https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/britains-economy-is-already-seeing-rapid-change-due-to-climate-change.html
Quote"In areas where a lack of grass biomass to feed the cattle had never been an issue, all of a sudden, this was on everyone's agenda, because there was no pasture to be had," he said.
Loads of Wheat being grown round here for the green petrol. (E10)
> wine
I was stunned about 10 years ago when I learned wine was being produced in the UK. Glad to hear that it's growing.
>> stunned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_wine
That surprised me when I moved to Wisconsin
>> wine
Scorched, Parched and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine CountrySunscreen on grapes. Toilet water that is treated and used for irrigation. Napa Valley winemakers are taking extreme steps in the face of climate change.
QuoteNapa boasts some of the country's most expensive farmland, selling for as much as $1 million per acre; a ton of grapes fetches two to four times as much as anywhere else in California. If there is any nook of American agriculture with both the means and incentive to outwit climate change, it is here.
But so far, the experience of winemakers here demonstrates the limits of adapting to a warming planet.
If the heat and drought trends worsen, "we're probably out of business," said Cyril Chappellet, president of Chappellet Winery, which has been operating for more than half a century. "All of us are out business."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/climate/napa-wine-heat-hot-weather.html
NC & VA both have pretty good wine regions. I prefer the area just east of Charlottesville, VA. Unfortunately for my tastes, NC production leans *heavily* toward scuppernong grapes (the mother vine is here, near the Lost Colony settlement). While I like scuppernong grapes, I don't like taste of scuppernong in wines ...or white wines, in general.
>>NC & VA
Climate Change Is Bankrupting America's Small Towns
Repeated shocks from hurricanes, fires and floods are pushing some rural communities, already struggling economically, to the brink of financial collapse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/climate/climate-towns-bankruptcy.html
QuoteFAIR BLUFF, N.C. — It's been almost five years since Hurricane Matthew flooded this small town on the coastal plain of North Carolina. But somehow, the damage keeps getting worse.
The storm submerged Main Street in four feet of water, destroyed the town hall, the police and fire departments, and flooded almost a quarter of its homes. After two weeks underwater, the roads buckled. The school and grocery store shut, then didn't reopen. When Hurricane Florence submerged the same ground two years later, in 2018, there was little left to destroy.
What started as a physical crisis has become an existential one. The town's only factory, which made vinyl products, closed a few months after Matthew. The population of around 1,000 fell by about half. The federal government tried to help, buying the homes of people who wanted to leave, but those buyouts meant even less property tax, tightening the fiscal noose.
Al Leonard, the town planner, who is responsible for its recovery, said his own job may have to be eliminated, and maybe the police department, too.
"If you look at what the folks here called downtown, really the only business that came back was the U.S. Post Office," said Al Leonard, Fair Bluff's town planner.
Yeah, more than a few small NC towns are on life support. I knew about Fair Bluff after Matthew but it is far, far from being alone in failure. Old, formerly bustling farm towns are now skeletal at best even though many of their farms are booming production-wise. What happens is sort of a reverse gentrification and the town is left with only the poor who can't afford to move out ...or pay property taxes. The lucky ones become suburban enclaves for nearby cities. The worst can't afford anything and are at risk of being taken over by the state. The state loathes to do it, but a few are UNincorporated by the legislature.