Human habitat: 19 Million Acres Of Farmland Were Not Planted With Crops This Year

Guy McPherson appears to have dropped the ball on this so I will keep chronicling it

Record Setting Number of Acres NOT Planted, Shock and Distrust Among US Farmers

According To The Federal 

Government, 19 Million 

Acres Of Farmland Were Not 

Planted With Crops This Year

Michael Snyder

The End of the American Dream,

14 August, 2019

If that headline sounds really bad to you, that is because the situation that we are facing is really bad.  Over the past few months, I have written article after article about the unprecedented crisis that U.S. farmers are facing this year.  In those articles, I have always said that “millions” of acres of farmland did not get planted this year, because I knew that we did not have a final number yet.  

Well, now we do, and it is extremely troubling.  Of course there are some people out there that do not even believe that we are facing a crisis, and a few have even accused me of overstating the severity of the problems that U.S. farmers are currently dealing with.  Sadly, things are not as bad as I thought – the truth is that they are even worse.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, crops were not planted on 19.4 million acres of U.S. farmland this year.  The following comes directly from the official website of the USDA…

 

Agricultural producers reported they were not able to plant crops on more than 19.4 million acres in 2019, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This marks the most prevented plant acres reported since USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) began releasing the report in 2007 and 17.49 million acres more than reported at this time last year.

So this is the largest number that the USDA has ever reported for a single year, and it is nearly 17.5 million acres greater than last year’s final tally of less than 2 million acres.

If you have been following my articles on a regular basis, then you know exactly why this has happened.  The middle of the nation was absolutely pummeled by endless rain and unprecedented flooding throughout the first half of 2019, and this new USDA report shows that the vast majority of the acres that were not planted come from that area of the country…

Of those prevented plant acres, more than 73 percent were in 12 Midwestern states, where heavy rainfall and flooding this year has prevented many producers from planting mostly corn, soybeans and wheat.

“Agricultural producers across the country are facing significant challenges and tough decisions on their farms and ranches,” USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation Bill Northey said. “We know these are challenging times for farmers, and we have worked to improve flexibility of our programs to assist producers prevented from planting.”

Of course the 19.4 million acres that were not planted are only part of the story.

Most farmers were able to get seeds in the ground despite the challenging conditions, but in much of the country the crops are not in good shape.

In fact, according to the latest crop progress report only 57 percent of the corn is considered to be in “good” or “excellent” shape.

Unfortunately, the nation’s soybean crop is in even worse shape.  At this point, only 54 percent of the soybeans are in “good” or “excellent” shape.

In addition, only 8 percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop has been harvested so far.  That is “sharply below the 30% five-year average”.

So what does all of this mean?

Well, it means that we have a real crisis on our hands.  A lot less crops are being grown, and a substantial percentage of the crops that are being grown are not in good shape.  Yields are going to be way down across the board, and that means that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way below initial expectations.

In other words, we are going to grow a lot less food than usual.

One bad year is not going to be the end of the world, but what if things don’t bounce back next year?  As I keep telling my readers, our planet is becoming increasingly unstable in a whole bunch of different ways, and global weather patterns have been shifting dramatically.  Many experts are issuing very ominous warnings about what is ahead as weather patterns continue to shift, and some believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the very beginning of this crisis.

Almost every day, there are new headlines about extreme weather and records being broken.  For example, one community in Colorado just got pummeled by hail the size of softballs…

Monster hail fell from the sky and hammered areas of the central United States on Tuesday, shattering a state record. Earlier on Tuesday before the storms developed, AccuWeather Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer warned that Colorado’s state hail record could be in jeopardy given the intensity of the storms that he saw developing.

His prediction came to fruition on Tuesday afternoon when a hailstone with a maximum diameter of 4.83″ fell in Bethune, Colorado, on Tuesday afternoon. The record was confirmed on Wednesday evening by the Colorado Climate Center and the National Weather Service office in Goodland, Kansas.

For some of my readers, this freakish incident is going to set off major alarm bells.

We are regularly seeing things happen that we have never seen before.  In other words, the seemingly impossible is happening so frequently that it has become mundane.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we are still completely and utterly dependent on the weather.  If the weather does not cooperate, farmers cannot grow our food, and we will not eat.

