Consider the problems the world is having absorbing <5million Syrians....now multiply that refugee number by 100 to include those displaced by sea level rise, exceptional drought or flooding, and loss of historic water supplies like glaciers, and assume every country is having internal problems for the same reasons. How do you solve that issue, which is inescapable and already happening world wide?
Consider that privately, climate scientists will tell you we are way past the tipping point already, we can't avoid worsening the serious climate issues we already have, because the atmosphere is quite slow to react, so even if we cut emissions to zero tomorrow, we've got 25-50 years of things getting hotter and more acidic before it could get better.
Now, with those two related issues already beyond a tipping point, you don't think raising our emission levels exponentially while advocating closed borders will have an irreversible negative effect on the planet and humanity? I agree, his administration alone won't doom us all, but they may make the pending doom far more inescapable in just 4 years, and exacerbate the associated problems horrifically.

Monsanto is like Microsoft... they are these hulking titans of their respective industries, who work as hard as they can to stay ahead of the game, sometimes through questionable activities. However, their contributions on the whole are incredible, driving generations of progress in their respective fields through investment, research, and release of progressively more useful tools (on the whole).

There is a similar debate regarding pharmaceutical companies and their profiteering from the invention of life saving drugs... its easy to paint a company as a 'bad guy' for charging large amounts of money for medicine that a person needs to live. But is it the company's responsibility to forgo shareholder profits in order to maximally help more people with their drug, or is it the spectrum of regulations imposed by a representative government that should be entrusted with that responsibility?

GMO agriculture products that are drought tolerant, flood tolerant, self pollenating, etc etc, will likely save our buns in the next 100 years. If anything we should be doubling down on how much effort we put into GMO production and selection, to help drive a technological boom in that industry before we've mismanaged ourselves into a crisis.

I'm disappointed that he neglected to mention that sequoia can get a huge percentage of their water from fog. They are so tall that to pull water up from the roots doesn't cut it, the tugor pressure needed to pump enough water 300' up is immense, far beyond xylem and phloem. That makes them more drought resistant than other types of trees, and explains why they are found only in places that get fog regularly.

Like rain in the middle of a drought.

Thanks for this.

There are hundreds/thousands of farms in my area. I don't think a single one is >1000 acres. Hundreds of families support themselves relatively well on the income they make from the smaller farms. True, you probably can't send 3 children to college on that money, but hardly anyone could these days...that's around $150k a year for 4+ years JUST for their base education. Be real, mom and pop store owners can't afford that either.

EDIT: Oh, I see, the AVERAGE is about 1000 acres....but that includes the 1000000 acre industrial farms. What is the average acreage for a "family farm" (by which I mean it's owned by the single family that lives and works on the land and supports itself on the product of that work)?

EDIT: Actually, there are thousands of 'family farms' in my area that produce more than enough product to send 3 kids to college on >5 acres with no industrialization at all (and many many more that do over use chemicals and have destroyed many of our watersheds with their toxic runoff)....I live in Humboldt county, it's easy to make a ton of money on a tiny 'farm' here...for now.

My idea of what's sustainable or good practice is based on long term personal (>33 years personally growing vegetables using both chemical and natural fertilizers) and multiple multi generational familial experiences (both mine and neighbors) AND all literature on the subject which is unequivocal that over use of chemical fertilizers damages the land and watersheds and requires more and more chemicals and excess water every year to mitigate that compounding soil damage, or leaving the field fallow long enough to wash it clean of excess salts (which then end up in the watershed).
Fertilizers carry salts. With excessive use, salts build up. Salt buildup harms crops and beneficial bacteria. Bacteria are necessary for healthy plant growth. If you and yours don't know that and act accordingly, it's astonishing your family can still farm the same land at all, you've been incredibly lucky. You either don't over use the normal salt laden chemical fertilizers on that land, or you're lying. There's simply no other option.

EDIT: It is possible that you are getting better yields for numerous reasons...."better" crop genes (both larger crops and more resistant to insects, drought, disease, etc.), better/more fertilizers, better/more pesticides, and seeing as you're in Canada, climate change. Warmer weather would absolutely give YOU better yields of almost any crop, that's not true farther South. Better yields does not mean you aren't destroying the land, BTW. It is possible to use chemicals and insane amounts of water to grow on land that's "dead", but it takes more and more chemicals and water to do, and those chemicals don't evaporate into nothing, they run off.
If you are getting better yields every year using the same methods and amounts of additives and growing the exact same crops, I'm incredibly interested in how you pull that off.

