Bob Wilson
===============================================================
>Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 15:13:40 EDT
>From: "E. Ann Clark, Associate Professor"
<ACLARK@CROP.UOGUELPH.CA>
>To: BJWilson@gnn.com (Bob Wilson)
>Subject: Re: Crystal Ball
>
>Bob: interesting ideas - hope you are right. Let me try on
>another tangent. Have seen several references now, in the
>news, popular press, and in the sci lit (don't ask where, I'd
>have to go and find it) suggesting that one of the unanticipated
>"side-effects" of global warming is increased variability in
>the weather. This is why, apparently, the globe is experiencing
>such a plethora of "one in a hundred year floods", storm systems,
>erosion/ruination from rivers/dams bursting, etc. The 1995
>summer, for example, was the hottest (or second hottest?) on
>record in Guelph, ON.
>
>So, if we take as a premise that the weather becomes increasingly
>variable in agricultural growing regions - not 50 years in the
>future, but NOW - how will this influence:
>
>a) the scale-dependence of agricultural evolution (e.g. trend
> toward mega-farming that so many have foreseen as inevitable)
>
>b) the relative profitability of low-input (e.g. less to lose in
> the event of crop failure) vs. resource-dependent agriculture?
>
>What do you think? Ann
>ACLARK@crop.uoguelph.ca
>Dr. E. Ann Clark
>Associate Professor
>Crop Science
>University of Guelph
>Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
>Phone: 519-824-4120 Ext. 2508
>FAX: 519 763-8933