Climate change threatens to cause 'synchronised harvest failures' across the globe, with implications for Australia's food security
What rubbish! Crops are positively influenced both by warming and high levels of CO2. Global warming would produce MORE food worldwide
New research shows scientists have underestimated the climate risk to agriculture and global food production. Blind spots in climate models meant “high-impact but deeply-uncertain hazards” were ignored. But now that the threat of “synchronised harvest failures” has been revealed, we cannot ignore the prospect of global famine.
Climate change models for North America and Europe had previously suggested global warming would increase crop yields in the short term. Those regional increases were expected to buffer losses elsewhere in global food supply.
But new evidence suggests climate-related changes to fast flowing winds in the upper atmosphere (the jet stream) could trigger simultaneous extreme weather events in multiple locations, with serious implications for global food security.
I have been examining opportunities to manage agricultural risk for 25 years. Much of that work involves learning how agricultural systems can be made more resilient, not only to climate change but to all shocks. This involves understanding the latest science as well as working with farmers and decision-makers to make appropriate adjustments. As the evidence on climate risk mounts, it’s clear Australia must urgently adapt and rethink our approach to global trade and food security.
Building resilience to shocks
Unfortunately, the global food system is not resilient to shocks at the moment. Only a few countries such as Australia, the US, Canada, Russia and those in the European Union produce large food surpluses for international trade. Many other countries are dependent on imports for food security.
So, if production declines rapidly and simultaneously across big exporting countries, supply will decrease and prices will increase. Many more people will struggle to afford food.
The prospect of such synchronised harvest failures across major crop-producing regions emerges during northern hemisphere summers featuring “meandering” jet streams. When the path of these fast flowing winds in the upper atmosphere shifts in a certain way, the likelihood of extreme events such as droughts or floods increases.
The researchers studied five key crop regions that account for a large part of global maize and wheat production. They compared historical events and weather to modelling. Yield losses were mostly underestimated in standard climate models, exposing “high-impact blind spots”. They conclude that their research “manifests the urgency of rapid emission reductions, lest climate extremes and their complex interactions […] become unmanageable”.
Free trade or food sovereignty
Australia has been a big advocate for free trade, reducing barriers to trade such as tariffs and quotas. But the new research revealing the climate risk to food security should trigger a change in policy.
We have already experienced the limitations of an over-reliance on trade to access food. The system has wobbled during the COVID pandemic and the global financial crisis of 2008, when millions of people were thrown back into food insecurity and poverty.
Encouraging free trade in agriculture has not significantly improved global food security. In 1995, the World Trade Organisation implemented the Agreement on Agriculture to liberalise agricultural trade. That agreement constrained the ability of national governments to protect their agricultural industries, and many more people have become food insecure since its introduction.
Australia needs to reconsider its short-term focus on the advantages of selling goods internationally. Conceptualising food more as a human right than a commodity might initiate such a shift.
The global poor do not have the buying power to influence market demand and increase food supply for their benefit. As they face hardship, many are becoming angry, sparking conflict and undermining food security further.
The long-term goal needs to be a global food system that will be resilient to shocks, including climate change. Trade policy may need to respond by allowing governments to prioritise sovereign food security in a world dominated by risk.
Prior to the COVID pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics was spruiking the nation’s food security. But it isn’t that simple. Even though there has been a lot of food available across Australia since early 2020, access has declined. Local food insecurity increased as the pandemic disrupted supply chains, with rising poverty on one hand and inflation on the other.
Climate change risks are likely to dwarf the impacts of COVID on Australian food systems.
Australian agriculture is highly exposed to climate change because rainfall and temperatures are so strongly influenced by El Niño. The drying phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation is expected to strengthen with climate change.
As atmospheric circulation changes, global weather patterns are shifting towards the poles. This is partly why early modelling of climate change in the cold-constrained agricultural systems of North America projected production would increase with global warming. But not anymore.
In Australia, modelling has rarely suggested the country would benefit from climate change. The Murray-Darling Basin, the heart of the nation’s food bowl, is expected to suffer warming, drying, reduced streamflow and more extreme events.
Australian agriculture is also highly sensitive to climate shocks because it is mostly rainfed – literally dependent on water that falls from the sky. Projected increases in droughts, evaporation and reduced average rainfall are going to challenge production systems.
