With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it's the plutocrats v life on Earth

[Kid Berwyn]

Heads-up from an astute UK writer, a Guardian columnist expert in the environment.



With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it’s the plutocrats v life on Earth

Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo

George Monbiot
The Guardian, July 16, 2023

According to Google’s news search, the media has run more than 10,000 stories this year about Phillip Schofield, the British television presenter who resigned over an affair with a younger colleague. Google also records a global total of five news stories about a scientific paper published last week, showing that the chances of simultaneous crop losses in the world’s major growing regions, caused by climate breakdown, appear to have been dangerously underestimated. In mediaworld, a place that should never be confused with the real world, celebrity gossip is thousands of times more important than existential risk.

The new paper explores the impacts on crop production when meanders in the jet stream (Rossby waves) become stuck. Stuck patterns cause extreme weather. To put it crudely, if you live in the northern hemisphere and a kink in the jet stream (the band of strong winds a few miles above the Earth’s surface at mid-latitudes) is stuck to the south of you, your weather is likely to be cold and wet. If it’s stuck to the north of you, you’re likely to suffer escalating heat and drought.

In both cases, the stuck weather, exacerbated by global heating, affects crops. With certain meander patterns, several of the northern hemisphere’s major growing regions – such as western North America, Europe, India and east Asia – could be exposed to extreme weather at the same time, hammering their harvests. We rely for our subsistence on global smoothing: if there’s a bad harvest in one region, it’s likely to be counteracted by good harvests elsewhere. Even small crop losses occurring simultaneously present what the paper calls “systemic risk”.

SNIP...

So why isn’t this all over the front pages? Why, when governments know we’re facing existential risk, do they fail to act? Why is the Biden administration allowing enough oil and gas drilling to bust the US carbon budget five times over? Why is the UK government scrapping the £11.6bn international climate fund it promised? Why has Labour postponed its £28bn green prosperity fund, while Keir Starmer is reported to have remarked last week “I hate tree huggers” (a pejorative term for environmental campaigners)? Why are the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the Express competing to attack every green solution that might help to prevent climate chaos? Why does everything else seem more important?

The underlying problem isn’t hard to grasp: governments have failed to break what the economist Thomas Piketty calls the patrimonial spiral of wealth accumulation. As a result, the rich have become ever richer, a process that seems to be accelerating. In 2021, for example, the ultra-rich captured almost two-thirds of all the world’s new wealth. Their share of national income in the UK has almost doubled since 1980, while in the US it’s higher than it was in 1820.

CONTINUES...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/15/food-systems-collapse-plutocrats-life-on-earth-climate-breakdown

[orthoclad]

1. "patrimonial spiral of wealth accumulation"

My favorite graph:


The plutocracy pursues long-term, multigenerational plans to seize and maintain power.

Please see my related post: https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=357235

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Thank you! It's by design, the rich get richer.

I, too, have drawn as much attention to the process as I can.

The Banksters who Stole Uncounted Trillions Should PUT IT BACK.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10025093415

[orthoclad]

6. Why housing is now so expensive

During the Great Recession, corporations bought up large numbers of distressed and foreclosed properties. This enabled them to corner the rent market and drive up the cost of living, while getting fantastically rich.

The rich love recessions: they're opportunities to buy cheap. That is, if you have a big reserve of inherited money.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[Kid Berwyn]

5. While defeating Trump's conspiracy tops the issues in 2024...

...addressing climate change with a Manhattan-Project-money-is-no-object approach is right up there.

[orthoclad]

7. That would provide full employment.

[2naSalit]

8. They seem equally important...

Yet, if we don't win this election, nothing else will matter in a very short time. The halt to damaging the biosphere is also of such import that without doing something, we're all gonna die, and soon.

[Think. Again.]

14. You're right on both counts...

..if we don't keep (or get) control, it probably is 'game over'.

Aaaaand.. If we don't begin to make a huge push away from fossil fuels, it definitely is 'game over'.

[Think. Again.]

4. Thank you for posting this.

[Kid Berwyn]

12. You are welcome. Subject was addressed on DU in 2005...

I was Octafish then.

