1

Increasing Climate Variability and

Livestock Production:The Perfect Storm?

John Gay, DVM PhD DACVPMAssociate Professor of Epidemiology

AAHP Field Disease Investigation UnitWashington State University

ANIM_SCI 280 Animal Science and Society

Current Topics

DamIfINo(but most likely so!)

2

Do humans contribute to global warming?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/earth-from-space.html

Do Livestock contribute to global warming?

http://m.beefmagazine.com/cow-calf/15-best-winter-ranch-photos

3

Are you out of your mind?

Two good textbooks covering the science

4

J Houghton V Smil

http://www.vaclavsmil.com/

Two quicker reads covering the science

5

Mark Maslin Vaclav Smil

Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization

http://www.vaclavsmil.com/

Atmospheric components block wave radiation

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Sunlight In

Infrared Out

The Window

The “Shades”

2

Global Radiation Budget (watts / m2)

7 http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis

This radiation physics known for 150 years

The Discovery of Global Warming• Regularly updated on-line

hypertext

• Google ‘Spencer Weart’

8https://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

Major Factors Impacting Energy Flows

9

Atmospheric CO2 level is the primary focus of concern and for mitigation

10

Keeling Curve

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/

Highest atmospheric CO2 level in 800,000 years and still climbing

11https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/

100

Constructed by analyzing air trapped in glacial ice core bubbles

12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

3

The CO2 change contribution is physically small but critical

13

1750 – 2005 change in radiation forcinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report

We’ve sped up the slow side of the carbon cycle by digging up fossilized sunshine

14 http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf

Coal ‐ Powder River Basin Fort Union Formation

• Paleocene (56‐66M yrs old)

• 1.3M tons per day

Oil & Gas ‐Williston Basin Bakken Shale Formation

• Late Denovian (359‐419M yrs)

• Horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing

• 458k barrels per day

Carbon‐based fossil fuels are from ancient CO2

15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Union_Formation

Carbon Cycle Detail

16 1:1,200 bottleneck

We are dealing with very complex systems interacting across wide scales including time 

Sulfur CyclesWE Schlesinger, ES Bernhardt,  2013

17 http://faculty.yc.edu/ycfaculty/ags105/week12/biogeochemical_cycles_information/

Observed Consequences: Colombia River BasinPrecipitation Trends (1920 – 2000)

WA MT

IDOR

22% median increase in 20th

century

precipitation increase

precipitation decrease

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-86-1-39 - similar source

4

Colombia River Basin StudyApril 1 Snow Pack (1950 – 2000)

> 30% declineabove 6000 ft in 20th century

Snow pack increase

Snow pack decrease

The Result: The paradox of more winter flooding and more summer drought

How can precipitation increase but snow pack decline? Climate Change

1.5o F temp increase

1920 – 2000

Temperature increase

Temperature decrease

The Lesson: Small changes can have big impacts!

IPCC target – 3.6o F further increase

The biggest climate change impacts are from biological phenology disruptions

Mountain Pine Beetle Impact 2000‐1421

Species sensitivity to climate change

NW species

Case et al. Biological Conservation 187 (2015) 127‐133 

• 7% of plants            (  2 of   27)

• 61% of mammals  (21 of  35)

• 69% of birds  (78 of 113)

• 90% of amphibians (18 of  20)

• Most common reason was a critical habitat change

National Audubon Society survey of 588 North American bird species

• 21% (126) classified as climate endangered (>50% habitat lost by 2050 with no alternatives)

• by 2080, the state bird of 10 states will not be in the state

22 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135350

I predict that a “perfect storm” is approaching livestock production

And I may well be sawing my limb off

Warning:My "Crystal" Ball is a 

Brunswick

23

Who to trust on social issues and public policy impacting livestock agriculture?

24Vaclav Smilhttp://www.philiplymbery.com/farmageddon-facts/

5

We need science‐based answers on two scales

Broad scale (circle of concern):

• What is “global warming”?– Or is it climate change?

