The Sun reports that in London, some supermarkets are rationing purchases of vegetables like lettuce, which is in short supply due to Southern European crop failures.
SALAD SHORTAGE What is the 2017 vegetable shortage, which supermarkets are rationing broccoli and lettuce and what’s the cause of the crisis?
Tesco and Sainsbury’s are rationing iceburg lettuces and broccoli as cold weather in the Med causes a vegetable shortage.
BY ELLIE FLYNN 4th February 2017, 2:29 pm
THESE are dark times times for British vegetable lovers.
A veggie shortage plaguing UK supermarkets has worsened – with Tesco and Sainsbury’s now forced to ration iceburg lettuces and broccoli.
Customers will only be allowed a maximum of three lettuces per visit after poor growing conditions in Europe caused a shortage.
Why is there a vegetable shortage?
Poor growing conditions in Europe – mostly Italy and Spain – has meant there is a lack of vegetable stock.
This comes from a combination of flooding, cold weather and poor light levels.
In winter months Spain’s Murcia region supplies 80 per cent of Europe’s fresh produce.
But the area has suffered its heaviest rainfall in 30 years – meaning 70 per cent of the growing fields are unuseable.
Italy has also suffered a cold snap – meaning the region is having to import vegetables they usually export at this time of year.
The effects of shortages are particularly notable in Britain, which imports an estimated 50 per cent of its vegetables and 90 per cent of its fruit.
…
Why do I describe this as a possible early taste of Maunder Minimum like conditions? As WUWT has reported, solar activity has been unusually low this cycle, and appears to be trending downwards, leading to predictions we are entering a new solar grand minimum.
While the connection between solar activity and weather is controversial, in Europe, Solar Grand Minima appear to be associated with cold, rainy weather, and growing season difficulties.
Consider this description of the Little Ice Age, one of the most brutal periods of which coincided with the Maunder Minimum (1645 – 1715). The description is from Hubert Lamb, founded of the Climatic Research Unit.
Hubert Lamb said that in many years, “snowfall was much heavier than recorded before or since, and the snow lay on the ground for many months longer than it does today.” In Lisbon, Portugal, snowstorms were much more frequent than today; one winter in the 17th century produced eight snowstorms. Many springs and summers were cold and wet but with great variability between years and groups of years. Crop practices throughout Europe had to be altered to adapt to the shortened, less reliable growing season, and there were many years of dearth and famine (such as the Great Famine of 1315–1317, but that may have been before the Little Ice Age).
Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
Obviously in today’s connected world high speed transport will soon solve the shortage in England. It is possible to fly or ship vast quantities of food from other regions to make up for any lack.
However this unexpected food shortage should be a wakeup call to Europe and the world, that there are potential climate problems other than global warming which should occupy some of their attention.
If current conditions worsen, and crop losses in Europe and other Northern growing regions become the norm, at the very least poor people will begin to suffer from the impact of rising prices.
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It is Gaia protesting Brexit and Trump/s
I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING.
I quit growing a garden three years ago after trying for three years with diminishing success. Climate has a lot to do with it.
It’s getting colder.
Eric
British children, who don’t know what snow looks like, are heartbroken that they won’t know what broccoli looks like either.
I am currently in Austria where there is no shortage of the wretched stuff
Of more interest is that last week we went to Vienna and enjoyed the first significant snow that city had seen in four years. Any Brits reading this will be happy to know that the local transportation system completely fell apart because of the snow event in the time honoured fashion that we thought only Britain enjoyed
Tonyb
it is WINTER…so why the hell everyones moaning about lettuce is frankly amusing.
have a laugh
and theres a good one on broccoli on the same website;-)
http://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/02/05/reports-of-widespread-rioting-across-uk-takes-government-by-surprise/
You don’t live in Southern Arizona and California where growing winter vegetables is a significant part of the economy, I even saw a large field of carrots while traveling East on Highway 95, somebody trying something new. If we got the kind of weather that is hitting southern Spain and the Mediterranean currently, it would be a disaster possibly in billion dollar terms.
If vegetables leave here bound for Britain and Europe, they will be expensive there and cause prices to rise here.
In the 1680s 25% of all Scots died from cold impacted harvests
The Great Famine of 1695–97 affected present Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden as a result of cold impacted harvests. Some 30-35% of Finns died.
Cooling was global indeed.
What looks like 1684 was a very harsh winter indeed:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CentralEnglandTempSince1659%201100pixel.gif
(another excellent graphic from climate4you).
Where is it a temperature series of, please.
Oops, Central England.
I wonder how many of those sites are urban compromised, as well. !
Chris Hanley February 7, 2017 at 10:13 pm: “another excellent graphic from climate4you”
WR: Indeed. Interesting in this graphic is the fact that ‘modern warming’ is visible especially in winter temperatures. This could reflect more Southwestern winds in recent winters, instead of winds from the (wintercold) North West, North and East. If so, ‘winter warming’ in England reflects more a regional pattern than a ‘global warming’. As the sea in the Southwest is warmer than the sea in the North and Northwest and also warmer than the land in winter in the East, the Earth (sea) doesn’t have to be warmed to show higher winter temperatures in England when the wind patterns change.
The above graph (Chris Hanley February 7, 2017 at 10:13 pm) shows a downturn in the CET temperatures in the recent years.
A closer look reveals that the maximum (August) and minimum (February) annual temperatures (the CET is a good proxy for the western Europe) have been on a down-trend for nearly two decades.
The observed cooling trend is entirely consistent with decline in the solar activity since the apparent ending of the recent solar grand maximum.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-F-A.gif
OMG you all, its one season a trend it does not make, calm down. You are all starting to sound like the nuts on the other side. When we see three or more low cycles in the sun and we have a 1.5 to 3 degree change in temperature to the down side than you can declare the next LIA, till then slow down its weather.
I have not said or even I don’t think we are heading for a new LIA, but if you ask something akin to the Dalton minimum in the early 1800s is most likely.
Since there are two contentious factors often considered: CO2 and solar activity, and CO2 isn’t falling and solar activity is, not just sunspot count, but also magnetic field strength
http://hmi.stanford.edu/hminuggets/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Watson-fig1.jpg
the decline in the CET’s two extremes (high & low) is entirely consistent with decline in the solar activity.
What’s a cold impacted harvest? Is it when the crops get squashed somehow by the cold weather? But then, again, is it a cold, impacted harvest or a cold-impacted harvest?
There are several bad things that can happen in cold weather to crops:
A) Fresh vegetables; like lettuce do not tolerate being frozen. Since cold air pools in low spots, such as fields surrounded by forests or buildings or any combo thereof; frost sensitive vegetables can be killed or severely damaged, even when ambient weather temperatures are above freezing.
• a) Even when plants survive cold periods, the leaves may be damaged by ice or frozen rain storms. Very few customers, especially amongst the nouveau vegetarians, buy damaged looking plants or plant leaves. Yes, snow crushed plants, where the larger leaves are flattened to the ground, fall into this category.