Recent floods have also had shown how extreme weather events can have widespread impacts on agriculture and food prices. La Niña “rain bombs” (flash flooding from short duration, heavy rainfall events) damaged oranges and mandarin crops in 2022, downgrading produce.
To reduce the risk we need to adapt. Until recently, it was only rising land prices that enabled many Australian agribusinesses to remain viable for long periods of poor terms of trade.
Australian agriculture’s ability to withstand shocks relies on a range of structural factors that need more recognition, including:
our research and development capacity, which has been eroding with stagnant public investment
the sustainable management of key resources, such as the waters of the Murray-Darling and high-quality agricultural land, both of which we have struggled to protect
the resilience of farming communities, even though many are lacking key services and support.
Australia is fortunate to be one of the few countries that produces more food than it needs, but it has other responsibilities towards global food security. Policy will need to respond to the new understanding of how food security will be affected by climate change.
There are a number of ways Australia could respond to the new evidence. To drive that change, there needs to be a new level of awareness of the true extent of the risks to agriculture.
On a global scale, governments may need to rethink their strong advocacy for food trade liberalisation.
Locally, Australia will need to invest in adaptation to ensure that agriculture, and our food systems more broadly, are resilient to the gathering storm, because this one will be like nothing we have ever seen.
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America Faces Chronic Electricity Shortages in Push for Renewable Energy
Whether you live in the summer-scorched South, the winter-frozen North or along one of our nation’s coasts, electricity is central to your life. Yet the Biden administration—ignoring reality—continues to push policies forcing the shutdown of coal-burning power plants before reliable replacement power from renewable energy becomes available.
From the heating, cooling and lighting of homes and businesses to powering the production and operation of our economy, Americans would be immeasurably poorer and less healthy without uninterrupted connection to the electrical grid. How that electricity is best generated has been transformed from a question involving engineering and economics to one hinging on politics and the competing interests of powerful pressure groups, especially the “green” lobby and fossil-fuel industry.
Looming electricity shortages are not a climate-change denier’s doomsday scenario. If we see a repeat of last summer’s heat waves, as Texas has been experiencing, and people fail to heed warnings to conserve power, peak electricity demand in more than half of the country will outstrip available supplies. The risk of winter power shortages is even more worrisome, since many homeowners could be left freezing in the dark.
Electricity reserves in the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, West and Central states from Texas to the Dakotas are far less than adequate, according to the North American Electricity Reliability Corp. (NERC). Reserves are dropping because coal, gas and nuclear power plants are being retired faster than they’re being replaced. As a result, “the system is closer to the edge,” John Moura, NERC’s director of reliability assessment, said recently.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has warned of dire consequences from the accelerating loss of baseload capacity. Appearing recently before the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, headed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., FERC Commissioner Mark Christie said “the United States is heading for a reliability crisis. I do not use the term ‘crisis’ for melodrama, but because it is an accurate description of what we are facing.”
Christie said the core problem is that too many available generating resources—coal, natural gas and nuclear plants—are being mothballed too quickly, threatening utilities’ ability to keep the lights on. Last December during a frigid winter storm, coal, natural gas and fuel oil provided 94% of the additional power consumed when demand peaked.
Yet even as FERC was warning that the country is at elevated risk of blackouts in the months ahead, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exacerbated the problem by issuing new power-plant emissions standards that, in effect, will dismantle baseload coal and natural gas capacity by 2030, undermining the grid just as the administration ramps up its vision of an all-electric, all-renewable future.
How much electricity will be required? The projections are stunning, showing that switching industrial processes to run on clean electricity supplied by solar and wind farms—so-called “electrification”—could increase annual electricity demand by 6,000 to 10,000 terawatt hours. Just 1 terawatt hour, according to Duke Energy, is enough power to “light over 1 million homes for a year.” The 6,000 to 10,000 that would be needed is, at a minimum, about 50% more than today’s total national electricity demand (4,300 terawatt hours).
Another problem is that adding solar and wind power to the nation’s electricity system requires modernizing the grid, an extremely slow and costly undertaking. According to FERC, just 552 miles of new high-voltage electric transmission lines, which minimize distance-related power losses, were added in the first 11 months of 2022. That’s less than half the previous year, and far below what is needed to accelerate the move to solar and wind power.
