Archive for July, 2010

Famine Continues to Stalk the Earth

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

By David L. Brown

Wheat, the Staff of Life

Wheat, the Staff of Life

We’ve talked here before about the fact that the world’s supply of basic foodstuffs is falling short with production barely able to meet demand. Now wheat prices are soaring due to drought in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Australia, added to excess rain in Canada that has taken 13 million acres out of production this season.

Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade experienced a 42 percent increase just during the month of July, the biggest monthly percentage gain since the CBOT began keeping records in 1959. Wheat contracts jumped by $1.97 per bu. in July, with September futures closing on Friday the 30th at $6.615 per bu. This is not an all-time high—wheat reached the eight dollar level during the food crisis of 2008—but the end isn’t in sight and more increases are expected as bad news continues to come in about yield expectations and traders keep bidding up the price.

Now as one might expect the press reports on this story raise the specter of, well, higher prices for bread and pasta in the grocery store. Nowhere is the word “famine” mentioned in the stories I read. It’s all about us, you see, and how this might impact our family budgets., a relatively minor fact if you want to know the truth. You may remember we went through a similar period of angst two years ago when the price of wheat was a concern, with reports of rioting in Italy because pasta prices had jumped.

Let me put this in perspective. A bushel of wheat weighs 60 lbs. When wheat prices hit that $8 range in 2008, the North Dakota Wheat Commission estimated that the farm value of the wheat in a typical loaf of bread was about 20¢, up from a previous range of 12-15¢ so the actual cost of a loaf of bread represented by the wheat it contained actually rose by just 5¢ to 8¢ — hardly cause for panic. The March 14, 2008 Wheat Commission news release (read it here) concluded that the extra cost for a family that consumed one loaf of bread and one pound of pasta per week would be about $20 a year. Actually, my calculations are even lower (+8¢ per loaf or packet of pasta, times 2/week times 52 weeks equals just $8.32). This shouldn’t even be considered as news, and little more than a rounding error in family budgets.

But what’s the real story? It’s famine, because it’s not the price of wheat that matters, but the supply. The fact is that a shortfall in wheat production will mean there won’t be enough wheat to satisfy world demand. About a third of the people on our planet rely on wheat as their major foodstuff, the “Staff of Life.” Many of these people live in poor nations and must buy their grain or rely on food aid from rich nations.

The confusion with availability of food and money is a sign of our misguided emphasis on monetary factors. Clearly, when there isn’t enough food to go around, money cannot solve the problem. In other words, actual food cannot be magically transformed from the ether by the application of paper dollars from a printing press. Sadly, humans can’t even eat the money, so there’s trouble ahead for many in the poor regions of the world.

As far as we here in the comfortable West are concerned, the price of wheat will be bid up as is presently taking place until demand drops to meet supply. That occurs when some potential consumers conclude they cannot afford to buy wheat at the higher price. The first to reach that point will be the poorest of the world.

Another way that reports mislead us is by conflating percentages with actual values. Let’s imagine a worst-case scenario in which wheat rises to $20 per bu., or about four times the recent price range. Wheat will sell for 400% of its previous price. Whoa, a terrible disaster, right? Well, maybe not. Using the factor noted above where $8 wheat was equivalent to 20¢ per loaf, at $20 the farm value of the wheat in a loaf of bread would rise to 50¢. That’s a little less scary. And if a premium loaf of bread sells for $3, and other factors don’t change (they will, but never mind), then although the price of wheat will have risen by four times, the cost will add only about 16 percent to the cost of the loaf of bread.

Taking it one more step, if a family consumes one loaf of bread and one box of pasta per week, and the wheat they contain costs an extra 50¢, the cost is just $2 a week or $104 per year. That’s under a worst case assumption that is probably quite a bit higher than wheat prices are likely to reach, because the poor will be priced out of the game before prices reach that lofty height.