• b) NB Snow can be a protective cover from harsh freezes. i.e. lettuce covered by snow will survive the following coldest night. Root crops, e.g. potatoes left in the ground under snow cover may not be frozen during the winter, risky though.
B) In the brassica, broccoli/cabbage, world, the plants are much more tolerant of chilly weather. But when freezing weather or consistently low temperatures occur; their rate of growth slows or stops. After all, broccoli is the flower buds forming and few plants like to flower when it is freaking cold.
C) Many plants do not tolerate their roots either freezing or sitting in cold stagnant water. In both cases, frozen or root rot kills the roots and the crop dies. The latter danger is more prevalent for cold hardy plants, e.g. grapes, fruit trees that would survive the ground freezing but cannot stand having their roots stay wet and cold for long periods.
D) Plants in the legume family of peas tolerate cool weather very well, in that they produce the sweetest crops in cool weather. But hard cold, less than -1°C, (<30°F) damages and slow the plant greatly reducing the crop. Temperatures less than -3°C, (<27°F) can kill the entire plant.
E) Grain crops and other crops, e.g. grapes, pole beans, fruits and even some corn varieties, require a certain length of warm period between the last frost in spring and the first frosts in autumn to properly ripen. Rye and barley are raised in the most Northern countries because they tolerate shorter growing seasons; but seasons too short for rye and barley do occur with a corresponding failure of the grain crop entirely.
• a) Wild rice (Zizania palustris) is another grain from the grass family and is cooked similarly to regular rice (I often combine them before cooking, ratio 1/4 cup wild rice to 1 cup regular rice). The wild rice is still bran coated so it does benefit from a few hours soak before cooking with regular rice that has the bran removed.
• b) Wild rice does not have gluten, so can not make risen breads by itself. Northern wild rice, which is the variety referenced above, tolerates very cold long winters and is harvested throughout southern and coastal Canada.
F) Long periods of very cool-cold days that are also overcast, can delay many growing plants that depend on abundant sunlight.
G) Ice storms, or heavy wet snow storms can damage many upright plants; e.g. trees.
H) Cold weather, especially cold wet weather during flowering periods minimizes any possibility of pollination by insects.
I) Hard freezes during flower bud development (swelling and expansion), may kill all of the developing flowers on cold hardy plants; e.g. peach, apple, cherry, plum trees.
• a) Hard freezes will kill most fleshy vegetable plants; e.g. squash, corn, tomato, pepper, potato, beans, etc. Pepper (chili peppers) are raised as annuals in colder areas, but the plants can live and produce peppers for years if brought inside to a sunny window. Just keep the peppers picked so the plant keeps flowering, much like a rose bush.
Is that enough for a start?
ATheoK – thank you – great post.
My maternal grandfather raised a small orchard in Missouri, in a region known for late frosts. To keep the trees from coming out of winter hibernation too early, he would cut blocks of ice from the frozen ponds and bury them near the roots. Trees sample the soil temperature at the roots and hibernate/”wake up” at a certain threshold. A greening tree caught in a late frost would survive, but would be useless for fruit that year.
When rainfall and cold weather makes crops impossible to plant or thrive and early frosts kill the crops…
Maybe Mosher and Zeke can console them with virtual Best Salad? It really is warmer you know.
“Chicken shadow soup ” Hang chicken so shadow is across cauldron of boiling water for 30 minutes. Serve without garnishments.
michael
Sounds delicious, do you have more recipe’s.
Moose track soup- go out find moose track in the snow scoop up boil till done season with pine needles and birch bark to taste for extra flavor use squirrel or rabbit tracks.
Nail and nail soup. Boil nail parings into soup then season with a rusty nail.
There’s always the old standby, rock soup.
Oddly enough, my brothers and I discovered while young that white bread with mayonnaise (aioli) and seasoned with salt and pepper, taste remarkably like a chicken sandwich. Add a leaf or two of lettuce or spinach if available.
Explanation:
During our earlier years, my Father was paid once a month. The following Thursday we would go grocery shopping, for the month. Perishables like bread and lunch meats would be bought weekly, if there was enough money.
By the end of the month, money would be short for lunch meats, but we always had lots of that “Wonder Bread”; a very light fluffy cotton like bread that was very cheap per slice.
One morning, I started making lunches and put mayonnaise on the bread slices while one of my brothers went to get the sliced chicken or bologna. We were out, there wasn’t even any American cheese or canned tuna fish.
So we boys (3) went to school with chicken sandwiches without chicken. While not as filling as chicken filled sandwiches, they were almost as enjoyable.
It may have helped our tastebuds somewhat that our Mother was a terrible cook. During our later years, it was commonplace to check was was going on for dinner and to bug out before my Father got home to make us all sit down at the table.
There were dinners where my Father and two youngest brothers (12 and 13 years after the younger of the older three boys) were the only members who failed to escape in time. Of course, at infant and toddler stages they didn’t have a chance. But even my Mother knew when it wasn’t a good time to eat dinner at home.
Is it halal ?
is this a moment for models.
You know plastic models of vegetables.
3D printers and beam me over some food may fill this slot.
I’d say we are in fact likely entering a Maunder Minimum and the impact is going to be devastating on many fronts, especially for agricultural production. And with a rising human population that will mean … mass famine! The anti-human greens will love that:
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.” -Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Biologist
But, to the chagrin of the greens, we may be able to avoid the worst of the famines if CO2 levels rise dramatically:
http://www.ncpa.org/images/1484.gif
INCREASE CO2 emissions!
There need not be any famine. The USA feeds a big part of our corn crop to cars, just use tar sands and shale oils instead and we drown in excess food. What isn’t fed to cars mostly goes to cows, chickens, and pigs. A cow turns about 10 dry pounds of grains into one wet pound of cow. You can eat for 10 days if you eat the grains, only one meal for the steak…
The world has much more food than we need, even if half were lost to bad weather. Just stop feeding it to cars and cows.
E.M.Smith “Just stop feeding it to cars”
Do you want the cars to starve also?
A reindeer turns about 10lb of inedible lichen into one pound of succulent venison. You can starve if you try an eat the lichen, or live for a day if you eat the reindeer.
Repeat for seals, whales, sheep, goats and just about every other food animal except grain fed factory farmed animals.
.
In general you graze animals where human edible crops wont grow.
@ur momisugly Leo S. Out west cattle ranchers may brag of one beef per hundred acres of scrubland, but the beefs are expert at thriving on scrub. In the east, farmers raise 100 head per acre of muddy feed lot.
Most of the world steaks are raised on grass. So you can have your steak and grains also.
I used to raise cows and sheep on my farm in NY and they GRAZED all summer long and ate grain in winter. The feed lots are the end of the process not the beginning or middle.