PJM’s grid, the nation’s largest, supplying electricity to 65 million people from Delaware to Illinois, is a case in point. Annual spending on power transmission in the PJM region (most of it low-voltage) has increased 14% since 2014, but the bulk of it has gone to maintaining existing lines. Spending on new transmission infrastructure fell 67% in the same period.
The threat of brownouts and blackouts squashes the idea that solar and wind power can replace fossil fuels fully anytime soon, if ever. Coal continues to play a vital role in many states and communities, providing energy security and ramping up supply during periods of surging demand. We can’t walk away from baseload coal generation if we are going to produce the large amounts of power required for electrification in the years ahead.
The Biden administration sees climate change as an existential threat. But it’s pushing the United States down a dangerous path that risks chronic electricity shortages in much of the nation.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14605&omhide=true&trk=rm
*****************************************************Unsold electric cars are piling up on dealer lots
The auto industry is beginning to crank out more electric vehicles (EVs) to challenge Tesla, but there's one big problem: not enough buyers.
Why it matters: The growing mismatch between EV supply and demand is a sign that even though consumers are showing more interest in EVs, they're still wary about purchasing one because of price or charging concerns.
It's a "Field of Dreams" moment for automakers making big bets on electrification — they've built the cars, and now they're waiting for buyers to come, says Jonathan Gregory, senior manager of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive.
Driving the news: Cox Automotive experts highlighted the swelling EV inventories during a recent midyear industry review for journalists and industry stakeholders.
EV sales, which account for about 6.5% of the U.S. auto market so far this year, are expected to surpass 1 million units for the first time in 2023, Cox forecasts.
A Cox survey found that 51% of consumers are now considering either a new or used EV, up from 38% in 2021.
Tesla’s rapid expansion, plus new EVs from other brands, are fueling the interest — 33 new models are arriving this year, and more than 50 new or updated models are coming in 2024, Cox estimates.
Yes, but: Sales aren't keeping up with that increased output.
Details: The nationwide supply of EVs in stock has swelled nearly 350% this year, to more than 92,000 units.
That's a 92-day supply — roughly three months' worth of EVs, and nearly twice the industry average.
For comparison, dealers have a relatively low 54 days' worth of gasoline-powered vehicles in inventory as they rebound from pandemic-related supply chain interruptions.
In normal times, there's usually a 70-day supply.
Notably, Cox's inventory data doesn't include Tesla, which sells direct to consumers.
Genesis, the Korean luxury brand, sold only 18 of its nearly $82,000 Electrified G80 sedans in the 30 days leading up to June 29, and had 210 in stock nationwide — a 350-day supply, per Cox research.
Other luxury models, like Audi's Q4 e-tron and Q8 e-tron and the GMC Hummer EV SUV, also have bloated inventories well above 100 days. All come with hefty price tags that make them ineligible for federal tax credits.
Imported models like the Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Nissan Ariya are also stacking up — likely because they're not eligible for tax credits either.
Tesla's price-cutting strategy could be taking a toll, too: The once-hot Ford Mustang Mach-E now has a 117-day supply. Ford says that's the result of ramped-up production in anticipation of stronger third-quarter sales.
The intrigue: Hybrid vehicles have much lower inventory levels, supporting Toyota's argument that consumers want a stepping stone to fully electric cars.
There's a relatively tight 44-day supply of hybrids industrywide, according to Cox.
Toyotas are in particularly short supply — under 30 days each for Prius and RAV4 hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
Of note: Toyota's only fully electric model, the Bz4X, has a 101-day supply.
While Toyota recently announced a 3-row electric SUV and new battery technology that could double the range of future EVs, it's sticking with a mix of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and pure EVs for the foreseeable future.
What to watch: More charging infrastructure is coming, and EV prices should reach parity with gasoline vehicles around 2025, according to Bank of America Securities auto analyst John Murphy.
Until then, automakers will be left waiting for EV buyers to show up.
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/unsold-electric-cars-are-piling-up-on-dealer-lots ?
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Climate Models Come With ‘Dangerous’ CO2 Warming Baked In, Code Review Finds
In November 2021, one of the main programmers of the NASA climate model Gavin Schmidt told readers of the Spectator that the track record of models going back to the 1970s, “shows they have skilfully predicted the trends of the past decades”.
