[vox_mundi]

... Got a garden?

Actually, I do.

More fruit trees, vines and shrubs, than vegetables. Though I have some herbs. I retired the bee hive after the heart attack.

I've been embracing climate change and pushing the envelope to see what will grow this far north (Connecticut). Zone 7b

I've got Tea bushes and Figs growing in the ground year-round. Who knew? My next experiment is Yuzu citrus and Owari. Some of the rest of the crop...

Apples - Honey Crisp, Macoun, Granny Smith
Pears - Asian - 20th Century
-------- European - Seckel, D'anjou
Peach - White Lady
Apricot
Pluot - combo
Kiwi - several
Pawpaw
Elderberry
Red Currants
Blueberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Figs
Goumi
Bush Cherries

Now if I can convince the Haitians and Cubans next door to quit using round-up like it's a universal solvent I'll die a happy person.

The community garden and orchard that the local representative and I started about 8 years ago is producing plenty of Apples, pears and peaches. There are about 40 families growing stuff on about 3 acres.

I've been trying to work with the Town planning committee to start integrating food security into their long-term plan. I'll let you know how that works out.

[vox_mundi]

Regarding a bumper corn crop - results may vary ...

Nearly 1 million people face food emergency in drought-hit Guatemala - U.N.

Drought damage to spur 28% slump in French corn output

French Corn Fried by Heat Wave Signals Plunging European Harvest

[dohboi]

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/05 ... hange-here

I'm not sure, though, how exactly one 'proofs' ones home against a conflagration like the one that just hit Fort McMurray!

[onlooker]

Fitting that Insurers should be the ones sounding the alarm as in a way they are in the front lines of all that is happening. I do not see any effective way to disaster proof any home from the ravages and forces that climate change is unleashing. The best thing one can do is live in an area that might statistically see less of these "events" than some other areas. Meaning not near the shore, not in heavily wooded areas that have a history of wildfires, not near large rivers. Oh and now it seems Earthquakes and Volcanoes may manifest more due to climate change.

[AgentR11]

Wider spaced lots with no trees, exterior roof and siding non-flammable, keep fuel & oil containers in separate storage building. Would do wonders for fire protection.

Trees here in the wet part of the world, should make sure that they can't fall on a house when they come down. Don't live within a few feet of the flood plain, make sure areas have proper flood mitigation and control.

All quite doable, and are REAL responses to Climate Change; our World is as it is now; compensating for the challenges it presents does not require any acknowledgement of a political purity test.

[Timo]

Insurers won't provide earthquake coverage in homeowners policies in Oklahoma anymore.

What the frack?

[AgentR11]

One will probably be able to purchase risk-riders; but expect them to be VERY expensive; essentially the insurer assumes your home will be destroyed within 15 years and prorates the replacement cost as premium.

[onlooker]

Insurers won't provide earthquake coverage in homeowners policies in Oklahoma anymore.

What the frack?

What the fracking? Expect the same pretty soon for Flood Insurance in many coastal areas. Insurers must be very busy bees now trying to gauge exactly how much greater risk they are being exposed to now as per climate change.

[WildRose]

With regard to helping prevent fire from consuming your home in a wooded area, keep all things that are easily flammable at least 30 feet away from your home, including trees (especially spruce trees!), wood piles, areas with bark chips. Construct exteriors with metal and stucco rather than wood and vinyl siding. A good-sized lawn around a property which is devoid of trees will help, especially if that lawn is well-watered, even though that may go against water use policies in very dry areas.

[dohboi]

I would think xeriscapes and rock gardens would be even better preventatives.

In general, everyone should note this bit:

"He acknowledged that such preventative planning is expensive, potentially signaling the end of high-risk hillside, river, and coastal properties"

and:

"we’ll learn either to budget more or not to be in harm’s way"

So obviously the cheaper way is to get the heck out of harms way. The trouble is, more and more of the earth will be 'in harms way' as things progress/deteriorate.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Wider spaced lots with no trees, exterior roof and siding non-flammable, keep fuel & oil containers in separate storage building. Would do wonders for fire protection.

Trees here in the wet part of the world, should make sure that they can't fall on a house when they come down. Don't live within a few feet of the flood plain, make sure areas have proper flood mitigation and control.

