I had no idea this happened. What a fascinating read!
A similar event happened in 1783 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
41–50 of 121 posts
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#42Earlier 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.
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...
I was trying to figure that out too.
Part of the problem is that the figures are apparently percentage of value, which might give misleading figures if a country produces a lot of its high-value requirements: producing all your own asparagus isn't much use in a famine if you still rely on 90% imported wheat.
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#43> 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?
While the empire continued until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (depending how you define "empire") the Justinian plague did effectively end the campaign to retake Italy and reunite the Mediterranean under Roman rule. But it marked the beginning of a prolonged slow decline rather than a collapse.
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#44An 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.
Food... or fresh/unpolluted water. For food, I think it's a little easier but societies that have a hard time producing would have to adjust what they eat and how they eat it. Also, less meat, less red wine, more beer and more potatoes. The latter are much more sustainable.
E.g., In Canada, we'll have to accept we can't have bananas, pineapple, kiwis, mangos any time. We'll have to stick to locally grown apples, way fewer (but higher quality) blueberries and probably eat all the things Icelanders eat like smoked fish.
There's a course on Coursera called The Nordic Diet which is about Scandinavia as a whole adjusting its national diet to eat more local produce. Talk about foresight! That's just one of the principles at least. It's a Danish-run program. E.g., They eat more lingonberries since they grow all over the place?
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#45I'm fascinated by the amount of need to undermine human suffering by more human suffering.
Hey, a good tip for you: it's all bad.
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#46Earlier 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.
Most of it is just a giant outdoor meat factory, though. Same for Ireland. Meat, fortunately, is unnecessary and very inefficient.
Every time this comes up I have to remind people that not all land that farms meat can be made arable.
There is a lot of arable land in England itself that can be used, (and, currently used for meat production); however this is not true for many parts of wales and most of Scotland. (which combined make up a about 100,000 sqkm vs Englands 130,000 sqkm)
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone hand-converted 2°C to 3.6°F and missed the decimal point, yielding 36°F. Also, almost certainly classic precision blunder--the original source material is probably using 1 significant figure but it's being reported as 2 because the calculator reported it as having 2 digits.
Or maybe it’s because 2°C is 36.8°F
Good catch they searched for a unit converter online but didn't realized they confused absolute temperature with a relative difference of temperatures.
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
One of the problems is that people normally do not want to pay for that slack. Getting them on board with spending more probably needs some convincing.
It can be done, see fairtrade coffee/cocoa. (I know that it has some problems, too, but it shows in principle that people can be persuaded to pay more for stuff, if the reason is good enough.)
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#49An 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.
Food... or fresh/unpolluted water. For food, I think it's a little easier but societies that have a hard time producing would have to adjust what they eat and how they eat it. Also, less meat, less red wine, more beer and more potatoes. The latter are much more sustainable. E.g., In Canada, we'll have to accept we can't have bananas, pineapple, kiwis, mangos any time. We'll have to stick to locally grown apples, way…
> The Nordic Diet
Need to check this out.
There is definitely a possibility to go much more local by just foraging. I ate probably tens of kilograms of golden chanterelle, bilberries (local equivalent of blueberry)& lingonberries last fall - the forests are spilling with food and a lot of it rots because people don't take advantage of it.
Healthy, free, very tasty food - and you get exercise and fresh air while foraging. Clears your head very nicely too if you do computer work. Almost makes me wish summer was over already and I could be in the woods picking mushrooms and berries.
Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive
#50An 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.
Food... or fresh/unpolluted water. For food, I think it's a little easier but societies that have a hard time producing would have to adjust what they eat and how they eat it. Also, less meat, less red wine, more beer and more potatoes. The latter are much more sustainable. E.g., In Canada, we'll have to accept we can't have bananas, pineapple, kiwis, mangos any time. We'll have to stick to locally grown apples, way…
In Norway, there is a large import tax on foods like cheese and meat, to encourage buying locally. This seems to work, as most shops only sell Norwegian produce.