All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)

https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>
>https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide

Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
increasing.

But it is hard to predict wars and idiotic public policies, the real
threats to food production.

On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:18:49 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> >
> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> increasing.

Don't believe it. They're setting yield records with all kinds of unsustainable practices that aren't going to last much longer and are killing a bunch of people in the mean time.

There's a small epidemic in New Brunswick Canada right now linked to glyphosate runoff causing outsized algae blooms. People are becoming untreatably crippled- as in wheelchair bound crippled for the rest of their lives due to it.

The epidemic of gender dysphoria has been strongly associated with pesticide EDCs ( endocrine disrupting chemicals ), which when present in nearly immeasurably small quantities in the womb, like ppb small, cause a fetus intended to be male to start developing into a female, and vice versa. The treeless monkeys laughed when they saw this same effect in aquatic and other forms of wildlife for nearly 70 years now. Let's see who's laughing now.

>
> But it is hard to predict wars and idiotic public policies, the real
> threats to food production.

On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> >
> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> increasing.

So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.

Population has risen since 'decades ago' and we'd be starving now if crop production
didn't rise too. That's market effect, not a sign of progress. Soil improvement
would be progress; that's not happening.

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>> >
>> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
>> increasing.
>
>So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.

No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.

Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
happiness and, indeed, to population control.

On 7/5/2023 11:54 AM, whit3rd wrote:
> Population has risen since 'decades ago' and we'd be starving now if crop production

Yet there are still LOTS of folks who *are* starving. So, clearly any
gains are illusory.

> didn't rise too. That's market effect, not a sign of progress. Soil improvement
> would be progress; that's not happening.

Sadly, externalities aren't factored into the price of foodstuffs.
We're running alarmingly short of water (desert southwest) yet
still growing alfalfa and other water-intensive crops. Largely
for export.

Which idiot hasn't connected those dots?

[Do farmers get to use their subsidies when selling product for export?
If so, it's just "farmer welfare" and not really intended to help
keep a lid on *US* consumer food costs]

On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:31:22 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> >> >
> >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> >> increasing.
> >
> >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.

> No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
>
> Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
> happiness and, indeed, to population control.

The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 12:47:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:31:22?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>> >> >
>> >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>> >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
>> >> increasing.
>> >
>> >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
>
>> No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
>>
>> Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
>> happiness and, indeed, to population control.
>
>The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash.

They need vitamins (a penny's worth of vitamin A a day can keep a kid
from going blind) and protein.

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 12:43:06 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:

>On 7/5/2023 11:54 AM, whit3rd wrote:
>> Population has risen since 'decades ago' and we'd be starving now if crop production
>
>Yet there are still LOTS of folks who *are* starving. So, clearly any
>gains are illusory.

The fraction of world population that is near starvation has declined
hugely in the last 50 years. Wars and politics create the occasional
regressions.

>
>> didn't rise too. That's market effect, not a sign of progress. Soil improvement
>> would be progress; that's not happening.
>
>Sadly, externalities aren't factored into the price of foodstuffs.
>We're running alarmingly short of water (desert southwest) yet
>still growing alfalfa and other water-intensive crops. Largely
>for export.

California, legally a desert, grows almonds and cotton and rice for
export. Agree, that's crazy, but it's also self-limiting. And
California still grows lots of food.

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 12:47:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:31:22?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>> >> >
>> >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>> >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
>> >> increasing.
>> >
>> >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
>
>> No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
>>
>> Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
>> happiness and, indeed, to population control.
>
>The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
>finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
>We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
>the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?

Far too inefficient to drown them in the Mediterranean, since that
would require drowning 250 000 _each_day to stop population growth.

A more human method would be to send only IUDs as the only foreign aid
for a decade or two to the countries with worst population growth.

On 2023-07-06, upsidedown@downunder.com <upsidedown@downunder.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 12:47:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:31:22?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>>> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>>> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>>> >> >
>>> >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>>> >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
>>> >> increasing.
>>> >
>>> >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
>>
>>> No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
>>>
>>> Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
>>> happiness and, indeed, to population control.
>>
>>The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
>>finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
>>We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
>>the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
>
> Far too inefficient to drown them in the Mediterranean, since that
> would require drowning 250 000 _each_day to stop population growth.
>
> A more human method would be to send only IUDs as the only foreign aid
> for a decade or two to the countries with worst population growth.

