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CleanTechnica reports
The "flash drought" that came out of nowhere this summer in the US High Plains, afflicting Montana and the Dakotas the worst, has already destroyed more than half of this year's wheat crop, going by some recent field surveys. Considering that the region is now one of the top wheat-growing regions in the world, the damage is very notable.
These so-called flash droughts are expected to become considerably more common over the coming decades as the climate continues warming and weather patterns continue changing.
[...] Something that's interesting to note here is that 2011, only 6 years back, was actually one of the wettest years on record in eastern Montana. Those sorts of rapid swings between extreme precipitation and flooding on the one hand, and extreme flash droughts on the other, are only going to become more common from here on out. Eventually, most of the agriculture in the region will have to cease.
Grist calls this a Cereal Killer.
(Score: 4, Funny) by mhajicek on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:59PM (23 children)
I'm gluten intolerant.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:26PM (13 children)
I'm glad for you. Well maybe. After all, wheat food is easy to find. My mother in law is always looking for gluten free foods.
But what about all the people who are intolerant of gluten intolerant people?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:28PM (11 children)
To clarify, glad you're not affected by wheat crop, but not sure it's a good thing that you're gluten intolerant.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:09PM (10 children)
I'm confused. Are we talking about celiac disease [wikipedia.org]? Or are we complaining about health food fads?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:19PM (6 children)
There is a little of both. Gluten intolerance (GI) includes more than just Celiac Disease, but actual scientific studies put the prevalence less than most realize even when you count those that are asymptomatic. According to my gastroenterologist (that I see for things other than GI), the last time he ran the numbers, the people who come through his door claiming GI that actually have GI is just over 5%, which is LOWER than the number in the general population. And there is no end to what he calls "gluten-free hypocrites," who claim intolerance but drink malt beer and eat other food they don't realize have gluten in them (like one that could only eat bread after using the gluten-free setting on her toaster), or claim sensitivity to foods that have no gluten in them, like corn and rice flour, or dairy and meats. He also dislikes them because the fad is making food more expensive for people without GI, spread disinformation, and make some think that the condition is purely psychosomatic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:24PM (5 children)
How does it make food more expensive for people who like to eat gluten? I would expect the opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @12:08AM (4 children)
I meant to put "it makes food more expensive for people WITH GI," which is a result of the fad because it basically turns it into a luxury good.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday August 11 2017, @02:50PM (2 children)
I've found the opposite actually. The fad anti gluten people have caused suppliers to offer many more gluten free options, which are improving in quality and dropping in price. Gluten free food is no longer a rare specialty item.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:01PM (1 child)
Does it really though? All my GI family complain of same or higher prices, especially in staples. What they really complain about though is how many foods with big "gluten free" and other advertising were already gluten free or had ready alternatives. You can buy the regular and "gluten-free" versions of many foods with the exact same benefits, but the ones with the stickers on them are pricier.
Of course, it could just be where they shop vs. where you shop, in both where you live and what store you choose to go to.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday August 11 2017, @09:29PM
I think that's something a lot of people don't understand.
Your standard oatmeal may not contain wheat as an ingredient, but if it's made in the same facility as cream of wheat or other flour bearing products or if the oats were shipped in the same trucks or anything like that it may contain micrograms of wheat dust, which is enough to cause some people significant issues or even send them to the hospital. It's like if you had food that was made in the same building as a botulism toxin refinery using some of the same equipment; you'd pay extra for the food made elsewhere even if they assured you that they didn't put any botulism toxin in it.
So while you could buy cheap oatmeal before and have a decent shot at not getting sick from it depending on your sensitivity (I have sometimes gotten sick from the standard Quaker oatmeal), if you wanted to be certain you'd have to roll your own or maybe buy expensive organic small-batch free-range oatmeal where each grain of oat was individually hand washed. Now there are mainstream lines so you just pay a small premium.
I emailed Quaker about the subject a couple years ago and they said that they couldn't guarantee that their oatmeal didn't contain wheat, for the above reasons. Now they have GF oatmeal for not much more than their standard, so I can have a cheaper reliably GF breakfast than the comparable alternatives of a few years ago.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:21AM
Thanks for clarifying. I've noticed that gluten-free foods often are expensive. Greater demand could lead to greater production and wider availability. In theory, it could even result in lower prices because of economies of scale. But businesses tend to charge what the market will bear.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:33PM (2 children)
98% of the gluten whiners are indeed talking about the fad.
