Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

You are here: Home / Climate Change / This Kind of Freaks Me Out

This Kind of Freaks Me Out

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With May in the books, another third of the 2019 U.S. corn crop has yet to be planted, according to the latest USDA crop progress report, out Monday afternoon.

“Today’s update from USDA came in on the lower side of estimates for corn and soybean planting, keeping both crops under the gun,” according to Farm Futures senior grain market analyst Bryce Knorr. “Only Texas was ahead of normal for corn planting, though growers in the western Corn Belt made better progress.”

Corn progress reached 67% as of June 2, up from 58% a week ago but still far behind 2018’s pace of 96% and the five-year average of 96%. Analysts expected a more robust pace of 71%, although trade guesses ranged between 68% and 76%. Five of the top 18 production states still haven’t reached the halfway mark, including Illinois (45%), Indiana (31%), Michigan (42%), North Dakota (33%) and South Dakota (44%).

This strikes me as a really big deal, and while I am one to freak out about things like this, I should note that I am not seeing people who know what they are talking about lose their shit, so maybe I shouldn’t. My concerns are beyond a potential corn shortage, how many farmers will go under because they can’t plant alternate crops like soybeans? Cheeto Benito’s trade war wiped out their market, and that ain’t ever coming back. Just the other day China halted big purchases, and last year Brazil and others (including Russia, which I am sure is just a coincidence) eagerly stepped in and filled the void.

So there is that problem. On top of that, I don’t think people fully appreciate just how fundamental the corn crop to so much of our manufacturing and economy. Beyond the obvious foodstuffs, corn is also a key component in everything from cattle feed to pet food to ethanol for cars to vinegar and on and on and on. Almost every product will be more expensive- including beverages, because in response to the US Sugar program, which places tariffs and sets prices for sugar producers, beverages are made from… high fructose corn syrup. It also factors in to a wide number of industrial products, like the following:

* Industrial products — Soaps, paints, corks, linoleum, polish, adhesives, rubber substitutes, wallboard, dry-cell batteries, textile finishings, cosmetic powders, candles, dyes, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, insulation, wallpaper and other starch products.

* Fermentation products and byproducts — industrial alcohols, fuel ethanol, recyclable plastics, industrial enzymes, fuel octane enhancers, fuel oxygenates and solvents.

Again, virtually every stage of manufacturing will be impacted. This, with Trump’s tariffs with Mexico already jacking up prices for consumers and economists predicting a recession in the near term, and it is scary. Making it even scarier is that this isn’t going to be a one-off. Climate change isn’t going to just stop. The flooding is going to become more and more commonplace- you’d think people would notice that they are having 100 year floods every year, but apparently not.

So again, the whole thing has me concerned. Not that there is any realistic chance we’ll fucking do anything about it. The idiots in those states will still keep electing wingnuts, and they’ll respond by transferring tax dollars from blue states to distressed farmers in the moocher red states (and Trump’s wealthy buddies), and talk about salt of the earth real Muricans and evil liberal coastal elites.

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Keith P.

    This strikes me as a really big deal

    This could be the byline for this blog, along with “FUCK YOU ALL, I’M IN A BAD MOOD!”

  4. 4.

    gene108

    People notice the 100 year floods every few years or weather during each season being noticeably different than it was 20 years ago.

    It’s just that a random group of people noticing “this ain’t right” are not going to be able to come with a solution. They (we) need informed leadership to design a solution, which we can’t have, because people keep voting Republican

  5. 5.

    Dan B

    I kept yapping about the Jet Stream for the last month. It was crazy whipsawed by the warming – crazy warming – of the Arctic. This reduces the temperature differential between the Arctic and Temperate zones and slows the Jet Stream. Big temp differential makes a faster and smoother Jet Stream like a faster river runs straighter and a slow river meanders. We had a Jet Stream running south of SoCal and meandering north of Minnesota and Michigan, a meander of nearly 2000 miles! In between the storm systems were epic, dragged along by the Jet Stream.

    It looks like the first big impact of the Climate Crisis may be food and the economic costs. Sorry Miami. You may not be the first casualty.

    We may be learning how the Netherlands is the biggest food exporter in Europe. Brown thumbs line up for your lessons!

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: I remember my grandfather using my 18 month old brother as the measuring tool for “knee high by the Fourth of July.”

  7. 7.

