Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive • Hacker News Board

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#31

Post by waihtis » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

zelos wrote: post #25

waihtis wrote: post #7

An event like this, or anything else with a significant impact on food production is something many people should be absolutely prepared for. A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? Always be cognizant of events that are improbable but have a high impact on survival.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

Unfortunately I don't have a good answer, but I suspect it doesn't need to be a 0 or 1 situation -- having a decent percentage of the needs covered is better than having very little.

Unfortunately a trend I'm seeing in my country is that some people are calling for crippling the in-country farming industry because it is "inefficient" due to subsidization and would be cheaper to import food from elsewhere. The trend should be upwards, reducing dependence on importing and focus on local produce. Gut feeling is also that it would be more ecologically efficient although I don't have any concrete numbers on it.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#32

Post by jhoechtl » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:35 AM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #31

zelos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

Unfortunately I don't have a good answer, but I suspect it doesn't need to be a 0 or 1 situation -- having a decent percentage of the needs covered is better than having very little. Unfortunately a trend I'm seeing in my country is that some people are calling for crippling the in-country farming industry because it is "inefficient" due to subsidization and would be cheaper to import food from elsewhere. The trend s…

The strive for efficiency brought to us by lean management made us terribly vulnerable to supply chain breaches.

I think it is overdue to recognize a degree of slack as a necessity rather than a nuisance.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#33

Post by seszett » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:40 AM UTC

indemnity wrote: post #30

zelos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

The Netherlands exports 10 times as much food as the UK with 1/10 of the arable land. In the event of a crisis I am sure the UK would be able to ramp up their production and become more efficient.

The Netherlands food industry absolutely depends on imported oil though, so that might not be a good example of self-sufficiency.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#34

Post by vkou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #7

An event like this, or anything else with a significant impact on food production is something many people should be absolutely prepared for. A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? Always be cognizant of events that are improbable but have a high impact on survival.

> A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food.

Which countries are those? Because I'm pretty sure that no developed country is dependent on importing food to meet the basic caloric needs of its population.

Also, a fair amount of food gets fed to animals, which are incredibly inefficient at turning grain calories into meat calories.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#35

Post by vkou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

zelos wrote: post #25

waihtis wrote: post #7

An event like this, or anything else with a significant impact on food production is something many people should be absolutely prepared for. A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? Always be cognizant of events that are improbable but have a high impact on survival.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

UK food production minus exports is 55% of the food consumed in the UK. [1]

Turn off the exports, and you're going to get close to self-sufficient. If the EU disappeared tomorrow, I doubt the UK would starve.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/food-statistics-poc...

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#36

Post by dragonelite » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #7

An event like this, or anything else with a significant impact on food production is something many people should be absolutely prepared for. A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? Always be cognizant of events that are improbable but have a high impact on survival.

Imaging countries generating a big percentage of their energy with solar panels it will be chaos in those nations.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#37

Post by ummonk » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:56 AM UTC

> the 6th-century pandemic was still responsible for destroying at least one-third of the eastern Roman Empire population, leading to its collapse.

Say what? What possible connection could there be between the plague of Justinian and the collapse of the Roman Empire several hundred years later?

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#38

Post by dragonelite » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:56 AM UTC

modwest wrote: post #3

i read this and think, well small wonder Christianity persisted all this time. the baseline level of suffering they endured is something most of us reading this will never know in our lifetimes, if we’re lucky. (though the hounds of climate change howl outside our doors) skies go dark, plagues. it’s literally biblical. what comfort could anyone turn to when it seemed like the very land and sky around them wanted them…

You could at least say we have made material progress, but as one of the millennial generation. I have already seen like 3 major economic crashes, the west devolving into neo feudalism with how much house prices and rent has skyrocketed. We are now living through what would have been a plague like situation, if it wasn't for the technological progress we made.

Imaging not knowing what we know today yeah people would have said God has forsaken us, what sins have we done to receive the wrath of God.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#39

Post by waihtis » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:57 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #34

waihtis wrote: post #7

An event like this, or anything else with a significant impact on food production is something many people should be absolutely prepared for. A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? Always be cognizant of events that are improbable but have a high impact on survival.

> A bulk of countries, including where I live, are completely dependant on importing food. Which countries are those? Because I'm pretty sure that no developed country is dependent on importing food to meet the basic caloric needs of its population. Also, a fair amount of food gets fed to animals, which are incredibly inefficient at turning grain calories into meat calories.

Many will be, since you have to factor that it is not only the raw produce of food that needs to be calculated in the equation, but also all inputs needed in producing that food, e.g. fuel, fertilizers, equipment, energy.

Take Finland as an example (where I live.) In pure food output terms, we produce 80% of our consumption within the country, and import 20%. However, the means of production are very much dependent on importing - for example, energy from Russia. As a comparison, the import to export ratio for pure food output is only 50% in Sweden.

It is quite more complex than just looking at the output, and it wouldn't be uncommon to be caught with your pants down in a crisis situation. We had a minor scandal over here during COVID where the government National Emergency Supply Agency claimed to be 'all good' with the highly increased need for medical equipment - except turns out a lot of the protective equipments such as masks had been rotting in the various warehouses to the point they were unusable.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#40

Post by pikzel » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:57 AM UTC

Every time I think about the climate and events like these, I'm reminded of when it rained for two million years - "About 232 million years ago, during a span known as the Carnian age, it rained almost everywhere. After millions of years of dry climates, Earth entered a wet period lasting one million to two million years." (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03699-7)