The fad is something of a self fulfilling prophesy.
You see a fad, you jump on the band wagon.
You avoid wheat like it was death.
Gradually your gut loses the ability to digest wheat. (not just gluten - all of the wheat).
You eat some wheat, fart and bloat a bit, attributed it to gluten intolerance.
Go back to eating gluten free smug that you are now a member of the in crowd.
Hint: Its temporary. You'd have as much problem digesting North American Wheat if you
had been raised on a diet of UK wheat, or Australian wheat. Your gut will reacquire the ability.
But you'll be way less cool.
Only 0.18–1.2% actually have celiac disease.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:55PM
Eating grains is weird anyway. Why not eat real food like meat, vegetables, nuts, and fruit? Leave the grains for when you are really desperate, then the insects for being really, really desperate. They shouldn't be a staple food. Then again I don't enjoy sugary deserts either so maybe that is just my taste.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:05PM
Sorry, but it doesn't necessarily work that way. (I'm a single data point, so I need to say "necessarily".) For totally other reasons I stopped eating wheat for around a decade. So much so that my sister who has celiac and ends up in the hospital if she eats something that's been cut with a knife that has been used to cut bread, could eat the same food I do. Then for other reasons I started eating wheat again, not just wheat, but actually refined gluten as well as wheat germ and wheat bran. This caused **NO** digestive problems except for a few days of rather loose bowels...too much wheat bran.
So you don't necessarily become wheat intolerant just because you don't eat it for awhile.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:43PM
Well, they'll either have to buy expensive gluten-intolerant-free people to eat, or just eat less dishes with people in them.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:18PM (7 children)
Yeah my son too, the bad news is instead of using wheat as a filler, "they" will have to use GF grains as filler, raising the prices of GF stuff even more. So the GF birthday cake mix will be $8 now instead of $6 per box or whatever.
After the first couple years we just don't eat grains stuff, generally, which is a lot cheaper and easier than weird GF substitutes. So last night was thai style cashew chicken stir fry night instead of burgers on GF bun. Or my GF substitute for cookies as a snack is, like, an apple.
Restaurants are a PITA. Steaks and salads all the way...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:59PM (1 child)
I've been thinking there is some contaminant in bread that people are getting allergic too, for example something left over from the cysteine extraction process:
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/53jx5n/theres-human-hair-in-your-bread [vice.com]
The more gluten intolerant people may just be less suitable for cannibalism than the rest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:51AM
I think most of our digestive systems will be able to cope with human hair with no problems. The issue is there's a LOT of stuff that's not declared, or declared as "inert" when it's not actually inert: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ [scientificamerican.com]
Remember all the studies claiming that glyphosate is safe? Even if those studies are right, Roundup isn't only glyphosate, is contains POEA:
So there could be other reasons than people suddenly getting sensitive to wheat. I hear people saying they can eat bread from a different country, and others thus saying the problem is psychosomatic but it could be something is actually different.
Often I get pimples when I eat at Subway - I just have mayo, vege, tuna/meat (???), bread. But when I eat bread + meat (lamb) + garlic mayo at various cheap Middle Eastern places I don't get pimples. So what's the difference? The mayo is different? The meat? The lack of azodicarbonamide in the bread?
I'm not one of those afraid of chemicals just because of long names but the thing is the rats and mice they test these shit on don't die from getting pimples and they don't live much longer than 2 years. And the track record of industries and corporations in such stuff isn't confidence inspiring. If there are problems it doesn't affect those rich sociopaths at the top who can afford to eat organic food and have their own private medical team.
There are some theories that the US wheat is different: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/09/26/226510988/doctors-say-changes-in-wheat-do-not-explain-rise-of-celiac-disease [npr.org]
But others say:
But the fact is the vast majority of the US people are overweight and unhealthy. It may not be due to the wheat and more due to sugar, but that makes me doubt him and his claims of good evidence.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:11PM (4 children)
FWIW, if your Thai Chicken used soy sauce it wasn't gluten free. Similarly for many other such sauces. Most standard oriental dishes as normally served in a restaurant are NOT gluten free, even if they only use rice in the recipe...because most use soy sauce, or tamari, or terriyaki, or...
That said, it's quite possible to do some styles of Thai Chicken (etc.) gluten free, so you might be just phrasing your point poorly, but just being Thai style chicken doesn't mean it's gluten free. (There's this Thai sauce that *is* gluten free, which *I* can't eat. It involves lumps of rock candy stewed into the sauce. Delicious!...but truly terrible for my health.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Friday August 11 2017, @02:00PM (1 child)
Yes that's the crucial distinction between Thai and Chinese, Chinese cashew chicken would drown in (wheat) soy sauce but Thai cashew chicken doesn't if you avoid oyster sauce which my kids declare "gross" so I don't use it anyway. Still tastes pretty good. Stinky Vietnamese fish sauce is about four times stronger than Thai oyster sauce (my opinion, no idea how accurate that really is) and the "good / real" stuff is made out of nothing but anchovies and salt perfectly soy and wheat free, so you can swap out oyster sauce and some of the salt and use about 1/4 super salty Vietnam fish sauce. So instead of a teaspoon of oyster sauce you use like drops of fish sauce. For my weird local value of kid logic, my kids declare oyster juice too disgusting to consume but anchovy juice is merely juicy fish and they like fish so all is well WRT stinky fish sauce. I have no comment, kid logic, what more can be said... When that little is being used anyway you may as well skip it, the meal still tastes good.
WRT thai cuisine commercial oyster sauce "always" contains soy sauce which contains wheat. Other than that, you're mostly good aside from the usual "cheap imitation shit full of profit boosting filler" which applies to all cuisines.
I've heard rumors commercial "out of a jar" chili paste contain soy sauce, unconfirmed, my brand does not. Sometimes I'm lazy and mortar and pestle garlic and chili is not in the cards. Obviously if you make your own chili paste it is not an issue.
There's a Paleo thai cookbook by Fragoso (the hot woman who has written a stack of paleo cookbooks) Paleo is usually GF most of the time plus or minus minor condiments which still has to be looked out for.
If you want to piss off somewhat nationalist thai and chinese cooks/chefs at the same time just tell them its the same food except thai food replaces most of the soy with spicy/hot garlic and chili paste. You can go pretty far in cooking with that analogy. Take every chinese stir fry or fried rice (cauliflower rice in my case) recipe that uses teriyaki or soy sauce and just sub in thai chili paste and there you go.
My experience with coconut aminos is they're gross and don't taste much like soy sauce so don't bother, although opinions may vary. Technically if you had a source of oysters and a heck of a lot of spare time I think you could make Thai style oyster sauce homemade using coconut aminos. But since coconut aminos taste gross it would likely ruin the oyster sauce. If you take the soy sauce out of the oyster sauce you pretty much have vietnam fish sauce using a different species of seafood, so may as well use the stinky fish sauce and leave it at that.
From what I understand, local wheat agriculture in Thailand is essentially zero, which is a pretty good indicator the cuisine will be mostly GF, although, you know, imported soy sauce, imported wheat, etc. Ukraine Russian German cuisine, probably not fertile ground for naturally GF cuisine, LOL. Mexico grows surprisingly little wheat, as long as you're not allergic to corn they have plenty of GF cuisine or GF adaptable cuisine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @03:18PM
Because you're very wrong: https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-food/eight-cuisine.htm [chinahighlights.com]
And that's just the 8 famous cuisines, there are plenty of others see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine [wikipedia.org]
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/z4dg4j/dividing-and-conquering-the-cuisines-of-china [vice.com]
What you said is about as silly as saying "US food" is the same food as European food except that US food just replaces the mayo with ketchup.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday August 11 2017, @02:56PM (1 child)
There are GF soysauces. Tamari is a good one, and I was already using it before GI because I think it tastes better.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 11 2017, @04:29PM
OK, if you say so. My sister doesn't like them at all, and I've no interest. Still, "de gustibus non disputandum est". If you like them then you like them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:25PM
I'm a glutton for gluten.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:14PM (3 children)
More common just like how hurricanes were supposed to be more common I guess
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
More common just like how hurricanes were supposed to be more common I guess
Hurricanes have become more common. [wunderground.com]
"... the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had increased 80% in the past 30 years."
However, you miss-state the scientific consensus on the issue.
"Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:34PM
They have been changing the definitions of those categories so you are comparing apples to oranges, also the score depends on population density...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_scale [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:10AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:29PM (12 children)
Good thing I'm on a ketogenic diet now and don't touch anything with carbs in it...
It's going to spike the price of bread, cereal, and many processed foods and that's gonna sting for a lot of people, but on the bright side people in America need to go on a diet and stop eating so much sugar and carbs because it's giving them diabetes and heart disease, so this is an opportunity to cut back. I say that as a person who loves bread and loves pastry, too.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:56PM (3 children)
you still "touch" carbs indirectly, as your non-carb products are probably fed a rather high carb diet, which is based off if cereal grains or byproducts.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:23PM (2 children)
Nothing fattens up mammals quite like corn products, see both livestock farmers AND the fatties on peopleofwalmart.com
Its all one big icky interconnected marketplace. Less wheat means more corn demand means more demand for grass fed beef means my local farmer who sells me 1/2 cows is gonna end up charging us more because they'll be more people bidding for his cows.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:28PM
Good point. Luckily, I know how to fish.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 11 2017, @03:13PM
It isn't corn making Americans fat, or they would have been fat two centuries ago. Americans have always eaten lots of corn. The obesity epidemic is caused mostly by high fructose corn syrup they started substituting for sugar in everything. Some canners are adding HFCS to vegetables. Vegetables aren't supposed to be sweet, damn it!
Of course, the huge portions served these days is another reason. When I was a kid there was no such thing as a quarter pound hamburger, now half pounders are common. Soda at McDonald's was an eight ounce small, twelve ounce medium and sixteen ounce large. Yesterday's large drink is today's small drink (loaded with HFCS, of course).
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:03PM (6 children)
Darn optimists! "It's not a famine, it's a diet opportunity!"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:02PM (5 children)
Pessimists are usually correct because optimists are full of . . . um . . . something.
Pessimists should be called Realists.
I can find a local Optimists Club in my community. But no Pessimists Club?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
A pessimist is never disappointed...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 11 2017, @03:16PM
The optimist is often disappointed. The pessimist is often happily surprised.
"Is the glass half empty of half full" the wrong question. The correct question is, is half a glass sufficient?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:30PM (1 child)
https://www.ieee.org/ [ieee.org]
Engineers are always trying to anticipate what could go wrong.
They build significant margins into designs to attempt to cover for that.
The best engineers are the biggest pessimists.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:14PM
Darn.. If I'd done engineering at Uni, I could have an excuse for my realism.. "No, I'm not a pessimist, I'm an engineer with large margins of error"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by Farmer Tim on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:51PM
The realist is the one who goes out and asks whether anyone is interested before starting the club rather than making a decision based on their assumptions. Since there isn't a realist's club either it would be easy to assume that realism is the same as pessimism, however that ignores the overwhelming evidence that very few people are interested in reality.
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:01PM
good for you. i'm convinced it's the way to go too, though i don't do the full 70fat/25protein/5carbs. i do more of a 50/25/25 but the last 25 i try to get from vegetables. zero grains. i dropped 50 pounds of lard, then added back about 10 of muscle. still have 10-15? of fat to go. It's still melting, just slower. i could speed it up easily if i wanted too by getting closer to the 70/25/5(it hauls ass at this ratio once it gets going. like a pound a day or something.) but i don't need to. this is fast enough.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:35PM (13 children)
TFS speweth the following malarky:
a) No one has and idea what the future will bring in terms of climate in this region. All manner of possibilities are open.
b) There is no, repeat, zero, indication that "most of the agriculture in the region will have to cease", eventually or otherwise.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:37PM
Damnit, I read my post several times and missed this anyway. A few minutes of editing opportunity would be so welcome.... sigh.
* no one has
andany idea...(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:10PM (7 children)
Oklahoma was going through an extended wet cycle, which made crop raising there quite productive. Then the Dust Bowl suddenly happened, returning the region back to the longer cycle "norm", where it is now.
farmers and ranchers usually can absorb a "big hit" every once in awhile. Part of their conservatism is driven by this. But it doesnt take too many big hit events in a row to push them over the edge. Depending on what they produce, they may or may not have much safety net (crop insurance, etc) available, espeslcially as USDA adjusts their subsidy programs...
big hit = {spring blizzards during calving or lambing season, locusts, hail storms, etc. the usual "biblical plague" stuff}
Just sayin'...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:09PM (5 children)
Agreed. But the land isn't gone, even if the farmer goes belly up. The bank or state will just sell the land to another farmer, who will pick up again where the other left off when the climate becomes more clement. And so it goes.
I've lived in this area for a very long time - NE Montana - and I've watched the circumstances, comings and goings for decades. The farmers (and ranchers) are quite flexible as to what they'll plant, raise, etc., as the climate goes through its fits and starts. Plus, a lot of the area is irrigated; we have huge water reserves that are not sourced locally (Fort Peck lake [wikipedia.org], for instance.) I know many of these people; I'm all too familiar with their varying circumstances. They like to talk about them. There are many jokes about that... but I'll spare you. :)
Frankly, the most worrisome threats to the area right now are the rumblings from the Trump administration that the region's Amtrak and airport passenger subsidies will be cut, basically eliminating ease of access to and from the area. Just like telephone service, these things address basic needs of the area, particularly as it's so isolated from the rest of the country. Making it even more difficult to live up here isn't prudent. We do supply a lot of goodness to the rest of the country. The basic financial picture of these services aren't enough to base such decisions upon. Because those won't be the only consequences. That's what people up here are really worried about.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)
If you're up around Jordan or Wolf Point I'm surprised anybody does any ranching or farming these days when the crazy lucrative work at the Bakken Formation is so near by.
(As an aside, it's notable that there's such a relative abundance of Montanans on Soylent.)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Friday August 11 2017, @02:22PM
The Bakken is a shadow of its former self. The bunkhouses sit empty, many of the wells have been capped, etc.
The Bakken only existed because oil prices had risen. Unless/until they rise again, it's a done deal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:51PM (2 children)
Well, I advocate eliminating agricultural subsidies. That would be even worse for the region, but better (through both cheaper food prices and less federal level spending) for everywhere else in the US which is a lot bigger. So I have no problem eliminating these lesser subsidies. My view is that this isn't about food production protection (the US produces a considerable surplus of food and IMHO would continue to do so even in the pure absence of agricultural subsidies) but rather about lifestyle protection. And I don't see enough value in this agrarian lifestyle to justify the infrastructure that the region is not willing to build or purchase itself.
Further, Amtrak is grotesquely inefficient, due in large part to supporting routes like the above that don't have economic use.
This sort of thing is how you buy votes to build the current corrupt mess in the US. I would not single out agriculture, Amtrak, or Montana as being particularly egregious (though some parts of agriculture are among the worst examples of corruption, harmful spending, and misguided policies out there). But I think there's going to have to be a lot of spending cuts across the board, including stuff like what you mention above, in order to have a stable future.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 11 2017, @02:04PM (1 child)
OK, if agriculture and ranching and food production in general aren't important enough for you, how about the missile fields [wikipedia.org] the infrastructure in Montana also serves? Oil production in the Bakken Formation, which is almost as much in NE Montana [wikipedia.org] as in NW North Dakota? Those things are manly and important enough to care about, aren't they?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 11 2017, @08:30PM
None of that stuff is dependent on Amtrak or airport subsidies. But yes, I don't consider them important enough. If the local economy can't find enough money to pay for its own airport service from oil production and such, then it probably shouldn't have that airport service. I don't mind if you choose to live in the middle of nowhere. But if you do, man up and accept that you don't deserve shiny services from the federal government just like no one else deserves such services for all the stuff they do or the places they live.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:09PM
Don't worry. Next year will be better.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:40PM
To be fair, the quote is taken verbatim from TFA. So it's the article, not the submitter, who's at fault.
But, yeah. [Citation Needed] on this claim.
