Of course that’s not how this one is framed. It’s all about water quality.
Abstract
We utilize a coupled economy–agroecology–hydrology modeling framework to capture the cascading impacts of climate change mitigation policy on agriculture and the resulting water quality cobenefits. We analyze a policy that assigns a range of United States government’s social cost of carbon estimates ($51, $76, and $152/ton of CO2-equivalents) to fossil fuel–based CO2 emissions. This policy raises energy costs and, importantly for agriculture, boosts the price of nitrogen fertilizer production. At the highest carbon price, US carbon emissions are reduced by about 50%, and nitrogen fertilizer prices rise by about 90%, leading to an approximate 15% reduction in fertilizer applications for corn production across the Mississippi River Basin. Corn and soybean production declines by about 7%, increasing crop prices by 6%, while nitrate leaching declines by about 10%. Simulated nitrate export to the Gulf of Mexico decreases by 8%, ultimately shrinking the average midsummer area of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic area by 3% and hypoxic volume by 4%. We also consider the additional benefits of restored wetlands to mitigate nitrogen loading to reduce hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and find a targeted wetland restoration scenario approximately doubles the effect of a low to moderate social cost of carbon. Wetland restoration alone exhibited spillover effects that increased nitrate leaching in other parts of the basin which were mitigated with the inclusion of the carbon policy. We conclude that a national climate policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States would have important water quality cobenefits.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2302087120#
They’ve got models.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2302087120#
They do note that their prescriptions will reduce agricultural output, although they likely underestimate the impact. That’s ok though. We can just buy more from overseas farmers. I kid you not. Emphasis mine.
The carbon prices imposed in this study resulted in consequential reductions on the order of 7.2% in corn and soy output from the Mississippi River Basin—roughly 20,000 tons of corn-equivalent output. SIMPLE-G-US-CS accommodated reduced corn and soy production through reduced domestic use (primarily in livestock feed), as well as diminished grain exports. In response to the elevated corn–soy prices, foreign producers would expand production.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2302087120#
Draconian Climate Policies fix everything. Don’t worry. Someone else will feed you.
For more on the war on agriculture visit our ClimateTV page
What could go wrong?
LOL. That was the first thing that came to my mind. John Kerry says agriculture must be part of the final solution.
John “$700 haircuts” Kerry! And that was when he ran for president- so we’ll probably need to double it. Nice hair- I wish I had that hair- but, he still has an old horse face. 🙂
“Final solution” has a very troubling history.
How can a person be this stupid?
Kerry more-or-less says, “The only way we can keep people from starving is to grow less food.”
This is what comes of living in the academia-media-politico-self-regarding echo chamber.
Just another regressive tax? The Greens, grinding the faces of the poor.
You spelled “Repressive” wrong.
I think the USA political parties flipped positions again. Might come from growing up and refreshing contents behind the same label as not to admit any errors. It sounds odd but the US South was very D before JFK then very R after JFK and seems to be flipping again.
position meaning constituent demographics.
If you want to eliminate 20,000T Of corn requirements a far simpler solution, rather than starving livestock, is to eliminate Ethanol mandated fuel additives. This would free up even more corn for livestock and human consumption and eliminate an unnecessary and costly transformation of food into fuel
Once any type of US gubbermint program is in place, it’s almost impossible to end it.
For the environmentalists this would be a win-win situation. Less fertilizer would result in lower agricultural output so that less food would be available spurring the greater likelihood of widespread famine. This would lead to shorter life expectancies, lower birthrates, and declining populations. Fewer people would put less strain on the planet’s resources and presumably result in less industrial and transportation activity to equal fewer carbon emissions which would in turn arrest or reverse the current warming trend. Problem solved except nobody’s going to go along with these asinine proposals in the first place.
Its win win except for the Revolution part.
People get real testy when starving.
One of the greatest causes of ecological damage is human hunger. Hungry people do not meekly starve. They kill and eat everything that walks, crawls or flies, and bulldoze everything that stands on land that can grow more crops.
then there is that whole “Revolution” thing.