Increased CO2 should result in more plants per acre, even in scrub land. So the number of beef per 100 acres should go up a little.
A cow turns about 10 dry pounds of grains into one wet pound of cow.
==================
Cows eat grass/hay. A human will die from starvation if fed the cow’s diet.
Cows are fed grain to fatten them up for slaughter, and to turn the fat white instead of yellow. This changes grade B beef to grade A, increasing both the total weight and the price per pound.
However, cows could just as easily be fed a diet that would kill a human, and the end result would be cows that humans could eat.
“There need not be any famine”; very true, E.M.Smith, but it has been a long time since there has been a famine cause by a real lack of food. The usual culprit is a third-world corrupt dictator skimming relief supplies to sell or using food as a weapon against opposing tribes or political parties. A close second is plain old fashioned logistics expenses, even with free food, it still costs money to move from where it is to where it is needed.
To move enough food to nullify a regional famine takes Military-Grade Logistics and most third-world corrupt dictators are adversed to inviting in enough Foreign controlled military to do the job, especially when the third-world corrupt dictator maintain power by demonizing Foreign Powers.
Unless they were bought by stockyards to be fattened, cows and cattle eat grass during the spring, summer and fall; then get dried meadow grass or timothy with alfalfa supplements.
When the cows are brought in for milking, they get fed meadow grass hay or timothy; with the uneaten stalks swept out with the manure. Grain supplements may be fed during the worst winter weather. Been there, done that.
Birds (fowl) get fed corn. Pigs can be fed corn, but generally get fed the wastes. Cattle get corn and other wastes, (distiller’s grains and solubles, low commercial value corn (moldy, short ear, small kernels, damaged, buggy, etc.), chopped corn plants, beet tops, etc)
The old “corn fed” beef statement is from midwest stockyards and some ranches feeding corn, a very high calorie food, to the bovines for a few weeks before slaughter, and now for cattle fed grain supplements throughout cold winters when graze is not available.
A) it does raise the weight
B) It does improve the fat marbling of the meat. N.B. It usually will not raise the quality rating of the beef very much, but it does raise the appearances and often flavor of the meat.
C) a long term diet of corn for cattle is bad for the bovines. Cattle rechew their graze and ferment silage through multiple stomachs into digestible masses, basically turning low quality foods into high quality meat.
D) The advantage of ruminants (multiple stomach) is that they prosper when eating low value very high fiber foods.
E) Feeding high calorie supplements during bitter cold periods helps cattle stay warm, even when exposed to winter conditions.
F) All cattle, even the ones finished at stock yards, start out grazing grasses after they are weaned!
Someone, playing with spreadsheets or their personal calculator, is foolish when they automatically assume all cattle eat corn, corn divided by cattle weight = corn per pound of meat.
Especially when those cattle are eating wastes from distillers, food processors separating quality food from plants, plant discards (turnip tops, beet tops, beet rinds, etc). i.e. waste product from producing foods for people.
This is absolutely spot on and people need to understand the wider damage that ethanol mandates have done to US agriculture. So much land production has now been shifted to corn for ethanol that we no longer grow as much of other grains such as barley, wheat, and oats. This has resulted in a complete elimination of these grains from US surplus. The US now no longer has ANY grain surplus to use in case of an emergency here or a famine elsewhere. Those pictures of ship loads of US grain going to feed people starving in some far off place due to a sudden drought are a relic of a time long past, we can’t do that today.
This has the additional impact of removing US influence in global ag markets because we no longer participate there since all of our grain surplus is being put into gas tanks now. While many farmers have made a lot of money from these ethanol mandates, they have been bad for food security globally and are damaging our ag export relationships.
From 1991 to 2011 US barley production fell from more than 135 million bushels per year to less than 20 million bushels. The awareness of this needs to be raised. Thanks, Mike, for posting that.
http://beerandwinejournal.com/barley-low/
On corn ethanol and the future of America – written in 2012.
Well , now we know what happened:
America got smart and elected Trump.
Canada got stupid and elected Justin, Kathleen and Rachel.
Bravo USA. Poor Canada.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/22/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-38/#more-55226
Nick Shaw says:
January 23, 2012 at 11:44 am
Allan MacRae says:
Hmmm, your friend, “I think overconsumption of water from the Ogallala aquifer due to corn ethanol overproduction is a much greater environmental threat.” appears to have uncovered one of those pesky unintended consequences, no?
______________________
Actually Nick, I wrote this.
I “inherited” a corn ethanol plant in Wyoming in 1998. Despite good local management and huge federal and state subsidies, it was a break-even business, another way of saying it was so energy-inefficient that its life-of-project energy balance was probably negative – it consumed more energy than it created. Grid-connected wind power is no better, and solar power is much worse.
Since then I’ve learned that the vital Ogallala aquifer is dropping at an alarming rate in some locations, due to excess withdrawal of water for irrigation – much of it for corn ethanol.
If the environmental movement truly had the interests of America and the world at heart, they would abandon their fascination with wasteful, inefficient corn ethanol, wind power and solar power, and focus on real environmental problems like vital groundwater conservation.
However, if one analyses their actions, it is clear that the “greens” are not interested in the environment or the wellbeing of humankind. Rather, the environment is merely a convenient smokescreen for their far-left political objectives.
Regrettably, Obama is in bed with these radicals. It is immaterial if he shares their views or is merely a fool, duped by their rhetoric.
My poor, dear America – my neighbour – my friend.
You are governed by scoundrels and imbeciles.
What will become of you?
Corn is also an unrepentant nutrient hog. Without copious application of fertilizers, even a field of Class 1 land can’t grow a good corn crop two years in a row. It would need to either lie fallow or be planted with a mulch crop the second year. And probably the third year, also.
Want to know how they produce most of said fertilizer? And how they run the machines that apply it? Hydrocarbons.
The lunacy.
Today in Jakarta, about 9 AM in the morning, the ambient CO2 was well over 700 ppm. During the day it drops to about 510 and sits there. Yesterday I didn’t see it drop below 500.
Perhaps the jungles are growing so quickly because the CO2 level is much higher than the global average.
Perhaps that doesn’t make a lot of sense since the jungles are not in Jakarta. Do you have evidence of consistent 500ppm+ CO2 levels in Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Papua?
And perhaps it’s because plant respiration occurs more at night, producing carbon dioxide and plant photosynthesis occurs during the day, consuming carbon dioxide than they produce. I would expect carbon dioxide to be higher in the morning.
Much of the CO2 producing activity occurs during the day. At night, winds blow the CO2 out to the countryside. (Which appreciates it.)
The baseline is too short for a reliable prediction. But it allows for amusing speculations.
The US West Coast is also having a brutal winter. Marine West Coast zones are having Midwest style snow (repeatedly).
Meanwhile here in Florida we are having a wonderfully warm winter season. How can anyone in their right mind want to make things cooler?
