The looming shadow of hunger over our United States

General Discussion
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There are good reasons why some of us have lost faith in the future. Here’s one we don’t like facing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/02/magazine/food-insecurity-hunger-us.html

{Oh yeah, we don’t like facing any of our difficulties, pretend and avoid, the new amerikan way . . . }

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A shadow of hunger looms over the United States. In the pandemic economy, nearly one in eight households doesn’t have enough to eat. The lockdown, with its epic lines at food banks, has revealed what was hidden in plain sight: that the struggle to make food last long enough, and to get food that’s healthful — what experts call “food insecurity” — is a persistent one for millions of Americans.

Beginning in May, the photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally set out across the country, from New York to California, to capture the routines of Americans who struggle to feed their families, piecing together various forms of food assistance, community support and ingenuity to make it from one month to the next.

This is what she saw. This is what America looks like at hunger’s edge.


 

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{Oh yeah, we don’t like facing any of our difficulties, pretend and avoid, the new amerikan way . . . }
I just heard the t rump say that the third quarter is going to be the best in history. Too bad that won't be the case for most of the American working class.

I heard Joe Biden say, earlier today that our economy does not look like it will be a “V” as the t rump keeps saying, but rather, looks more like a “K” shaped recovery, with the economy for big corporations and the wealthy going up, and the economy going down for most of the rest, (like the working class, small businesses, the unemployed, anyone who can’t work from home, etc.).

So Vote JoeMala 2020!

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This is one of the major reasons that the measures brought in during COVID-19 to shut down economies was the wrong move. Their cure is going to be worse than the disease. Those doing the managing lack vision and have been so concerned with their reductive analysis that they have forgotten what is going on outside the lens of their microscope. The management of this problem requires a holistic solution, not simply a solution based purely on virology. Other sciences and critical thinkers need to weigh in to quell the fear and get people working again. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have been lost already that will never reopen. Poverty alone was estimated to kill 250,000 a year in the USA before the pandemic. The citizens need to push back, reopen, and be damned with Covid-19. It’s just not that bad. In fact it’s so mild a disease that up to 40% of the people who have it, don’t even know they have it, and the majority of the rest recover fine in about 14 days, with a very small number of leftovers in high-risk categories, who also recover or would have died anyway from their preexisting condition.

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You have a very filtered view of reality.

How about taking it back to the early days of the virus, when we should have listened to experts and strive to education the under-educated and disinterest. Instead, the Republican leaders of this nation went on a huge campaign of denial, deception and confusion.

Isolating much as possible and masks in public - for all, increased attention to hygiene. Instead, many listened to the lies that only confused and waited for wheels to fall off.

One thing lead to another.

 

I wonder if you’re among those who believe everything should be opened and let the bodies fall where they may - and you think that was going to save our economy?

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Oh and just to keep the scapegoats straight, let’s not overlook our global heat and moisture distribution engine.

I wonder if “believer” believes in climate science, since that’s also a big, big part of the looming shadow of hunger than hangs over our country and the entire planet.

https://www.soils.org/files/science-policy/caucus/briefings/climate-change.pdf

Agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked—crop yield, biodiversity, and water use, as well as soil health are directly affected by a changing climate.

Climate change, which is largely a result of burning fossil fuels, is already affecting the Earth’s temperature, precipitation, and hydrological cycles. Continued changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation, heat waves, and other extreme events are likely, all which will impact agricultural production. Furthermore, compounded climate factors can decrease plant productivity, resulting in price increases for many important agricultural crops.


 

Published: 27 June 2019 Impact of climate change on agriculture production and its sustainable solutions Naveen Kumar Arora Environmental Sustainability volume 2, pages95–96(2019) Cite this article