A Planet Full of Hitlers

The world's billionaires, led by the Bush "madministration," are acting like a planet of full of Hitlers. They are willing to invade whatever region in the world has what the world needs most -- oil.

Black gold. Texas tea. Petrodollars.

They figure they have all the money. And basically, apart from a Soros here and a Gates there, they do.

And thus, the world’s billionaires and their hounds of the BFEE want to spend it all before they die. And they have the plan and cash on hand to do so.

Consider the Bush agenda: All War. All the Time. Government spending for the MI-Complex, transferring trillions to the wealthy corporate owners, war and all.

These are the likes of the “industrialists” Mussolini, Franco and Hitler so loved.

And like the fascist trifecta, the American fascists of the BFEE have bought all the political power. Don't just think Tom Roach Motel DeLay and Mr. Friskie Frist. Remember Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman and Allen Dulles and Rheinhard Gehlen and Igor Orlov.

What can we do about it? They’ve bought all the legal power, built law schools for Federalist Society AND Opus Dei judges. Think Bill Eagle Eye Rehnquist and Antonin Fat Tony Scalia.

These turds of the BFEE have worked all the tax breaks and bankrupty laws for the rich. Uncle Sam reverse-Robin Hoods wealth to the top 1-percent of country.

And what do these rich turds who prop up Bush use their tax savings on? They certainly haven't invested it in making America a better place to work or live; they've invested in "off-shoring."

Lots of the tax money goes to buy more vacation homes, yachts and jet planes. Most goes offshore to the Caymans and Switzerland.

And of course they want more without having to pay for the damage to the environment. Farmland depletion in the USA. Rain forest depletion around the globe. Oceans getting acidic. Fish stock depletion. Global air pollution and water shortages.

Well. OK. Maybe a case can be made it’s the rich folk’s money. They can do what they want. But they should pay their fair share of taxes! After all, the rest of society helps keep them in their position. And its our brothers and sisters in the armed forces who are giving their lives to keep their oil and power and privilege.

Budget red ink means no money for middle class. No money for schools. No money for cities and suburbs and farms. No money for roads. No money for science and R and D. No money for the future.

And the media? What media? What Fairness Doctrine?

They cover up their materialism and venality with all the talk about Faith-based this and Conservative-values that. But the reality is these are sinister wolves and satanic bed-wetting bastards in sheep's clothing we are dealing with.

Wasn’t that what Bush really meant when he told Bob Woodward “History? Who cares about history? In a hundred years we’ll all be dead.”

Just like Hitler. And just like Hitler, Bush wants to take us all with him.

-- Octafish

OP: https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3648867

The wealthy, for the large part, have let the last two decades pass without raising a finger to use their loot to help humanity. Their shame. Our loss.

Thank you for caring, Think. Again.

[orthoclad]

25. Octafish?

was that in a neon meate dream?

[orthoclad]

28. Captain Beefheart reference

I see it's also a sports board.

[Kaleva]

9. There is massive waste of food here in the US

According to the nonprofit organization Feeding America, Americans waste more than $408 billion each year on food, with dairy products being the food item we toss out the most. The average American family of four throws out $1,600 a year in produce. "

https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/#:~:text=About%2030%20percent%20of%20food,of%20food%20waste%20every%20year.

"The average family was found to waste nearly one third of the food they buy, which is the equivalent of 250 pounds of food each year"

https://www.earth.com/news/family-wastes-food/

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Cutting food waste out would be beneficial.

Thank you for the heads-up, Kaleva!

[Mr.Bill]

10. In the end, they will pose as homeless people

to avoid being hunted down.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. Likely outcome. Before then, the rich will do all they can to hold on.

Here's what frustrated billionaires the world over are asking:

"How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?"

Survival of the Richest

The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind

by Douglas Rushkoff
One Zero, July 5, 2018

Excerpt...

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

Continues...

https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

Hope they reconsider their life journeys before then. Otherwise, they'll be the first Soylent Green to fly off the shelf.

[orthoclad]

26. That was the scariest thing I've read in decades

They know a crash is coming, and they're preparing to survive it as warlords.

