{"id":306558,"date":"2024-03-08T13:50:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T12:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=306558"},"modified":"2024-03-08T13:50:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T12:50:30","slug":"pbs-almost-admits-co2-and-warming-are-good-for-crop-production-almost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=306558","title":{"rendered":"PBS Almost Admits CO2 and Warming Are Good for Crop Production, Almost!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Linnea Lueken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PBS News Weekend claimed in a recent video, \u201cHow climate change is disrupting the global food supply<\/a>,\u201d that climate change will harm the global food supply in the future, but this unlikely. The claim is refuted by food production trends over recent decades of warming, and an understanding of agronomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This PBS piece, hosted by John Yang, is unusual in that the guest on the program, Jonas J\u00e4germeyr, a climate scientist from Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, admitted that carbon dioxide is positively affecting plant growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J\u00e4germeyr told PBS that the three main drivers for crop production are temperature, precipitation, and the presence of atmospheric carbon dioxide. So far, so good. Where J\u00e4germeyr\u2019s argument falls apart is when he follows that statement up with the claim that recent warming creates \u201cextreme events such as droughts, heat waves[\u2026] hail, and flooding,\u201d which impact agriculture negatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Available data do not show increases in any of those extreme weather categories. As Climate Realism<\/em> has covered in greater detail before: although everyplace has drought periodically, there is no evidence droughts are getting worse<\/a> or more becoming more frequent; heatwaves<\/a> are not becoming more severe; hail has been decreasing<\/a> in the United States at least since 2005. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not claim that flooding<\/a> is getting worse due to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He goes on to admit that carbon dioxide is needed and loved by crop plants, albeit to different degrees, but then makes the puzzling statement that corn or maize does not benefit greatly from additional CO2<\/sub> fertilization, and is \u201creally seeing the largest negative impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulling up the data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization on corn production and yield, it is unclear what negative impact J\u00e4germeyr is referring to. Over the past three decades, which is supposed to be the most intense period of warming, corn production has steadily climbed worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since just 1990, worldwide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n