Now that laughter has finally subsided, we have an expert analysis of NASA’s GISS Model E with its 441,668 lines of pre-historic (circa 1983) FORTRAN code. With water that doesn’t freeze and “negative” cloud cover, it is said that the claim the model is ‘physics-based’ is a term used in the same way that Hollywood producers say a movie is ‘based on a true story’.
The detailed examination has been written by the experienced computer programmer Willis Eschenbach and his paper Climate Models and Climate Muddles has been published by Net Zero Watch (NZW). Andrew Montford of NZW discussed the paper in a recent edition of the Daily Sceptic, noting that climate models are at the centre of the global warming scare and back all the weather alarms promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. But what if the climate models were all junk, he asked. Somewhat alarmingly, Eschenbach’s work shows “this is indeed the case”.
Eschenbach argues that the current crop of computer climate models are far from being fit to be used to decide public policy. To verify this, he says, you only need to look at the endless string of bad, failed, crashed-and-burned predictions they have produced. Pay them no attention, he cautions. “Their main use is to add false legitimacy to the unrealistic fears of the programmers.” If you write a model under the working assumption that carbon dioxide controls the temperature, then guess what you’ll get.
According to Eschenbach, climate models have a hard time replicating the amazing stability of the climate system. They are ‘iterative’ models, meaning the output of one timestep is used as the input for the next. As a result any errors are carried over, making it easy for models to spiral the Earth into fire and snow balls. NASA gets around polar water refusing to freeze and ‘negative’ amounts of cloud forming (what do minus-two clouds look like?) during model runs by replacing bad values with corresponding maximum or minimum values. “Science at its finest,” comments Eschenbach. He notes that he is not picking on just NASA. The same issues, to a greater or lesser extent, exist within all complex iterative models. “I’m simply pointing out that these are not ‘physics-based’ – they are propped up and fenced in to keep them from crashing,” he observes.
This is the graph produced by Professor Nicola Scafetta plotting 38 of the major climate models showing their temperature predictions set against the thick green line of the actual satellite record.
As can be seen, the predictions started to go haywire 25 years ago, just as the global warming fright started to gain political traction. In his Spectator article, Gavin Schmidt, a one- time ‘fact checker’ of the Daily Sceptic, noted that most outcomes depend on the overall trend and not the “fine details of any given model”. In fact the record shown above seems to back up Eschenbach’s view that all a computer model can do is “make visible and glorify the understandings and, more importantly, the misunderstandings of the programmers”.
The case against relying on computer models to back an insane global de-industrialisation campaign grows by the day. The latest nonsense, peddled by the BBC among many media outlets, is that a world’s hottest day temperature record was broken three times last week. As climate journalist Paul Homewood noted, the idea that global temperatures could shoot up by 0.22°C in just three days is physically impossible. The entire propaganda exercise is the product of computer modelling – any reader of Eschenbach’s diligent work might not be surprised to discover.
There is a great deal of excitement in alarmist circles about a new El Niño weather oscillation that is starting to brew and might come to the rescue with a little extra heat. Hence all the recent useful-idiot coverage of ‘boiling oceans’ and record heat days. Any El Niño warming will of course be entirely natural but, cynics might note, it will alleviate the need for surface datasets to make yet more upward retrospective adjustments. The dramatic effect of El Niños can be seen in the latest anomaly data from the accurate satellite temperature record.
The two high points shown in 1998 and 2016 were both very powerful El Niño years that pushed global temperatures up. If one takes the high point of 1998, a case can be made that global warming ran out of steam at this point. It is of course just one year, but it was 25 years ago and temperatures have only twice passed this peak since – in the dramatic El Niño of 2016. A small amount of warming can be discerned since, but hardly enough to justify the worldwide panic caused by manufactured climate models and heavily adjusted surface temperature data.
The widespread use of Armageddon model predictions was highlighted recently by research from Clintel. It showed that 42% of the gloomy forecasts made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were based on climate model scenarios that even the UN body admits are of “low likelihood”. They assume temperature rises of up to 5°C within less than 80 years. Almost nobody now believes the scenarios are remotely plausible. Yet it has been shown that around half the impacts and forecasts across the entire scientific literature are based on them. It is a fair bet that almost 100% of the increasingly hysterical climate headlines found across mainstream media are corrupted by these fantastical notions.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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