    Ohio Mom

    My cousin’s son and his wife had their first child two months ago. While I am enjoying everyone’s excitement about this first member of a new generation, in the back of my mind I am,”Why would anyone bring a new life into the cataclysm that global warming is bringing?”

    Sometimes I think about congratulating all the cousins in the young adult generation who haven’t had babies yet but I don’t think that would go over well.

  10. 10.

    Raven

    Knee-high by the Fourth of July is a common saying for corn farmers throughout the Midwest. It serves as a way to measure the corn’s growth and compare it to previous years. Corn is expected to be knee high in late June or early July. When the saying proved true, it means that growing conditions have been favorable and farmers could expect a good yield that year. If the corn crop has not gotten off to a good start, it’s unlikely that you will have a high yield.

    Corn growth cycles
    Today’s agriculture industry has seen a slight change in growth cycles. Instead of “knee-high by the Fourth of July” the saying, “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye” seems to be more accurate. The new phrase was taken from a song in the 1943 musical Oklahoma! With new corn breeds and varieties available, there are noticeable differences in the way the crop grows. Farmers can plant earlier because of tougher breeds and new kinds of seeds. Earlier planting means taller corn on July 4th. The expectation is now corn that is chest-high or taller.

  12. 12.

    John Revolta

    John, m’boy, ya gotta look at the big picture here. The farmers that didn’t get their crops in by May 20th, they get a disaster subsidy from, well, us actually. And the smaller farms who can’t weather the storms, as it were, well they’ll just get bought out by the big boys, so win-win, right? And yeah, the price of pretty much everything is gonna go up, but corn futures are through the roof so all the traders are gonna be raking in fat stacks, and it’ll all trickle down like it always does! So, relax bruh!!

  13. 13.

    Steve in the ATL

    If there’s no corn, what are we going to use to ruin our gasoline?

  16. 16.

    phein60

    I can’t speak for the rest of Illinois, but in the northern part of East Central Illinois, we’re just starting to see large scale planting (around Champaign-Urbana). Not unusual to be this late; the spring was very wet, and farmers are hurrying to get fields planted.

  18. 18.

    Pharniel

    Various Agriculture twitter have been posting farms saying “100% crop loss” and thinking that the Dakotas are hosed, but more southern farmers (such as Illinois) are going to be OK ish.

    Still, the pictures of the floods. Just kills me and reminds me of the flooding in ’91 or so.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @John Revolta: Yeah, it’s complicated. ProgressiveFarmer (from May 28):

    OMAHA (DTN) — With spring rains that won’t cease, farmers will be increasingly pushed over the next few weeks to weigh their prevented-planting options.

    The angst over planting is also higher for farmers who hedged a percentage of their 2019-20 corn ahead of planting season. Angie Setzer, vice president of grain at Citizens Elevator in Charlotte, Michigan, said farmers should be talking with their buyers about options.

    “You have got to have communication with your buyer sooner or later,” Setzer said. “So a lot of guys will hesitate and see if it will get better. You always, as a farmer, have an optimistic thought, ‘I’ll just wait it out.’ That’s the worst thing to do because knowing early, and me having a conversation with a grower early, allows me to present a lot of different opportunities.”

    Setzer added, “If it is keeping you up at night that you are overhedged versus what you have got planted and the reality is you aren’t going to do too much more, then it’s best to have that conversation and rip the Band-Aid off.”

    Setzer also noted there are a lot of questions about how the new round of Market Facilitation Program payments will influence late-season soybean planting. USDA dealt a wild card into the mix with its announcement last week of a new $14.5 billion Market Facilitation Program for 2019-20 crops that will pay farmers on a county formula based on planted acres.

    The county payment rate was not released last week when USDA announced the program. USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson last week said the MFP payments would be based on planted acres. The county formula being created for the program will be based on reported planted acres.

    However, Scott Irwin, an Extension economist at the University of Illinois, noted on Twitter that there are no official details on how the second year of MFP will deal with prevented-planting acres.

    “I want to see the program in writing before reaching a final conclusion on MFP2 payment for PP (prevented planting),” Irwin tweeted.

    The disaster aid package tied up in the U.S. House of Representatives provides USDA with $3 billion for crop losses, included on-farm commodities such as those lost in flooding earlier this spring. But the provision also states that money could be used for “crops prevented from planting in 2019.” No more details are mentioned about what that would mean.

