Posted on 06/16/2009 11:14:27 AM PDT by FromLori
Crops under stress as temperatures fall
For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend climate change. In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.None of this has given much cheer to farmers. In Canada and northern America summer planting of corn and soybeans has been way behind schedule, with the prospect of reduced yields and lower quality. Grain stocks are predicted to be down 15 per cent next year. US reserves of soya used in animal feed and in many processed foods are expected to fall to a 32-year low.
There are obviously various reasons for this concern as to whether the world can continue to feed itself, but one of them is undoubtedly the downturn in world temperatures, which has brought more cold and snow since 2007 than we have known for decades.
Three factors are vital to crops: the light and warmth of the sun, adequate rainfall and the carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis. As we are constantly reminded, we still have plenty of that nasty, polluting CO2, which the politicians are so keen to get rid of. But there is not much they can do about the sunshine or the rainfall.
It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them havent noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.
It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the worlds food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EUs biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didnt persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that. And the EU, we must always remember, is now our government the one most of us didnt vote for last week.
http://bluelori.blogspot.com/2009/06/control-food-control-people.html
They sure know how to capitalize on the ignorance and stupidity of half of the American electorate....
Right, Just TAX global warming and it will stop.
I know if they TAX me enough I will come to a screeching halt, for sure.
Government reports of today have no meaning. People are fast learning they made one huge mistake in the last election. Now they are learning how to control this government instead of them controlling the people.
And I couldn't agree with you more: it's a really, really, dumb idea to start burning our food in our autos to "save the planet." Not.
Global warming my ass.
Good stuff on there thanks!
No mention, though, of whether poor and minorities will be hardest hit.
my garden plants are not growing because it is to cold out side, 3 years ago everything was growing great now - nothing.
and its the middle of june
Someone should ask the great One, the Mighty O, what he plans to do to protect Washington DC, his seat of power.
Surely we should be building giant sea walls to protect our capital city. Or raise all the monuments up on stilts.
We have to do something, anything, before it’s all too late.
Don’t they realize we’re all DOOOMED? Dooooomed, I say!
Global Warming my a$$.
Down here in Yuma Az we should be having high temps between 104 to 108 with lows in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s this time of year. For the last 3 weeks we have yet to break 100. Our high yesterday was 92 with a low of 64.
GLOBAL WARMING MUST BE REAL!!
Here is has been so chilly at night we have had the heat on and NO RAIN!
Expect more of these propganda pieces the closer we get to when congress starts considering some kind of Global Warming legislation.
Wheat price sunspot BTTT
Not all of us.
My crap is perfectly safe and is likely to remain that way, thankyouverymuch.
I can't speak for children, the insane, liberals (but I repeat myself), the feeble-minded, the ignorant, the illiterate and the neurotic.
But you probably already knew that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.