This helps me appreciate a previous piece you wrote on why climate optimists are the real threat. If you think climate change is about to be stopped with a new technology and are hell bent on ignoring bio-diversity collapse, then you will of course not be taking the need to prepare for this seriously.
Fantastic as usual David! As a "fruitarian" I was fascinated to read what you wrote about fruit trees and how dependent they are, more than most other food crops, on a reliable, consistent climate. I've noticed that in recent years in the wild extremes of fruiting (or not) of my plum trees in Oregon. Now I've just got to convince my kids to move on to land and try to become regen farmers at the same time they are working jobs to support themselves and raise their kids. Don't even know where to start on that one . . .
Thank you for articulating what I have struggled to for a long time. The binary thinking of "we need to stop climate change" and "what makes you hopeful" fall far short of the nuance we need now, like this piece. But much like it's true that far more people can, in various ways, participate in small-scale subsistence polyculture-based agriculture, the kind of nuance you present here is ALSO attainable. I think it's a kind of nuance people labored and leisured under for most of human history.
Late to the party reading this but it is a great summation of where we are standing at this point in history. The crops that get us through the next thousand years will often need to be different to the ones that got us this far.
Beautifully written, and powerfully put. We are on a similar journey into climate choas, setting up food growing and sharing systems for our small isolated community in the face of the coming storm. It's interesting to hear your wisdom from a fruit growers perspective. It gives context to our temperate region trials of failed fruit crops. Thank you.
Agricultural research has fostered productivity growth, but the historical influence of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) on that growth has not been quantified. We develop a robust econometric model of weather effects on global agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and combine this model with counterfactual climate scenarios to evaluate impacts of past climate trends on TFP.
Our baseline model indicates that ACC has reduced global agricultural TFP by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth.
The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. We also find that global agriculture has grown more vulnerable to ongoing climate change.
The lead author of “Anthropogenic Climate Change Has Slowed Global Agricultural Productivity Growth,” published April 1 in Nature Climate Change put it this way.
“It is equivalent to pressing the pause button on productivity growth back in 2013 and experiencing no improvements since then. Anthropogenic climate change is already slowing us down.”
Also, I think you might really enjoy this essay by Erik Assadourian from 2021. It speaks to your thesis about the necessity of moving people "back to the land". Erik talks about HOW the sacrifices required to prevent COLLAPSE will be painful.
He makes the point that while "Collapse Living" and "Low Impact Living" aren't going to be that different materially. They are VERY different in non-material ways.
Collapse may visit you, too, one day. Have you imagined living through this?
Funnily, the differences in lifestyles between living in collapse and intentionally preventing collapse aren’t all that great — in both cases, gone are the cars, the larger homes, the rich diet, the extreme levels of comfort.
But there is one key difference that is deeply undervalued: security and a feeling of control.
In the No Impact scenario, there are no gangs roaming, no threat to life and limb (other than climate disasters, which we can only make less probable in the No Impact scenario but cannot stop them in either case).
No shortages of basic foodstuffs, though electricity and heat, being so expensive (or even rationed), may be in short supply, forcing people to get used to colder homes in the winter and hotter ones in the summer.
But there’d be a positive side too, public transportation might grow in scope so being car-free wouldn’t mean you’d be trapped in your neighborhood.
Public services — from water and sewage treatment to libraries and the humble street light (often taken for granted but even that does not work in Beirut) — would still be available.
Medicines would be accessible as would bread and at least seasonal produce.
I find his argument more and more compelling as time goes on.
REALLY loved this post. I will be referencing it in the future I am sure.
This helps me appreciate a previous piece you wrote on why climate optimists are the real threat. If you think climate change is about to be stopped with a new technology and are hell bent on ignoring bio-diversity collapse, then you will of course not be taking the need to prepare for this seriously.