From someone who knew a thing or two about revolutiions,
“”Every society is only three meals away from chaos,”
Vladimir Lenin
____________________________________________________________
IPCC TAR Chapter 14 Page 774 (pdf page 6)
In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.
Maybe that doesn’t apply, but the “coupled models” term just jumped out as a reminder of the TAR Chapter 14 quote.
They predict away relentlessly – so it is possible.
What is not possible is a prediction that the modeller will bet their job on. Their only value of models is that they are proof that the current climate change is unrelated to any radiative impacts of CO2.
“current climate change”
??? Apart from a tiny amount of beneficial warming since the LIA…
.. in what way has the global “climate” changed ???
Amazing that they think they can prove something with four coupled models- not mentioning the climate model! A real house of cards.
Ethanol production is what enables corn belt farmers to buy a new crew cab four-wheel drive diesel pickup every other year.
along with tens of billions of dollars every year budget for the USDA- which has offices all over America- with countless subsidy programs- too many for anyone to grasp
I don’t know about you, but this farmer is still driving a 30yo truck.
Expenses have more than kept up with grain prices.
that, and 8 billion mouths to feed
And government planning always works well for the people affected. There are never any unintended consequences nor ideological and political manipulations.
You forgot the Sarc tag.
Hopefully not needed
No, sarcasm that needs a Sarc tag is not sarcasm, especially one this blatant. Sarcasm is meant to make one think and poke the Leftist ideologues.
“nitrogen fertilizer prices rise by about 90%, leading to an approximate 15% reduction in fertilizer applications for corn production across the Mississippi River Basin. Corn and soybean production declines by about 7%, increasing crop prices by 6%”
So they’re going to double fertilizer prices ( no built in increases for the extra tax on fuel), decrease supply by almost a tenth, and they think the price is only going to go up by 6%???
Sheesh… scientists that can’t do math and have only a kindergarten understanding of economics. We’re in good hands….
But then the USDA will almost certainly offer subsidies for fertilizer- as they have large books listing all their subsidies for farmers.
You best me to it. I was going to approach it from the production side. If fertilizer goes up 90%, who thinks planted acreage is going to remain the same? Unless the price of grain increases dramatically, which it won’t, the planted acreage will reduce, dramatically too. We will then import cheaper grain and our balance of payments will worsen.
The zealots running the country are idealist with no conscience.
Jim,
You surely meant ‘idiots with no conscience!’ The lack of conscience is entirely correct as they are largely socio- and psychopaths, but they seem to think that the sky is green; just as they have been told, and nothing can dissuade them from their deeply held belief!
Russia will harvest approximately 137-138 million tonnes of grain crops this year and export 50-60 million metric ton, the same exports as last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Last years grain crops were 158 million metric ton
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/95572/
Russia manufactures its own fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides; Russia does not listen to Brussels/Washington/IPCC scare-mongering
Russia designs and builds is own farm machinery, similar to John Deere, etc.
Prior to 1990, under Communism, and under Yeltsin, Russia used to import tens of millions of tons of grain products from Canada and Australia.
US grains were not accepted, because they did not meet the Russian specifications.
From where will more food be bought from? The EU is more intent than Australia on limiting the food they grow.
I realize no crop or edible plantsgrows without limits.
However, the geometric rate in which this idiocy grows makes me question if it has natural limits.
My fear is, the idiocy only has super natural limits.
Russia!
Because Russia will still have cheap fertilizer and already is the largest wheat exporter in the world.
Sanctions. Even if its population starves, western countries won’t import grain from Russia. It’d have to be channeled through a neutral country and those are getting scarcer.
Authors are mostly from US middle country universities.
they write: “ nitrogen fertilizer prices rise by about 90%“.
I think it would be wise to cut federal funding to these places
by 90%. They could refocus on reading about the failure of
climate science and the cult-like group they are members of.
Win-win.