    The disaster bill passed the Senate late last week, but House leaders allowed lawmakers to leave early, thinking they could pass the bill during a pro forma session. Lone Republican congressmen have objected twice now, blocking final passage of the bill each time.

    “It doesn’t seem right that people impacted by disasters have to wait another week to get help because politicians wanted to leave early for their congressional recess,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said on Tuesday as he criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for allowing the House to leave early last week.

    Grassley said he has not had any discussions about trade aid with USDA officials, but he said he understands why the department is limiting aid to those who plant a crop.

    “I would assume the aid is based on not being able to export the crop that you grew, so if you didn’t grow the crop, you wouldn’t be hurt by not being able to export,” Grassley told reporters Tuesday. “But I’m willing to listen to anybody that has a different point of view.”

    Grassley also agreed with comments by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., that the new payment plan would drive farmers to plant late soybeans and encourage overproduction.

    “I agree with that, and since the money isn’t going to go out for a few weeks anyway, I’m not sure I understand why it was important to announce it before maybe two or three weeks from now for the same reason Congressman Peterson said,” Grassley said.

    Futures prices continue to rise with the planting uncertainty. December corn jumped 17 1/4 cents on Tuesday to close at $4.37 a bushel, and soybeans moved 26 1/4 cents higher for November to close at $8.82 a bushel.

    USDA’s Crop Progress report on Tuesday showed Illinois corn planting was just 35% complete as of May 26; Michigan corn planting was at 33%; South Dakota was at 25%; and Indiana and Ohio had just 22% of their corn crop in.

    In a briefing Tuesday, leaders with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers highlighted challenges they are facing with increased rainfall throughout the Missouri River Basin. The Corps is planning to raise releases from Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River to 70,000 cubic feet per second, which could go higher later this week. Corps officials also were increasing water releases from Kansas and Missouri reservoirs.

    Soybean planting progress was even worse in many states with just 29% of projected acres planted nationwide.

    Higher-priced crops may push more farmers to plant late, but that would already be the mindset for most farmers, Setzer said. “I had guys last year planting corn on June 15 at $3.90,” she said. “You want to plant a crop. That’s your desire.”

    Nebraska, along with most of North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas, moved past the final prevented planting date for corn on May 25. The deadline is May 31 for Iowa, most of Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with eastern Missouri and a few southeastern counties in North and South Dakota.

    The Crop Progress report reflects roughly 75% of South Dakota corn acreage likely has shifted in the late-planting season, as well as about 30% of the Kansas corn crop, 37% of North Dakota’s corn acres and just under 20% of Nebraska’s corn acres.

    Keep in mind that even though the term is “final planting date,” that is the final date for full coverage. The crop insurance protection during the late planting season lowers 1% each day for the next 20 to 25 days, depending on the crop.

    Farmers who take prevented-planting coverage on a first crop can still plant a second cash crop. For corn, the second crop cannot be planted for 20 days after the final planting date. For soybeans, it’s 25 days after the late-planting period.

    A second cash crop can be insured if the crop is on the policy, but the indemnity on the first crop falls to 35%, as does the premium on the first crop. Planting a second crop, however, also affects Actual Production History. The APH on the prevented-planting crop falls to 60% of approved APH for those acres. On the second crop, APH is then calculated from the actual production.

    Farmers who take prevented planting coverage also can plant a cover crop or forage crop, but it cannot be hayed or grazed until Nov. 1.

    Kevin Ross, vice president of the National Corn Growers Association, who farms near Underwood, Iowa, went into this weekend at about 60% of his crop planted. He didn’t get very far beyond that.

    “I know there are guys around here, multiple people who have zero crops planted,” Ross said.

    On calls with fellow NCGA leaders, Ross said he has heard farmers in the Eastern Corn Belt who also continue struggling trying to get crops planted. “I think, in general, guys are going to plant at least five to 10 days after the final planting date,” Ross said. “Most guys want to plant a crop. Most guys want to harvest a crop.”

    $8.82 a bushel for soybeans sounds like a great price to me. I would have thought that the price would have collapsed since China stopped buying. There’s obviously a lot going on that makes these decisions much less obvious.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    scav

    A) wish I knew more about the traditional variance and B) I thought modern corn was growing shorter, more energy devoted to seed rather than leaves etc?
    Not to dispute any weather oddness and trends.