Prices even in the range of 2008 would be devastating to several hundred million people who depend on wheat and have few if any alternatives. And to repeat: Money cannot solve the problem; food aid agencies cannot create more food simply by throwing money at the problem. Rich nations will ante up whatever it takes to get as much wheat as their populations demand and others will be left without. For more on this point, see my essay “Money Won’t Solve Looming Famine,” posted June 2, 2009 here.

Not only that, but when the price of one commodity goes up it takes others with it as frustrated buyers seek alternatives. Thus, corn and soybean prices also rose last month, although not nearly not as much as wheat.

The specter Famine

The specter Famine

Folks, we are reaching Peak Food, and with population continuing to rise this is an unfolding tragedy. For the press and politicians to moan and gnash their teeth over the price of bread is beside the point, which is that many people of the world will go without enough to eat. Most of those same people are already malnourished, so a wheat shortfall will push them toward outright starvation.

As resources such as oil and gas decline, famines are probably inevitable. We haven’t seen much of that  ancient scourge of humanity in recent decades, but it’s fated to return, perhaps very soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in Agriculture Issues, Economics, Famine | Comments Off

Great Lakes Are ‘Running a Fever’

Monday, July 19th, 2010

By David L. Brown

The Great Lakes are artifacts of the last Ice Age, gouged from the earth by massive glaciers that once covered much of Canada and the upper part of the present United States.  They form the largest freshwater system in the world. They are also a harbinger of climate change, because they are growing hotter, thus acting as “canaries in the coal mine” for global warming.

I’m particularly aware of this change because for six years in the 1960s I lived in a high-rise apartment on Chicago’s northside. The building was called Shoreline Towers for the fact that Lake Michigan was right outside my window. Waves sometimes washed over the retaining wall to soak my car in the parking lot. In those days, come winter the lake began to freeze over. Not all the way, but out several miles. When there was a strong east wind the ice would sometimes break up into slabs six or eight inches thick and pile up along the shore.

My friends who live in Chicago tell me that that’s no longer the case today. Lake Michigan does not freeze, and that’s about as clear as any evidence I can think of that the lake is warmer than it was 40 years ago.

Lake Superior, the "canary in the mine"

Lake Superior, the "canary in the mine"

According to an article posted on the Scientific American website (here), this trend has not only been measured, but shows signs of accelerating. All the Great Lakes have been affected, but climate scientists have been keeping a particular eye on Lake Superior, the largest, deepest, and most northerly of the lakes. The canary of canaries.

The article, “Lake Superior, a Natural Global Warming Gauge, is Running a Fever,” quoted Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the Great Lakes: “Total ice cover on the lake has shrunk by about 20 percent over the past 37 years, he said. Though the change has made for longer, warmer summers, it’s a problem because ice is crucial for keeping water from evaporating and it regulates the natural cycles of the Great Lakes.”

This year the trend is even more apparent, with Lake Superior on track to reach or exceed its 1998 record-high temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Ominously, data from several buoys that measure temperatures in the lake “reveal that the waters are some 15 degrees warmer than they would normally be at this time of year,” the SciAm article quotes Jay Austin, a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Dr. Austin is associated with the university’s Large Lakes Observatory (link here).

The warming lake waters are not only evidence of global warming, they may be changing the ecology of these freshwater seas by allowing harmful species to gain a foothold there. For example, the charmingly named blood-sucking sea lamprey is spreading through the lakes. Like the vampires of folk myth, these creatures latch onto the sides of trout and hang on, sucking the fish’s blood until it dies.

There are serious concerns about the effect on native American tribespeople who live around the lake and depend upon its waters. Besides threatening their fisheries, increasing warmth threatens their ability to harvest wild rice, a major source of revenue.

When we hear that the waters of a huge lake are 15 degrees warmer than usual, that’s more than just a canary cheeping in a coal mine. Unless, of course, it’s the mythical 500-pound canary from a very old schoolyard joke.*

As I’ve noted in some recent posts, it’s vexing that as evidence of global warming continues to pile up, there seems to be less acceptance of the danger by the general public, not more as one might suspect. Perhaps this is due in part to the short memory horizon of most younger people. Someone who wasn’t around Chicago 40 years ago won’t remember when the ice piled up on the shore each winter. They won’t remember the time in the 1970s when a bitter west wind  created a wind chill in the range of minus 80 degrees, threatening to freeze the pipes in my house even though the furnace was running constantly.

