Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to History graduate Matthew Rosa, climate change and capitalism are behind the supply chain disruption the USA is currently experiencing.
Climate change is driving supply chain shortages — and your supermarkets are not prepared
The problem with our supply chains can be explained by climate change — and America is in no way ready for it
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 19, 2021 10:00AM (EST)
Before the days of antiseptic supermarkets, with their fluorescent lights and linoleum floors, food was sold in very different types of markets, most of which would not pass muster to a modern health inspector. Take Medieval Europe: Even the sturdiest contemporary carnivore might have felt a bit queasy at the sight of animals being slaughtered, which would happen not far from where the cuts of meat were ultimately sold (if they were cut up at all). Farmers would wheel in their produce from plots of land within walking distance of their homes, or at most a short horse ride away. By contrast, citizens of the early 21st century are used to their food coming to them in the same way as their cars, their clothes and their household appliances — through sprawling international supply chains.
Unfortunately, just like a chain is only as strong as its weakest leak, a supply chain can become inefficient or fall apart if there is even a slight hiccup. This is especially so when the supply chains overlap in so many ways that it’s more of a “supply labyrinth” or “supply knot” than a supply chain.
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When it comes to food-based supply chains, climate change is another major culprit, albeit one that is very difficult to quantify. Unlike other economic sectors, where there can disruptions from the demand end as well as the supply end, people never decide they have had enough of food. (They may, of course, alter their dietary preferences.) When there are supply chain issues, it is usually because some unwanted outside variable has made it more difficult for those who produce food to do their job. Climate change causes many of those unwanted outside variables: Warming temperatures harmed American corn yields in 2010 and 2012, as well as $220 million in losses for Michigan cherries in 2012. As weather continues to warm, crops that depend on precise temperatures at specific times will be thrown off kilter or possibly wiped out. While moderate warming and carbon dioxide increases will help some plants grow faster, even they will ultimately be harmed by the droughts and floods that will harm so many other crops.
“A major drought in California or freezing temperatures in Florida can throw a wrench into this market,” Dr. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, an associate professor of applied economics at Cornell University, told Salon in August. “Those events can drastically reduce the supply of oranges from those regions. While oranges can be produced in other areas (e.g. Brazil), acquiring them is much more expensive especially if the supply chains are not already established and prepared to larger volumes.”
In addition to climate change, there is also the built-in structural problem of capitalism itself: Concentration of power, and the fact that supply chain disruptions also exist because the global economic system is built around what individual powerful corporations have decided will maximize their profits. A system that prioritizes profitability over everything else will make choices about who gets what first based on how they can make the most money, not on who needs it most or what will be most efficient. That means that supply chain disruptions, though not ideal, are also not viewed as a company’s absolute worst case scenario.
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Read more: https://www.salon.com/2021/12/19/climate-change-is-driving-supply-chain-shortages–and-your-supermarkets-are-not-prepared/
Climate change has nothing to do with the USA’s supply chain problems. The problem is very obviously that something has gone very wrong with the offloading and land transport of goods. The hint is that there are goods waiting to be offloaded and shipped. If climate change was disrupting production, there would be nothing to ship and offload.
As for the problems caused by Capitalism, I prefer those problems to the problems faced by say people in Venezuela.
This didn’t help any:
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/10/california-drove-truckers-out-of.html
That wasn’t a problem caused by capitalism.
I’m calling you on the claim that this guy graduated. Ya can’t fix ………!
Matthew forgot the third in the trifecta: racism.
Junior high logic. Shocking.
This is like saying “Life causes death.”
Life is a lethal disease which transmitted in a sexual way.
asexual bacteria would disagree.
Well … there’s yet another example of an utterly wasted education. All Matthew Rosa has managed to do is demonstrate the numerous ways his education has failed him. Apart from the fact that he has typically conflated weather with climate he’s clueless about what capitalism is. “the built-in structural problem of capitalism” is what precisely? It is the free-market that made it possible to have the wonderful lives we enjoy. Capitalism doesn’t just improve the lives of the wealthy (where there’s little that can be improved upon). It improves everyone’s life. As for the “supply chin disruptions” … that can be placed solely on the shoulders of those who gave us the plandemic.
Here’s hoping he has a gigantic college loan. Such worldly insight should not come easily.
The governor of California may well be a fellow traveler, and eager to be disruptive, but you give him far too much credit with any claim that he is responsible for bringing the virus into existence or into circulation. Same for the legislature. They do have significant responsibility for the distribution of commerce in, and passing through, the state, however.
I don’t remember mentioning the governor of California or the state itself.
You wrote
California, i.e. the government of CA, has a big responsibility for the “disruptions” but I doubt they have any primary responsibility for the virus’s existence or injection into society.
The key is the use of the word “plandemic” vs “pandemic”.
Rory is referring not to just the virus itself, but to all of the government responses to the virus.
Supply chain disruptions, just like famines, are caused by government mismanagement.
No only of western democracies if you believe the leftards the communist and socialist ones have no issues not ever …. yep they are so believable 🙂
I have informed Party Officials of your correct thinking and loyalty to The Party, and they were so impressed that there will be not one, not two, but three extra maggots in your gruel tonight, LdB.
