Wetter and warmer winters have long been predicted as a result of climate change. The warmer part of this equation has equally long been said by climate change sceptics to be a benefit, since more regions may be enabled to grow crops. And people of this mindset are always keen to point out that plants love Carbon Dioxide. But the plants we like don’t like drought—or flooding. UK farmers, according to reports are struggling to cope with fields that even if they aren’t actually under water are still so water-logged that they cannot be used. It was my view 15 or 20 years ago that the first casualty of climate change would be food production, and on a global scale that would inevitably lead to food protectionism. So far, this has not happened on a wide scale, but if you Google the subject you will find cases of it, where countries have limited their exports in preference to supplying domestic markets. For us in the West, this has so far had a marginal impact—since generally we can afford to pay more in constricted markets. I wonder how long this will last, and whether our current government, or indeed its presumed successor, is preparing for significant food shortages. I suspect there may be some obscure unit in Whitehall that is mulling over possibilities, but no priority will be given to the matter lest somebody is accused of scaremongering. That has been the history of the political response to climate change all along. I must add that any pending crisis will be made much worse by our dependence on ‘just in time’ supply chains. Who these days wants to expend capital on stockpiling? Unless it’s useless PPE supplied by your mates of course.
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