link _ springer _ com/article/10.1007/s42398-019-00078-w

Climate change is one of the most defining concerns of today’s world and has greatly reshaped or in process of altering earth’s ecosystems. Although climate change has been a constant process on earth, but in recent times, approximately last 100 years or so, the pace of this variation has increased manifolds. Due to the anthropogenic activities the average temperature has risen by 0.9 °C since nineteenth century, mainly due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere. As per estimates this rise is expected to be 1.5 °C by 2050 or may be even more, the way deforestation is occurring, GHG emission is increasing and soil, water bodies and air are being polluted. The unprecedented hike in temperature has resulted in increased events of droughts, floods, irregular patterns of precipitation, heat waves and other extreme happenings throughout the globe. As per the annual report of Weather, Climate and Catastrophe Insight, natural disasters alone have caused economic loses in tune of USD 225 billion across the world in 2018 and since 2016 the losses due to natural calamities have crossed USD 200 billion per year. About 95% of these losses are attributed to weather related incidences, of which cyclones, floods and droughts are the key players and are directly related to climate change. Altogether, the impact of climate change is very comprehensive but its far reaching effects are now clearly visible on agricultural sector, on which relies the food production and economy of the world. It is also worth noting that world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 which would magnify the pressure on agricultural lands to meet the growing food demands already affected by the impact of climate change. As climate change and agriculture have inextricable links, abrupt changes in climatic conditions at such a rapid pace has threatened the food security at global scale. World Food Programme (WFP) report of 2018 revealed that increase in crop yield per hectare is significantly slower as compared to rates of rising population. As per Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data published in 2016, if the current situation of GHG emissions and climate change continue then by the year 2100 there will be decline in the production of major cereal crops (20–45% in maize yields, 5–50% in wheat and 20–30% in rice). Hence if the trends continue, in very near future crop losses may increase at an unprecedented rate which will substantially contribute to reduced production, spiked food prices, and it will become difficult to cope up with rising needs of growing population.


 

Tanja Folnovic - Agronomy Expert

blog _ agrivi _ com/post/climate-change-impacts-on-agriculture

Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes, both of which take place on a global scale. Climate change affects farming in a number of ways, including through changes in average temperatures, rainfall, and climate extremes (e.g. heat waves), changes in pests and diseases, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and ground-level ozone concentrations, changes in the nutritional quality of some foods and changes in sea level.

Climate change is already affecting agriculture, with effects unevenly distributed across the world. Future climate change will likely negatively affect crop production in low latitude countries, while effects in northern latitudes may be positive or negative. Climate change will probably increase the risk of food insecurity for some vulnerable groups, such as the poor. For example, South America may lose 1–21% of its arable land area, Africa 1–18%, Europe 11–17%, and India 20–40%

www _ ers.usda _ gov/topics/natural-resources-environment/climate-change/

Overview
ERS conducts research on a range of climate change issues related to agriculture, including:

The impacts of climate change on crop and livestock production
The implications of climate change for agricultural markets and the cost of government policies/programs
The international land use implications of bioenergy and food production
The potential for agriculture to adapt to changing climate conditions
The potential within agriculture for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions
The role of USDA farm programs under changing climate conditions
Drought resilience and risk management

See the sidebar links to ERS climate-related publications; selected publications are highlighted below.


 

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The management of this problem requires a holistic solution, not simply a solution based purely on virology.
It requires sober assessment of Physical Reality, as opposed to self-interested sociopathic disregard for inconvenience geo-physical and sociological realities.
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Climate change, which is largely a result of burning fossil fuels ...
Climate change has been going on with massive swings for the last 3 billion years. The latest warming blip is just a recovery from the last ice age. Human memory is short. Those who accept the "little ice age" as our normal climate should remember the last big ice age that mostly ended 12,000 years ago and the very warm period thousands of years before that. Yes, the climate will change and it will do so with or without help or interference from humans. We can't stop it or even influence it much. Much better to focus on adapting to it. The Earth has always been a place where we adapt or die.

 

The USA and Canada feed the world. Hunger in the US is not a matter of supply; it is a matter of poverty. The root cause is the technology revolution. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer just like they did with the industrial revolution. Read Dickens for the stories. Those who own the resources and the technology always do better while the rest suffer. Income disparity can lead to revolution. The rich would do well to attend the poor. Hope comes with ownership.

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The USA and Canada feed the world. Hunger in the US is not a matter of supply; it is a matter of poverty. The root cause is the technology revolution. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer just like they did with the industrial revolution. Read Dickens for the stories. Those who own the resources and the technology always do better while the rest suffer. Income disparity can lead to revolution. The rich would do well to attend the poor. Hope comes with ownership. -- Bob
You are a fascinating study Bob. You come so close to getting it right, but you always manage to hang on to your redneck Southern Baptist KKK philosophy, no matter what.

You’re right about ownership, but you ignore the centuries of people who said we should end that stupid system

“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”

― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and The Discourses

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Cc: "Climate change, which is largely a result of burning fossil fuels …

@ibelieveinlogic: Climate change has been going on with massive swings for the last 3 billion years.


