When I read this article at The Straits Times, I wasn’t sure what they were actually complaining about:
South-east Asia is the world’s rice bowl. But climate change, with its unpredictable rainfall and warming seas, is causing harvests to dwindle.
Rising sea levels are threatening rice fields. Meanwhile, the region’s growing population is placing greater stress on existing farms.
While the region has managed to rapidly reduce the number of its people who go to bed hungry, around 60.5 million of the world’s undernourished still live in South-east Asia, according to a 2015 report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The region’s food supply will come under more pressure, with its population tipped to grow from around 600 million today to almost 750 million in 2035.
It purports to be about climate change but I’m not so sure. What is causing Southeast Asia’s problem? Is it climate change, having “food autonomy” as a political goal, over-concentration on a single food source, or too many people trying to live on not enough land? All of the above?
The key point here is that with or without climate change things change. When your national strategy is as tenuous and risky as this article sounds to me, success is just a matter of dumb luck.
Just paying homage to the climate change god.
One cm. rise of seawater destroys the whole field?
SE Asia has depended upon rice for hundreds of years. I think the point here is that before climate change we had those same problems, but we mostly coped with them. Climate change adds a new problem and may be one we don’t the resources to cope with. At the least, we should recognize that we now have another problem added into the mix.
Steve
Make that thousands of years.
Before now their population wasn’t increasing by 150 million people in 20 years and they weren’t building on farmland. In China at any rate the population and the farmland are both concentrated along the coast and are in competition for land.
The obvious solution is to import rice. But that flies in the face of official policy.
Prior to the mid to late 1970’s, increased warmth allowed more land to be arable, and increased CO2 allowed more luscious plants.
Prior to the mid to late 1970’s, the top scientists were not politicians, commentators, and actors. Luckily, Newton and Einstein have been tossed onto the trash heap of science.
More luscious plants? What does the actual research show on this? May I assume you realize that carbon is rarely the rate limiting step for plant growth? To save time, for crop bearing plants it looks like we pretty often get a bit more plant, maybe a bit more of the edible part, but we lose nutritional value. Also, the weeds will grow better.
“Rising CO2’s effect on crops could also harm human health. “We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,†notes Samuel Myers, principal research scientist in environmental health at Harvard University. “[Food crops] lose significant amounts of iron and zinc—and grains [also] lose protein.†Myers and other researchers have found atmospheric CO2 levels predicted for mid-century—around 550 parts per million—could make food crops lose enough of those key nutrients to cause a protein deficiency in an estimated 150 million people and a zinc deficit in an additional 150 million to 200 million.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/
Luckily our best scientists now are not politicians either and are actually looking at this stuff, not just accepting beliefs about plants that have been perpetuated by, yup, politicians.
Steve
I really don’t enjoy discord. So I put on notice anyone who believes climate change must be stopped. I will not stand in your way. Go forth, erect windmills, bury tree trunks, walk to work. I won’t help you as I am busy with other things, but I will respect your effort.
Once centimeter puts land previously at sea level below sea level. And coasts experience storms that create surges of salt water in addition to flooding from rain. You need only look at the poisions running off of North Carolina’s coasts in September that were visible from space to understand this.
I’m trying again:
Once centimeter puts land previously at sea level below sea level. And coasts experience storms that create surges of salt water in addition to flooding from rain. You need only look at the poisions running off of North Carolina’s coasts in September that were visible from space to understand this.
About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level. They go to substantial efforts to maintain the country with their system of dikes and other flood control measures.
For the countries of Southeast Asia in the final analysis it doesn’t matter why sea levels are rising but that they are rising and what they will do about it. That’s because, as the title of this post notes, things change. We already know one thing that’s changing: their populations are increasing (except for China where the population has just about peaked).
Note that I am not unsympathetic. However, I am pragmatic.
@steve
Did you actually read your linked article?
It confirms my assertions while trying to negate them with “could”, “likely”, “not much”. The first sentence in your quote includes “could”:
This afternoon, a giant dinosaur turd “could” land on my head.
Hillary Clinton “could” be the smartest woman on the planet.
AGW “could” destroy the planet.
It is “likely” that this article is more nonsense for the gullible, but who am I to doubt Jerry Brown, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Al Gore?
One positive thing about the article is that they acknowledge that CO2 is beneficial to plants, but now, CO2 might lessen the nutritional effects. “Throwing shit against the wall to see what will stick” is not science, no matter how large the consensus.
As to sea level rising, I predict that it will prove to be as nonsensical as the rest. The land masses are on tectonic plates, and the yearly movement can be measured. I am guessing that that has some effects, but then, what would I know? I have never been a Governor, actor, or Presidential candidate.
How much sea level rise will be caused by the melting polar ice cap?
(Hint 1: It floats. Hint 2: The oceans are ginormous.)
Greenland Ice Sheet
@Ben Wolf
I do not have time to go through your link. Two points, though.
(1) Greenland was once green, and Iceland was once icy. At most, the two offset each other. (2) The oceans are ginormous, and Greenland is small in comparison.
A better argument would be – As the oceans warm, the volume of the water increases, and therefore, the sea levels rise.
If the melting ice were large enough to cause a rise in sea levels, it would be enough to cause a change in the temperature of the water. It is possible that the sea levels would decrease.
The change in density and salinity may increase or decrease the sea levels, also.
If you like, I can make it short:
The cumulative ice loss from Greenland from 1992 to 2015 was 3.6 trillion tons and contributed to global sea level rise by approximately 10 mm; the corresponding figure for Antarctica is 1.5 trillion tons, which corresponds to approximately a 5 mm global sea level rise since 1992.
Current trends support a potential 50-70cm by the end of the 21st Century, an increase of an additional two feet.
TB- I did read it. You should too. What it shows is that there is a short term effect in total growth, but there is a loss of nutrients, proteins, among them. It also notes that carbon is seldom, in the real world, the rate limiting nutrient. So, we will get bigger plants, as long as we fertilize them, but get less nutrition.
This is just a summary article. There are a lot of studies looking at this over the years and this is pretty much what they find. I would say that your belief that CO2 is an unmitigated good is nonsense for the gullible. It is propagated by politicians and think tanks, not by scientists who work with plants.
Of course they say could, as it is not possible to predict whether or not we will have adequate alternate sources of protein when this happens. Only a non-scientist would claim that lack of protein in these crop plants will definitely lead to malnutrition. You, since it sounds like you get your info from sound bites or politicians or think tanks, interpret could as some weasel word. I see it as a sign of scientific integrity.
Steve
Even if you are right, Steve, whattayagonna do about it?
I think the example of the Netherlands is a good one.
Or, maybe Monsanto could engineer rice that actually LIKES salt, wouldn’t that be great?
That was the point of the observation I made in the body of the post. “Food autonomy” is a priority for many countries, particularly Southeast Asian countries. They don’t want to import food and Monsanto’s engineered crops don’t breed true—good marketing on Monsanto’s part because then customers have to keep coming back. But it meets with considerable resistance in developing countries.
BTW even with its recent decline Apple stock has gone up tenfold over the last decade. It’s hard to find another investment with that kind of performance.
“Apple stock has gone up tenfold”
True. but it’s over. It’s much more fluid today than in the 1950’s. Buy Ford, GE, Texas Instruments, Stock values rise and fall much more quickly than before. People buy stocks with P/E ratios of 150 out of faith that the future is looming larger, faster, than in the past. Most players lose money, especially if they buy money makers like Ford, WNC, or DDAIF. It’s like a talent show, beauty show, what’s hot, what’s new. Guess if you can.