Olive oil is in trouble as extreme heat and drought push the industry into crisis | CNN Business

JustAManOnAToilet@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 294 points –
Olive oil is in trouble as extreme heat and drought push the industry into crisis | CNN Business
cnn.com
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We really did have everything, didn't we?

Compared to the next 100 years we had a utopia, and completely squandered it in a century of grotesque excess. If the species survives 20th/21st century people likely be viewed worse than we do nazi's; ecocidal maniacs.

I find it ridiculous that the climate movement has rarely mentioned the hyperinflation of food and cost of living collapse that climate change will cause. Our civilisation is built around a dependable climate. Our cities constructed where the rain falls and flows.

You blame the people trying to warn everyone because they didn't push one specific point hard enough?

Everything else I was ok with, why didn't they warn me about the olive oil!?

Oh, please. I'm merely highlighting a major oversight. Olive oil is the least of our concerns. ALL food and most resources face double digit annual inflation from climate change in the near future.

Climate change has historically been framed as weather extremes, rising sea levels, etc — for as long as I've been alive. Only very recently has scarcity, inflation, and economic turmoil greater than the Great Depression, or anything in modern history, entered discussion. Most people still aren't aware of how fragile our agriculture is.

If the goal was to make people understand the gravity of the situation and scare them into action, neglecting to convey that we risk meat, seafood, etc becoming unaffordable for the 99%, along with many staples, before they retire or we even hit 1.5C, is a failure in messaging.

But a handful of billionaires got even richer so it was all worth it.

This seriously blows my mind too though, I just can't get my head around it. Did they all just forget that they live on the planet too? Do they not have activities and things they enjoy that depend at least somewhat on a functional ecosystem and life sustaining planet?

Or do they not care if we all have to eat insects and nutrient paste in underground bunkers as long as they get more than everyone else?

I think that they believe, because of the money they have, that they can find ways to mitigate a lot of the effects of climate change.

Aircondition, all sorts of high end isolation, the ability to afford fresh food and water that's becoming too expensive for us normies, being able to just move to whatever place on the planet that is still nice to live, ...

You’ve never seen another human refuse to address a problem affecting them (and others) because the solution could affect their current levels of comfort and habit?

No, we don't care if you have to eat insects and nutrient paste

MWAHAHAHAHA twiddles moustache

If you've never read up on the late bronze age collapse, I suggest you do it if you feel like being depressed.

2 more...

I swear to god I will commit war crimes if olives disappear

There's a lot of people way ahead of you on the whole "committing war crimes in response to climate change" thing

Oh my god, half the 5 year average. Great great great. Great for farmers, great for prices. We are fucked.

The climate where you can grow these types of things is shifting and industry needs to shift with it. There will be new places that are conducive to growing that crop (that probably used to not be) and we will need to grow them there.

Olive trees take decades to grow to harvest size, I hope we've started already....

Not really, superintensive olive tree plantations in Spain grow to harvest size in about 3 years. It uses a lot of water though.

People have started planting Olives in austria and even germany allready. Eventhoug I think it is more experimental still.

But then you get the crowd complaining about nonnative plants being planted in the new areas lol

It's already constantly out of stock and when it's available it's at least +50% of the regular price. (Germany)

I don't know the prices now, but half a year ago in Poland olive oil was cheaper than any other oil and significantly cheaper than butter. Like 6€ a liter.

At least sunflower and rapeseed oil are back at a somewhat reasonable level, about 2-2,50€/l. Still way more expensive than pre-pandemic but the prices right after the invasion were just ridiculous, as you said, right up there with olive oil.