That sounds like a genocide to me.

--
Jasen.
🇺🇦 Слава Україні

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > >> >
> > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > >> increasing.
> > >
> > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> >
> > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.

Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along. Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization.. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it. There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.

>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:06:56 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 12:47:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:31:22?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> >> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> >> >> >
> >> >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> >> >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> >> >> increasing.
> >> >
> >> >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> >
> >> No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> >>
> >> Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general
> >> happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> >
> >The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
> >finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
> >We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
> >the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
> Far too inefficient to drown them in the Mediterranean, since that
> would require drowning 250 000 _each_day to stop population growth.
>
> A more human method would be to send only IUDs as the only foreign aid
> for a decade or two to the countries with worst population growth.

That would be Nigeria and neighbors...

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > >> increasing.
> > > > >
> > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > >
> > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > >
> > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > >
> > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > >
> > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> >
> > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment

The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.

> > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).

There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.

>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

torsdag den 6. juli 2023 kl. 22.47.13 UTC+2 skrev Fred Bloggs:
> On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > >> >
> > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > >
> > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > > >
> > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > > >
> > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > >
> > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > >
> > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
> The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.

maybe in some places but I doubt it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 4:54:45 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
> torsdag den 6. juli 2023 kl. 22.47.13 UTC+2 skrev Fred Bloggs:
> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > >>
> > > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > > >> >
> > > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > > > >
> > > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > > >
> > > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > > >
> > > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
> > The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> > > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> > There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> maybe in some places but I doubt it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming

And here comes the know-nothing punk who knows absolutely nothing. Organic farming uses pesticide. The only doubtful thing around here is your functionality.

On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
>> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
>> > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
>> > > > wrote:
>> > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > > >>
>> > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
>> > > > >> >
>> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>> > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
>> > > > >> increasing.
>> > > > >
>> > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
>> > > >
>> > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
>> > >
>> > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
>> > >
>> > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
>> > >
>> > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
>> >
>> > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
>> The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
>> > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
>> It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
>
>The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
>
>
>> > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
>> Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
>
>There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
>

Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide

> >There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> >
> Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
> difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.

Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
Since the topc here is 'simultaneous crop failures' in a climate-changed world,
it's not the soil nitrogen that's the killer.

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 11:02:45 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> >> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> >> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> >> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> >> > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> >> > > > wrote:
> >> > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> >> > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > > >>
> >> > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> >> > > > >> >
> >> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> >> > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> >> > > > >> increasing.
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> >> > >
> >> > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> >> > >
> >> > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> >> > >
> >> > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> >> >
> >> > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> >> The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> >> > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization.. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> >> It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
> >
> >The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> >
> >
> >> > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> >> Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> >
> >There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> >
> Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
> difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.

The way that lay down the fertilizer, it's not a stretch to say the yield will drop to 0%. I've seen it happen in my area in places the soil has been abused for over a hundred years and finally the yield declines even with fertilizer to the point it's no longer profitable. The land gets converted to quick growing pine, and even then they apply that sludge mess to it to get any kind of growth.

Crops need NPK fertilizer- nitrogen phosphorous and potassium- in equal amounts usually. It is possible to toxify the soil by applying too much, too regularly, especially with phosphorous. Depending on the region, rainfall actually has enough mineral content to replenish the soil, but in other places it's too weak. Cover crops are good for fixing N from the atmosphere, an external input, but not sure about net gain in PK, an in place input.

A lot of the third world is a mess due to fertilizer abuse, contributing to desertification.

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:17:05 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 1:02:45 PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > >> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > >> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > >> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > >> > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail..com> wrote:
> > >> > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > >> > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> > >There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> > >
> > Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
> There are lots of ways of fixing atmospheric nitrogen.
>
> https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2023/06/12/the-big-list-of-nitrogen-fixing-plants-including-australian-natives/
>
> You don't need to to burn fossil carbon to make ammonia or urea - it is an energy intensive process but renewable power can provide the energy.