[Hortensis]

11. Well, hope your new garden's coming along nicely and

and that's not your back yard. If it's not, sounds like you believe it's time we got on it. Fall planting! Need shade cloth? Buy it while it's available.

I'm not just being sarcastic. If most households are even somewhat more resilient than the complete dependence so many have descended to, all of society is. The food chain can't completely break down in communities where a lot of households normally produce some food, allowing more elasticity and resilience of supply when stressed.

But bottom line, feeding ourselves is above all our own responsibility, however that's planned for. With articles like this, can't claim not to be warned. This time last century 80% of households routinely produced some food for themselves, even if it was just a potato patch to smother weeds behind the garage or a quartet of fruit trees shading a patio.

Personally, my #1 means of staving off starvation is the vote. Nothing's done to 250M voters that they don't allow. But for those not ready to start gardening, of course to at least planting some low maintenance berrying shrubs, to have in your pocket so to speak, and a stock of seeds of plants that can also produce viable seed for continuation.

And voting as if past foolish could turn into a matter of life or death.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/115912688

[Think. Again.]

16. It feels odd...

..but I am certainly beginning to think like a 'prepper'.

My main and only goal in life now is to secure a somewhate climate resilient spot where me and mine can hunker down and try to maintain a life on our own, hopefully within the embrace of a like-minded community.

[Kaleva]

19. Networking is very important IMHO

Last edited Mon Jul 17, 2023, 12:58 PM - Edit history (1)

Only a very few have the ability and means to go it alone for extended periods of time.

Thr people who say they have enough on hand to last them and their immediate family months or even a year or more will face starvation after their supplies run out.

It's almost an impossibility to be truly self sufficient and self sustaining. Vinegar, salt, canning lids, animal and chicken feed, vegetable seeds (unless one knows how to collect seeds for the following year), and such will run out at some point.

And it's important to keep in mind that much of the produce harvested from a garden is low in calories. Eating less then a thousand calories a day is starvation and we'll need much more then that to have the energy to work.

An average, healthy adult male needs roughly 2k calories a day or 730,000 calories a year. Does a person's homestead produce that much? Then one has to add the calorie needs of everyone else living there .

A pound of 85% lean beef has about 1137 calories. A little over half of what an adult male needs for a day.

[MissB]

21. You aren't wrong!

Nearly every time I go to the grocery store, I pick up a box of canning lids, alternating between wide and narrow mouth. I think I could extend our supplies to maybe a year and a half.

I do save seeds but some things I buy hybrid like my fav summer squash or cuke. I’d be doing some experiments with saved seeds for those but in a pinch I could.

I’ve toyed with the idea of having a rooster for my hens and allowing chicks to be born. I already have a steady supply of eggs and goodness knows you can't just get hens out of a batch of chicks. My coop is designed to allow for a rooster in a separate space if needed. I do like my neighbors though. I’ve also considered raising bunnies, but honestly I’d rather just grow beans and squash and continue to eat eggs.

One of the IG folks that I follow has harvested sea salt from their vacations at the beach by bringing some saltwater home. Interesting though seems like salt is pretty cheap! Not sure that pencils out with gas and all that. I keep a deep pantry but yeah, things would run out. I keep two years of canning salt and vinegar on hand. I know I could make vinegar but I rely on the commercial stuff with a known acidity.

[Kaleva]

23. You are doing many things now what I'm striving for

My town currently prohibits the keeping of chickens but I've been working all year trying to change that. At a recent planning commission meeting, they voted to approve granting nr a variance to keep up to 6 hens ( no roosters). The natter has now been forwarded to the town board who have the final say. Their next is next month. I have family who plan to build on property outside of town in a year or two and the main flock, with roosters, will be kept there.

Over the past few years, I've been working on converting my backyard into a vegetable garden and orchard. I now have a 40' row of asparagus, a 40' row of raspberries, a 40' row of blueberries and a 20' row of honeyberries. I have a 30'X4' raised bed for strawberries divided into 4 sections so I can rotate the crop. This spring I planted 2 plum trees and 2 apple trees. One of the apple trees died. Next year I plan on planting 2 pear trees and 2 peach trees. The rest of the backyard is for the vegetable garden, LP tank, a small storage building and space reserved for a chicken coop and run.

