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Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: Nicholas Stern: 'I got it wrong on climate change – it's far, far worse' [View all]GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)81. The issue is the productivity and utility of the plants that might be substituted.
Generally speaking, food plants that are more tolerant to weather extremes will have lower caloric productivity. Most of our current high-yield food sources especially wheat and corn) produce best in stable temperate climates. Their productivity goes down as temperature increases or the climate becomes less stable (see Table 8 in this PDF).
This could prompt a general shift towards foods like potatoes, but even there high levels of drought (or alternating drought and flood conditions) will interfere with yields.
Yes, we're adaptable, and we'll keep finding ways to continue growing. Until we can't, of course, but who knows when that might be?
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Nicholas Stern: 'I got it wrong on climate change – it's far, far worse' [View all]
xchrom
Jan 2013
OP
Market forces will replace the Laurentian Shield with 24-36" of rich, loamy topsoil . . .
hatrack
Jan 2013
#45
The issue is the productivity and utility of the plants that might be substituted.
GliderGuider
Jan 2013
#81
"create an enormous incentive to"...feed the people with the wealth to pay for the resource
NoOneMan
Jan 2013
#41
The nation of "let them die" as a healthcare platform (still) will feed its poor?
NoOneMan
Jan 2013
#53
So when studies suggest that 3 billion face famine, or entire countries will be underwater
NoOneMan
Jan 2013
#91
"The earth is an organism, and that organism has a skin; that skin has diseases...
alterfurz
Jan 2013
#12