James Annan wrote:
> Paul Higgins wrote:
> > The fact that
> > people, and the natural systems that we depend on, are heavily adapted
> > to our current climate
> > <http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/31/135022/566>
>
> Your whole argument seems to rest on a bit of wibble on Grist, which
> claims (wholly implausibly, IMO) that we are" "optimally adapted" to our
> current climate. Try telling that to the (ex-)citizens of New Orleans,
> or Haiti for that matter...
>
> By the same argument (ie proof by wild assertion), one could claim that
> we are "optimally adapted" to the current Ipod Nano or President of the
> USA :-)
>
> You'll have to do much better than that to convince me on any of the
> above points!
It's not just humans that are of concern. When we think of humanity
being adopted to the present climate, what is overlooked is that
humans have actually adopted to what ever local conditions exist in
the areas the humans have selected to live in. City dwellers don't
have a clue any more that their lives are directly linked to the farm
lands which produce the food and fiber they consume. All they see
are the products in the stores and the dollars needed to purchase that
which they choose to consume.
The problems on the farm may not be on their radar, but changing
climate will also change the situation on the farms. As farming
science and technology has progressed, the link between the local
climate and farm output has become much tighter. One example is corn,
our favorite crop for feeding animals and thus people. From a broad
perspective, one sees corn being grown in many different locations
with considerable variation in local climates. However, this fact
obscures the tuning which has been done for decades in order to
maximize corn yields for the local climate conditions. Most of the
corn grown in the U.S. today is hybrid corn, which can not reproduce
on it's own. That's just a part of the tuning that's been going on.
The same may be said for GM crops, again corn is an example. If the
climate changes, the tuning that's been done will need to be done over
again for the new conditions. If variability increases, then the fine
tuning may be counter productive as that would lessen the stability of
the entire enterprise.
The second comment on the Gristmill blog mirrors my own experience
this spring. Our area saw very warm conditions in March, only to be
followed by a hard freeze in early April. The plants and insects that
popped out early were hit hard. There won't be any apples this year
and the peaches were also hit hard. Perhaps worse was the impact on
the insects. There's been a scare lately about bee populations,
called Colony Collapse Disorder. The bees have simply disappeared,
without a trace, in many commercial bee hives. Is that a problem?
Well, something like 1/3 of the food we eat depends on insects for
pollination. There are other wild type bees out there, but they also
have taken a hit. In my area, I've become intensely aware of the fact
that there are almost no bees (including bumble bees or carpenter
bees) foraging on the flowers. Bees love clover and the clover
patches are nearly empty. That might seem to be a small thing, except
that there also appears to be a big dieback in the butterfly
population as well. Whether these changes are due to the spring
weather and whether that weather is representative of climate change
are big questions. There are other possible causes for the decline in
the insect populations, such as pesticides, which makes it even more
difficult to sort out the problem.
My point is that there is much more to the adaption of man to his
nitch than just the raw temperature range. It's obvious that man is a
very adaptable creature, since we have survived under widely varying
extremes in temperature. I hope the economists out there actually
think outside the box of civilization to consider the facts of our
relationships with nature when they do get around to considering the
costs and benefits of climate change. I doubt they will be able to do
this, since they aren't likely to focus down to the level of insects
or bacteria. To me, that is a really scary aspect of our situation.
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