The NASA website is touting new modeling projections for agriculture that forecast a dramatic decline in global corn yields. According to NASA, global corn yields per acre will decline 24 percent by the year 2030. We at Climate Realism realize that NASA’s prediction is far-fetched fear-mongering. Accordingly, we challenge NASA and/or any other prominent climate activists to put their money where their mouths are: the proposition is whether global corn yields in the year 2030 are at least 24 percent lower than is presently the case. If NASA’s prediction comes true, we at Climate Realism will accept a public shaming for questioning climate activists. If NASA’s prediction does not come true, NASA and climate activists accept a public shaming for exaggerating the so-called climate crisis.
Climate activists – such as NASA bureaucrats whose jobs and budgets depend on the perpetuation of an asserted climate crisis – often make frightening predictions that cannot be tested for accuracy until the far-distant future. NASA making a prediction for dramatic crop decline during this decade is a rare testable “existential climate crisis” prediction.
The few times that climate activists have made similar mid-term climate predictions have led to embarrassing results for them. Al Gore talked about an ice-free North Pole by 2013 – yet, that still hasn’t happened. Gore also claimed there would be no more snow atop Mt. Kilimanjaro by 2016 – yet, that still hasn’t happened. The National Park Service put up signs in Glacier National Park saying that there would be no more glaciers there by 2020 – yet, that still hasn’t happened.
If NASA and other climate activists were behaving ethically, they would either accept this public challenge about corn yields or retract their fear-mongering alarmism.
In 2014 I wrote a short piece titled “Computer Models: The Great Deception”. In it I took apart my own model. It is about investments, but is relevant wherever models are used.
http://heinzegroup.com/insight.htm#7
Let’s get this clear. Do they mean, as the above article assumes, that corn yields per acre will decline to 24% below their present yields by 2030, or do they mean that in 2030 corn yields will be 24% lower than they would have been if there was no climate change? That is, if corn yields were to go up 100% by 2030 with no climate change, then with climate change the yield would go up 24% less, i.e. to 76%. If this is the case then 76% is a considerable gain despite climate change. Don’t worry about it.