Farmers who plant more crops

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2006

Farmers who plant more crops and till the land less can increase irrigation coverage and have a profound effect on climate, suggest scientists from the Lawrence Livermore (Calif.) National Laboratory. "Nearly all models used to predict climate changes either ignore agriculture altogether or assume that farmers have behaved the same way throughout time," says researcher David Lobell.

"In reality, farmers are changing rapidly in response to new technologies, growth in demand, and other factors. This study suggests that these changes may have important cooling effects, especially at local scales."