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?
Just another regressive tax? The Greens, grinding the faces of the poor.
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
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.
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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.
Ethanol production is what enables corn belt farmers to buy a new crew cab four-wheel drive diesel pickup every other year.
And government planning always works well for the people affected. There are never any unintended consequences nor ideological and political manipulations.
“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….
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.
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.
“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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.