ES 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Water Cycle, Overgrazing, Phytophthora Infestans
14 Sep 2015
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Document Summary
Impacts of climate change: weather, natural disasters, biodiversity, sea levels, agriculture: increased sea levels, increasing temperatures, habitat loss, extinction, invasions, water resources become more scarce and weather is impacted. Mega droughts, floods, storms : demand for ethanol and other biofuels are identified as significant contributors to rising food prices around the world. Causes of current practices: land resources are being degraded, soil erosion, salinization of irrigated areas, water pollution, dryland degradation from overgrazing. Increased pest pressures, favored by the spread of monocultures: loss of biodiversity and erosion of the genetic resource base. 32 c for cotton; temperatures above those thresholds are very harmful. Carbon dioxide: the use of fossil fuels in agricultural production is primarily from combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel, tropical deforestation is responsible for about 20% of the world"s annual co2 emissions. Nitrous oxide: lasts a long time in the atmosphere; its lifetime is 120 years.
