Drying out in California

As Portland, Seattle, and British Columbia bake, seeing temperatures hotter than ever recorded in Las Vegas, California is starting its fire season with the Lava Fire in the extreme northwest of the state. The rising heat is sucking dry the state's water reserves as well: as reported here, farming is under increasing pressure to cut back water usage. The preceding article talks about a few farmers who have taken some of their almonds out of production, and the end is about building solar arrays. What does the future hold for the state with the most amazing soil and climate for agriculture?

Market concentration in meat

I've covered chicken in the past: students in my class will have watched either Supersize Me 2 (an entertaining film by a director with a checkered past) or Eating Animals. Both talk about the difficult conditions faced by chicken farmers working for the big names in chicken like Tyson or Perdue.

 This week's article is about how control over the beef industry by meat processors is leading to profits for the meat packers at the expense of farmers. Such is modern capitalism: keep growing until you have a large enough market share to mess with people, and then do so....

Postsecret

 Just saw this on postsecret.com, though it's labeled "classic secrets" so it isn't a new one....

Climate change: mostly about energy

Richard Newell is an economist with the RFF and in this podcast, with Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, he puts things in perspective: "Energy production and use is currently about 80 percent of all US greenhouse gases and 97 percent of carbon dioxide emissions." Kirby notes that the prospects are bright for sustainable fuels.

On a related note, the economics of electric cars are steadily improving. Even though the sticker price remains higher, the lifetime costs of ownership are lower for electrics. 

Krugman says inflation's not real

He could be right- what do I know?- but the FAO is noticing rising sugar prices, and the USDA says soy prices are at their highest levels in nearly 10 years. And gas, don't forget gas.

Update July 6, 2021: Washington Post says that food prices are up globally, under pressure from climate change, changes in food systems sparked by COVID, and geopolitical rivalries. We'll see how that translates for us back in the US!

Another cost of pollution

Today's Washington Post featured an article on the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in the US- about 17,900 per year, mostly associated with agricultural emissions. (Original research here.)

While that's sad, it doesn't surprise me. The award for the surprising result of the day on pollution goes to Nature Communications, which finds that water pollution in lakes is associated with a great deal of methane emissions: the researchers estimate the damages in the trillions of dollars- estimates range from a minimum of $500 billion / year to upwards of $2 trillion per year. That is a jaw-dropping number; for Lake Erie, they say that the costs exceed the money spent on beach trips and sport fishing by a factor of 10. Picture from Twitter link.

Corn prices jumping too

This article in the Wall Street Journal starts with a few quick implications- the rise will raise prices of tortilla chips and Coca cola!- but fortunately the story deepens as it goes. 

Anyway, the quick headline: corn prices are up 50% in the last few months, and have doubled over the past year. That's a big jump. The question is, why? Is it the changing US economy as we step back from the pandemic and prepare our vaccinated selves to return to indoor dining? In a word, NO. 

It turns out that China had an outbreak of disease among hogs and they had to kill many, so now they are eager to fatten up and sell off the next crop. At the same time, central South America has had less rainfall than usual, which means less harvest of that corn crop... and difficulties exporting the crop they do harvest, since some rivers are low. 

There is actually one piece that is linked to US corn- I had no idea how much ethanol was still put in folks' gas tanks. Turns out that accounts for about 40% of US corn- wow.

And of course, as corn prices rise they will take the price of chicken to new highs, which too are already well above pandemic lows. Inflation, anyone? *Image below from ^^