Sadly, those who view events in the world from a short timeline cannot have an accurate indication of any trend. It’s too easy to assume that not much is going on, and that those stories Grandpa told about the frigid winters of the past are just that, stories. This problem of what might be called timeline myopia is particularly true in the case of climate change, which may seem to occur slowly but which in fact is speeding at an unprecedented rate.

We’ve already seen that 2010 is the hottest on record so far, and most months have set records worldwide. We also see that Arctic sea ice has been running at record low levels this year, that the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than ever, and a multitude of other warnings. Other canaries, entire flocks of the little yellow harbingers. Will no one hear them?

* “What does the 500 pound canary say? CHEEEP!” Sorry.

Posted in Climate Change, Conservation Issues, Melting Planet | Comments Off

Don’t Confuse Me With the Facts!

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

By David L. Brown

factsThat headline may sound like a joke, but it often seems to be exactly the reaction many people have when faced with facts that may threaten their preconceived notions about how things work. A recent article in The Boston Globe (link here) sheds light on this mysterious effect.

Titled “How facts backfire,” the article is focused on voter opinions about political questions. It makes the unsettling conclusion that most people are unlikely to change their opinions when provided with contrary facts, and may actually tend to cling even more strongly to mistaken ideas. Here’s a take-away from the article:

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

…

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

This concept helps shed some light on the subject of climate change denial, in which scientists are frustrated by the apparent effect that as they reveal more and more information about the dangers of global warming, large numbers among the public actually seem to become more skeptical. This is not least seen among politicians, broadcast and print commentators and other opinion leaders. It’s not uncommon today to hear or read statements such as “global warming is a hoax,” or “climate change has been disproved.” This is completely contrary to the mass of evidence.

The article points out that people today are deluged with “endless rumors, misinformation, and questionable variations on the truth,” making it easier than ever to be wrong.  It also makes people feel more certain that they are right.

And even more vexing is the fact that the most informed people are the most resistant to changing their mistaken ideas when provided with new information. The article describes a 2006 study by Charles Taber and Milton Lodge at Stony Brook University which “showed that politically sophisticated thinkers were even less open to new information than less sophisticated types. These people may be factually right about 90 percent of things, but their confidence makes it nearly impossible to correct the 10 percent on which they’re totally wrong.”

Hmm, that may explain a lot about some of the stuff you hear coming out of the mouths of supposedly well-informed people on “Meet the Press” and other venues. They appear to be completely confident in their statements, even though to others they sometimes seem more like delusional paranoid ravings than sound opinion.

Thanks to Google I found the original paper by Taber and Lodge, “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs” (PDF here), and it adds some interesting perspective to the subject. It seems that even scientists are subject to the backfire effect, as described in their paper:

Physicists do it. Psychologists do it. Even political scientists do it (cites withheld to protect the guilty among us). Research findings confirming a hypothesis are accepted more or less at face value, but when confronted with contrary evidence, we become “motivated skeptics,” mulling over possible reasons for the “failure,” picking apart possible flaws in the study, recoding variables, and only when all the counterarguing fails do we rethink our beliefs. Whether this systematic bias in how scientists deal with evidence is rational or not is debatable, though one negative consequence is that bad theories and weak hypotheses, like prejudices, persist longer then they should.

The backfire effect poses a serious problem for scientists, not only because their profession is fact-based but also due to their human tendency to hold onto their notions. The statement of Arthur Schopenhauer comes to mind: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” The concept of backfire also resonates with the maxim of Ben Franklin, who said “So convenient a thing is it to be a rational creature, since it enables us to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to.”

