they take all of natural creams and fats which make it “cream coloured” naturally
True about that. Store milk is not milk, it’s a milk-like substance.
When I was young we sold cream, so our small herd was made up mostly of Jersey and Guernsey cows. If these northern European cows do fine though Oklahoma summers (100 Deg. F plus) then I’m quite sure they’ll do okay if Britain warms up to a more comfortable temperatures.
I lived on a farm for a few years as a child, but never acquired a taste for the disgusting untreated raw material that comes from bovine mammary glands. Yuk! I prefer my milk homogenized and pasteurized, processed and packaged, just as human nature intended.
Having said that, the taste of milk, processed or not, varies throughout the year, simply because it’s an organic product subject to a complex range of variables that are sometimes difficult to control. Here’s a short list of the most common problems:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6537e/X6537E02.htm#ch2
Just wait till you get fresh goats milk from an animal that is fed on newsprint.
JMan-made climate change is a man-made boogeyman.
As to the other part of the discussion of future children not knowing what real milk tastes like, one could say that, among all the drinkers of pasteurized store-bought milk today—adults and children—only a few could tell you what real milk tastes like. This is because fresh milk from cows is shipped to processing centers and heated to a certain degree for a certain amount of time, separated, and reconstituted before being sent to grocers and outlets. This pasteurization process kills both the good and bad bacteria in milk. What consumers buy off the shelf is a pasteurized white (or flavored) liquid with little or no nutritional value.
Over the past three decades or so, the pasteurized processed milk industry in the U.S. has lost roughly 30 percent of its market while the population grew. The demand for fresh milk from dairies whose cows are pastured on natural grass between milking’s is growing, and has made/is making major inroads into the milk market. Limited only by consumer access to fresh milk, consumption is growing rapidly in the U.S., primarily because consumers have re-discovered the major nutritional and health benefits of fresh (‘raw’) milk for families, thanks to the net.
Links go into why this is happening. The first one is a report done for the state of California to determine whether not ‘raw” milk was safe to drink. It’s the most thorough and
longest.
________________________
REPORT IN FAVOR OF RAW MILK
Expert Report, Testimony and Recommendations on Raw Milk Standards for California’s Legal (Store) Sales of Raw Milk
by Dr. Aajonus Vonderplanitz and Campbell Douglass MD
http://russellyanderson.com/health/report-in-favor-of-raw-milk-06-07.pdf
This report was written, compiled and condensed by the International Medical Expert on MILK, natural and pasteurized, Dr. William Campbell Douglass, M.D., author of the definitive analysis of scientific and clinical study on milk, The Milk Book; and the proponent and leading present-day empirical scientist on the positive effects of natural milk products on humans, Dr. Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Ph.D. Nutrition, Nutritional Scientist and author of We Want To Live, Vol.1: Out of the Grips of Disease and Death, and Vol.2: Healthfully, the Facts, and The Recipe For Living Without Disease.
______________________
Class I [Processed Milk] Sales Hit Record Low
https://www.milkbusiness.com/article/class-i-sales-hit-record-low
By: Fran Howard
February 15, 2018
________________________
Rebuttal to FDA Position on Raw Milk
https://www.westonaprice.org/rebuttal-to-fda-position-on-raw-milk/
By Weston A Price Foundation
March 24, 2003
A cautionary tale as antidote to this nonsense.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/33y7ZVCZcDth0T9J21FnThz/testing-times-in-the-advancement-of-science-11-june-1999
There were genuine concerns a few years back that children from Britain’s inner cities didn’t know what a cow was, & that milk came from the supermarket, full stop!
All based on models not reality. Just like the claim that children won’t know what snow is. So. Much. BS.
Snow?? What is snow?? Never heard of such a thing! Is it that wet sloppy stuff that falls out of the sky and makes a mess of my varnished hair in the summer? (/sarc)
Models are used extensively in all kinds of fields. There is nothing inherently wrong with models. Even a simple linear regression is a model.
It would be awfully hard to know what is happening in “reality,” much less do any kind of evaluation of future outcomes without the use of models.
Kristi,
Models are only useful when they are modeling something that can be modeled. The fields where they are used successfully have processes that are understood. “Weather” is only understood in the short term and can barely be modeled. “Climate” is a very complex process and is not even close to being understood, therefore not a candidate for successful modeling.
John,
Creating climate models is part of the process of understanding it better. I would argue that climate, because of its complexity, can’t be understood without modeling it.
One thing is certain, milk production will be severely reduced if the Alarmists try to interfere with cows’ right to fart out Methane. Unhappy cows will not produce milk for their tormentors.
Fortunately, farmers aren’t as stupid as climate Alarmists.
Due to elasticity considerations, producers of agricultural products tend to do better when total supplies decrease.
In the past, in all the EU including the UK, one of the problems for farming was too much milk being produced. There is plenty of spare capacity out there if this fantasy did turn into a reality.
