The statistics that are given in these articles make the situation sound a lot worse than it is. At least in this article they say “traded food”. The point being that less than 10% of global production is traded. The world could survive Ukraine not exporting without too much problem. The big unknown is how many farmers reduced their plantings due to higher fertilizer prices. When you add multiple factors like these together then you really do end up with a food shortage.
The Coming Food Catastrophe
411–420 of 634 posts
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
"diatomaceous earth" This is also a suspected carcinogen. I'd be careful about putting it on food, even if you do wash it.
Yes, though if you're eating your emergency store of food rations because the world has ended, you probably won't live long enough to die of cancer.
There are alternatives.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was just researching this and the new Enphase IQ8 microinverters will run without grid power. You are correct though it is common for microinverters to require grid power to operate, which seems pretty surprising!
It's for two reasons. 1. Not killing linemen by backfeeding power 2. Your appliances don't like brownouts and voltage dips whenever a cloud passes overhead. Try to run a house without a power buffer and you'll burn up power controllers all over your house. Unfortunately the battery market is extremely tight due to so many car manufacturers trying to switch to BEVs ASAP and stressing the raw materials markets. That an…
I wonder if it’s possible to retrofit a Tesla to work as a bootleg Powerwall in tandem with residential solar - should brownouts become a common thing.
My Google-fu isn’t strong enough to find anything on the topic that isn’t on the level of “tremendously sketchy YouTube video” and I’m not about to risk my car and house experimenting off the back of that sort of thing.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair point. Though my understanding is that ethanol as a fuel additive is largely an anti-knock lead substitute. Alcohol was the originally-proposed solution, before the creation and adoption of tetraethyl lead. Apparent cost advantages drove the adoption of the latter. True costs proved somewhat greater. My read is that the "biofuel" branding of fuel ethanol is actually a misdirection, though I don't have a good sou…
I think it can be used for that, but it is also used to cut gasoline and therefore make a single barrel of oil go further. Normally ethanol is less than 10 percent, but I think it can be as high as 15 or 20 percent at the pump right now. Modern engines can handle it just fine, but it does slightly reduce fuel economy.
Depending on what state you're in in the Midwest you can sometimes get E85 gas (85% ethanol). It's always clearly marked because not all modern engines can handle that high of a concentration.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#415The article actually has four solutions at the bottom. Compared to the severity of the problem, all four solutions are surprisingly simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple and straightforward. 1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol. 2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel. 3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories! 4. Break the Black…
There is a major fuel shortage so you are just robbing peter to pay Paul. Also fertiliser will be the next problem, we won't be able to grow enough to cover the loss of Russian and Ukraine exports next year. And meat as a source of protein will become a luxury for all those in power.
The western government's had to know this would happen otherwise they are grossly incompetent at their job.
If the west had had the means to project enough force to break the blockade or do anything directly in Ukraine they should have would have done so already. The losses will be unbearable for conflict adverse populations.
Europe can not survive without russian energy and so won't stop buying it, hypocrisy of the highest order. All and mean all of these bureaucractic lunatics are so far detached that I don't think they have an ounce off humanity left.
Starvation is now an inevitability. Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes me think of The West Wing back in 2005 with Josh and Santos arguing about whether to pander to Iowa about ethanol subsidies. Josh won, Santos pandered. I guess if you want this to change, you've first got to stop Iowa being so ludicrously influential in the presidential election cycle.
given current prices, is there enough incentive to grow food for export?
I imagine some would consider a subsidy more reliable than a market price.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#417The article actually has four solutions at the bottom. Compared to the severity of the problem, all four solutions are surprisingly simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple and straightforward. 1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol. 2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel. 3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories! 4. Break the Black…
There is a major fuel shortage so you are just robbing peter to pay Paul. Also fertiliser will be the next problem, we won't be able to grow enough to cover the loss of Russian and Ukraine exports next year. And meat as a source of protein will become a luxury for all those in power. The western government's had to know this would happen otherwise they are grossly incompetent at their job. If the west had had the mea…
> Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo.
I find this very hard to believe. Things are much worse in Russia and for Russia than they are in Europe or the United States right now, with the future looking bleak.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about? I've kept bags of rice for years without any issues.
What he said is generally true [1], so you must have either stored your rice in an environment that prevented them from hatching, or got lucky. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_weevil
I've never seen anything like that and I've kept rice around for years as well. Do you live in a poor country where they don't have proper food protection agencies? If things like that hatched in food people bought from stores that would make the news, I've seen it in the news before so it can't happen that often.
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
>for good people yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed. Looks like win-win to me
>It means general population of the country would be fed.
Nothing indicates that. If anything, what we know about Russia and Assad allows to reasonably suspect that it is only pro-Assad regions will be fed while others will be subjected to the rising prices and shortages.
>Looks like win-win to me
That win for Russia, Assad and pro-Assad population comes at the cost of increased prices and shortages for the Middle East and Africa at least (the regions which directly imported from Ukraine), as well as rising prices across the world - all that being the direct result of the Russian war hitting availability of tens of million tons of Ukraine produced food. I.e. there were 2 alternatives - 1) tens of millions tons of Ukraine produced food would normally be available to the whole world vs. 2) Russia delivers only 500K tons to its Syrian allies. As we see Russia used military force to enforce the alternative 2).
>
Food isn't the weapon. Using military force to intentionally create food unavailability is the weapon.
It seems like you intentionally missing the point that Russia is using its military force in Ukraine to :
1. limit the availability of the Ukraine produced food on the international market
2. put as much as possible of what is produced by Ukraine under Russian control
and thus to allow Russia to create food unavailability at will at the place and time of its choosing.
Btw, interesting parallel with Nazi Germany - it wanted to grab those fertile lands for itself and to clean them of Slavic people, and Russia similarly wants those lands for itself and to clean them of Ukrainians (and Russia has been actually succeeding at that more than Germany back then as Russia has already forced more than 12 million Ukrainians out of those lands).
Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
Make up your mind - it is either in Syria or ... where? 500kt is not a small amount
that question is for putin to answer – where did he take it?