When scientists find it difficult to understand why their increasingly solid data and conclusions don’t seem to change opinions among the general public, the effect described in the Globe article could be the reason. If that’s the case, what can be done about it? Since the problem appears to lie in human psychology rather than the rational processes of logic and reason, the answer can’t be found in the stubborn ranks of the misinformed. And, simply piling more and more facts onto the table doesn’t work and may even have a negative effect. It’s a conundrum indeed.

The author of the Globe article, Joe Keohane, suggests that those who spread falsehoods might be subjected to shame, which could cause them to change their behavior. However, he concludes that the “shame-based solution” runs into the fact that “fast-talking political pundits have ascended to the realm of highly lucrative popular entertainment, while professional fact-checking operations languish in the dungeons of wonkery.”

I’m reminded of how the many magical feats of Moses (plagues of frogs, locusts, serpents, etc.) failed to convince Pharaoh to release the Hebrews and that each feat only “hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Climate scientists probably face a similar impossible task in trying to convince the public about the importance of their work. In the end, Moses had to simply gather up his people and leave Egypt, thus:

mosesandtheredseabiblestory

Unfortunately, parting the Red Sea and leaving Egypt is not an option for climate scientists  today. I  guess we’ll have to wait for the jury to come out on global warming and climate change. That’s when the facts will become so manifest that they can no longer be denied.  Unfortunately, that will also be when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Posted in Energy Technology, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off

How Hot Is It? This Hot!

Friday, July 16th, 2010

By  David L. Brown

Yesterday I wrote about a new report from NASA, reporting that 2010 is the hottest ever so far. To get a visual image of what that means, here’s a map from the agriculture.com web site showing the predicted high temperatures across the United States for this date, July 16.

An all-red, fiery weather forecast for today

An all-red, fiery weather forecast for today

If you think this may look like an image from Hell, you may be right. Farmers are complaining of too much rain in the Corn Belt, too little in the Southeast. To give you a feel for what some farmers are experiencing, here are excerpts from a few recent comments posted by farmers on the AgWeb.com site (you can read more farmer comments here):

7/13 – Northeast Indiana: Some are still trying to plant beans. Now we can’t buy a rain and not much in the forecast. Even the good corn is firing now, no nitrogen left to finish this crop. With shallow roots, it won’t take long to become real ugly.

7/13 – York Springs, Pa.: Our crop (beans and corn) are about shot…we have not had any rain since mid-June. Corn is 2′ tall, shooting tassel. We are hoping that the Midwest has plenty!

7/13 – Fayette County, Ill.: Finally got finished planting beans for the first time this year in the river bottom on Monday, the 5th of July. Every time I got ready to plant, it rained and stayed too wet. Lots of drowned out or very poor crops in some areas of central Illinois and some good-looking crops in well drained areas.

7/12 – South central Iowa: Our crops are the worst I have seen in all of my travels across the Midwest over this last month. It is the worst corn we have ever grown and we have been completely helpless as it rains and rains.  It is pretty much a lost cause at this point.

7/9 – Coles County, east central Illinois: I walked out into my corn fields to check for gray leaf spots and found something worse: In a field that has looked good, was planted in good conditions on soybean stubble, had 210 lb. NH3 fall applied, was beautiful when I did post spraying, now when you walk in the field about 20′ you find stalks that are dead from the ear down. With all the constant rains, the corn never put down much roots and is not picking up the nitrogen. This is not just in low spots, I am finding it on hills also. It does not look like a bumper crop to me!

7/8 – Shelby County, Tenn.: National Weather Service, Memphis: It’s official, Memphis/mid-South area, June was the second hottest and fifth driest ever!

7/7 – Bucks County, Pa. (sweet corn crop): Very dry, having to pump water to keep crop looking and growing good. Temps 100° plus, pond is 4′ below normal. Working to 11 p.m. keeping sprinklers and pumps running, and there is a real fear of fire due to dry woodlands and grass. With that said, crop looks great. Hope the pond don’t dry up!