I have just uncovered an even more serious problem, and am about to write a paper on it, just as soon as I get a grant. I provide a synopsis if the issue here, because we have very little time to react to this major issue.
Today, the peak temperature where I am in Southern Britain is anticipated to reach 17 deg C. Overnight, it is expected to plunge to 9 deg C. This is a drop of 8 deg C in a matter of 12 hours. If this process continues, and there is no astronomical activity to reverse the trend, I calculate that in 423 hours the temperature will drop to 0 deg K (absolute zero).
This will pose insuperable problems for the British brewing industry, since the production of warm beer will be adversely affected, and girls partying in the North East may need to start wearing long-sleeved blouses instead of tank-tops.
We have only a little over 2 weeks before disaster strikes. It can yet be averted if World Governments will act in unison and pass laws to ban plastics, industry, agriculture, energy and transport (Only in the West, of course). And provide a lifetime’s funding for all environmental studies….
The comic xkcd points out the problem of extrapolation. link
It’s trivially obvious that extrapolations are unreliable. Any grade school child can understand that extrapolations tend to lead to ridiculous results. How is it that educated adults extrapolate like crazy? How is it that educated adults don’t call out other educated adults for extrapolating?
There is a structural engineering expression that says of design tables, “Interpolate at will, extrapolate at your peril!”
The comic xkcd points out the problem of extrapolation….
I prefer their comment on P values:
https://xkcd.com/882/
…How is it that educated adults extrapolate like crazy? How is it that educated adults don’t call out other educated adults for extrapolating?…
Perhaps there is something wrong with the education?
https://teara.govt.nz/en/dairying-and-dairy-products/page-1
The team could read this about dairy cows and decided to import bull semen.
One of the chief world wide exports from New Zealand is milk powder, used in infant formulae and other products.
Let us hope that they don’t get them mixed up….
Sure wish we could raise cattle in Hawaii. Oh. Wait….
“Why frighten people by exaggerating the problem?”
“Honey, how come you have to ask me that?”
Who cares, we overproduce milk anyway and it’s price is on the floor.
Eric Worrall said:
“Why frighten people by exaggerating the problem?”
Yeah, well how about you practice what you preach.
“Climate Study: British Children Won’t Know What Milk Tastes Like”
Where does it say that? Why are you putting words in their mouth to exaggerate their claims from dairy production may drop in some areas, to children won’t know what milk tastes like? Your kids know what things that aren’t grown in the UK taste like, because you import them. Regardless of whether or not the study is correct, your statement is still rubbish, and not what they said.
This is just flat out dishonest. You made that statement, not them, and then you complain about the problem being exaggerated! Fine form that is. Politicization of science anyone?
This is a joke. It is a play on the statement by a guy called David Viber that Children in the UK wouldn’t know what snow is.
As you well know, Philip, it’s a parody of an infamous headline from the Independent UK, titled “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”
In fact, it was the most viewed article on The Independent website until it was deleted.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-the-independent.pdf
So don’t pretend you don’t know about it.
How the hell would I know what the most viewed articles on a UK news site are? I’m Australian.
Regardless, it is misleading as to what the study actually says. It is attributed to the study in the headline, and they said no such thing.
But apparently that’s fine because some people will recognize it as a joke.
Especially when complaining about how others are exaggerating things.
“I’m Australian.”
So am I. So what?
Being Australian didn’t stop you finding WUWT.
Being Australian didn’t stop me from reading the article in the Independent more than ten years after it was published, when it was going viral as a consequence of record snowfalls in the UK. I guess if you entered the debate yesterday you might have missed it.
Maybe you could explain in plain English what you think the study “actually says”, and why you think it is and important and valuable study, instead of whining about a headline that everyone but you recognizes as satire.
How does any of that justify “As you well know”??
The headline you refer to was from 2015, and without knowing that they were linked, how would I know to go searching for it?
Even if it is a joke, that is the headline that goes out to the world, most of whom won’t know about the 2015 article, or the link to what was said there, and it exaggerates the claims of the study, in an article complaining about exaggerations.
It’s not OK to misrepresent what was said by the people you are writing about in the name of a joke. It was attributed to the study in the headline.
If this keeps up children won’t know what satire is.
I agree. I didn’t know it referred to anything but the article in the post.
“But apparently that’s fine because some people will recognize it as a joke.”
That’s exactly right. It is a joke, and it is used constantly on this website and you have been reading this website long enough to know that.
You are just looking for something to complain about.
I actually enjoy it when our alarmists (I’m not allowed to say the word I’m really thinking) complain about nits like this.
It means they can’t find anything substantial to complain about.
[The moderators appreciate your self-control. Not having to edit your comments frees us up to go be snarky on alarmist websites. 🙂 -mod]
I think it is fine because MOST people will recognize it as a joke. I live in the US and the “no snow” headline was in almost all the popular news sites when it was first published.
Most people? Why don’t you try presenting that headline to random people and see how many of them get the joke.
