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The year 1816 was known as "The Year Without A Summer" because it was 3°C cooler (in France) than normal. Crops failed, and there was much misery throughout the

The year 1816 was known as "The Year Without A Summer" because it was 3°C cooler (in France) than normal. Crops failed, and there was much misery throughout the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Scientists later determined that the 1816 temperature anomaly was caused by volcanic eruptions in 1815 and 1814, which sprayed volcanic ash and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere, thereby shading the oceans and preventing them from storing the usual amount of heat over those two years. Our modern Civilization is more vulnerable to an average once-a-millenium volcanic eruption than it's ever been, on account of our numbers and our dependency on supply chains for our sustenance. From the linked article: "In fact, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimated the 2012 worldwide food storage to last for 74 days." (pg. 9) Grains are useful because they store well. Storage is not economical, but it is essential for reducing the suffering which would result from an 1816-like scenario in our modern world. Edit: the 1816 anomaly is classified as a volcanic winter [1]. Solar minimums have also resulted in years/decades with cooler summers than normal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

mlinksva 5y ago
Periodic reminder to support https://allfed.info/ https://allfed.info/
est31 5y ago
> Our modern Civilization is more vulnerable to an average once-a-millenium volcanic eruption than it's ever been, on account of our numbers and our dependency on supply chains for our sustenance. I think it's more robust than ever, because of our ability to ship food around the world. Second, most of our food is grown to be eaten by animals that we then eat. If we ate the food directly, you could feed way more people than through the meat. So if there is a reduction in capacity through such an event, unless it's too extreme, we'll still have lots of food left.
- dexwiz 5y ago
  Corn raised for feed is not the same as corn raised for human food. You could probably eat it wafted some form of processing. But judging by our slow response to the pandemic, I doubt we could pivot fast enough before it rotted.
  - est31 5y ago
    Yeah this is more about not having people starve than having people eat their optimal meal.
  - felipemnoa 5y ago
    I find this curious. How different can they really be?
    - dexwiz 5y ago
      Sweet corn (what we eat) needs to be cooked but is edible raw. Feed corn is tough as nails. Field corn is more starch than sugar and has a much lower moisture content. Almost all corn is field corn, more than 95% of the total crop. You can eat field corn but it’s about as appealing as hard tack.
- mrbungie 5y ago
  To reassign crops for feedstock to human consumption is not as easy as it sounds. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, is that our global food supply chain is a complex beast. Also, just a reminder to those lucky enough to survive this pandemic: a marginal increase in food prices (plus inflation) due to supply chain disruption might leave poor people with less foods on their tables. https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/food-supply-chains-and-covid-19-impacts-and-policy-lessons-71b57aea/ https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/food-suppl... https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se...
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    > To reassign crops for feedstock to human consumption is not as easy as it sounds. This is correct, but feedstock type foods are easier to store and re-route than other food with a shorter shelf life. Over the pandemic I never had an issue finding basics like flour or potatoes. Foods that became scarce were meat, dairy and highly-processed foods.
    - jwin742 5y ago
      > Over the pandemic I never had an issue finding basics like flour flour was almost impossible to buy early in the pandemic in the US at least. Seemed like more of a demand side issue as everyone (including me) started baking bread at home. It took months for them to start having full stocks of flour again.
      - sdenton4 5y ago