Hopefully harvest season will go smoothly, but even if that happens, food supplies will be a lot tighter in the months ahead and that means that prices will continue to rise steadily.

This is a crisis that is going to affect all of us.  I wish that I could get everyone to understand this, but unfortunately there are still a lot of people out there that are not taking this seriously.

Radio NZ and NIWAacknowledge el-Nino

Radio NZ acknowledges el-Nino in a similar way to Pravda.the more important the information the shorter the article.

Farmers facing dry conditions as El Niño looms

Radio NZ,

4 October, 2018

Farmers are being warned they may be in for a dry summer but Niwa says it's not sure how bad things will get.

El Niño is already on it's way, bringing windy, cold and dry conditions, with a low chance of rain

Niwa principal forecasting scientist Chris Brandolino told Morning Report farmers may need to start preparing because soil moisture levels are already below average.

"The fact that things are already on the dry side and the fact that rainfall, at least above normal rainfall is pretty unlikely, that's something Niwa is watching."

He said there has already been a big "dry" throughout the South Island, with some farmers turning on their irrigation systems early to keep the soil moist.

Warm temperatures aren't expected to be a theme for the upcoming three-month period, he said.

"But that doesn't mean there won't be the odd warm spell."

Malcolm Turnbull dumps key climate policy to stave off leadership revolt

Australian Prime Minister Abandons Climate Targets, Bowing to Party Pressure

Quick Knowledge.com

20 August, 2018

SYDNEY, Australia — Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia abandoned plans for emission targets Monday, bowing to pressure from conservatives who considered toppling Mr. Turnbull’s government over an energy policy that aimed to reduce prices and bring the country into line with international climate change commitments.

Mr. Turnbull, who looked tired after a weekend of negotiating with colleagues, told reporters Monday morning that the energy policy bill, known as the National Energy Guarantee, would not be introduced in the House of Representatives because there was not enough support.

“We are not going to propose legislation purely for the purpose of it being defeated,” he said.

Critics immediately called that claim inaccurate, noting the proposal had support from other parties. But whatever its chances, the defeat spurred intense speculation about Mr. Turnbull’s future and frustration among those increasingly worried about Australia’s vulnerability to climate change and its effects, from extreme drought to bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

“All it does is reconfirm that they have no interest in doing anything about climate change or the Great Barrier Reef really,” said Jon Brodie, a well-known coral reef scientist at James Cook University.

The energy plan’s climate change element — a commitment to reduce energy emission levels in 2030 to 26 percent below the levels recorded in 2005 — was not wildly ambitious. It matched the target Australia set for the entire country in the Paris climate agreement, meaning that agriculture and other industries would still have to do more to meet the nation’s commitments under the deal.

The energy guarantee was at least the third attempt by Mr. Turnbull to devise an energy policy that included a path toward reducing emissions. Its failure showed that at least for now, the science of global climate change has again been pushed aside by the relentless scrum for power in Canberra.

[Read More: What was the National Energy Guarantee in the first place? A “NEG” explainer.]

Mr. Turnbull has been battling accusations of weak leadership ever since he toppled Tony Abbott in a 2015 leadership challenge. But with recent polls suggesting the opposition Labor party would win an election if it were held today, he has become increasingly vulnerable.

Zareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, said that many lawmakers in Mr. Turnbull’s party — which holds only a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives — fear defeat in the election expected to be called between now and next year.

The lawmakers see electricity prices as an important campaign issue and they are eager, he said, for something that will address voter discontent and indifference.

“There is a concern that the overall message of the government is not being listened to,” Mr. Ghazarian said. “There is a sense that no one is really listening to Malcolm Turnbull.”

Whether Mr. Turnbull is toppled or not, the internal frustration plays into well-established feuds and volatility.

Neither Mr. Abbott nor other conservatives in the party have every fully accepted Mr. Turnbull, a cosmopolitan former investment banker whose policy achievements include legislation legalizing same-sex marriage.

A conversation about abrupt climate change and other subjects

A random conversation with Seemorerocks

Pam Crisp is joined by Robin Westenra (aka Seemorerocks) in a conversation about the blog and abrupt climate change

Radio New Zealand claims Antarctic ice is not melting like the Arctic

"Temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) over the past 50 years — five times the rate of the rest of the planet. And scientists think that warm ocean waters could be melting Antarctica's glaciers as they flow under the floating tongues of ice."
---

Sometimes when I switch on Radio New Zealand I have to pinch myself and ask whether they (or I) exist in some parallel universe.