It’s not humor unless everyone gets the joke?
Are you a professional kill joy?
I’m American, and I’m quite familiar with the saying. You are either:
1) feigning ignorance in order to justify your umbrage.
2) You actually are ignorant.
Gee Philip my fellow Aussie maybe next time I’ll explain what I mean in the first paragraph… Oh wait…
It appears that Philip doesn’t understand that headlines are meant to get the reader’s attention first and foremost, and to explore further by reading the article.
Best example: The Enquirer’s habit of including space aliens with articles about the Hollywood scene.
Sara said:
“It appears that Philip doesn’t understand that headlines are meant to get the reader’s attention first and foremost, and to explore further by reading the article.
Best example: The Enquirer’s habit of including space aliens with articles about the Hollywood scene.”
Wow, the bar is set that low here now for what is acceptable? Clarity and truth be damned, it’s about winning! Like Charlie Sheen! Hey, it got him lots of publicity.
This is really simple Eric. You attribute to this study the claim that British children won’t know what milk tastes like.
Show where they said that. Oh, what’s that? They didn’t? They didn’t say anything like that at all?
I wont put words in your mouth, and I certainly won’t remain silent while you put words in other peoples mouths.
Your first paragraph:
“A press release for a new study suggests milk production in Britain will drop by 18.6% if we don’t mend our wicked ways. But buried in the study itself is an obvious mitigation strategy.”
How does that explain or justify or contradict your claim? Because without mitigation, an 18.6% drop in milk production would mean that British children will grow up not knowing what milk tastes like?
All is fair in love and war so long as you are winning?
You chose to be misleading for maximum dramatic effect.
That’s how the tabloid press works. Are you really fine with operating like that?
I’m sure I wont even cause you to pause for a second for some introspective thought, but that’s what I really think.
Hey Eric. ever notice how liberal trolls just keep digging their hole deeper and deeper ??… D’OH !
What you don’t understand Phillip, is that we are not laughing “with” you.
oooh, burn.
lol, you do realize that that only works in the playground with kids… not that that will stop you from running it on adults.
When I first read your post Phillip, I calmly explained that the headline was a joke. I need to apologise to David Viner for what autocorrect did to his name. If you were unaware of Dr. Viner’s statement at first, you were promptly made aware of it, along with any other readers who might also have been unaware. In any case, even if people were unaware of Dr. Viner’s statement, I think that it was fairly obvious that the headline was supposed to be tongue in cheek. Although, when taking into account some of the outrageous predictions that have been made by climate change alarmists in the past, perhaps not.
“If you were unaware of Dr. Viner’s statement at first, you were promptly made aware of it, along with any other readers who might also have been unaware.”
You said I knew well before it was explained.
Models…..estimate…..suggest…..thanks for that, I’ve just run out of loo roll.
Those 18 different milk production models, are they 18 different cows?
Some maybe use ‘modeled’ ones…
We are actually paying eleven people to spend public money producing rubbish like this – there are pot holes to be filled in on our roads, farm fruit crops to be picked and staff shortages in our healthcare system – in other words socially useful tasks and productive work contributing to society to be done. And these clowns are knocking out comedy sci-fi that an intelligent five year old could improve in minutes, probably enormously.
Does this qualify as parasite “ science “?
So, by 2090, UK will have temperatures not quite as hot as eastern Ontario. Looking after my six kids plus two nieces, we had enough milk from one Holstein for them to drink , for making all our cheese and butter, with surplus going to eight pigs. I wanted to buy a Jersey cow – less milk production but higher butter fat, but was advised winters were too cold here and their ears would freeze.
I’ve watched the Massai people with their cattle in the plains near Arusha, Tanzania. They milk their cows and even open blood vessels to drink the cows’ blood. Brits worrying about heatwaves! S’Truth, old Blighty could use a drying out and a touch of warmth. I’m from Manitoba and one of the most uncomfortably cold days I ever endured was in an unheated (one room had a fireplace) cottage of friends near Oxford in January (1960-ish).
You can always tell Malthusians from their petri dish worldview of resources and the helplessness they “see” in humankind. They will never understand that resources are infinite because resources are a product of the mind. We dont demand zinc, we demand rust-proof barn rooves and culverts! Poor dolts. If I had their “understanding” I too would be perennially scared out of my wits and want control over things.
It will take this Garden of Eden Century^TM, with its peak population, miraculously productive biosphere, and a pandemic of prosperity to wipe out the most dangerous illness to the wellbeing of all – Malthusian linear thinking psychosis.
Right, so all those dairy farms in Texas have lower temps than what they are proposing for the Brits?
Where’s Chris to complain about all of us anti-science types who are tearing apart this study?
