“We have had the most extraordinary year of drought & cold ever known in the history of America. . . . The crop of corn thro’ the Atlantic states will probably be less than 1/3 of an ordinary one, that of tobo still less, and of mean quality. The crop of wheat was midling in quantity, but excellent in quality. But every species of bread grain taken together will not be sufficient for the subsistence of the inhabitants.” --Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Albert Gallatin, 8 September 1816.
1816 was the year without a summer. It was the trough of the Dalton Minimum (not even a grand solar minimum) and was exacerbated by the massive eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which darkened the globe. Violent eruptions tend to coincide with solar minimums.
-WiscoDave
There has been a tremendous amount of solar activity so far in this solar cycle, far more than what was expected. It is starting to plant the seeds of doubt in those of us that thought we were entering a solar minimum.
ReplyDeleteThis not hyperbole. Real possibility... take heed peeps.
ReplyDelete[rocketride]
DeleteIt's not hyperbole. Personally, I think it's going to be a more active cycle than predicted BUT it wouldn' take that big of an eruption or group of eruptions to produce enough cooling to hinder or outright disrupt agriculture even in a more active cycle.
When the cost of food rises 40-60% then we should start to see revolutions. No data of my own but it's often a data point in gold and silver discussion videos and it is the tipping point between the risks and rewards of revolution.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you can get a 1Lb bag of squash seeds for around $30 these days and that will have you set for years. The seeds are for commercial farms and offer plenty of trial and error if you are new to growing food and seed saving.
Native perennials are probably best, I'm planting black berries, citrus, agaves, prickly pears, etc, here. Propagating the local pecan trees isn't out of the question for long term / posterity. Wanted to do that 20-25 years ago but I was just a stupid kid who couldn't get any help with it; could have had dozens of additional trees to sell nuts from right now but nuuuuuu.
We might get somewhere when people plant trees they will not know the shade of. I don't know who it will be, but someone or some critter, will enjoy the trees I plant now.
-arc
I hear ya bro, plant them trees, Earth first. We will log the other planets later....
DeleteIf our corn crop fails we can no longer make pretend-gasoline.
ReplyDeleteOh, the humanity.
Last place I had, with my now Xwife there was a brave of Black Walnut Trees. I was like hell yeah, ready food source. Had to get me a 8” vice to crack them, that was after processing the husks off and drying. But the flavor was amazing with lots of rally good oils too. Would sit in the shop on them long winter nights and pick and pick and sip and sip!! Would give quart or pint jars away to neighbors at Christmas. Those were some expensive jars of nuts. Anyway the X had to get rid of them trees soon after I left stage right, stupid wimnez. I also planted Asian Pears, figs, lots of berries too. I think those are still there, hard to tell as I’m not.
ReplyDeleteCycle 24 has started and seems pretty active.
ReplyDeleteI follow the logic about the solar cycle, but the 1816 problems were the result of Tambora erupting in 1815. Still, always good advice to lay up provisions for hard times, even if the hard times are only being snowed in or electrical blackout. Learned this after living thru multiple tropical depressions and hurricanes on the Texas Gulf Coast.
ReplyDeleteMuch like the poor harvests in France starting before the French Revolution were caused by Icelandic volcano activity.
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