[bad_alloc]

> Surging olive oil prices, driven in part by two years of drought in Spain, has meant opportunity for criminals across the Mediterranean.

i.e. we are beginning to see the impacts of climate change on the food supply in Europe.

[DoingIsLearning]

What you say is true but water management matters and this scarcity is largely self inflicted due to poor regulation.

The estimates vary but something close to 80% of water in Spain is spent on agriculture. You have large areas of Murcia and Andaluzia pretty much covered in canvas greenhouses.

A large fraction of this water for farming is spent producing year round tomatoes, strawberries, avocados, etc.

Much of these fresh produces is exported so it has nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with profit. Farmers are actively selecting profitable water intensive crops while externalizing the cost of creating water scarcity.

[nemo44x]

> What you say is true

It's probably not. Regional draught conditions over multiple years is a common thing. The USA had very hot temperatures for a decade in the 1930s for instance and this is just 1 of many examples.

Climate change isn't really a local thing like this is. The region has had multi-year droughts many times in the past and will have them in the future too. Climate change could make them more extreme, to be sure.

But claiming that this is from climate change just does more to discredit it, and more-so the people who are climate doomers, than anything.

[DoingIsLearning]

> Regional draught conditions over multiple years is a common thing

Winters have become increasingly milder across the mediterranean for the past 20 years, ask anyone, it is very noticeable.

September use to be the end of Holiday season now you have locals going to the beach in late October with +25 Celsius.

This means that reservoirs and river aquifers are not getting filled up during winter generating progressively more agressive draughts.

It's not the end of the world, people will find a way, but luxuries like golf courses and year round strawberries will likely need to be curbed.

[morkalork]

For a second I thought I was reading a reply in a thread about the drought in California!

[DoingIsLearning]

Everybody is remarkably similar when it comes down to money.

Edit: Everybody is remarkably similar when it comes down to their desire to make money @fragmede

[fragmede]

No they're not. The mere possibility of boatloads of money changes people, the act of having money changes people. Having billions of it changes people. People aren't similar when it comes down to money, because everyone's money situation is different.

[NKosmatos]

Exactly, many people I've spoken with who have olive trees are saying this. The lack of rain and the high temperatures have played an important role to the production and yield of this years olives.

[good8675309]

Imagine if the cave men alive during the ice age were also dumb enough to think they caused it. I'm all for taking care of the environment but blaming every environmental change on humanity is the height of stupidity. If this infuriates you and you think people like me should be rounded up because we don't drink your koolaid, you might be in a climate cult.

[elnatro]

Did cavemen have a fossil fuel based economy? Did they produce billions of tons of CO2 each year?

[wizzwizz4]

We're not blaming every environmental change on humanity, though? We're only blaming humanity for the ones we're probably responsible for. I don't see anyone saying we're responsible for plate tectonics (excepting the relationship between fracking and earthquakes, of course).

[greenhearth]

I don't think cavemen exterminated entire jungles and poisoned plankton with plastic.

[Bnichs]

One of the first things we have early humans doing on record is burning down forests: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-may-have-u...

[sfn42]

On a much smaller scale though, now we do it industrially. Burning all the fossilized old forests we can dig out of the ground - which is even worse because they were no longer part of the carbon cycle.

[zoeysmithe]

Wealthy westerners thinking climate change will only affect the global south are in for some hard lessons soon. "It can't happen here, it'll affect mostly the poors in the tropics, so we won't constraint capitalism at all for it or change our lifestyles," crowd think they're going to somehow outrun climate change. They don't realize as a group entirely dependent on exploiting the global south not only are they are risk if the gs is hurt, but their own climate is suffering now. If anything the northern West is more vulnerable to climate change than most due to it existing on a series of rube-goldberg machines in a long line of dominoes that, if hit in the right place, could cause systematic failure.

Olive trees are low stakes, but ultimately a sign that climate change is moving north.

[RandomLensman]

You'd be surprised how self-contained the West could be if it chooses to.

[RajT88]

I'd be surprised if it ever chose to be.

Being self-contained is something the West is incredibly bad at, and has been for (checks calendar) at least half a millennium. Depending on how much you think counts.

[RandomLensman]

Pretty self-contained for a lot of things, actually.

[selimthegrim]

How’s that working out for Russia so far?

[RajT88]

The West keeps their derision for other people pretty local, to be fair.

[morkalork]

So far nobody seems to be willing to give up luxuries like fresh fruit and vegetables in winter though.

[elcritch]

Nah the west could (will?) just grow them in vertical farms. Less pesticides, more water efficient, and fresher fruits and veggies: https://richmond.com/news/local/business/plenty-unlimited-ve...

[RoyalHenOil]

Vertical farms are fundamentally less efficient than traditional greenhouses or open fields.

The main limiting factor for crop productivity is sunlight, and vertical farms drastically reduce the sunlight-to-plant ratio. They are only productive if substantial artificial light is provided, but this is very expensive. This is why vertical farms are generally limited to locations where land values are very high (such that it is more economical to artificially light crops than to simply grow on a larger plot of land) and there is substantial government investnebt to growing food locally, even though it is much more expensive than importing food. For example, we see veryical farms in Singapore because it is striving to be more self-sufficient for defense reasons in the event of war.

It is no solution for most countries, particularly countries that have rural regions suited to agriculture.

[morkalork]

Let me know when they've figured out bananas, grapes and avocados. If/when the global south is crushed by climate change, we'll be back to eating what our great great grandparents were eating in winter. I hope you like potatoes!

[esafak]

We won't because we can develop new cultivars more easily now. But even if you were right it would not be the end of the world.

[bobsmooth]

It really is insane that the produce section of a grocery store basically never changes year-round.

[soulofmischief]

> "It can't happen here, it'll affect mostly the poors in the tropics, so we won't constraint capitalism at all for it or change our lifestyles," crowd

So, neoliberals and those who keep them in power.

https://chomsky.info/profit01/