Yes it has. And do understand that even throughout billions of years, the major drivers of climate changes, along with changes in the Earth’s orbit, geophysical changes on Earth (If you want to take it back to the beginning), there’s CO2.

Do you know that society’s fossil fuels burning is dumping massive, I mean geological significant, quantities of CO2 into our atmosphere. Up there it’s simple physics, nature does not care where the atmospheric carbon dioxide came from, it does what it does. Currently it is in the process of totally rearranging Earth’s climate regime and taking away from the moderate weather regime of the past ~10 thousand years and back to something from many millions of years ago, a planet more to the liking of Dinosaurs and giant bugs - who didn’t care about massive hurricanes, or parts of Earth being so hot and humid that humans couldn’t survive, or the hydrological cycle going totally wild with some areas of Earth becoming massive desserts and other areas subjected to massive deluges and wind storms.

 

But don’t listen to me, I’m just an attentive science loving citizen, here let an expert explain it.

 

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How about taking it back to the early days of the virus, when we should have listened to experts and strive to education the under-educated and disinterest. Instead, the Republican leaders of this nation went on a huge campaign of denial, deception and confusion.
Yeah, why don't we bring it back to Adam and Eve? That was the early days of feminism and the male was not alpha but a soy boy dud.
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@sree

Yeah, why don’t we bring it back to Adam and Eve? That was the early days of feminism and the male was not alpha but a soy boy dud.

Nope. Lilith was the first feminist. Unfortunately, all her children became demons, but what’s a few bad eggs in the pursuit of equality?

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Nope. Lilith was the first feminist. Unfortunately, all her children became demons, but what’s a few bad eggs in the pursuit of equality?
Those bad eggs need to be removed from society by the Feds from the streets of America. Thanks for the info about Lilith. Let Klinko know about this too so he won't be Puzzled about the nature of your Game.
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@sree there is no game. Just because I mention Lilith as being the first wife of Adam and divulged a bit of the story doesn’t mean I have a game. The story of Lilith is a Hebrew story. Also, the protestors are not bad eggs. You truly do believe the dotard’s lies, don’t you?

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You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!
And the fruits of your labor (your paycheck, your home, all your possessions) belong to whom?

Perhaps you are lost if you forget that the fruit of the vine requires the work of human hands to become wine.

Will you be content to be dependent on the work of my hands? By doing that you place yourself into slavery.

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How about taking it back to the early days of the virus, when we should have listened to experts ...
You are suffering from hindsight bias. You think that what we know now we knew then. We didn't know then, but Trump did listen to the experts. The problem was the experts didn't know. It took them time to figure it out. Do you at least remember that it was a NEW virus?

Biden claims to have put out a plan in March to defeat the virus. Can anyone produce a copy of that plan as it was published or articulated by Biden in March? The answer is no and it is because no such plan ever existed.

Joe claims that “on day one” he will be doing wonderful things to defeat the virus. Everything he says he will do, Trump has already done. Maybe Joe was asleep for those first six months. Someone should tell him.

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But don’t listen to me, I’m just an attentive science loving citizen ...
Me too. And there are the crazies who want us to stop growing cows because they belch so much methane. Of course they ignore the fact that termite farts account for 90% of the methane in the atmosphere.

The Earth can produce only so much. Humans can breed to unlimited numbers. Is there a conflict here? The solution is obvious but unacceptable.

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Me too. And there are the crazies who want us to stop growing cows because they belch so much methane. Of course they ignore the fact that termite farts account for 90% of the methane in the atmosphere.

The Earth can produce only so much. Humans can breed to unlimited numbers. Is there a conflict here? The solution is obvious but unacceptable.


Oh Bob you are a funny fella, it’s like listening to a gun toting white supremacist, claiming they are not racist.

 

Please tell us where you got that 90% figure from? A quick search produces this:

Some estimates suggest termites are responsible for between 1 and 3 percent of global methane emissions.

But according to the latest research, roughly half of the greenhouse gas is filtered from the atmosphere by bacteria living inside termite mounds.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/11/27/Termites-fart-methane-but-their-mounds-filter-it-from-the-air/4361543331512/


Also here you can learn a little about cow farts, turn out cow burps are a bigger contributor, so can’t even get that simple fact correct, but then ‘farts’ is has so much more PR appeal which is all the right wing science-hating crazies have on their side.

