USDA - Chilling Global Warming Forecast

[paparush]

Source: LA Times

There's always a new report about global warming, but the one released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with its charts on optimal temperatures for soybeans and peanuts, is downright creepy in its detail. This isn't your usual futuristic fodder, with vague but dire predictions. The USDA report is more frightening because it states matter-of-factly the practical changes in farming, forestry and water that are transforming the landscape now and will do so again over the next few decades.

The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a sweeping bill that would require carbon emissions to be slashed 70% by mid-century. Its chances for passage are slim; President Bush opposes it, as he has opposed all meaningful attempts to curb global warming, on the grounds that it would harm the economy. He ought to read the USDA study, along with a similar but more comprehensive report released last week by his science advisors, which specifies the effects of global warming and its very real costs.

The USDA analysis points out the quandary we're already in after decades of inaction: The impacts during the next few decades are unavoidable. "Much of this change will be caused by greenhouse gas emissions that have already happened," the report says. In other words, we have to plan for adjusting to climate change, as well as preventing it from spiraling into a crisis in this century and beyond.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-warming2-2008jun02,0,5120050.story

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Yet another tragic legacy of this corrupt administration - 8 years wasted neglecting global climate change.

[izquierdista]

1. Whoever wrote that headline

Needs a :spank: :spank:

[Ferd Berfle]

2. Agree - nothing else to say K&R

[Spouting Horn]

3. .

Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures...the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report..."

In other news, the US produced more than 13 billion bushels of corn last year, far more than the previous record of 11.8 billion bushels.

[Dogtown]

4. That's a relief

So then, business as usual, right?

[Skittles]

7. sheer ignorance, for sure

*sigh*

[NickB79]

6. And in return, soybean and wheat production went down

As farmers planted more acres of corn. Soybean and wheat prices then spiked, causing food riots around the world.

Farmers also plowed under millions of acres of conservation land that used to be wildlife habitat to plant more corn.

Yield per acre of corn didn't increase substantially; the number of acres planted went up at the expense of other crops and the environment.

[A-Long-Little-Doggie]

5. Wow, how did that report get by the WH censors? n/t

[jhrobbins]

8. Also, we have been led to believe that climate changes will be

geological in their time frame, but is it possible that the changes could be much faster, a la 'The Day After Tomorrow'? It certainly feels like there is a lot of unusual 'weather' going on.