I have been covering news from Antarctica for five years and so you can imagine my surprise when I heard an item advertised on “why the Arctic ice is melting and Antarctica is not”

My surprise disappeard when I heard the academic describe how she gets all her information from computer models inputting all the information.

No wonder she seems so out of touch and allows Radio New Zealand give the impression that sea ice in Antarctica is melting. She must have been so busy in front of her computer that she has not noticed the information about disappearing sea ice from NASA and others over the summer.

One thing that struck me is Antarctica has no Peter Wadhams who has been observing the thickness of Arctic ice from a submarine over many years.

They do not appear to have a reliable method of measuring Antarctic ice thickness – so they are attempting to catch up – using a DC3!

Of course going back 3 years the Arctic ice extent was at a record. That was when the Russian ship got stuck in the ice in the middle of summer,something that delighted the deniers.

She seems to have missed out on research that indicates that Antarctic ice is melting from below.

We all know what she points out about the differences between the Arctic and Antarctica - that Antarctica is and surrounded by sea while the Arctic is sea surrounded by land, so the sea ice behaves quite different.

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

On Sept. 19, 2014, the five-day average of Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 20 million square kilometers for the first time since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The red line shows the average maximum extent from 1979-2014.

Credits: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Cindy Starr

Antarctic sea ice drops by 10 per cent, wiping out highs set in 2014

Here is the item from Radio NZ

Breaking through the mysteries of Antarctic sea-ice

Nine to Noon, Radio NZ

Kathryn Ryan talks to the University of Otago's sea-ice expert Professor Pat Langhorne. Sea-ice physics is a relatively new discipline, and there are many important questions that are still unanswered, such as: why is Antarctic sea ice not decreasing like Arctic sea ice? The answers to these questions are believed to be crucial to understanding the effects climate change is having on different parts of the continent.

To listen to podcast GO HERE

These are some of the items that seem to have eluded Professor Pat Langhorne and Kathryn Ryan of Radio New Zealand who I have learned are the biggest ABRUPT climate change deniers anywhere.

Watch the video below to see  to see how Arctic sea ice is not melting - lol.


Animation showing the decline of the sea ice around Antarctica over the period from November 16, 2016, to January 4, 2017. For comparison, the blue line shows the 1979-2000 average. Click on image to view animated version. 

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/…/SPP…/s1600/Nov-2016-Jan-2017.gif

Added to the post 'Sea ice is shrinking', at: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/…/11/sea-ice-is-shrinking.h…

Antarctic Sea Ice Likely to Hit New All-Time Record Lows Over Coming Days

Robertscribbler,

2 February, 2017

Throughout the record global heat of 2016 and on into 2017, the world’s sea ice has taken a merciless pounding.

In the Northern Hemisphere, extreme warming of the polar region pushed Arctic sea ice extents to record low daily ranges throughout the winter, spring and fall of 2016. And even today, after many months of daily record lows, sea ice in the Arctic remains more reduced (in most measures) than it has ever been for this time of year.

On the other side of the world, the story is much the same. For it now appears that the ocean region around Antarctica is about to experience an all-time record annual low for sea ice:

(JAXA Antarctic sea ice measure for all years since 1978 shows a strong challenge to the previous record low for extent set in 1997 [lower left hand corner of the graph]. With 2-4 weeks left in the melt season, the present measure is just about 170,000 square kilometers above the 1997 record low during Southern Hemisphere summer.)

Anomalous warmth, though less intense than in the Arctic zone, did finally begin to invade the austral polar region during Southern Hemisphere spring and summer (2016-2017). And since mid October, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has remained in record low daily ranges (see lower red line on the graph above). Wednesday, February 1st’s, JAXA measure of 2.42 million square kilometers of sea ice extent remaining is now just about 170,000 square kilometers above the previous record low sea ice extent set during mid-to-late February of 1997.

During this time of year, average drops in sea ice extent are around 50,000 square kilometers per day. So if all things were equal, we’d expect melt inertia to push the measure into new record low ranges over the next 3-5 days. Unfortunately, there appears to be an added impetus for melting as another blast of above average temperatures is being drawn into Antarctica underneath strong ridging features in the Southern Hemisphere Jet stream.

