"The irony of course is that in 2015 the major problem now facing many OECD governments is declining birth rates."

Obviously the problems experienced by government are substantially different to the problems experienced by real people, as the aims are different: government's aim to rule and control is helped by the increased number of people, whereas people's aim to live in peace, freedom and harmony is thwarted by these increased numbers.

Excellent article. The CAGW catastrophists and the deniers of the relevant facts, will hate this.

> "Why have India's wheat yields increased so dramatically. There are a variety of reasons:

- Increased production inputs, primarily nitrogen fertilizer and irrigation water
- Adoption high-yielding, disease-resistant semi-dwarf wheat strains
- The spread of water-conserving cultural practices."

I suggest this list misses the most important contributor to increase crop yields - i.e. Fossil fuels; read "Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity" http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity

Increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is also a significant contributor. As is improved transport and communications infrastructure, trade and governance. All this is a result of fossil fuels. The next really big leap in human well-being will follow as we get over our irrational fear of nuclear energy and embrace the enormous leap in energy density. Development and roll out of of nuclear is blocked by the same irrational people who beleive in CAGW and have tended to align the doomsday cults.

"In recent years many “skeptics” have become vociferously critical of anyone who expresses any doubts toward any part of what they see as a climate consensus (both problems and cures). How did the skeptic community grow to take on this role?" http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/03/why-skeptics-hate-climate-skeptics/

The chart provided showed food production but included no comment on food production per capita.

Even a line showing the actual population increase on an equivalent scale would have shown whether the situation has improved or deteriorated. I suggest that the food production per capita has declined.

I also suggest that the author and readers should familiarize themselves with the content of Professor Mary Wood's book, Nature's Trust, particularly Chapter 2. Both the leading USA science body and the fossil fuel industry have been certain for years that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reduce the natural inheritance of future generation and thus will be a breach of public trust doctrine.

Thomas Jefferson stated that,
"I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living."' Jefferson explained the entitlement of "every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth He made for their subsistence, unencumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life."

CO2 increases plant growth, but it also increases fungal growth, especially when combined with increased humidity.

I wonder how long before the first great fungal-blight induced famine of the modern age occurs?

Foyle: "Even a line showing the actual population increase on an equivalent scale would have shown whether the situation has improved or deteriorated. I suggest that the food production per capita has declined."

Well, instead of "suggesting" why don't you just research it. You are sitting at a computer connected to the Internet so it is extremely easy to do. Luckily for you, I just did it. It took less than 2 minutes of Internet searching.

I've used http://infochangeindia.org/population/statistics/population-growth-in-india-since-1901.html to get the historical data* and Wikipedia to get the lastest census data. These show that the population at 1981, which is about the start of the article's graph, was about 683 million people and at the 2011 census about 1,210 million. This is a population increase of 1,210/683 equalling about 1.8 times. From the article's graph, over the same time the production of milk increased from about 40 to 110 million tonnes, which gives an increase of 130/40 equalling about 3.25 times. For wheat, it increases from 45 to 85 million tonnes, which gives an increase of 85/45 equalling about 1.9 times

So in both cases your suggestion is wrong. In reality the increase in production outstripped the increase in population. Vastly so for the case of milk.

In general, the world's population is considerably better off today than 30 year's ago. Wealth, health and safety have consistently increased on a per person average over each decade. For the majority of people, materialistically, life has never been better than what it is today-- we live in the best of times!

*NB: the historical numbers here are in Lakhs, 1 Lakh = 100,000 -- it's the Indian number system that they are using

The author would be wise not to fall into the trap generally inhabited by climate alarmists, who like to attribute all unfavourable global trends to climate change. Don’t do the opposite. India’s GDP has been growing at around 5% per annum for half a century. The trends in its food output are hardly surprising.

However, Chris Golis’ main point is that the predictions he recalls from his early years turned out to be wrong. All that points to is that he should have been more sceptical at the time. At the other end of the scale, I (a scientist) used to keep a file of forecasts so that I could say ‘told you so’ when they failed. Not that I recommend my idiosyncrasy.

Why do people think that economists and scientists should know about the future? There is nothing in their disciplines that qualifies them for that task any more than, say, a poet. It’s weird

O2 as a percentage of the atmosphere has declined by around half, according to the paleontological record, since dinosaurs roamed the earth?

And with that decline, more than doubled the pathogens now creating havoc in the world, Aids, Ebola and what have you? Oxygen being implicit in all cures or abundant good health!

Interestingly, some almost non curable external ulcers can be successfully treated in an oxygen rich environment in a compression chamber?

And to date, the only available remedy for diabetic ulcers?

Given the gradual disappearance of water and or arable land, food shortages will continue to magnify?

