{"id":344892,"date":"2024-10-02T13:04:37","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T11:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=344892"},"modified":"2024-10-02T13:04:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T11:04:40","slug":"wrong-associated-press-new-short-corn-variety-is-a-marketing-ploy-not-a-response-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=344892","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Associated Press, New Short Corn Variety Is a Marketing Ploy, Not a Response to Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven\u2019t been increasing, aren\u2019t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AP story, titled, \u201c\u2018Short corn\u2019 could replace the towering cornfields steamrolled by a changing climate,\u201d<\/a> the news agency writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change<\/em>. (emphasis mine)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts tell a different story, however. Long corn is in no way being \u201csteamrolled.\u201d Corn yields and production continue to set new records, with some regularity, and there is no evidence that windstorms are becoming more frequent, or that wind speeds are increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the latter point first. The AP and other mainstream media outlets usually treat reports and pronouncements of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as authoritative on climate change. The IPCC\u2019s latest report is clear concerning the impacts of climate change on wind speeds and damaging windstorms: no change has been detected at present; and, under the even the most extreme climate scenario, no change is anticipated in the foreseeable future, through 2100 at least. (see the figure, below)<\/p>\n\n\n

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So much for the AP\u2019s claim that worsening winds pose a threat to corn production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also show no climate change impacts on corn yields or production in the United States or globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recently updated USDA report<\/a> says that corn yields are expected to set a new record in 2024, increasing by 0.5 bushels per acre over the previous estimate, and by a full six bushels per acre of the previous record set in 2023. (See the graph, below)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Data from the FAO<\/a> confirm the USDA\u2019s findings concerning U.S. corn production and also determine that corn production and yields are regularly setting records around the world as well. Between 1990 and 2022 (the last full year of FAO records), spanning the three decades climate alarmists commonly assert have been the warmest on record:<\/p>\n\n\n\n