Another project I have going is Im building a root cellar underneath the basement entry way. Where I plan on storing items like squash and buckets of fermented foods.

[Hortensis]

22. At our age we're not interested in trying to survive a complete

breakdown over a major region that doesn't recover, which I don't expect to happen anyway.

There are a lot of things that could cause partial, temporary but potentially devastating breakdowns, though, and they're even rationally "expectable" over the foreseeable future.

Of course the government would not be able to come to everyone's rescue before things got seriously uncomfortable due to regional breakdown, and it could take years to regain our current levels of comfort and security. Forewarned should be at least somewhat forearmed.

So agree that pooling resources is primary. There're enormous fundamental reasons humans live and travel in groups. Here in the south, but elsewhere also, many lives are already organized around cohesive church groups. Other social groups of nearby family and friends, of course.

I believe I read during the Obama administration that all counties or whatever were required or asked to come up with plans for such emergencies and to have laws in place to meet them. I'm afraid I don't know what's happened since in our area, not in any city limits. Waiting to be surprised maybe.

[Kid Berwyn]

17. Would the world could sustain us with its bounty as is.

Here in Detroit, the talk is about urban farming. My own yard is big enough to grow about two days' supply of asparagus. I'd love to grow potatoes (thanks, Dan Q!). But you are correct, Hortensis: The best strategy when it comes to long-term food security is to vote.

What Plato said:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Ain't that the truth?

[orthoclad]

27. I have a lot of blight problems with potatoes-

I tend to harvest them small as "new" potatoes. Spuds are the highest yield per square foot for staple carbs, which is why the Irish used them when the English took their land away.

I've been substituting white sweet potatoes, which are much hardier and have a similar yield. The white ones are similar to potatoes in flavor, and can be cooked like them.

Maintaining a social system is a better strategy than prepping.

[MissB]

20. I have a half acre property

Half of that is arguably forested, and the other half has a house, small lawn, gardens, coop for the hens etc. We fenced the property a couple of years ago when we got our second pup, so now we don’t share the yard with the deer.

We are about to re-do the back yard. When we bought this place 20 years ago, the backyard looked a lot different, though all of our efforts to reshape the yard were based on immediate need (ie a tree needing to be removed or an area fenced to keep deer out of the veg garden). We are at the point where we can finally make an effort to make it both functional and pretty. I hired a landscape architect to come up with a design that included level ground (currently slopes in two directions), a large greenhouse, space to sit and plantings that take less effort. My perennial beds are hard to keep up, beautiful but useless and my knees don’t love moving like they did 20 years ago.

Part of the plans include a bunch of coreten planters. I like those- and their purpose is to both divide between two elevations in my yard and to provide some formal planting spaces for things like bushes that can be shaped. I’m more likely to use them as herb planters and for dwarf tomatoes in the summer. The architect’s vision is uniformity and mine is more food production. I absolutely love dwarf tomatoes (fellow DUer turned me on to those!) and I grow a ton of oregano, thyme and rosemary to dry inside and use through the winter months.

This year I planted a bunch of peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, squash and cucumbers both in the garden proper and amongst the perennial beds. I don’t hate it, and I can see where I can continue to grow things in the yard with the new design, not just in the proper veggie garden.

Dh and I met with the greenhouse builder a few weeks ago. We talked about shade cloth for the greenhouse but the location for the structure means we are unlikely to need it. We can add it later; doesn’t require additional accessories. It will be heated so that I can grow year round. Not a huge structure but built to last. It won’t be in place until late 2024 or early 2025. My veg garden could also be shaded with little effort as it was built to keep out deer so the sides are tall. A few posts to support the center and some shade cloth would work just fine. Heck i could stretch it over the top and still garden just fine.

I do Bokashi compost which sets for about a month once the bucket is full before going out to the actual compost bins. I have four Bokashi buckets going in a cycle. My hens produce lots of poo for the compost, mixed with shredded paper on their poo shelf. By spring my overwintered beds are ready for veg. Leaves and small yard debris remain on site.

