5 ms·

This post will not age well. Neither will its author. Aging requires food.

hagbard_c 5y ago
Food comes from plants, which require CO₂ to grow. An increase of atmospheric CO₂ leads to an increase in plant growth, proof of which can be easily had by checking historical records which show a direct relation between the CO₂ concentration and the amount of biomass. It is possible that the growth zones will move and that areas which are currently too cold for food production become viable for agriculture - Russia and Canada stand to gain here. So yes, ageing requires food which should be plentiful. There have been earlier warm periods which saw e.g. the flourishing of the Roman empire. This was followed by a cooler period (during which the Roman empire saw its demise), followed by another warmer period in which the Vikings sailed the known world and colonised Greenland. Grapes for wine were grown in the south of Sweden in those days, these eventally disappeared and the Greenland colonies had to be abandoned when the climate turned colder. Now grapes are grown again in the south of Sweden even though it took the cultivation of a more hardy species (among these a frost-resistent Frankenthaler, I tried to grow it in the west of Sweden but it turned out not to be frost-resistant enough, alas...) to make this possible. If you don't agree with what I wrote here I'd like to see a rebuttal. Why will there be less food on a greener planet?
- undoware 5y ago
  rubs face ok so here's the thing. Food grows in topsoil. As an eater of food, you need to know this. It's important: food that does not come from the ocean[1] comes from topsoil. Beef? Cows. Cows graze. Pork? Pigs are calorie batteries. They eat anything. But they don't do so great in bog. Chickens? ....yeah. The places that you think are coming online as 'greener' locations are places where the soil just unthawed. It's not topsoil. It's not loam. It's moss and bog, where it isn't boreal forest[2]. The land is not usable for agriculture or animal husbandry. Probably won't be for thousands of years. It's the crossfade. It's also going through massive subsidence as the permafrost melts, and is constantly belching methane. It's a soup of microrganisms, mosquitos, and (scientific term here) gunk. --signed, a Canadian from a farmtown that was just a lil too far north. (Yes, really.) [1] before you call loophole: yes, we're running out of that, too. Faster, in fact. Fun times. Those are some empty empty oceans. [2] Conifers often intentionally (to the extent that plants have intent) make the soil around them acidic; this is because only conifers can survive in this soil. The territories you're eyeballing as a future breadbasket are often currently boreal. When they're not bog. And the boreal tends to turn into bog. That subsidence. Trees hate it -- they like being vertical. So, yeah, idk what you'd grow there, unless you eat mosquitos.
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    You might want to study your farming books again before you write your next condescending rant? It will be a while before permafrost becomes farmland but luckily there is a huge - and I mean enormous - area which has not seen permafrost for thousands of years but simply is too cold for many crops to be grown profitably. If the planet really ends up those 1.5°C to 2.5°C warmer than it is now (but cooler than it has been) growth zones move up and farming those crops becomes profitable where it currently isn't. This is something you know but for some reason decide to ignore only to indulge in apocalyptic fantasies. Why is that? Why do you - and the many with you who show similar behaviour - choose this path of rapture? If you think this makes people who do not follow your beliefs take them more seriously realise that it achieves exactly the opposite: the more outlandish the proposed scenarios of doom, the less likely non-believers are to fall in line.
    - undoware 5y ago
      It's honestly like you've never seen that land. Much of Canada -- one of the two big possible breadbaskets you said you were eyeing -- is literally forest. The forest starts where the farmland stops. Even if you cleared the forest, the soil is worthless. It's been covered in conifers for thousands of years. It's also goopy, as it is thawing. Or sandy. Or simply too acidic. And while it might be good enough for grasses and cattle grazing one day, that day is not today, nor tomorrow, and in the meantime, you will be quite hungry. In the medium term: good luck replacing California's food output with northern Alberta's. Now, one might be able to hasten the soil improvement that with some sort of complex, time-consuming terraforming ('agriforming?') process, but good luck getting that process to scale in a hurry. Or on-budget. (Have fun even making a budget for that.) Farming is actually just incredibly hard, the land is the biggest variable. It has to be just right. You can't just declare that an area is for food production like you'd rezone a city street for residential. Nature does not care about your lines on maps. Don't believe me? Look at the last time we tried. The same reason that turning the Amazonian rainforest into farmland has not been an awesome thing. And who is condescending to who, here? I'm not a farmer. But neither, I suspect, are you. So why do you discount my experience? I'm from the place you were talking about. My suspicion is that you simply cannot tolerate the ego-dystonicity of ushering in an age of starvation for our children and grandchildren. But we did it. You did it, with help. Check the prices at your supermarket.[1] Check the collapsing populations of insects, birds, and fish. Wait for the unravel to travel further up the food chain. Tag. You're it. And yes, it's apocalyptic. It really, really is. If you want to throw textbooks around, please read _This Changes Everything_. Then, read _Under a White Sky_. You will find them both in the nonfiction section. [1] Before you get typing: yes, inflation and supply-chain disruption can be symptoms of climate change -- specifically, when both are occasioned by a pandemic, which is the sort of event that becomes more common as habitats are squeezed up against one another. There will be more, faster now. I did PhD work on this, back in '05, in the aftermath of SARS-CoV-1. Like.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wyager 5y ago
The fact that you think GW places us at imminent risk of starvation suggests you're probably not operating on a coherent model of GW risks. Are you willing to put money on the table? Make me a market about a measurable GW-related food production loss and I'll probably take you up on it, assuming you're willing to commit to it.