Yes, most of this would seem to be common sense.

For me, instead of worrying about things like the color of the house or the prestige of the neighborhood, potential flooding and fire issues were paramount in my home selection choice. Instead of spending money on cosmetic improvements, removing large or old trees, installing a whole-house generator, modernizing the electrical system and ensuring all critical systems (like furnaces, sump pumps, etc) were on separate circuits, ensuring every major system was properly grounded (turns out the house and the furnace weren't) and that the plumbing was all in good condition took priority for me.

It amazes me how most people will take essentially no common sense precautions against preventable problems, and then expect everyone else to pay for it when something bad happens. (It no longer should amaze me, but my upbringing conflicts with the way people tend to behave).

[vox_mundi]

Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change

Crop yields will fall within the next decade due to climate change unless immediate action is taken to speed up the introduction of new and improved varieties, experts have warned.

The research, led by the University of Leeds and published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, focuses on maize in Africa but the underlying processes affect crops across the tropics.

"We looked in particular at the effect of temperature on crop durations, which is the length of time between planting and harvesting. Higher temperatures mean shorter durations and hence less time to accumulate biomass and yield."

It takes anywhere between 10 and 30 years to breed a new crop variety and have it adopted by farmers. The rate at which temperatures are increasing across the tropics means that by the time the crop is in the field it is being grown in warmer temperatures that it was developed in.

The researchers found that crop duration will become significantly shorter by as early as 2018 in some locations and by 2031 in the majority of maize-growing regions in Africa. Only the most optimistic assessment - in which farming, policy, markets and technology all combine to make new varieties in 10 years - showed crops staying matched to temperatures between now and 2050.

A. J. Challinor et al, Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately, Nature Climate Change (2016)

... Higher temperatures mean shorter durations and hence less time to accumulate biomass and yield


Not Enough Runway

Preparing for climate-related food shocks

Researchers are investigating if the projected increase in climate change-generated droughts, floods, heat waves and other intense short-term occurrences will result in increased shocks that could jeopardize food security worldwide. This topic will be included in sessions at the upcoming 6th Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Global Workshop in Montpellier, France.

Even though a single food shock may be confined to a small region, if it is severe enough, the event can have monumental impacts that resonate across the globe. In February 2016, AgMIP's global gridded crop modeling intercomparison leader, Joshua Elliott, spoke at a congressional food shocks panel and cited a notable shock that recently occurred in the United States. In 2012, the worst drought in at least a half-century occurred across the American Midwest. As a result of this drought and its impacts on local crops, worldwide maize and soybean markets spiked at a tremendous rate. Price jumps like these can lead to increased household expenditures, shifts in resultant diets, reduced access to adequate food in poor communities, and civil unrest that may spiral into wider conflicts in places with fragile governance.

"If extreme events happen irregularly enough, that's OK, because you might have 10 or 20 good years before you get a truly extreme bad year, and so that frequency isn't enough to really try to breed for or prepare technologically for those extreme events," Elliott said. "But as extreme events start to become more frequent and more severe, that's likely to no longer be the case, and we may have to actually completely reframe how we breed crops, how we develop new management strategies so that we can actually breed for variance, and breed for resilience, not just breed for yield."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that a climate with increased variability and warmer temperatures may result in an increased probability of heat waves, floods and droughts. This heightened probability of weather extremes would elevate the likelihood of food shocks, as production shortfalls can reverberate through the local and international food systems.

Droughts may not only become more frequent because of changes in precipitation severity, but also because of altered precipitation type. With warmer global temperatures, the percentage of precipitation that falls as snow will decrease. More than one-sixth of the world's population's water supply comes from melt water from snow packs or glaciers. Corresponding decreases in each with global warming will cause additional water stress for areas relying on these sources.

A singular, confined shock can have far-reaching, economic impacts because of high concentrations of crops grown in particular areas. According to a 2016 study on teleconnected food supply shocks, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization's Statistics Division shows that heavily-utilized crops such as maize, rice and wheat are produced in similar regions.

For example, 82 percent of maize is grown in just five different countries, including 50 percent in the United States alone. Sixty-six percent of the world's wheat is grown in five separate countries, of which 34 percent is grown in Canada and the United States. Because of this notable localization of crop growth, the manifestation of only one extreme event limited to a precise region could be all it takes to create a major decline in agricultural production of a crop across the entirely of the globe.

