Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change

Except I got to water the taters cause of the drought.

 

I just put some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen and added dirt

 

I know a few people messing around with ground source temp regulation of greenhouses. Most use an 8-10 ft. deep trench the length of the greenhouse with 10-40 ft. deep bore holes spaced every few feet along the bottom of the trench. I’ve heard of year round production as far north as Montana with such set-ups.

Of course drilling and trenching uses a lot of energy inputs initially so you can’t claim zero energy expended….

We have so much untapped potential to grow food without greenhouses I don’t see the point for anything except special cases. Most greenhouse use today is to fulfill consumerism driven “wants”, not actual caloric or nutritional “needs”.

Imagine the food growing potential of this and other nation’s road ditches/right-of-ways and medians. Most have built in supplemental water sources, high organic matter soils, and stored nitrogen from the presence of legumes like clovers and vetches that have been growing there for decades.

The idea there will ever be an actual food shortage brought about by a warming climate is absurd. The uninformed argue about wheat (a “cool season” C3 crop) yields with increased temps, but are not progressive enough to transition to C4 crops. And nobody wants to even acknowledge the power of CAM photosynthesis that is completely untapped in commercial agriculture.

The only way climate science can be marketed with fear is to keep people ignorant of the HUGE potential we have to leverage climate for the good of the entire planet and ecosystem (including humans of course)! We don’t need to go to Mars or cover our food crops with glass or polycarbonate. Just work with nature instead of working against it.

 

The folly of net zero:

Without Any Demonstration Project Or Feasibility Study
October 02, 2022/ Francis Menton

• 
  Essentially the entire developed part of the world is currently embarked on a crash program to eliminate fossil fuels from the energy system of the economy. The program has two main parts: first the suppression of the production and distribution of fossil fuels; and second the construction of large numbers of wind and solar generation facilities to replace them. Both parts of the program are currently underway simultaneously in all advanced countries, as a matter of what we are told is the highest moral urgency.
  
  
• But will the coming fossil-fuel-free system actually work to provide the energy we need to run our modern economies? There are very substantial reasons to think that big problems are inevitable, the main one being that wind and solar generators don’t produce anything most of the time, and can’t be ramped up on demand at a time of need.
  
  
• So surely, there must be multiple small to medium-scale demonstration projects around the world showing exactly how this fossil-fuel-free future system can be accomplished, and how much it will cost.
  

READ MORE

 

Why wind and solar are not solutions.


The Penetration Problem. Part I: Wind and Solar – The More You Do, The Harder It Gets
Posted on October 3, 2022 by curryja | 89 comments


by Planning Engineer

There seems to be a belief that increasing the level of wind and solar projects will make subsequent progress with these resources easier. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Continue reading →

 

I have studied all kinds of greenhouses. The most common round here is two layers of plastic with a blower in the middle to create an air space for insulation, a swamp cooler for cooling , and a big Modine gas heater for heat. 200 or more a month here during cold weather.

 

Well, our food is distributed by capitalism today.

That has serious implications, as it means that countries such as the US have plenty of food, including delicacies from all over the world. While there are other countries that have populations living on survival food levels that are susceptible to local agricultural issues, such as droughts.

Also, it means that while some of us in the US eat anything we want in whatever quantities we want, others here are experiencing food insecurity, as capitalism doesn't solve the problem of providing for those in poverty.

So, one could create a diet in the manner you are doing, with the objective of having survival levels of calories and nutrients, that doesn't really answer all the real world questions about food availability. Also, the issues of agriculture do extend to potatoes, so that is one example, but not a solution as potatoes require land (which many don't have), physical capability (which many don't have), water, storage for potatoes, security, and in the end do not create a full diet.

I agree that some can subsidize their diet in the manner you suggest, though. But, it isn't ending food insecurity even in the USA today. And, it is a miserable level of forced austerity that is not likely to be peacefully accepted everywhere.

 

Suggesting that the decision to buy a car can be changed in favor of donations to buy materials and labor for greenhouses built to sell people food just isn't the way it works.

True. But, that decision is made by capitalism.

Are you planning to create regulation on what people are allowed to feed cows?

I like greenhouses, too. And, I believe more greenhouses will be built, as they are turning out to be profitable with certain crops in certain areas.

But, I don't see what you are attempting to solve here.

How are greenhouses solving food insecurity in America?

Or, is there some other problem you're working on?

 

I didn't suggest donations. I'm pointing out how much resources could be diverted to greenhouse construction if we started getting low on food (we aren't).

