17 replies to this topic

[stocks]

The big story of 2009-2011:

Past cool periods, identified with the late stages of the "Little Ice Age" and with the Maunder and Dalton climate minima, closely correlate with low sunspot numbers (astronomers have kept close tabs on sunspots since Galileo's time). Some solar-physicists are now saying if the current cycle doesn't begin to produce spots soon, we can expect a cool-down like the 19th-Century Dalton minimum - or worse. Decades-long cooling in the past brought crop failures to Europe from repeated summer frosts and restricted growing seasons.

With grain shortages already staring us in the face, we'd be advised to begin thinking about a global cool-down instead of a warming that may or may not continue. We might consider ways to transform semi-desert into arable land and to develop seed with shorter maturing cycles suitable for a sub-boreal grain belt. If cooling should begin in earnest, we will quickly forget global warming as we face the new challenges ahead.

http://www.leadertel...?id=BGMHH9IPD4Q

[stocks]

There are food shortages now? It will get worse as the climate cools An email from Paul Stevens [pstevens2@gmail.com] warns of a REAL climate danger I haven't yet seen many articles in the popular media linking the expected cooling, or current stasis in temperature rise to the biofuels mania, and then predicting the "perfect storm" for reduced food production that will lead to widespread starvation in the developing world. Numerous articles about crop diversion for energy use, of course. But not many speculating on what happens if worsening weather conditions also occur. In the US, corn and soybean planting has already been much delayed by the weather and there is now widespread doubt about the size of the potential harvest. I am reminded of the days in the mid to late sixties when my own relatives in Saskatchewan, Canada suffered through year after year of early frost, too much rain, not enough rain and then late frost, all affecting growing conditions and essentially destroying or reducing their wheat crops. We have had relatively benign conditions for food crops world-wide, over the last 4-5 years. With the diversion to biofuels, continued increase in population and continued demand from the rising middle class in China and India, it only takes a couple of years of bad weather in the worlds bread or rice baskets to equal millions of deaths. From what I read, wheat stocks are reduced around the globe. There won't be any warehoused grain to go to for aid shipments. It's all being sold off to the ethanol folks. A dark day could be coming.

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About 200,000 to 300,000 people may die of starvation in the next two months if there is no emergency aid from the international community, said Good Friends, a Buddhist group in Seoul that works to alleviate hunger in North Korea.

"This is a real, acute situation. We are already getting reports that in some counties there are three or four people dying every single day," said Erica Kang, a spokeswoman for Good Friends.

North Korea suffered a severe famine in the late 1990s that took as many as two million victims in a nation of 23million people.

Even North Korea's controlled media has acknowledged the precarious food situation, blaming it on factors such as unseasonably cold spring weather.

http://www.news.com....725-401,00.html

[stocks]

During the Little Ice Age, the River Thames froze over, the Dutch developed the ice skate and the great artists of the day learned to love a new genre: the winter landscape.
In what had been a warm Europe , adaptations were not all happy: Growing seasons in England and Continental Europe generally became short and unreliable, which led to shortages and famine. These hardships were nothing compared to the more northerly countries: Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finland’s population fell by one-third, Iceland’s by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland were abandoned altogether, as were many Inuit communities. The cold in North America spread so far south that, in the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.


“The next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do,” believes Dr. Chapman. “There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the U.S. and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.”

http://network.natio...otless-sun.aspx

[stocks]

As Donald Coxe has noted, North America has had an 18-year run of remarkably good weather in our growing season. You have to go back 800 years to get a string of years that were that good. Yet today food reserves of all types are at decades-long lows. There is very little room for any type of problem.

This growing season is not off to a good start. It looks like the yield on the corn crop will be lower than normal, and that is if we get very benign weather this fall. Given how late much of the US corn crop was planted, and how torrential rains in the corn belt have devastated crops (not to mention flooding cities, and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost their homes to flooding), an early frost would be disastrous.

Because we have devoted so much of our arable land to corn (in a very misguided policy to turn food into ethanol), we have less for soybeans, which is putting upward price pressure on beans and other grains that are used to feed cattle, hogs, chickens, etc. In fact, it costs so much to feed livestock that ranchers are shrinking their herds.. This means more meat is coming into the system now, which is dampening prices. Increased supply will reduce prices in the short term, but next fall we will find that supplies of all types of meat will be short. That will potentially send meat prices soaring. Cereal and bakery products are up 10% over the last year. They could continue to rise in the fall if the corn crop does not yield more than currently projected. It will cost even more to feed your household and feed the animals we need for meat.

John Mauldin's letter

[stocks]

Cold temps shorten growing season

Last weekend's warm weather will not be enough to compensate for early June's unseasonably cold temperatures, which cut short the Wood River Valley's growing season by at least three weeks.

Darlene McDonald, garden center supervisor for Webb Landscaping, says that the delay in planting and growing will result in less produce.

"There will be a definite decrease in the amount of harvest that people will get out of things that take a longer time to grow, like tomatoes, peppers, corn and potatoes," McDonald said. "It just takes them longer to mature, while vegetables like cabbage, lettuce and broccoli, which can survive colder temperatures, will be just fine. In other words, anything that could not go in early will have a lower yield."



http://www.mtexpress...p?ID=2005121174

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The calendar may say summer, but it's still spring to crops confused by this year's unusually cold temperatures and rainy weather.

Local strawberries, cherries, lettuce, corn and other produce are all behind schedule.

It's the latest harvest Gary Remlinger, of Remlinger Farms in Carnation, has seen in the 40 years that he's grown strawberries. His crop is just now coming ripe when it's usually ready to be picked by mid-June.

"It's unbelievable. It's almost July!" he said.


http://seattletimes....77_delay25.html

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Mongolia is one of the toughest places on earth to live and can boast the coldest capital - Ulaanbaatar - on the planet. Temperatures drop to at least -30C in winter. The country is frozen from November to March.

But four climactic disasters, known as 'dzuds', since 1999 have made life almost impossible for even the toughest of Mongolia's nomadic people who roam over a country three times the size of France. Three particularly harsh winters since 2000 have killed a third of the nation's livestock.

In 2001, the temperature dropped to a record-breaking -57C. Some 15,000 herders lost all of their animals through starvation and cold, and with them, their money and food. More than a quarter of the 2.6m population has left the vast rural areas, where herdsmen have lived since before Ghengis Khan's empire was established in the 13th century, and have fled in desperation to the cities.

http://www.telegraph...mongolia103.xml

[stocks]

Only the beginning:


WINNIPEG — Even for the hardiest Prairie farmer, 2009 is shaping up to be a big challenge.

Following a bitterly cold winter and a spring that refused to warm up, farmers are looking at reduced production and low yields for virtually every crop.

"I've been farming for over 40 years and ... it was one of the longest and coldest springs that I can remember," Chuck Fossay, who grows canola, flax and other crops near Starbuck, Man., said Thursday.

"We just managed to finish seeding on Sunday, so we're about three weeks behind in seeding (and) the crop is very slow coming out of the ground 'cause of the cold weather."

Fossay, whose land was hit by frost even in June, is not alone.

According to the Canadian Wheat Board's annual crop outlook issued Thursday, producers across the Prairies will be producing smaller crops.

"Most (areas) have had about half the available heat to grow a crop this year, which is quite dramatic," said Bruce Burnett, the board's director of weather and market analysis.


http://www.google.co...FfWlw3hVvn8f8iQ

[OEXCHAOS]

I'm very concerned about global cooling. Everyone should be. There is very, very little solar activity, too. Mark