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posted by n1 on Tuesday May 06 2014, @12:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the but-not-hot-sauce-resistant dept.

Evan Halper writes in the LA Times that with efforts to reduce carbon emissions lagging, researchers, backed by millions of dollars from the federal government, are looking for ways to protect key industries from the impact of climate change by racing to develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming. "We are dealing with the challenge of difficult weather conditions at the same time we have to massively increase food production" to accommodate larger populations and a growing demand for meat, says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. For example a team of researchers is trying to map the genetic code of bizarre-looking African naked-neck chickens to see if their ability to withstand heat can be bred into flocks of US broilers. "The game is changing since the climate is changing," says Carl Schmidt. "We have to start now to anticipate what changes we have to make in order to feed 9 billion people," citing global-population estimates for 2050.

Warmer temperatures can create huge problems for animals farmed for food. Turkeys are vulnerable to a condition that makes their breast meat mushy and unappetizing. Disease rips through chicken coops. Brutal weather can claim entire cattle herds. Some climate experts, however, question the federal government's emphasis on keeping pace with a projected growing global appetite for meat. Because raising animals demands so many resources, the only viable way to hit global targets for greenhouse gas reduction may be to encourage people to eat less meat and point to an approach backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates that takes animals out the process altogether. "There's no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people," says Bill Gates. "Yet we can't ask everyone to become vegetarians. We need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources."
 
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 07 2014, @01:46PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 07 2014, @01:46PM (#40525)

    I thought a pretty hard core belief of the global warming crowd was higher average T means wilder weather in general resulting in increased variability. So TX would experience both a week of delta T of -10 C (no big deal, starting to sound like a civilized climate) and a delta T of +11 C (whoops everythings now dead), although the annual average is only net +1 C higher.

    Also in the really bad border areas, much like the treeline on mountains, there's kind of a "shall not pass" line in the sand, and 1C warmer might mean quite a few square miles of a continent are now on the other side of the "shall not pass" line in the sand... so it would be highly economically profitable to grow some neo-steers or whatever in that newly unusable land. Otherwise that land is utterly useless.

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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:20PM

    by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:20PM (#40537) Homepage

    That must explain why we've had only a fraction as many hurricanes as usual, these past 15 years or so. ;)

    Yep, I think if someone were to actually map it out, rather than just make wildassed predictions, we might find that 1C suffices to give us significantly more net usable land. As to the problem of "tundra is just frozen bog" ... one reason it's bog is that it never gets a chance to dry out, cuz it spends 10 months a year locked up solid.

    (Tho we're on our way to it this year... it still hasn't stopped snowing here pretty regularly down to about 4500 feet, and we got it again today. I've never seen it that way, not even in the bad winters of the 1960s and 70s. The guys clearing Beartooth said it's way over normal up there too.)

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 1) by Hawkwind on Thursday May 08 2014, @12:01AM

    by Hawkwind (3531) on Thursday May 08 2014, @12:01AM (#40743)
    Just came across Lloyd's of London taking this position. "Lloyd's says damage and weather-related losses around the world have increased from an annual average of $50bn in the 1980s to close to $200bn over the last 10 years." http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/08/ll oyds-insurer-account-climate-change-extreme-weathe r-losses [theguardian.com]