Bren D'Amour, Christopher, Leonie Wenz, Matthias Kalkuhl, Jan Christoph Steckel, and Felix Creutzig. "Teleconnected Food Supply Shocks." Environmental Research Letters (2016): 1-2. IOP Science, 29 Feb. 2016. http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pd ... system.pdf

Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system (2015). Final Project Report from the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, The Global Food Security programme, UK. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10 ... 035007/pdf

"3.4.3 Floods and Droughts." Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. IPCC, n.d. https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_da ... 3-4-3.html

[vox_mundi]

Wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, is being threatened by climate change

A new study published Monday in Nature Climate Change reiterates concerns that wheat — the most significant single crop in terms of human consumption — might be in big trouble. After comparing multiple studies used to predict the future of global crop production, researchers have found that they all agree on one point: rising temperatures are going to be really bad for wheat production.

For the purposes of this comparison, the researchers focused only on the effects of temperature, without incorporating other climate-related factors such as rising carbon dioxide levels or changes in precipitation. Specifically, all the techniques suggested that a global temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius would lead to a worldwide decline in wheat yield by between 4.1 and 6.4 percent. The world currently produces more than 700 million tons of wheat annually, which is converted into all kinds of products for human consumption, including flour for bread, pasta, cakes, breakfast cereals and more. A reduction of just 5 percent would translate to a loss of about 35 million tons each year.

And that could spell big trouble for the global food supply. A new report from the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projected that world wheat production for the 2016/17 year would hit 741 million tons, nearly 500 million of which is destined to be used directly for human consumption. While global production of coarse grains, including corn, does outweigh the production of wheat, a significantly smaller proportion of it goes to human consumption worldwide, with the rest being used for animal feed and industrial purposes. According to the FAO, global human consumption of coarse grains comes to about 200 million tons annually.

Senthold Asseng, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Florida and one of the paper’s authors, stressed the fact that this study only looked at the effects of temperature.

Droughts, floods and extreme weather will also have a negative impact on yields.

Pesticide-resistant whitefly could 'devastate' many US crops

A tiny, invasive whitefly that is resistant to pesticides and carries crop-devastating viruses has been found outdoors in the United States for the first time, raising concerns among fruit and vegetable growers.

The Q-biotype whitefly turned up in April in the heavily manicured gardens of an affluent neighborhood in south Florida's Palm Beach County, where landscapers were spraying the flowers and shrubs regularly with insecticides.

Its discovery outdoors comes more than a decade after it was first found in a US retail nursery in Arizona.
Since 2005, the whitefly has also been found in about two dozen US states, but only in greenhouses.
It is already considered a major invasive pest worldwide.

Now that the Q-biotype whitefly is outdoors in the United States, researchers say it poses a serious threat to crops such as tomatoes, beans, squash, cotton and melons.

Having whiteflies outdoors makes the problem "much more difficult to control," and they may never be fully eradicated, said Lance Osborne, a professor of entomology at the University of Florida.

"The resistance to pesticides—that is what really sets them apart," he told a few dozen growers who attended a recent session to learn about the whitefly in Homestead, an agricultural area south of Miami.

The insects can also spread more than 100 viral diseases that weaken the plants and can make fruits and vegetables inedible.

Whiteflies have been blamed for worsening famine in Africa and for wreaking havoc on farming in the southern United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

Back then, swarms of whiteflies of the B-biotype destroyed cotton, tomato and melon fields, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

"The bottom line is, this can be devastating," said Osborne.

Bayer Buys Monsanto in Record Bid to Form World’s Biggest AgroChemical Company

[vox_mundi]

Climate change means land use will need to change to keep up with global food demand, researchers say

A team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham warns that without significant improvements in technology, global crop yields are likely to fall in the areas currently used for production of the world's three major cereal crops, forcing production to move to new areas.

With a worldwide population projected to top nine billion in the next 30 years, the amount of food produced globally will need to double. A new study led by researchers from the University of Birmingham shows that much of the land currently used to grow wheat, maize and rice is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

This could lead to a major drop in productivity of these areas by 2050, along with a corresponding increase in potential productivity of many previously-unused areas, pointing to a major shift in the map of global food production.

