Former President Barack Obama told those gathered at an agricultural conference that man-made global warming was already impacting agriculture on a global scale, shrinking crop yields and raising food prices.
“Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food,” Obama said at the Seeds & Chips conference in Milan, Italy Tuesday, according to The New York Times.
“We’ve already seen shrinking yields and rising food prices,” the former president said in his first speech outside the U.S. since leaving office in January.
But is global warming already hurting agriculture? There’s not a lot of evidence for that claim.
In fact, 2016 was a record year for crop yields, which have basically doubled since 2007.
Production of wheat, coarse grains and rice hit record levels in 2016, according to United Nations data. Cereal production is set to shrink 0.4 percent in 2017 “from the 2016 record high,” but “supplies are likely to remain large with next season’s cereal ending stocks remaining close to their record high opening levels,” the UN reports.
As for food prices, they’re well below recent highs hit in 2010. UN data shows the inflation-adjusted food index — the average of five commodity price indices — is just below where it was in 1965. the food price index peaked around 1975.
Some scientists predict global warming will shrink crop yields as extreme weather events, like droughts, storms and floods become more common. Crop production may improve marginally over higher latitudes, but countries at mid-and-lower latitudes could see food supplies crumble.
The Guardian reported “across Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could decline by as much as 50% by 2020,” summarizing UN findings.
Other experts say global warming, at least in the near-term, will be good for agriculture since increased carbon dioxide will boost plant growth. Current evidence suggests a “global greening” trend from increased CO2 from fossil fuel combustion.
Obama pocketed more than $2.7 million for Tuesday’s speech on how agriculture is contributing to global warming.
Ironically, the former president flew a private jet to Milan where a 14-car convoy and 300-strong police escort awaited him. Obama’s entourage included a helicopter and took up two floors of the more than $9,000 a night Park Hyatt hotel.
Obama’s speech focused on how greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture were on the rise, posing a problem for future development. Obama said “the energy to bring about change” in agriculture will come from ordinary people.
“It’s going to come from parents who are concerned about the impact climate change may have on their child, from business people who say how can we use less energy or waste less resources in making our products,” Obama said. “It’s millions of decisions made individually that have the ability to make changes.”
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This article originally appeared in The Daily Caller
“Obama’s speech focused on how greenhouse ***gas emissions from agriculture*** were on the rise, posing a problem for future development.
What he said is true, because modern agriculture takes a lot of energy. But it also produces a lot of food and inputs to industry.
If Mr Obama knew anything about economic history, he would know that ordinary people escape from poverty by using more energy and the cheapest energy is fossil fuel.
But Mr Obama does not know much about economic history. He does know a lot about how to run end runs around Congress as a way to circumvent the protections built into the Constitution by the Founders of the Republic.
It’s not that Obama doesn’t know much about economic history, it’s more like he doesn’t care, nor does he care to learn a lesson that would so obviously be important to his former constituents. Obama only cares about his ideology, and he expects everyone else to fall in line with him (and it), or he will get them out of his way. The man is a sanctimonious bully, and, as usual, he is barking up the wrong tree. The attendees of this agricultural conference would be wise to let everything they heard from this charlatan go in one ear and out the other.
You can’t fool the farmers into thinking their crop was smaller than normal and paid less than normal….while their banks accounts are swollen from this years bumper crop.
(Earth Care) There is no need to have a working plan, you saw that in Obamacare, and you saw that Lies were part of the plan.
No matter how many times they fail, they’re always willing to manage more of your affairs, and then they’ll scream that ‘people will die’ when you attempt to remove them from power…
I wonder if those emissions included emissions made from all aspects of Ethanol production? Many of us understand Diesel is the favored fuel of the Ethanol industry. If the producers were forced to use their own product for all all aspects of production and delivery, what would be left over to sell into the marketplace?
I came across an article in The Walrus on “How science can help us disagree. A dose of humility helps.” As does clear perception. The author quotes approvingly: “Take Trudeau, for instance. Like Obama, he seems open to compromise and negotiation, which characterize intellectual humility. But both of these leaders have been criticized for being weak for these very same traits.” Obama was so open to compromise and negotiation that he regularly bypassed the House and Senate in order to implement decisions which would not have gained H/S support. Trudeau also seems to read from a pre-set, unchallengeable, playbook.
I’m not knocking humility, but it needs to be accompanied by
clear thinking and lack of bias.
If obnoxious gases are the cause of global warming we can start by shutting off what comes out of the front end of barak and the back end of michelle.
Nothing new here — the Liar-In-Chief is still spouting his lies, even though he is (thankfully) not the Chief anymore. How much money are the organizers of this agricultural conference paying him to spout his trash?
Just making himself look like a goddamned fool. The farmers and producers KNOW what their yields are, they know what the climate is much better than some idiot fuck wit politician who’s never grown anything in his damn life. Except for a huge base of people that loathe the mother fucker.
Just try to imagine how much good those millions could have done. How many wells in Africa, how many village solar installations, how many cell towers in remote areas.
Obama, Trudeau – same shit.
Obama says: ‘Give us complete control of every aspect of your life, and we’ll make the earth hum like a great harp String’.
It’s all about power and control,
By their own Leftist climatism criteria, Obama is resoundingly unqualified to make any statements in relation to climate, yet as a high priest in the cult his pronouncements are revered. Such is age old hypocrisy, as alive and well in the Left as it was in time of the Pharisees, …. and equally doomed.
And when was Obama ever an authority on anything?