Pirate's Cove

Well, this stinks. I really like my Apple Cinnoman Cheerios in the morning (you know you’re getting older when you don’t find Captain Crunch Peanut Butter tasty anymore. Le Sigh)

(Time) Time to stock up on Corn Flakes. Oxfam says at least three of the most popular breakfast cereals are expected to increase in price thanks to the effects of climate change

Cereal lovers of the world may want to start stocking up now, because the far-reaching impacts of climate change could cause the price of their favorite breakfast food to climb sharply in the coming years.

Due largely to shifting weather patterns and extreme events like flood and drought, the prices of commodities like corn and rice are projected to double by 2030, according to a report out Tuesday from Oxfam. As a result, some classic breakfast cereals are likely to get more expensive over the next 15 years.

In the United States, Oxfam says, Frosted Flakes could be 20% more expensive by 2030 due to climate change, and 30% more expensive in the U.K. Kix could be up to 24% more expensive in the U.S. while Corn Flakes could be 30% pricier. British Corn Flakes lovers, meanwhile, would have to pay 44% more for a box of the cereal.

Does anyone even eat Kix anymore? Of course, since “climate change” causes everything, both drought and flood are Bad. I do enjoy the notion of the deeply scientific word “could”. So, crystal ball gazing. But, um

At the end of the Medieval Warm Period, ~1230 A.D., temperatures dropped ~4°C (~7° F) in ~20 years and the cold period that followed is known as the Little Ice Age. The colder climate that ensued for several centuries was devastating (see e.g., Grove, 1988, 2004; Singer and Avery, 2007; Fagan, 2000). Temperatures of the cold winters and cool, rainy summers were too low for growing of cereal crops, resulting in widespread famine and disease. When temperatures declined during the 30–year cool period from the late 1940’s to 1977, some climatologists and meteorologists predicted a return to a new Little Ice Age.

A cool period is much worse for agriculture. Remember, the Vikings in Greenland were wiped out thanks to their agrarian society being decimated by the much cooler average temperatures. The growing seasons were reduced by 15-20%. The LIA was a direct cause of the unrest in France. The famous line about “let them eat cake”? The wheat crops in France were decimated. Agriculture was so bad that the King of France tried to get people to eat the very hardy potato, which was considered a crappy food even by the lowest of low peasants.

Changes in climate,whether a Holocene style warm or cool period, and ice age, or a hot age (though it is highly doubtful Earth will experience a true hot age unless there is a major change in the Sun, prior to the time it starts dying billions of years from now), will always effect life on the planet. It seems that life does worse during the cool periods. Regardless, there is little anthropogenic about it.