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    @scav: On B, that’s my recollection as well. Pictures of great grandpa out in the field with his steam tractor and the corn being about 10′ high, vs the almost puny stuff these days that out produces it by several fold….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  22. 22.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Ohio Mom:
    Ya know, I think that too, and bite my tongue regularly. ?
    I remind myself the view from age 61 is different than the one from age 30.
    They’re not as fed-up and cynical ?

  23. 23.

    Alex

    @raven: In Michigan it is just “knee-high by the 4th of July.” Even so, this is concerning. Plowing wet soil can damage yields for years to come, so we may see an increase in no-till this year. According to Michigan Public Radio this morning, there is still time for decent crops of corn and soy if the weather cooperates this summer. So not panic mode yet…

  24. 24.

    dnfree

    @raven: elephant’s eye is from the musical “Oklahoma”. The old saying was knee high by the Fourth of July, but with modern hybrids it is usually much higher than that.

    To the main point, I’m from rural far northern Illinois, and we’re freaking out here.

  25. 25.

    Ripley

    It’s been wet as fuck in Iowa this Spring. And last Spring. And the Spring before…

    The county Republicans want to fly MAGA flags on the street poles for Flag Day (Trump’s b-day, also) in one of the small towns in the NE corner.

    non sequiturs rock!!!

  26. 26.

    Jager

    My famer cousin in North Dakota is still wearing his MAGA hat. My Good Brother in Law, who is in the commodity business, sent him a text that read, “Paul, do you miss Obama yet?”

    I don’t think Paul will be buying a new ski boat this year and he hasn’t been to Vegas in 2019. OTH his dad, my Baby Uncle is getting nervous.

  27. 27.

    Steve in the ATL

    @phein60:

    northern part of East Central Illinois

    Good lord—I never knew there were so many parts of the Illinois. As an Evanston native, my understanding of geography was “north side” and “rest of the state”.

  28. 28.

    mad citizen

    There have been stories about this here in Indiana, but no one seems to be freaking out about it. It does seem to me like spring comes later and fall comes later, and it’s technically still Spring, so there is that. Hoping they can get going during this fairly dry week.

    One think you didn’t mention–I think I have this right–is that if there is a shortage or high-priced feed corn, don’t the beef ranchers liquidate more of their stock, driving been prices lower? Well-done burgers for MAGA-land!

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    My grandfather managed four plantings a summer. I don’t know how he did it but I did enjoy running through the rows. The corn was so much taller than I was.

  30. 30.

    Another Scott

    In other news, VW working on ways to keep you from vomiting in autonomous cars.

    Car and Driver reports that among the solutions VW is trying, are moving seats and a strip of LED lights designed to help you anticipate the car’s movements. The theory there is that is, say, green lights give you a hint of when the car will accelerate, its actions won’t be a mystery to the passenger. And drivers tend not to get carsick because they can anticipate the car’s movements, this should help keep you from throwing up on your supposedly relaxing trip.

    To test the systems, a group of brave souls has the unenviable task of being driven around in cars wearing skin-temperature and heart-rate monitors to see how sick they get in 20 minutes of stop-and-go movement.

    Luckily, some of them get to watch videos while they’re in the car to mimic the future VW envisions, in which video can dominate your commute along with your couch time. And your work time. And your before-bed time. And your toilet time. And that time between when you’re awake and you’re ready to get out of bed.

    Unfortunately for the test subjects, VW isn’t letting them watch anything as emotionally affecting as a movie. The subjects have to, instead, watch a video feed of a fish tank to keep dirty emotions from impacting clean data.

    Volkswagen is the first to say that they haven’t quite found a solution yet. Instead, they’re investigating the topic—which, all kidding aside, I would love to see succeed as someone who wishes they could read in the car without ralphing.

    Yay future!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    JGabriel

    John Cole @ Top:

    This strikes me as a really big deal, and while I am one to freak out about things like this, I should note that I am not seeing people who know what they are talking about lose their shit …

    I think it probably would be a bigger deal under normal circumstances, but, as a result of China (and other states) directing a lot of their purchasing to other countries in response to Trump’s trade war, I suspect we won’t see much of an actual shortage here in this country.

    Edited to Add: We also tend to overproduce most crops by a large amount, particularly grains, even after taking sales to foreign countries into account.

    But that’s all speculation from me based on general reading. I hope some people with actual agricultural knowledge and/or experience weigh in.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    Analysts expected

    I always mentally translate that as “guys who are paid to guess, guessed wrong”.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    This is from an email with someone I know regarding the national security threats of climate change.