The results show that:

- Nearly half of all maize produced in the world (43%), and a third of all wheat and rice (33% and 37% respectively), is grown in areas vulnerable to the effects of climate change
- Croplands in tropical areas, including Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and the Eastern US, are likely to experience the most drastic reductions in their potential to grow these crops
- Croplands in temperate areas, including western and central Russia and central Canada, are likely to experience an increase in yield potential, leading to many new opportunities for agriculture

While the effects of climate change are usually expected to be greatest in the world's poorest areas, this study suggests that developed countries may be equally affected.

"Our model shows that on many areas of land currently used to grow crops, the potential to improve yields is greatly decreased as a result of the effects of climate change," says lead researcher and University of Birmingham academic Dr Tom Pugh.

Full Text: T.A.M. Pugh et al. Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12608

[Plantagenet]

"The slow motion transit of these storms is a function of global warming. As high latitudes warm, the global temperature gradient is decreasing, and as a result storms are moving s l o w e r and doing more d a m a g e.

Cheers!"

Could also be a function of space aliens

Wow....there's a cogent argument.

Peter....you are breaking new ground for the climate change denialists. Congratulations!


Are space aliens to blame for climate change and multiple 2017 Hurricanes?

[Plantagenet]

"several stubborn high pressure systems unwilling to properly relocate." that too, is climate science. Get it now?

You made a joke about space aliens--and I made joke that took off from your joke about space aliens. Lets laugh together about the crazy idea that space aliens are causing global warming, OK?

--------------------------

Meanwhile, as my earlier post made clear, the reason those high pressure systems aren't moving is that the whole global weather system is moving more slowly due to global warming.

How-climate-change-may-be-driving-extreme-weather

I get it that you don't understand the science---but don't pretend that the slow moving behavior of Harvey and other catastrophic events isn't explained by global warming when it is.

If you've got an alternative explanation---space aliens or whatever---then offer it. But the behavior of Harvey, Maria, etc. are just as predicated by global warming theory and by supercomputer modelling of changing climate---and that is extremely interesting.

Cheers!

[asg70]

It is incomplete and therefor easily susciptible to childish bullying behavior. You certainly rose to the occasion.

Your attempts at humor only make you look stupid. You've been warned about this in the past and yet you keep falling back on this stupid humor, further confirming your inability to incorporate new data. It makes you come across like nothing but a bot who repeats himself ad nauseum rather than someone who is capable of integrating new data.

Despite it all you keep suggesting that you are the voice of reason and rigorous scientific methodology. Sorry, but you've got a long way to go. I mean, come on, you're a personal admirer of that schizophrenic "Starving Lion". You wouldn't know the truth if it hit you with a 2x4.

Not only that, but you've all but confessed to holding a massive grudge against mainstream society for not jumping to attention and marching to the beat of your drum when you issued your apocalyptic warnings. This is the bitter fuel that drives you to want death and destruction delivered to groups who you feel disrespected you.

[asg70]

So when were you anointed moderator?

Well, one of the mods questioned your mental health some months ago. By all means keep ignoring the feedback. That's your modus operandi.

This below blends my armchair-psychology with the topic.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

[Cog]

pstarr has made a somewhat convincing case, as least to me, that peak oil is what takes down humanity instead of climate change, because it will arrive on a much quicker timescale. While I do not agree with him on the timing(I think we have a lot longer to go) and the ETP model as a whole, peak oil is the most serious problem humans are facing currently.

[Plantagenet]

pstarr has made a somewhat convincing case, as least to me, that peak oil is what takes down humanity instead of climate change, because it will arrive on a much quicker timescale.

We don't actually know the speed at which either peak oil or climate change will take down humanity, or indeed if either will finally do so or if something else (financial collapse, nuclear war with North Korea etc. etc.) will do the job first.

But as far as peak oil goes, since we are in an oil glut and global oil consumption keeps rising, peak oil isn't doing much yet.

Meanwhile there are a heck of lot of interesting things happening on the climate change side---three killer Hurricanes in three weeks with record wind, rain, low pressure, etc. may be trying to tell us global warming is having an effect and it is't good.

Cheers!