Climate Change and Commodity Futures

[togor]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/c...gtype=Homepage

Once in awhile reality intrudes.

The American west, as we know, is having a big fire season. (We'll save the counts of structures lost to wildfire versus riots for another time, but note there really is no comparison.)

Trump's own commodity futures trading commission points out that climate change related extremes--not just fires, but floods etc. are making it harder for this market to operate. Farmers need these markets, and the trends are not favorable. I suppose we could just socialize agriculture, call it Trump Farms. Problem solved, right?

[SUPERX-M1]

Water: The usa west is rapidly depleting deep , underground water supplies. Once gone, agriculture is gone. This will decrease food supplies for the usa and the world. Climate change will probably worsen this situation. It is expected that there will be wars fought over resources.

There is talk of pumping Great Lakes water to the West. The lakes are balanced tho and the cost of pumping alleged to be out of reach.

A different issues is that there is a glut of milk in the usa and world, partly due to sar 2 and partly due to bulk buyers squeezing farmers. Dairy farmers are shutting down.

[togor]

The Saudis grow alfalfa in the SW for their horses back home. They own the land, have the money to sink the deepest wells. Long time locals without the means to chase the water table downwards are literally left dry.

California almonds (1 almond = 1 gallon of water to produce it) were a big export item to Asia before the trade wars. If we do run short on natural resources in the future, no small part because people made good money exporting them. Same for petroleum.

[oscars]

Dry land agriculture expertise begins and ends with Israel.

[blackhawknj]

MJ cultivation is vey water intensive so we will see battles between MJ cultivators and food producers.