 

Let’s get this out of the way: when some people hear the word “methane,” they immediately think about cow farts. (Hence stories like this, this and this). But in reality, cow burps are much more problematic: 90 to 95 percent of the methane released by cows comes out of their mouths, while 5 to 10 percent is released in the form of manure and flatulence. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock — including cows, pigs, sheep and other animals — are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cows are the primary offenders, and each animal releases 30 to 50 gallons a day on average. And with an estimated 1.3 to 1.5 billion cows on the planet, that’s a whole lot of methane. But cows aren’t the main cause of our planet’s methane problem.

Methane isn’t just cow farts; it’s also cow burps (and other weird facts you didn’t know about this potent greenhouse gas)
Sep 27, 2018 / Kate Torgovnick May

ideas _ ted _ com/methane-isnt-just-cow-farts-its-also-cow-burps-and-other-weird-facts-you-didnt-know-about-this-potent-greenhouse-gas/


Fascinating article that one, if you want to learn a bit more about methane, of course, I’m imagining you probably already know everything you want to about the topic and resent anyone trying to shove more info into your head. Prove me wrong and learn something you didn’t know before.

 

Oh how glib the nasty hate-filled innocents can be towards the horrors we inflict on others and ourselves. Guess you’ll have to live through it before you get a clue.

Same as it ever was.

So sad.

:frowning:

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Oh Bob you are a funny fella, it’s like listening to a gun toting white supremacist, claiming they are not racist. -- CC
Kudos for going to that much effort. I gave up providing Bob with facts a while back. Not much point really.
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Biden claims to have put out a plan in March to defeat the virus. Can anyone produce a copy of that plan as it was published or articulated by Biden in March? The answer is no and it is because no such plan ever existed. -- Bob
Okay, I said I wouldn't do it, but that was something I wanted to know.

 

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You are suffering from hindsight bias. You think that what we know now we knew then.
Here's something I knew. (Posted March 4th, 2020 under the thread "Coronavirus".)

_____

"EVEN NOW, the CDC’s guidance, though, still says that people who haven’t traveled to countries with outbreaks and who have not been in contact with people sick with COVID-19 shouldn’t be tested unless they’re sick enough that they need to be hospitalized. That guidance likely won’t be sufficient to pick up any virus spreading among people who don’t get severely ill, which is around 80 to 85 percent of cases.

That CDC guidance could, however, work very well to limit the number of cases identified. But who would want to limit the # of cases identified??? Can you say T rump?"

____

(We now know that the tRump has been influencing what the experts say, all along.) So adequate testing never got going. It still hasn’t.

That was not hindsight. But by that time, the tRump had already been announcing that virus patients would go to zero and that the virus would go away in the warmer weather of April.

I had foresight that you did not, mr illogic. Back in early March we see what your stance was on testing for COVID was. I with reasonable foresight was vociferously arguing FOR adequate amounts of testing.

You were arguing (Coronavirus Post # 324139) that what you called “panic” about recognizing the need for testing was “irrational”. In the same post you scoffed at South Korea for having done so much testing. (btw S. Korea has dealt effectively with COVID. But thanks to jokers like you we have done the worst job in the world for a 1st world nation, in dealing with the Pandemic.

I said

"Right now, let’s just focus on the screw up of not getting testing going for the emerging pandemic. Let’s just blame whoever it was that got rid of the CDC Pandemic Task Force in 2018. And let’s blame the guy who cut funding for the CDC in 2017, 2018, & 2019. And let’s blame whoever it is that gets rid of science based career people who work in govt agencies if they are not gushingly loyal to a certain DOTUS. How about we blame that guy who keeps saying we shouldn’t test anyone who is not showing symptoms, and then gets a test for himself when not showing symptoms? How about that guy who LIES to the American public, constantly? Might we blame him?

That is something I could still say today, but I posted it on March 15th (with foresight, not hindsight). At that time there were maybe a couple of dozen deaths in the US. You said it was paranoia and argued against more testing.

1 month later we were averaging 2188 deaths a day (on the 7 day moving average.)

You were wrong. You think that taking in any kind of historical information is “hindsight” and is therefore not useful. That is REALLY WRONG HEADED.

You have no clue about foresight. It is based on info that already exists (and is therefore what you call “hindsight”.)

And you were not only wrong. You were fatally wrong.