Live data from Hacker News

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

accuweather.com

81–90 of 121 posts

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

#81
post #70
post #40

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 )

I guess the next time this will happen, the rain will be acidic.

We've only had industry 250 years. Give it 250 million, maybe we sort that out, or most industry moves off planet as in Jeff Bezos vision with blue origin.

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

#82

I'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.

Seems humans are programmed to seek the bad in all things, overlooking how good they have it.

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

#84

I'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.

Seems humans are programmed to seek the bad in all things, overlooking how good they have it.

I don’t think people are programmed that way.

I think there’s a disproportionate number of people who take that approach among people who consider themselves smart, maybe because they assume they know better by default. Most people don’t try to operate by thinking on that scale because it isn’t conducive to daily life and happiness, and most people are just seeking out happiness (no matter how possibly misguided their approaches might be).

I think it’s more of a lens effect. Cynicism in concentrate, my friend!

(I think a person is finally “old” when they realize old platitudes aren’t just platitudes. “Take time to stop and smell the roses” is both literal and allegorical ageless wisdom in aphorism. Wisdom we forget to apply too often for our own good)

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

#85
What would we do if this happened now?

I think the Covid response has been quite something to watch. There's obviously been some pressure on governments to put their own citizens first, sometimes to the detriment of other nations. But there's definitely been some incredible collaboration.

Would this be a situation where the 'top people' across the world put their heads together super quickly and come up with something? Cloud seeding? Underwater vegetables? More freedom to trade? Perhaps it would be harder to act as a solo nation because weather travels pretty quickly and there'd be more impetus to work together?

Really interesting to think about!

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

#86
post #25
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.

That all depends how you want to look at it. It's a fun thought experiment but extremely problematic since we're talking about the interaction of global supply chains and how other countries fair/react, which then requires countries to react, and then other countries react to that and so forth.

Could small countries grow the current plethora of fresh fruits/veg that would be technically out of season? Not at all.

Calorically adequate, yet boring, repetitive foods along with preserved? Probably.

Very, very, very few countries are at agricultural limits. Prepped and ready to go? Maybe you can argue that. A month or two of razing? They got it.

If it was a decade long issue, and be foreseeable as a decade long, I'd imagine you'd see more farming gluts of grains and easy to preserve fruits and veg. A lot of fun, exotic foods would go bye-bye. Then lots of canning. Short term, man... that's a hard call. I don't know if most countries are prepped for such shocks to the system. Some will fair better than others, but just like how Covid proved some things did better than others, don't really know until it happens. Problem would be, with huge spikes of global starvation, war is a real threat. That's going to throw some extra problems into the mix.

Meat will go up in price, but won't disappear. People like to think that animal husbandry is meaningless. Literally their poop will be black gold. Thousands upon thousands of years we relied on animal husbandry for good reason. People need to get off their vegan high horse. Meat production levels will probably maintain, maybe lower a little, but not by much. To maintain those crop production needs, because there would be a panic and lower crop rotation rates, you'll need to fertilize like hell. Depending on worldwide logistics and that country's natural resources, artificial fertilizers may not be as readily available as today. At that, the price would skyrocket due to the crazy demand and strategic stockpiling (toilet paper crazy times 100). Locally sourced fertilizers, cow/chicken/sheep/goat shit, will be more valuable and available. It's still an active industry in the USA, but small. I know there are some startups in Africa using rabbits for both meat and fertilizer production. So I assume there are plenty of places worldwide doing it. So that ramp up would not be too far off. Maybe though, the price of meat won't increase by much. If a majority of value from the animal will come from their poop, instead of meat, the meat prices might be slightly stable (still go up in a famine of course). Breed reliance would probably change. Less broilers (chickens) since you need a slightly active chicken if you're going to have them produce compost. That'll increase harvest time though as modern commercial broilers are like 8 week birds while a normal breed is like 20 weeks (depends on breed of course). Eggs would probably become a bigger staple since chickens are good at making lots of compost rather passively.

I'd bet this, pork will be the first to go up in price and by a lot. Unlike most other common livestock, a good amount of feed for pigs comes from taking food waste. They're straight up trashcans and can eat anything without worry. Chickens and ducks too depending on the farm. But you see it more in pig farmers. Famine like conditions, there would presumably be less food waste in general. Then more would be spent on pig feed, thus pork prices go up.

That and Victory Gardens will be a thing again. That'll be nice. Any home owners association or city ordinance that reframes from farming on a lawn/city limits would be told to stfu. That'll be nice too. In truth, you'll see a decent CO2 drop just because the logistics of moving food would diminish drastically. Homesteading will be a big thing again.

Generally, there are ways for people to adapt to this.

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

#87
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Many governments (including Finland) subsidize national farming for the express purpose of maintaining emergency food production capability regardless of markets. That is, governments pay people to keep farming.

Well aware. Fun fact: farming subsidies and military spending are pretty much 1:1 over here. (Around 2,7 billion €)

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

#88
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot eat money therefore exporting only works for as long as those supplies are not needed.

The fact that so many developing countries are massive exporters of food and goods while their own citizens are lacking easily disproves this.

"Not needed" by the people of doing the large-scale economical decisions, obviously. There is, of course, some level of poverty where the non-deciding people get fed up (heh) and revolt, but you have to just keep slightly above it, and things will be fine, as the most of the human history shows.

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

#89
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’d probably handle it much better. I’m generally a pessimist but I have to give modern civilization some credit; food can be shipped over huge distances and plagues handled much better than in the past.

Not my intent to be snarky in posting this Did you miss the part where the federal government of the U.S. went around seizing shipments of PPE to the point that governors had to facilitate private deals and then guard them with troops and secrecy of logistics to supply their own states? As one member of the presidential envoy stated "they're our masks" - not for the serfs of the nation, apparently. As much as I'd lik…

It was indeed a shitshow, as you point out. But I would still argue that the most incompetent mishandling of the situation today is better than the most competent handling possible back then, because we have electronic communications, germ theory of disease, it’s just a different world now. That’s not to minimize how abysmal the trump reaction to covid was. But we have built in advantages now.

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

#90
post #81
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the next time this will happen, the rain will be acidic.

We've only had industry 250 years. Give it 250 million, maybe we sort that out, or most industry moves off planet as in Jeff Bezos vision with blue origin.

Moving industry offworld is actually not a bad idea. Especially to the moon.

Transport costs Moon-surface -> Earth-surface are ... non-intuitive to say the least.

Post reply on HN