Newly planted rice saplings have been underwater since July after torrential rain battered northern India, with landslides and flash floods sweeping through the region.
Last month, India, which is the world’s largest exporter of rice, announced a ban on exporting non-basmati white rice in a bid to calm rising prices at home and ensure food security. India then followed with more restrictions on its rice exports, including a 20% duty on exports of parboiled rice.
The move has triggered fears of global food inflation, hurt the livelihoods of some farmers and prompted several rice-dependent countries to seek urgent exemptions from the ban.
I can completely understand why India has made the choice to ban rice exports, because they’ve got to put their first priority on keeping their own people fed. But it’s making the whole global food situation worse.
I keep having this sinking feeling we’re going to experience something like the Bronze Age Collapse - part of the reason all the Bronze Age societies collapsed so suddenly wasn’t just the Sea People, it was that they were all so interconnected trade-wise that when one society collapsed, all of them did because supply chain links snapped. I feel like climate change is our current-day “Sea People,” only so much worse.
The comparison is more apt than appears at first glance. The debates continue, but attacks by the Sea Peoples, or war, is only one of the hypothesized contributers to the collapse. Others include: a pandemic, environmental shifts caused by a volcanic eruption, and drought.
Were you watching The Fall of Civilizations recently?
I don’t even know what that is - is a documentary or something?
Yeah, a series of high quality documentaries on YouTube. The first episode IIRC was about the bronze age collapse.
Man, we are so utterly fucked. It’s so damn frustrating that this is still just the very beginning of extreme weather caused by climate change. 10-20 years from now is going to be pretty fucking bleak for much of the world.
We basically are. The only good news is that young conservatives believe in and want to do something about climate change, so when the current crop of oil-funded deniers die off, we have some hope to limit the damage. That said, I’m seriously considering moving up north away north as far away from the equator as possible, and to an area with fresh water and farmland.
Then buying a gun. Never thought I’d need one after I left the Army, but as things get worse, I suspect that more violence will result due to scarcity and more likely: stress related to perceived scarcity that doesn’t exist. It’s always the fear that’s more dangerous than the reality. We can probably get by with easy to grow, nutrient-dense foods that are boring to eat, like beans. It’s the stress of not being able to eat “tasty” food that’ll probably get people to snap. Gunfights over steak, etc.
If we’re dependent in any way on “the next generation of conservatives” for anything, we should just stop any kind of hoping now.
There is no validity, utility or future for conservatism. We can’t address the issues we have in this world till that philosophy is dead and buried.
I love beans.
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No way you were in a combat related occupation and didn’t own a personal firearm. If you had a desk job then what was the point of mentioning the Army?
I call bullshit.
edit: It’s been over 24 hours and he’s done nothing to displace my assumptions. This isn’t my first day on the internet.
some pretty insane assumptions there mate
some pretty insane assumptions there mate
Perhaps, something about it set off my bullshit radar.
I think your radar needs some fine tuning
It’s been over 24 hours and he’s done nothing to displace my assumptions. This isn’t my first day on the internet, I’ve seen this shit before.
And so began the war for water and food. It will not be a war with only guns and classical battles. It’s about power, influence, treasons, etc.
A war were the basic human has nothing to say and will be neglected. It’s about the upper level, the corporations and the capital will dictate who has access to food and water.
It’s time to stop the infinite grow of the capital which isn’t sustainable on earth and elsewhere. This will make possible to take care of our environment and the planet to feed everyone correctly.
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to the tune of over 5 million tons annually, that’s 10 billion pounds of rice per year.
Not quite ;)
Citation needed.
5 million tons annually is 5 million tons per year, not 10 billion. “Annually” means per year.
How do you even get to a conversion factor of 2000?
Are you reading what @tallwookie wrote properly?
1 ton ≈ 2000 pounds, so 5 million tons would be ~10 billion pounds
Nope, full-on brainfart! Thank you for the correction :)
The law of unintended consequences. Do these farmers stop growing rice, banned export, and grow something else profitable. I’m guessing a government ban suggests price controls or curbs.