• Is it occurring? How fast?

• What are potential risks from it? How likely are each? When?

• What are societies and their governments doing about these?

• What could they do? Likely to do? When?

Individual scale (circle of influence):

• If it is occurring, how might it impact my operation?

• How likely? When?

• How might customer concerns impact my operation? Social?

• How might it impact my kids?

• What can I do about any of these? 

• When?

25

Science (facts) should lead Technology (actions)What level of certainty do we need or should we have before acting?

Everyone has to evaluate themselves for IOED – the “Illusion of Explanatory Depth”

• Spend 10+ minutes explaining to someone the key concepts and their relationships, drawing a causal model

• To identify knowledge gaps, spend 30 minutes drawing a concept map of the topic

Can’t do that, probably not informed

Don’t fall victim to the Dunning‐Kruger Effect

We need people to have an informed opinion

26 http://www.pinterest.com/pin/366550857142554626/

Cigarette!

Emotional perceptiontrumpsrational science

every time

Which are the jackhammers and which are the cigarettes?

Public (consumer) understanding is neither straightforward nor necessarily rational!

http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/pregnant.asp27

Tipping Point

Flexible Responsive Lower costs

Rigid Bureaucratic Higher costs

Social License

Aligned:

•Values 

• Expectations

• Ethics

Self regulation

Social Control

• Gov. Regulation 

• Legislation 

• Litigation 

• AuditingSingle major event or  

impacts of cumulative events

Charlie Arnot ‐ The social license vs. control balance“Science tells us if we can do something

Society tells us if we should do it”

28

Center for Food Integrity Why Science Isn’t Enough ‐What consumers need to trust animal agriculture  (2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IqPmO5aHk2014 Consumer Trust Research: Cracking the Code on Food Issues

http://www.fccouncil.com/files/CFI2014%20Research%20Book.pdf

Exploiting our cognitive biases is a profitable media industry

The Outrage Industry

JM Berry & S Sobieraj, 2014

http://ase.tufts.edu/polsci/prospective/OutrageIndustry.pdf

29

“Framing” is repeatedly using the most positive or negative label to “spin” a concept

Conservative – Frank LuntzLiberal – George Lakoff

30

6

We humans naturally perceive things in our scale well but outside our scale poorly

• Human scale – our size, our day, our travel distance

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_scale

• We develop technology to extend our perception to the telescopic, microscopic, in distance, and in time

– Powers of Ten ‐ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 

• Our perception is easily deceived, particularly in un‐natural scales

– Illusion ‐ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion

• Our comprehension of un‐natural scales is poor

– Geologic time scale ‐http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

31 32

We automatically construct and evaluate mental models of systems

http://www.donellameadows.org/systems-thinking-resources/

http://www.donellameadows.org/ http://demingcollaboration.com/

W. Edwards Deming quotes:

• Learning is not compulsory . . . neither is survival

• You can’t manage what you don’t measure

• In God we trust; all others bring data

• Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures

Overly simplified mental models lead to erroneous ‘tests’ and bad conclusions

33

Livestock 87 – 94 Tg CH4 yr‐1

IPCC Fig 6-02 Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler ‐ Einstein

Note Rice

Use empirical data for comparisons, not hunches

34

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/10/5448.full.pdfhttp://www.ingenia.org.uk/Content/ingenia/issues/issue22/Imperial.pdf

Gabrielli von Kármán diagram

Gaining a broader perspective is most important 

TerrestrialBiosphere

This biomantleproduces our food!

35

Practical terrestrial biosphere (zone of life) thickness = 0.0005 of earth’s radius

View from Space Shuttle at altitude of 250 miles

Look up; airliners fly at the upper biosphere boundary

Upper biosphere boundary~ 4 – 10 miles uphorizontally the length of Pullman‐Moscow highway!