Frank wrote in a previous thread, which I did not see until now:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/02/opening-up-the-climate-policy-envelope/#comment-2396122
“I have been following global warming for half as long as you, but am enough of a scientist to acknowledge that not all of the evidence points towards extraordinarily low climate sensitivity you cite. Picking the lowest estimate without citing contradictory evidence is merely propaganda, equivalent to Schneider’s “telling scary stories, making dramatic over-simplified statements and hiding your doubts…”
OK Frank, Lewis and Curry estimate climate sensitivity at 1.6C/doubling for ECS and 1.3C/doubling for TCR, using Hatcrut4 surface temperatures, vs Christy and McNider at 1.1C/doubling for UAH Lower Tropospheric temperatures.
https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/the-impact-of-recent-forcing-and-ocean-heat-uptake-data-on-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity/
Both analyses are “full-earth-scale”, which I suggest have the least room for errors. Both are “upper bound” estimates of sensitivity, derived by assuming that ALL warming is due to increasing CO2. In fact, it is possible, even probable, that less of the warming is driven by CO2, and most of it is natural variation.
The slightly higher sensitivity values for Curry and Lewis are due to the higher warming estimates of Hadcrut4 vs UAH LT.
Practically speaking, however, these sensitivity estimates are similar, and are far too low to support any runaway or catastrophic manmade global warming.
I suggest that higher estimates of climate sensitivity have little or no credibility and there is no real global warming crisis.
I reject your above comments about “propaganda” as unfounded, hostile and specious.
Regards, Allan
“Both analyses are “full-earth-scale”, which I suggest have the least room for errors. Both are “upper bound” estimates of sensitivity, derived by assuming that ALL warming is due to increasing CO2.”
Which is an absurd asumption, imo. To hold that view, you would have to believe that the warming from 1910 to 1940 was all caused by CO2 since the magnitude of the warming is the same for both the periods of 1910 to 1940 and 1980 to the present. It warmed into the 1930’s and at its heighth was warmer than any subsequent year, including 2016, then it cooled from 1940 to 1980 and has warmed since that time at the same rate as the 1910 to 1940 period, and has not, to date, gotten warmer than the 1930’s.
We don’t claim the 1930’s warming was caused by CO2, but now all of a sudden ALL the warming of today is caused by CO2. What happened to all the warming factors that took place in the 1930’s? Did they just disappear?
I think the problem is people are using the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick surface charts which have erased the actual temperature profile which is: It warmed from 1910 to 1940, then it cooled off from 1940 to 1980 and then it warmed from 1980 to present. In other words, the temperature profile rose, then fell, then rose again. But if you look at a bogus Hockey Stick chart, the ups and downs of the temperature profile have been erased and instead the bogus Hockey Stick chart gives the appearance of a steady increase in temperatures since 1910.
So the alarmists assume that in 1980 we started at a higher level of warmth than we had in 1910, and so they claim this “extra” warmth is all because of CO2. But I would say there is very little extra warmth in the system, although I will grant that CO2 might be adding some, but certainly not all the warmth we are experiencing.
And if even a little bit of the current warmth is from natural causes then CO2’s ability to affect the weather or the temperature is practically nil.
Here’s the *real* global temperature profile, Hansen 1999:
As you can see, starting in 1910, the temperature profile goes up a certain magnitude, then cools off to a certain magnitude down to 1980 and then warms from 1980 to present. Notice that the 1980 low starts at about the same position as the 1910 low. Up, down, up, in equal measures. The first warming is caused by Mother Nature and the second warming is supposedly caused only by CO2. I don’t think so. It looks all natural to me. That’s because I use the temperature chart with the proper profile.
And here’s the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart for comparison:
Notice how the temperature profile has been changed into a steadily climbing profile. This bastardization allows them to make claims like “hotter and hotter” and claims that all the recent warming is caused by CO2.
It’s a fraud on the people of the world.
“Here’s the *real* global temperature profile, Hansen 1999:”
No that’s US temps.
The US is not the globe.
“And here’s the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart for comparison:”
No it’s been homogenised such that we can have apples to apples representation throughout the series. IE: sea temps.
“Gridbox averages from ships require adjustments to compensate for several widespread changes in mea- surement practice. Although a variety of changes have impacted the historical SST record (e.g., Kennedy et al. 2011b), the period prior to the early 1940s is particularly significant. Most notably, before World War II SST observations usually involved bringing canvas or wooden buckets of seawater onto the deck of a ship, whereas thereafter it became more common to measure SST at the engine’s cooling system seawater intake. Generally speaking, the older bucket-based data contained a cold bias relative to contemporary ship SST reports, obscuring the true climate signal (Folland and Parker 1995). Because ICOADS con- tains no bias adjustments, MLOST employs correc- tions based on nighttime marine air temperatures to address the transition away from bucket-based mea- surements (Smith and Reynolds 2002). In contrast to LST debiasing, the SST adjustments have a substantial impact when averaged over the entire ocean surface, warming the globe by several tenths of a degree prior to the early 1940s and thus significantly reducing the long-term warming trend (Smith and Reynolds 2002).”
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/2012.bams_.vose_.mlost_.pdf
The changes actually act to warm the past and reduce the rate of warming.
