Article

2020-02-09 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

[Crain's Chicago Business] The latest victims of climate change could be Oreos, as drenched fields across the U.S. make the wheat that’s a key ingredient a scarcer commodity.

Winter-wheat plantings fell to their lowest levels in more than a century as the grain got harder to seed. That was especially true for soft red winter wheat, with sowings in critical states like Illinois slumping 25%.

That might be bad news for snack fans‐the variety is used in the flour that forms the base for crackers, biscuits and beloved goodies including Mondelez International Inc.’s Oreos and Kellogg Co.’s Cheez-Its.

The warming atmosphere is making the spring planting season a lot wetter and a lot muddier in the Midwest. Last year, things were so bad that record rains meant plantings were done at the slowest pace ever. That’s pressuring farmers to abandon a strategy known as double-cropping‐when the same fields get sown in the spring with soybeans and then in the fall with wheat. Forced to choose just one, growers are giving up on wheat.

Changing weather patterns are wreaking havoc on traditional agriculture calendars all over the world. The U.S. is in the midst of what some measures are showing as the second-warmest winter in 70 years, prompting fruit plants to bloom weeks early across the South.

In Vietnam, earlier-than-normal saline buildup in the Mekong Delta is threatening rice paddies, and timing for precipitation is fluctuating across the globe. That’s on top of other climate threats to food production like Australia’s wildfires and drought in Russia.

For America’s breadbasket, record rainfall in the spring of 2019 resulted in unprecedented planting delays that pushed harvests deeper into autumn, when farmers would normally want to sow winter-wheat seeds.

"Weather dominated the decision-making process," said Angie Setzer, vice president of grain at Citizens Elevator in Michigan, where plantings of soft red winter wheat fell 7%, U.S. government data show.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-02-09 01:38|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Good opportunity to try something healthier.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-02-09 02:03|| 2020-02-09 02:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Large farmers or businesses have insurance. They make hay one way or another. 11 million acres as I recall. Shorter growing season also. Yes, lots of rain. Now lots of snow. "“The reduction in temperature will results in cold weathers on Earth, wet and cold summers, cold and wet winters,” said Zharkova. “We will possibly get big frosts as is happening now in Canada where they see [temperatures] of -50C". (Dr. Zharkova)

Posted by Dale 2020-02-09 02:09|| 2020-02-09 02:09|| Front Page Top

#3 "January in Moscow broke a record in the dark. (Meteonovosti)

The shortest duration of sunshine in the middle zone of European Russia, as a rule, is observed in December.

But this January was stingy in the sun. In Moscow, its duration was only 11 hours".

Posted by Dale 2020-02-09 04:32|| 2020-02-09 04:32|| Front Page Top

#4 Good opportunity to try something healthier.

I tossed a lot of that shit overboard in the past year and a half, or at least cut it down to once or twice a week. For snackin' I go with almonds, dark chocolate almonds ('cuz dark chocolate's good for you, so these must be twice as good for you), hippy trail mix, dried fruit slices and stuff like that.

With that and other diet modifications (pasta & bread - mostly out, rice - in, etc.), a year ago I was weighing 217; it's 191 now and holding steady.

Posted by Raj 2020-02-09 05:24|| 2020-02-09 05:24|| Front Page Top

#5 Don't touch my Ritz!

Posted by Frank G 2020-02-09 06:20|| 2020-02-09 06:20|| Front Page Top

#6 Aren't Oreos class- or race-traitors?

Posted by Lex 2020-02-09 10:08|| 2020-02-09 10:08|| Front Page Top

#7 Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-02-09 11:19|| 2020-02-09 11:19|| Front Page Top

#8 Interesting. Many years ago Oreos were what black people called successful blacks being black on the outside and white on the inside.

Posted by Dale 2020-02-09 12:53|| 2020-02-09 12:53|| Front Page Top

#9 ^That kind of talk drops way off when an increasingly large percentage of your population is successful. Which is what has been happening with black Americans.

...despite the burdens they face—from residential segregation to workplace discrimination to over incarceration—more than one-half of black men have made it into the middle or upper class as adults. This means that millions of black men are flourishing financially in America.

But how many black men have made it, specifically, into the American upper class? In a new analysis of Census data, we find that slightly more than one-in-five (or about 2.5 million) black men ages 18 to 64 have made it into the upper-third of the income distribution.

Source is Here. Also: the evidence of my own eyes.

Posted by Secret Master 2020-02-09 20:01|| 2020-02-09 20:01|| Front Page Top

#10 .

Posted by John Frum 2020-02-09 21:25|| 2020-02-09 21:25|| Front Page Top

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