DomKen
Posts: 19457
Joined: 7/4/2004
From: Chicago, IL
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
quote:
ORIGINAL: papassion
Are the People who want to decrease CO2 aware that some greenhouses have devices to INCREASE the CO2 in the greenhouse to INCREASE plant growth? I can't remember the source, but a scientist said if we increased the CO2 on earth by, I forget what percentage, we could almost eliminate world hunger. I assume he was referring to increased crop yields.
We're going to have to get our shit together about what is the ideal balance between our atmosphere and sufficient crop yields to feed the world.
The problem with this claim is that most of our food crops are temperate zone crops and simply cannot thrive in tropical conditions. And a lot of the tropical food crops require enormous quantities of fresh water to thrive.
As the planet warms the temperate zones will shift towards the poles where there is simply less land so those crops will not be as productive as they are now. Look into winter wheat crop yields in the Dakotas over the last couple of decades (winter wheat being ideal for making bread so it is a major export).
The tropical plants that could maybe replace them will not have enough fresh water to be viable as replacements. For instance the long term drought in the southern plains has effectively wiped out the aquifer and it will take thousands of years, at lest, to refill it to a usable level. So extensive rice, tomato, plantain or other tropical fruit cultivation is out of the question.
Even if we stipulate that the Earth is in a natural warming cycle (no evidence supports this BTW) we are definitely accelerating the warming by introducing huge quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, Even if all reducing emissions did was slow the warming that would give us more time to adapt. Keep in mind the guys at BEST (the climate skeptics who are real scientists and finally had to admit the truth) say the planet has warmed by 0.9 degrees centigrade in the last 50 years.
http://berkeleyearth.org/summary-of-findings
How long can our civilization survive that rate of warming?
And I haven't even mentioned the inevitable sea level rise as the terrestrial ice melts and the fact the increasing CO2 acidifies the Oceans which kills corals and the plankton that form the base of the ocean food chain as well as producing most of the planets oxygen. Then there is the fact that as the permafrost melts it releases massive quantities of methane which is a much more powerful GHG than CO2.
Where do "tropical" crops get their "freshwater" now? Aren't most "tropical" areas right next to seawater?
Gee, perhaps a bit of iceberg melt might refill an aquifer or two?
Most are grown with heavy irrigation, rice, tomatoes and citrus. The others bananas, mangos etc. are grown in rain forest conditions. Those cannot be expected to occur deeply inland except in very specific circumstances, in the Northern Hemisphere those conditions are primarily being very close to the coast or on the west side of mountain ranges. Note the position of the mountains in North America.
iceberg melt will hopefully result in more rain somewhere but even if that rain does occur over a depleted aquifer it takes many years for the water to percolate down through the rock and that is only the water that doesn't run off or evaporate or get consumed by plants and animals on the way down. Aquifers are not big underground lakes that rainfall runs into like a cistern. Unfortunately the shifting climate seems to be creating a desert or semi arid climate in the southern plains. The area has been in a drought condition for more than 5 years which is why the farmers, ranchers and cities in the area have pumped so much water out of the aquifer.
|
RE: 4% drop in CO2 emissions in one year - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread