4 ms·

The strongest El Niño ever caused a massive famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80

by izend 2mo ago

The strongest El Niño ever caused a massive famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o...

greesil 2mo ago
[flagged]
culi 2mo ago
To be fair, we didn't have the World Food Programme in 1877 which lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time. That being said, the existing energy crisis and fertilizer crisis can significantly compound the negative impacts of this El Niño even if we are able to anticipate it.
- huijzer 2mo ago
  > lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time. If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.
  - roenxi 2mo ago
    If you think that is going to happen, you can buy up some supplies and store them yourself. I have relatives with some impressive and substantial pantries because they're prepared to be snowed in for an extended period of time. Running out of food is possible the least novel problem humanity has ever encountered. And what would you rather happen? If they don't store up a surplus then everyone will run out of food and prices will go up anyway. If there is less food because of a drought, prices are going up. If corporations start building up a stockpile then prices aren't going to go up as much as if there were no reserves. TLDR; Yes. Good. It is a great day when there is food available at the local supermarket.
    - hvb2 2mo ago
      The world is bigger than your relatives. I'm sure he was referring to already food insecure places. The rich countries will have food available, probably at elevated prices. In places where there's actual famine people will do crazy things to get their hands on food.
      - roenxi 2mo ago
        If the plan isn't to stockpile food communally through a big corporation making a tidy profit for being well prepared in a disaster, and it isn't to stockpile it personally... what is the plan? There won't be any food. There are very limited options here. Those two are, by far, the two best ones for reliably being able to access food. Someone has to build up a reserve. Literally, you should to be able to point someone out and say "this person will give me food next month, they've got a stockpile for this drought". Ideally that someone who is very, very motivated to get it right and make it happen. Those big corporations charging extra are going to keep people fed. > The world is bigger than your relatives. I offer no commentary on the size of my relatives vs. the rest of the world :)
        vrganj 2mo ago
        "Communally" and "through a big corporation making a tidy profit" are at odds. It's either for and by the community or it's for and by a big corporation profiteering off the misfortune of the community. It can't be both at the same time. The big corporations aren't "going to keep people fed", they will hoard and ration by wealth, not by need. The billionaire will get their twenty course fine dining experience, the beggar will starve. That's not keeping the people fed by any serious definition of the term.
        newsclues 2mo ago
        You don’t know co-ops exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
        2mo ago
  - ben_w 2mo ago
    Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry. Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However: > buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before they even know how supply and demand will balance, guaranteeing a price for the producer and letting them plan purchases of machinery and maintenance, with the risks (in bad years) and profit margins (in good years) going up the supply chain.
    - deepsun 2mo ago
      Another reason why most countries subsidise their agriculture is because in times of war you don't want your enemy to starve you. That's mostly about high calories foods, not fancy salads though.
      - epolanski 2mo ago
        It would be just easier to not wage war by the way. Can't think of many countries besides Canada and US that would not starve in NATO if such a necessity arose, and that's because they produce lots of cereals. All the other countries in NATO are major food importers.
        RandomLensman 2mo ago
        Being a major importers of olive oil is probably not such a big deal. The EU is pretty self-sufficient for food, for example - can change a bit the food and agg mix if needed (and some countries have emergency stores as well).
        tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
        >All the other countries in NATO are major food importers. All apart from France, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Turkey, Italy and Ireland. Interestingly the US is borderline now depending on how you measure food imports and exports.
  - mhh__ 2mo ago
    Seems to work pretty well. The alternative is either no food or no prices.
  - dukeyukey 2mo ago
    I mean do we not want food to be stored for tough times? And the people who do this storing should get paid for it?
  - xhkkffbf 2mo ago
    So are we supposed to demonize the big corporations for making a profit or celebrate them for planning ahead and making sure we don't starve? I'm not so sure these days.
- silentmafia 2mo ago
  another excellent agency for mr. president to target
  - 9dev 2mo ago
    Give him some shiny toy to play with immediately so he is too distracted to fuck anything up too bad
- AlecSchueler 2mo ago
  When did the WFP eradicate famine?
- brewdad 2mo ago
  Does that program still exist in the way we expect it to or has it been DOGE’d like the USAID program?
  - culi 2mo ago
    It was cut for Yemen, the Congo, Niger, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, and Madagascar. Ultimately, USAID is massive vehicle for subsidizing US agriculture so a lot of cuts related to that got restored. It's also a massive benefit to the competitiveness of US agriculture because a huge influx of "free" (sorta) foreign food is a great way to bankrupt domestic markets. See Haiti for example: https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/haitian-farmers-undermined-by-food-aid/ https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/haitian-farmers-u...
pelasaco 2mo ago
A modern 1877 scale event would probably immediately fuel (pun intended) a furious climate change debate, even though attributing the existence of the El Niño itself to fossil fuels would not be scientifically justified... or maybe was the 1877 El Niño caused by fossil fuels (so many Wars happened in those years) ?
- defrost 2mo ago
  Nobody in planet modelling has ever suggested that the 3 phase El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exists because of fossil fuel usage. An extreme swing, here and there, has always been part of its nature. The observed change is more and more extreme swings, greater amplitude, higher frequency.
  - pelasaco 2mo ago
    in one hand i wanted to highlight that if it was today, we - as civilization - would definitely create a link between the events, based on our "feeling" in another hand, i question if we really could rule out, since back in the days, everything that we have was coal.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - defrost 2mo ago
      If you care to get analytic, it's related to the insulation factor of the atmosphere, fairly consistent amounts of sunlight in (subject to know solar variation and orbit) that heats land and sea surface radiating thermal energy out to space with a "small" amount trapped to maintain a globally mean amount of energy that powers climate cells and cascades into other forms. The global amount of coal use in the 1880s was non zero, sure, but overall the CO2 emissions from those tonnages were minuscule compared to modern emissions within the past 50 years .. and we have direct libraries of atmosphere created since the early years of the Cold War and many pocket captures for the past 200 years, with proxies (such as ice core bubbles) going back far longer. ENSO predates heavy coal use - so it's not something created by human activity, and as noted the first uses of coal were barely enough to move the needle (recall that collieries kept records so we have a fair handle on tonnages extracted).
ksec 2mo ago
That is the question I am trying to get from the article. Will this new "keep growing" strongest ever be as bad as the one in 1877. But it keep explaining what El Niño and Super El Niño and how it develops without giving me any context of how strong it will be.
- bbor 2mo ago
  Yes, AFAIU it is far and away the biggest in recorded history. That said, the 1877 one also lined up with one or two other meteorological events by chance that made the famine worse, and it’s my understanding that we don’t know if those will be present this winter or not. It’s gonna be a weird one…

