Only a small amount of this year's wheat crop is high quality
Only a small amount of this year's wheat crop is high quality
Shades of the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age.
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The UK's worst wheat harvest in about 40 years has prompted fears of higher prices of flour, and subsequently of bread and other flour-based products.

Due to heavy rain last October, only 60% of what would normally be planted went into the ground. Add in the sunniest spring since 1929, substantially drier than usual, followed by the wettest February ever recorded, and you get the picture.

Recent droughts, with the longest period of temperatures above 34C since records began in 1961, followed by August downpours and thunderstorms have reduced the quality of wheat, according to the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and reports by Sky News.

The story goes on to bemoan the fact that "farmers are grappling with increasingly wild weather, as concerns about climate change mount."

"Concerns about climate change." That's shorthand for "concerns about global warming".

But instead of global warming, I think we should be more concerned about the number of days we have experienced with zero sunspots and the possibility of entering another little - if not full-fledged - ice age.

During the Maunder Minimum, a period of about 60 years of zero sunspots, the UK's rainy season lasted a few weeks longer each spring and began a few weeks early each fall. That lead to disastrous crop failures and literally millions - yes, millions - of people starved to death.

As I've been warning all along, I fear that we will be fighting in the streets for food long before we're covered by ice.


Thanks to Bill Sellers for this link.