Food comes from plants, which require CO₂ to grow. An increase of atmospheric CO₂ leads to an increase in plant growth, proof of which can be easily had by checking historical records which show a direct relation between the CO₂ concentration and the amount of biomass. It is possible that the growth zones will move and that areas which are currently too cold for food production become viable for agriculture - Russia and Canada stand to gain here. So yes, ageing requires food which should be plentiful. There have been earlier warm periods which saw e.g. the flourishing of the Roman empire. This was followed by a cooler period (during which the Roman empire saw its demise), followed by another warmer period in which the Vikings sailed the known world and colonised Greenland. Grapes for wine were grown in the south of Sweden in those days, these eventally disappeared and the Greenland colonies had to be abandoned when the climate turned colder. Now grapes are grown again in the south of Sweden even though it took the cultivation of a more hardy species (among these a frost-resistent Frankenthaler, I tried to grow it in the west of Sweden but it turned out not to be frost-resistant enough, alas...) to make this possible. If you don't agree with what I wrote here I'd like to see a rebuttal. Why will there be less food on a greener planet?

undoware 5y ago
rubs face ok so here's the thing. Food grows in topsoil. As an eater of food, you need to know this. It's important: food that does not come from the ocean[1] comes from topsoil. Beef? Cows. Cows graze. Pork? Pigs are calorie batteries. They eat anything. But they don't do so great in bog. Chickens? ....yeah. The places that you think are coming online as 'greener' locations are places where the soil just unthawed. It's not topsoil. It's not loam. It's moss and bog, where it isn't boreal forest[2]. The land is not usable for agriculture or animal husbandry. Probably won't be for thousands of years. It's the crossfade. It's also going through massive subsidence as the permafrost melts, and is constantly belching methane. It's a soup of microrganisms, mosquitos, and (scientific term here) gunk. --signed, a Canadian from a farmtown that was just a lil too far north. (Yes, really.) [1] before you call loophole: yes, we're running out of that, too. Faster, in fact. Fun times. Those are some empty empty oceans. [2] Conifers often intentionally (to the extent that plants have intent) make the soil around them acidic; this is because only conifers can survive in this soil. The territories you're eyeballing as a future breadbasket are often currently boreal. When they're not bog. And the boreal tends to turn into bog. That subsidence. Trees hate it -- they like being vertical. So, yeah, idk what you'd grow there, unless you eat mosquitos.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  You might want to study your farming books again before you write your next condescending rant? It will be a while before permafrost becomes farmland but luckily there is a huge - and I mean enormous - area which has not seen permafrost for thousands of years but simply is too cold for many crops to be grown profitably. If the planet really ends up those 1.5°C to 2.5°C warmer than it is now (but cooler than it has been) growth zones move up and farming those crops becomes profitable where it currently isn't. This is something you know but for some reason decide to ignore only to indulge in apocalyptic fantasies. Why is that? Why do you - and the many with you who show similar behaviour - choose this path of rapture? If you think this makes people who do not follow your beliefs take them more seriously realise that it achieves exactly the opposite: the more outlandish the proposed scenarios of doom, the less likely non-believers are to fall in line.
  - undoware 5y ago
    It's honestly like you've never seen that land. Much of Canada -- one of the two big possible breadbaskets you said you were eyeing -- is literally forest. The forest starts where the farmland stops. Even if you cleared the forest, the soil is worthless. It's been covered in conifers for thousands of years. It's also goopy, as it is thawing. Or sandy. Or simply too acidic. And while it might be good enough for grasses and cattle grazing one day, that day is not today, nor tomorrow, and in the meantime, you will be quite hungry. In the medium term: good luck replacing California's food output with northern Alberta's. Now, one might be able to hasten the soil improvement that with some sort of complex, time-consuming terraforming ('agriforming?') process, but good luck getting that process to scale in a hurry. Or on-budget. (Have fun even making a budget for that.) Farming is actually just incredibly hard, the land is the biggest variable. It has to be just right. You can't just declare that an area is for food production like you'd rezone a city street for residential. Nature does not care about your lines on maps. Don't believe me? Look at the last time we tried. The same reason that turning the Amazonian rainforest into farmland has not been an awesome thing. And who is condescending to who, here? I'm not a farmer. But neither, I suspect, are you. So why do you discount my experience? I'm from the place you were talking about. My suspicion is that you simply cannot tolerate the ego-dystonicity of ushering in an age of starvation for our children and grandchildren. But we did it. You did it, with help. Check the prices at your supermarket.[1] Check the collapsing populations of insects, birds, and fish. Wait for the unravel to travel further up the food chain. Tag. You're it. And yes, it's apocalyptic. It really, really is. If you want to throw textbooks around, please read _This Changes Everything_. Then, read _Under a White Sky_. You will find them both in the nonfiction section. [1] Before you get typing: yes, inflation and supply-chain disruption can be symptoms of climate change -- specifically, when both are occasioned by a pandemic, which is the sort of event that becomes more common as habitats are squeezed up against one another. There will be more, faster now. I did PhD work on this, back in '05, in the aftermath of SARS-CoV-1. Like.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wyager 5y ago

The fact that you think GW places us at imminent risk of starvation suggests you're probably not operating on a coherent model of GW risks. Are you willing to put money on the table? Make me a market about a measurable GW-related food production loss and I'll probably take you up on it, assuming you're willing to commit to it.