Climate change, the ocean, agriculture, and FOOD

[sidd]

Re: article on GMO labelling

Does not accord with my experience. Segregation is already performed, and costs are factored in, thus the difference in prices for "conventional" and "organic" soy or canola or corn or ...

[JimD]

Within the first link the FAO describes the worlds increasing dependency on fish for food and jobs.

“The renewed focus on the so-called “blue world” comes as the share of fisheries production used by humans for food has increased from about 70 percent in the 1980s to a record high of more than 85 percent (136 million tonnes) in 2012.

At the same time per capita fish consumption has soared from 10 kg in the 1960s to more than 19 kg in 2012.

The new report also says fish now accounts for almost 17 percent of the global population’s intake of protein -- in some coastal and island countries it can top 70 percent.”

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/231522/icode/

The link below outlines the general situation of world fish stocks.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/common/ecg/1000505/en/stocks.pdf

Fair Winds
Bligh

Hi Bligh

I read this and it seemed a little off from some other stuff I have been reading so I went digging a bit.  It seems that the data used in the links from which the percentages of depletion were calculated was from the early 2000's...stock assessments 2004 and catch data 2002. 

I found reference to another FAO report which had even higher numbers for the percentage of fisheries fully or over exploited.

Key Findings of Recent Fisheries Related Research:
• Scientists project the collapse of all species of wild seafood that are currently fished by midcentury.
(B. Worm et al., 2006)
• 90 percent of all the “big fish” – tuna, marlin, and sharks – are gone. (R. Myers et al., 2003)
• It is estimated that 85 percent of the world commercial fish populations are fully exploited,
overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. (SOFIA 2010)
• Of the top ten species that account for about 30 percent of the world capture fisheries production in
terms of quantity, six correspond to stocks that are considered to be fully exploited or overexploited
(anchoveta, Chilean jack mackerel, Alaska pollock, Japanese anchovy, blue whiting and Atlantic
herring). (SOFIA 2011)
• Globally, fish provides more than 1.5 billion people with almost 20 percent of their average per
capita intake of animal protein, and 3.0 billion people with at least 15 percent of such protein.
(SOFIA 2010)
• Fisheries subsidies also have been found to support illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)
fishing. A recent study estimates the cost of illegal and unreported fishing alone at US$10–23.5
billion per year. (D. Agnew et al. 2009)

http://usa.oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Oceans_in_Trouble_with_EU_Facts_FINAL_FINAL.pdf

The gist of my point is that given it is 2016 we can be pretty certain that the cliff in ocean harvests is actually much closer than your note makes it appear (or even my link makes it appear).  This bodes very poorly for feeding our vast global population. 

I still fail to find evidence to refute my prediction from years ago that the food system will not support our requirements past 2050 and maybe much sooner.  All trends are negative and many are accelerating.

[bligh8]

Hi Jim and Thanks for the up-dated information.  I did notice the information was dated and should have dug a little deeper as you did.

For the last several days I’ve been reading about advances in marine cold-plate technologies that appear to have a huge impact on the ability of fishing vessels to stay at sea and broaden markets for distribution of marine food products.  This I’m told has impacted fish stocks equal to the use of FADs.

“When newly caught, fish are frozen quickly and stored at a low temperature on board, so there is no limit imposed on the length of voyage due to spoilage of the catch. Fishing vessels can remain at the fishing grounds until the hold is full. This increases the proportion of time spent at the fishing ground and improves the economics of fishing. It also allows the fish to be distributed to a wider market even without the existence of an elaborate "cold chain ". Fish which have been frozen at sea are of very good quality when landed; therefore, more time is available for the fish to be distributed over a wider area and still be in good condition.
Freezing at sea has therefore an important role in world fisheries. A look at a map will show that large areas of ocean are far distant from any centres of population or even land, and many potential fisheries are therefore unexploitable without a method of preserving the fish for long sea voyages. Only quick freezing and low temperature storage has so far satisfied this need and, as traditional near water fisheries become overfished or are unable to satisfy the growing demands of an ever increasing population, freezing at sea will become more and more necessary.”

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/v3630e/v3630e14.htm

I would agree on your assessments of declining food supplies to humanity driven by over-population and agw likely to happen sooner rather than later.

Fair Winds….Bligh

[AbruptSLR]

Which do you think that crony capitalism will promote, industrial agriculture or agroecological methods (like those discussed in the linked article)?

http://www.ecowatch.com/how-the-worlds-most-fertile-soil-can-help-reverse-climate-change-1906689975.html

Extract: "Over the past half century, the world has moved increasingly to industrial agriculture—attempting to maximize efficiency through massive, often inhumane livestock operations; turning huge swaths of land over to monocrops requiring liberal use of fertilizers, pesticides and genetic modification; and reliance on fossil fuel-consuming machinery and underpaid migrant workers. This has contributed to increased greenhouse gas emissions; loss of forests and wetlands that prevent climate change by storing carbon; pollution from runoff and pesticides; antibiotic and pesticide resistance; reduced biodiversity; and soil degradation, erosion and loss.

The "solution" offered by many experts is to double down on industrial agriculture and genetic modification. But doing so ignores how natural systems function and interact and assumes we can do better. History shows such hubris often leads to unexpected negative results. Others are attempting to understand how to work within nature's systems, using agroecological methods.
One promising development is the renewed interest in a soil-building method from the distant past called "dark earth" or "terra preta," which involves mixing biochar with organic materials to create humus-rich soil that stores large amounts of carbon. In the book Terra Preta: How the World's Most Fertile Soil Can Help Reverse Climate Change and Reduce World Hunger, Ute Scheub and co-authors claim increasing the humus content of soils worldwide by 10 percent within the next 50 years could reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to pre-industrial levels.
Dark earth's benefit to climate is just one of its many exciting possibilities. It also enhances soils so they produce higher yields, helps retain water and prevents erosion. It's more alive with biodiverse micro-organisms, making it easier for crops to adapt to changing conditions. And it's a good way to recycle nutrient-rich food scraps, plants wastes and even human and animal urine and feces, rather than allowing them to pollute soil, water and air through burning and runoff."

[JimD]

Bligh

Here is an even newer report.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-bc-un--united-nations-world-fish-report-20160708-story.html

ople around the world are eating more fish and global per capita fish consumption topped 20 kilograms (44 pounds) a year for the first time in 2014, according to preliminary estimates in a U.N. report released Thursday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization report said the record consumption, which appears to have continued in 2015, is the result of increased supplies from fish farming, growing demand linked to population growth, reduced wastage, rising incomes and urbanization, and a slight improvement in some fish stocks.

According to The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016, world per capita fish consumption increased from an average of 9.9 kilograms (21.8 pounds) in the 1960s to 14.4 kilograms (31.7 pounds) in the 1990s, 19.7 kilograms (43.3 pounds) in 2013 and 20.1 kilograms (44.2 pounds) in 2014......

[bligh8]

Thanks Jim

And thanks for the link.

A friend who is very much involved in the US effort to police international illegal
Fishing feels the 3 or 4 major international corporations that control a high percentage
of global fishing will reduce their efforts in order to maintain  healthier fish stocks promoting a sustainable  business model.  I’m not so sure I share his optimism.

One thing that’s going on that is becoming problematic is, FADs are intentionally being released into a Ocean current that flows through a sovereign nations economic exclusion
zone, gathering huge quantities of fish and when they drift out of the zone foreign fishing vessels are there waiting.  If, as it is in some smaller nations say the Tuamotus Islands where there is some subsistence agriculture although the sparse soil of the coral islands does not permit a diverse vegetation so they depend on the Oceans for much of their food these events become a real problem.

Fair Winds
Bligh

[AbruptSLR]

Looks like we are approaching the limit quickly on fishing (while aquaculture will keep human population growth going beyond 2025, aquaculture will degrade earth systems quickly):

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/07/global-fish-production-approaching-sustainable-limit-un-warns

Extract: "Global fish production is approaching its sustainable limit, with around 90% of the world’s stocks now fully or overfished and a 17% increase in production forecast by 2025, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Overexploitation of the planet’s fish has more than tripled since the 1970s, with 40% of popular species like tuna now being caught unsustainably, the UN FAO’s biannual State of the world’s fisheries report says.

Manuel Barange, the UN FAO’s fisheries director, told the Guardian that overfishing rates of around 60% in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions were “particularly worrying”.

He said: “There is an absolute limit to what we can extract from the sea and it is possibly very close to current production levels, which have stabilised over last few years. They have grown a little in recent years but we don’t expect much more growth because of the rampant increase in aquaculture production.”

...

“We now have a fifth more of global fish stocks at worrying levels than we did in 2000,” he said. “The global environmental impact of overfishing is incalculable and the knock-on impact for coastal economies is simply too great for this to be swept under the rug any more.”"

[Sigmetnow]

A rarity these days:  something positive to report. 

Congress Offers Rare Bipartisan Support for Climate Assistance
Funds will help farmers in developing countries raise productivity

Feed the Future, a U.S. government effort to address hunger and food security in poor communities around the world, is one of the main programs supported under the legislation. The Obama administration launched the program in 2010, following a global food price shock that pushed donors to reinvest in agriculture, said Muñoz.

The program has helped millions of farmers in 19 countries improve their productivity and resilience to environmental changes, including climate change impacts. Feed the Future has also addressed hunger and malnutrition directly through government-supported nutrition programs and spurred public and private investment in agricultural markets.

According to its 2015 progress report, in 2014 Feed the Future helped 6.8 million farmers adopt “improved technologies or management practices” on their farms, and funded nutrition programs that reached 12.3 million children younger than 5.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/congress-offers-rare-bipartisan-support-for-climate-assistance1/

[AbruptSLR]

Warmer oceans and stronger currents are increasing storm activity/strength along mid-latitude western ocean boundaries (like Taiwan, PRC, etc):
Yang et al (June 2016 Intensification and poleward shift of subtropical western boundary currents in a warming climate", Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, DOI: 10.1002/2015JC011513

Abstract: "A significant increase in sea surface temperature (SST) is observed over the mid-latitude western boundary currents (WBCs) during the past century. However, the mechanism for this phenomenon remains poorly understood due to limited observations. In the present paper, several coupled parameters (i.e., sea surface temperature (SST), ocean surface heat fluxes, ocean water velocity, ocean surface winds and sea level pressure (SLP)) are analyzed to identify the dynamic changes of the WBCs. Three types of independent data sets are used, including reanalysis products, satellite-blended observations and climate model outputs from the fifth phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Based on these broad ranges of data, we find that the WBCs (except the Gulf Stream) are intensifying and shifting toward the poles as long-term effects of global warming. An intensification and poleward shift of near-surface ocean winds, attributed to positive annular mode-like trends, are proposed to be the forcing of such dynamic changes. In contrast to the other WBCs, the Gulf Stream is expected to be weaker under global warming, which is most likely related to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). However, we also notice that the natural variations of WBCs might conceal the long-term effect of global warming in the available observational data sets, especially over the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, long-term observations or proxy data are necessary to further evaluate the dynamics of the WBCs."