    Climate change needs to be partially framed in terms of national security. Specifically the human geography of national security. As climate change continues and accelerates it will change human geographic relationships – the relationship between people, places, and things in time and space. This will lead to increased pressures within states, societies, and economies, which will then bring less prominent socio-cultural components of identity back into play and make them more salient as a survival mechanism (this is Anne Swidler’s thesis, which I’ve seen borne out in many places such as Iraq and Syria). A great example is the Syrian civil war. One of the primary drivers, and the one that is almost never mentioned, is that the Levant is experiencing an almost 20 year long drought – about 13 years in when the Syrian civil war started. The economic and scarcity issues caused by that drought were primary drivers of the low intensity sectarian warfare we’ve been dealing with in Iraq since 2004 and of the Syrian civil war itself. Basically neither state, society, and or economy could absorb the additional stressors caused by the ongoing drought.

    More relevant, perhaps, for the US is that as climate change accelerates it will shift the zone that is most advantageous for American agriculture north. Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, etc will give way to the Dakotas and Wyoming. Eventually those states will give way to southern Canada. And so on. This change to the places of America’s breadbasket and agricultural heartland will create societal, economic, kinship, and ultimately governmental stress as the people in these areas have to reevaluate and ultimately remake their relationships within the human geography. And it will create new stressors in the places that become more favorable for agriculture as the people there have to adjust to their new human geography and have to adjust to people migrating into the area seeking employment in the only work they’ve ever known and, because of socialization, believe they’re willing to do. I’m pretty sure the Canadians aren’t going to be happy with seasonal migrant farm workers from Iowa. The Russians, however, will be thrilled as climate change will create hundreds of thousands of acres of land that can be farmed. So our ability to feed ourselves will be in sharp, climate change induced decline while there’s, will be on the increase for the same reason. The only outstanding issue is whether they can capitalize on it as Russia doesn’t have the best track record with leveraging agriculture to overcome food scarcity.

    Now imagine this happening all over the world. And all of that, both localized within states and societies and globalized across regions and within and between states and societies, is going to force us to rethink national security. And all of this is before we get to questions of how can the US military be expeditionary, which is what US strategy calls for, if all of our basing has to be reconsidered and possibly relocated to avoid flooding (just use a domestic base like MacDill as an example – it’s one really bad tropical storm away from not existing because of where it is built) or because a regional center of gravity has shifted because of changes necessitated by the human geography of climate change that require us to relocate a geographic combatant command or other major headquarters.

  35. 35.

    Gravenstone

    Oh yeah. Anecdata, but here in east central WI, I would estimate there are less than 20% of the fields planted, including those in my immediate vicinity. There are a shit ton of farmers who are looking at either no crops, or rolling the dice and trying to get a crop in, knowing they won’t harvest until late October or November – if at all.

  36. 36.

    Gravenstone

    @JGabriel:

    I suspect we won’t see much of an actual shortage here in this country.

    Shortage of consumable crops is just one aspect of it. No crop = no cash. The bigger agribusiness sorts can likely absorb that for a year or three. Smaller farmers (“smaller” being relative) may be looking at liquidating land or other real property to bridge the gap until next year. Assuming next year is any better.

  39. 39.

    JanieM

    beverages are made from… high fructose corn syrup

    Think how much healthier we’d be as a nation if we stopped ingesting so much high fructose corn syrup!

  42. 42.

    LivinginExile

    Quite a bit of the corn that is planted won’t be yielding what it normally would. A lot of drowned out areas that have been underwater for to long..

  44. 44.

    JGabriel

    @Gravenstone:

    Shortage of consumable crops is just one aspect of it. No crop = no cash. The bigger agribusiness sorts can likely absorb that for a year or three. Smaller farmers (“smaller” being relative) may be looking at liquidating land or other real property to bridge the gap until next year.

    True. But I’m having difficulty feeling much sympathy for farmers who, by largely voting Republican, spent the past 40 years voting against doing anything to prevent or ameliorate climate change when we still could.

    The people who spent the past five decades electing travesties like Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, and Trump are getting what they voted for. To quote the kind of biblical cliche conservatives like throw out there when other people are suffering: They’re reaping what they sowed.