Just not to subsidize it

My initial statement was simply to point out that we are not close to the earth's carrying capacity in terms of food production. We are doing a lot of things wrong, like overfishing the oceans and mismanaging water resources, but those are not matters of carrying capacity, just bad decisions.

 

....

 

When you say money could be diverted from cars to greenhouses, you better say who is directing this change. In our system, if I want to buy a car I don't have to check to see if the government will allow that.

Also, when more food is produced you need to describe how it gets to the people in America who are food insecure today. Since we are a capitalist country, I don't believe greenhouse operators are going to donate food in quantities necessary to resolve the issue. If we are starting to get low on food (as you identify as the problem), food prices will go up. Even Republicans won't be able to simply blame the poor for being too poor or too drugged out to buy food.

Also, this food issue clearly extends to those in other parts of Earth where we have little control and where we are affected by political eruptions, etc.

I agree with your comments on how we manage our agriculture today. But, these things are all subject to capitalism. So, without government involvement in regulation and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization for the international issues, that's not going to change, is it?

 

Have you ever seen a potato farm?

Even a small one near where I grew up was around 50 acres, most were in excess of 100 acres.

The largest greenhouse in the world is actually still under construction. It is under 5 acres in size, and will be finished in 2024 after over 3 years of construction. But it is not being built for agriculture, it is hoped to be a tourist destination.

Tell me, any idea how you are going to build all these greenhouses? Oh, and greenhouse agriculture is not cost effective for bulk crops like potatoes. Those are ideal for small operations because they actually require very little manpower to plant, grow, and harvest. Converting those all to greenhouses will not only make the cost skyrocket due to the cost of the greenhouse itself, but to pay for the vastly increased manpower to plant and harvest them.

And at a wholesale cost of around $30 per bushel, it will cause the price to skyrocket, or have to be heavily subsidized. Plus most farms that produce potatoes also grow other crops on the same field. A common practice in Idaho is to grow wheat or corn from spring to fall, then potatoes from fall to spring. And both of those crops are pretty inexpensive, but they are hardy and a low-maintenance crop to grow.

The more you talk about this, the more it is obvious you have never been in a farmer or lived in a farming community.

If anything, the crops that make sense to grow in this fashion are higher value ones. And ones that have definite "seasons" as they do not store very well. Strawberries, tomatoes, produce like that. And that has actually been done for decades, because the price per pound makes sense, especially in the off season. Potatoes can store for up to a year, you can only store strawberries or tomatoes for a few weeks at most.

"High Density" actually means nothing, which is why I keep laughing at this. Greenhouses are best when used for crops that require intensive manual labor, as for those it is really not much different than growing them outside. Crops like strawberries and tomatoes. Even cantaloupes and watermelons could probably benefit, if nothing else than to make them available year round (which is why some growers do produce those crops in greenhouses). Not crops like grains or root crops. Those are primarily mechanized already, so going back to all manual planting and harvesting would be a huge step backwards.

And how are you going to get the large amount of orchards into greenhouses?

Then of course, once again how are you going to resolve the damage doing such will do to the environment? You are talking about the deaths of uncounted numbers of insects, birds, and animals by taking away their source of food. Such losses are actually expected and planned for by farmers. From 5-10% of most crops are expected to be lost due to predation. And we are already having problems with bee die-off's. Now granted, the bee is actually an imported species and not native to North America so the reasons for that can be many. But you are really talking about destroying a large percent of the native bee population.

Oh, and I am wrong about the size needed?

At this time, there is around 900 million square acres in farmland.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/196104/total-area-of-land-in-farms-in-the-us-since-2000/

At 640 acres per square mile, that is just a bit under 1.5 million square miles.

That is the total land areas of Alaska, Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, and a big chunk of Nevada.

But please, feel free to check my math and show me where I am wrong.

It is easy to scream that somebody is wrong. It is hard to prove it, especially when they do as I just did and actually provide the really simply math to prove my claim. Including a real reference for my starting figure of the amount of land under cultivation in the US.

As I said, I can only imagine you were never a farmer, or lived in a rural area. I grew up in such, where things like spot produce and livestock prices were part of every news report on the TV and radio. Waking up in the morning to hear the closing price of crops the day before was just how it was for me growing up. And knowing things like rotation schedules, from living and working on farms for most of my life.

And you talk about resources for cars to try and compare. TO give an idea, the average cost for a commercial greenhouse is around $35 a square foot. And there are 43,560 square feet per acre. Now through the use of some real magic known as "math", that comes out to a cost of $48,718,720 per square acre.