It’s unseasonably warm in Cottonwood Shores, Texas (suburban Austin), too.
Mt Rose, the closest ski area to Reno just announced it has received 500″ of snow so far this season.
🙂
Stopping an increase in warming is not the same thing as making things cooler.
What warming? It hasn’t warmed for 20 years.
Chris February 8, 2017 at 4:17 am
“Stopping an increase in warming…..”
Methinks you left the “t” off your name.
Eric Worrall.
Might as well cover yourself with jelly-you’re toast.
Boy who cried wolf. there is no way you can on the one hand discredit CAGW and then say “Little Ice Age”
Some will see it, some defending “turf” will fight it others will be confused and unsure.
There is hope ,, if we have time. If it is too sudden add butter, (last chance) we can’t react, we don’t (any longer) know how to live in such an environment as a civilization . If it is a Maunder Minimum we need fifteen years to learn gradually how to adapt to it.
Cross fingers and hope it is only a bad AMO&PDO shift.
michael
MIke and 2 Erics
If global temperature is primarily driven by the integral of solar activity, with a hip-hop from the PDO and AMO, then there is a finite probability of global cooling starting anytime now.
But the real acid test is not who predicted global cooling just this week, based on the truly horrific “veggie crisis” that has just struck Britain and the Continent.
[“Rätionin’ has been imposed, and all that that entails… .Never you mind my dear I said to her…”]
Let’s find someone who predicted global cooling 15 or 20 years ago. Let’s see… O yes! I did!
I (actually we) predicted global cooling starting by 2020-2030 in an article I wrote, published on Sept 1. 2002 in the Calgary Herald.
Pray God, I hope to be wrong, Warm is good; Cold is bad; Cold kills,,, more than just the veggies..
Best, Allan
Not long after in the early 2003 I devised the equation suggesting that solar Grand Maximum is coming to an end, while at the time the NASA (Marshall Space Flight Center) was predicting even stronger SC24.
No point talking to them then, so in June of 2003 I wrote to the alternative at JPL (Pasadena), well known solar scientist ( Dr. Joan Feynman, sister of Richard).
The advise was to publish (published Jan 2004) and the forthcoming SC24 will validate either of two views. Surprisingly the equation proved to be far closer to the observed result than I ever expected.
I have no convincing hypothesis, while NASA had a theory (now obsolete) but as R. Feynman said:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” But again, Feynman did find the reason for the catastrophic failure of a NASA’s launch, while they couldn’t.
My result could be just an ‘incredible coincidence’, unless of course SC25 falls in line too, in which case we’ll have to wait for SC26, I hope the WUWT and most of us will be still going strong by then.
The equation with detailed instructions for reproduction of the result is here .
Thank you Vuk. I will look at your reference later this week.
I regret that I have not had the time to verify the work of others on this important subject..
I believe that the extreme cold and human suffering during the Maunder and Dalton Minimums was not just a random event, and the occurrence of extreme cold during these periods of lower solar activity was not just a coincidence.
I believe that the time-integral of (lower) solar activity drives global cooling, and oceanic cycles (e.g. the PDO) create variability in global temperatures
Historically, the occurrence of two consecutive low solar cycles (like SC24 and SC25) tends to coincide with global cooling. I think our 2020-2030 (start-of-cooling) prediction from 2002 is still looking good, although I think cooling may start a bit earlier, perhaps as early as 2017-2020..Hope to be wrong.
What is your prediction and when did you make it? Vuk? Others?
Faites vos jeux!
Best, Allan
Considering that the equations (there are three) were directly contradicting the NASA’s theory of the solar activity, in order to publish I was advised not to contradict or even draw attention to the NASA’s results, furthermore not to qualify some well known astronomical numbers, else it would be flatly rejected. For that reason the graphs end at the date of submission, no extrapolation or a prediction as such were offered. However the suitable ‘excel’ form was associated with each graph, enabling anyone interested to easily ‘determine’ amplitude of the future events from the extrapolated values.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MV-f3.gif
above is the screen shot from the paper published Jan. 2004
About two to three years later while the NASA was still pursuing the strongest ever SC24, Dr. Hathaway did reproduce formula noting the clear implications for the projected amplitude of the SC24. His verdict was ‘not possible’.
p.s. publication date is given in this link:
http://cds.cern.ch/record/704882?ln=fr
Dr. MacRae, Do you have a best guess as to what the time integral for solar activity might be?
5 years? 20 years?
Allan M.R. MacRae
Let’s find someone who predicted global cooling 15 or 20 years ago. Let’s see… O yes! I did!
Not something I’d be bragging about Alan given the opposite continues apace with no evidence whatsoever of the trend reversing – lettuce shortages in London notwithstanding.
Soggy salad does not a Maunder Minimum make.
Hi MarkW
First, I only have a Masters of Engineering, although that is better than a Doc in most fields. 🙂
One interesting hypo is that of Dan Pangburn, which suggests that long-term global temperatures correlate with the integral of solar activity, moderated primarily by the PDO/ENSO:
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.ca/
Regards, Allan
Tony McLeod – typical nonsense from you – misstate what someone says, and then criticise it.
When they were handing out Scottish brains and Scottish ethics, you were in the wrong line.
Please do not comment on any of my posts – your are simply an offensive imbecile.
Hi Vuk,
Your equation looks a lot like the Gleissberg Cycle, but I’m sure you know that.
My friend Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson used his research into the Gleissberg to predict the next cooling cycle, to begin circa 2020-2030 – 80-90 years after that last cooling cycle that started circa 1940.
I hope we are wrong about that cooling, Humanity and the environment both do poorly a cooling world.
Regards, Allan
Alan you are mistaken. I quoted you verbatim.
Think you can insult me and that wins the argument?
I will go further: if you’re bragging about having predicted cooling then you are fool.
Hi Alan
Here is something I found rather interesting.
Average length of a sunspot cycles during the last 200 years is about 10.7 years.
W. Gleissberg In his letter (1945) Evidence for a long solar cycle writes:
” One long cycle is equal to 7 eleven-year cycles”, which would make the Gleissberg’s cycle about 75 years long using the true value of 10.7 years.
Spectral power distribution for the GISP2 Ice Core 1000 Year long (1000 – 1993 AD) Ar-N2 Isotope Temperature Reconstruction (data from ncdc.noaa) has the strongest component at exactly 75 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GISP2.gif
However, as stated in another publication, some 25 years later, Gleissberg appears to change his mind.
Was the original Gleissberg solar cycle estimate of 75 years just an accidental coincidence, or is the Greenland temperature variability with its critical relation to global trends directly related to now ‘nearly forgotten’ 7 x SSN cycles periodicity?
Meh. Modern farmers would like some warning. But they won’t take 15 years to adapt. One season to choose new varieties maybe. Agriculture is a heck of a lot more resilient than it used to be.
There aren’t many that can grow under Snow & Ice though.