36

Jetstream altitude is 23,000 to 52,000 feet

Jetstream from Space Shuttle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF27e59QU44

7

Two excellent books providing perspective

37

Fred Spier David Christian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History

Life dramatically affected the earth’s history

38

Stage 1 (3.8–2.4 Ga)

No atmospheric O2

Great Oxygenation

Event

~2,500 new of ~4,500 minerals

appeared

Biogeochemistry

Billion years

Cyanobacteria began

photosynthesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

T

Agriculture developed during a period of unusual climate stability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology39

Historical Earth Temperature

Agriculture began in ~7 places around

world 7-10 K yrs ago

Two components:Mean & Variation

Complex system dynamics are incomprehensible without computer models but modeling is really hard

Big factors driving changeThe Perfect Storm:

• Human Population Expansion

• Fresh Water Scarcity

• Soil Depletion 

• Fossil Fuel Scarcity

• Globalization

• Emerging Infectious Agents 

• Global Climate Change

• Genetic Diversity Decrease 

Tough positive and negative feedback loops with time lags link all of these factors and problem solutions

40

World map adjusted for population

Nature 439, 800 (16 February 2006) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/cartograms/

http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html

19%1.38B

Jan 2017 – 7.4 billion – net of 148 every minute

17%1.28B

4%0.33B

4%0.26B

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

http://www.census.gov/popclock/

3%0.21B

41

47%3.46B

Human population growth rates are highest in LDC’s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growthhttps://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the‐world‐factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html

Rule of 72: Population doubles in ~72 / (%rate)Zimbabwe ~ 16 years, 3% ~ 24 years

Qatar – 4.9%

1143

42

8

Big Problem: Global energy usage distribution inequity as shown by Earth at Night

43

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html

15%

4%

Bill Gate’s Personal Emissions Equation

44https://www.gatesnotes.com/2016-Annual-Letter

• P – number of people in the world

• S ‐ services used per person

• E ‐ energy to provide the service

• C ‐ carbon content of energy source

• CO2 ‐ carbon dioxide (2015 ‐ 36 billion tons)

World per capita CO2 emissions are unequal

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC 2011 datahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

497T1

1232T3

1117T

2279T5

http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=680 Benjamin D. Henning

1713T

4

45

Rank per capita(4.88T) per capita

Country rank

289T12

1217T17

US Energy: Sources to Uses 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_development#/media/File:LLNLUSEnergy2011.png

US EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) Decline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_investedhttp://www.esf.edu/efb/hall/New_Studies_EROI_final4.pdf

http://www.roboticscaucus.org/ENERGYPOLICYCMTEMTGS/Nov2012AGENDA/documents/DFID_Report1_2012_11_04-2.pdf

EROI of Global Energy Resources: Preliminary status and trends

US Energy Consumption (Quads)

1930

US Peak Oil

w/ CO2

scrubbing

“Low Hanging Fruit” at top

5:1

Ethanol

1:1

TarSands

Hydro

Wind

In ~30 years, population will reach 10 billion

World food production must increase by ~50%!

Where will that additional food come from?

U.S Census Bureau International Data Basehttp://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/

FAO Food Outlookhttp://www.fao.org/giews/english/fo/index.htm

1o Human Foodstuffs:1. Wheat                (  80%)2. Rice                     (100%)3. Coarse Grains    (  22%)2016 ?

10 Billion

7 Billion

48

Remember Rice & CH4?

9

Domestic mammals far outweigh wild mammals

49 http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1338:_Land_Mammals

Cattle

Horses

Sheep

GoatsPigs

Elephants

Humans

Data from Vaclav Smil’s The Earth’s Biosphere plus other sources

= 1,000,000 tons

http://xkcd.com/1338/

http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/maps/9‐8_m_GlobalLivestock.pdf

Livestock population density mirrors Human population

Disease density mirrors population density

50

Highest poultry densities are in the Pacific Rim

40% of global poultry production

Avian influenza H5N1 remains endemic here

51

Livestock producer education is poor in LDC’s

Education Level Number Percentage

• 90% have a primary school education or less

Can LDC producers understand the "how" and "why" of climate change mitigation sufficiently to optimize their food production practices? What happens if they don’t?

