Following several strong harvests, global stocks were again pushed downward in 2010 when drought, wildfires, and a scorching heat wave decimated wheat crops in Russia and neighboring countries. Exports were banned. Food prices again started to rise, prompting warnings of a second food price crisis in three years. Ultimately the higher food prices between June 2010 and December 2010 pushed an additional 44 million people down the economic ladder into extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. The prospects for the world’s poorest remain grim, as even the record production in 2011 failed to outpace consumption enough to rebuild stocks sufficiently.
The wide swings in weather were matched by major outlier events. All of us experienced the shifting weather patterns. This is the new norm. And as the climate changes, the extremes are proving especially costly for global food security.
Grains are taking a particular beating. In the past year, wheat prices increased 75 percent. In 2009, the United Nations estimates, over one billion people were undernourished, and a greater toll is projected. Malnutrition — accounting annually for 2.2 million under-five child deaths (and underlying much of childhood illness) — is increasing, undermining health and well-being.
Most people forget that plants are engaged in two phases: energy collection (photosynthesis) and energy consumption (cellular respiration) for maintenance and growth (yep, plants have mitochondria and so utilize glucose and oxygen to convert ADP into ATP; the chemical reverse of photosynthesis except no photon emission).
So while warmer sunny days may help some plants collect a little more energy, the warmer nights cause the plant to burn through that collected energy faster (like a reptile, a plants energy requirement are proportional to ambient temperature). So it should come as no surprise that large trees are starting to die all over the world.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328491.800-big-trees-in-trouble-how-the-mighty-are-falling.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/world_population_limit.html#tree-growth-is-slowed
That first link is a bit misleading. It’s not just large trees that are in trouble – trees of all ages are dying.
At the top of page 4 in this report is a graph that reveals the increase in background tropospheric ozone:
http://www.acap.asia/ozone/Ozone.pdf
It’s from Japan, I chose it at random. There are endless versions from any number of government agencies and academia.
Also, you might want to consider this new research published in January from Princeton
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/271/2012/bg-9-271-2012.pdf
which investigates the global reductions in annual crop yield and quality from transboundary ozone pollution. It mystifies me that groups like Earth Policy Institute never talk about crop losses due to pollution since it is a major concern for UNEP. They also shy away from connecting the nitrogen cascade, maybe because it’s all that fertilizer that enables industrial agriculture and the “green revolution”.
It seems worthy of consideration that since ozone is toxic to vegetation, and the rising constant background concentrations are responsible for diminishing annual crops by significant amounts, that wild perennial plants and trees will sustain cumulative damage by absorbing it season after season. This explanation offers far more than mere correlation, after all. It explains causation, specifically, two proven facts from repeated controlled fumigation experiments:
1. plants and trees with compromised immunity from exposure to ozone are more susceptible to attacks from insects, disease and fungus; and
2. plants and trees injured by exposure to ozone allocate less energy to their roots, making them more vulnerable to drought and wind.
As the study referred to in this NYTimes article makes clear, trees of all ages in forests are in decline everywhere on earth. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/science/earth/01forest.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&_r=1
New website! http://www.deadtrees-dyingforests.com/
I’m not going to critique your points (re: ozone and other pollutants) since they are all shocking. The point I was trying to make was this: a warmer world is not going to increase biological productivity (a point we hear from deniers all the time), it’s going to make things worse.
Some people are continually stating oversimplifications like “photosynthesis will increase with higher CO2 levels” but ignore facts like “sunlight, water, and a reasonable leaf temperature are more important to photosynthesis than higher CO2 levels”. They also ignore other facts like plant respiration requirements.
Consider this example: most C3 plants stop photosynthesis when temperatures reach 86 F. At this point, plant cells still engage in respiration (combining glucose and oxygen to produce energy). Since plant respiration levels are proportional to temperature, then warmer nights (when photosynthesis is impossible) -AND- days when leaf temperature is at, or above, 86 F means that the plant will be doing more work for itself and less for us.
Using people as an example, most of us only eat three of four times a day (energy collection) but we all have continual energy requirements and run into trouble whenever collection falls too low.
What! I had to look it up but, given that C3 plants appear to form the majority of trees, and you’re telling me they all start behaving like animals at or above 86F…! This is not good news. It sounds like the Apollo13 task of fixing the CO2 scrubbers just got a whole lot harder.
I also think the energy-population relationship is worth looking at. For example here;
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
For the 1st time since 25 years Germany has to import grains. Last year was the driest spring in europe, on record. We likely see a repeat this year. Already last year european ministers warned of the threat of food riots, in europe.
Still incompetence rules the lame stream media..
Can the Earth feed its current population? Its a good question.
Unfortunately, unless or until things like the World Trade Organization, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are done away with, the answer will be a resounding… NO.
With regard to the CAP, I blogged about this last month:
If the CAP does not fit we should not wear it (27 January 2012).
However, if you have some aversion to visiting my blog (e.g. Maurizio), do at least give this new book by look:
Globalising Hunger: Food Security and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy by Thomas Fritz.
(Free download from the Transnational Institute here).