3 ms·
> How Prepared Are We for the Next Giant Solar Flare? As well prepared as we were for the Next Big pandemic. We even have a whole ideological system to shirk re
by PicassoCTs 6y ago
> How Prepared Are We for the Next Giant Solar Flare?
As well prepared as we were for the Next Big pandemic. We even have a whole ideological system to shirk responsibility and run unchecked into disaster.
Every nation on this planet should by now have a 3 year basic food reserve, to buffer against failing harvests due to global warming weather events/changes.
Its currently difficult to setup, costs too much, we already did it during the cold-war and yet, soon as the wall fell, it was all slashed and cut. I blame the retirement of politicians who remembered how starvation feels.
First real long-term drought with aquifer failings or a cold-burst pre-harvest, will hit us like a hammer.
Nothing like mass-starvation, to re-calibrate political priorities.
There is no awareness that the strategic reserve exists only in name now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_grain_reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_grain_reserve
Basically is a price control tool, where over-production is shipped of as aid. What it not is - is a reserve.
Interesting paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237409034_Strategic_Grain_Reserves_In_an_Era_of_Volatility https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237409034_Strategic...
- hollerith 6y agoDo you have an explanation for why there has never been a famine so far in the 231-year history of the US?
- heavyset_go 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Island_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Island_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
- bmmayer1 6y agoThe St. Lawrence Island famine is interesting -- though a very small incident that seems more due to extreme geographical isolation than anything else. The word "famine" doesn't appear once in the 5000+ word article on the Dust Bowl; and, we know it wasn't really a famine. Poverty-inducing, for sure, but mass starvation is an entirely different type of disaster that is almost always man-made by bad economic policy or war, which I believe is what OP's point was.
- crygin 6y agoAs the sibling comment notes, there have been, but one major reason they are not more common is the mysterious extinction of the Rocky Mountain Locust in the late 19th century, leaving North America as the only continent (other than Antarctica) without an extant locust species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust
- chokeartist 6y agoYou are correct, but sadly it won't happen in my opinion. Why? MBAs have made way too much money advocating Just In Time (JIT) supply chains. To go back on that would make a fair number of "super smart" business people look short-sighted.