        One pound bags of flour coming to grocery stores through the grocery supply chains were in high demand, because previously almost no one bought flour on that channel. Meanwhile, bakeries kept on trucking along, AFAICT, with an uninterrupted supply of 50lb bags from the non-retail supply chain.
        Super_Jambo 5y ago
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago
  Try to eat corn or grass used to feed animals. It's not going to end well. And a global supervolcanic eruption would disrupt the production of food worldwide, not just in a single continent. Therefore, I doubt we are not "more robust than ever", as you claim.
- gojomo 5y ago
  Does the example of the world's recent adaptations to COVID-19 give you confidence that "we" would make the necessary adjustments to redirect livestock feeds to humans in an emergency? I doubt that for any famine of the last 200 years, including those that killed tens of millions, the problem has been, "not enough food in the world". The problem has been, "failed institutions don't put the food where it's most needed". Vaccines are even easier to ship than food. Are they getting to where they're most needed?
  - jltsiren 5y ago
    It does give me confidence. There were three periods in the COVID-19 response. The initial response was limited, because people were still unsure whether the virus was a serious threat. Then, in March 2020, we saw determined efforts to stop the virus that were unprecedented in speed and scale. People were playing it safe, because it was obvious that the threat was serious, but nobody knew how serious it would be. Around May 2020, it became clear that the threat was not that serious after all. The focus then switched to the cost-effectiveness of the response from various points of the view. The worst case for COVID-19 was maybe 1% of the population dead, 10% with serious long-term health consequences, a global depression, and a handful of coups, revolutions, and civil wars. It would have been bad, but only on the level we should expect a few times in a century anyway. It was serious enough to warrant a large-scale response but not serious enough to mobilize the entire society.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Unless anyone pulls a Stalin and intentionally mismanages things to starve people we'll probably be fine. Modern communications and commerce channels should let us route around stupidity unless we're prevented from doing so. If someone does pull a Stalin at any meaningful scale that's probably not gonna be possible to keep on the down low and heads will roll, likely literally.
qaq 5y ago
Well global worming is protecting us from that scenario
- DantesKite 5y ago
  I do agree that polluting the planet is bad and we should do everything we can do reduce our impact on the environment. But I do think it's funny global warming is universally condemned as being bad. I think a more honest assessment would be, "There are unknown risks to warming the up planet and we don't want to tinker with that." Russia, Canada, and parts of norther Europe would benefit quite a bit from it.
dang 5y ago
Past threads about 1816. Others? Tambora Erupts in 1815 and Changes World History (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853116 - Oct 2020 (8 comments) Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22400480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22400480 - Feb 2020 (131 comments) The Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18477459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18477459 - Nov 2018 (1 comment) How a volcanic eruption made 1816 the year without a summer (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949772 - Sept 2018 (1 comment) 1816, the Year without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768951 - Nov 2017 (14 comments) How a Volcanic Eruption in 1815 Darkened the World but Colored the Arts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10118706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10118706 - Aug 2015 (4 comments) The Poet, the Physician and the Birth of the Modern Vampire - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619876 - May 2015 (2 comments) Tambora – The Volcano That Changed the Course of History - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7564442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7564442 - April 2014 (3 comments) 1816: The Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779911 - May 2013 (1 comment)

