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Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

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Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#11

Post by makerofspoons »

dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>With topsoil disappearing at a rate of 1 percent a year and “only 30 to 70 good harvest years left depending on your location,” Well, that's definitely a scary framing. Does anyone have sources for this specific prediction? Aside from launching his (for-profit) climate fund, (for-profit) vc investments, and funding research, I'd be very interested in more details on how the money will be used.

There are solutions to this- driving through eastern Colorado and west Kansas you'll find many farmers using no-till techniques and planting winter cover-crops that create topsoil and increase soil quality. Farmers have a vested economic interest in keeping the soil productive.

Meanwhile from what I understand from talking with some friends in agricultural engineering in places like California where farmers expect to be pushed off their land eventually by rising land prices they are using destructive practices to extract as much as they can before they go defunct.

The USDA is offering incentives for good soil stewardship and the 2018 Farm Bill featured a number of soil health policies, such as restrictions on pesticides and a soil carbon pilot program: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/mae-wu/final-farm-bill-blossoms...

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#12

Post by JustSomeNobody »

makerofspoons wrote: post #11
dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>With topsoil disappearing at a rate of 1 percent a year and “only 30 to 70 good harvest years left depending on your location,” Well, that's definitely a scary framing. Does anyone have sources for this specific prediction? Aside from launching his (for-profit) climate fund, (for-profit) vc investments, and funding research, I'd be very interested in more details on how the money will be used.

There are solutions to this- driving through eastern Colorado and west Kansas you'll find many farmers using no-till techniques and planting winter cover-crops that create topsoil and increase soil quality. Farmers have a vested economic interest in keeping the soil productive. Meanwhile from what I understand from talking with some friends in agricultural engineering in places like California where farmers expect to…

California will one day be uninhabitable by 99.999% of the population. The rich will have to fly in day workers. It would be a good time to start investing in drone taxis, I suppose.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#13

Post by viivaux »

darkpuma wrote: post #8
mooreds wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...

> "Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years," Such a vague assertion leaves me with more questions than it resolved. Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance. Presumably they mean a given area will gain three centimeters in 1,000 years, but what area and under what conditions? There are some environments with zero topsoil and some environments with quite a lot of topsoil, so is th…

> Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance

Should it though?

And regardless of how clear or unclear that is, I gotta say I dislike seeing when the sum of a multitude of reports is expressed in a headline, only for people to nitpick through it without even attempting to check the actual methodology for themselves.

1 cm/year is 33 times faster than 3 cm/100 years, not a few hundred times faster.

AFAIK terra preta is far from fully understood, and farther still from being widely used. Very cool stuff though.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#14

Post by splendidtube »

viivaux wrote: post #13
darkpuma wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years," Such a vague assertion leaves me with more questions than it resolved. Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance. Presumably they mean a given area will gain three centimeters in 1,000 years, but what area and under what conditions? There are some environments with zero topsoil and some environments with quite a lot of topsoil, so is th…

> Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance Should it though? And regardless of how clear or unclear that is, I gotta say I dislike seeing when the sum of a multitude of reports is expressed in a headline, only for people to nitpick through it without even attempting to check the actual methodology for themselves. 1 cm/year is 33 times faster than 3 cm/100 years, not a few hundred times faster. AFAI…

Only responding to the one part of your comment, it was 3cm/1000 years, so a few hundred (333) years was accurate.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#15

Post by darkpuma »

viivaux wrote: post #13
darkpuma wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years," Such a vague assertion leaves me with more questions than it resolved. Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance. Presumably they mean a given area will gain three centimeters in 1,000 years, but what area and under what conditions? There are some environments with zero topsoil and some environments with quite a lot of topsoil, so is th…

> Topsoil should properly be measured in volume, not distance Should it though? And regardless of how clear or unclear that is, I gotta say I dislike seeing when the sum of a multitude of reports is expressed in a headline, only for people to nitpick through it without even attempting to check the actual methodology for themselves. 1 cm/year is 33 times faster than 3 cm/100 years, not a few hundred times faster. AFAI…

> "ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday."

The article is crap, it doesn't answer any of my questions. You think I didn't check it before I commented? It quotes Maria-Helena Semedo throwing out that figure without any clarifying context or explanation. Without saying where it came from or what it's actually a measurement of.

Also, three centimeters per one thousand years is much slower than three centimeters per century.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#17

Post by Bucephalus355 »

Going to get downvoted harshly for this, and I deserve some of it.

But let me say, is anyone else just slightly suspicious (don’t have to change your minds though and I agree with the science here) that investing billionaires, people who give truth to the saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”, would actually be interested in the best possible thing for the world? Doesn’t that sound a little bit suspicious, like a hint from a life that something is afoot?

I think it might be healthy to introduce some doubt into the claims of billionaires no matter what they might be.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#18

Post by jacquesm »

seren wrote: post #7
dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>With topsoil disappearing at a rate of 1 percent a year and “only 30 to 70 good harvest years left depending on your location,” Well, that's definitely a scary framing. Does anyone have sources for this specific prediction? Aside from launching his (for-profit) climate fund, (for-profit) vc investments, and funding research, I'd be very interested in more details on how the money will be used.

The scary part is that even if you cannot provide food to even, let's say 3% of the human population, it will create massive destabilization, initially in the part of the world affected, then globally. I remember that at the start of the various Arab Spring revolts, protests were about the cost of food. I have never been to Egypt, and maybe I have a distorted view of the situation there, but I don't understand how it…

The river quite literally brings life to that 'thin strip'. Without the Nile it would be desert.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#19

Post by SiempreViernes »

seren wrote: post #7
dhh2106 wrote: post #2

>With topsoil disappearing at a rate of 1 percent a year and “only 30 to 70 good harvest years left depending on your location,” Well, that's definitely a scary framing. Does anyone have sources for this specific prediction? Aside from launching his (for-profit) climate fund, (for-profit) vc investments, and funding research, I'd be very interested in more details on how the money will be used.

The scary part is that even if you cannot provide food to even, let's say 3% of the human population, it will create massive destabilization, initially in the part of the world affected, then globally. I remember that at the start of the various Arab Spring revolts, protests were about the cost of food. I have never been to Egypt, and maybe I have a distorted view of the situation there, but I don't understand how it…

First of all, the Nile basin covers 32% of the area of Egypt (330 000 km²), which is a bit more than the size of Italy who supports a population of 60 million.

Secondly, due to the climate they also get two-three harvests per year.

Re: Investing Prophet Jeremy Grantham Takes Aim at Climate Change

#20

Post by tdb7893 »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #17

Going to get downvoted harshly for this, and I deserve some of it. But let me say, is anyone else just slightly suspicious (don’t have to change your minds though and I agree with the science here) that investing billionaires, people who give truth to the saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”, would actually be interested in the best possible thing for the world? Doesn’t that sound a little bit suspici…

Do you have any specifics on what you doubt about this? Your comment came across as vague to me
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