See Nick Stokes for the reasoning behind the US historical adjustments, especially the one for TOBS.
https://moyhu.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-necessity-of-tobs.html?m=1
Well, here is an unmodified chart from Finland (halfway around the world from the U.S.) and it has the same temperature profile as the Hansen U.S. chart i.e., the 1930’s is as hot or hotter than subsequent years.
The Finland chart resembles the Hansen 1999 chart. The Finland chart does *not* resemble the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick charts.
The Hansen 1999 chart is the best representation of the global temperature profile we have. Unmodified temperature charts from around the world, and in both hemispheres, have the same temperature profile as the 1999 Hansen chart. None of them look like the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick charts.
How do you and Nick explain that?
You know, that’s about the fourth time I have introduced this Finland chart recently to bolster my claim that the U.S. temperature chart profile is a good proxy for the global temperature profile, and I have yet to get a reply from the alarmists.
I guess it is difficult to explain if you believe in CAGW and Hockey Stick charts. It kind of upsets the CAGW applecart, doesn’t it.
I wrote:
“Both analyses are “full-earth-scale”, which I suggest have the least room for errors. Both are “upper bound” estimates of sensitivity, derived by assuming that ALL warming is due to increasing CO2.”
Tom wrote:
“Which is an absurd assumption, imo.”
Allan replied:
Tom, to clarify – This was a very conservative assumption made by the authors for the sake of argument. They are saying that even in the highly improbable case that ALL warming was caused by increasing atm. CO2, the climate sensitivity to increasing atm. CO2 is no greater than 1.1C for Christy et al and 1.6 C for Curry et al. Thus there is no real global warming crisis.
You are correct, in that this assumption is extremely improbable, and real climate sensitivity is probably less, even much less.
We are on the same page, Allan.
I wasn’t criticizing you or the authors and their study, I was criticizing all the others who claim the current warmth is caused 100 percent by CO2
Understood Tom.
Global warming alarmism, like extreme green and extreme leftist politics, are a forms of mental illness.
These people believe that the ~200 failed countries in the world today , and the 200 million people killed by Hitler, Stalin and Mao last century, are unfortunate anomalies, not inherent properties of the totalitarian system they embrace.
They believe that if we all just follow Marxist principles, it will be different this time. It won’t – it will be another bloodbath – “deja vu all over again!”
These fools think in binary terms – zeros and ones – good and bad, and latch onto severely flawed ideas because these appeal to their mercurial emotions rather than their feeble intellects.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Enjoy your weekend.
Help me out here Allan, I cracked open my DSM-5 and looked up global warming alarmism, and extreme leftist politics. I couldn’t find them. Could you point out to me where they are?
David, these disorders are subsets of “antisocial personality disorder”, which is better-described in DSM-IV, as follows:
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV of the American Psychiatric Association, the clinical diagnosis of should be considered when an individual possesses at least three of the following seven characteristics:
(1) failure to conform to social norms;
(2) deceitfulness, manipulativeness;
(3) impulsivity, failure to plan ahead;
(4) irritability, aggressiveness;
(5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others;
(6) consistent irresponsibility;
(7) lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.
The presence in an individual of any three of these “symptoms,” taken together, is enough to make many psychiatrists suspect the disorder.
That DSM-4 classification (also called “sociopathy”) best describes the leaders of the global warming alarmist movement.
***************
The followers of global warming alarmism, the “sheeple” who blindly follow alarmist leaders, are best described by Part 1 of the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the metacognitive inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.
***************
Keep your day time job, and don’t even think of a career in psychology/psychiatry.
…
Your first mistake was using DSM-IV, instead of the more current DSM-5.
..
Your second mistake was thinking a person’s political viewpoint indicates psychological problems.
PS Allan, the Dunning-Kruger effect is evident in your psychological assessments.
PPS Allan, you mention history repeating itself? Well your characterization of the “left’ and of “greens” is exactly the same type of behavior the Germans int the late 1930’s did with their political opposition. In those days, people with “unacceptable” political views were sent to concentration camps or worse.
You can have any political view, creed, religion you wish, but, by your own description, you show concurrence with the principle that others can freely disagree. The measures you allude that the Germans took, is all too often raised as a remedy for sceptics.
You can’t have your own opinion on facts. I was a negligent believer in CAGW, too, ~20 years ago because I had a good opinion of scientists (I am one and an engineer as well – I even studied paleoclimatology) and no reason to doubt it off hand. I believed it when it was reported that a medical doctor had performed the first heart transplant, the discovery of DNA and the wonders of that sphere. But a little investigation of CAGW, and the suspiciously old fashioned political remedy touted first by European marxbrothers for a centrally planned solution caught my attention and I began to pay attention earnestly. Climategate, despite the totally BS response that there were 8 investigations that found no wrong doing. I wonder if there were investigative committees during WWII in the country you mention that might have found no wrong doing there, too.