mlinksva 5y ago

Periodic reminder to support https://allfed.info/ https://allfed.info/

est31 5y ago

> Our modern Civilization is more vulnerable to an average once-a-millenium volcanic eruption than it's ever been, on account of our numbers and our dependency on supply chains for our sustenance. I think it's more robust than ever, because of our ability to ship food around the world. Second, most of our food is grown to be eaten by animals that we then eat. If we ate the food directly, you could feed way more people than through the meat. So if there is a reduction in capacity through such an event, unless it's too extreme, we'll still have lots of food left.

dexwiz 5y ago
Corn raised for feed is not the same as corn raised for human food. You could probably eat it wafted some form of processing. But judging by our slow response to the pandemic, I doubt we could pivot fast enough before it rotted.
- est31 5y ago
  Yeah this is more about not having people starve than having people eat their optimal meal.
- felipemnoa 5y ago
  I find this curious. How different can they really be?
  - dexwiz 5y ago
    Sweet corn (what we eat) needs to be cooked but is edible raw. Feed corn is tough as nails. Field corn is more starch than sugar and has a much lower moisture content. Almost all corn is field corn, more than 95% of the total crop. You can eat field corn but it’s about as appealing as hard tack.
mrbungie 5y ago
To reassign crops for feedstock to human consumption is not as easy as it sounds. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, is that our global food supply chain is a complex beast. Also, just a reminder to those lucky enough to survive this pandemic: a marginal increase in food prices (plus inflation) due to supply chain disruption might leave poor people with less foods on their tables. https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/food-supply-chains-and-covid-19-impacts-and-policy-lessons-71b57aea/ https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/food-suppl... https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se...
- jdavis703 5y ago
  > To reassign crops for feedstock to human consumption is not as easy as it sounds. This is correct, but feedstock type foods are easier to store and re-route than other food with a shorter shelf life. Over the pandemic I never had an issue finding basics like flour or potatoes. Foods that became scarce were meat, dairy and highly-processed foods.
  - jwin742 5y ago
    > Over the pandemic I never had an issue finding basics like flour flour was almost impossible to buy early in the pandemic in the US at least. Seemed like more of a demand side issue as everyone (including me) started baking bread at home. It took months for them to start having full stocks of flour again.
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      One pound bags of flour coming to grocery stores through the grocery supply chains were in high demand, because previously almost no one bought flour on that channel. Meanwhile, bakeries kept on trucking along, AFAICT, with an uninterrupted supply of 50lb bags from the non-retail supply chain.
      - Super_Jambo 5y ago
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
Try to eat corn or grass used to feed animals. It's not going to end well. And a global supervolcanic eruption would disrupt the production of food worldwide, not just in a single continent. Therefore, I doubt we are not "more robust than ever", as you claim.
gojomo 5y ago
Does the example of the world's recent adaptations to COVID-19 give you confidence that "we" would make the necessary adjustments to redirect livestock feeds to humans in an emergency? I doubt that for any famine of the last 200 years, including those that killed tens of millions, the problem has been, "not enough food in the world". The problem has been, "failed institutions don't put the food where it's most needed". Vaccines are even easier to ship than food. Are they getting to where they're most needed?
- jltsiren 5y ago
  It does give me confidence. There were three periods in the COVID-19 response. The initial response was limited, because people were still unsure whether the virus was a serious threat. Then, in March 2020, we saw determined efforts to stop the virus that were unprecedented in speed and scale. People were playing it safe, because it was obvious that the threat was serious, but nobody knew how serious it would be. Around May 2020, it became clear that the threat was not that serious after all. The focus then switched to the cost-effectiveness of the response from various points of the view. The worst case for COVID-19 was maybe 1% of the population dead, 10% with serious long-term health consequences, a global depression, and a handful of coups, revolutions, and civil wars. It would have been bad, but only on the level we should expect a few times in a century anyway. It was serious enough to warrant a large-scale response but not serious enough to mobilize the entire society.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Unless anyone pulls a Stalin and intentionally mismanages things to starve people we'll probably be fine. Modern communications and commerce channels should let us route around stupidity unless we're prevented from doing so. If someone does pull a Stalin at any meaningful scale that's probably not gonna be possible to keep on the down low and heads will roll, likely literally.

qaq 5y ago

Well global worming is protecting us from that scenario

DantesKite 5y ago
I do agree that polluting the planet is bad and we should do everything we can do reduce our impact on the environment. But I do think it's funny global warming is universally condemned as being bad. I think a more honest assessment would be, "There are unknown risks to warming the up planet and we don't want to tinker with that." Russia, Canada, and parts of norther Europe would benefit quite a bit from it.

dang 5y ago

Past threads about 1816. Others? Tambora Erupts in 1815 and Changes World History (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853116 - Oct 2020 (8 comments) Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22400480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22400480 - Feb 2020 (131 comments) The Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18477459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18477459 - Nov 2018 (1 comment) How a volcanic eruption made 1816 the year without a summer (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949772 - Sept 2018 (1 comment) 1816, the Year without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768951 - Nov 2017 (14 comments) How a Volcanic Eruption in 1815 Darkened the World but Colored the Arts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10118706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10118706 - Aug 2015 (4 comments) The Poet, the Physician and the Birth of the Modern Vampire - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619876 - May 2015 (2 comments) Tambora – The Volcano That Changed the Course of History - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7564442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7564442 - April 2014 (3 comments) 1816: The Year Without a Summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779911 - May 2013 (1 comment)