"[the] world is actually healthier, wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, less violent than it has ever been."

Not in places like Afghanistan, Libya, Jemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, downtown Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland. Not in Greece. And I'm not entirely sure it's a better place for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who left their rural areas to become work nomads. Also not sure about the all the millions of people in Africa whose livelihood gets crushed by subsidised produce/corn from the West. Not sure about all the Indian farmers who are driven into suicide by the monopoly powers of seed suppliers. Not sure about India as a whole, now suffering from the third year in a row of a belated monsoon and horrific drought.

"Democracy means you don't everything you want, when you want it, all the time" ... "and occasionally comprise, and stay principled, but recognise that it's a long march towards progress"

He talks the talk, but even for a center-right guy, he doesn't walk the walk. Principles went out the window in Gitmo. Principles went out the window when the drivers behind the illegal war of aggression in Iraq were not prosecuted in accordance with the Nuremberg Principles. Principles went out the window when carpet surveillance pissed all over the Constitution. Principles went out the window when US military forces aid Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria just because they oppose Assad. Even mentioning principles in the face of the gruesome, drone-driven terror campaigns in at least half a dozen countries makes me want to vomit.

And don't get me started on compromise. If you ban single-payer and drop the public option before negotiations begin, that's not compromise. That's theatre meant to mislead us plebs while you add an additional layer of "market" to an already dysfunctional market, which ends up profiting the insurance companies yet again.

Here it is during a drought. Still probably pretty deadly.
http://elleeseymour.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-Strid2@31March2012.jpg

After reading some more on the subject, this has been that way for many decades, possibly longer but the history is spotty further back. The CSIRO thinks it is possibly due to the nearness of a coal seam to the rifts and/or drought.

The recent fracking has drawn attention to it, with many locals claiming it has gotten worse since the fracking. Scientists are still researching it further to see if this is true.

I don't support fracking, but some of these reports usually are about things that were pre-existing due to the natural layout of the region. However, there are some cases where it is definitely a cause of the companies fracking in the area.

For instance, a recent study proved that drinking wells in Texas and Pennsylvania were affected by the fracking company not following the correct procedures. This led to the wells being contaminated with gas. They found that there were clear cases of substandard work that led to cracked steel and concrete in the casing of the drill sites. They said in the study that if the companies had followed the correct procedures, the contamination could have been easily prevented.

More on the wells - http://www.newsweek.com/fracking-wells-tainting-drinking-water-texas-and-pennsylvania-study-finds-270735

They probably should use the same method to check the origin of the noble gases in that river.

@Khufu
and interesting (if you find wines interesting) thing to note regarding "good" or "bad" years is that is almost exclusively a european thing.

which is why california (and now washington state,among others) has consistently won top awards,and it basically comes down to weather.

california and basically the entire west coast have some of the most steady climate.whereas europes weather is far more volatile.

so a "good' year for a french wine may mean "there was no drought" or "no floods this year".

ya know,as i am writing this i am giggling to myself.the reason why i know ANY of this is because i was a captain at yesterdays on the intracoastal for years and for me to become a captain i had to pass this 300 question test specifically about wines and get a 95% or above.

here it is 20 years later and i STILL know way more about wine than i really care to,i dont even drink wine for fuck sakes!

Google tells me that our population is 10 times your continent's population. So I suspect we are much worse actors on the climate just by sheer volume.

I thought you guys were having record droughts down there? I don't follow things that closely -- I get sad and overwhelmed.

The activists who have hope and keep fighting are my heroes....

On top of that, water bottling companies be stealin' our shite, straight up Chinatown.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/bottled-water-california-drought

Your video, VICE-Flooding Fields in California’s Drought, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

tree ring and soil data

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/californias-drought-worst-1-200-years-researchers-say-n262621

How can they determine that its the worst drought in 1200 years?

*promote charging a heavy water usage fee for non-drought resistant crops, assuming we can get the vote for pay legislators to understand science. most of these legislators bitch and moan about global warming effects and they vote for shit like this.