There's mounting evidence for reincarnated? We will reap what we sow, or inherit a world and circumstances of our own creation; and absolute and perfect Justice!?

Evidence?

What about a( widely reported) young man involved in a serious motor vehicle accident and thrust into a coma for several years; and never once in this life ever exposed to anything Chinese! Wakes from the coma speaking perfect fluent Mandarin, clearly the most complex and most difficult language to learn on earth!

So, given all the hard evidence establishes he didn't learn his Mandarin in this lifetime, which previous lifetime did he learn it in?

And there are myriad similar case studies, where the only thing that support memories of a previous life, can only be explained by actual reincarnation? Read, life after life.

Something I acquired in paperback decades ago and with enough conclusive evidence to at least suspend credulity!

And doable for anyone except those with locked and bolted mindsets, or just refuse to accept that it could/might be so?

You know, the way the flat earthers refused to accept a round earth or evidence! And if the deniers are represented by three wise monkeys?

Then surely the accompanying caption should read; see no evidence, hear no evidence and repeat no evidence? No matter how compulsive or conclusive?

Verily verily I say unto you, to reach unto the Kingdom of heaven ye must be born again. Quote unquote.
Rhrosty.

Why has US wheat production stayed relatively flat? It shares the same atmosphere as India. Just wonderin'.

//Of course the sceptics have long argued that carbon dioxide is a plant food//

As has anybody else with an understanding of high school biology. That trees 'eat' carbon is an entirely uncontentious point. And there is ample evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration will have a beneficial effect on plant growth.

//The next time you get in your car, don't feel guilty about increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, instead feel good inside about helping the Indian farmers grow more wheat.//

And the next time you see a cane toad, don't spray them with Dettol, instead feel good about them controlling cane beetles. Because if something has a an upside, you should focus on that to the exclusion of all the downsides. Some might regard this as suicidally stupid optimism, but others prefer to think of it as 'emotional intelligence'

Thinkabit,

Good, constructive comment. What a pity others don't do the same instead of continually repeating their fact-free, unsupported beliefs.

"Over the past several decades, through technological innovation, Americans now grow more food on less acres, eat more sources of meat that are less land-intrusive, and used water more efficiently so that water use is lower than in 1970. The result: lands that were once used for farms and logging operations are now returning as forests and grasslands, along with wildlife, such as the return of humpback whales off the shores of New York City (pictured above). " http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/issue-5/the-return-of-nature
It contains some interesting charts, such as US crop productivity and reduction in land needed for food production as population and GDP have increased.

Yes Peter, but think, the Sahara was once the granary of the Roman empire! And relatively nearby Lebanon was once covered in ceder forests!

And when Northern Ethiopia was covered in verdant forest, there was no lack of the rain that once supported hand to mouth agriculture!

And reafforestation in Kenya has made growing coffee for export economic once again!

Easter Island was once covered in trees and palms, and the Mayan civilization once lived in a rain forest that is now mostly desert unable to support much let alone a civilization!

And the changes needed to avoid following these cause and effect examples, can only ever improve our economic prospects!

Like carbon free thorium based energy connected to micro grids, that then halves the cost of industrial energy! And there's patently a vested interest posting against just that!?

So instead of bleeding industrial processes and manufacturing to the emerging economies, we reverse that process and our future prospects; and who's against that!?

And what harm could possibly ensue if we decided to convert our wasted waste to carbon neutral energy that reduced the average power bill by 75%; that then flowed on to an endlessly sustainable oil industry and complete self sufficiency in all energy products!

Only ultra greedy myopically focused vested interest, bleeding a captive energy market white, could possibly object to any of that, and the massive upswing in discretionary spending that would promote!

And if we would just accept the reap as you sow message inherent in the Christian bible, how many would continue to fowl their own nest, and or leave it to successive generations to fix! If it's still fixable by then?

It's not so long ago that the men of learning and letters believed/taught that we lived on a 6,000 old flat earth in the centre of a universe that revolved around it; and like all denialists; before and since, completely rejected any evidence to the contrary out of hand, no matter how compelling!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty: The examples you give don't support your claims. Here are some statistics for you-

Approximate current populations of:
- Lebanon : 5.9 million,
- Ethiopia : 96.6 million,
- Easter Island : 6150,
- the area of the Maya civilization includes all of modern day Guatemala and Belize, south-eastern Mexico and western Honduras and western El Salvador. Just Guatemala and Belize alone has 15 million, while the number of people current living in the whole area is considerably greater than this.

These figures demonstrate that these these regions now support many, many times the population than hundreds of years ago. To give you some scale, educated estimates of the whole world's population at 1000AD put it at about 300 million.

More importantly, on average the people living in these regions have a higher stand of living than those living hundreds of years ago. Yes, this even includes Ethiopia! (And it should be said that most of Ethiopia's current issues stem from ethno-social-religious problems and not from environmental destruction or failing land production yields).