I think it may be more a case of many & large greenhouses, real ones not climate ones.
There are varieties that can mature faster, so they can be harvested before the Snow & Ice arrive.
Ian the Meh – what a foolish comment you made.
Read this – in summary, it’s not primarily about concern for the veggies.
Read especially Reference 2:
Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather September 4, 2015″”
***********************************
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/21/keeping-up-the-heat-on-the-uk-supreme-court/#comment-2077716
Socialists Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley were recently elected in Ottawa and Edmonton (Alberta), both by voters who wanted “change”, Now we have the same warmist lunatic ravings in Ottawa and Edmonton and our economy is headed into the dumpster,
Here is what “change” will look like:
1. A major increase in energy costs, due to their move to “green energy” schemes, which are typically not green and produce little useful energy.
2. Huge increases in government debt to subsidize their intermittent and diffuse green energy schemes.
3. Huge payoffs of taxpayer monies to their financial sponsors, who will build these green energy monstrosities.
4. Huge increases in energy costs to consumers, who will be forced to buy this intermittent and unreliable green energy at greatly increased prices..
5. An increase in joblessness as industry relocates to lower-cost energy venues.
6. An increase in Winter Mortality Rates, particularly among the elderly and the poor, due to the greatly increased cost of home heating.
These dire results have already been widely experienced in Europe. Europeans rulers set out on this extremely foolish and destructive course years ago, and are now retreating as fast as they can, only limited by the speed that their politicians can admit they were utterly wrong about energy policy.
It is truly remarkable that young Justin and Rachel cannot even learn from the obvious blunders of the Europeans, but have to go and make the same incredibly foolish errors again, all by themselves.
When someone acts in such an obviously stupid manner, one has to ask the question – are they really that stupid, or are they simply corrupt? Is warmist nonsense just a scam to steal from the public, much like the many socialist scams we see in the developing world, where rulers get elected by promising the dream of a better life, and then proceed to live in luxury while their citizens continue to suffer in poverty?
Regards, Allan
References:
1. The UN’s IPCC Has No Credibility On Global Warming September 6, 2015
by Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/the-uns-ipcc-has-no-credibility-on-global-warming-6sept2015-final.pdf
2. Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather September 4, 2015
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Eat more kale. “Sustainable” types have a grudge against iceberg lettuce. They also tend to frown on greens not sourced from your neighbors backyard compost heap. So the folks will be hungry or broke but at least they are warmed by inexpensive power. Oh not that either. Well the obesity problem is getting better then.
I don’t care how cold it gets, I am NOT eating kale. Obesity won’t get better, either. Veggies aren’t fattening. High calorie foods tend to be able to grow in both warm and cold climates, so unless the cold reaches epic proportions, people aren’t going to go hungary due to weather for a while.
Actually, in the past several years there were 42 studies on the impact cholesterol has on obesity and *Surprise*–all 42 found there was absolutely NO connection between the two. Researchers were so shocked that they continued their investigations into what actually DID cause obesity and it was isolated to one thing:
Refined carbohydrates.
Yup, it wasn’t fats or oils or avocados or beef or any of those falsely-accused suspects; it was all those processed foods that fill our grocery store shelves–from white flour to white sugar and white chocolate and on and on.
@rockyroad.
Yep. Its all those GRAINS that we feed to cattle that make us (and the cattle) fat.
Nothing less healthy than cereals. Period.
Personally I have no desire to go to Hungary, no matter how cold it gets.
Kale is for dairy cows.
Frankly kale is disgusting. I am no fan of brassicas in general, but kale has to be the worst…and chard. That’s rubbish too.
Feed it to some rabbits, and eat the bunnies instead
+1
Less for thee but more for me! I would be a vegetable-Ayran but for training and habit. Baby Martian Heads, broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes are my favorites! There is a Globe Artichoke cultivar said to grow in northern Wisconsin. My tiny Island harvested ship loads of potatoes until Idaho cut the bottom out of the market. We may yet again.
Doug Huffman,
You can’t eat baby Treens, the Mekon wouldn’t allow it.
You’re missing something, Leo. We eat kale almost daily, for example with supper this evening, and as salad at lunchtime. Just make some decent dressing, chop kale finely, and discard the stalks. Add other salad bits and bobs, and enjoy a specific against age-related macular degeneration. Kale grows well even in my dreadfully poor soil. Shield against pigeons!
Out of the brassicas, I much prefer kale.
In my earlier list of winter troubles for vegetables, I left kale out. Kale survives quite cold temperatures. When other vegetable have long since succumbed, one can go and kick the ice/snow off the kale and bring it into the table.
Kale is sweeter, when grown during a cold winter.
Forget the large bushy bunches of kale sold with the collard and mustard greens. That large tough stuff needs long and slow cooking.
Bought a bunch of kale? Peel off the large outer leaves and reserve for braising with tough cuts of meat. Use the smaller inside leaves for cooking with eggs or cut up into soups.
After kale, I enjoy brussels sprouts and cauliflower, (more flower buds), chinese cabbage, bok choy, choy sum…
Last on my list is broccoli.
1) because it is quite bitter to me. 2) because when one raises broccoli, aphids are a bear to deal with. Those little green aphids match the coloring of the tiny flower buds and once they infest the head, no amount of washing gets them out.
Iceberg lettuce is more a taste and texture thing than a nutritional thing, and mostly gives your ranch dressing something to cling to. It’s better for it’s unpretentious decadence rather than it’s nutritional value.
It also keeps hamburger juices from making your bun soggy!
golf charlie commented over at Bishop Hill a while ago, along the lines of, “unprecedented” British children celebrating snow in another country.
“If current conditions worsen,” current conditions WILL worsen given Human intervention!
“THESE are dark times times for British vegetable lovers.”
All three of them.
I resemble that remark!
Maybe mother nature is telling all the vegan nuts to cool it on the rest of us.
They do have an essential problem with vegetables al dente. Vegetables are not supposed to cooked to grey-green glop.
People in northern temperate climates are not supposed to have things like iceburg lettuces and broccoli in the middle of winter, anyway.
And this goes double for anyone who indulges in environmental politics or ideology.
Let them become vitamin deficient by spring when they have to eat only locally grown food as many people used to be.
Oh Babs, there’s plenty of locally grown veg. Its just a bit BORING. And plenty of fruit being imported from WarmerPlaces™
One of the joys of Brexit may be that we will be able to import without EU agricultural tarriffs, the wonderful produce of Australia New Zealand, South America, South Africa, Kenya….
The EU was always a protected trade area, especially for farming. Never a free market.
Leo
You are right that the EU is anything but a free market. It is a closed shop.
In addition, it costs about £12billion a year to access the market (the closed shop). I do not know on what basis some people would claim that to be free.
For those who have never had winter butter, winter butter is different from summer butter. And quite pale by comparison.
Barbara
That’s what Annatto is for!
