A wet desert won't grow crops in appreciable amounts.
Seven Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions
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Jul 29, 2015
0
#523
And with green energy there will come marvelous things! So, all and all, everyone should act to prevent the climate change, even without the believe in it. It will be good for the humanity in all.
Jul 29, 2015
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#524
bigpoison wrote:
A wet desert won't grow crops in appreciable amounts.
You have never been to Israel or southern California.
Jul 29, 2015
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#525
Thomas-oo wrote:
I think their are many problems with our reliance on fossil fuels. First, there is the problem of obtaining them through drilling (with or without fracking) and mining. Both do massive damage to the environment. See, for example the Niger Delta in Nigeria one of many areas where oil is destroying an important ecosystem. Fracking in Oklahoma, USA, has caused 585 earthquakes there this past year as compared with an average of 2 per year in prior years. In the US alone more than 100,000 coal miners died in the 20th century and this doesn't even count the many thousands who die of Black Lung and other diseases. And this is just in one country. As China and India develop their death rates are soaring.
Second, reliance on fossil fuels is the underlying cause of many geopolitical conflicts that kill and injure tens, even hunderes of thousands and drive people from their homes creating massive refugee problems.
Then we come to global warming. Serious people do not dispute that it is happening. So what will it mean for the world? Basically, sea levels will rise endangering coastal cities where many people live and much commerce is done. Extreme weather events will become more common challenging the ability of governments and communities to repair damage to homes, businesses, transportation, etc. Global temperature will rise (the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred in the past 12 years) changing food production patterns, water availability, and plain old comfort levels around the globe. Some areas will benefit, e.g some deserts may become wetter, but overall there will be food and water shortages which will likely lead to conflict over control of these scarce resources.
Switching to "green" energy will not be cheap or easy but, in my opinion (and that of almost all scientists) is necessary to provide a good quality of life for all.
The question is not whether the climate is warming - it is - we are coming out of one of the coldest periods of time the Earth has ever experienced. The question is whether humans have altered the rate of warming.
As you can see from the following graph, the Earth has been appreciably warmer during much if its history.
We can also see that much of the sea level increase since the nadir during the last glaciation, occurred whith the melting of the continental ice sheets in North Americal and Eurasia.
JamieDelarosa wrote:
bigpoison wrote:
A wet desert won't grow crops in appreciable amounts.
You have never been to Israel or southern California.
You don't know what you're talking about, as usual.
Aug 3, 2015
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#527
bigpoison wrote:
JamieDelarosa wrote:
bigpoison wrote:
A wet desert won't grow crops in appreciable amounts.
You have never been to Israel or southern California.
You don't know what you're talking about, as usual.
Southern California and Israel are essentially deserts that have been turned into highly productive agricultural areas through irrigation - "wet deserts"
Israeli agricultural areas--and California's--are not in the desert. You're, supposedly, from California, do you see many farms in Death Valley? What do you see around Bakersfield? Not farms, unless they're tank farms.
Even if you were able to irrigate a desert, the soil would not support agriculture.
Aug 3, 2015
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#529
There are plenty of farms around Bakerfield. It is the primary source of almonds, and was for years a leading procucer of cotton.
How about the Coachellla and Imperial valleys?
"The Coachella Valley (/koʊˈtʃɛlə/, /koʊ.əˈtʃɛlə/)[1] is a desert valley in Southern California which extends for approximately 45 mi (72 km) in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the northern shore of the Salton Sea. It is the northernmost extent of the vast trough which includes the Salton Sea, the Imperial Valley and the Gulf of California...
The valley is the primary date-growing region in the United States, responsible for nearly 95 percent of the nation's crop and is celebrated each year in Indio during the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival... Other agricultural products cultivated in the Coachella Valley include fruits and vegetables, especially table grapes, citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit; onions and leeks; and peppers. The valley floor served to grow bounties of alfalfa, artichokes, avocados, beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, corn, cotton, cucumbers, dandelions (salad greens), eggplant, figs, grains (i.e. barley, oats, rye and wheat; plus rice fields kept wet or moist in the Salton Sea area), hops, kohlrabi, lettuce, mangoes, nectarines and peaches, persimmons, plums and prunes, pomegranate, potatoes, radishes, spinach, strawberries, sugar cane, tomatoes, a variety of herbs and spices, and other vegetable crops. The Coachella grapefruit originated in the region." - wikipedia entry
The Israelis have transformed large areas of the Negev to agriculture.
Semi-arid. Not desert.
Sep 21, 2015
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#532
Quotes from the first Earth Day (1970):
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,”
Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Stanford's Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
Sen. Gaylord Nelson
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Didn't the Cuyuhoga catch fire in '69?
Sep 21, 2015
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#534
It was badly polluted as I recall. Most of the pictures are from the 1952 fire.
The earth's surface is nearly 80% water. The statement is based on the principles behind the hydrologic cycle.
As ambient temperature in the air and water rise, so does the rate of evaporation. That means increased moisture in the atmosphere. That means increased cloud cover. That means increased rain.
Obviously, there are places that currently do not receive a great deal of precipitation, due to global weather patterns. And there will continue to be places like that.