It doesn't inspire confidence in the article that the quote you reference is in a paragraph immediately following one that actually IS a quote from a real meterologist. If you miss the close quote, the colloquial style seems designed to make you think the author's opinion is being attributed to the scientist. It's punctuated accurately, so it's not per se deceptive. But it's hard for me personally reading this to believe that there isn't a deliberate attempt to try to pass off opinion as fact here.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:23PM (2 children)
Sorry, but it was quite predictable that the yearly weather would start going into more extreme cycles even before the global warming thing started kicking in. You see, our parents and grand-parents were living during this thing called the "little climatic optimum", characterized by weather that wasn't erratic, and we were have been leaving that since roughly (there aren't any smooth boundaries here, one period grades into another) the start of the 1950's, perhaps a bit sooner. (Note that the dust storms happened *during* the little climatic optimum. Weather is never that reliable. There was also the "year without a summer", which was directly tied into a volcano.)
So even without global warming we should be expecting more erratic weather. This makes it a bit harder to say that any particular event of bad weather is due to global warming...but measurements show it is indeed happening to compound things. When the polar ice pack melts, that's not because of leaving the little climatic optimum, that's because the arctic has gotten warmer. However, weather being weather, and things not be distributed evenly, global warming has also, or appears to have also, lead to episodes of unusually cold weather...of course, usually we can't be sure that any one case isn't due to leaving the little climatic optimum, or even just due to the chaotic nature of weather.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday August 11 2017, @02:41PM
So? The two points I made are still correct, and TFS is still stupid. No one can predict the weather, or the climate. Saying "it's going to change" is both obvious and not helpful. Saying "it's going to change more" may well be true, but doesn't make it any easier to predict the weather or the climate. And there's still no indication whatsoever that agriculture (or ranching) in the area "will have to cease."
TFS, and apparently, TFA as well (I didn't read it, I'm usually in traditionalist mode, especially when TFS is as full of absurdity as this one), are full of fecal matter as to these points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:06AM
No, that period was around the year 900 AD to 1300 AD. [britannica.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:01PM
The irony of Grist reporting on lack of grain is quite rich
(Score: 4, Funny) by RamiK on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:16PM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/extreme-heat-warnings-issued-europe-temperatures-pass-40c [theguardian.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/world/europe/europe-heat-wave.html [nytimes.com]
Lots of crops damage ($billions) and a few fatalities from dehydration. "Lucifer" they called it. I guess "Cereal Killer" is more catchy.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:18PM
Look here [usda.gov]. The inflation-adjusted cost of wheat and other crops is on a long-term decline. There's no sign of a problem due to man-made climate change.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:19PM (4 children)
You Warmers wonder why we yawn at the daily Doom! thread? Because you are worse than Zero Hedge in proclaiming Doom! daily and things failing to go boom. We don't care if you are lying or deluded anymore, we know you can be ignored so we stop the thought process there. If an unexpected calamity were underway one would expect the markets [bloomberg.com] would be reacting a bit stronger than that little July blip.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:35PM (1 child)
"If an unexpected calamity were underway one would expect the markets [bloomberg.com] would be reacting a bit stronger than that little July blip."
Because markets are known for acting rationally and not as a schizophrenic collection of random events. /s
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 11 2017, @12:21AM
They're better than panic stories in the media. And look at it this way, if there really is a nasty downturn in agricultural production about to happen, anyone in the know has plenty of opportunity to profit from that knowledge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:21PM
I don't think you should be nodded troll, it is actually a good point about why some people remain as deniers. It isn't about the science, it is more about human nature. The more you beat someone over the head with something the more likely they'll just dig in with their stubbornes.
That said, Mr Freemarkets here is quite ignorantly blind. Faith in a broken system, would be funny if it wasn't causing so many problems.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 11 2017, @03:20PM
So, you're arguing against the scientists about science? Rather Trumpish, I'd say. You may be on the wrong site if you don't believe scientists or other professionals.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:44PM (3 children)
trump calls this fake news.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:04PM (1 child)
No more wheat? Let them eat twinkies!
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Funny) by NewNic on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:16PM
Hah! What do you think Twinkies are made from?