  49. 49.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: Security will be an issue when survival is threatened. Drought in Honduras and El Salvafor has added to migration pressure. Subtropical (dry) regions will expand around the globe. High rainfall will occur in some years followed by drought and/or heat. Northern India and Pakistan are experiencing heat that is 5 degrees farenheit above already insufferable heat. And I don’t believe that Canada and Russia will increase agricultural yields significantly. Quality soils are limited in these regions. I don’t believe the analysis has taken thus factor into account. Also if early Spring and late Fall temperatures do not increase it will be difficult to brong crops consistently to harvest. And predictions for much warmer winters bode ill for pests and diseases. British Columbia and the PNW were looking good for people escaping an arid US Southwest but the massive forest fires are truly ominous.

    Rapid and erratic change is tough. And our tendency to be oblivious to large scale patterns is an added hurdle. How many jackals are well versed in the coincidence of destabilizing droughts encirclong the globe in the subtropics? And we are a very well informed bunch.

  51. 51.

    Tenar Arha

    John @ top
    Fair warning but the Twitter tag #noplant19 gives a snapshot of what’s been written in crop reports.

  53. 53.

    Aleta

    @Another Scott: Do you really have pics of your great grandfather on a steam tractor in a corn field? That’s pretty cool. My father used to drag us to see the screaming steam tractors and threshing machines at a place where they had a parade.

    My cornfield story is playing hide and seek in the rows at my friend’s farm; but my partner’s is better. When he was 4 years old his mother would send him off on his own to visit the neighbors on the next farm over. She’d set him down at the edge of their corn field. Put him in a row, told him to stay in that row and just keep walking, don’t stop until you come to the neighbor’s house. He remembers walking forever under this towering corn. When it was time to go home, they set him down in the same row and off he went.

  55. 55.

    satby

    @JGabriel: Rural areas may vote Republican, but Illinois is a blue state. “We” haven’t voted for Republicans for President since Bill Clinton.

  57. 57.

    LosGatosCA

    Look at the bright side – all the methane gas released from the frozen tundra in Russia will reduce the need for the excessive corn crops in the US. Plus the huge possibility of massive release of frozen bacteria and viruses that humans may have lost any immunity for.

    So perhaps the human overpopulation problem will be solved as biological assaults and famine balance the books of the human destruction of multitudes of species.

    It’s not all downside.

  58. 58.

    chopper

    out by where i grew up in northern illinois nothings been planted due to the insane rains. my mom jokingly asked me the other day if i knew anybody with rice paddy experience.

  59. 59.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    This strikes me as a really big deal, and while I am one to freak out about things like this, I should note that I am not seeing people who know what they are talking about lose their shit, so maybe I shouldn’t.

    You know, I hate to say this, because I honestly have no opinion on prospective diarrheal implications of the corn crop. Still: you need to check out whether there are non-GOPpies who are concerned about this. Remember, these are the people who said aluminum tubes that couldn’t be used for centrifuges could *only* be used for that purpose; that mobile structures that were impossible to use for bio/chem weapons, but could be use to generate hydrogen for weather balloons couldn’t be *anything* other than mobile weapons labs, etc..
    (Some people say they lost all respect for Colin Powell for seeing him give the UN presentation. I didn’t – he was trying to be a good soldier, knowing he was facing a foe too big for him, and did what he could. The *moment* he said those were clearly mobile weapons labs, after I’d already seen that they couldn’t have undergone the chemical treatments needed to handle them safely, if they were mobile weapons labs – that’s the first time I saw him tell a shitbird lie, and *that* is when I lost all respect for him. Sorry, Mr. Powell – stand up to Trump, and you might win some back. But you gotta stand up for him like a man, like the frickin’ *GENERAL* you are… not like some two bit wannabe lickspittle. Sorry – you don’t deserve that prima facie, but you sure as hell do ex post.)

  61. 61.

    JimV

    @Ohio Mom–I’ve been biting my tongue on that issue for the last twenty years or more. In 1900 the whole world had about 1 billion people; when I was born after WWII, about 4 billion; in 2000, about 6 billion. Less than 20 years later, we’ve added more people than existed in 1900. This cannot go on, and is the ultimate source of most of our problems, including climate change, it seems to me. But what can you say? People want to have children, it’s like a basic evolutionary drive. (Science fiction pointed out the problem in the 1960’s and 1970’s, with John Brunner’s “Stand on Zanzibar” and Larry Niven’s child lottery but has been quiet on it pretty much since.) (Yes, the rate has slowed down, but it looks like not enough to keep us from going off the cliff.)

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