Earlier quoted context omitted.
>All the other countries in NATO are major food importers. All apart from France, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Turkey, Italy and Ireland. Interestingly the US is borderline now depending on how you measure food imports and exports.
The us could probably half it’s calories intake and be fine, if not better, from a public health perspective. The average ribeye steak you serve in your barbecue joint can feed a family of 4 in war time.
Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
171–180 of 401 posts
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time. If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.
Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry. Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However: > buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before the…
But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes it could have been so easy: All we needed to do was convince everyone in the world to behave a certain way.
individual people don't matter, they're peanuts. otoh the single biggest consumer of fossil fuels is the US DOD. and why is that, really?
It's like being in a traffic jam and complaining about the other people in the traffic jam... Dude, you're one of them.
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#174All we needed to do was stop burning fossil fuels we really are fucking dense.
There's way more to climate change than fossil fuels: consuming less and changing diet. A single cow alone requires lots of crop, water, and produces tons of methane (which is 200 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide). Fishing is another earth destroying endeavor. A single boat, a single one, practicing bottom trawling is more dangerous to the environment than the emissions of tens of thousands of cars. In a sing…
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry. Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However: > buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before the…
In the US, we have a massive grainfed meat livestock sector that in an emergency could basically all be slaughtered in favor of feeding the grain to people. But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.
Indeed, though given Trump's behaviour I have wondered what will happen when it's poorer *US states*.
Fortunately, the farmers had a word and seem to have stopped the deportation of the undocumented (illegal) immigrants who do so much farm work.
Also fortunately, the reservoirs (that weren't even connected to where the fires in SoCal were) were not actually emptied, so my worst-case scenario at the time didn't come up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_water_release_from_Lake_K...
Long may it continue that people who can say no to bad decisions, remain able to say no. Last thing anyone in the world needs with the Eurasian breadbaskets of Ukraine and Russia destroying each other's grain export capacity is the US shooting itself in both legs with an M134.
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#176All we needed to do was stop burning fossil fuels we really are fucking dense.
If only China and US could get their shit together....
There are ~200 countries, of course on average your country will be less than .5% of emissions. Thinking .5% is small enough to do nothing is exactly the kind of thinking that leads us to inaction.
So yeah, china and the US need to get their act together, but so does every other country.
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a capitalist, but the only conclusion I can arrive at is that neo liberal capitalism makes it impossible to « do the right thing ». What we have is the logical result of the incentives at play
I have come to the same conclusion, but let me ask you, how can you still be a capitalist having had that insight? Why would you support a system that you recognize makes it impossible to do the right thing even as we're dying from its consequences?
Though my version of capitalism isn’t the libertarian free market one, libertarianism will always evolve into oligarchy or something fascistic given enough time, it’s just baked into the incentives.
My personal ideology aligns with a managed capitalism, markets are created by an authority that ensures the incentives aligns with its overall goals. Mixed with very liberal social values.
I don’t know if that can survive overtime though. And that would very likely degenerate into something else when under stress.
As I said, I feel conflicted. But I appreciate the question
Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have come to the same conclusion, but let me ask you, how can you still be a capitalist having had that insight? Why would you support a system that you recognize makes it impossible to do the right thing even as we're dying from its consequences?
You're not going to do anything at all without money as a fungible exchange mechanism (a sometime measure of 'value'). Capitalists see value in things and try to generate that value. Yes, politicians and the rest of us have the job of regulating that process and sometime fail to do a good job. Do you know the right thing to do? I doubt it. You seriously do not see this as an immensely complicated issue? Finally pleas…