I will say it again this program needs to be fully funded. But I do wonder if the solution to this is genetic engineering.
Corn and potatoes are well adapted to the areas people live. Both are incredibly calorie dense with a high number of calories per acre. All GMO foods in existence now are further optimized to grow for the present sunlight and UV conditions.
What research has been done on creating GMO foods that are optimized to grow in low levels of sunlight and high levels of UV?
Ideally there would exist a variety of nuclear winter crops that are optimized to grow in those conditions. But there might also be no surviving seeds that are optimized for a normal environment.
It should be possible to breed out or splice in kill switch genes that slowly disables nuclear winter genes after a few harvests. That way the food is optimized to grow every year as the environment changes. Eventually deleting their nuclear winter genes or allowing their post-winter genes to dominate.
What I want to know is with genetic engineering is it possible to preprogram our food to adapt to the changing conditions from the beginning to the end? Can we bake everything into the potato? Is there a limit to how much we can optimize low light level, UV and drought resistant crops?
If agriculture science has no incentive to develop these crops now and it would be impossible to develop them after a nuclear war then should the government step in to fund the science?
I think we need more dystopian movies to get nuclear winter taken as seriously as other existential threats.
I would also argue that nuclear winter lead to the late Bronze Age collapse and collapsed civilization again in 536. Maybe we can avoid collapse next time.
I will say it again this program needs to be fully funded. But I do wonder if the solution to this is genetic engineering.
Corn and potatoes are well adapted to the areas people live. Both are incredibly calorie dense with a high number of calories per acre. All GMO foods in existence now are further optimized to grow for the present sunlight and UV conditions.
What research has been done on creating GMO foods that are optimized to grow in low levels of sunlight and high levels of UV?
Ideally there would exist a variety of nuclear winter crops that are optimized to grow in those conditions. But there might also be no surviving seeds that are optimized for a normal environment.
It should be possible to breed out or splice in kill switch genes that slowly disables nuclear winter genes after a few harvests. That way the food is optimized to grow every year as the environment changes. Eventually deleting their nuclear winter genes or allowing their post-winter genes to dominate.
What I want to know is with genetic engineering is it possible to preprogram our food to adapt to the changing conditions from the beginning to the end? Can we bake everything into the potato? Is there a limit to how much we can optimize low light level, UV and drought resistant crops?
If agriculture science has no incentive to develop these crops now and it would be impossible to develop them after a nuclear war then should the government step in to fund the science?
I think we need more dystopian movies to get nuclear winter taken as seriously as other existential threats.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uoErk_AIsDU
I would also argue that nuclear winter lead to the late Bronze Age collapse and collapsed civilization again in 536. Maybe we can avoid collapse next time.