I have damn little use for models and there is no social cost for carbon so this is a waste of my time and I want my money back. These guys should be punished for wasting resources.
The abstract of the subject paper is basically unintelligible. It reminds me of the output of one of those web sites that used to parody lefty academic papers by randomly spewing out 3-4 paragraphs of post modern nonsense with each click of the mouse.
But.. but.. I suspect that’s were this abstract came from. 🙂
“We can just buy more from overseas farmers.”
IF the US dollar is worth anything at all by then.
It’s not escaped Nitrogen causing the algae blooms – it’s Phosphorus.
There are only 2 significant sources of Phosphorus
## When farmers apply phosphate fertiliser, the phosphate attaches to (binds) to the mineral fraction of the soil.
So long as that mineral fraction stays in the field, so does the applied phosphorus.
Basically, muddy water is feeding the algae
Phosphorus in the form of phosphate, which is mined, is also a major component of crop fertilizer.
so, basically, cities with their modern septic systems. ours gets dumped into our fields.
Fertilizer prices per acre have risen from $20ish/acre back in 2020 to over $90/acre in 2022.
If you buy by the semi load it’s less. Hay prices have gone from $70ish/ton to over $350/ton
in the same period. These climate activist are playing with fire.
The sewage effluent factor in the Missouri River from near the headwaters has grown a lot over the past 30yrs. That not all from agriculture but from citys and towns wastewater discharge.
. The town of Big Sky MT is presently being sued for a Clean Water Act violation by some enviros
over the algae bloom downstream. 100 miles further downstream the algae blooms have
gotten toxic at times during mid summer low flows and warm water.
2022 prices are almost certainly due to sanctions on Russia plus Europe de-natural-gas and de-industrialization.
Story tip. https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/300990451/trust-your-own-voice-rangatahi-writers-tasked-to-imagine-climate-changed-futures . A new twist on how to manipulate young minds. cunning and disgusting.
Anyone remember what happened in Sri Lanka when the fertilisers were ‘verboten’?
You think farmers want to waste their fertiliser? You think they want it to run off into rivers?
How about working with them to use it more carefully, to stop surface run off? Hmm?
As for water usage, increased CO2 makes plants use less water.
That photo at the top- I’ve often seen something similar, only tiny plants struggling to fight their way through asphault or cement- which would be more difficult than pushing up through hard, dry soil. I’ve got photos of some- if I can find one I’ll upload it here. I just find it amazing how tough life is- so I’m not worried about any “mass extinction” or rapid reduction in biodiversity.
When abstracts are written for “peer reviewed papers”- I wonder why they can’t write it with more than one, barely readable paragraph. Is there some rule about this? Or is it that they like the abstract to be barely readable to impress us?
There’s a term for it—word salad.
Fortunately I have a solution: I have successfully modernized the Birkeland Eyde technique. Electricity, air and water to fixed nitrogen in the form of nitric acid. And with the Southwest Power Pool – North Dakota down to North Texas – having real time grid power prices negative literally 15.2% of the time, input costs are ridiculously low: https://www.spp.org/documents/69330/2022%20annual%20state%20of%20the%20market%20report.pdf
Note that the time when negative prices occur most often: 10 pm to 4 am – the wind seems to like to blow then coupled with extremely low demand.
In this post, the link between carbon reduction and fertilizer use is not explained. Is it a result of pushing diesel fuel prices so high that ag producers reduce production volumes? Or do they propose a direct tax on fertilizer?
I suppose either could have the effect of reducing fertilizer use. But on the other hand, simply reducing fertilizer use makes farmland less productive, such that it takes MORE carbon fuel to produce the same volume of food … which hardly seems “friendly” to the warmies. And makes food more expensive which hurts the poor the most, not the middle class and wealthy population
Or are they just proposing that the world population go on a diet? Why not just propose a real “final solution” like the Nazis did, and just start rounding up conservatives to go to death camps and actually cut the population to reduce carbon?