The lesson is that Party loyalty is rewarded with extra protein rations.
Regulations with or without rigor. Mandates a la mode or not. And monopolistic bandwidth and congestion. The antithesis of capitalism… market economics. The very model of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate cooling… warming… change.
From the article: “When it comes to food-based supply chains, climate change is another major culprit, albeit one that is very difficult to quantify.”
I would say it’s impossible to quantify because there is no evidence that Human-caused Climate Change is real.
From the article: “As weather continues to warm, crops that depend on precise temperatures at specific times will be thrown off kilter or possibly wiped out.”
The author is behind the times. The weather is not warming, it is currently cooling globally. Temperatures have cooled about 0.6C since the highpoint in 2016.
How will this 0.6C cooling affect the crops? I probably shouldn’t expect an answer out of someone who thinks it is warming.
I’m employed by a minor US manufacturer of heavy power transmission components, all manufactured from material sourced domestically. Remarkably, we currently boast the shortest lead times in the industry. Love that supply chain disruption.
Yes, we need to shorten those supply lines. Bring that business home.
One of the worst supply-chain debacles in US history is certainly not being caused by climate change, but rather by the Longshoreman Unions who refuse to hire the 70,000+ non-Union longshoremen who would be required to keep our major ports running 24/7 like all other industrialized countries do…
Another major issue is California’s new heavy-duty truck EPA emission standards which went into effect on January 1st 2021, that prohibit about 60% of the US truck fleet from even entering California as they don’t meet these new EPA standards…
Longshoreman Unions also have provisions in their contracts that limit the use of robotics and automation to protect Union jobs (who make an AVERAGE salary of $171,000/year plus a $100,000/year pension…)
Because US ports are not running 24/7, California ports are globally ranked in the 300’s in cargo processing efficiency, while NYC’s port is the highest US ranked port at 89th in the world, which is absolutely pathetic considering the US is the 2nd largest trading country in the world behind China…
Of course of Pete Buttigeig (Secretary of Transportation) is too busy taking 2 months off for maternity leave to address this US port disaster/supply-chain debacle which is getting worse with each passing day..
Leftists have some nerve blaming this mess on Climate Change…
If you have been paying any attention for at least the last decade, it is the go to excuse for virtually every problem.
Andy-san:
Yes, Leftist have completely lost their collective minds over so many things, including their crazy CAGW cult.
We’re unfortunately living in an era marking the death of Western Civilization if Leftist zealots remain in control of virtually every aspect of our once great societies: science, politics, the arts, media, high tech, entertainment, sports, the Internet, religious institutions, public schools, universities, etc.,
This is the line that gets me:
In addition to climate change, there is also the built-in structural problem of capitalism itself: Concentration of power…
Concentration of power under the knighted elite is exactly what these socialist chuckleheads propose.
What a bunch of malarkey.
Ridiculous bullshit. Again, confusing “climate” with “climate change”. The climate can remain utterly stagnant yet still have highly variable “weather”. Any dolt knows that.
The supply chain problems are entirely caused by the economic disruptions of the COVID pandemic, which as affected every social institution on the planet.
“… with their fluorescent lights …”
Oh, the purple lights
Obviously Matthew is full of BS and doesn’t know what he is talking about.
That’s clickbait of the worst sort. But then… Salon.
So how does he explain the chronic, catastrophic and devastating “supply chain issues” of every Communist country in history, I wonder?
If we didn’t have capitalism, there would be no supply chain problems because people would have nothing to buy. No products, no supply chain, see? Brilliant!
Actually, history teaches us that Marxism in it’s various forms leads to nothing but supply chain issues. A Five Year Plan cannot properly calculate the supply needed to meet demand. This results in a combination of an over-supply of things people don’t want and an under-supply of things people want or need.
The stories about lines outside store in the late USSR aren’t just stories, they’re true. Supply was so poor that when people saw a line forming, they stopped and queued up. It didn’t matter what the line was for. Whatever it was, people figured it must be something they needed.
If history isn’t your bag, man, then just look at Venezuala and Cuba today.
Or a nighttime satellite picture of the Korean Peninsula.
I prefer free enterprise as a system for economic prosperity. The term capitalism was first coined by a socialist in negative terms.
If climate change, as they define it, caused low crop yield wouldn’t it be low every year and not here and there. An introduction to the weather might be useful.
The interruption in supply chain shows how much depends on the blue collar worker. And the consequences of leadership not earned.
Venezuela is probably a good place to study supply chain failures. Interfere in the free flow of goods, services and capital and you have Venezuela.
one that is very difficult to quantify
“We can’t really tell how bad it is, but trust us, it’s BAD”
LOL!
That is downright silly!
Capitalism, which created the magnificently functional supply chain is now the cause of disruptions?
Are these nutbars competing for a prize for the most ridiculous claim?
> Climate change has nothing to do with the USA’s supply chain problems.
Not directly. California taxes causing $4.80 diesel in the vicinity of the Ports of LA/LB along with emissions restrictions from California’s response to climate change are making it hard to offload those container ships. Cheap fuel and more qualified trucks would help but climate inspired restrictions prevent.