The Environment and Rice

Environmental changes lowering yields of miracle rice
One could venture to say that a vast majority of the population eats rice on a regular basis. Rice is a food that is essential to maintaining the population in the world. In the 1960's the 'miracle rice' variety was developed and has been producing higher crop yields than any other variety. One of the advantages of genetically engineering crops are the higher yields but there is still the risk of genetic drift. When research showed that the 'miracle rice' had a 15% less yield than before people became concerned with genetics. Research now shows that the environmental changes are responsible for the decrease in yield. Changes in the environment can cause major problems with crop yields as well as for the population who rely on the crops. There are probably many solutions for this problem but where things stand now there is a cycle of decreasing crop yields. As the population increases, the environment most likely changes. As the environment changes, there are lower rice crop yields. This will continue until people start to die off from starvation,  a new rice variety created or people work to prevent a change in the environment.

Wind Farm Concerns

Wind Farms Change the Weather
When anything and everything is built there are always opponents to the project no matter how necessary or not. Wind farms might not be the most important projects being invested in, but they do have the potential to help reach energy goals. As mentioned in the article, Obama hopes to have more energy be wind generated than ever before. Since wind energy is one of the most plentiful and easily accessible sources of energy it should be fairly easy to reach this goal. Some of the major concerns with wind farms is the negative effects they have on the weather and the danger it poses for people near by. Unfortunately, the danger of death from broken wind turbines is hard to avoid. The number of deaths from wind turbines is no where near the number of deaths involved in coal or oil production and consumption. As for the fact that wind farms change local weather, yes this is probably true. Planting trees, constructing buildings and even paving the ground also cause substantial changes to local weather. This does not mean that the weather change should be ignored, but rather it just needs to be monitored just in case.

On Geoengineering

This Washington Post Opinion Article is about whether we should geoengineer the planet. This has always been a very touchy topic. The appeal of a quick solution to climate change draws many people in. Adversely, who is to say that a quick fix won't cause more problems. As mentioned in the article, the best solution would be to pursue research into geoengineering while also reducing carbon emissions. These two should always hand in hand. Without lowering carbon emissions we are only delaying a problem and if it is unlikely that reducing carbon emissions could undo the damage that has been done and will be done.