According to Sylvan Wittwer, who served as head of the National Research Council s Board on Agriculture, world crop yields may already have increased by 10 percent as a result of this phenomenon. Roughly speaking, that increase satisfies the nutritional needs of 500,000,000 people. Elevated levels of CO 2 also increase plant water-use efficiency, enabling them not only to grow better under normal conditions, but also to perform even more dramatically when forced to withstand the stress from lack of moisture. What one can conclude from Verschuren s study seems inescapable. Weather in East Africa is tremendously variable.
Natural change dwarfs anything humans can do to the climate.
And the addition of technology and carbon dioxide will go a long way towards mitigating the suffering that nature, left unchecked, otherwise will inflict. Virtual Climate Alert draws upon the expertise of Greening Earth Society science advisors and is coordinated by New Hope Environmental Services of Charlottesville, Virginia. Kansas wheat yields since 1925. Rainfall variability in this region is similar to that in East Africa. It is clear that technological improvements, including irrigation and the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide, go a long way toward compensating for the vagaries of nature.