Oh, wait. Never mind.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:57PM
Trust me, we'll be OK. In America it's summer. Right now, it's our summer. And we always, always have warm weather in summer. Sometimes hot. Which is OK, it puts the fun in summer. It's part of what makes America great. Sometimes I like to sweat a little. But anyone who doesn't can just turn up the AC. Very easy to change the thermostat or have a guy set it for you. I'll tell you, in Antarctica it's winter right now. It was winter in July for them. And Antarctica made a huge, huge iceberg in July. That's how cold it is there, icebergs are forming. The biggest icebergs, like you've never seen in your life. And when winter comes to America, it gets cold too. Sometimes there are icebergs. Believe me, winter is coming. All over America, people will turn up their thermostats. I'll call my guy in. Shipments of coal will arrive at houses all over America. And everyone will be OK. Nice and toasty! I'm having a coal furnace put in at the White House. And solar panels on my Mexican border. Terrific! And if the icebergs make trouble for us, if they threaten us? We'll rain down UNTOLD fire and fury on them, the likes of which you've never seen in your life. If the icebergs do anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they can be very, very nervous. So don't worry about the icebergs. 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:42PM (2 children)
Since way back in the early 2000s in high school I'd been trying to warn people, the crops we can grow and how much are going to change. We need to start investing in sorghum, teff, black fonio, and tepary beans, like yesterday. We're going to have a rather warmer and drier climate inland sooner rather than later. Time to start eating like it. Teff makes really nice flatbread (injera), if nothing else.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:35PM (1 child)
That's reasonable, though I don't know those particular crops. The thing is, the weather is less predictable than it used to be. You can't really count on it being either dryer or wetter. What you need is land with good drainage and crops with deep roots. Some of those you are recommending probably fit this description, but so do many others. But the plants that fit it aren't annuals, which find deep roots too expensive to grow, which means you need to drastically alter your approach to farming. Only plough very rarely, e.g. And that means you need some kind of ground cover that doesn't need plowing. Sometimes it can be the main crop itself, other times it needs to be something else, like pasture. Clover, alfalfa, vetch, that kind of thing makes a good pasture with roots that can improve the soil...but consider carefully to pick something that works in your local area AND works with your main cash crop. Some crops object to a harvester taking off their tops, others don't care.
FWIW, my brother plants rye for pasture so he won't need to water it, but this year the rain came at the wrong time, so he only got about half the growth he expected....and had trouble planting in the low lying fields because they were too muddy when it was time to plant. Even when you try to use the reasonable considerations, weather can betray you.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by t-3 on Friday August 11 2017, @12:21AM
In some cases, just planting /differently/ can make a big difference. I remember reading a study about how planting corn deeper than the recommended 1" prevented losses due to both drought and excess rain because the only the top few inches of soil get drowned due to hydrostatic equilibrium, and deeper-planted corn (even modern varieties - they ran test plots in the dakotas) doesn't have much problem coming up through several inches or more of soil (it was inspired by the planting traditions of natives in the western deserts of the US who often planted 12-18" deep IIRC).
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday August 11 2017, @01:36AM (1 child)
I am lactose intolerant: family 'trait' inherited.
I didn't know until i stopped eating gluten that i was ALSO gluten intolerant:
We would go on long drives, stop for lunch, and within the hour, it would come in waves getting stronger and stronger: "We have to stop soon..... we have to stop SOON.... we have to stop REAL SOON!! before i crap my pants!"
After thinking about it, i started eliminating foods, starting with gluten (they put extra liquid gluten into things like bread to make it fluffier, which is one of the reasons, i believe, that people are becoming intolerant: our bodies just aren't used to dealing with all the extra gluten).
Things are MUCH better now, my stomach is more settled. Celiacs? Irritable bowel? dunno, but much happier without the gluten.
Tribbles UNITE!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @01:55AM
This is my feeling as well, that many people have developed minor allergic reactions with so much of one substance in their diet. Also, gluten is in most carbs in the US at least, so it could also simply be too many people eating too many carbs. Cut out gluten products and it is almost impossible to binge eat carbs.
I'm not allergic to honey or peanuts, but one day I made a PB&H sandwich and it had me slightly wheezing as my airway tightened up a little bit.