(Warmth building into Antarctica over the next two weeks may be the final straw that tips the near ocean region into new all-time record lows for sea ice extent. The above GFS model prediction for February 9th rendered by Climate Reanalyzer shows temperature anomalies predicted for Antarctica and the surrounding regions. Red to orange is warmer than average, blue to purple is colder than average.)

As a result, over the next week, temperatures around Antarctica and in the nearby region of the Southern Ocean are expected to average between 1.2 and 1.8 C above the already warmer than normal 1979 through 2000 average. Meanwhile, parts of West Antarctica’s coastal zone are expected to hit as high as 5-20 C above that average.

With more warmth on the way, with measures already striking nearly half a million square kilometers below previous daily record lows, and with at least two weeks remaining in the melt season, it appears likely that we are in for a new all-time record low for sea ice extent in the ocean region surrounding Antarctica. If the new record does occur, it will happen during a time when the Arctic is also experiencing daily record lows for sea ice during Northern Hemisphere winter and as the world is experiencing global temperatures in the range of 1 to 1.2 degrees Celsius above 1880s averages.

Links:

JAXA Sea Ice

Arctic Sea Ice Graphs

Climate Reanalyzer

Climate Change Shrinking Antarctic Snows

Climate Crocks,

14 January, 2017

“When I used to come to Antarctica in the 1990s, it never used to rain,” said Rodolfo Sanchez, director of the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA).

“Now it rains regularly—instead of snowing,” he told AFP during an Argentine government visit to King George Island, off the tip of the western Antarctic peninsula.

Scientists monitoring conditions at the base say the average temperature here has increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past century.

“The glacier used to reach all the way to the shore,” Sanchez says. “Now there is a 500-meter (550-yard) wide beach.”

Dark scars of rock are showing through what were once spotless sheets of white snow on the glaciers’ flanks.

“Antarctica is a thermometer that shows how the world is changing,” said Adriana Gulisano, a physicist at Argentina’s National Antarctic Directorate.

“There is no place where climate change is more in evidence.”

Wildlife signs

Local wildlife also appears to reflect to the change.

Scientists at the Carlini base say a pair of yellow-throated King penguins have swum up to mate nearby for the past three years.

Although the theory is not confirmed, they suspect another sign of climate change. The species had previously been thought to be restricted to warmer spots on the Falkland Islands and the Argentine mainland.

Technician Luis Souza, 56, has divided his time since 1979 between Buenos Aires and the Carlini base, where he has studied migrating birds: cormorants, gulls and penguins.

More crucially, scientists say melting ice is disrupting the breeding of krill, a shrimp-like creature that serves as food for numerous species.

“Less ice means fewer krill for the whales, penguins and seals,” said Sanchez. “The whole food chain is affected.”

The conventional wisdom

Since it never rains in Antarctica, does that mean it is technically adesert?

It scientifically is a desert.

Nestled around the South Pole, where the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded and which doesn't receive sunlight for months every year, it's sometimes hard to think of icy Antarctica as a desert. But it is the world's largest one because very little precipitation falls there — on average, it gets less than 2 inches (50 millimeters) a year, mostly as snow.



Despite the low snowfall, vast glaciers cover 99 percent of Antarctica's surface. That's because the average temperature (minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 48 degrees Celsius) slows down evaporation to a crawl. Over long periods of time, the snowfall accumulates at a rate faster than Antarctica's ablation, according to "Discovering Antarctica," a project of the U.K.'s Royal Geographical Society.




Parts of Antarctica are showing strong signs of warming up along with global climate change, however. Temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) over the past 50 years — five times the rate of the rest of the planet. And scientists think that warm ocean waters could be melting Antarctica's glaciers as they flow under the floating tongues of ice.

A coherent response to Guy McPherson

This is a great response from someone who is capable of thought and reflection and is getting their emotional shit together.

Why can't people say they don't know if this is correct or not but could be and respond from that space instead of acting reflexively.

I couldn't ask for more.

In the meantime I may have to give Radio NZ Checkpoint the benefit of the doubt.  They interviewed Guy on Monday (NZT) but didn't broadcast it,

Here's their response to our inquiry:

Thanks for getting in touch. I just tried to call your number but couldn’t get through.