As a separate point. You keep ranting on about Thorium reactors. Well here's the problem with what you claim: under a capitalist system, people will constantly search for and utilise the cheapest energy source since this lowers the cost of production and thus increases profits. Since thorium reactors are not used it demonstrates that they are not the panacea that you claim. (Of course some countries have a thing about nuclear power, but many don't. Note that, those that do allow nuclear power have not switched their electricity supply to thorium). Across the world coal is by far the most used source of energy which indicates that for the vast majority of cases it is the cheapest. There is no global conspiracy to not use coal nor to investigate/allow other sources. It is just that coal is the cheapest. Yep, it is that simple!

--- continued below --

--- continued from above ---

Lastly, you mention the flat earth theory. Well, it was never men of modern scientific learning that have claimed this. In fact, even the ancient Greeks knew that world is spherical. They even calculated its radius quite accurately by using real life observation/measurements and applying geometric reasoning. The flat earthers were mainly men of religion.

It is obvious that over the millennia much of the world's CO2 which fed the abundant flora that fuelled the dinosaurs has been locked up by many natural processes such as limestone formation. Our flora has thus been living on starvation rations for centuries.

While I don't believe coal & oil are dinosaur juice, the product of ancient forests, if they were, burning them would only be returning the natural balance to the planet's atmosphere. As it is burning them is an imperative for healthy flora. Ain't green ideology wonderful.

Regardless, by increasing the level of CO2, we are feeding the flora, upon which all fauna depends for its food & oxygen. This simple fact should be obvious to any thinking person.

Luciferase, a good question. Part of the answer is of course that they do not require any more wheat, & it is not a really highly rewarding crop. No, the more rewarding crop today in the US is corn. The crazy mandate for ethanol to be included in US petrol has caused a dramatic increase in demand for corn to feed the refineries.

Thus they waste much effort producing an inferior liquid fuel, while increasing the output of CO2 to do it. As the whole ethanol thing was supposed to reduce CO2 I guess this is one of the good unintended consequences of ratbag green ideology. At least it gives us something to laugh at in this increasingly depressing world.

I agree with thinkabit on the economic viablity of thorium reactors. That are not viable at the moment and not likely to be for a long time. See UK NNL, "Comparison of thorium and uranium fuel cycles" https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65504/6300-comparison-fuel-cycles.pdf

"NNL has recently published a position paper on thorium [1] which attempts to take a
balanced view of the relative advantages and disadvantages of the thorium fuel cycle.
Thorium has theoretical advantages regarding sustainability, reducing radiotoxicity and
reducing proliferation risk. NNL’s position paper finds that while there is some
justification for these benefits, they are often over stated. "

"Innovative thorium fuelled
reactors will not be a viable alternative for at least 20 to 30 years and definitely cannot
meet the new build timescales. A limited role for thorium fuels in new build LWRs might
be possible at a later date, with perhaps a partial transition to thorium-U233 fuels later in
their lifetimes and any major shift towards the thorium fuel cycle would only be realistic
in a follow-on programme of reactor construction.

Thorium fuelled reactors have already been advocated as being inherently safer than
LWRs [18], but the basis of these claims is not sufficiently substantiated and will not be
for many years, if at all

//Regardless, by increasing the level of CO2//

We are depleting the amount of O2 available in the atmosphere. So predicts 1st Baron Kelvin of Largs, a well-established scientist who really know his stuff:

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/end_of_free_oxygen.html

Some highlights, for those who cannot be bothered chasing links:

//On an average it requires three tons of oxygen to consume one ton of fuel, and the oxygen that exists in our atmosphere is practically all the supply available for the purpose. As shown by the barometer the average weight of the air is 14.9 pounds to the square inch, which gives a total weight for the earth of 1,020,000,000,000 tons of oxygen. At the rate of three tons of oxygen to one ton of fuel, the weight of fuel which can be consumed by this oxygen is 340,000,000,000 tons.

Now to see how the oxygen can keep pace with the fuel. The whole world consumes about 600,000,000 tons of coal a year, and to this must be added the consumption of oxygen by wood and other vegetable substances which raises the equivalent coal consumption of the world to not less than 1,000,000,000 tons a year.

Thus, even at the present rate of fuel consumption there is only oxygen to last 340 years, and long before this time the atmosphere would have become so vitiated with carbonic acid gas, and so weakened in oxygen, that either we should have to emigrate to some other sphere, or else give up the habit of breathing altogether.//

//Air will no longer be free, for it will be manufactured and sold like any other necessary. Those who will not work for their daily air supply, and who cannot afford to buy it, will perish, for Nature will have exhausted her supply. The artificial air will be stored up in enormous reservoirs, and to these receptacles applicants will come for their daily supply of oxygen. This will then be carried home and doled out to the family as part of the day's means to support life. The manufactured oxygen will be breathed in as a diver inhales the air supplied him when he sinks beneath the waves.

