> Surging olive oil prices, driven in part by two years of drought in Spain, has meant opportunity for criminals across the Mediterranean.
i.e. we are beginning to see the impacts of climate change on the food supply in Europe.
i.e. we are beginning to see the impacts of climate change on the food supply in Europe.
The estimates vary but something close to 80% of water in Spain is spent on agriculture. You have large areas of Murcia and Andaluzia pretty much covered in canvas greenhouses.
A large fraction of this water for farming is spent producing year round tomatoes, strawberries, avocados, etc.
Much of these fresh produces is exported so it has nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with profit. Farmers are actively selecting profitable water intensive crops while externalizing the cost of creating water scarcity.
Edit: Everybody is remarkably similar when it comes down to their desire to make money @fragmede
It's probably not. Regional draught conditions over multiple years is a common thing. The USA had very hot temperatures for a decade in the 1930s for instance and this is just 1 of many examples.
Climate change isn't really a local thing like this is. The region has had multi-year droughts many times in the past and will have them in the future too. Climate change could make them more extreme, to be sure.
But claiming that this is from climate change just does more to discredit it, and more-so the people who are climate doomers, than anything.
Winters have become increasingly milder across the mediterranean for the past 20 years, ask anyone, it is very noticeable.
September use to be the end of Holiday season now you have locals going to the beach in late October with +25 Celsius.
This means that reservoirs and river aquifers are not getting filled up during winter generating progressively more agressive draughts.
It's not the end of the world, people will find a way, but luxuries like golf courses and year round strawberries will likely need to be curbed.
Olive trees are low stakes, but ultimately a sign that climate change is moving north.
The main limiting factor for crop productivity is sunlight, and vertical farms drastically reduce the sunlight-to-plant ratio. They are only productive if substantial artificial light is provided, but this is very expensive. This is why vertical farms are generally limited to locations where land values are very high (such that it is more economical to artificially light crops than to simply grow on a larger plot of land) and there is substantial government investnebt to growing food locally, even though it is much more expensive than importing food. For example, we see veryical farms in Singapore because it is striving to be more self-sufficient for defense reasons in the event of war.
It is no solution for most countries, particularly countries that have rural regions suited to agriculture.
Being self-contained is something the West is incredibly bad at, and has been for (checks calendar) at least half a millennium. Depending on how much you think counts.
So, neoliberals and those who keep them in power.