David, you are ignorant, a spewer of nonsense.
For example:
1. The Nazis claimed to be socialists, and also claimed to be green;
2. DSM-5 is written in much more obtuse language than DSM-4 – usually not a good sign in any field.
Learn some history, and some common sense. 🙂
I would have thought that a more helpful analysis of the problems created by the recent, but not unprecedented, hot dry period experienced by the UK would be for farmers to make provision for the occasional reduction in grass and fodder, rather than assume that next year will be the same as this year.
I realise that this is somewhat simplistic and will have an impact on an individual farmer’s bottom line, but most prudent businesses build buffers against market downturns. Increasing fodder production by a small percentage every year would perhaps require an increase in storage capacity but I suspect would tie up minimal capital, and would give livestock farmers the capacity to see out drought periods without having to pay extortionate prices for fodder or cull their livestock at a period where its value is substantially reduced.
I think this problem can be solved importing cattle from West Texas or Brazil.
Or if it becomes too hot for cattle from West Texas and Brazil, try importing them from Yotvata, one of Israel’s largest dairies which sources all its milk from desert kibitzes where temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in summer.
The hottest month of the year is August, with an average temperature of 42.6 °C (108.7°F).
There is/was a saying about margarine – as might be found in UK shops & supermarkets.
It went along the lines of expressing astonishment – at how the manufacturers of the stuff had achieved the miracle of getting a mixture of water & air to ‘stand up’ and somehow become solid.
IOW: It said the stuff was Totally Content & Nutrient Free Junk
Here we have ‘Margarine Science’
Of course I cannot say that without giving some reason so here’s just *one* tiny example of the Reality Disconnect these people are living in:
or example, the hottest area (south-east England) in the hotte…..
OK OK – In the South East England on the parallel Planet Zog there *may* be some number of dairy cows but in the SE England of Planet Earth, there are hardly any.
Did they go look? Methinks not.
One thing they maybe *do* want to get their pretty little muddled heads around is their precious Biofuel crop.
In fields around me, last year the maize crops destined for the local digester(s) grew easily 7 or 8 feet tall. I know that coz I went out to hide a temperature data-logger in the crop next my house. At one point I wished I’d taken a Sat Nav in there to find my way home.
Tangent:
Some truly entrepreneurial folks have taken to hiding cannabis plantations within Biofuel crops/fields.
Unintended Consequences, doncha just luv them but seemingly cocaine (at least) ‘trading’ is keeping the UK balance-of-payments considerably more buoyant than it might be. Who needs Brexit eh?
End Tangent
But this year, including tassels, the maize Biofuel is *never* more than 4 feet tall, typically just thin midget stuff barely 3 feet tall.
Interesting times as they say although I imagine a spliff or two will make everything alright.
Or prescription Prozac (Opiate for our Colonial Cousins in the US) – as if eating carbs & refined sugar didn’t make everyone dumb & paranoid enough already.
A hand-held mirror periscope works in a cornfield… like found in large golf crowds…
Australian cows survive and give milk in 40 degree heat. You could ask for some. Alarmist bollocks.
Round here in central Scotland the problem has been lack of grass for the cattle to eat which has meant that some of the stored winter feed has been used already. The beasts haven’t minded the heat much.
“Using 11 different climate projection models, and 18 different milk production models, we estimated potential milk loss from UK dairy cows as climate conditions change during the 21st century. ”
Yawn, zzzzzzzzzzzz………..
I wonder what world these researchers live on. Here in NZ, which I am sure most people would agree is warmer than the UK, there is no problem with dairy cattle producing milk. NZ is the largest exporter of milk and milk products in the world. Most dairy cattle are either Jersey, Guernsey or Holstein cattle, or a mixture of these breeds. They spend their entire life outdoors except for the short periods when they are being milked (there may be limited exceptions in areas that have high snowfall in winter I’m not sure). Jersey and Guernsey are British breeds (strictly Channel Islands which are little south of the British mainland and the Holsteins are from western Germany Denmark area which tends to have greater extremes of temperature than Britain. The breeds are all ready in existence to counteract any hypothetical increase in temperature and they are from much the same region as Britain.
Where is everyone’s faith in evolution?
Usual extrapolative doom laden whataboutery. We’ve had a hot dry summer and grass growth has slowed to nothing until it rained again, requiring additional feed for milch cows. No milk shortages though as in hot weather people drink less milk.
Homogenisation has killed the taste of milk. The promotion of skimmed milk slop together with sugar free as a “healthier” option for one’s cup of tea has made the drink nastier and resulted in declining sales of tea.
“Usual extrapolative doom laden whataboutery.”
That made me laugh! 🙂
Elsewhere is a debate on legislating a definition of milk to exclude a plethora of products that have nothing to do with bovines.
I was raised on the last commercial raw milk in the Santa Clara Valley. On a cold morning the cream stood inches above the neck of the bottle.
