Last Friday, the Associated Press picked up and ran with the climate change stories in the current issue of California Agriculture journal. Reporter Tracie Cone opened her widely published article with the prediction that rising temperatures could make pears, peaches, pistachios and other crops that need winter chill unsuitable for California farms, and others crops would suffer lower yields.
Cone went on to write that articles in California Agriculture "predict temperatures in California will increase by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2095." That wasn't the conclusion I reached when I looked over the Cal Ag stories, so I checked with the journal's editor, Janet Byron.
She and the journal's executive editor Janet White reviewed Cone's story and compared it to information in the new issue.
"We don't know where (Cone) got the exact '7 degrees by 2095' figure," Byron said. "But if you look at the scenarios . . . from the IPCC, it's pretty clear that 7 degrees would be the average predicted increase by 2099. Every scientist quoted in our issue says that climate change is inevitable, and they cite ranges in the IPCC report. So I don't think she was exactly correct - a range would have been more accurate - but I don't think she was wrong either."
Pulling information from a news article in the journal written by Byron, Cone noted in the AP story that about 15 percent of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. is related to food production, with livestock-produced methane and nitrous oxide leading the way, followed by the breakdown of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, transportation, heat used to operate greenhouses and the decomposition of waste.
"We are developing information so that major food suppliers, food service professionals and retailers, as well as consumers, can figure out where to focus to make the biggest impact on climate change," the Cal Ag news article and the AP story alike quoted Gail Feenstra of the UC Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.
A diversity of media outlets shared the AP story with their readers either online or in print editions, including the San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Modesto Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Merced Sun-Star, Monterey Herald, Lodi News-Sentinal, Visalia Times, Fort Mills Times, KTVU.com, KCBS.com and many other online news sites from Alabama to New Jersey.
Attached Images:
