Boris Johnson issues UK food shortage warning ahead of Christmas | Hacker News Reader

Boris Johnson issues UK food shortage warning ahead of Christmas

thenorthernecho.co.uk

22 pointsnimbius18 comments

Here's a Guardian article on the topic: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/20/co2-crisis-...

The Guardian article has more details on how big of a problem this is -- it seems solvable, and there's no 'official' government warning. The OP headline seems to be misleading.

> The OP headline seems to be misleading.

Fizzy drink industry goes flat.

Boris battles bubble breakdown.

Yes, op's title is scaremongering clickbait drivel.

I was wondering how CO2 shortages could affect meat production. A companion article from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28606951 claims CO2 is used to "stun" cattle for slaughter.

1. How does CO2 stun an animal? Wouldn't it just suffocate (painfully) the animal? My understanding was that most beef production used something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol to brutally but effectively destroy the poor animal's brain before it could suffer

2. The article also mentions needing more renewables. I imagine the UK doesn't have much land and sun for solar effectiveness, but is offshore wind a 'mature' technology yet? It always still in development.

Is it possible that CO2 is used to fire the captive bolt pistol? Similar to how C02 "air" rifle works?

Yes. If you've ever seen No Country for Old Men, there is a tank of CO2 that Anton Chigurh is carrying alongside his captive-bolt pistol.

But why? N2 is non-toxic and readily available in high pressure tanks. It seems to be cheaper too.

Too much CO2 in an area and your nose is on fire and you want to leave.

Too much N2 in an area and .

I'm not sure. I don't eat meat, and slaughter methods are a depressing topic of research. :- )

Ask for less fossil fuels and you shall have what you want. Take this as a warning. The lifecycle of oil and gas projects from exploration to production is decades. Disrupt it and you have long and deep energy shortages. We can stop using fossil fuels. But people don't seem to understand the consequences we will face as a result. Be careful what you ask for. 21rst century populism unfortunately means your uneducated opinion based on FB posts forms state policy.

None the less it is a shortage of fossil fuels that is at least part of the problem.

That sounds like a good reason to get off fossil fuels if they are this unreliable.

I dislike when people make comments like OP's.

This is not an unsolvable problem. We will still have plenty of petroleum products for applications where petro-(bi)products are not able to be substituted for other technologies. For the rest of the things we do, our lifestyles will either change based on the environmental situation or get more expensive.

That's ok, they can switch off the damn metric system. Freedom ! (?)

Just wait until we get back to pounds, shillings and pence.

How Dickensian.

oh good, just in time for the holidays.

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