Also see:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12072016/ocean-currents-intensifying-bringing-stronger-storms-research-shows

Extract: "In Warming Oceans, Stronger Currents Releasing Heat in Bigger Storms, Study Says
The currents are releasing 20 percent more heat than 50 years ago. Japan, China and Korea will warm faster and can expect more storminess, researchers say."

[Sigmetnow]

Why the U.S. New Jersey Shore suddenly looks like the Caribbean

More phytoplankton – a microscopic plant that lives in water and contains the pigment chlorophyll – has been in bloom due to a process known as upwelling, where cold water rises to the surface of the ocean, Stockton University Assistant Professor of Marine Science Elizabeth Lacey explained to the The Press.

When wind blows surface water away, the deeper, cooler water rises up, according to NASA’s website. The pigment causes the plant to reflect blue-green wavelengths of light.

Drier weather also helps explain the unusual clarity of the Atlantic. National Weather Service Hydrologist Bill Marosi told The Press that two-thirds of the Northeast has been drier than normal, causing less river flow. The lack of runoff means a clearer Atlantic.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/Why-the-Jersey-shore-suddenly-looks-like-the-Caribbean.html

[AbruptSLR]

Per the linked article, if Indonesia continues with its current agricultural plans its climate change commitments to the Paris Pact will be compromised:

https://news.mongabay.com/2016/07/indonesias-energy-agriculture-targets-could-undermine-its-climate-goals-report/

[Sigmetnow]

Michael Lowey: Waters in Tampa Bay reached 95 degrees [F, 35°C] last week per @noaaocean gauge. 95. Degrees. 

https://twitter.com/michaelrlowry/status/755402976752271360

[Sigmetnow]

Walmart joins the effort.

Walmart To Start Selling ‘Ugly’ Produce To Fight Food Waste

Food waste is a huge problem for both the United States and the world, with almost half of all the food produced ending up in landfills. That means that all of the inputs that go into growing, harvesting, and transporting food — the water, the gasoline, the hours of labor — are essentially wasted, costing the world billions of dollars in economic losses each year. Moreover, wasted food decomposes to release methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is more effective, at least in the short term, at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, if the global emissions associated with food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, behind the United States and China.

In the United States, a lot of food waste occurs at the consumer level, because of things like misleading expiration labels or poor shopping habits. But massive amounts of food become food waste long before they make it to the supermarket, due in large part to stringent aesthetic standards that require the fruits and vegetables sold in grocery stores to look and feel a particular way. In many cases, those standards have little to do with actual food safety — but because consumers have been trained to expect an apple or an orange to look a particular way, grocery stores will only accept produce from farmers that fits those standards, which means that a lot of perfectly good produce is left in fields or in warehouses to rot.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/21/3800582/walmart-ugly-fruit-and-vegetable/

[Sigmetnow]

France Wine Output Drops as Hail, Frost Hit Champagne, Burgundy

France’s wine production may decline to its lowest level in three years after spring frost and hailstorms wiped out grapes from Champagne to Burgundy and the Loire River valley, the government said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/france-wine-out-drops-as-hail-frost-hit-champagne-burgundy

[AbruptSLR]

The linked SciAm article discusses the first comprehensive examination of global food waste & finds not only is the world wasting a lot of food, but that the problem is getting worse with time:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-first-comprehensive-look-at-global-food-waste-is-as-bad-as-you-d-expect/

Extract: "From produce that rots in delivery trucks to oversized portions on restaurant plates, we waste vast amounts of food. In fact, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany recently found that the average amount of food wasted per person per day has increased from 310 kilocalories in 1965 to 510 kilocalories in 2010. That is roughly the equivalent of going from dumping six apples in the trash to tossing 10 of them—every single day. By 2050 that number could go as high as 850 kilocalories, the researchers predict."

[Sigmetnow]

"The idea is: if we start getting Westerners to eat insects, we take away the stigma that insects are associated with poverty.  And it's not like 'The poor people are going to eat insects; the rich people are going to eat beef and pork.'"

Crickets are the Protein of the Future

[AbruptSLR]

Per the linked open access reference, the next superfood might come from yeast bioengineered to reproduce cockroach-milk:

Sanchari Banerjee, Nathan P. Coussens, François-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro J. Yagi, James S. S. Gray, Stephen S. Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard M. G. Chavas and Subramanian Ramaswamy (july 2016), "Structure of a heterogeneous, glycosylated, lipid-bound, in vivo-grown protein crystal at atomic resolution from the viviparous cockroach Diploptera punctate", IUCrJ, Pages 282-293, ISSN: 2052-2525, doi:10.1107/S2052252516008903

