Global warming endangers U.S. corn production, study says (Iowa, Illinois hardest hit)

LA Times ^ | 4/10/09 | Jim Tankersley

[NormsRevenge]

Global warming could rob the U.S. economy of $1.4 billion a year in lost corn production alone, a national environmental group estimated in a report released Thursday.

The Environment America study, based on government and university data, projects that warming temperatures will reduce yields of the nation's biggest crop by 3% in the Midwest and the South compared with projected yields without further global warming.

Iowa would be hit hardest, losing $259 million a year in corn revenues, followed by Illinois at $243 million. California, which leads the country in agriculture but doesn't grow much corn, would take an estimated $4.7-million hit.

The study doesn't directly address other crops, but one of its main sources, a 2008 government report on the effects of warming on agriculture and natural resources, suggests that California's signature fruit and vegetable harvests could suffer even more than corn if temperatures rise.

"Corn likes it cool, but global warming is raising temperatures across the nation," said report author Timothy Telleen-Lawton in a news release. "Hotter fields will mean lower yields for corn, and eventually, the rest of agriculture."

Telleen-Lawton said the estimates of revenue loss were tied to expected increases in temperature and carbon dioxide levels that could be reached within the next few decades if steps were not taken quickly to cut the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

The report is a direct challenge to other studies, often cited by critics of government efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, that project moderate warming would increase crop yields.

Higher carbon dioxide levels would help plants grow, Princeton University physicist William Happer, a critic of emissions limits,

"Crop yields will continue to increase as CO2 levels go up," he said in submitted testimony, "since we are far from the optimum levels for plant growth."

[Da Coyote]

Bite me. These clowns know about as much science as the Obamaloon.

[blasater1960]

Idiots....better worry about cooling. www.icecap.us

[4rcane]

and how much of that 3% drop is natural and how much is subsidise elimination related

[4Speed]

And what would a new ICE AGE do ?

Anyone seen any sunspots lately ?

[digger48]

Once the arctic thaws, we can grow the corn there.

[Rodm]

These people don’t have a clue!

[yazoo]

I thought we were all going to fry by 2020? What the hell, who needs corn when they are dead?

[SouthTexas]

Tortilla makers and whiskey drinkers hardest hit.

[Brett66]

Just because their computers say it will be warmer doesn’t mean they know what will happen to crop yields.

This is the standard stupidity in these articles, that would be like me saying:

I racked up over 400 points playing Unreal Tournament last night, so I’m an expert marksman!

[dajeeps]

I’ve seen corn grown in sand, in arid conditions. Seems more to me like they are focusing on the trees instead of the forest when talking about the U.S. So we grow corn somwhere else, or grow a different kind in these states. We really don’t need the government involved, the farmers will figure it out.

P.S. : Uncle Sam, butt out!

[suthener]

This is so backward it’s ridiculous. First of all, you can find corn growing all over Alabama, where it’s 95 or 100 degrees in the summer. That destroys the “corn needs cool weather” theory. Then, if there truly were global warming, wouldn’t it be possible to grow corn further north than is possible now? Could there possibly be a net gain of food production with globol warming? Why does everything associated with (the non-existent) global warming have to be negative?

[unkus]

We are going into an Ice Age and I’m worried about people not being to afford to heat their homes in a few years.

Bio fuels are a disaster, too.

[IronJack]

o why are these “reports” always about what WILL happen? Sincwe we’re assured that global warming is a reality, why aren’t these horrors already happening?

And how would a warmer environment and a longer growing season HURT corn yields?

[hinckley buzzard]

Corn likes it cool, but global warming is raising temperatures across the nation

Unbelievable. If corn likes it cool then we are in for (another) bumper crop.

[ETL]

From The Washington Times, January 12, 2009

Obama climate czar has socialist ties
Group sees 'global governance' as solution

by Stephen Dinan

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group's congress in Greece was still available.

lots more...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/
_______________________________________________

Obama's "Climate Czar" is on the same page with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro...

From GreenLeft.org

VENEZUELA: Chavez calls for global offensive for socialism
August 31, 2005

excerpts...

"The environment is suffering damage that could be irreversible — global warming, the greenhouse effect, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rising sea level, hurricanes — with terrible social occurrences that will shake life on this planet."

"I believe this idea has a strong connection with reality. I don't think we have much time. Fidel Castro said in one of his speeches I read not so long ago, 'tomorrow could be too late, let's do now what we need to do'."

"I believe it is time that we take up with courage and clarity a political, social, collective and ideological offensive across the world — a real offensive that permits us to move progressively, over the next years, the next decades, leaving behind the perverse, destructive, destroyer, capitalist model and go forward in constructing the socialist model to avoid barbarism and beyond that the annihilation of life on this planet."

--Hugo Chavez, at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Caracas on August 8-15, 2005

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/640/640p16.htm
_______________________________________________

Here's a Google cache of the Socialist International's page that included Obama's "Climate Czar" Carol Browner. It was found by FReeper, Publius6961....

[LibLieSlayer]

THE FARCE THAT IS global warming WILL ROB AMERICA OF HER WEALTH TO APPEASE LEFTIST ENEMIES OF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!

LLS

[Oldpuppymax]

Of course this is all based upon the same phoney computer models these clowns have jury-rigged to create the global warming hoax in the first place. But let’s not allow that to get in the way of a good disaster story! So, QUICK...Big Brother must have more power!

[catpuppy]

Global warming could rob the U.S. economy of $1.4 billion a year

Which makes global warming trillions less of a threat to the U.S. economy than the current administration and its hogs gone wild buddies in the Congress.

[VeniVidiVici]

If Global Warming would result in fewer stupid liberals, I’d be all for it.