Sorry, math keeps proving me right, and you are wrong.

 

Actually, I would argue the opposite.

One thing multiple studies have shown, is that built up areas are "heat islands". That is why going into a city can raise the temperature by an average of 5 degrees F compares to the same location that has not been urbanized. And essentially, this would have the effect of "urbanizing" huge areas of farmland. Which for many reasons not only open areas to disperse the heat and normally higher humidity actually lowers the temperature naturally.

https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/learn-about-heat-islands

 

Well, it is going to take a hell of a lot of cars to make a greenhouse to even cover a single acre.

I think that somebody has no actual idea of how many natural resources are used to create a greenhouse.

Oh, and expect the use of oil to produce plastic to skyrocket. Another thing I forgot to mention.

Most commercial greenhouses do not use glass, but plastic as the barrier between inside and outside. And that plastic must be replaced every 2-5 years on average. And at well over 45k square feet of plastic per acre, care to guess how much more plastic that will require every 3-5 years?

This is why I often laugh in these forums. This is one of the rare cases where you and I actually seem to agree that an idea is completely stupid. My paternal line were actually farmers in the Wiregrass area of Alabama-Georgia before they relocated to the Dakotas a bit after the turn of the last century. And growing up and for most of my life I lived in agriculture areas, even working on farms and ranches as a kid. Doing everything from helping at planting and harvesting times, to doing "varmint control" around the fields (shooting rabbits).

I am sure most city dwellers really have no idea what a farm is really like, and have absolutely no idea how big most of them are. In Idaho, a lot of them are still the 640 acres that was in the original farm grant, as that was how much a farmer when the territory was first opened up was allowed to claim for themselves (a square mile). Fly over most of the "flyover territory" areas of the country, and you can see huge numbers of them, mostly still in a 640 acre parcel. And it blows my mind to even think of trying to put that much land under a greenhouse, let alone enough to replace even a tiny portion of the produce grown in the US.

And I am still laughing at the idea of bananas grown in the US under a greenhouse. Especially as those are tropical plants, and a plastic covered greenhouse would not be enough, one would need a glass greenhouse for crops like those. And if one wants to grow anything other than Cavendish bananas (which are a man-made hybrid that are sterile), then they have to spend a hell of a lot of manpower pollinating them by hand. Because bananas in the wild or tropical orchards are pollinated by birds and bats.

 

I’m not sure what heat islands have to do with anything related to greenhouses having value in a scenario where global temps were cooling. I can guarantee you would be very happy to have a greenhouse if we saw a repeat of the little ice age. Probably save your life.

 

More likely kill around 20% if not more of the human population (if not more).

https://www.eh-resources.org/little...ason,commercial vineyards vanished in England.

"Population decline" is a polite way of saying "large number of deaths through famine".

And that was in a world where the population was less than 1 billion people. Care to imagine what it would be like with a population of around 8 billion?

The only reason the planet can support this many people is that the LIE ended, and we are in a climate that is approaching that of the MWP. Which was the era of the most production in the past 3.000 years.

 

Yes. If people really want something to “fear” it would be global cooling. I’ve seen more talk about geoengineering lately and it is a bit concerning. Imagine if they miscalculate a stratospheric aerosol injection and actually cool the planet a couple degrees C. What a disaster.

Famine like was seen during the LIA would lead to more societal disintegration today than back then. Western humans especially are not as resilient as people were then. I think “depopulation” would be worse now even with similar caloric deficits.

 

Maybe 557 is noting that significant areas of glass might increase the reflectivity of Earth - which could cause less absorption of solar radiation and thus slow heating.

I'm not so sure that works, as I think greenhouses allow penetration by solar radiation. But, maybe someone has done the physics.

 

Actually, are you aware that the US is not only the largest food producer in the world, it is also the largest food exporter and donator nation in the world?

In fact, it is such a large donator nation that if you took the number 2 through 11 and add them all together, you still do not equal the amount of food that the US donates internationally.

https://www.wfp.org/funding/2020

All because of "Capitalism".

Want to know where the "Socialist-Communist" nations come in when it comes to food donations?

Well, if one counts the "Russian Federation", they come in at number 16. China, number 36. Those nations for some reason that are not "Capitalistic" seem to have serious problems even feeding their own population. Nations like Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, and the like are actually nations that have to take in large amounts of donated food because for some reason, they can not produce enough to support themselves. Even though some of those were once food exporting nations prior to conversions to "Socialism-Capitalism".