Fantastic as usual David! As a "fruitarian" I was fascinated to read what you wrote about fruit trees and how dependent they are, more than most other food crops, on a reliable, consistent climate. I've noticed that in recent years in the wild extremes of fruiting (or not) of my plum trees in Oregon. Now I've just got to convince my kids to move on to land and try to become regen farmers at the same time they are working jobs to support themselves and raise their kids. Don't even know where to start on that one . . .
Additional to crop yields diminishing, as the level of CO2 increases the nutritional value of crops decreases in a double wammy.
Added below thanks.
https://kevinhester.live/2023/03/23/on-the-verge-of-starvation/
Thank you for articulating what I have struggled to for a long time. The binary thinking of "we need to stop climate change" and "what makes you hopeful" fall far short of the nuance we need now, like this piece. But much like it's true that far more people can, in various ways, participate in small-scale subsistence polyculture-based agriculture, the kind of nuance you present here is ALSO attainable. I think it's a kind of nuance people labored and leisured under for most of human history.
Late to the party reading this but it is a great summation of where we are standing at this point in history. The crops that get us through the next thousand years will often need to be different to the ones that got us this far.
Really appreciating your writing lately, thank you.
Beautifully written, and powerfully put. We are on a similar journey into climate choas, setting up food growing and sharing systems for our small isolated community in the face of the coming storm. It's interesting to hear your wisdom from a fruit growers perspective. It gives context to our temperate region trials of failed fruit crops. Thank you.
Loved your article. Re: On reaching the point of diminishing returns I remembered this paper, which strengthens your argument.
Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Toby R. Ault, Carlos M. Carrillo, Robert G. Chambers & David B. Lobell
Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 306–312 (2021)
Abstract:
Agricultural research has fostered productivity growth, but the historical influence of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) on that growth has not been quantified. We develop a robust econometric model of weather effects on global agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and combine this model with counterfactual climate scenarios to evaluate impacts of past climate trends on TFP.
Our baseline model indicates that ACC has reduced global agricultural TFP by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth.
The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. We also find that global agriculture has grown more vulnerable to ongoing climate change.
The lead author of “Anthropogenic Climate Change Has Slowed Global Agricultural Productivity Growth,” published April 1 in Nature Climate Change put it this way.
“It is equivalent to pressing the pause button on productivity growth back in 2013 and experiencing no improvements since then. Anthropogenic climate change is already slowing us down.”
Also, I think you might really enjoy this essay by Erik Assadourian from 2021. It speaks to your thesis about the necessity of moving people "back to the land". Erik talks about HOW the sacrifices required to prevent COLLAPSE will be painful.
He makes the point that while "Collapse Living" and "Low Impact Living" aren't going to be that different materially. They are VERY different in non-material ways.
Lessons from Lebanon: A Meditation on Collapse.
https://medium.com/climate-conscious/lessons-from-lebanon-a-meditation-on-collapse-86efdecedb6e
Collapse may visit you, too, one day. Have you imagined living through this?
Funnily, the differences in lifestyles between living in collapse and intentionally preventing collapse aren’t all that great — in both cases, gone are the cars, the larger homes, the rich diet, the extreme levels of comfort.
But there is one key difference that is deeply undervalued: security and a feeling of control.
In the No Impact scenario, there are no gangs roaming, no threat to life and limb (other than climate disasters, which we can only make less probable in the No Impact scenario but cannot stop them in either case).
No shortages of basic foodstuffs, though electricity and heat, being so expensive (or even rationed), may be in short supply, forcing people to get used to colder homes in the winter and hotter ones in the summer.
But there’d be a positive side too, public transportation might grow in scope so being car-free wouldn’t mean you’d be trapped in your neighborhood.
Public services — from water and sewage treatment to libraries and the humble street light (often taken for granted but even that does not work in Beirut) — would still be available.
Medicines would be accessible as would bread and at least seasonal produce.
I find his argument more and more compelling as time goes on.
REALLY loved this post. I will be referencing it in the future I am sure.
Great work.
In India, which was an agrarian state, for centuries, it clearly has.