Weather is not climate. Speculation is not evidence. Vegetables are not thermometers.
w.
With all due respect you could if you had a sufficient quantity of events such as shortage of veges or surplus of veges plot climate shifts.
Data quantity can squeeze errors down and convert anecdote into evidence.
Just saying. love your stories, your work and share a love of the Solomon’s as it stumbles through life.
Bill Treuren February 7, 2017 at 8:19 pm
With all due respect, I’ve posted this before. Here’s the money quote:
w.
Willis Eschenbach February 7, 2017 at 9:24 pm
Sigh the prices were due to a lifting of Blockades which released unsold stocks. And yes grains were able to be stored over years.
Same thing with year without a summer. Check dates wars ended. and trade re-established.
perfect timing for such an event, warehouses full of of stock. Sometimes the human race lucks out
michael 🙂
“Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799 after overthrowing the French revolutionary government. During this time, U.S. and French negotiators were concluding negotiations to end the Quasi-War with France. In 1802, Napoleon ended ten years of warfare with Great Britain under the Peace of Amiens.”
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/napoleonic-wars
Bill T
“With all due respect you could if you had a sufficient quantity of events such as shortage of veges or surplus of veges plot climate shifts.”
true enough but you don’t, so its weather! wait for ten years or so and see if you have a trend and then maybe just maybe it might be something other then weather.
Mike,
The Year Without a Summer (1816) came after the Napoleonic Wars ended.
Waterloo was in June 1815.
Gloateus Maximus February 8, 2017 at 4:27 am
Yeah I know, but there were brief outbreaks of peace. 1803 was when the war restarted. It allowed Britain a chance to get some shipments in without dodging privateers.
Then we joined the fun in 1812. Bony and the French threw in the towel March 31 1814.
Jan,1815 for US and UK.
100 days March 20 to July 8. Most of Europe was untouched by the 100 days so again like 1802 commodity prices fall.
Like I said, two periods of bad weather right a the time trade was re-opened. the trade helped some sectors of the economies but did nothing for others. Rural was hit bad in Central Europe, as well as Northeastern US. This may have attributed to the founding of some religious groups that came out of the area at the time.
Anyway thanks for commenting. sometimes I am to cryptic and don’t give enough information.
michael
Willis,
Ignorance is not bliss.
If you knew something useful about solar activity you’d know we are presently at low 2010 levels.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100414/full/news.2010.184.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8615789.stm
https://phys.org/news/2011-10-link-solar-winter-weather-revealed.html
If you were paying attention to weather reports from this year you’d know snow and cold records this year beat out many records that were set during prior low solar activity periods, many 100+ year old records.
If you understood the following you’d also understand how weather relates to climate via the sun:
1. Climate changes when weather changes.
2. Weather changes when solar activity changes.
3. The climate therefore cannot change without changes in solar activity.
ie Weather and climate variability are due to solar variability.
If you knew what to look for last summer you’d have noticed all the crop damage that occurred when TSI dropped below even the presently low levels during larger sunspot transits (which weren’t very large either).
This year as TSI recently dipped to within a few tenths of a w/m^2 of solar minimum conditions, temps really dropped fast and further crop damages occurred, causing the Spanish freeze-off mentioned in the post.
People will die from this ongoing irresponsible ignorance about solar variability.
The SUN causes warming, cooling, and extreme events, not CO2!
Bob Weber February 7, 2017 at 8:45 pm
Bob, if you knew something useful about human beings you’d know that if you start out by insulting somebody, they’re likely to recommend that you osculate their fundamental orifice, and pay no attention to your claims.
Q.E.D.
w.
+1 Willis 😀
Plus conditions in Spain this year have been totally unexpected and do not confirm any trend of any kind that could possibly have been caused by the sun, no matter how unusual or not its behaviour could be in recent times. And despite the conditions in Spain are certainly unusual, they are not unprecedented. Last precedent took place at a solar high.
I have spent much time in Spain the past year. I regularly looked at the windows 10 weather app, and throughout the entirety of 2016, temperatures on any given day were usually 2 or more degrees below the historic average for that day. There were periods of a week here and there where temperatures were average.
This was born out by my swimming pool. In the summer it was about 30 degC occasionally 31degC. I think there were 2 days when it reached 32degC. Usually in late July/midAugust I would expect temperatures of about 35degC. Last year, my swimming pool was some 3 to 4 degC cooler than I would expect it to be.
From November onwards it has been very cold and wet. A few weeks ago, my garden was covered in hail. I have never seen that in 15 years. The beach was white completely covered in hail. Again something that I have not seen. A couple of weeks ago, 6 trees in my garden blew down. On the estate many dozens of trees were blown over. My neighbour lost 100 roof tiles.
The price of tomatos has doubled these past couple of weeks. Olive harvest was poor in 2016 with olive oil prices rising.
Sure this is only weather, but bad weather leads to poor harvest (unless crops are grown under cover).
Richard verney: “throughout the entirety of 2016, temperatures on any given day were usually 2 or more degrees below the historic average for that day”
We did have a cool spring, but summer was quite hot overall for Spain. Third hottest actually. According to the AEMET (the country’s Meteorological Agency), “El verano 2016 (periodo comprendido entre el 1 de junio y el 31 de agosto de 2016) ha tenido un carácter muy cálido, con una temperatura media de 24,2º C, valor que queda 1,2º C por encima de la media de esta estación (período de referencia 1981-2010)”, which I bet you can understand that it means 1,2ºC hotter than average. You can fin this as well as some interesting graphs in the official report here: http://www.aemet.es/documentos/es/serviciosclimaticos/vigilancia_clima/resumenes_climat/estacionales/2016/Est_verano_2016.pdf
Report for autumn is not available yet, but my memory of it is certainly different from yours.
If you’ve seen one yam, you’ve seen Yamal…
+10
Um, vegetables actually are a kind of thermometer.
Each one has lower bounds for sprouting seeds and time to sprout is temperture dependent and proportional. Each one has a “growing degree days” to maturity. You must match the variety GDD to your local actual GDD or have a crop failure.
Much of farm planning depends on this and the ag dept puts out GDD maps for farmers with normals and to-date values along with anomalies.
So plants are a kind of running total degrees x time recording thermometer.
Tomatoes, as an extreme example, need nights above 50 F to set fruit. Cold nights during fruit set means no tomatoes. Which then tells you it was below 50 F… (Kale grows in snow and barley & oats sprout in 33 F dirt, so they are your cold crops.. No oats? It didn’t go above freezing for long… similarly there are crops that stop in heat… see Phoenix planting calendars for when things stop in heat…)
I’ve sporadically thought it would be fun to design a thermometer garden (some flowers have particular temperatures too) where by looking at what sprouted and bloomed you could give the average temps, but don’t have the needed acreage…
And lettuce freezes at 33F!
Unlike Scots pine trees, eh, Mr Briffa?
