Very interesting. I have never seen an analysis of global and regional food reserves before. Given the importance of food, it should probably get more attention.
Might check with an agricultural department on replacement crops that are drought and heat adapted. There are plants that will grow in salt water and seaweed is easy to modify to have a high protein or oil content.
Thanks for the comment. You mean replacement crops in the sense that they should replace part of our food now, so are more resilient to shocks or in the sense that we should have those as a backup to scale up from after catastrophe hit?
Soybeans, corn, and many other crops are being grown in large scale right now. It doesn't take much to scale up. Salicornia and seaweed can be grown on land in the most hostile deserts of the world as long as you circulate saltwater from the ocean. The only thing that I see causing a catastrophe are wars that prevent food shipments and agricultural reforms.
Oh I think there are considerably more catastrophes that have a chance to bring us in such a bad situations. Essentially, there are three main groups:
- Events that block out the sunlight, e.g. large volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts
- Events that destroy essential parts of our infrastructure, e.g. extreme space weather knocking out large parts of our power grid and thus making easy production of food impossible.
- Parallel production shock in several of the world bread basket due to extreme weather events.
University of Colorado, geology major. I can assure you that there are no large volcanic eruptions likely, and asteroids are carefully monitored can be blown up if needed. The power grid has been hardened over the years and is very resilient. The Ukraine war was a massive production shock, and the world adjusted within a year. My daughter has a master's in botany and there are lots of desert varieties of common crops and the genetics are being merged as I write this.
Well, I work on these global catastrophes as a postdoc. I am a bit less optimistic.
There might not be a large volcanic eruption right around the corner, but the base rate of large eruption clearly shows us that we have to expect pretty large eruptions every once in a while (see e.g. here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02177-x). But even a smaller one could wreak havoc to global trade (see e.g. here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25021-8). Same goes for asteroid, but yeah those are less likely than volcanoes.
The power grid has improved, but we are also much, much more reliant on electronics. Also, we regularly see major transformer being damaged by space weather, as we can see a peak in damages in them, every 11 years when the sun's activity peaks (e.g. discussed here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040619011000972?via%3Dihub)
Concerning Ukraine, this was actually not that big of a shock for food overall. It was mainly a problem for those few countries who had imported a large amount of grain from Ukraine, but the market could quickly replace it, as in comparison to the global amount of food traded it was not that much.
The kind of food shocks I am talking about are in the realm of 5 % or more globally. We hadn't had those since the industrial revolution, but this was to a good part just luck and not something humanity did to prepare.
Geez, an even more dismal science than geology and economics. I like this. The trick about the power grid is that they only replace things if they have to. I notice all the new equipment at the substations here after a massive power outage. All you need to deal with solar storms is an automatic disconnect sort of like a massive circuit breaker. After the storm you turn everything back on.
Global trade is already being wrecked because of demographics and the US not patrolling the oceans like it once did. This plus instability in the Middle East has encouraged China to be the fastest electrifying country in the world. Due to low cost solar, batteries & EV's, most countries are thinking about doing the same because it is cheaper and more secure. OPEC has made a lot of enemies it seems.
I'm not a botanist yet what I have seen was how the Arizona State agricultural department had a replacement for all sort of crops that do not need irrigation and can replace existing ones. Agrivoltaics is another rising field because it doubles the revenue per acre.
Very interesting. I have never seen an analysis of global and regional food reserves before. Given the importance of food, it should probably get more attention.
That is definitely true. When it comes to food I often get the impression that people just take it for granted, because it is such an everyday thing.
Might check with an agricultural department on replacement crops that are drought and heat adapted. There are plants that will grow in salt water and seaweed is easy to modify to have a high protein or oil content.
https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/salicornia-sustainable-crops-seawater-agriculture/
Thanks for the comment. You mean replacement crops in the sense that they should replace part of our food now, so are more resilient to shocks or in the sense that we should have those as a backup to scale up from after catastrophe hit?
Soybeans, corn, and many other crops are being grown in large scale right now. It doesn't take much to scale up. Salicornia and seaweed can be grown on land in the most hostile deserts of the world as long as you circulate saltwater from the ocean. The only thing that I see causing a catastrophe are wars that prevent food shipments and agricultural reforms.
Oh I think there are considerably more catastrophes that have a chance to bring us in such a bad situations. Essentially, there are three main groups:
- Events that block out the sunlight, e.g. large volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts
- Events that destroy essential parts of our infrastructure, e.g. extreme space weather knocking out large parts of our power grid and thus making easy production of food impossible.
- Parallel production shock in several of the world bread basket due to extreme weather events.
For all of those our traditional foods don't work that well. But there are alternative. See for example, this preprint that recently did a review about just that: https://allfed.info/images/pdfs/Literature_review_resilient_foods.pdf
University of Colorado, geology major. I can assure you that there are no large volcanic eruptions likely, and asteroids are carefully monitored can be blown up if needed. The power grid has been hardened over the years and is very resilient. The Ukraine war was a massive production shock, and the world adjusted within a year. My daughter has a master's in botany and there are lots of desert varieties of common crops and the genetics are being merged as I write this.
Well, I work on these global catastrophes as a postdoc. I am a bit less optimistic.
There might not be a large volcanic eruption right around the corner, but the base rate of large eruption clearly shows us that we have to expect pretty large eruptions every once in a while (see e.g. here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02177-x). But even a smaller one could wreak havoc to global trade (see e.g. here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25021-8). Same goes for asteroid, but yeah those are less likely than volcanoes.
The power grid has improved, but we are also much, much more reliant on electronics. Also, we regularly see major transformer being damaged by space weather, as we can see a peak in damages in them, every 11 years when the sun's activity peaks (e.g. discussed here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040619011000972?via%3Dihub)
Concerning Ukraine, this was actually not that big of a shock for food overall. It was mainly a problem for those few countries who had imported a large amount of grain from Ukraine, but the market could quickly replace it, as in comparison to the global amount of food traded it was not that much.
The kind of food shocks I am talking about are in the realm of 5 % or more globally. We hadn't had those since the industrial revolution, but this was to a good part just luck and not something humanity did to prepare.
Geez, an even more dismal science than geology and economics. I like this. The trick about the power grid is that they only replace things if they have to. I notice all the new equipment at the substations here after a massive power outage. All you need to deal with solar storms is an automatic disconnect sort of like a massive circuit breaker. After the storm you turn everything back on.
Global trade is already being wrecked because of demographics and the US not patrolling the oceans like it once did. This plus instability in the Middle East has encouraged China to be the fastest electrifying country in the world. Due to low cost solar, batteries & EV's, most countries are thinking about doing the same because it is cheaper and more secure. OPEC has made a lot of enemies it seems.
I'm not a botanist yet what I have seen was how the Arizona State agricultural department had a replacement for all sort of crops that do not need irrigation and can replace existing ones. Agrivoltaics is another rising field because it doubles the revenue per acre.