El momento en que Putin enfureció a Trump

AXIOS.- Earlier this year in the thick of his election campaign, Vladimir Putin released a propaganda video promoting Russia's "invincible" new generation of nuclear weapons.

Why it matters: One scene in particular caught President Trump's attention, according to sources with direct knowledge. The motion graphic in Putin's video appeared to show missiles raining down on Florida — the home of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club.

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Trump stayed publicly silent. But privately, he raged. He told aides he understood this was Putin playing up to the crowds for his election but even so it was "over the line," said a source familiar with Trump's private comments.

Trump lashed out at the Russian president in a phone call, according to sources with direct knowledge. A source with knowledge of the president's conversations with Putin told me this direct criticism from Trump was unprecedented in their recollection. "Usually it's a bit of a love fest," in their phone calls, the source said.

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The call happened on Tuesday, March 20. You might remember this call; it was the one in which the Washington Post revealed that Trump had ignored his aides' advice printed on note cards — "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" — and went ahead and congratulated Putin on his election victory.

In the source's recollection, Trump told Putin he thought it was "outrageous" that he'd put out the nuclear weapons video.

Trump said, "I called up Theresa [May] and Angela [Merkel] and they agree with me," the source recalled.

"And the other day, I saw you say you need a new arms deal," Trump told Putin, in the source's recollection. "So I guess that was just election talk. I'm glad to hear you weren't serious about it."

Then Trump added: "I’ve already increased defense spending, modernized our nuclear weapons...We can do more, so if you want to do an arms race you’ll lose."

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Más CO2, please: con el doble de carbono la producción agrícola global subiría al 124%

Un estudio reciente de modelización sobre el pasado, presente y futuro de la producción global agrícola (trigo, maíz, arroz y soja) indica que con un clima glacial y menos CO2 (200 ppm en vez de las 400 ppm actuales) obtendríamos tan solo el 49% de la producción actual. En las condiciones climáticas y de CO2 (280 ppm) de la época preindustrial obtendríamos el 82%. En un futuro con 2 grados más de temperatura y 560 ppm de CO2 obtendríamos el 115% y en un futuro con 4 grados más y 800 ppm subiríamos al 124%.| Antón Uriarte

Carbon plants nutrition and global food security
The European Physical Journal Plus

Abstract

To evaluate the effects of carbon nutrition on agricultural productivity, a physiological-process-based crop simulation model, driven by the 1961-1990 monthly climate data from global FAO dataset, was developed and applied to four crops (wheat, maize, rice and soybean --WMRS) which account for 64% of the global caloric consumption of humans. Five different temperatures and CO2 scenarios (current; glacial; pre-industrial; future_1 with 560 ppmv for CO2 and +2 °C for temperature; and future_2 with 800 ppmv for CO2 and +4 °C) were investigated. The relative values of WMRS global productions for past and future scenarios were, respectively, 49% of the present-day scenario for glacial, 82% for pre-industrial, 115% for future_1 and 124% for future_2. A sensitive growth of productivity of future scenarios (respectively to 117% and 134%) was observed if the northward shift of crops was allowed, and a strong increase was obtained without water limitation (from 151% to 157% for the five scenarios) and without biotic and abiotic stresses (from 30% to 40% for WMRS subject to the current scenario). Furthermore since the beginning of the Green Revolution (roughly happened between the '30s and the '50s of the twentieth century) production losses due to sub-optimal levels of CO2 and to biotic and abiotic stresses have been masked by the strong technological innovation trend still ongoing, which, in the last century, led to a strong increase in the global crop production (+400%-600%). These results show the crucial relevance of the future choices of research and development in agriculture (genetics, land reclamation, irrigation, plant protection, and so on) to ensure global food security.