"'Died from air starvation' will be a common verdict in the coroners' courts of the future, for 'no money, no air,' will be the rule of life. The wealthy will gain a reputation for charity by free gifts of air to the aged poor at Christmas time. Men and women will no longer be able to look at each other with eyes of love, for everyone will be clothed in a great air helmet, like a diver of to-day."//

‘morning Chris,

I think what is really “amazing” is that this is nothing new. In 2013 the CSIRO published an assessment of the satellite data confirming increased vegetation.

http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2

“Climate change has achieved what Bob Geldof and Live Aid failed to do..”, “greenhouse gases caused rains to return to the region south of the Sahara, from Senegal to Sudan, boosting crop yields The Times, 2 June 2015

With dozens of articles, studies and research papers over the last 20 years covering this same topic, one has to wonder why our MSM has not given this news more prominence?

Alarmists are now even more “alarmed”, mostly because they have to counter yet more reality. Like King Knut on the beach commanding the tide to recede, the failing rhetoric has to be cranked up to try to gain traction.

Most seem to find it difficult to argue against this research and instead offer the “yeh but, ah but, well but”.

Now we have arguments about “relativism”. “The chart provided showed food production but included no comment on food production per capita”. So the research is accepted BUT, if we include natures failure to produce results relative to per capita population, it all goes away? Yeh.

Then we have this; There will be less “02” in “CO2” so we will all suffocate anyway. Or this little gem; “CO2 increases plant growth, but it also increases fungal growth, especially when combined with increased humidity”.

Really? Rainforests anyone?

The real problem for alarmists is that the historical suppression of public debate and outright censorship by MSM, has left a huge backlog of reality that is yet to reach our shores. As it does, the alarmists will have to create more, bigger, newer and different alarmism.

Quote by emeritus professor Daniel Botkin: "The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."

“One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived”
Niccolo Machiavelli

Very busy times ahead for alarmists!

spindoc, wheat and other grains don't grow in rainforests.

Are there any other basic science questions you're confused about?

‘morning Craig,

I think you just tried to do a “Minns”

<< spindoc, wheat and other grains don't grow in rainforests. Are there any other basic science questions you're confused about? >>

Well actually Craig, now you come to mention it, I could do with a little help on this.

I was lead to believe that about 80% of the plants we eat began in the world's tropical rainforests. Potatoes, corn, rice, avocadoes, soybeans, palm nuts, oranges, bananas, coffee, citrus, chocolate and hundreds of other foods are rainforest plants. Over 100 species of grain grasses also originate there and just 15% of these feed 90% of the worlds population.

Grain crops do suffer fungal infection and depending upon the region and farming practices, these can account for between 10% to 35% of yields.

Most farmers have a variety of options to deal with these infections but I suspect they would disagree with you that one of these options is to have less rainfall?

But I could be wrong.

Toni Lavis, why, after your sensible post yesterday, are you posting such crap today?

Kelvin got it wrong – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin#Pronouncements_later_proven_to_be_false

But most, if not all, scientists (no matter how eminent) do get things wrong occasionally.

spindoc, I'm very happy to shed more light on the subject.

None of the major grains are rainforest species. None of the major broadleaf crops are rainforest species, although many are tropical or subtropical natives. It's not hard to work out why, if you've ever ventured into a rainforest. There isn't much of anything at all growing on the ground. There are good reasons for that, including poor quality soil leached of nutrients, lack of light and the afore-mentioned fungal threats.

The only place that is disrupted is where there has been a tree fall over (or cut down). Even at the edge of the forest and in the disrupted areas, there isn't much spare ground for grasses to grow, thanks to fast-growing vines and the like. there's a reason that the major carbohydrate-containing crops in PNG (notably a place with a lot of rain forest) are things like sago, taro and kau kau (sweet potato).

In fact, the ancestors of our modern grains (apart from corn) arose in semi-arid conditions and temperate areas. Even corn doesn't like a lot of rain in its modern form, which is quite different from its indigenous ancestors.

As for rain, farmers live in fear of rain at the wrong time. A wet grain crop is a mouldy grain crop and a mouldy grain crop isn't much good for anything at all. If its even to be used for stock feed it has to be properly sterilised.

But none of that is especially relevant to my original comment, which was to do with the combination of high humidity and CO2 fostering fungal attack on grains. As you point out, this is already a serious problem and management with fungicides is extremely costly as well as very complex. There are several different classes of fungicide which have different modes of action and there are extensive guidelines relating to their use in rotation to avoid creating resistant strains.

