Questions
Thoughts and Ideas Lead to Questions: In the article by Daniel Benjamin (2007) “The Benefits of Climate Change”, he probes the question, “If such changes occur, will their economic effects be positive or negative?” He examines how the possibility of a “lengthened growing season and added precipitation” could possibly benefit the farmers of America. The concept of how agriculture could benefit from climate change is intriguing. Benjamin states that past “research into the possible impact of climate change on agriculture has produced wildly varying results…” He goes on to expose that research models have shown one extreme of predicting a loss of twenty percent of agricultural land value while another model has shown an increase of thirty percent in agricultural land value. Benjamin also says that the models used to predict climate change show an average increase of 5°F in temperature and about 8 inches more in precipitation per year. If used in conjunction with “effects of past swings in temperature and precipitation...” (Benjamin, 2007) that would show a possible increase in farm or crop production in the U.S. but if temperature increases more than 5°F and precipitation also increases by more than 8 inches, he believes that crop production would increase even more but not significantly more. Also, if temperature and precipitation drops, it would hardly effect the U.S. crop production. In other words: “agricultural productivity would be largely immune to the effects of climate change over the next century” (Bemjamin, 2007).
Benjamin doesn’t boast that climate change isn’t happening, or that it is good for the whole world. He acknowledging that climate change is “relevant far beyond American agriculture” (2007) and we need to regard this when we are considering costly environmental policies. Benjamin reminds us that we need to be open to new ideas, we don’t know everything. Even with the unpredictability of Mother Nature, we can adapt to our surroundings and make the best of it; if you are given a lemon, make lemonade.