http://journals.iucr.org/m/issues/2016/04/00/jt5013/index.html

Extract: "Macromolecular crystals for X-ray diffraction studies are typically grown in vitro from pure and homogeneous samples; however, there are examples of protein crystals that have been identified in vivo. Recent developments in micro-crystallography techniques and the advent of X-ray free-electron lasers have allowed the determination of several protein structures from crystals grown in cellulo. Here, an atomic resolution (1.2 Å) crystal structure is reported of heterogeneous milk proteins grown inside a living organism in their functional niche. These in vivo-grown crystals were isolated from the midgut of an embryo within the only known viviparous cockroach, Diploptera punctata. The milk proteins crystallized in space group P1, and a structure was determined by anomalous dispersion from the native S atoms. The data revealed glycosylated proteins that adopt a lipocalin fold, bind lipids and organize to form a tightly packed crystalline lattice. A single crystal is estimated to contain more than three times the energy of an equivalent mass of dairy milk. This unique storage form of nourishment for developing embryos allows access to a constant supply of complete nutrients. Notably, the crystalline cockroach-milk proteins are highly heterogeneous with respect to amino-acid sequence, glycosylation and bound fatty-acid composition. These data present a unique example of protein heterogeneity within a single in vivo-grown crystal of a natural protein in its native environment at atomic resolution."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cockroach-milk-superfood_us_57976ba9e4b02d5d5ed2d8e9

Extract: "New research published in the journal IUCrJ claims that milk from a species of lactating cockroaches might be the next big superfood.
…

If roach milk is ever produced, it likely won’t even come from roaches themselves. The substance would probably come from bioengineered yeast, researcher Subramanian Ramaswamy told The Washington Post."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article indicates that currently scientists & policy makers are largely ignoring the risks of crop disease & climate change; which could result in significant food shortages unless measures are then to better address this critical issue:

Fay Newbery, Aiming Qi & Bruce DL Fitt (2016), "Modelling impacts of climate change on arable crop diseases: progress, challenges and applications", Current Opinion in Plant Biology, Volume 32, Pages 101–109, DOI: 10.1016/j.pbi.2016.07.002


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526616301054

"Highlights
• Investigations of climate change impacts still concentrate on few crops and pathogens.
• Climate model ensembles can quantify some uncertainty in crop disease predictions.
• Uncertainties inherent in crop disease models remain largely unexplored.
• Cross-discipline collaboration is essential to study interactions between pathogens.
• Tools are being developed to explore arable crop disease dynamics at the landscape level."


http://phys.org/news/2016-07-links-climate-arable-crop-diseases.html

Extract: "If the impacts of crop disease and climate change are left uncontrolled and unconsidered, crop losses will increase greatly. Much of the global population is already struggling with issues pertaining to food security. As such, we must ensure more research is done to safeguard the most vulnerable in our global society.' "

[Sigmetnow]

Red Tape Slows Bloom of Seaweed Farming's Green Revolution

Massive fish farms and other corporate forms of aquaculture have been criticized for a host of environmental problems, but seaweed and shellfish aquaculture avoids many of those issues, according to George Leonard, chief scientist at Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Leonard, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, and has a Ph.D. in Marine ecology and evolutionary biology, explains that seaweed and shellfish aquaculture avoid many problems associated with "fin-fish aquaculture" because they are "non-fed aquaculture," meaning they don't require any food or chemicals beyond what nature provides.

"Aquaculture is not a panacea to the world's problems," said Leonard. "But, I think aquaculture done right, in the right places, can be a major contributor to (fixing) what ails the ocean and what society needs from our living and healthy ocean."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/red-tape-slows-bloom-seaweed-farming-s-green-revolution-n613526

[Sigmetnow]

NOAA: Mass die-off at Gulf of Mexico marine sanctuary

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Federal scientists say a massive die-off is taking place on a coral reef of a national marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.

Steve Gittings, chief scientist with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, reported this week that federal scientists are studying a large-scale mortality event of unknown cause taking place at the East Flower Garden Bank in Gulf of Mexico.

The reef is part of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, about 100 miles off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.

Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management are reporting unprecedented numbers of dying corals, sponges, sea urchins, brittle stars, clams and other invertebrates, Gittings said.

http://www.eagletribune.com/news/noaa-mass-die-off-at-gulf-of-mexico-marine-sanctuary/article_199b1fce-a0d1-502c-a49a-7cb9a69db09a.html

[Sigmetnow]

 Industry analysis: edible insects.

Report:  Edible Insects Market Size By Product

Shift in focus towards adopting bug consumption for both human and animal is likely to drive global edible insects market. Increase in bugs consumption owing to growing health concerns and avoiding unhealthy foods may favor product demand. Bugs finds applications animal feed mainly in poultry and fish.
 
It is estimated that one hectare of land could produce at least 150 tons of insect protein per year. Eatable bug production may increase over the due course, particularly in U.S., UK, China, and Brazil. Consumer awareness regarding health benefits and rising application in food industry has led to increase in edible insects market growth. Climate change has a major role over desired product farming.
 
Nutritional value bugs includes protein, fibres, dietary energy, minerals, vitamins, and fatty acids. Increase in bug consumption has led to rise in sustainable diet owing to low environmental impact to food and leading healthy life. Sustainable diets are healthy and safe, easily accessible, affordable and nutritious for human consumption.
...

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/edible-insects-market

Graph: U.S. Edible Insects Market size, by application, 2012-2023 (USD Million)

[Feeltheburn]

"The idea is: if we start getting Westerners to eat insects, we take away the stigma that insects are associated with poverty.  And it's not like 'The poor people are going to eat insects; the rich people are going to eat beef and pork.'"

Crickets are the Protein of the Future

Great!  You first.

[Sigmetnow]

"The idea is: if we start getting Westerners to eat insects, we take away the stigma that insects are associated with poverty.  And it's not like 'The poor people are going to eat insects; the rich people are going to eat beef and pork.'"