35% loss may be bearable if it happens only occasionally, but 70% or more is catastrophic.

This statement is incorrect "As shown by the barometer the average weight of the air is 14.9 pounds to the square inch"

Barometers measure air pressure. Air pressure is 14.9lbs/inch

"1 cubic foot of air at standard temperature and pressure assuming average composition weighs approximately 0.0807 lbs." - http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae650.cfm

"1st Baron Kelvin of Largs, a well-established scientist, who really knows his stuff", got the above wrong. What's that say for the rest of his calculations?

'morning Craig,

Thanks for such a detailed and informative explanation. Unfortunately, you seem to have missed the main point, again. Would farmers around the world prefer to deal with blight or wish to solve the problem with less rain?

I'm guessing that your case will be along the lines that if you can exaggerate blight infection to around 70% globally, you can easily discount the benefit of more rainfall?

ConservativeHippie, although Kelvin was wrong on the oxygen issue, the air pressure on a horizontal surface is, on average, the weight of the air above that surface.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Craig, why does CO2 affect fungal growth?

_____________________________________________________________________________

spindoc, AIUI the main problem is that global warming is predicted to make subtropical semiarid areas dryer and droughts longer.

BTW potatoes are native not to forests but to the highland grasslands of the Andes.

Hi Aidan, I don't claim to be an expert on this topic, so I can't give you a definitive answer. However, greenhouse producers who artificially add CO2 to their atmospheres have to be especially careful to control mould. I'm sure there must be good literature on the subject.

It may be that there is an enhanced opportunity for mould to enter plant tissue as a result of faster growth rates and increased humidity. Leaf stoma remain open longer, stem tissues are not as robust (less compact structure) due to faster growth, perhaps plants devote more metabolic resources to growth, thereby reducing immune responses. There may simply be more dead plant material for fungal spores to get a start in. The growth of most fungi is not directly related to CO2, although some of the pathogenic soil fungi do like high CO2. It doesn't take very long for a fungal blight to destroy a crop. Ask the Irish.Some species of phytopthera (the potato blight fungus) also infest other food crops. Leaf rusts and fungal infestations of flowers, seed pods and harvested seed are already endemic for grains.

Spindoc, the point I was making is quite simple: while the increased yields are great, at some point there is going to be a catastrophic crop collapse, whether in one year or across several. The chance of that occurring is increased by the likelihood of lazy fungal management, especially in the rotation of fungicides. I'm not sure what the farmer's feelings about that have to do with anything at all.

Greenies are such cheerful souls.

Here we have Craig Minns, who may have privately realised that CO2 is not going to cause much if any global warming, trying to invent a new scare, to blame on this poor innocent plant food. They are desperate to find something incriminating against their great hate, carbon based energy. Yep they hate coal & oil as they are the materials that set us free of their wish to subjugate & dominate us.

This effort is a bit thin however. After naively trying to use an association with CO2 used in greenhouses, with no evidence, he has to back away, hoping to have left some incrimination of CO2 behind. This hope surely being the only reason for the bit of rubbish.

He then reverts to the usual greenie impersonation of Hanrahan, with a "We'll all be rooned," type dissertation on some future repeat of the Irish potato blight, with absolutely nothing to support such an idea, except perhaps green wishful thinking.

We all know these people would love to see the human population gone, but for themselves of course, & now some of them are getting close to openly hoping for it. What lovely people. They'll shortly be flying to Paris from all over the world, somehow justifying to themselves that all that CO2 they generated getting there is good, because it is theirs. Hypocrites all.

Hasbeen, I'm no more a "greenie" than you are an engineer...

However, let's face it, your generation, thanks to witless tools like yourself who couldn't work out how to plan their way out of a wet paper bag, has buggered the planet.

Go away, old man, you're a waste of space.

‘morning Craig,

Hasbeen does have a point Craig. Rather than debate the issue with your undoubted intellect, you abuse another poster for daring to challenge yet more of your alarmist predictions, this time of a “catastrophic crop collapse”.

Trying to scare people into believing such alarmism is losing traction in the public domain. Also abuse against those who disagree is likewise costing you credibility, which is quite sad really because you do appear to have a brain however, your frustration at not getting your own way is hanging out.

It could be said that if you cannot make a case without an exaggerated catastrophic “prediction”, then quite simply you don’t have a case at all.

So if you don’t have a case, why bag out someone else for your problem?

There's nothing alarmist about it, spindoc, simply an observation that it is likely and therefore it needs to be considered as part of future planning.

Since you like simplistic analogies, consider this: in the 50s and early 60s it became obvious that going for a drive was quite possibly going to end in the death or serious injury of people in the cars of the day. So sensible engineers made lots of sensible modifications to cars to make them safer. There were people back then just like you, who thought these were silly ideas and the people who suggested they were necessary (Ralph Nader springs to mind) were simply trying to destroy the car industry. Fortunately, as is the case today, the loons were outnumbered by the sane people and just as cars became safer, planning for the inevitable catastrophe that will (no, not might, will) occur at some future date to the world grain crop will help to avert disastrous famine.