7/7 – Sussex County, Del.: Very dry here, temp over 100°. Corn crop burning up, soybeans standing still, not growing at all. Feeding cattle winter hay already. Pasture is gone, one cutting of hay, there won’t be another.

7/6 – Central Pennsylvania: Dry, dry, and dry. Only an inch of rain for the month of June, if that. Corn is curled up, and looks terrible. Only corn that looks good is on ground that holds moisture the best.  If it doesn’t rain soon, well… we won’t need the chopper to come around to process our corn silage for our dairy cows, there won’t be a kernel to process, and not much stalk to chop either.

All-in-all, it’s shaping up as another difficult year for farmers, with Goldilocks conditions of flooding and drought and excessive heat added on top of that. We’ll stay abreast of the situation as we move into the critical late-July and August growing season, when the worst heat stress usually occurs.

Posted in Agriculture Issues, Climate Change, Default File | Comments Off

So Far, 2010 Is Hottest Year Ever

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

By David L. Brown

global_warming-288x300A new report just issued by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies concludes that 2010 to-date is the warmest year on record. This continues on a trend that has been observed over a period of time. The draft report, “Global Surface Temperature Change,” is available as a PDF here. The paper was written by James Hansen and his associates and will be submitted for journal publication soon.

A major step in this latest analysis was to quantify the so-called “urban effect” on warming, with the researchers concluding “that urban effects on analyzed global change are small.” Other steps were taken to fine-tune global warming data by comparing alternative analyses, and addressing questions about perception and reality of global warming.

They state:

We conclude that global temperature continued to rise rapidly in the past decade, despite large year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Nino-La Nina cycle of tropical ocean temperature. Record high global temperature during the period with instrumental data was reached in 2010.

The new data uses satellite measurements of nightlights as a means of quantifying any urban warming effect by using the nightlights as a proxy to determine population density near reporting stations, allowing a correction factor to be applied to data obtained from the urban areas. This is particularly useful in the United States but not necessarily in other places of the world, because the U.S. has more recording stations and uses more energy. When those differences were taken into account,  the researchers learned somewhat to their surprise that “The nightlight adjustment reduces the 1880-2009 global temperature change by an insignificant 0.004°C relative to the prior population-based urban adjustment.” The report also introduces adjusted ocean surface temperatures and new analysis of data from the Arctic and Antarctic.

Here is an image from the report showing nightlight emissions worldwide, clearly showing the predominate energy use in advanced countries.

Nighttime radiation from electric lights.

Nighttime radiation from electric lights.

Global warming does not take place evenly from one place to another, and the report explains these differences thus:

Warming in these recent decades is larger over land than over ocean, as expected for a forced climate change, in part because the ocean responds more slowly than the land due to the ocean’s large thermal inertia. Warming during the past decade is enhanced, relative to the global mean warming, by about 50 percent in the United States, a factor of 2-3 in Eurasia, and a factor of 3-4 in the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Warming of the ocean surface has been largest over the Arctic Ocean, second largest over the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans, and third largest over most of the Atlantic Ocean. Temperature changes have been small and variable in sign over the North Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the regions of upwelling off the west coast of South America.

The draft paper also addresses the misconceptions that arise from confusion about the difference between climate and weather. The scientists write:

Public opinion about climate change is affected by recent and ongoing weather. North America had a cool summer in 2009, perhaps the largest negative temperature anomaly on the planet (Figure 14a). Northern Hemisphere winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) of 2009-2010 was unusually cool in the United States and northern Eurasia. The cool weather contributed to increased public skepticism about the concept of “global warming”, especially in the United States. These regional extremes occurred despite the fact that Jun-Jul-Aug 2009 was second warmest (behind Jun-Jul-Aug 1998) and Dec-Jan-Feb 2009-2010 was second warmest (behind Dec-Jan-Feb 2006-2007).

The new report adds another body of evidence to demonstrate that climate change is real. It will no doubt be ignored by the ignorant, denied by the deniers, and condemned by the self-interested. Meanwhile, Nature will continue on her course despite all the misinformation, propaganda, and deception that mere mortals bring to the issue.

