The last 200 years have been had some of the most stable known periods of weather. And the reason it took so long for farming to be introduced by the hunter gatherers who inhabited the world is that the weather prior to that was too unstable allow for an agriculture-only lifestyle.
So I don't take the potential for global cooling to necessarily mean that it will mix with global warming to allow us all to live a Mediterranean lifestyle. Likely it just means an oscillating hell. Sort of like where our recent weather has been going.
VanWinkle's, Huff Post Science, 1 July 2015 (Hat tip: NC)
Modern technology has made us able to predict solar cycles with much greater accuracy, and Zharkova’s model predicts that solar activity will drop by more than half between 2030 and 2040.
"In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other -- peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,” said Zharkova.
The Maunder Minimum is the title given to periods of time when sunspots are rare. It last occurred between 1645 and 1715, when roughly 50 sunspots were recorded, as opposed to the standard 40,000. That time was marked by brutal, river-freezing temperatures in Europe and North America.
I should note that the little ice age they note was also accompanied by an increase in volcanic activity.
4 comments:
Even if you not a fan of a wheat only survival stash, it is a bare minimum that will do the job, if only barely. $250 per person per five years of emergency food ( not counting the container cost ). Huge weather fluctuations are a great reason to store insanely inexpensive Industrial Age food ( along with the threat of Yellowstone or an asteroid, among others ).
James: The biggest issue with wheat (which I have no problem with) is lack of knowledge in how to store, the amount of space required, and blandness.
Wheat because of its protean content is the superior to the other major staples: rice and corn.
I needed to amend my first comment- it's $500, not $250. Sorry, it was this mornings first cup of coffee. Storage can be large cola syrup barrels, flat mylar bags if not stacked ( ie, on top of a cupboard that has a bit of clearance to the ceiling, under a bed frame, etc. ). It doesn't have to be just five gallon buckets. Bland is kind of hard to get around. My biggest relief for that in my daily eating is butter, but that isn't exactly a solution after the collapse unless you have goats and make ghee. Of course, come the third failed crop, bland wheat from storage beats starving, which is really all the wheat plan is for, by itself.
James: I should give you a hard time about the high inflation rate of wheat pricing, but lack of coffee is a valid excuse in my book. People in famines get so hungry that they will eat dirt - I imagine under the correct circumstances the bland wheat will be just fine.
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