In the Excited States, crop yields are affected by complex negative factors like soil exhaustion & erosion, overuse of fertilizers & weedkillers (particularly glyphosate), lack of crop diversity, basically non-existent soil bacteria, etc. I'm no farming expert, but those factors muddy the waters significantly besides the obvious consequences of global warming as visited on the United States. Of those, soil exhaustion is the big one. Because nothing can grow in soil saturatedf in glyphosate except GM foods.

Over here, by comparison, farmers of old with no chemical fertilisers in times past used 4 crops in rotation to maximise output from any particular patch of land. Modern Permaculture has many natural methods of maximising yield naturally, if that's your concern.

I'm not a farming expert either but while that might be true of the US in the past now days advancements technology have made farming into a real science. Between soil and plant analysis, irrigation management, no till farming, crop rotation or cover drops, even GPS and more have made it so that fertilizers and weed killers and what types in general are only used where and when required.

While bad and good at the same time climate change will now allow more crops to grow in the US northern latitudes while lack of water in the southwest will put many farmers out of business. I think water management will be a concern to matter where.

"I'm no farming expert", nor am I but the evidence says that the US farmer is doing ok:
https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde0122.pdf
Corn - produced 15.115 billion bushels, record 177 bu./ac., exported 2.425 billion bushels.

Rice - produced 191.8 million cwt, record 7,709 lbs/ac., imported 31.0 million cwt., exported 88.0 million cwt.

Soy - produced 4.44 billion bushels, 51.4 bu/ac., exported 61.65 MMT. The US and Brazil are often either 1st or second in soy production.
https://www.unitedsoybean.org/hopper...arketing-year/

Wheat - 1.8 billion bushels of winter, durum, and other spring wheat, US usually ranks 4-5th in wheat production behind China, Russia and EU. US had 13% of last years export market share.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/wheat/

Yep - US farmer is doing so bad, lol.

Posting that US farmers in general are doing ok based on one "group" i.e the big cash crops where most of the production (AFAIK) is in the Midwest does not tell the entire story. The really big farms account for a few percentage of the farmers and produce > 50% of the products by value. As I posted technology and automation has made farming more productive.

Also total Production is one thing but price is another. Nothing about costs for planting per acre etc so without all the facts its not saying much about farming in general.

Whether you believe that climate change has caused the drought to be worse or its just a "bad" cycle or whatever, regardless it has impacted farming in the Western US (IMHO).

Agreed I shouldn't generalise. Are things like forced investment --> burdens of debt still going on? Organic farming, btw seems to be doing just fine. And agreed that water is a huge problem. But as that worsens it seems a direct effect of global warming, and I was trying to list some factors besides global warming.

I agree but in fairness, I wasn't trying to tell the 'entire' story in one post. Post #378 was a push back of another poster's implication that US farmland productivity is somehow diminishing because of 'worn out' land and over utilization of chemicals. I perhaps should have said 'US farming' in place of 'US farmers.' Any objective look at the data I posted in the .pngs in earlier posts shows a steady increase in yield not only of the 'big cash crops' but also of several crops of minor import to World caloric intakes. I list several (sweet potato, millet, peanuts, sugarcane and sorghum) not localised to the Midwest 'bread belt.'


Again, I agree. John Deere came out a few weeks ago with a fully autonomous tractor with, for now, limited usefulness to any but the largest farming conglomerates but that technology and others like it will eventually filter down. The caveat for me though is that even the 'minor' crops for whom I collate data and who AFAIK receive fewer R&D dollars in genetics and equipment targeted at their production show, with the exception of oats, relevant increases in 5 yr. avg. yields '2017 - 2021' over '2012 - 2016.' I believe but of course can't prove that more sun and co2 play a part.





"Net farm income (NFI)—which reflects income after expenses from production in the current year—is calculated by subtracting farm expenses from gross farm income. NFI considers both cash and noncash income and expenses. Inflation-adjusted net farm income is forecast to increase 18.7 percent in 2021, to $116.8 billion. This would be the highest since 2013. Inflation-adjusted farm production expenses are projected to increase by 4.4 percent in 2021." https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-produc...d-farm-income/

Economies of scale are almost as immutable as gravity - unless one, as a small farmer (my situation) can add value to a product the future is a little dim.


