Pirate's Cove

This is horrible, and all your fault, you know

Climate Change Threatens Potato Chip Production, Global Food Storage

Climate change poses significant dangers to global food supplies as rising temperatures make storage more difficult, The Associated Press reports.

Food around the world is stored outside after harvest, before processing, but rising temperatures and other altered weather patterns threaten to drive prices higher as more food is lost and producers are forced to install costly equipment to protect food stores.

Rising temperatures will make it easier for insects and mold to destroy grain stores in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Mecosta, Michigan, Brian Sackett was forced to spend $125,000 on a new refrigeration unit to protect what will become potato chips. Michigan potato farmers have long been able to rely on fans and cool air from the September harvest to late spring to keep their potatoes fresh. But the annual period in which outdoor air in the region is cool enough to store potatoes will likely drop by as much as 17 days in the next 30 years. “Our good, fresh, cool air is getting less all the time, it seems like,” Sackett said.

Oh, so it isn’t actually happening, it just might possibly maybe we feel EVERYBODY PANIC happen in the next 30 years? And even if it does, why is this different from the other Holocene warm periods? Earth gets warm, Earth gets cool. The temperature is not stagnant. Changes occur. Of course, Warmists like to blame Mankind for this, while failing to modify their own behavior and lives to accord with their Beliefs.

This is what the AP article mentioned has to say

For generations, Brian Sackett’s family has farmed potatoes that are made into chips found on grocery shelves in much of the eastern U.S.

About 25% of the nation’s potato chips get their start in Michigan, where reliably cool air during September harvest and late spring has been ideal for crop storage. That’s a big reason why the state produces more chipping potatoes than any other.

But with temperatures edging higher, Sackett had to buy several small refrigeration units for his sprawling warehouses. Last year, he paid $125,000 for a bigger one. It’s expensive to operate, but beats having his potatoes rot.

“Our good, fresh, cool air is getting less all the time, it seems like,” he said on a recent morning as a front-end loader scooped up piles of plump, light-brown potatoes that would be packed into a tractor trailer for shipment to chip factories.

The situation here illustrates a little-noticed hazard that climate change is posing for agriculture in much of the world. Once harvested, crops not immediately consumed or processed are stored — sometimes for months. The warming climate is making that job harder and costlier.

The global temperature has gone up a tiny 1.5 Fahrenheit since 1850. That’s it.

But, hey, we can solve this with a tax, right?