Additional Food Doom

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New Scientist has been banging the drum about wheat virus doom of late, but I wasn’t convinced that they were not being alarmist. (My key metric: no one else was writing about it.)

Oh crap. Other people are writing about it:

The fungal disease could spread to other wheat producing states in the Near East and western Asia that provide one-quarter of the world’s wheat.

The FAO warned stated east of Iran — Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to be on high alert.

(h/t Tim Haab)

Dust in the Sahel

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Sahel MapI wrote a piece in Sunday’s newspaper about new work by Ben Cook at NASA Goddard and his colleagues about the role of dust in the Dust Bowl drought. As the name implies, we knew the Dust Bowl was dusty. The new bit here is a much more clear understanding of the role of dust in suppressing rain – a feedback between human farming practices and enhanced drought.

One question I kept asking Ben and everyone else I talked to about the paper: What does this mean in the Sahel? Tomorrow in Water Resources Research, Wanching Jacquie Hui and colleagues (including Ben) offer a first cut at an answer:

We investigate the relationship between dust aerosols and rainfall in the West African Sahel where the dust-rainfall feedback has been speculated to contribute to sustained droughts. We find that the amount of dust loadings is negatively correlated with rainfall values, suggesting that dust entrained in the atmosphere can significantly inhibit rainfall in this region.

Here in the United States, changes in farming practices instituted in the depths of the Dust Bowl have largely eliminated the sort of bonkers dust storms seen then. Less ground is left uncovered today. But questions have long been raised about the relationship between long-standing farming practices in the Sahel and drought over the last nearly half century. This paper doesn’t answer the question directly (it does not address the relationship between farming practices and drought directly), but it is one more piece of the puzzle in this particularly precarious part of the world.
(More reading: Wikipedia on Sahel drought)

Junkyard Loop

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Tomb of the VW Vans

Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

The Junkyard Loop is one of Albuquerque’s great bike rides. It takes you past the city’s sewage treatment plant (the largest tributary on the Middle Rio Grande), and along the Tijeras Arroyo concrete diversion channel.

One of its great highlights, the old Duke City Raceway, sadly is no more. But the best part of the ride is the featured that bestowed on it its fabulous name. Along the Tijeras Channel, the paved bicycle trail runs up the back fences of the city’s junkyard neighborhoods, including this priceless collection of old VW vans.

You can park at the little picnic area where Rio Bravo crosses the Rio Grande (see map). But the Junkyard Loop is best ridden as part of a longer ride along the Rio Grande bicycle trail.

Distance: 5 miles, largely level except for the climb (or descent, depending on your direction of travel) along Rio Bravo Boulevard.
View Larger Map

The Importance of Political Viability

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Environmental economist John Whitehead explains why he won’t sign the economists’ petition arguing for a 100 percent auction of carbon emission credits, rather than giving some of them away for free:

Why won’t I sign? I agree with everything in the statement except for the 100% part.

100% auctions seems like a guarantee that some sort of incentive-based climate policy will not be implemented. A policy with 100% auctions will be opposed by industry almost as much as a comparable carbon tax.

What I Love About the Internet, Episode XIV

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That I can sit here in the comfort of my own home, idly curious about irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley, and look up the 1950 Census of Agriculture’s California county-by-county data.

503,686

Q: How has irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley changed over the years?

A: Great question, John! In 1950, there were 532,543 acres under irrigation (215,512 hectares). That’s down to 503,686 acres (203,834 hectares) today.

Q: Thanks for that, but why did you think that was worth blogging?

A: Great question, John! Because I’m so disorganized that if I don’t write it down somewhere Google can find it, I’ll never be able to put my finger on it again.

Re quake

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Well here’s some good news:

China’s strongest earthquake in 58 years may reduce the nation’s energy demand as damaged power plants and transmission lines force companies to idle some generators.

The down side, though, according to Bloomberg’s Rob Delaney, is the quake’s possible contribution to food inflation. Oh, yeah. And all the dead people. That’s not so great either. But hey, at least they’re no longer consuming energy!

(I mean, really, can you imagine having to write shit like that? Does he have to go home and scrub his typing fingers with brillo pads to remove the stench?)