Just about anything in the legume family is a big nitrogen fixer. You don't need to go to Australia to find that. If the climate doesn't suit the legume, there are multiple choices of grasses and grains, that not only partially replenish, but also fix soil in place, and produce an additional crop to generate profit.

>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:10:42 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 6:47:13 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > >>
> > > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > > >> >
> > > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > > > >
> > > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > > >
> > > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > > >
> > > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > >
> > > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > >
> > > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > >
> > > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
> >
> > The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> Not just the third world. Farmers are famously conservative. In Australia the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation paid a couple of sociologists for a study on how to get them to pay attention to good advice. The answer was to concentrate the advice on the least conservative farmers.
> When they started making more money than their conservative neighbours, the conservative neighbours would copy them. It worked.
> > > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > >
> > > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> >
> > There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> But you don't to burn fossil carbon to get or apply herbicides and pesticides. And farmers famously apply too much and mess up the local ecology.

I'd say. Archeological evidence of the moldboard plow in Mesopotamia has been dated to 10,000 years. The moldboard plow is as significant to the development of civilization as the wheel- unless you like the hunter/ gatherer lifestyle. It's still in wide use to this day. For a few decades, ag has been trying to convert to "no-till" practices, but that requires a lot of herbicide treatment, which in itself may be more damaging than soil loss.

>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 22:35:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
>
>> >There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
>> >
>> Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
>> difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
>
>Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
>harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
>Since the topc here is 'simultaneous crop failures' in a climate-changed world,
>it's not the soil nitrogen that's the killer.

Somebody said "there are no stupid farmers"... and city folk think
they know better.

I've known a bunch of farmers. My cajun daddy-in-law made a fortune
timing a sugar crisis. He looked and sounded dumb but wasn't.

We have a friend who is a farmer with a day job as a chemist at
Chevron. He married a near-billionaire high school principal and they
have great 4th July parties on their farm. Some of the guests arrive
by helicopter.

Google says "In 2021, the average U.S. farm household had $2,100,879
in wealth."

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 10:39:57 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 22:35:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> >> > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> >
> >> >There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> >> >
> >> Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
> >> difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
> >
> >Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
> >harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
> >Since the topc here is 'simultaneous crop failures' in a climate-changed world,
> >it's not the soil nitrogen that's the killer.
> Somebody said "there are no stupid farmers"... and city folk think
> they know better.
>
> I've known a bunch of farmers. My cajun daddy-in-law made a fortune
> timing a sugar crisis. He looked and sounded dumb but wasn't.
>
> We have a friend who is a farmer with a day job as a chemist at
> Chevron. He married a near-billionaire high school principal and they
> have great 4th July parties on their farm. Some of the guests arrive
> by helicopter.
>
> Google says "In 2021, the average U.S. farm household had $2,100,879
> in wealth."

That's asset wealth:

"Farm operator households have more wealth than the average U.S. household because significant capital assets, like farmland and equipment, are generally necessary to operate a successful farm business."

On Wednesday, 5 July 2023 at 20:43:20 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
> On 7/5/2023 11:54 AM, whit3rd wrote:
> > Population has risen since 'decades ago' and we'd be starving now if crop production
> Yet there are still LOTS of folks who *are* starving. So, clearly any
> gains are illusory.

No, the numbers starving fall over time, as well as the number not starving increasing.
We need another nuclear food program. Expose crops to radiation to look for another yield increase due to genetic mutation. It worked last time.

On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
> The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
> finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
> We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
> the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?

ISTM that the "food problem" isn't that the planet can't feed the
current population but, rather, that the food isn't where it needs
to be (conversely, the people aren't where THEY need to be!)

From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste>

"In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40
percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
the single largest category of material placed in municipal
landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
helped feed families in need."

I.e., a "hand-waving" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
(at the same *average* "feeding level" of the US population)
from just the US's "waste".

One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
get to the need that exists.

There's a local group that tries to give a second chance to
produce that is "past its due date" (yet still edible).
They can't find enough people to take it off their hands
before it passes it's REAL "last use date".

Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
(I'm sure there's someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)