"Most Important Staple Foods In The World
Rank----Staple----Share-----Global Caloric Intake
1 ____Maize Corn__19.5%
2 ______Rice______16.5%
3 _____Wheat______15.0%
4 ____Cassava_____2.6%
5 ____Soybeans____2.1%
6 ____Potatoes____1.7%
7 ____Sorghum_____1.2%
8 _Sweet Potato___0.6%
9 _____Yams_______0.4%
10 __Plantain_____0.3%
Amber Pariona June 7 2019"
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/...the-world.html

I don't want to incite a John Deere vs/ Case vs/ Massey-Ferguson flame fest but it is worthy of note that John Deere did "get a black eye" and possibly further instigated the use of chemicals once it was made public they wouldn't stand behind their manure spreader.

Lol!!

Elect me as supreme benevolent dictator of the world, and I would end income tax, property tax, sales tax, and every other tax, except for my all new replacement: Impact Tax. Applied to corporate and individual entities alike: the greater the toll to our shared ecosystem by their activities, the greater their tax.

It's tax time, and I just hate when one form asks me to reference a table in another form, and so on. IMHO, anybody who does their taxes correctly stands out like a sore thumb and is sure to be audited. So by just having one impact tax, it would generally simplify some areas... Accessing ecological impact would have to be carried out by crowdsourced algorithmic democracy.

As far as cooling the ocean by harvesting electricity from it: please do. But it seems that there needs to be a significant temperature gradient for it to work, so perhaps its not as talked about as all the wave and wind technologies because it's mostly valid where shallow warm oceans meet deep cold oceans (mostly equatorial regions).

As far as insulating houses in the UK -- I agree with Hazel, that unemployed folks can do it--but they do have to be trained and under guidance of contractor: generally just remove all load-bearing internal walls, and then build tiny homes inside the historical homes.

But far better would be to plant and cultivate living homes for the next generation: storm damage your roof? it's OK, it will grow back.

Many insulation products have an impact in and of themselves, such as styrofoam.

I love surfing, and am always questing for a greener board. The foam cores and epoxies are not friendly. I believe mushroom mycelium could replace styrpfoam. Mushroom spawn can gel together a bed of wood chips, straw, or manure into a white loaf; as the mushrooms fruit, they deplete the loaf of some of its resources, such that after several flushes, it is rather spongy and waxy, and shrunk a little from its original size. Just make the loafs sixteen inches wide and six inches deep... by the time they shrink a little, they'll be 14.5 x 3.5 inches, the standard width and depth of a stud bay in most USA homes. Seal them with a plant based sealant, and then use them in constuction instead of fiberglass and foam. Likewise, I shoudl make a surfboard shaped bed and see what happens.

Go ahead and do it... patent it even if you like.. I probably won't, (unleass I'm elected supreme beneveolent dictator of the world), which is unlikely, so most of my ideas will forever remain mere dreams--in fact, my entire life has just be a continual reprioritization of dreams, and which ones are most achievable.

The foam replacement is not entirely off topic, since I've heard there's islands of foam and other floating trash building up at certain points where the ocean currents deposit them.

Until our sun goes supernova, I don't think the earth will be destroyed, and even then it may just become a meteor. But we probably will destroy most life on it if we don't think outside of the globe: the cockroaches will inherit the earth.

Consume less.

One trip per year yes, every 3 years, it's tough for a Canuk like me.

TheGuardian

To provide context for the above without requiring people to read the whole article:
(And for the avoidance of doubt, I am merely quoting; please don't blame me for the poor formulation and lack of quality journalism exhibited within it.)

I seem to be doing most of that already, except for the first! I like meat and intend to go on eating it, but I buy mostly chicken because it's cheaper; coincidentally it also creates less CO2 than red meat. I don't waste food because I hate waste. I don't buy any new clothes because I have plenty. I keep electrical goods until they break down; why buy something new if the old one works? I don't fly and I don't run a car. But I've been doing/not doing those things for years. It has nothing to do with going green.

