Is anyone else looking at all the droughts/floods worldwide and Russia’s/other’s wars, then thinking to themselves, “this can’t be good for feeding everyone?”
If so, what, if anything, are you doing about it?
We’re thinking of stocking up on some non-perishables that could be donated to a food bank before their expiration date if nothing comes of it. Canned foods and things like instant potatoes come to mind as cheap and not too difficult to store, or prepare, if it gets dicey out there.
I’m not quite so sure the US would suffer nearly as much as other areas of the planet, so keeping an eye on international charities too - but if there isn’t enough food, not even money helps.
One year, itself, also isn’t a red flag (esp for the US), but what if this is the trend, not the exception?
It’s been an interesting conversation among us creeklanders who tend to like to discuss apocalypse types of things, but usually 100% in theory for fun as opposed to seeing caution flags out there.
My first thought related to this is that it’s likely food will become more expensive, and those who can afford to pay will be fine, but it will be a further divide between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
We only have 2 at home, and while living through COVID we worried more about running out of TP than food - lol.
I know it’s a serious topic. We do keep a couple of cases of bottled water in our garage, and have a fair amount of canned food, but other than that, we haven’t done anything to “prepare.”
We’ve done nothing extra, but in general, have enough here at home that we could comfortably live 3 months or so if we had to without going to a store. Mainly this is due to living rural and never knowing when a storm will hit and being raised by a packrat, so developing some of those habits.
If actual food were to become scarce money won’t necessarily save people because the “have nots” would “go to war” before they would starve in many places.
“Let them eat cake,” comes to mind (knowing that cake was a basic food, not an indulgent one).
A major food basket of the US is running low on water - along with all the other places worldwide; Europe (many countries), China, India, Africa (many countries), etc. Several areas that aren’t dealing with drought have floods or war.
One or two areas being affected can often be covered by the others thanks to modern transportation, but what’s going to happen when so many areas are affected, and what if it’s more than just this year considering it seems to be progressing in that direction?
My Dad and I were just talking about this issue and as a history nut he recommended the following research about historic droughts in Central Europe. They are again facing a very dry summer.
It may lead to more migration. Folks tend to move when there is not enough food. They may move to cities in their own countries or try to immigrate.
I live in North Carolina where we have plenty of water and food and jobs and good colleges and we have seen so many people moving here. I can only imagine that increasing droughts will only increase migration to our state and other states in the Southeast.
I have wondered how many will stay in the water shortage states, or if they will come up with a solution, and if so, how expensive it will be.
If the climate continues to warm up and water is a problem, I can see the Great Lakes/St Lawrence River areas skyrocketing in popularity. It’s good farmland in those areas too, assuming it doesn’t all get developed anyway.
I’m not interested in moving up there as of yet either, but I’m glad two of my kids are up there - just in case.
H and I have dropped any ideas of moving further south than we are, though are still considering a vacation property “somewhere” that we rent out. We’ve even thought about making that property up in those areas instead of in the south, but we’re not sure yet that it’s financially wise.
Yep, since the advent of air conditioning the South has become much more attractive to lots of people looking to move away from cold winters and snow and ice, and snow shoveling, and snow blowing, and driving in snow, and dirty slush, etc. When it snows here once or twice a year it’s a party and everyone gets to stay home from school or work and try to make a snowman and go sledding and drink hot cocoa and then it all melts the next day and we’re back to normal.
We lived in FL for 5 years and moved back north due to missing having actual seasons, including winter. We settled in PA because it’s between our two native areas. I was from the cold “tundra” of the St Lawrence River area of NY and H was from Richmond, VA & eastern NC in his youth (started in VA, ended in NC, parents moved back to VA after he was in college). Our area of PA is one we really liked geographically (rolling hills, semi-rural, etc) when we were prowling around looking. We’re not halfway between our parents (when they were alive), but it’s a relatively easy day trip (or less) to either. I still like living here, but like many nice areas, it’s been discovered and is getting far more developed.
When we want to shorten winter we spend a month or so south, usually in Feb. It works well for us.
But I still wonder how things will change food-wise as the climate changes. It doesn’t even matter if one considers the climate change to be enhanced by man or not. It’s changing and humans need to adapt - somehow.
If the planet literally can’t produce enough food, it will lead to famines and wars. It’s already happening elsewhere (and has in the past too). Will it end up in First World countries? Time will tell.