But once again, please feel free to check my math and references. Exactly how much food do all of those "Non-Capitalistic" nations donate? And what percentage is it of the whopping amount that the US donates every year?

One of the things that actually helps keep international prices so low is the overwhelming surplus that the US exports every year.

 

There is a degree of albedo effect (the scientific name for reflection of solar radiation back into the atmosphere) in that, but that is more than offset by the sheer mass of materials that would heat up. An acre sized greenhouse would be made of tons of metal and other materials, all of which would absorb heat in the day, and radiate it at night. This is why cities are warmer than the surrounding areas. Yes, there is an albedo effect that sends radiation back into the atmosphere. But not anywhere near enough to offset the heat absorption of all the structures and other areas that have been paved over.

This can really be seen in many of the coastal areas of California. Where if you are in LA, Baghdad by the Bay, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and other coastal cities there really is not a huge difference between day and night temperatures if one removes the wind chill effect. But most away from that, and even in the summer it can get damned frigid. I used to ride a motorcycle every day to and from San Francisco. And leaving work at 8 at night, I would often not even wear a jacket, or wear one unzipped. But the moment I left the city and crossed the Golden Gate bridge, I would either zip up or pull over to put it on because the temperature would often drop from 5-15 degrees quickly.

This is actually one of the things that many question as most of the "temperature readings" used for "global warming" studies tend to be taken at places like cities and airports. Which have a lot of buildings and concrete-asphalt covered land which is warmer than more rural countryside. Many are believing that the very way that temperatures are being recorded is skewed just by this alone.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31558-z

 

We don't have any way of delivering aerosols to our upper atmosphere in the quantity needed to make a difference. It would take years to build the transportation, and more years to do the actual work of delivery.

Also, warming would have to get to the point where the world agrees that such action is desperately needed. Remember what its like to get world wide agreement on anything at all.

Even in the USA, how bad would it have to get before Republicans in the USA would agree to work with other countries to build a solution to climate change?

And, let's remember that we have SERIOUS methods of warming the planet.

 

Acres of greenhouses is not like cities.

One of the most frequently emphasized recommendations given to those visiting San Francisco is to bring warm clothing. It has coastal weather and one sees maps of temperature zones for agriculture showing that areas north and south of San Francisco are warmer.

There are far better examples of heat islands.

As for scientists not being able to measure temperature, that is just plain ridiculous. Thermometers of various kinds and increasing quality are constantly being added the world over, so there is constant improvement. Plus, for a long time now we've had satellites and other ways to measure the temperature of Earth's surface, so they get to crosscheck. On top of that, the real issue with climate change has to do with change, not absolute degrees.

 

It is not the accuracy of thermometers, it is their locations.

And satellites do not actually "measure" the temperature. That is absolutely impossible. All they do is measure the brightness of an area, and then compared to brightness against known temperatures and brightness of the area. And it is normally quite a bit off from the actual temperatures. And each of these brightness measurements are only good for the location of the dataset used. A dataset for say Phoenix, Arizona for brightness and temperature would be worthless for use in any other area.

 

They are far closer to a city than rural area is without greenhouses.

Dirt and trees are rather poor heat-sinks. They tend to absorb very little radiation, therefore radiate very little when the radiation source goes away.

However, metal and glass are excellent heat sinks. That is why we use both to cook with. Both will rapidly retain any heat they come in contact with, but they do differ in heat retention. Glass actually is rather poor in heat retention, but metal is very good at heat retention. And there would be tons of metal involved in making large greenhouses. Add into the factor that such would trap any natural humidity away from the environmental atmosphere, and you unquestionably have an increase in temperatures.

Come on now, it is not like I have never had this discussion with you before, Tell me what the difference is between 100 acres of greenhouses, and 100 acres of urban buildings. Simple fact is, there is no difference.

 

As I pointed out, we haven't even ended food insecurity inside the USA.

I'm glad you see donations to other countries as important. I agree. In fact, it is even self serving, in that our standard of living is higher when the world is more successful and less starving.

But, the USA is WAY BELOW average in terms of % of gross domestic income that we donate for all improvement types of projects, including food.

The nations leading in international assistance (outside of war material) in terms of % of gross domestic income are European and Canada. That is how one measures generosity.

Yes, we export food, but you can't count for-profit exports as aid. Those countries that can't feed themselves don't have the revenue to buy food for their population.