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A Warming Climate Brings New Crops to Frigid Zones
Wall Street Journal ^ | November 25, 2018 | Jacob Bunge

Posted on 12/02/2018 6:17:21 AM PST by reaganaut1

LA CRETE, Alberta—The farm belt is marching northward.

Upper Alberta is bitter cold much of the year, and remote. Not much grows other than the spruce and poplar that spread out a hundred miles around Highway 88 north toward La Crete. Signs warn drivers to watch for moose and make sure their gas tanks are filled. Farms have produced mostly wheat, canola and barley. Summers were so short farmer Dicky Driedger used to tease his wife about wasting garden space growing corn.

Today, Mr. Driedger is the one growing corn. So are many other northern-Alberta farmers who are plowing up forests to create fields, which lets them grow still more of it. The new prospect of warmer-weather crops is helping lift farmland prices, with an acre near La Crete selling for nearly five times what it fetched 10 years ago.

One reason is the warming planet and longer growing seasons. Temperatures around La Crete are 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average annually than in 1950, Canadian federal climate records show, and the growing season is nearly two weeks longer.

“A few degrees doesn’t sound like much,” said Mr. Driedger, 56, who has farmed for three decades in the area roughly as far north as Juneau, Alaska. “Maybe it doesn’t make such a big difference on wheat or canola, but on corn, it sure does.” In August, he watched a tractor-size tiller yank tree roots from the earth, which were to be piled up and ignited in giant bonfires to create new fields.

It is hard to predict precisely the effects of a changing planet, but the world of business and finance is trying to put prices on it.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada
KEYWORDS: climatechange; corn; farming; globalwarming
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To: reaganaut1
"Today, Mr. Driedger is the one growing corn."

Given that just 10,000 years ago, there was a mile thick ice cap over Mr. Driedger's fields, it sure is great that he can grow corn there now. Back then, nothing at all would grow.

The issue with "climate change" is not that it is happening, it's whether or not it's catastrophic and is caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere from man's use of fossil fuels. Given that millions of acres of farm land can now now be used for growing corn instead of ice, it's hard to argue that it's catastrophic. Given that warmup started millennia ago it's also hard to argue that burning gasoline in your SUV is the cause.

21 posted on 12/02/2018 7:45:32 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones)
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To: RipSawyer
" in the cradle of the confederacy we cannot grow vorn, unfortunately the soil is vorn out."

The soil is NOT vorn out in the south, it's vorn out in Minnnesooota. Don't y'all know it's da Norskies who tak dat vay.

22 posted on 12/02/2018 7:50:40 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones)
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To: reaganaut1

Note the unexamined assumption: Global warming is bad.

Is it?

In recorded history, every time we’ve had cooling, crops have failed and massive percentages of the population starved.

In the paleontological record, every time the earth has been warm, life exploded.

If you like life, embrace warming.

You do like life and living things, don’t you? DON’T YOU???


23 posted on 12/02/2018 7:55:02 AM PST by null and void (Socialist Worker's Party. If they ever get elected, you'll work and they'll party.)
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To: Beagle8U
How long will it take for a moose or two to eat the average corn field?

I have a farmer friend here in W.PA and he has about 60 acres planted in corn, this year, he will be able to harvest only about half of it, because the deer have stripped the other half.

He told me next year, he is planting only oats {seems the deer don't like oats as well as corn}.

A small herd of moose {or mices} will tear a field of corn down in no time.

The only solution for that canadian farmer is moose steaks and chops and ground moose burgers.

24 posted on 12/02/2018 7:57:20 AM PST by USS Alaska (Nuke all mooselimb terrorists, today.)
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To: dynoman

72 days for corn.

Is global warming why corn prices are so low?


25 posted on 12/02/2018 7:59:40 AM PST by reformedliberal
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To: reformedliberal

I’m originally from North Dakota. No corn was ever grown there. Now with this modified corn seed they use it is everywhere

Also the saying about corn used to be “knee high by the Fourth of July
Now by then it is about six feet high.


26 posted on 12/02/2018 8:07:38 AM PST by shelterguy
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To: reformedliberal

Short-season commodity corn is in the 95-105 days range.