Crickets are the Protein of the Future

Great!  You first.

I would quite happily use cricket flour, and eat protein bars and cookies with cricket protein, if they were available here.  (Not ready for the whole intact-insect thing, yet, though!  )

[Sigmetnow]

Time to think twice about eating those raw oysters?

Warmer waters are spurring the growth of a deadly vibrio bacteria found in shellfish.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that vibrio, a deadly bacteria sometimes found in oysters, is becoming more abundant as oceans warm. Researchers looked at coastal regions in the North Atlantic and the North Sea where rising temperatures have spurred the growth of the bacteria. In recent years, Northern Europe and the U.S. Atlantic coast of the United States have seen “unprecedented” numbers of vibrio infections

https://nexusmedianews.com/now-might-be-a-good-time-to-go-kosher-5042d0e9365d

[Sigmetnow]

Milk, Not Plastic, Will Protect Food in the Future
Plastic is unsustainable and doesn’t work well. Now there’s a new kind of wrapper that won’t kill the planet—and tastes good.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/don-t-toss-that-food-wrapping-you-can-eat-it

[TerryM]

Milk, Not Plastic, Will Protect Food in the Future
Plastic is unsustainable and doesn’t work well. Now there’s a new kind of wrapper that won’t kill the planet—and tastes good.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/don-t-toss-that-food-wrapping-you-can-eat-it

Made from the milk of methane belching ruminants. :<(


Not sure that this is something we should be extolling the virtues of.


If edible wrappers are deemed to be an advantage, the skin of the agave looks and acts like Saran Wrap, it clings, it seals, it's edible, & has proven effective over thousands of years of use. ;>)


Terry

[Sigmetnow]

Milk, Not Plastic, Will Protect Food in the Future
Plastic is unsustainable and doesn’t work well. Now there’s a new kind of wrapper that won’t kill the planet—and tastes good.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/don-t-toss-that-food-wrapping-you-can-eat-it

Made from the milk of methane belching ruminants. :<(

Not sure that this is something we should be extolling the virtues of.
...

Terry

Good point!  But milk proteins are such a useful product....  Let's put casein on the list next to make artificially, once the Impossible Burger and its kin take on hamburger successfully. 

[Sigmetnow]

New ways of farming are needed in our new world.

Japan Turns to Illegal Foreign Workers as Farmers Age

A shortage of farm workers means the rise in exports isn’t sustainable, said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute, which specializes in agriculture. Younger Japanese simply aren’t interested, he said.

“It’s easier to be a salaryman,” Minami said. “You can’t be a farmer unless that’s your passion.”

One result is the rapid rise in productive farmland being abandoned.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/japan-turns-to-foreign-workers-as-farmers-age

[JimD]

Interesting article with lots of implications.

Food prices in the US.

Meat, eggs, milk and cheese prices are down dramatically.  Fruit and vegetable prices are up. 

Overall food prices seem likely to show a decline which will exceed any since 1960.

The key takeaway here is not the dropping cost of those food items which tend to be most directly related to climate change (though that is certainly a story in itself).  The key point is that this is direct evidence of price deflation on a pretty significant scale.  Deflation numbers are popping up all over the world over the last year or so.  As we know there is no greater threat to the current economic system and structure than widespread deflation.  Keep your eyes open.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/food-price-deflation-cheers-consumers-hurts-farmers-grocers-and-restaurants-1472490823

[Sigmetnow]

Millions of Bees Dead after South Carolina Sprays for Zika Mosquitoes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/01/like-its-been-nuked-millions-of-bees-dead-after-south-carolina-sprays-for-zika-mosquitoes/

[Theta]

Soaring Ocean Temperature is greatest hidden challenge of our generation: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/05/soaring-ocean-temperature-is-greatest-hidden-challenge-of-our-generation?

Warming is already causing fish, seabirds, sea turtles, jellyfish and other species to change their behaviour and habitat, it says. Species are fleeing to the cooler poles, away from the equator, at a rate that is up to five times faster than the shifts seen by species on land.

Even in the north Atlantic, fish will move northwards by nearly 30km per decade until 2050 in search of suitable temperatures, with shifts already documented for pilchard, anchovy, mackerel and herring.

The warming is having its greatest impact upon the building blocks of life in the seas, such as phytoplankton, zooplankton and krill. Changes in abundance and reproduction are, in turn, feeding their way up the food chain, with some fish pushed out of their preferred range and others diminished by invasive arrivals.

With more than 550 types of marine fishes and invertebrates already considered threatened, ocean warming will exacerbate the declines of some species, the report also found.

The movement of fish will create winners and losers among the 4.3 billion people in the world who rely heavily upon fish for sustenance. In south-east Asia, harvests from fisheries could drop by nearly a third by 2050 if emissions are not severely curtailed. Global production from capture fisheries has already levelled off at 90m tonnes a year, mainly due to overfishing, at a time when millions more tonnes will need to be caught to feed a human population expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050.

Another notable quote I found on this article (that may be more useful for the temperature thread than here), states that without the ocean acting as a heat sink, the earth's temperature would be 36C rather than 1C.

The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the extra heat created by human activity. If the same amount of heat that has been buried in the upper 2km of the ocean had gone into the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth would have warmed by a devastating 36C, rather than 1C, over the past century.

