A long report in the LA Times reminds readers that climate change is not all about droughts and floods. It’s also about winter chill. Many fruit trees absolutely must have a certain number of cold days in the winter to prepare them for spring blossom and summer fruit. Those chill days are declining fast in California’s Central Valley.
“Climate change is not just about sea-level rise and polar bears,” said UC Davis researcher Eike Luedeling, lead author of the study. “It is about our food security. Climate change may make conditions less favorable to grow the crops we need to feed ourselves.”
Can’t argue with that. But are California’s fruit farmers likely to experiment, as the farmers of Kazakhstan have done, with planting different varieties, maybe even seedlings, to see whether any of these are better able to produce under different conditions? Somehow, I doubt it.
HT: The Ethicurean.
I actually think you can argue with that. Why always assume that climate change goes in the direction of negative change? Sure..lots of studies show that things get worse, but more degree days will surely shorten fruiting time, giving you production earlier. Greater extremes between maximum and minimum temperatures in the day might give you sweeter fruit. And less risk of frost early in the season during flowering could increase production. I fear we’re predisposed to always see things negatively.
Good points, but … are the positive changes going to occur at the same places as the negative ones? Of course we are wired to pay far more attention to negative changes, which may be one reason why people accentuate the negative, in an effort to change behaviour. Bad news sells. And that’s why we read about climate change making things worse for, for example, maize farmers, rather than making it better for millet or sorghum farmers. Likewise, people downplay the studies, among them yours, that show improvements under climate change for strawberry growers in northern Europe.
Maybe your next great paper should focus on the upside. I’d be willing to bet you’ll find it much harder to get published.