Accuracy in pictures—that is a picture of a bull (cattle) which you eat—-not milk. As you can see NO TEATS!!
Why frighten people? That’s the whole point.
Lie as much as you want in order the make the people afraid and then make then do what YOU want not them. Using the climate models, and so many of them sounds as if they are really doing things. If the models worked, there would be only one to use, as it would be the best. They use many models because none of them work and they pretend that the average of the garbage produced by these models should be considered food.
That’s why politicians are constantly coming up with crises. That’s why they will never really solve the water supply problem in California, as it would kill a wonderful, money-making, election-winning crisis that they can constantly blame on others and claim that they can (but won’t) fix if they are elected.
Our responsibility is to point out the lies and misdirection as best we can.
Even with less milk production, apparently teat-sucking will continue apace in the UK.
Regarding a warmer climate, if it did happen:
They ingenuously assume that a warmer climate means hotter temperatures. The warming could just as well be at night, which thus raises the average temperature, or summers could become longer, not necessarily hotter, and winters become shorter and less cold, more mild. That means a longer growing season for our crops and warmer nights means that they can continue to grow more at night more than they do now, as night time temperatures would be higher.
Generally, below 45 deg F, many plants stop growing.
Cows living in broken computer models.
So there should be no milk in texas but their is , fifteen days of 105 + temperatures and the dairies round here are doing just fine , more fake science .
The decline of Political Global Warming as a serious topic involves many milestones in the trivialization process. The Brits will not be outdone.
Gorebal Worming could, and quite probably will, in fact have a negative effect on dairy production though not for the reasons alluded to in the article. EcoFascists like Ca. Gov. Brown et.al. who wish to eliminate bovine eructations and flatus will decimate the dairy herds and lead to a vastly decreased milk production.
So, import the stuff then.
Typical alarmist study.
If we leave everything exactly as it is, then raise temperature, this is what will happen.
The notion that farmers would buy cows that are better adapted to heat, and plant crops that are better adapted to heat is completely foreign to these professors.
Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to learn that they have never set foot on a farm or even outside a city.
Let’s see — climate projection models applied at the regional level (no skill demonstrated or claimed), models of milk production reliant on that, and assuming absolutely no adaptation despite knowing full well that farmers adapt. Sounds like what passes for an economic impact study in climate science.
Here’s a radical thought–we know that the mean temperature has gone up by about 1C since the late nineteenth century. Why not compare milk production per cow from then until now?
Now you might object that that there were far more important changes than the trivial anomaly change that impacted productivity between then and now. Heck, a quick google search shows that yield per cow in the UK has gone up 9.4% just between 2006 and 2016! (No, that’s not the result of temperature change in the UK, which has been trivial in that span.) During the modern warming period if any climatic damage actually exists on production (dubious) that tiny effect has been absolutely swamped by improvements in modern agriculture (which like everything else in the economy is largely fossil-fueled).
Which brings us back to the projections. Even if using climate models at the regional level wasn’t junk, and even if the global anomaly went to +3.5C by the end of the century despite warming less than a degree since 1950, and even if their milk loss models from high stress were accurate (I suppose at least that is possible), that single region in that single year that had a (simulated) heat wave and produced 17% less milk per cow than is produced today — but unless dairy makes no improvements at all between then and now, that 17% off impact will still produce considerably *higher* rates than the yield today. Between 2001 and 2016 the production went from 6,346 litres per cow to 7,636 litres per cow, increasing from year to year. (The yearly list I found doesn’t go back further than 2001, but whitelies.org, an anti-dairy-practice site focused on the UK, claims production in 1970s was 3,750 litres per cow. So production has *doubled* per cow in my lifetime, and we’re supposed to be alarmed that one small region in one hot year in the 2090s might have an impact of 17% of today’s level? Why highlight this?
The economic impact “may reach” 13.4 million pounds in an average year. Is that a lot? Google tells me UK milk production in the 52 weeks ending June 2017 was at 5.5 billion litres, and the farmgate milk price averaged 27.93 pence over the five years preceding that, so about 1.5 billion pounds. So compared to today’s market, we’re talking about an impact of 1% from an additional 2.5C by the end of the century, given absolutely no adaptation. Houston, we don’t really have a problem.
England, getting too warm? As all the descriptions of GB describe it as rather cold now, 3 degrees warmer might actually bring the daytime high up to 20C?
“Using 11 different climate projection models, and 18 different milk production models”
Stop there. This is mathematical onanism. There is no reason to read any further. We are not talking about anything other than fun with numbers, no more meaningful than a Sudoku puzzle.
Garbage in garbage out
In the future British kids won’t know what real science looks like.
In the US, the dairy cows seem to be in the hottest parts of the country. In California, they are in the central valley and Imperial valley where temps over 100 degrees F are commonplace, and the norm for summer. I see dairy cattle in Texas under similar conditions.
I think this problem has somehow been solved already even without the New Zealand heat tolerant cows. If England has trouble, just import some Texas cattle.