This is actually quite worrisome as the article also makes the point that methane from the ocean seabed could degass and "cook" the planet. So the warming of oceans is both a problem for food and for the future of the planet as well, since the 36C temperature rise is becoming likely with the ocean no longer acting as a heat sink.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference cites evidence that continued climate change will compromise the world's wheat crops:
Bing Liu, et al (2016), "Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods", Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate3115

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3115.html

Abstract: "The potential impact of global temperature change on global crop yield has recently been assessed with different methods. Here we show that grid-based and point-based simulations and statistical regressions (from historic records), without deliberate adaptation or CO2 fertilization effects, produce similar estimates of temperature impact on wheat yields at global and national scales. With a 1 °C global temperature increase, global wheat yield is projected to decline between 4.1% and 6.4%. Projected relative temperature impacts from different methods were similar for major wheat-producing countries China, India, USA and France, but less so for Russia. Point-based and grid-based simulations, and to some extent the statistical regressions, were consistent in projecting that warmer regions are likely to suffer more yield loss with increasing temperature than cooler regions. By forming a multi-method ensemble, it was possible to quantify ‘method uncertainty’ in addition to model uncertainty. This significantly improves confidence in estimates of climate impacts on global food security."

[Sigmetnow]

Near Vancouver:  An "ocean acidification issue"?

Massive algae bloom causing Strait of Georgia waters to turn bright green
http://globalnews.ca/news/2898256/photos-massive-algae-bloom-causing-strait-of-georgia-waters-to-turn-bright-green/

[Sigmetnow]

El Nino Spells Drought for People Half a World Away

More than one million people face the threat of hunger in southern Madagascar during a third year of drought. [video]
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/el-nino-spells-drought-for-people-half-a-world-away-766822979525

[Sigmetnow]

Dairy Farmers Think Almond Milk Is Bogus But Americans Love It

Swapping Cows

But the real blow to dairy is the widespread replacement of cows for almond groves.

California is tops in the U.S. for both dairy production (about one-third more than No. 2 Wisconsin) and almonds (80 percent of global output). Land in the state devoted to almond groves has been steadily rising -- 350,000 acres (141,640 hectares) added over the last decade, enough to double the crop to more than 2 billion pounds, according to Rabobank International –- while the state lost about 10,000 milk cows this year through July, a 0.6 percent drop from 2015.

Among the culprits: California’s new higher minimum wage, which is crimping profit margins at labor-intensive dairies more than the groves, and mandatory water restrictions in the fertile Central Valley amid a years-long drought. That’s pushed almond cultivation to places it’s been rare before. Such as dairy farms.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-13/dairy-farmers-think-almond-milk-is-bogus-but-americans-love-it

[Sigmetnow]

France becomes first country to ban plastic cups and plates

A new French law will require all disposable tableware to be made from 50% biologically-sourced materials that can be composted at home by January of 2020. That number will rise to 60% by January of 2025.

The measure is an addition to France's "Energy Transition for Green Growth Act," a wide-reaching law adopted last year with the aim of mitigating the impact of climate change.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/europe/france-bans-plastic-cups-plates/index.html

[Sigmetnow]

Bees added to US endangered species list for the first time

Seven types of bees once found in abundance in Hawaii have become the first bees to be added to the US federal list of endangered and threatened species.

The listing decision, published on Friday in the Federal Register, classifies seven varieties of yellow-faced or masked bees as endangered, due to such factors as habitat loss, wildfires and the invasion of non-native plants and insects.

The bees, so named for yellow-to-white facial markings, once crowded Hawaii and Maui but recent surveys found their populations have plunged in the same fashion as other types of wild bees – and some commercial ones – elsewhere in the United States, federal wildlife managers said.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/01/bees-added-to-us-endangered-species-list-for-the-first-time

[budmantis]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/health/mussels-and-clams-recalled-maine/index.html

Maine mussels and clams recalled due to some testing positive for a deadly neurotoxin.

[Anne]

From Science Daily:
Historical records may underestimate global sea level rise

New research published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the longest and highest-quality records of historical ocean water levels may underestimate the amount of global average sea level rise that occurred during the 20th century. Dr. Philip Thompson, associate director of the University of Hawai'i Sea Level Center in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), led the study.

"It's not that there's something wrong with the instruments or the data," said Thompson, "but for a variety of reasons, sea level does not change at the same pace everywhere at the same time. As it turns out, our best historical sea level records tend to be located where past sea level rise was most likely less than the true global average."

A team of earth scientists from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Old Dominion University, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked together to evaluate how various processes that cause sea level to change differently in different places may have affected past measurements. One particularly important concept is the existence of "ice melt fingerprints," which are global patterns of sea level change caused by deviations in Earth's rotation and local gravity that occur when a large ice mass melts. Each glacier, ice cap, or ice sheet has a unique melt fingerprint that can be determined using NASA's GRACE satellite measurements of Earth's changing gravitational field.

During the 20th century, the dominant sources of global ice melt were in the Northern Hemisphere. The results of this study showed that many of the highest-quality historical water level records are taken from places where the melt fingerprints of Northern Hemisphere sources result in reduced local sea level change compared to the global average. Furthermore, the scientists found that factors capable of enhancing sea level rise at these locations, such as wind or Southern Hemisphere melt, were not likely to have counteracted the impact of fingerprints from Northern Hemisphere ice melt.

"This is really important, because it is possible that certain melt fingerprints or the influence of wind on ocean circulation might cause us to overestimate past sea level rise," said Thompson, "but these results suggest that is not likely and allow us to establish the minimum amount of global sea level rose that could have occurred during the last century."

