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> Take, for example, Australia–which has just stopped. Second-largest wheat exporter on the planet 10 years ago, but it is the canary in the coal mine: it’s the

> Take, for example, Australia–which has just stopped. Second-largest wheat exporter on the planet 10 years ago, but it is the canary in the coal mine: it’s the driest continent–it’s almost all in the subtropics except the southern fringe and they’ve just gone through what they thought was a drought. Not a drought. It’s climate change and it ain’t never going back: this is the new normal, guys. And as a result, Australia has exported almost no wheat for the last three years; they can still feed themselves–there’s only 20 million of the buggers–but they aren’t exporting wheat that can be used to fill in the gaps elsewhere and this will happen a lot of places. I'm in Australia, and this comment about Australian wheat exports seemed off. So I checked: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/about/news/australian-wheat-export-snapshot-jan-23 https://www.agriculture.gov.au/about/news/australian-wheat-e... Nope, we're exporting more wheat every year. Some of the reasons for this are economic rather than agricultural (e.g. Ukrainian war). But there's enough wheat being produced to export. I know this was written in 2010, so it might just have been a blip, or a few dry years, or something. But the "Australia has stopped exporting wheat because climate change" point is clearly not actually true. It did come back, this wasn't the new normal.

cdogl 3y ago
Australia has plentiful fresh produce of superb quality and is a major food exporter. Climate change will be a challenge for this country but hyperbolic predictions like OP don’t help anyone.
- Guthur 3y ago
  And yet after that drought we've had some of the wettest weather I've ever seen here, massive floods, ample rain. Actually have a cold weather warning for the next week here in Sydney. It's as if the weather is you know unpredictable. You free to believe whatever appeal to authority you want but climate wolf crying has been going on for decades. It's just another distraction while the real questions don't get asked let alone answered.
  - medellin 3y ago
    What do you think the real questions are?
  - defrost 3y ago
    The weather (short term changes) is 'unpredictable' (albeit less and less so). The climate (decadal long averages) is not - it's driven by energy in (sunlight, some geothermnal), energy absorbed, and energy reflected - these have been more or less constant for tens of thousands of years and have only recently "rapidly" changed in a century driven by changes to the insulation properties of the atmosphere caused by human released gases. Short term unpredicable tumbling, long term predictable trajectory is understood in the study of dynamics. An easy example is the Dzhanibekov effect | Tennis racket theorem where an object's orientation is chaotic but the long term path of its centre of gravity is smooth and predictable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem Australia in recent years has been mostly affected by the 'usual' El Niño and La Niña long term patterns that have been slowly becoming more off kilter with changing swing lengths and extremes (compared to past records).
    - Guthur 3y ago
      You seem very certain that earth can never have rapid (decades length, centuries?) changes on earth before, or that it could ever happen, without human activities?
      - defrost 3y ago
        I said no such thing. I specifically said that ( earth's current ) climate has been more or less constant for tens of thousands of years and have only recently "rapidly" changed in a century driven by changes to the insulation properties of the atmosphere caused by human released gases Read that carefully. It does not say: * that earth can never have rapid (decades length, centuries?) changes on earth before [sic] or * that it could ever happen, without human activities How about you practice NOT badly paraphrasing and strawmanning other people's comments?
- Fricken 3y ago
  Are you sure he's being hyperbolic? We're just getting started with this shit, man. https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-to-cause-synchronised-harvest-failures-across-the-globe-with-implications-for-australias-food-security-209250 https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-to-caus...
  - marcus_holmes 3y ago
    Isn't that the same prediction, though? The original article/talk predicted that the Australian wheat harvest would collapse because of climate change 13 years ago. It didn't, and has in fact increased since then. The Conversation article is referencing scientists making the same prediction now, presumably based on the same modelling work. I get that new understanding can lead to new insight, but I don't think it's "anti-science" or "denial" to treat this new round of predictions with some scepticism, given that they're basically an exact repeat of the predictions in 2010. Which turned out to be not only incorrect, but wildly incorrect, the opposite of what actually happened.
xvilka 3y ago
It reminds me of climate predictions for Egypt - some claim it will completely dry out, while others that it will get more water than before.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
Articles like the one posted are usually written by amateurs with no clue as to the real dynamics of such sectors as agriculture forecasts in Australia, for example. The real specialists in most sectors don't share it publicly.

cdogl 3y ago

Australia has plentiful fresh produce of superb quality and is a major food exporter. Climate change will be a challenge for this country but hyperbolic predictions like OP don’t help anyone.

Guthur 3y ago
And yet after that drought we've had some of the wettest weather I've ever seen here, massive floods, ample rain. Actually have a cold weather warning for the next week here in Sydney. It's as if the weather is you know unpredictable. You free to believe whatever appeal to authority you want but climate wolf crying has been going on for decades. It's just another distraction while the real questions don't get asked let alone answered.
- medellin 3y ago
  What do you think the real questions are?
- defrost 3y ago
  The weather (short term changes) is 'unpredictable' (albeit less and less so). The climate (decadal long averages) is not - it's driven by energy in (sunlight, some geothermnal), energy absorbed, and energy reflected - these have been more or less constant for tens of thousands of years and have only recently "rapidly" changed in a century driven by changes to the insulation properties of the atmosphere caused by human released gases. Short term unpredicable tumbling, long term predictable trajectory is understood in the study of dynamics. An easy example is the Dzhanibekov effect | Tennis racket theorem where an object's orientation is chaotic but the long term path of its centre of gravity is smooth and predictable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem Australia in recent years has been mostly affected by the 'usual' El Niño and La Niña long term patterns that have been slowly becoming more off kilter with changing swing lengths and extremes (compared to past records).
  - Guthur 3y ago
    You seem very certain that earth can never have rapid (decades length, centuries?) changes on earth before, or that it could ever happen, without human activities?
    - defrost 3y ago
      I said no such thing. I specifically said that ( earth's current ) climate has been more or less constant for tens of thousands of years and have only recently "rapidly" changed in a century driven by changes to the insulation properties of the atmosphere caused by human released gases Read that carefully. It does not say: * that earth can never have rapid (decades length, centuries?) changes on earth before [sic] or * that it could ever happen, without human activities How about you practice NOT badly paraphrasing and strawmanning other people's comments?
Fricken 3y ago
Are you sure he's being hyperbolic? We're just getting started with this shit, man. https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-to-cause-synchronised-harvest-failures-across-the-globe-with-implications-for-australias-food-security-209250 https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-to-caus...
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  Isn't that the same prediction, though? The original article/talk predicted that the Australian wheat harvest would collapse because of climate change 13 years ago. It didn't, and has in fact increased since then. The Conversation article is referencing scientists making the same prediction now, presumably based on the same modelling work. I get that new understanding can lead to new insight, but I don't think it's "anti-science" or "denial" to treat this new round of predictions with some scepticism, given that they're basically an exact repeat of the predictions in 2010. Which turned out to be not only incorrect, but wildly incorrect, the opposite of what actually happened.

xvilka 3y ago

It reminds me of climate predictions for Egypt - some claim it will completely dry out, while others that it will get more water than before.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Articles like the one posted are usually written by amateurs with no clue as to the real dynamics of such sectors as agriculture forecasts in Australia, for example. The real specialists in most sectors don't share it publicly.