We haven’t aired the interview yet as it was done on Monday and I’m afraid we had breaking news that took precedence, such as the eight people who died in the fishing tragedy and the support package for quake hit businesses in Wellington. We needed to hold a number of stories/interviews because of this and Guy’s was one of them.

Bests,

Catherine

Rachel Stewart: What to do when your days are numbered

We carry on, as humans are no good at facing up to possible extinction

NZ Herald,

30 November, 2016

There's more than a few folks feeling blue of late.

Trump, the earthquake(s), global economic woe and wild, windy weather have whipped up a late spring stew of sadness. For the eating of a powerlessness pie.

Powerlessness always succeeds where other emotions fail. It sets off a chain of sensations. None of them good.

Against that backdrop I was, along with many others, ripe for the picking when Guy McPherson sat down across from Paul Henry last week for an interview.

McPherson is professor emeritus of natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona.

For some years, he has been warning of the near-term extinction of humanity due to climate change. He used to project it happening around 2030. Now he's emphatic about it happening within the next ten years.

I won't debate here whether he's right or wrong, but he's no easily written-off looney tune. He has sufficient credibility.

I will say that he speaks of things we already know to be true about climate change; food and water shortages, increased conflict over those resources, disease acceleration, mass migration, economic meltdown, dramatic sea level rise, increased forest fires and storms beyond anything we've ever imagined. These things add up to human extinction, and they are already happening.

The last IPCC report in 2014 was far from good news either. It speaks the same language as McPherson - just in a much more sanitised tone. The factual difference is the timeframe. They show modelling stretching a hundred years out. McPherson's modelling says we're toast, and soon.

Guy McPherson has sufficient credibility.

The major game-changer is the sea ice in the Arctic, and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, disappearing at an alarming rate. On October 20, Arctic sea ice extent began to set new daily record lows for this time of year.

Researchers monitoring satellites and weather stations are openly saying that they're surprised, and shocked by air temperatures peaking at an unheard-of 20C higher than normal for the time of year. Also, sea temperatures are averaging nearly 4C higher than usual in October and November.

If climate change scientists on the ground are openly amazed, worried and scared, does the truth about human extinction lie somewhere in the middle?

Let's say it does. Let's say we're doomed as a species in another 50 years and, given the new information presenting itself every day, we must entertain it. None of which is helped by a global political response being either sluggish, glacial or non-existent.

If you accept the fact that it's all too little too late, and I emphatically do, then where to from here? If there is no hope, and technology won't save us in time, what now?

Many try to believe that politicians will soon see the error of their delays, act quickly on our behalf for the good of the planet, and all will be well.

Guy McPherson simply advises people to love those close to them, and be excellent at whatever it is you choose to do. Other than that, forget any form of hope. It's over.

I sat with all of that over the weekend. I sucked it up, felt it in my bones and gut, and had a couple of sleepless nights. It got to me in a way that I'd never experienced before.

Despite my best efforts, it rang true.

We've all buried family and friends who've died of long and protracted (and short and sharp) cancer. We know these things happen, and may also happen to us. Yet, it's one thing to receive a terminal diagnosis, imagine dying and life carrying on without you. It's quite another entirely to envisage humans dying en masse, in a collective global death spiral. That's hard to comprehend.

So, most of us don't. We breed, we stress about little and big stuff, worry about out property values, or not being able to afford a home in the first place, and carry on our merry human way. All of which is probably best.

Many try to believe that politicians will soon see the error of their delays, act quickly on our behalf for the good of the planet, and all will be well. Business helps the environment, neoliberalism will save the kea, and continued fossil fuel extraction is a necessary evil. Technology will ultimately save the day. Hurrah!

I've thought hard on what was emotionally so different about McPherson's short timeframe versus my unquestioning belief in a much longer one. Obviously, the longer timeframe means I'd get to live out my natural life.

I had never, for one second, consciously entertained the idea that human extinction was conceivable in the near term.

In other words, I'm basically okay with the sadness and anxiety about some far-off future generation seeing the collapse of humanity. Just not this one. My one.

Which tells me everything I didn't want to know about myself. I possess precisely the same procrastination, selfishness and denial that got us into this mess.

Turns out, I'm only human.