The investigation concludes that it is highly unlikely that global average sea level rose less than 14 centimeters during the 20th century, while the most likely amount was closer to 17 centimeters.

Link

Journal reference: P. R. Thompson, B. D. Hamlington, F. W. Landerer, S. Adhikari. Are long tide gauge records in the wrong place to measure global mean sea level rise? Geophysical Research Letters, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070552

[Sigmetnow]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/health/mussels-and-clams-recalled-maine/index.html

Maine mussels and clams recalled due to some testing positive for a deadly neurotoxin.

I wonder what will happen as we discover more and more seafood has become poisonous due to the warming oceans:

Algae bloom toxin linked to Alzheimer's, other diseases

Researchers pursued the neurotoxin as the trigger and eventually found that it was also present in cyanobacteria in harmful algae blooms, also known as blue-green algae. Other studies have found BMAA can accumulate in fish and shellfish in South Florida and other areas where algae blooms are present, potentially entering the human food chain.

"Cyanobacteria are all over the world," Cox said. "This opened the doorway to a global problem."
...
To further investigate the link between BMAA and neurodegenerative diseases, Cox and colleagues fed vervet monkeys fruit dosed with BMAA. After 140 days, the monkeys developed neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid deposits in their brains, hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases. Vervets given BMAA along with a supplement of the dietary amino acid L-serine had fewer tangles than the first group, but more than those that received a placebo.

"When the neuropathology images started coming up, some of the neurologists started weeping. I couldn't speak," Cox said. "We knew that nobody has ever successfully produced [brain tangles and amyloid deposits] in an animal model."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/algae-bloom-toxin-linked-to-alzheimers-and-other-neurodegenerative-diseases/

[sidd]

"I wonder what will happen as we discover more and more seafood has become poisonous due to the warming oceans"

The same that happens today. Rich countries have food controls and recalls and their citizens have some protection. The citizens of poor countries will eat seafood nevertheless, under threat of starvation, and die horribly, except on much larger scale.

[Sigmetnow]

To survive, Tanzania needs drought-resistant Genetically Modified (GM) plants.

Facing Climate Change, Tanzania Can't Afford to Fear GM Crops

...nations like Tanzania are rethinking their GM food crops positions. Maize is the main food source for one out of every four Africans, and droughts hit it hard. While WEMA has also been developing and distributing non-GM drought-resistant hybrids, so far they have proved to be less efficient than the engineered version. At present only South Africa, Egypt, Burkina Faso and Sudan grow GM crops commercially, but that is likely to change in the next few years.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/facing-climate-change-tanzania-cant-afford-fear-gm-crops/

[Sigmetnow]

The $100 Million U.S. Government Fish Farm Nobody Wants

If someone offered you a chance to invest millions of dollars in a business nobody wants, would you take it?

If you’re the U.S. government, the answer is a resounding yes. Since 2007, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—despite major political, social, and environmental headwinds—has poured almost $100 million (PDF) into aquaculture, also known by the more pedestrian moniker of fish farming.

Currently, American aquaculture is done only in state waters within a few miles of the coast. (Think farmed salmon.) But the government is trying to go further out to sea, into federal waters, to create an offshore aquaculture industry. After NOAA, under both presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush tried—and failed—to push national aquaculture legislation through Congress, NOAA decided to do an end run around Capitol Hill, creating a controversial aquaculture permitting system in the Gulf of Mexico that promptly drew litigation as well as the ire of fishermen, boaters, and environmentalists.

Not satisfied with just the Gulf of Mexico, in August NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service quietly began pursuing regulations “to support offshore aquaculture development” in the Pacific Islands region near Hawaii, modeling the plans on the Gulf framework in hopes that the U.S. could eventually grab a bigger share of the global seafood market. The period for the public’s first opportunity to comment on the proposal ends Friday.
...
The U.S. already has a huge seafood industry; it just exports the vast majority of its catch and imports the majority of what Americans actually end up eating. This “great American fish swap” has led environmentalists to wonder why the government is pushing so hard for more ocean aquaculture in the first place.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-28/the-100-million-u-s-government-fish-farm-nobody-wants

[Sigmetnow]

USDA Approves Genetically Engineered Potatoes

The company said the potatoes contain only potato genes, and that the resistance to late blight, the disease that caused the Irish potato famine, comes from an Argentinian variety of potato that naturally produced a defense.

Late blight continues to be a major problem for potato growers around the world, especially in wetter regions. Company officials say the new types of potatoes will bring 24-hour protections to farmers' fields and reduce the use of pesticide spray up to 45 percent.

The reduction in bruising, Cole said, could reduce waste and increase by 15 percent the top-quality potatoes coming out of fields, which sell for more than bruised potatoes.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/gm-potatoes-get-usda-ok-n675856

[Sigmetnow]

There's an Enormous Natural Gas Seep Along the West Coast

A NOAA-led survey of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, performed by the E/V Nautilus over the summer, was a first attempt to get a handle on how much natural methane seepage is occurring over this geologically-active area. Although the ROV only mapped a small fraction of the subduction zone in detail, it identified some 450 individual bubble streams, which nearly doubles the number of methane vents that have been spotted along US coastlines.

Washington University oceanographer Paul Johnson, a collaborator on the survey, called the finding a “very significant discovery,” adding that there are likely a lot more methane plumes that E/V Nautilus missed. “The capability to image methane bubble streams in the water column is relatively new, so it is fair to say that the more we look, the more we find,” he said.

