Global Warming: Killing Grain Crops, Mass Starvation

Another fake scare. No, global warming isn’t causing starvation.

Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog 24.7.13

Global warmists have for a decade peddled the scare that global warming would kill grain crops and cause mass starvation.

Some examples:

Mark Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research Institute , February 2013:

FRAN Kelly: Dramatic falls in staple crop production, and a jump in malnutrition are predicted across the Asia Pacific in coming decades due to climate change. . . (Dr Mark Rosegrant) . . . according to your research which crops would be most affected?

Rosegrant: We’re finding that the key staples of rice, wheat and maize are going to have very large declines through most of Asia—anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent compared to a no-climate-change scenario.

Professor Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, December 2012:

For example, the United Nations food agency has warned that it will be less and less likely that we can feed the human population if climate change continues on its present trajectory.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001:

Acute water shortage conditions combined with thermal stress should adversely affect wheat and, more severely, rice productivity in India even under the positive effects of elevated CO2 in the future.

German Advisory Council on Global Change, 2007:

The Climate Change as a Security Risk report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change called on governments meeting this week at the climate change conference in Bali to adopt deep emissions cuts to avert disaster…. According to the report… India, Pakistan and Bangladesh could see falls in wheat and rice yields as the monsoon changes.

David Lobell, Stanford University, 2008:

Impoverished farmers in South Asia and southern Africa could face growing food shortages due to climate change within just 20 years, a new study says…

“The majority of the world’s one billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods,” said the lead author of the new study, David Lobell of Stanford University.

“Unfortunately, agriculture is also the human enterprise most vulnerable to changes in climate.”

Elizabeth Ainsworth, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2008:

Rice is arguably the world’s most important food source and helps feed about half the globe’s people. But yields in many areas will drop as the globe warms in future years, a review of studies on rice and climate change suggests.

…when the evidence from some 80 different studies is combined, the outlook is bleak, says Elizabeth Ainsworth of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Green activist Cameron Scott :

Most major political shifts are caused at least in part by economic pressures. Food prices are now at an all-time high. Those prices have, according to a wide range of analysts, contributed to the political revolts first in Tunisia and now in Egypt… But here’s the kicker: Food prices aren’t just some arbitrary economic statistic. They measure (inversely) the planet’s success at sustaining its human population. And right now, it’s not doing so well. The reason? Erratic weather spurred by climate change.

The latest evidence shows the scare is baseless and food crops are bigger than ever:

World total cereal production is forecast to increase by about 7 percent in 2013 compared to last year, helping to replenish global inventories and raise expectations for more stable markets in 2013/14, according to the latest issue of FAO’s quarterly Crop Prospects and Food Situation report.

The increase would bring world cereal production to 2 479 million tonnes, a new record level.

FAO now puts world wheat output in 2013 at 704 million tonnes, an increase of 6.8 percent, which … represents the highest level in history…

World rice production in 2013 is forecast to expand by 1.9 percent to 500 million tonnes (milled equivalent) although prospects are still very provisional.

More:

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Hot, cold, drought, flood, sleet, snow, disease. Alarmists will use any climate condition to promulgate food scarcity fear and hysteria.

Food security alarmism is not new.

Present day alarmists say ‘Global Warming’ will cause mass starvation and crop failure. Flashback 1976, during the ‘Global Cooling‘ crisis, the C.I.A, leveraged with (most probably) the “97%” science community, warned global ‘cooling’ would bring drought, starvation, social Unrest and political upheaval:

MAJOR world climate changes were under way that would cause economic and political upheavals “almost beyond comprehension”, an internal report of the Central Intelligence Agency has warned the US Government.

“The new climatic era brings a promise of famine and starvation to many areas of the world”, the report warns.

Its basic premise is that the world’s climate is cooling and will revert to conditions prevalent between 1600 and 1850 — when the earth’s population was less than 1,000 million and its rural, pre-industrial era civilisations were largely capable of feeding themselves.

A return to cooler temperatures in today’s fragile, . interdependent global economic structure would mean that India, China and the Soviet Union’ — among other northern hemisphere nations — will be hard pressed to feed their populations.

The report notes that’ “the change of climate is cooling some significant agricultural areas and causing drought in others. If, for example, there, is a northern hemisphere drop of one degree centigrade, it would mean that India will have a major drought every four years and can only support three-fourths of her present population”.

“The world reserve would have to supply 30 to 50 million metric tons of grain each year to prevent the death of 150 million Indians”, the re port said.

“China, with a major famine every five years, would require a supply of 50 million metric tons of grain. The Soviet Union would lose Kazakhstan for grain production, thereby showing a yearly loss of 48 million metric tons of grain.

“Canada, a .major exporter, would lose over 50 per cent of its production capability and 75 per cent of its exporting capabilities. Northern Europe will “lose 25 to 30 per cent of its present production capability while the Common Market countries would zero their exports”.

The report, which was concerned with possible political and economic threats the United States could expect from such drastic events, said the starvation and famine would lead to social unrest and global migration of populations.

CLIMATE FEAR, PROPAGANDA, ALARMISM

Regardless of whether it’s ‘warming’ or ‘cooling’ the same message applies.

Short memories we have.