I have a limited amount of fruit on-site - plum, apples, kiwi, raspberries, blackberries and figs. My strawberries are pretty limited. But it’s all for us.

I’m about to dehydrate my first goldini squash this morning. It’s a big one- bigger than you’d pick for summer squash but perfect for dehydration. Tasty at any size, and grinds up well to add to soups and stews in the winter. My bean production is sadly minimal this year but I’m still reshaping the gardens. Couple more years and I think I will have settled into a fair pattern of production. I just pulled my garlic in time to make pickles, though I had to buy dill because I didn’t get it planted on time. My cukes were ready. It’s a work in progress.

My goal for fall is to start red wine cap mushrooms under my circle of fir trees in the middle of my driveway circle. Something new every year, always learning. Sometimes I fail, or I succeed and still don’t like the results (ie my four very well growing goumi berry bushes.) Someday I’ll have bees. They’re all over the garden still so I don’t quite need to have my own hive, but someday…

We are one of the few folks in the neighborhood that don’t mow and blow. I don’t care for a perfectly manicured yard. It’s supposed to produce food for me. I do grow flowers but I’m more interested in food production. Another reason to not live in an area that has an HOA.

My next door neighbors done even cook, let alone grow food. I can go out and pluck some self seeded arugula or sorrel for a salad or other dish many months of the year. They have to order in food for every meal. They have a beautiful level and landacaped back yard.

[Hortensis]

24. That sounds fantastic, as do Kaleva's and Kid's. We could be

on a gardening forum. Gardeners always have happy reasons to get up and stroll outside with the coffee to see what's happening. And are at least somewhat inured to disaster and drama, always some excitement.

We have four acres, a half wooded hill and pasture. Health problems and eventually rotating between 3 states ended my big garden, with the help of an increasing herd of deer, but we have them to enjoy now. I miss all the fun planning, seed starting and so on, though. Next home, downsized that deer, groundhogs, etc can't get at, I may just put in a lath house and a few planters. Get back to growing some favorite roses with herbs underneath...

Happy gardening.

[Johnny2X2X]

18. Rich vs ultra rich

Top 10% isn't all that wealthy really.

I think it takes top 10% income nowadays to live like most of the Middle Class did 45 years ago. It's when you get into the top 5% or the top 1% that you've got the real insidiousness. And then you have the the people in the top 11-20% that are getting by and have some sense of security. But I think it's really the top 1% vs everyone else. Even top 5% earners are much closer to the bottom 50% that they are to the top 1%. Top 1% income is not over $800K a year.

What's crazy to me is that I'm in the top 10-15% income wise, I am far from rich, and in fact I have less security than my parents did 30 or 40 years ago making more like a top 30% income. Lets say I am 15% exactly, there are 85% of Americans not doing as well as me, that is utterly insane. I am not well to do at all. I have a modest home and 2 used cars for my wife and I. We can't afford expensive vacations. We pinch pennies, we still shop at Goodwill, we don't have expensive tastes for anything. Just a normal life and I had to get an MBA after getting an engineering degree to have a chance at it. We're doing fine, but we're doing how most everyone should be doing. It's simply intolerable that 60% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. For the majority of the country, a $400 unexpected expense is a disaster and something that they'll have to borrow to cover.

How did we get to a place where the majority of the country is living on a knife's edge. I've lived there too, I understand the hopelessness that goes with knowing that one car repair or broken ankle can put you out of your home. I know how easy it is to get into credit card debt and how impossible it is to get out of it, I'e used credit cards for groceries to just be able to eat, I've maxed out credit cards to the point I had to use the remaining balance on 3 different ones when I had to pay to have a dog put down about 15 years ago. It's a hopeless feeling, you scratch and save to pay bills down, and then one bad month puts you right back to square 1.

I thank every day that Joe Biden is our President, he's done more to dismantle the Trickle Down Economics that put the Amerrican Middle Class in this situation than any President in history. Bu we have to keep fighting for him to continue to help the poor and working people, we're one election away from losing all the progress and also of losing our democracy. And once our democracy is gone, this situation can exist indefinitely and will only be made worse.