Interesting that weather wasn’t a common factor at all in the map, lower COL and space were two biggies. Both of those helped us find our area of PA over more populated areas back in our day of looking too. But weather factored in for us as well, having lived in FL and (for me) northern NY.
I wonder if AZ and TX will see declines over the next decade due to water issues. CA is already seeing declines due to HCOL (according to the article). What’s tolerable with AC now might not be when there isn’t enough water to go around.
H and I have had similar conversations. World Central Kitchen gets most of our donation dollars these days, except for our Amazon Smile money that goes to the local food bank. WCK not only provides prepared food in areas under extreme stress (war, floods, hurricanes, etc.) but has also assisted in creating ways for locals to provide themselves with the necessary tools to have clean water, cooking facilities, etc. to make the most of local farm produce.
Living in FL for many years, we always had plenty of bottled water and nonperishable food on hand which we rotated annually by donating and replenishing. After we moved away, we found it was just as helpful due to tornadoes and extended power outages. There were also times when we were sick, injured or recovering from surgery, and were glad to have lots of canned soups and other easy to prepare food on hand. While the food banks were always happy when we rotated our supplies, I realize it wouldn’t make much of a difference if a large percentage of the population was unable to obtain food. Not sure how many people can, and would, do this. Even a six months supply takes up a lot of room.
We’re looking forward to starting some raised bed gardens again, once we’re settled. I’ve been impressed by the variety and amount that our DiL has grown the past few years and hope we do as well. We used to have rain barrels connected to our downspouts and kept buckets in our showers during the last two droughts in order to water our raised beds, and plan to do the same at the new house. If nothing else, what we grow could make meals from the nonperishable stock more interesting.
Perhaps this is yet another effect of the unwinding of inexpensive frictionless global trade. Supply chain problems in some goods are merely inconvenient and inflationary; with food, they can be deadly.
Re, weather —I know a lot of people move to the South to escape the winters. They talk about it online all the time. A lot of them try Florida first and then they come part way back when they get tired of the heat. They call those folks “halfbacks”.
Re drought in Texas — part of TX is dry, but part is not. Did they differentiate West Texas vs East Texas anywhere?
I don’t have solutions. I just think that a lot of people are going to starve. I like World Central Kitchen a lot. They have a great system.
I just try and focus on my local community. Hunger is widespread. Inflation is killer. And homeless community has exploded where we live.
We do a lot of volunteer work. My kids are at three different schools. I am the bully, I am mean volunteer usually pushing for school wide volunteer work.
There is church food bank right by our middle school. The kids and I now pack lunches for people once a week. We have a good system down and this is one is flexible so they allow some homemade food.
I was only going off what was in the article that talked about reasons for moving. Few chose weather according to it. We Creeklanders moved for the weather both when we moved to FL in the early '90s and back here to PA in '96. H could work from anywhere. Our specific location was chosen due to other things, but the regions were chosen for weather.
Interesting that folks move back to NC from FL to escape the heat because H, who spent 4th grade to college in NC, said it was hotter in NC than FL in the summer. I have no idea who’s right. I took his word for it. I prefer my summers to be in the 70s and 80s. Even PA is getting too hot for me in the summers now. Almost all of our hottest years on record have been since we moved here.
With TX, I tried looking at NOAAs map again. It’s not super clear, but it definitely seems like a huge portion of TX is in drought. The flooding events the southwest just had don’t eliminate drought. Water that comes all at once doesn’t soak in, it runs off, destroying a lot with it. At best we can hope it refills some ponds and lakes, but it takes sediment there too.
Re the weather, I got that you were going off what the article said. I was just agreeing with you. I found that unusual, too, that the National Van Lines article didn’t cite weather as reason folks move, but maybe it is a second or third factor for a lot of people after COL. I know that w/o our decent weather in NC a lot of people from the NE, especially, would not be here because they are always talking about not having to shovel snow any more. And as far as NC summers vs Florida, well, they might be just as hot, but they’re a lot shorter. We do have real seasons. The halfbacks report missing those, too.
Looking at the drought maps, you are right. Not good in most of Texas. I guess I was thinking about all the rain and flooding that Houston gets and it does still seem to be okay drought wise, but the rest of the state is not so great. Texas | Drought.gov
Winter is not too bad in our area of Colorado (yea, we have snow… but after growing up in NY it’s been nice to have 300 days/year of sunshine, usually snow melts quickly). Winter became easier once I had an option to work from home. Being retired is better yet.