Only if they kill the industry.
Climate models X milk production models X bare assed assumptions that suit our inflammatory paper = be scared, be very scared.
So I thought I’d have a look ate the Central England Temperature anomoly. One deg C increase since 1900 (120 years ago). Upto 3.5 deg C increase in the next 80 years is a bonkers prediction. And the South of England is 4 deg C warmer than the north of England. Oh also the average milk yield per cow in the UK has risen significantly since 2001/02 from 6,449 litres / cow to 7,844 in 2014/15. But hey I’m just a sceptic.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate#averagesMaps
https://dairy.ahdb.org.uk/market-information/farming-data/milk-yield/average-milk-yield/#.W4Ak8Lhpzm4
The heat wasn’t the problem, it was the lack of rain.
Milk will become a rare and exciting event.
Personally I believe all the AGW alarmists need to go back to kindergarten or at least grammar school. They certainly are not near as smart as they imagine they are. They need to repeat the lessons about the little boy that cried wolf. Of course if they are young enough and went through the modern indoctrination system we are told is education they may never have heard to the parable.
Would love to buy the lot of them for what they’re worth, and sell them for what they think they are –
It is supermarkets who are driving British farmers out of business, in my local milk is cheaper than the bottled water for same volume.
Meanwhile above the grazing cows in the county of Gloucestershire
Met office says ‘street’ clouds, they look to me more like condensation trails from transatlantic planes heading for the nearby Heathrow airport link .
Einstein was right, there are no limits to how stupid people can be. Put ‘ Climate Change ‘ and ________, the resulting stupidity is astounding. ‘ Climate Change and Cow Emissions, we need a bag for that. Thankfully I don’t live in California, but they are moving into the suburbs. ( Colorado) Things worked out so well there, they probably feel the need to spread their failures elsewhere.
This is more proof that bots have taken over climate science research.
Udder nonsense.
Milk producing livestock is likely more threatened by the anti-methane/anti-cattle crowd than by global warming.
“Why frighten people by exaggerating the problem?”
Without recognizing a potential problem, there would be no move toward a solution.
Without recognizing a potential problem, there would be no move toward a solution.
Seems like a bit of a Straw Man, Kristi. The recognition of a potential problem need not entail the false exaggeration of it, especially when doing so frightens individuals into making hasty decisions that don’t need to made hastily.
Recognizing every possible outcome and threat is not scientific nor useful.
Perhaps the Poms can get milk from Australia where our cows produce milk even when it’s warm?
Strange that cows in OTHER places seem just fine with warm weather. 😀
I guess they forgot to tell all the dairy cows around Sunnyside, WA.
See here: 46.405526, -120.144491
More rubbish. France manages fine with a warmer climate.
Also, if the UK climate is going to be 3.5℃ warmer (ho ho) then it really does need to get a move on. It’s always ‘in the future’ isn’t it?
They are correct, as long as government over regulation and ever increasing taxes on dairy continue to grow unchecked more and more dairy farms will shut down. Same crap happening in America.
The assumption of 3.5C of warming this century implies that the Paris Agreement will be a total failure. It is in line with RCP 8.5 which projects that there will be 4.5C of warming from the mid nineteenth century to 2100.
Assuming the total failure if the Paris Agreement is a very valid assumption to make. So what justification for the Climate Change Act 2008, which will end up costing £319 billion ($410 billion) cumulatively to 2030? Surely cheaper energy costs would help offset any impacts of climate change?
https://www.thegwpf.com/report-reveals-300-billion-cost-of-britains-climate-change-act/
Well, let’s see.
1) There is chronic milk over-production in the UK, legacy of past UK Gov and EU policies, farmers belly-aching about getting low prices, so a fall of 18% in production can’t happen too soon.
2) This Summer has seen UK daytime temperature way above ‘normal’ for time of year and that excess way above the 3,5C mentioned, yet no national cow crisis so far reported.
3) UK cows, unlike in the US, live mostly outdoors and are all-weather cows.
4) Will there be cows by the end of the century? Maybe milk and other foods will be synthesised in factories.
5) 100 years ago nobody predicted the WWW, smart phones, tablets or the dozens of other things we have, but the Soothsaying Scientist Cast know all the future holds. The real fools are those who take notice of them, particularly given the solid record of their prognostications always being wrong.
Waaahhhh! I remember a few years ago when British children weren’t going to know what snow is anymore. Sounds like scientists have a hard time with white inanimate things.
With modeled estimates over very long periods, it is worth checking the assumptions. From the section in the paper “Milk loss estimation methods”
This paper is looking at over 70 years in the future. If heatwaves were increasing, so yields falling and cattle were suffering, is it valid to assume that farmers will ignore the problem? Would they not learn from areas with more extreme heatwaves in summer elsewhere such as in central Europe? After all in the last 70 years (since the late 1940s) breeding has increased milk yields phenomenally so a bit of breeding to cope with heatwaves should be a minor issue.