Posted in Climate Change, Melting Planet | Comments Off

Truth Is Out: Chicken Came First

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Chickens Get the Last Laugh

Chickens Get the Last Laugh

A little over four years ago I posted a piece here responding to a report on the all-important scientific question of our age, the chicken-egg controversy. I wrote:

“Addressing the major scientific issue of which came first, the chicken or the egg, a panel of eggsperts have concluded that the egg had to come first. Star Phoenix Base doesn’t think this is egg-sactly right.”

Well, pardon me while I cackle. Now a news report from Mail Online, the web site of the British newspaper The Daily Mail, turns that question around and claims that it was indeed the chicken, not the egg that came first. Here’s a link to the Mail Online story.

Previous attempts to explain the egg-first scenario fell back on the idea that two unrelated species must have interbred to fertilize the egg from which the first chicken hatched, so that neither of the parents were themselves chickens. That seemed unlikely to me, since different species generally can’t interbreed, or if they do, the offspring are sterile (for example, the mule).

Well, thank goodness this deep scientific question is answered at last, thanks to researchers at Sheffield and Warwick Universities who used a super computer to hatch their solution The new chicken-first theory is based on the discovery that the ability to form eggshells in the special way chickens do “is only found in a chicken’s ovaries,” the Mail Online article explained. “Therefore, an egg can only exist if it has been inside a chicken — thereby proving chickens must have come first.”

If you’d enjoy more pun-ishing ventures into poultry-related word play, you may want to read my original post, “Egg-regious Errors in Chicken Logic,” May 29, 2006, here.

Posted in Evolution and Genetics, Satire, Irony, and Humor | Comments Off

Is Climate Denial a Form of Grieving?

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Note: The following is excerpted from a new book I’ve just completed writing. It makes interesting food for thought about the phenomenon of denial.

It may seem hard to understand how so many people can remain in denial about the threats that face us. It probably comes down to psychology, and the natural tendency of individuals to protect themselves from unpleasant facts. Some writers[1] have suggested that refusal to accept the very real possibility our technological civilization is in danger of collapse is due to a process similar to the stages of grief described by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.[2] Denial is the first stage in her description of the process of grieving, followed in order by anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

We can see that gaining a state of acceptance is not an easy transformation, and who can imagine a greater cause for grief than to mourn our very planet and the injuries humanity has done to Nature?

If Kübler-Ross’s ideas apply to how individuals react to the present state of civilization, those in denial have several stages to go. Others are more advanced. You might profit from deciding where you fit on the scale of “grieving” over the impending changes in our world.

In the stage of denial, the most hard-core resisters often claim the danger of resource depletion is vastly over-stated, that those of us who sound the alarm are nothing but Chicken Littles, conspiracy theorists, or loonies. Their heads are firmly in the sand.

Those in the second stage of anger are looking for someone to blame. Obvious targets (and not without reason) are Big Oil, power companies, foreign countries such as Saudi Arabia or China, globalization, or those ever-popular scapegoats politicians. These might be people you would see waving signs on picket lines.

Those who have reached the stage of bargaining might pin their hopes on an almost cult-like confidence that new technologies will allow us to find and use more resources. Bargainers are always seeking “solutions,” such as escape to space or some unexpected discovery that will make everything safe again, so that “progress” can continue unhindered.

I know many people who tell me they don’t want to think about this subject because it’s depressing. They are in the fourth stage of the process.

I rank myself in the stage of acceptance, and it’s only when that point is reached that one can see clearly enough to apply the powers of reason and analysis to the challenges that face humanity. Rather than being depressed by the study of this subject, I find it of intense interest — although it’s discouraging to see how many are still in the earlier stages of “grief,” particularly that counter-productive state of denial.

[1] For example, Richard Heinberg in his book “Peak Everything,” New Society Publishers, 2007.

[2] Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, “On Death and Dying,” 1st pb. edition, 1970.

Posted in Climate Change, Default File | Comments Off