Looks like World events are overshadowing the climate change problem. The World is now more focused on the invasion of Ukraine and what it can and cannot do to try and solve the situation. The West’s response at present is economic, reducing the need to import Russian oil and gas, reducing dependence on Russian exports and restricting or denying Russians access to Western imports. This appears to be a bit of a double edged sword; on one hand the West, and the EU in particular, is going to cut Russian gas imports, currently about 40% of it’s total and a quarter of its oil. This will undoubtedly hurt the Russian economy but it’s damaging the West’s as well. Petrol prices in the UK are topping £1.60 a litre at present (That’s just over £7.00 a UK gallon!) That means that transport costs are going to rise and with them the cost of food and other items. Both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of wheat, reduction of which will also cause massive reductions in availability throughout the world. On the other hand, a reduction of fossil fuels and a change to the World’s diet is something climate change evangelists are asking for though in a more planned and civilised transition, i.e. without the death and destruction.

Here in Scotland there’s been a halt called to drilling in new North Sea oilfields (Cambo) but I now feel that in an effort to reduce reliance on Russian imports, we should be using the reserves on our doorstep while trying to increase our renewable supplies to the point where we become energy self sufficient.
Rolls Royce have a possible solution to the UK’s energy need in its SMR (Small Modular Reactors) which are nine tenths factory built and take up the space of approximately two football pitches. Along with any temporary oil/gas projects, this solution would take several years to begin implementation.
Is the Ukraine incursion going to focus minds more on the energy problems? Any thoughts?
To paraphrase an old saying… “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s difficult to focus on the original problem of draining the swamp!”

If the big red button gets pushed I don’t think we’ll be worrying about climate change!

Play Bonny!

A properly functioning green energy system needs nuclear reactors to provide what's called baseload. The problem is that early nuclear reactors weren't very safe and events like Chernobyl and Fukushima spooked everybody. That's why Germany shut down all its reactors. The French kept theirs and they now have the lowest energy bills in Europe. These thorium mini reactors sound like just what we need but they are tomorrow's tech. People have been talking about them for some time now but there hasn't been enough work done on them.

As well as nuclear reactors we need efficient local energy storage that we can draw on when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. That means greatly improved batteries using less polluting raw materials. For example they are developing batteries that use sodium instead of lithium. They are much cheaper but also heavier, so couldn't be used in electric cars, but would be ideal for storing ambient energy. If we could also find a replacement for cobalt, that would be excellent but no joy so far.

Then there is mechanical storage. There's a mountain in Wales somewhere that is hollow. It used to be a coal mine. Now it's an underground hydroelectrical plant. When there is excess power in the grid, it is used to pump water from a lower to a higher level. When power is needed, the water flows back through a turbine and generates electricity. This is known technology. There is no reason I can see why we couldn't convert every worked-out coal mine into a similar mechanical battery. We just couldn't be bothered before because there seemed to be no need of it.

As for our native shale gas, that's an ideal transitional technology. It emits CO2 but much less than oil, let alone coal. Using Russian liquefied gas instead, as we are doing, is insane. Quite apart from the political aspects, the Russian gas emits the same amount of CO2 as our own gas would do and the tankers that transport it emit a great deal more as they are fueled by oil.

And finally of course we need a national program of rapid retrospective home insulation. That would save a huge amount of energy and also benefit the poor and vulnerable who tend to live in the worst insulated houses. Those high energy rates wouldn't be such a problem if poor people weren't using vast amounts of gas to heat their gardens!

We've got a similar "Pumped Storage" Hydro power station in Scotland inside Ben Cruachan. When energy prices are cheap (at night) they pump water to the "Header" Cruachan reservoir and release it back through the turbines/pumps when demand rises. I think it takes about five minutes to spin the turbines up so they can react to load demands fairly quickly. Interestingly, they have tunneled through the rim of Ben Cruachan so that when it rains, they can also gather rainfall not just in the reservoir's catchment but on the outer side of the mountain as well.

I note that Rolls Royce's SMR have gained approval so hopefully something will start moving in the right direction.

Then there's advances with nuclear fusion...

I hope we get to see results from these options before it's too late!

Play Bonny!