Our planet seems to be in a growing crisis in terms of agriculture and crop production related to unusual weather shifts. Many reports in recent months use the term "extreme weather" to describe record heat across Europe this summer, record flooding in US Midwest farm states, or record drought across India and major parts of Africa and China. Parts of the US Midwest are undergoing the worst growing conditions since at least the 1980s. In the UK the weather has been ruinous to the grain harvest there.
The crucial question to ask is whether we can assume, as many do, that this is all part of man-made global warming, today renamed climate change,
or whether it can be caused by something quite different: The periodic cycles of solar activity that in the past months have entered what astro-scientists call a "solar minimum."
If it is due to the latter, we are spending huge sums on addressing a wrong problem - in fact, trillions of dollars.
Until this July large parts of India were suffering record drought. Chennai reservoirs were down to 0.2% of capacity over the past two years as a severe heatwave saw 99% less water than a year ago. Acute water shortages have forced thousands to flee their
villages. Though in early August above-average monsoon seasonal rains relieved the situation in some parts, so far the rainfall is far from adequate to restore empty reservoirs across India.
In China severe drought has left about 800,000 hectares of crops affected in northern China's Hebei Province with rainfall some 55% below normal. That comes as devastation of China's pig population from the deadly African Swine Fever spreads and crops across the country are being destroyed by a plague of Army Fallworm infestation that is resistant to most
weed-killers.
Comment: It's a bit more complicated than just 'what mood the Sun is in' (something(s) unknown out there is setting him off!), but it's certainly 'in the ballpark' to frame the current extremes people are experiencing in the context of natural forces that are several orders of magnitude more powerful than human activity.
The entire breadth of focus on man directly causing this - from the media mirage of 'consensus' science claiming 'we know exactly what is happening and thus exactly what to do about it', to farcical street protests in which people demand their govts 'do what the media says should be done about it' - amounts to one great big global session of 'screaming at the sky'.
This is way bigger than us.
For more on this, check out:
Comment: It's a bit more complicated than just 'what mood the Sun is in' (something(s) unknown out there is setting him off!), but it's certainly 'in the ballpark' to frame the current extremes people are experiencing in the context of natural forces that are several orders of magnitude more powerful than human activity.
The entire breadth of focus on man directly causing this - from the media mirage of 'consensus' science claiming 'we know exactly what is happening and thus exactly what to do about it', to farcical street protests in which people demand their govts 'do what the media says should be done about it' - amounts to one great big global session of 'screaming at the sky'.
This is way bigger than us.
For more on this, check out: