Europe's Heat Continues - 50% Crop Losses In Some Areas Of Germany

[hatrack]

With Paris, London and Berlin experiencing peak temperatures above those of Bangkok, Hong Kong and New Delhi, Europe’s heat wave this summer already is one for the record books. The extreme and prolonged heat has prompted the authorities across Europe to advise on everything from personal safety to power use.

A 1911 record for the highest July temperature in Britain was broken last week when the village of Wisley in Surrey hit 36.5 degrees Celsius, or 97.7 Fahrenheit. Mark Vance, an entertainer at Warwick Castle who wears a full suit of armor and was dubbed the man with the hottest job in Britain by The Daily Express, was photographed frying an egg on the breastplate of his outfit.

In the Netherlands, July will probably qualify as the hottest month since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute, KNMI, said today. Many parts of Germany, too, have hit the highest July temperatures since records began to be kept.

EDIT

Scorching temperatures and drought could destroy up to 20 percent of Poland’s grain harvest, warned the agriculture minister, Andrzej Lepper. “It is quite simply dramatic, and if the weather does not change we could have a disaster,” he said on Polish Radio. Germany is facing crop losses of up to 50 percent in the worst-hit regions, according to the president of the national farmers’ association, Gerd Sonnleitner.

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/articles/reader.asp?linkid=58735

[smirkymonkey]

1. Here we go....

We are now seeing how the impact of global warming is going to start hitting people where it hurts. Deaths, food shortages, natural disasters...I am not optimistic.

I could be wrong, but this seems like the kind of thing that will just accelerate as it goes. I feel like the chain reaction has already been set in motion and it will only pick up speed rather than reverse.

[NNadir]

2. I wonder if any of this will have an impact on biodiesel production?

Of course, the Germans have industrial experience, albeit more than 60 years old, of making diesel from coal.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. This will affect ... BEER. Watch Germany go hyper-green now.

Bye-bye, new coal mines!

[Recursion]

4. You were joking, but this will have a HUGE effect on beer

The wheat, barley, and hops grown in central Europe are being hit hard. My roommate is a beer importer and he says to expect 50%-100% price increases for imported beer next year.

When he said that I almost cried.

[progressoid]

6. This is how climate change will finally get noticed by the general public

When it affects their wallets and leisure.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Actually, I wasn't joking at all. Germans refer to beer as "liquid bread".

It's hugely engrained in the culture, and this will definitely trigger some reaction. (Effective or not, it's hard to say.)

I hate to think how the French will react if this affects wine as badly -- they could very well start a war to force Europe to go carbon-neutral.

But they can now grow olives in Britain!

[phantom power]

5. I'm curious about dcfirefighter's thoughts on these crop losses.

His position seems to be that the earth can in principle support several (many?) times it's current human population. Therefore, these crop shortages should be just artifacts of mismanagement. I'm not so optimistic, but I'm always hungry for reasons to believe we aren't all doomed.

[Recursion]

7. I'd imagine with proper planning we could

But we would have to have very dense cities surrounded by "green belts" of farms, with only villages between them.

Come to think of it, that sounds pretty cool. I just hope it doesn't take millions of deaths to make us start developing like that.