If, for whatever reason, we could no longer import food or energy - would it be difficult, or even possible, to keep the population fed?
Assuming we'd be eating a lot of beef for a while…
Was it this year or last year that there were concerns because the start of the "planting" season was delayed due to a wetter than normal spring? One horrible mass harvest and it's Argentinian rugby team in the Andes time.
Ireland has a short growing window for fresh horticulture produce we could not be self sufficient all year based on our current consumption patterns.
I could imagine someone like this emerge from the boy racers in Donegal.
Famously someone said about Arigna coal that they kept a ton of it handy around the place in case a fire broke out.
Moneypoint still burns coal? Also the coal is still in the abandoned mines but coul dbe dug out if it was an emergency.
Most houses, thinking of myself have a combination of fuel sources. I have gas, fire, stoves, electricity and oil.
I’m starting to think we might be better off.
The pandemic illustrated that the state can in times of emergency harness the private sector supply chains.
Consumer behaviour was affected too with contactless payments increasing.
Our lives are now lived on a spreadsheet which can be adjusted to shocks, but societies are still at the mercy of divisive politics like Trump and brexit.
Science and technology may revolutionise our lives, but myth, memory and tradition frame our response.
we don't burn coal any more for electricity generation; the only coal stocks would be for personal use. why would any business keep that much supply in stock?
Ok but similar stock probably exist for other solid fuels? Turf, wood, coal, pellets etc.
Ireland also has 15 million tonnes of proven coal reserves that could be tapped into in an emergency.
Some would suffer badly many wouldn't. The Government of the day would have to become authoritarian or be replaced by some form of dictatorship. Any upheval in the cities would be put down using leathal force. Money would still be in use and used for rationed goods at least. there would be no shortage of protein, more likely carbs and veg.
Chickens for everyone, great way to reduce organic waste. Personally I would be down to my local chemist and robbing their insulin stores, and then going back to my biochem degree to prep for extracting insulin from pig pancreas in case the manufacturers here couldn't last. People are all thinking about wider society, it's the small destructive pockets like myself who will f*ck it all up for society. Most people will get by on unpasteurised milk (provided there is no TB in the local herds) and potatoes. Ration out fuel for essentials only. Houses with solar panels get co opted into charging vehicles. ESB stations, ration down production and this gets priority to essential services only. This said, if it happened, there would be a mass exodus in a short space of time until we hit an equilibrium.
My gran was born just at the end of Victorian and she lived til her mid 90s, but grandda kicked the bucket mid 40s.
She lived an austere life, grew veg, killed her own chicken etc.. no running water. It was a Spartan existence.
Bismarck's pension age was set at around average life expectancy, the average has increased by almost two decades since.
The average life expectancy doesn't mean that people just generally died a lot younger. Wouldn't the improvement on infant mortality rates make up for a big amount in the gap between then and now? Or is it not counted?
Either way I'm sure there were plenty of old people knocking about a century ago.
We could survive but society as we know it would collapse.
We'd have no electricity, no transport, no mod cons.
We'd have to organise ourselves into agricultural communes and survive that way.
Each village would produce their own food and just survive that way.
i remember reading an article in new scientist probably 20 years ago, about JIT and the possible effects of a superflu - e.g. what would happen if 20% of lorry drivers got sick or decided to avoid work, and there were serious concerns about the breakdown of the entire model as it's built around reducing buffers.
would be interesting to see if i could find that article now.
The supposed strength of JIT is interdependence, but with aging demographics and growing hostility to immigration EU wide, the supply chains would be under a lot of pressure.
I think there was a future threats reports listing supply chain shocks in the top three, along with over reliance on anti biotics creating more resistant virulent virus's.
A century ago the average life expectancy in Ireland was around 50, so looking back to community level interdependence isn't much use for the present.
there was worry about anarchy when covid hit, which didn't come to pass - and a lot of it centred around the fragility of the just in time model. but the issue with the above scenario is JIT would fall apart.
Interesting debate. I think rural people would be okay and we'd see a return to living as a community. People with actual skills necessary for survival such as farming and construction would thrive and people with no skills (apart from thieving) like bankers and politicians would be finished. I think the Euro would be instantly worthless and we'd be living a barter economy in no time.
The cities might empty out, except for the people actually born there. And eventually they might try to migrate to the more stable environment of rural communities. Whether they'd be welcomed or not depends on what they have to offer.
I don't think there would be large scale anarchy. I think law and order would also be meted out in each community and the useless drug addicts would be cured or dead within a short period.
This is all on the assumption that we are cut off permanently and we know it.
Both turf and timber have been cut and saved/ dried for generations. All we have in this hypothetical scenario is a lack of imports.
No mention of there being no sun or wind .
They could graze lawns and green areas of housing estates and roadside verges. Maybe 50 or more years ago, it wasn't unusual to see a goat tethered near a house and moved each time it ate all round it.
Pigeons or doves could be raised for food, and take up little space, monks did so back in the day after all.
Yes, we'd survive. Quite literally, we've gone through worse. We'd lose a few comforts, but we'd get through.
It would likely mean though serious work programmes, increased authoritarianism for a while, and serious cuts to social and public services.
But we would be fine, more or less.
lol… a goat would be a tight fit on my windowsill in an apartment. Possibly the height wouldn’t bother her though. id give us 9 or 10 weeks before anarchy
Generally you'll get more meat by using pasture to graze beef cattle than you will by using the same pasture to graze horses or donkeys for food. Plus, beef can be sold for a higher price because people are not averse to eating it. So I wouldn't see any reason for growing consumption of horsemeat.
However, if we raise a large herd of horses for use as beasts of burden then, after some years, as those horses reach the end of their useful working lives it would make sense to slaughter and eat them, rather than simply waste them, so there might be some limited horsemeat production. (But in that circumstance the meat would be fairly tough.)
Goats can be grazed on land that won't support other livestock, so there might be some growth in goatmeat production.
Perhaps with shortages of protein sources, foods that wouldn't be culturally acceptable now would begin to be consumed. Horse, donkey and goat come to mind. Households could keep a goat for milk.
Also like the war years, profiteering and black market for scarce goods would explode. Barter would take the place of money in many cases too.
sadly Ireland would not survive without drugs , cocaine in particular as it has overtaken alcohol in terms of revenue with drug dealers all over the country controlling towns through fear and having more money than they can bury ☹️
But they stopped 3.5 years ago
Over the counter. Branch banking would make a revival. Expect also a return to the use of cheques to make payments.
Ok, at normal consumption. Still, buys some time while new stuff dries out.
I think that's with the Nazi art.
4 years worth at what consumption rate?
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