One of the consequences of a Grand Minimum coupled with a Little Ice Age is the long term impact on food production. As the cool settles in and the ground freezes food-producing land becomes scarcer, food-growing seasons become shorter, and the world becomes a much more arid and less hospitable place. Food shortages and social unrest has followed previous cold periods and will again.
As I have written before climate change in America’s food basket will be one of the early indicators that the next grand minimum has arrived and the consequences are emanate.
The continental U.S. has been cooling over the last 16 years, at a rate of minus 3.8°F per century rate.
The NOAA/NCDC climate record reveals, the breadbasket areas of American have been cooling for a longer period – 17 years. The images below reflect the empirical evidence for the primary U.S. corn growing areas., which is cooling at a minus 4.0°F/century rate.
If this cooling trend were to continue, it would spell disaster for the world’s hungry. Let’s hope ‘the pause’ in global warming does not last much longer as it unfortunately seems to project a cooling regime over the U.S.
Here is the February forecast:
Although local regions don’t have to match, cooling over the past 16-17 years, since 1997-1998, fits the turning point for global temperatures as well (even if those have been cooling at a lesser rate), seen along with much else in http://img103.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=28747_expanded_overview3_122_966lo.jpg . Greater global cooling should be after this cycle’s solar maximum finishes, as it doesn’t appear strong enough for very much of an echoing El Nino afterwards in the subsequent minimum.
This is a copy of an old very long comment. You may use it as you wish.
Note GMOs because they are genetically identical either ALL survive or ALL fail, at least in theory. This is devastating if the seed companies and the farmers guess wrong, if pests invade or the climate is bad. Loss of genetic diversity is the reason I do not like GMOs especially broad regions relying on identical genetics.
FOOD and POLITICS
The second reason I absolutely HATE corn=> ethanol biofuel is it has caused starvation while the fat cats pocket the profit. (some of the links are old.)
THIS WAS THE SET-UP
Amstutz was VP of Cargill. He wrote the WTO Agreement on Ag in 1995. (Even Clinton admitted that agreement lead to starvation and riots of 2008) Amstutz then wrote the Freedom to Farm act in 1996. This law was later called the Freedom to Fail act as US farmers over produced and grain prices dropped like a rock. Grain traders used the surplus of very cheap grain to bankrupt farmers around the world. This was actually a KNOWN US policy as Clinton has just admitted.
Amstutz was also responsible for wiping out the US grain reserve system. How to fight a food crisis: To blunt the ravages of drought and market greed, we need a national grain reserve… the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act abolished our national system of holding grain in reserve.
Amstutz then went to work for Goldman Sachs. This has always puzzled me until I finally ran across the last piece of the puzzle.
That is where things get really interesting. This is stolen from WANTtoKNOW. Info: Excerpts of Key Financial News Articles in Major Media
The first articles states:
NOW we know WHY Goldman Sachs hired Dan Amstutz!
The second Article states:
Here is the real attitude of these sons of syphilitic jackals:
Dan Amstutz was president of the North American Export Grain Association.
They even named an award after the B@$t@rd!
More on Biofuel, starvation and profit:
The possible consequences were clearly communicated in a Senate briefing a week before initial passage of the Senate bill and 6 months before final approval of the final House-Senate bill.
Here’s a bit from a June 13, 2007 Senate briefing given by Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute:
To add insult to injury Congress did not even see if biofuel actually saves on the use of oil. It does not! David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell found it takes more fossil fuel to produce biofuel than is recovered:
* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
* soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
* sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
WHO PROFITS?
Being Like Soros in Buying Farmland Reaps Annual Gains of 16%
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-10/being-like-soros-in-buying-farm-land-lets-investors-reap-16-annual-gains.html
[US] Farmland reaps high investment returns
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/us-column-yourmoney-farmland-investment-idUSBRE82I0SZ20120319
Credit Suisse: The Hunt for Land Has Already Started
https://infocus.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=284894&coid=162&lang=EN
Rothschild cashes in by Investing in Farmland
http://davidgarnerconsulting.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/rothschild-cashes-in-by-investing-in-farmland/
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Archer Daniels Midland Co (who capitalized on ethanol manufacture)
Starvation, Obesity, and Corporate Welfare: Archer Daniels Midland and U.S. Policy
http://www.emergingmarketsoutlook.com/?p=1469
ADM’s Largess Preserved Ethanol Break, Study Says
Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), the single largest beneficiary of a controversial federal ethanol tax subsidy, contributed more than $3 million in unregulated “soft money” to Republican and Democratic national party committees during the past 10 years
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/keyraces98/stories/keycash061198.htm
More on ADM: So You Want to Buy a President?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/president/players/andreas.html
Ethanol: The latest Incarnation of Snake Oil
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/Ethanol-The-Latest-Incarnation-Of-Snake-Oil.html
Analysis: U.S. bankers say, love or hate it, ethanol here to stay
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/05/us-usa-ethanol-farmbankers-idINBRE88413O20120905
ADM profits soar 550 percent as ethanol margins improve
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2010/08/04/adm-profits-soar-550-percent-as-ethanol-margins-improve/
Cargill (Privately held Grain Trader)
Record profits for Cargill
http://www.familybusinessmagazine.com/index.php?/news/single/record_profits_for_cargill/
Monsanto
Monsanto (85% held by mutual funds)
Monsanto Extortion Letter
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Monsanto-Extortion-Letter12nov98.htm
2012: Monsanto posts record $8.6B in sales
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2007/10/08/daily35.html
2012: Monsanto posts record second quarter, sales jump 15 percent
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/04/us-monsanto-results-idUSBRE8330JI20120404
2012: Monsanto 3Q profit soars, maintains year view
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/monsanto-q-profit-soars-maintains-year-view/article_9cf34af6-c053-11e1-bf24-0019bb30f31a.html
Food fight: The business of biotechnology
http://themolokainews.com/food-fight/food-fight-the-business-of-biotechnology/
Reblogged this on Conservative Free Thinkers.