Whether this giant methane seep could be contributing to our climate problem remains to be seen, but it’s a question that merits further study. “We definitely want to map more complete sections of the margin, to get a better handle on the distribution of these seeps,” lead researcher and NOAA oceanographer Bob Embley told Gizmodo.

http://gizmodo.com/theres-an-enormous-natural-gas-seep-along-the-west-coas-1787971694

"By the way, this absolutely charming, googly-eyed squid was also discovered on an E/V Nautilus expedition this past summer. Expect a lot more where he came from as scientists continue to probe flatulence in the abyss."

[Sigmetnow]

Huge Puffin Die-Off May Be Linked to Hotter Seas
Hundreds of birds are washing up dead in the Bering Sea, causing alarm among scientists. It may be linked to climate change.

The hundreds of dead, emaciated puffins showing up on this isolated, wind-swept scratch of land in the Pribilof Islands in the middle of the North Pacific suddenly has scientists worried—about the population of this white-masked, orange-beaked seabird, but also about what their deaths may portend for the normally productive Bering Sea.

A stretch of water that provides more seafood than any other in North America saw such record-warm temperatures earlier this year that scientists suspect the ocean food web there has shifted. That could spell big downturns for marine life, from seabirds and fur seals to salmon, crab and the $1 billion-a-year pollock fishing industry that provides flaky white filets for everything from McDonald's fish sandwiches to frozen fish sticks.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/tufted-puffins-die-off-bering-sea-alaska-starvation-warm-water-climate-change/

[Sigmetnow]

Milk Grown in a Lab Is Humane and Sustainable. But Can It Catch On?
Will dairy cows be replaced by vats full of cultured yeast?

Because their petri dish milk will mirror the formula of the real thing—the yeast cultures will be churning out real milk proteins—it will retain the taste and nutritional benefits of cow milk, says Perumal Gandhi, a co-founder of the synthetic dairy start-up Muufri (pronounced Moo-free) in San Francisco, California. That will distinguish it from soy- and almond-based alternatives.
...
If you look at all the components, less than 20 make milk milk—give it the taste, structure, color you expect when you drink milk," Pandya says.

Muufri will contain only those essential proteins, fats, minerals, and sugars. Pandya and Gandhi's plan is to insert DNA sequences from cattle into yeast cells, grow the cultures at a controlled temperature and the right concentrations, and harvest milk proteins after a few days. The process is extremely safe, says Gandhi: It's the same one used to manufacture insulin and other medicines.

Although the proteins in Muufri milk come from yeast, the fats come from vegetables and are tweaked at the molecular level to mirror the structure and flavor of milk fats. Minerals, like calcium and potassium, and sugars are purchased separately and added to the mix. Once the composition is fine-tuned, the ingredients emulse naturally into milk.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141022-lab-grown-milk-biotechnology-gmo-food-climate/

[Sigmetnow]

And from the Cars thread:
John Deere unveils latest all-electric tractor prototype for zero-emission agriculture
Article and video:
https://electrek.co/2016/12/05/john-deere-electric-tractor-prototype/

[jai mitchell]

http://www.nature.com/articles/nplants2016202

Plausible rice yield losses under future climate warming
Chuang Zhao et al.

abstract
Rice is the staple food for more than 50% of the world's population1,​2,​3. Reliable prediction of changes in rice yield is thus central for maintaining global food security. This is an extraordinary challenge. Here, we compare the sensitivity of rice yield to temperature increase derived from field warming experiments and three modelling approaches: statistical models, local crop models and global gridded crop models. Field warming experiments produce a substantial rice yield loss under warming, with an average temperature sensitivity of −5.2 ± 1.4% K−1. Local crop models give a similar sensitivity (−6.3 ± 0.4% K−1), but statistical and global gridded crop models both suggest less negative impacts of warming on yields (−0.8 ± 0.3% and −2.4 ± 3.7% K−1, respectively). Using data from field warming experiments, we further propose a conditional probability approach to constrain the large range of global gridded crop model results for the future yield changes in response to warming by the end of the century (from −1.3% to −9.3% K−1). The constraint implies a more negative response to warming (−8.3 ± 1.4% K−1) and reduces the spread of the model ensemble by 33%. This yield reduction exceeds that estimated by the International Food Policy Research Institute assessment (−4.2 to −6.4% K−1) (ref. 4). Our study suggests that without CO2 fertilization, effective adaptation and genetic improvement, severe rice yield losses are plausible under intensive climate warming scenarios.

--------------

Note, this does not include the effect of increased salinity of low-lying SE Asia river valleys that project a 15% decline in rice cultivation for only 1 Meter of sea level rise (greatest effect in Bangledesh and Vietnam I believe)

[Sigmetnow]

The animation at the linked article shows the change in lobster catch distribution off the northeast U.S. from 1967 to 2014. Lobster populations have moved steadily northward through the decades, upending fishing communities along the coast.

Warming ocean temperatures push lobster populations north

Ocean temperatures around the globe have risen about 0.12°C per decade since 1980. In the coastal Northeast, sea surface temperatures warmed by nearly double the global rate from 1982 to 2006.  These warming sea surface temperatures from climate change are pushing populations of the American Lobster (Homarus americanus) farther north than ever before. ...

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/warming-ocean-temperatures-push-lobster-populations-north