It's contemptible that people like you and hasbeen take the attitude that "I'm all right Jack, screw you".

Unfortunately more CO2 in the atmosphere may well cause plants to grow quicker, but it comes with a number of down sides. The first and most obvious is that higher temperatures cause higher rates of evaporation this may not be a problem for most weeds and indigenous plants, but is not helpful for crops, which have been carefully selected for maximum yield. In Australia the season for growing wheat is winter and autumn, but if the growing season shrinks due to higher temperatures then crop yields are going to fall.

The second problem is the quicker growth induced by CO2 fertilization while increasing the production of sugars and starches, also tends to reduce other nutritional levels such as zinc, iron, and protein. Soy beans grown in elevated CO2 levels outside have been shown to be more vulnerable to insect attack, The increased levels of sugars and starches allow the insects to grow quicker and reproduce faster plus higher temperatures also improve insects chances of survival and numbers.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140507-crops-nutrition-climate-change-carbon-dioxide-science/

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/Global-warming-insects.html#.VXJ-PNKqqko

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/18/us/report-says-carbon-dioxide-rise-may-hurt-plants.html

My comment is here: (not on another page)

"The next time you get in your car, don't feel guilty about increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, instead feel good inside about helping the Indian farmers grow more wheat."

First of all I don't drive or own a car. Worldwide environmental, social, issues and economic policies alongside population need to be considered. The above are vital to link together for a sustainable future. Trying to have some without others - won't please a lot of animal species (including humans) - whatever change we're having re climate, be it Autumn Summer, Winter or Spring.

Even The World Bank says, in terms of India:

"Although the past decade of rapid economic growth has brought many benefits to India, the environment has suffered, exposing the population serious air and water pollution." and that:

"A new report finds that environmental degradation costs India $80 billion per year or 5.7% of its economy." and "Green growth strategies are needed promote sustainable growth and to break the pattern of environmental degradation and natural resource depletion. Emission reductions can be achieved with minimal cost to GDP."

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/03/06/green-growth-overcoming-india-environment-challenges-promote-development

Other issues environmentally facing India at present include air pollution, poor management of waste, growing water scarcity, falling groundwater tables, water pollution, (a need for) preservation and quality of forests, (issues relating to) biodiversity loss, and (issues relating to) land/soil degradation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_India

With India's large population at present, there are many people living in poor conditions or face serious social/health problems such as:

1. Having one-third of the world’s poor living in India;

2. No ability to grow enough crops, due to lack of new farming techniques available and farming being affected by weather conditions, poor storage, and lack of water;

3. Health and medical issues affecting people in India such as HIV/AIDS;

India's population is over 1.271 billion people (2015), and more than a sixth of the world's population. More people equals more impacts in a range of areas, so I don't see how this article makes any serious difference to issues facing India or in fact anywhere.

In the following link, there is a graph of total global grain production and grain production per capita over time. (Grain is the direct or indirect source of most of the world's calories.) What you will see is that grain production per capita peaked in 1984, although total grain production continued to increase until it stalled from about 1990.

http://www3.geosc.psu.edu/~dmb53/DaveSTELLA/Population/pop_modeling.htm

Grain production per hectare is continuing to increase, just not enough to compensate for land degradation and population growth.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/world/cereal-yield-kg-per-hectare-wb-data.html

God help us & protect us from idiots.

It sounds like Craig Minns is one of the most dangerous, & most incompetent arrogant people on earth, a planner.

Warmair, after 18 years of no temperature increase, despite increasing CO2 in the air, all you have is some green tripe to argue your case, none of it attributable to CO2.

NathanJ, get off that bus, you'll never own it. Meanwhile yes India has many environmental problems, none of them attributable to harmless CO2. Well, perhaps to the irrational waste of money & effort, attacking CO2, rather than spend that money on real & curable problems. Incidentally just when did CO2 become guilty of causing HIV/AIDS.

By the way, there are thousands of acres just in my district that could grow any number of grains, but none of us are stupid enough to grow such a low return, often loss causing, crop. Pay enough for the stuff, & we'll bury you in it.

Divergence as above. Even an incredibly hard working productive Vietnamese family, growing the best vegetables I have ever seen, on some of our best riverfront land, could not make a living, & gave up. They now run trucks for a living, & have a couple of old retired horses adjusted there.

Any time food production becomes reasonably profitable, just watch the explosion in production, provided that is, we still someone who can remember how to do it.

Hasbeen, it's even worse than you fear, I'm not just a planner, I actually think and it doesn't even hurt!