It was noted I believe in the 19th century that years with exceptionally high corn (wheat) prices coincided with an alarming number of drawn cricket matches*. Wisden’s almanac** has charted the performance of all cricket related data for well over 150 years.
Today, such a correlation would be trumpeted by the New Left as a simple way of bringing down the cost of living, by ‘adjusting’ the rules of cricket to reduce the likelihood of drawn games.
They already did similar with university graduates, and a mass
Indoctrinationeducation program designed to make everyone’s salary higher, simply resulted in huge numbers of graduates of nothing worth knowing on social security. And, of course Climb-it Cyan-Tits**.* (matches that cannot be satisfactorally completed due to rain, end up drawn)
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisden_Cricketers'_Almanack
*** who should have simply been on social security in the first place.
The biggest failure of government has been education these past 40 or 50 years.
Indeed, this was really brought home to me when I saw my Dad’s 11 plus paper which he sat (and passed) in the 1930s. There were no calculators back then and I suspect that most 15 years (who go on to pass their GCSEs) would not be able to do the maths questions. I could do the maths/science/English/geography questions, but i could not do the history questions. I could not have pass that 11 plus paper, and I rather doubt that many graduates/post graduates today could. It was a real eye opener of what children were expected to know back in the 1930s. We do live in a dumbed down generation.
“The biggest failure of government has been education these past 40 or 50 years.”
Not at all. Government schooling has been a great success.
In producing young adults who’ll believe any old crap the government tells them, and vote accordingly. Which is what it’s there for.
actually Willis
weeds ARE as good as a thermometer:-)
nettles only start growing when the nights are around 8c
many veg seeds wont grow until night temps are also warm enough for them
in Aus this yr tomatos self seeders and quinoa and wild fat hen relative ALL didnt begin growing till mid dec. 60 pea seeds got me 3 plants.
so while theyre growing now..they wont produce much if anything.
and now in feb we’re finally having a pretty warm few days in a row in the sth east
um…
Seeds depend on soil temperature to properly sprout.
Plants depend on soil temperatures, day and night temperatures to properly grow, flower and fruit.
Plant many seeds too early, and mice or birds will fish them out before temperatures reach sprouting status. Many of the little critters bury foods for winter, so by spring they are actively sniffing the ground seeking seeds. We have squirrels and other rodents here.
Seed eating birds are a real nuisance too. I swear the birds watch what and where seeds are planted. Perhaps, the birds just assume I changed bird feeder routines for spring?
Then the seeds that do sprout are subject to damping off fungus in cold wet conditions.
Pea seeds, and here I’m thinking of planting peas soon, in Virginia USA.
Good, or perhaps better luck with your garden this year, mate!
Is the great famine of 1315-1317, amply documented, evidence? Are the millions of deaths it caused evidence? The first of a number of famines plaguing Europe. Not coincidentally it occurred at the end of the MWP which itself had spurred a large increase in populations which could not be sustained during the LIA. Warm is better!
Yes. Vegetables are thermometers. For you to have said differently reveals you haven’t ever worked in any kind of life based science.
Mark Burnell February 8, 2017 at 11:51 am Edit
Thanks, Mark. So when you go to check if you have a fever, you stick a shallot under your tongue?
As to having worked in any life based science, wrong question—either I’m right or wrong, regardless of my experience.
My own experience was growing up on a cattle ranch. I would assuredly describe this as working in a life science, since creating and sustaining plant and animal life was the reason for our existence. And my own experience with planting and watching and harvesting lots of different kinds of plants says most plants growth-vs-temperature curve is an upside-down “U” shaped response. Any plant grows poorly in both extra hot and extra cold conditions.
Do you have evidence of a thermometer that gives the same reading in extra hot and extra cold conditions?
Giving the same reading (reduced growth) for both hot and cold makes plants USELESS as historical proxies, because if a tree grew slowly in the year 1366, we can’t tell if that was because 1366 was too hot or too cold.
Finally, we have a huge confounding factor—water availability. Put a plant out in a dry area and cut back on the water … growth slows, but the temperature is the same. Great thermometer that is, reads different in wet and dry conditions.
So no, Mark … plants are not thermometers. Under certain specialized conditions they can give us general ideas, but the upside-down “U” shaped curve means for every growth rate there are two possible temperatures, and that’s ignoring the water availability confounding factor.
So in most situations they are miles from useful as temperature proxies, or as I say, “plants are not thermometers”.
Next time, my suggestion would be cut back on the assumptions of what I do and don’t know … lots of folks have made fools of themselves that way, you’re just the latest.
w.
Willis, you are correct, but only if you use one vegetable at a time. If instead you use evidence from a variety of vegetables you would do better. Each vegetable responds to temperature stresses differently. It would be akin to.using one of those thermometers where different balls rise or fall according to the density of fluid that surrounds them. One float does not give you the temperature, but a combination of them does.
I proposed something similar to CRU in the 1990s (that they compare the tree ring response of different tree species to environmental variables), but this suggestion was ignored
Well said Willis. Spot on!
They had a shortage of potatoes in Sth Australia while back. They said it was due to the flood of one area. But it was not the prime growing area, it was due more to the manipulation of the market.
yeah in my town near where supply of spuds isnt that far away..
$16.99 for 5kilos
its now dropped to a still rank robbery 10.99
onions at $3 a kilo or more and they werent grown much in the flooded spots either.
Surely, they could get vegetables from the same place the US and other countries get them? They leave the EU for FOOD?
they are importing lettuce from America
and b*tchin re around the equivalent of a couple of dollars
2.50ish?
hell thats a standard aus price bit of variance either way but up to $4 isnt unheard of in Aus maybe coming from qld in colder months down sth
I would rather sweat than shiver. Just sayin…….
Iceberg lettuce shortage in a warming world? I am speechless, or textless in this case! 😉
I’ll take the cold climate you are wanting to avoid. 🙂
life is very difficult in Antarctica. Life is comparatively much easier in the tropics. Be careful what you wish for.
Perhaps — until government policies shut off the supply of cheap, reliable fuels for heating.
Come to Western Canada,Sheri! Minus 50C here this morning with the wiind chill! And best you don’t plant your veggies just yet!
I wish someone above my pay grade would perform the total lifecycle carbon footprint of getting a fresh Spanish iceberg lettuce head to a London salad plate in February. Don’t forget the energy inputs of water and petroleum used for the Haber process fertilizer at the farm.
Iceberg lettuce has almost no calories, and is low in nutrition of any sort, so the simple answer is that it is a net negative. (It’s a good source of roughage, but so are other more nutritionally dense foods.)
The carbon footprint is obviously immense if you do not eat locally sourced seasonal products. But we live in a world where we want strawberries in December, and yet do not realise that the life style we enjoy today is built on the back of coal and oil, and if we give up on this form of energy, unless we go nuclear, it is inevitable that we have to accept a complete life style reversal more akin to that of the 18th century with low life expectancy, high infant mortality, and hard labour toiling at least 6 days a week..