The average growing season in the Corn Belt has been lengthening in recent decades, as well as having had historical periods of shortening.

The root genetic plants that current corn is bred from grew in hotter, drier climates than today’s Corn Belt.


27 posted on 12/02/2018 8:17:10 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: reaganaut1

Leaving out ‘anthropogenic’ before global warming = leaving out ‘illegal’ before immigrants.


28 posted on 12/02/2018 8:21:42 AM PST by polymuser (It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: reaganaut1

In sum - unlike the alarmists, climate change (the climate has ALWAYS been changing) is neither the end of LIFE writ large on earth, the end of human civilization, or the end of the economy or our economic systems.

LIFE and humanity will adapt and along with adapting will mitigate some of the negative impacts of the climate.

In microcosmic ways there will be winners and losers, species that fail and species that succeed as more than they previously. It will not be “the end”, just change, which is what earth has always done.

It is sort of amazing that the atheists and their friends among the climate alarmists are likely all on one hand true believers in evolution and simultaneously deniers of the largest impact on evolution - CHANGE and the need to adapt; inspite of how massive that impact is seen in the immense diversity of life on earth. It did not arrive amidst stasis - it arose with change.


29 posted on 12/02/2018 8:41:49 AM PST by Wuli
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To: reaganaut1

Well then, not a reason for alarm!

This is a good thing.

Too much talk on the dangers of global warming, not enough talk on the benefits..


30 posted on 12/02/2018 8:56:29 AM PST by Alas Babylon! (Boycott ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NBC!)
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To: reaganaut1

“Global warming is not a hoax”

anthropogenic global warming is indeed a hoax ... CO2 concentration has reached a four million year high at 400 ppm high, and current temperature have hardly budged and are not even close to what all the models have said should have happened with CO2 levels that high, and our temperatures are no where near the highest temperatures in four million years ...


31 posted on 12/02/2018 9:01:21 AM PST by catnipman ((Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!))
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To: reaganaut1
This data is posted on a California Central Valley utility company website everyday.
The utility company has recorded rainfall since 1888 and high and low temperatures since 1939.

This was posted this morning

Record Max. Hi: 72°F (1959)
Record Min. Hi: 44°F (1963)
Hist. Average Temp: 59°F
Today's High so far: 49°F
Rain Today 0.00
Rain Yesterday 0.37

32 posted on 12/02/2018 9:56:38 AM PST by lewislynn
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To: reaganaut1
Global warming is not a hoax, as some assert, but it will have benefits as well as costs, and people will adapt to it. It's not worth banning fossil fuels to deal with it.
Pretending it's not a hoax is the best you can do. BUT, pretending it isn't a hoax gives fuel to the fire of banning fossil fuel.

Your ignorance may be getting in the way of clear thinking.

33 posted on 12/02/2018 10:03:13 AM PST by lewislynn
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To: RipSawyer

The stupid smartphone insisted I typed vorn instead of corn.
Oddly it also insists that is a real word.
I have smart devices.


34 posted on 12/02/2018 1:26:07 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same.)
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And the worst part of such “smart” devices, they’re so “smart” they screw up what you type.
I hate them.


35 posted on 12/02/2018 1:36:24 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same.)
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To: Darksheare

“I have smart devices.”

Okay, now you’re just deliberately baiting me.


36 posted on 12/02/2018 3:11:57 PM PST by RipSawyer
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To: Darksheare

http://vornequipment.com/

Rifle accessories.


37 posted on 12/03/2018 9:43:52 AM PST by Beagle8U (Free Republic is one stop shopping...It's the super Walmart for news.)
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To: Beagle8U

So maybe my tarded phone does know something sometimes.
Lol


38 posted on 12/03/2018 2:40:32 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same.)
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To: Darksheare

Yup.


39 posted on 12/03/2018 8:54:55 PM PST by Beagle8U (Free Republic is one stop shopping...It's the super Walmart for news.)
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To: PIF

Been reading the same.
Monitor for GDD. (Growing Degree Days) which have been fewer
Real data needed not “models”


40 posted on 12/06/2018 7:53:32 PM PST by griswold3 (Just another unlicensed nonconformist in a dangerous Liberal world.)
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