The future of agriculture: Two scenarios

Here are links to two scenarios for the future of agriculture. The first, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the “expected future.” It assumes zero disruptive change, a mere mid-point extrapolation of current conditions.  The second is from a group of scientists concerned about the effects of global climate change on agriculture — including lower crop yields, flooding and crop disease — and thinking about the possibilities of biotech to deal with that.

Botox: Bioterrorism threat?

Researchers worry that an underground network of illicit Botox suppliers would sell the underlying toxin to terrorists hell-bent on contaminating water or food supplies. The anti-wrinkle treatment has a miniscule amount of the lethal toxin, but the same organized crime syndicates making counterfeit Botox could sell the toxin to terrorists. An al-Qaeda training manual discovered in 2001 advocated the use of botulinum toxin in terrorist attacks.

A speck of toxin smaller than a grain of sand can kill a 150-pound adult. A biologist with a master’s degree and $2,000 worth of equipment could easily make a gram of pure toxin, an amount equal to the weight of a small paper clip but enough, in theory, to kill thousands of people.

Source: “Officials fear toxic ingredient in Botox could become terrorist tool,” The Washington Post, 25 January 2010

Implications: The black market in a cosmetic treatment could lead to terrorists contaminating water or food supplies to create mass casualties. Presumably the counterfeiters would sell toxin to the highest bidder.

The future of unemployment

It’s not looking good, especially for the next few years. A recent poll of economists found that, on average, they don’t expect the U.S. unemployment rate to fall below 6% until 2013. (The unemployment rate at this writing is 9.8%.)

“Never before has business shed so many workers so fast, so many people failed to find work who are looking for work, and so many dropped out of the labor force as in the current circumstance,” said Allen Sinai at Decision Economics.

10 signals and trends

Gleaned from recent press reports and other sources:

These are boom times for U.S. makers of unmanned military aircraft (drones).

Sample Lab Ltd. opened a  “marketing cafe” in Tokyo that lets trend-setting women see and test new products.

With the recession crimping legal budgets, some big companies are insisting on flat-fee payments instead of law firms’ long-standing practice of the “billable hour.”

City “water cops” are handing out citations to people caught wasting water resources in drought-stricken areas.

Lumber mills that produce woods for hardwood floors and maple cabinets have been devastated by the U.S. recession’s double whammy: the housing bust and unavailable credit.

Some hospitals find that owning up to medical errors reduces litigation and helps them learn from their mistakes.

Despite a 25-year effort to improve U.S. education, the latest high-school SAT exam scores are disappointing. Asian-American students are thriving but the SAT gap for blacks and Hispanics widens.

More than half of Somalia’s population needs humanitarian aid, the U.N. says.

Software makers are scrambling to develop cell phone safety applications that prevent texting while driving.

Inexpensive mini-reactors may be an alternative to building giant nuclear powerplants, though there are technical, financial and regulatory hurdles.

Water issues give solar, wind power another advantage over traditional power plants

“Advocates for alternative energy are discovering that water issues may prove to be as important a selling point for the industry as reducing carbon-dioxide emissions,” according to an article headlined “Water Worries Shape Local Energy Decisions,” in The Wall Street Journal (26 March 2009).

Especially in the western U.S., where water can be scarce, communities are turning to wind farms or solar arrays — which have minimal water needs — instead of building traditional power plants that consume more water.

The electric-power industry accounts for nearly half of all water withdrawals in the U.S., with agricultural irrigation coming in a distant second at about 35%. Even though most of the water used by the power sector eventually is returned to waterways or the ground, 2% to 3% is lost through evaporation, amounting to 1.6 trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons a year that might otherwise enhance fisheries or recharge aquifers, according to a Department of Energy study.

The study concluded that a megawatt hour of electricity produced by a wind turbine can save 200 to 600 gallons of water compared with the amount required by a modern gas-fired power plant to make that same amount.

Twitter: RT @mitchbetts Solar & wind farms have another advantage over traditional power plants: They use a lot less water. http://bit.ly/1a4GCx