We should be celebrating and enthusing about the virtues and wonders of fossil fuel, not demonising it.
Richard Verney –
“But we live in a world where we want strawberries in December, and yet do not realise that the life style we enjoy today is built on the back of coal and oil, and if we give up on this form of energy, unless we go nuclear, it is inevitable that we have to accept a complete life style reversal more akin to that of the 18th century with low life expectancy, high infant mortality, and hard labour toiling at least 6 days a week.”
… not to mention eating nothing but stored root vegetables 7 days a week throughout the winter. (Canning wasn’t developed until the late 18th century.)
“However this unexpected food shortage ….”
There is no food shortage stupid. It is the middle of winter. I suspect that sweet corn on a road side farmer stand in Indiana is bare too. Not bare of
snow.
Go to any Walmart in the US, you will find all manner of fresh food from around the world. That is where us ‘poor’ Americans shop. Just to the right is the fresh vegetables, all the way in back is the beer and box wine.
What I find amazing is how some can turn everything into a crisis.
There IS a vegetable shortage in the UK. Dunce.
And because of extremely cold weather.
And the big crisis and famine is going to be in the future. This is a just harbinger.
It’s a big step going from rotten lettuce to famine. We’ll see what next year brings. In the mean time buy a few canned veggies and live with it.
Eric S is either very, very stupid or English is not his first language.
Just past the fresh vegetable counter at Walmart, is the frozen veggie and then the can veggies. There is no vegi shortage.
From the first line, ‘some supermarkets’. That would also suggest to me that that there is no problem at all.
Again, it amazes be that some can find a crisis no matter how good things are by any reasonable standard and other go along with the drama.
If you find any excuse for drama go ahead and get upset because I think you are stupid. Getting upset because of what others think, is just more evidence of stupidity.
I can understand if you live in California, how would you know if you were stupid?
Some grocery stores in the United States are so beautiful it can bring tears of joy.
The lay out of fresh produce, meats and dairy are truly amazing.
In my wonderful city, the closest large grocer (there are six within 3 miles) is running specials to include: 3 Avocados for $1, a large bunch of Swiss Chard for $.25, Sweet potatoes for .$29/lb, a container- full blend of Mache’ and other sweet greens for $.25, boneless/skinless chicken breasts for $.99/lb and so on. It’s always like that at the stores around here. Competition is keen- there were 7 supermarkets nearby, until recently. If I increase my foraging radius a bit, I could include a Whole Foods and a Sprouts and one of their competitors which just opened a new store, 2 Walmart Super Centers, at least 2 Chinese/Oriental supermarkets, Mexican Super Mercados, several other local and national chain supermarkets and a host of smaller, specialty grocers- Middle Eastern, Korean, Seafood specialties, a Tofu shop, etc.
There are always so many good deals around that it takes discipline to not over- buy and be wasteful.
We’re right in the middle of the US and it’s Winter, so everything has traveled a long way to get here.
Maybe Americans are just better than Europeans at sourcing and distribution and competing with each other.
Alan, + many, I think the shortage in the EU is part of the collapsing of sanity.
Americans enjoy a much better cost of living than Europeans. The same with house prices. Europe is locked into an expensive market place, and it is getting worse with ever increasing energy costs that have a knock on effect on all prices.
As a comparison skinless/boneless chicken breasts in Spain are about €7.50 per kilo. The € is coming close to parity with the dollar so that is over $3 per lb. So food in Europe costs about 3 times as much, and in Skandinavia it is even more (particularly Norway and Iceland).
Don’t get me started on petrol price. Just one immense tax rip off.
A friend of mine who lives in Northern California told a story about an exchange student from one of the Eastern Block countries who was staying in the US as a result of a program his church sponsored back in the 80’s. The girl’s first experience with an american grocery store was a disorienting emotional crisis as she was overwhelmed by the abundance. The story did bring tears to your eyes. Most of us have no idea how well off we are.
The earth is astonishingly bountiful, thanks in no small part to more plant food in the air and to fossil fuels for energy and ag chemicals.
Steve Lohr at 7:31 am
…Most of us [Americans] have no idea how well off we are.
Bingo, Where I worked in the ’90s Anna and Milan who had walked out of Czechoslovakia over the mountains just like you saw in “Sound of Music” celebrated 25 years in the United States – they had cake & cookies and some memorabilia from their former lives. Milan worked in the tool room, and he told me, “You simply have no idea how good you have it here.” I’ll never forget that. Yes we are well off.
There’s also been snow in Sahara and Mid East this winter. Usual snow in Seattle yesterday even.
And a drought-busting, wet winter so far in California which should help bring in summer boat loads of produce to North American markets and beyond.
Let’s have NOAA adjust and recalculate the harvest figures. There really is no problem, we’re just looking at the numbers wrong.
Excellent point! I think with the aide of NOAA, this could actually be turned into a major victory for global warming.
once homogenized we will find they were looking for lettuce in the wrong grid! It is actually growing gangbusters on Shetland.
Tom Nelson @tan123 13h13 hours ago
The “solution” to CO2-induced electrical grid overloading involves everyone driving electric cars, right? https://twitter.com/tan123/status/828981155043086336
Climate change may overload US electrical grid: study: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-climate-overload-electrical-grid.html?platform=hootsuite
Wow, just what we need: as temperatures and agricultural production begins to plummet .. our ability to cope will be further diminished by a compromised electrical grid.
It’s insanity what we’re doing, trying to impair our own power production. Only those countries that aggressively try to build strength into their grids will avoid future problems and prosper. It seems like we are aggressively trying to *weaken* our grid. That will bring disaster.
There wasn’t much of a vegetable shortage here. Maybe slightly less choice. Reports of my starvation are greatly exaggerated.
Records for snowfall have been smashed here on Vancouver Island. I live on the east coast in Campbell River, we rarely get much snow but had copious amounts in December which amounted to a foot deep and hung around with freezing temps of -15 for weeks. Now we have had five days of snow fall and more expected tomorrow and that will top up the amount which is more than two feet deep today. By the time this arctic front passes we will have set new records for this area.
A shortage of broccoli? Hooray.
It was the (lack of) courgettes (zucchini) that pissed me off. My spice potatoes and courgettes are legendary..
I didn’t know what courgettes were, now that I know they are zucchini, I’m truly alarmed; zucchini are normally prolific producer. I’m usually more worried about how to get rid of the surplus than relieve the shortage.
Several years ago, there was a running joke at my church that if you accidentally left your car unlocked, you might find a bag of zucchini had been left on your seat. There was also speculation that bags of zucchini might start appearing on doorsteps in the night.
Too many members growing zucchini in what was apparently a great year for the squash. You didn’t dare make eye contact in the hall, someone might try to foist some on you.