Indonesia Livestock Producers

52

53

Global arable (cultivatable) land is declining 

http://www.earth‐policy.org/books/out/out_table_of_contents

Arable land:

• 1.5 billion hectares

• Takes 0.25 hectares to feed each person 

• Maximum in early 1980’s, now declining

– erosion

– salinization

– desertification

– diversion

Google “Outgrowing the Earth” to read the on-line version

http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-Edition

Optimizing soil health is crucial to food production

http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html

Increasing and maintaining soil organic matter is key54

10

55

We are currently using arable soil 20 to 100 times faster than natural processes produce it

Crop agriculture is not sustainable without re‐integrating livestock, particularly ruminants

David Montgomery

• Professor of Geomorphology, U Washington http://gis.ess.washington.edu/grg/

• 2008 MacArthur Fellow, $500,000 “genius” award

• Viewing soil as a biological rather than as a chemical system

IMO: The future of livestock agriculture is excellent; how, where and how much we do it will change

Global water situation is tight in some areas

> 75% of flows allocated to agriculture, industry, domestic use

Unmet water needs due to lack of infrastructure (dams, piping)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/21_08_06_world_water_week.pdf56

Projected global climate change by season

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page6.php

DecJanFeb

JunJulAug

20% precipitation increase

20% precipitation decrease

The dairy cow has the highest per lb water requirement of land mammals

no precipitation change

57

Climate change consequences are already apparent in the Pacific Northwest

• More winter precipitation falling as rain instead of snow

• Increased winter streamflows

• Increased winter flood risks in transient (rain/snow mix) basins

• Reduced snow water storage, particularly in mid‐elevations 

• Earlier snow melt and peak runoff (10 to 30 days)

• Decreased late spring and summer streamflows

The Result: The paradox of more winter flooding and more summer drought

58

http://www.ef.org/westcoastclimate/D_PNW%20impacts.pdf

Ogallala‐High Plains Aquifer useful life is declining

http://www.kgs.ku.edu/HighPlains/maps/ofr2005_8_eul_400y_2000_2005.jpg

< 20 yrs

Fillingnow

Average Rainfall

33 inches

12 inches

Higher intensity wx events> More runoff, less recharge

59

Understanding and mitigating climate change effects requires a systems thinking approach

Careful critical thinking that:

• Is based on empirical scientific evidence

• Allows for the occurrence of unintended consequences

• Avoids the “silo effect”

• Avoids “framing”– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)

• Detects “illusions of explanatory depth” (IOED)

• Includes all the relevant systems

60

http://www.agroecology.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking

11

I predict that the biggest shocks on livestock from climate change will be from disease

IMO: Vector‐borne diseases will provide the nastiest surprises for livestock production

Global climate change

61

Climate change will likely expand many vector‐borne disease ranges

Small climate changes can:

• Markedly shift ranges of tick species

– Ticks are vectors of nasty bovine disease agents

• Markedly alter mosquito populations and their range

• Reduce keystone species, destabilizing vulnerable ecosystems

– Allows proliferation of invasive species

However, due to the many factors involved vector‐borne disease ecology is very complex, making prediction difficult and uncertain!

62

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future"

Who said this?

Niels Bohr, Danish physicist

not

Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra

Always check your sources!

63

My webpage has materials and links on global climate change and livestock

Google “WSU jmgay” 

Index page ‐ http://people.vetmed.wsu.edu/jmgay/courses/

Presentation:

• Increasing Climate Variability and Livestock Production:The Perfect Storm?

proceedings pdf“Identifying Trustworthy Climate Change Information”http://people.vetmed.wsu.edu/jmgay/courses/documents/ClC-IdentifyingTrustworthyClimateChangeInformation.pdf

64

“Let’s be careful out there”

65

Hill Street Blues’s Sergeant Esterhaus’s roll call close (Michael Conrad)

jmgay@wsu.eduhttp://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/courses-jmgay/