Even that strategy has a carbon cost, however. All that carbon in the dead bodies gets released to the air via ovens fueled by gas.
Most modern nitrogen-based fertilisers are produced using gas. So, ending fossil fuel use ends gas production which then ends fertiliser production.
Yes, I get that, but nearly all of the natural gas ends up sequestered in plant material and in the soils, releasing very little of it to the atmosphere – which the warmies say is what they’re trying to reduce. A small fraction of the natural gas is used to run the process that makes the nitrogen, and that creates a minor source of CO2 emissions – though even that could be replaced with “renewable” energy.
As Mr. Page says, you use methane to make nitrogen fertilizer. The other big issue is that much of the applied N boils off as NOx, a potent GHG.
Most of it gets sequestered in the plant material and the soil.
It’s stark raving bonkers because the purpose of this cutting of food production is to reduce global warming, but if that causes others to increase food production then there won’t be any overall effect on the climate. The ‘global’ in ‘global warming’ really does mean GLOBAL.
Food! There you go. . . food’s the culprit in global warming, overpopulation, strife in the Middle East, iron-poor blood; you name it. If we weren’t producing so much food, people would be so hungry, or better yet, nonexistent, to cause so many problems. Like two million years ago, when there were no humans. Just happy antelopes, snakes lurking in the bushes, and lions and wolves happily competing for prey, trying not to be bled to death by ticks, internal parasites, or burned to death by prairie fires, and all the other glitches in paradise.
China makes the atmosphere more fertile by adding more CO2 than the E.U. and U.S. put together, so crops and trees can grow faster. Then the self-flagellating U.S. reduces other nutrients by restricting fertilizer, so crops and trees can grow slower.
Brilliant!
Robbing Peter to pay Paul, or the other way around, or handing off global leadership to someone who’s not insane, are now official policies.
I have cash cropped for 40+ years in Ontario, Canada. I am a climate “denier” but the government is correct in trying to reduce the collateral damage from fertilizers: algal blooms, dead zones, nitrite poisoning to name a few. About 50% of applied N is wasted so there is an easy target. Cut N and increase yields is possible. The comments about ethanol are spot on. Food for fuel is a farce.
Multiple small applications, inhibitors, banding and grow your own N are options. Young Red Angus on Youtube is growing 200 bu corn with no added N. He uses fungally dominated compost from a Johnson Su reactor. Soil biology can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
It sounds nice, but if there was a system that produced more while reducing costs, do you really think we wouldn’t be bloody using it?
I’ve been listening to organic farmers for as long as you have, and they never manage to point to increased yields per acre in the long term.
What happened in Sri Lanka?
It takes a long time for new ideas to be adopted. Half the N input is wasted yet very few are going the extra mile to change this. The farmer who does makes more money and gradually others take notice. Notill on Ontario still has a small uptake, as does the use of cover crops.
foreign producers would expand production
So the goal is more foreign dependence, not saving the environment. Thanks for clarifying.
“If We Artificially Raise the Cost of Fertilizers” What a bizarre concept.
All to save us from the Artificial … er … Existential Threat. (And for “The Cause”.)
Less food and reduced population always sounds good to the Eco-Nazis…. Until we remember that starving people do not meekly lie down and die. They will eat EVERYTHING that is even remotely edible – including the aforementioned eco-Nazis – Everything that walks, flies or crawls. They will bulldoze every forest to grow more food. They will riot in the street and , if denied a vote, follow every warlord and dictator who promises them food.
In response to the elevated corn–soy prices, foreign producers would expand production.
it’s not like the CO2 belched in china has any effect on our climate, right?
“We utilize a coupled economy–agroecology–hydrology modeling framework to capture the cascading impacts of climate change mitigation policy on agriculture and the resulting water quality cobenefits.”
Didn’t have to read any further. Modelling (not validated) plus Kamala-style word salad that even the authors probably couldn’t explain. The authors might as well be wearing T-shirts that say “look at me, I am expurt, ain’t I clevur?