by izend 2mo ago

The strongest El Niño ever caused a massive famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o...

greesil 2mo ago

[flagged]

culi 2mo ago

To be fair, we didn't have the World Food Programme in 1877 which lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time. That being said, the existing energy crisis and fertilizer crisis can significantly compound the negative impacts of this El Niño even if we are able to anticipate it.

huijzer 2mo ago
> lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time. If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.
- roenxi 2mo ago
  If you think that is going to happen, you can buy up some supplies and store them yourself. I have relatives with some impressive and substantial pantries because they're prepared to be snowed in for an extended period of time. Running out of food is possible the least novel problem humanity has ever encountered. And what would you rather happen? If they don't store up a surplus then everyone will run out of food and prices will go up anyway. If there is less food because of a drought, prices are going up. If corporations start building up a stockpile then prices aren't going to go up as much as if there were no reserves. TLDR; Yes. Good. It is a great day when there is food available at the local supermarket.
  - hvb2 2mo ago
    The world is bigger than your relatives. I'm sure he was referring to already food insecure places. The rich countries will have food available, probably at elevated prices. In places where there's actual famine people will do crazy things to get their hands on food.
    - roenxi 2mo ago
      If the plan isn't to stockpile food communally through a big corporation making a tidy profit for being well prepared in a disaster, and it isn't to stockpile it personally... what is the plan? There won't be any food. There are very limited options here. Those two are, by far, the two best ones for reliably being able to access food. Someone has to build up a reserve. Literally, you should to be able to point someone out and say "this person will give me food next month, they've got a stockpile for this drought". Ideally that someone who is very, very motivated to get it right and make it happen. Those big corporations charging extra are going to keep people fed. > The world is bigger than your relatives. I offer no commentary on the size of my relatives vs. the rest of the world :)
      - vrganj 2mo ago
        "Communally" and "through a big corporation making a tidy profit" are at odds. It's either for and by the community or it's for and by a big corporation profiteering off the misfortune of the community. It can't be both at the same time. The big corporations aren't "going to keep people fed", they will hoard and ration by wealth, not by need. The billionaire will get their twenty course fine dining experience, the beggar will starve. That's not keeping the people fed by any serious definition of the term.
        newsclues 2mo ago
        You don’t know co-ops exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
        2mo ago
- ben_w 2mo ago
  Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry. Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However: > buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before they even know how supply and demand will balance, guaranteeing a price for the producer and letting them plan purchases of machinery and maintenance, with the risks (in bad years) and profit margins (in good years) going up the supply chain.
  - deepsun 2mo ago
    Another reason why most countries subsidise their agriculture is because in times of war you don't want your enemy to starve you. That's mostly about high calories foods, not fancy salads though.
    - epolanski 2mo ago
      It would be just easier to not wage war by the way. Can't think of many countries besides Canada and US that would not starve in NATO if such a necessity arose, and that's because they produce lots of cereals. All the other countries in NATO are major food importers.
      - RandomLensman 2mo ago
        Being a major importers of olive oil is probably not such a big deal. The EU is pretty self-sufficient for food, for example - can change a bit the food and agg mix if needed (and some countries have emergency stores as well).
      - tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
        >All the other countries in NATO are major food importers. All apart from France, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Turkey, Italy and Ireland. Interestingly the US is borderline now depending on how you measure food imports and exports.
- mhh__ 2mo ago
  Seems to work pretty well. The alternative is either no food or no prices.
- dukeyukey 2mo ago
  I mean do we not want food to be stored for tough times? And the people who do this storing should get paid for it?
- xhkkffbf 2mo ago
  So are we supposed to demonize the big corporations for making a profit or celebrate them for planning ahead and making sure we don't starve? I'm not so sure these days.
silentmafia 2mo ago
another excellent agency for mr. president to target
- 9dev 2mo ago
  Give him some shiny toy to play with immediately so he is too distracted to fuck anything up too bad
AlecSchueler 2mo ago
When did the WFP eradicate famine?
brewdad 2mo ago
Does that program still exist in the way we expect it to or has it been DOGE’d like the USAID program?
- culi 2mo ago
  It was cut for Yemen, the Congo, Niger, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, and Madagascar. Ultimately, USAID is massive vehicle for subsidizing US agriculture so a lot of cuts related to that got restored. It's also a massive benefit to the competitiveness of US agriculture because a huge influx of "free" (sorta) foreign food is a great way to bankrupt domestic markets. See Haiti for example: https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/haitian-farmers-undermined-by-food-aid/ https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/haitian-farmers-u...

pelasaco 2mo ago

A modern 1877 scale event would probably immediately fuel (pun intended) a furious climate change debate, even though attributing the existence of the El Niño itself to fossil fuels would not be scientifically justified... or maybe was the 1877 El Niño caused by fossil fuels (so many Wars happened in those years) ?

defrost 2mo ago
Nobody in planet modelling has ever suggested that the 3 phase El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exists because of fossil fuel usage. An extreme swing, here and there, has always been part of its nature. The observed change is more and more extreme swings, greater amplitude, higher frequency.
- pelasaco 2mo ago
  in one hand i wanted to highlight that if it was today, we - as civilization - would definitely create a link between the events, based on our "feeling" in another hand, i question if we really could rule out, since back in the days, everything that we have was coal.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - defrost 2mo ago
    If you care to get analytic, it's related to the insulation factor of the atmosphere, fairly consistent amounts of sunlight in (subject to know solar variation and orbit) that heats land and sea surface radiating thermal energy out to space with a "small" amount trapped to maintain a globally mean amount of energy that powers climate cells and cascades into other forms. The global amount of coal use in the 1880s was non zero, sure, but overall the CO2 emissions from those tonnages were minuscule compared to modern emissions within the past 50 years .. and we have direct libraries of atmosphere created since the early years of the Cold War and many pocket captures for the past 200 years, with proxies (such as ice core bubbles) going back far longer. ENSO predates heavy coal use - so it's not something created by human activity, and as noted the first uses of coal were barely enough to move the needle (recall that collieries kept records so we have a fair handle on tonnages extracted).

ksec 2mo ago

That is the question I am trying to get from the article. Will this new "keep growing" strongest ever be as bad as the one in 1877. But it keep explaining what El Niño and Super El Niño and how it develops without giving me any context of how strong it will be.

bbor 2mo ago
Yes, AFAIU it is far and away the biggest in recorded history. That said, the 1877 one also lined up with one or two other meteorological events by chance that made the famine worse, and it’s my understanding that we don’t know if those will be present this winter or not. It’s gonna be a weird one…