“I think we may just be scratching the surface of what can be achieved by combining existing knowledge and data from the climate and agriculture communities,” Lobell said. “Hopefully this will help catalyze some more effort in this area.”

http://news.discovery.com/earth/climate-change-and-corn-a-bad-combo-in-africa-110321.html

While the results of this are not promising for the staple crop in East Africa, I want to highlight the way these things came together. Often it’s cross-discipline collation or the juxtaposition of two or more pieces of information that yields useful answers. And how to do that – the skills and practices of  ”be a generalist” – aren’t much taught anymore. Bucky Fuller used to point out that the US Naval Academy once taught generalism, but it too has succumbed to the specialist notion.

The loss of generalists is increasingly expensive in lost opportunities. But because these are “forward” losses instead of direct financial losses, they don’t show up on anyone’s balance sheet.  if our society was run by generalists, or strategists, we might have noticed that a while ago. Since it’s run by economists, we’re completely unaware of the issue.

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via Major report reveals the environmental and social impact of the ‘livestock revolution’.

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