It's OK, nobody expects that sort of thing from you though.

Divergence: the website of the last link which you gave actually supports the claim that food production is increasing beyond the population increase over the last 40+ years. ie, it says the opposite to what you claim when averaged over decades.

From the graph on "http://www.tradingeconomics.com/world/food-production-index-1999-2001--100-wb-data.html " we see that in 1970 total food production was about 50 units* and in 2010 it was about 120. This gives and increase of about 2.4 times, ie: 240% . Now, looking at the Wikipedia article on world population "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population" we get the 1970 population of 3.7 billion and 2010 population of 7.0 billion, which gives an increase of about 1.9 fold, ie: 190%.

As you see, from these sources, we can say that the food production of the last four decades has out-stripped population production.

*ND: they normalized the units to make the food production of 2000 equal to 100 units

hmm, whoops. I've just realised that the post I made about this article last Thursday has a sentence that says the opposite to which I wanted to say. Not that this matters much since it was so long ago and the thread has moved on.

But just to be clear, when I said:

"There is no global conspiracy to not use coal nor to investigate/allow other sources. It is just that coal is the cheapest.",

that should really have been-

"There is no global conspiracy to use coal and not to investigate/allow other sources. It is just that coal is the cheapest."

thinkabit, new coal is about at cost parity with solar PV, although existing coal is still cheaper for the most part. As existing coal plants reach the end of their lives and renewables continue to decline in price, the equation will shift ever further to favour renewables.

That's without even considering the environmental and health (particulates, photochemical smog, aromatic hydrocarbons, CO, NOx, etc) costs of coal-fired generation and in fact fossil fuel power sources of all kinds and leaving aside any discussion of CO2.

In other words, I agree with you.

Coal works at night-time but, ah yes, we'll have batteries!

Policies that raise the cost of energy will not succeed. They are not politically sustainable.
These two posts explain why carbon pricing is highly unlikely to succeed. Similar arguments apply for other policies that would raise the cost of energy.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/26/cross-post-peter-lang-why-carbon-pricing-will-not-succeed-part-i/
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/27/cross-post-peter-lang-why-the-world-will-not-agree-to-pricing-carbon-ii/
The red line here shows that the costs would exceed the benefits for all this century: http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2014/10/Lang-3.jpg

Renewable energy is very high cost so it cannot achieve much.

Those who are concerned about GHG emissions, should be advocating to remove the the irrational and unjustifiable impediments that are making nuclear power too expensive for most countries.

Here’s an example of the sorts of policies that have raised the cost of nuclear by perhaps a factor 8 over what it would be if regulatory ratcheting had not raised the costs so much over the past 50 years or so.
http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=140c559a3b34d23ff7c6b48b9&id=51eb8cea80&e=a3b55276e6

This explains how regulatory ratcheting had increased the cost of nuclear by a factor of four up to 1990: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html

Slide 10 here http://www.slideshare.net/SteveAplin/ecerp-matrix-presentation shows that the countries with the most nuclear power have the lowest CO2 emissions intensity of electricity (France is <10% of Australia's) and those with the most renewables many times higher (Germany is 6 times higher then France). Slide 10 also shows that the countries with the most nuclear have the lowest cost of electricity and those with the most renewables the highest. German's electricity is about twice the price of France's.

Those advocating for renewables and against nuclear are delaying progress to reduce global GHG emissions.

In case anyone wants to mention safety, nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

Of all the pieces of rubbish that climate change deniers come up with, the claim that the globe has not warmed for last 18 years wins the BS award of the century. In the next few posts I intend to show why this claim is so outrageous, but first lets look at the surface temperature data.

The three most reliable sources of surface temperature data are as below, but the all have a problem with poor coverage in the polar regions, as this is the part of the globe which is known to be warming fastest, this introduces a cooling bias to the data.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
Extrapolates temperatures for polar regions but assumes the poles warm at the same rate as the rest of the earth.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/#gtemp
Temperature data for polar regions were not available has simply been been omitted.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/index.html
Again some temperature data for polar regions has been omitted.

Nevertheless all of the data sets indicate warming has continued over the last 18 years (up to the present 2015 not 2011), but in any event we do not have to rely on surface temperature data, to show the globe has continued to warm over the last 18 years. We only have to observe that global ice is melting at an accelerating rate, the sea level is continuing to accelerate, the ocean is warming, and records for high temperatures are running well ahead of records for cold.

Ice melt.
Ice continues to melt on a massive global scale and shows every indication of increasing, now this makes no sense if the Global temperature had been flat lining for the last 18 years.
The Arctic
“Between 1979 and 1996 Arctic sea ice declined at around 36,000 sq km a year, on average. Since 1997, the rate of loss has accelerated to dramatically to 130,000 sq km per year.”

