March 06, 2016

This food shortage BS never stops

Greenies have been making false prophecies of food shortages for years now.  Even Hitler did it. And I have often rebutted them. In brief: The world's internationally-traded food problem has for a long time been glut;  Warming would open up new agricultural land in Canada and Russia; Warming should cause more evaporation from the oceans, thus giving MORE rainfall, not less.  A prediction of flood might make some sense but a prediction of water shortage makes no sense at all

The modelling crap below is a laugh a minute. If global warming DID exist, it would be INCREASING food-crop yields. Plants gobble up CO2. It is their basic food. And a warmer world would be a wetter one -- again giving plants a boost. The increased level of CO2 now in the atmosphere has already benefited plant growth, with the greening of the Sahel the most vivid example of that

Aside from Greenie folly and basic biology, however, there is China. China was a food-importer under Mao and any Greenie wisehead would see that as inevitable given that an area about the same as the contiguous United States has to feed 1.3 billion people with primitive technology. Poop is their main fertilizer.

But under capitalism China feeds the world. It is a huge exporter of food and exports to most countries on the globe. For instance: "By value, China is the world's No.1 exporter of fruits and vegetables, and a major exporter of other food products ranging from apple juice to garlic and sausage casings. Its agricultural exports to the US surged to $US2.26 billion last year". And that quote was from 2007!

And have another look at Russia.  How many people know how big Siberia is?  It is roughly 5 milllion sq. miles, compared to about 3 milion sq. miles for the continental USA.  It's BIG.  So if warming opened up Southern Siberia to agriculture, the potential for new food production would be enormous.

Politics and economics are the main constraints on the food supply, nothing else. Capitalism is its friend. Greenies are its enemy



The academic journal article is: "Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study", continuing a long tradition of British medical journals involving themselves in politics


At least half a million people will die in the year 2050 as a result of the impact climate change will have on food production, according to experts.

The stark forecast is expected to occur because of changes in diet and bodyweight from reduced crop productivity.

Most of these additional deaths will be in China, India, and other low-income countries in the Pacific and Asia, but the effects on food availability will also reach into richer countries.

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Marco Springmann from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at University of Oxford claimed climate change could cut improvements in food availability by about a third by 2050.

This would lead to around 3.2 per cent less food being available for the average person.

In particular, this will include reductions in fruit, vegetables, and red meat amounting to about 99kcal fewer calories per person per day.

These changes in food availability will also increase non-communicable conditions such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer, said Dr Springmann.

It's not all bad news, however.

The reduction in food availability is being predicted to cut obesity-related deaths by 260,000, but even this is slightly less than the 266,000 extra deaths predicted as a result of people being underweight.

Springmann and colleagues used an agricultural economic model with data on emission predictions and possible climate responses to evaluate the effects on global food production, trade, and consumption for 2050.

SOURCE  






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