Published on August 26th, 2009 | by Susan Kraemer
3Up to 82% drop in Corn, Soy and Cotton Crops in USA Without Action to Reduce Emissions
Somebody this little kid’s age could actually see the beginning of the end of sweet corn in their lifetime. If you love corn and all the cheap sugars it creates to make candy you better stock up now, because climate change could cut crop yields by up to 82%.
If you are like me and like to drizzle soy sauce on your sweet corn instead of butter, you’re really out of luck. Soy crops also could drop by as much. And forget wearing that cute orange cotton tee shirt to soak up the mess from this treat. Cotton is the third crop that scientists now estimate could drop as radically if climate change keeps going at this rate unchecked.
In a rather startling paper published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, North Carolina State University agriculture and resource economist Dr. Michael Roberts and Dr. Wolfram Schlenker, an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University, found that U.S. crop yields could decrease by up to 82 percent under the most rapid warming scenario (A1FI).
The worst case scenario assumes that we did very little to slow climate change in the 21st century. You might think that we could not be that stupid. We’ll see.
Simply by reducing our use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy sources like solar and wind we could reduce global warming’s worst effects from totally catastrophic to merely horribly expensive.
At a minimum we will still see a drop of 30 to 46 percent in crop yields over the next century, these scientists say. But putting incentives in place to help speed the switch away from fossil fuels will make the lower levels more likely. The Cap and Trade Climate Bill to be voted on in the next few months would create incentives to add renewable power and subtract fossil fuels.
Recent studies of the effects of predicted “business as usual” temperature rise on crops in California have found similar reductions in crop yields.
The study shows that crop yields improve gradually with warming up to 86 degrees Fahrenheit. But once temperature levels go over 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit for corn, 86 degrees Fahrenheit for soybeans and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit for cotton, yields fall steeply.
Crop yield or agricultural output is not just a measure of the immediate yield. It also refers to the seed generation of the plant itself. Ideally one grain of wheat produces a stalk yielding three grain, or one to three; the minimum required to sustain human life. Of the three seeds; one must be set aside for the next planting season, one for human consumption and the other for livestock feed.
Since the United States produces about 40 percent of the world’s corn and soybeans, it won’t just be Americans going without.
Via PhysOrg
Image: Flikr user SuzanneK
Source: Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to U.S. crop yields under climate change Wolfram Schlenker, Columbia University and Michael Roberts, North Carolina State University; Published: Aug. 24, 2009
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About the Author
Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.
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