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

Using the graph above starting in 1997 and tick off ice extent every five years it becomes very clear that ice loss is continuing apace.

There are three satellite systems, which have been designed to measure ice loss, they are ICESat ,GRACE and CryoSat-2.

While seasonal sea ice has around the Antarctic ice has increased slightly, ice loss from the land has accelerated.

“CryoSat-2 observations taken between November 2010 and September 2013 indicate annual ice sheet mass losses of 134 ± 27 gigatons in West Antarctica, 3 ± 36 gigatons in East Antarctica, and 23 ± 18 gigatons on the Antarctic Peninsula. The Amundsen Sea showed the largest signal of ice loss.”

“GRACE measurements indicated a significant ice loss in the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 2002 to 2005. Ice sheet mass decreased at 152 ± 80 cubic kilometers”

“GRACE data uncovered ice mass loss in Greenland of 248 ± 36 cubic kilometers per year, an amount equivalent to a global sea rise of 0.5 ± 0.1 millimeters per year”

Ok well how about glaciers of the 1000s we have data for, at least 95% of glaciers are in retreat.

It just not makes sense that ice loss is increasing during a period when global temperatures are not increasing.

Sea level rise.
Currently the level of sea level rise as measured by satellites is about 3.2 mm per year, now this is made up of ice melt from land, and thermal expansion. Less than half of this can be accounted for by ice melt the rest is due to thermal expansion, the problem is if the globe is not warming you can not have any thermal expansion of the sea, but the graph below clearly shows sea level rise has not stopped if anything it has accelerated.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_decades.html

We also have direct evidence the oceans are getting warmer.

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/22/oceans-warming-so-fast-they-keep-breaking-scientists-charts

Weather records
Hot weather records exceed cold weather by a ratio of 3 to one the link below gives data for the US but this is also true on a global scale as well.
Again we see no slowing over the last 18 years rather we see the ratio increasing.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us

The only possible conclusion is the globe has been warming over the last 18 years and longer.

PS I wish to thank Hasbeen for giving me the drive to revisit this question.

Thinkabit,

Grain production per capita was indeed outstripping population growth if you go back as far as 1970. You have chosen your starting date for your average to include the enormous gains from the Green Revolution, which doubled and in some cases tripled grain production per hectare. This is why Paul Ehrlich and others writing in the 1960s were spectacularly wrong about famines in the 1970s. Try averaging since 1984. Scroll down to see the relevant graph in my first link (under "equations for population, soil, and food model"). There are plenty of similar graphs from other sources that show grain production per capita peaking in or near 1984. See also this table from US Dept. of Agriculture data

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CC0QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth-policy.org%2Fdatacenter%2Fxls%2Fupdate72_11.xls&ei=ymN1VYWpFePamgW8rIHIAg&usg=AFQjCNFF_lNyPui0ffQFAwuBDHHSS8LDvg&bvm=bv.95039771,d.dG

and Fig. 3 in

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1128&context=nasapub

The average global citizen is still in a much better position now than in 1950 or 1960

http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/globaltrends2015/375781.gif

Sorry, Thinkabit

I hit the wrong button and posted before I meant to. The last link in my previous post comes from this paper

http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/globaltrends2015/#link8a

When I looked at more recent data, total grain production did indeed begin rising again after 2000, but grain production per capita is even less than it was in 1971 (see the last link in my previous post). This doesn't mean that we couldn't decently feed everyone in the world. There is a lot of waste, and a lot of grain that is fit for human consumption is fed to animals. Biofuels don't help either. The problems with feeding everyone are mostly economic/political, but there certainly are countries that have outgrown the ability of the local agriculture to feed them.

The question is whether we could go on feeding our current population on a sustainable basis, let alone the 11 billion or so that the UN medium projection expects for the future. We are doing a lot of damage to our planetary life support systems (not just climate change), as well as using up renewable resources faster than they can be replenished. See this article from Nature that surveys the main issues.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html
open version: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

If everything is so rosy, why are real food prices on the UN FAO Food Price Index so high? In Hasbeen's terms, why haven't the sustained high prices led to more production?

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/

Thanks, Chris, I had some dealings with you in your venture capital days. Tombee, as a (now retired) economic policy adviser, I regularly advise that the future is always uncertain, that the outcomes will always surprise us, and that we prepare for it best not by, say, speculating on what climate changes might occur over 100 years or so and making that our policy focus, but by policies which increase our capacity to respond to whatever befalls - those which promote flexibility, innovation, enterprise, resilience, self-dependence etc rather than monolithic centrally-planned ones based on assumed knowledge of the future. Chris's (past?) field is one to encourage rather than, say, subsidising uncompetitive cars or driving up electricity prices by pursuing non-viable, intermittent sources of energy.