Loss of habitat with extreme weather events

Forget about the solar minimum! There is some truth here

Michael Wipes Out Pecans+ - Snow Prevents Harvest - No Meat, and Robot Farms in Grand Solar Minimum

Ice Age Farmer

 Hurricane Michael wiped out over a billion dollars, just after Florence did the same. Christian looks at how Philippines is frantically importing rice after Typhoon Mangkhut, how insurance actuaries are having to adjust to climate disasters, even as pizzas are shrinking and new studies declare that "meat" must soon be a thing of the past in order to "save the climate." Let's break it down

Michael shuts nearly 40 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil output

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Nearly 40 percent of daily crude oil production was lost from offshore U.S. Gulf of Mexico wells on Tuesday because of platform evacuations and shut-ins ahead of Hurricane Michael.

Oil producers - including Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC.N), BHP Billiton (BLT.L), BP (BP.L) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) - have since Monday evacuated personnel from 75 platforms as the storm made its way through the central Gulf on the way to landfall on Wednesday on the Florida Panhandle.

The country’s largest privately owned crude terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC, said on Tuesday it had halted operations at its marine terminal. The facility is the only port in the United States capable of fully loading and unloading tankers with a capacity of 2 million barrels of oil.

Companies turned off daily production of about 670,800 barrels of oil and 726 million cubic feet of natural gas by midday on Tuesday, according to offshore regulator the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

The evacuations affected about 11 percent of the occupied platforms in the Gulf, it said.

U.S. crude futures CLc1 settled up less than 1 percent at $74.96 per barrel, reflecting the declining importance of the Gulf of Mexico in output because of the growth of production from the nation’s onshore shale fields.

Crude output lost in the two days of storm shut-ins represents about 9 percent of the U.S. production of 11.1 million barrels per day, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

In addition to shutting in wells, oil producers also halted most offshore drilling operations by evacuating three drilling rigs and moving eight others out of the storm area, BSEE said.

‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid

It was two days after Hurricane Michael, and Eddie Foster was pushing his mother in a wheelchair down a thoroughly smashed street, his face creased with a concentrated dose of the frustration and fear that has afflicted much of the Florida Panhandle since the brutal storm turned its coast to rubble.

He was in a working-class neighborhood called Millville, where many residents said they were becoming desperate for even basic necessities. Mr. Foster, 60, and his 99-year-old mother had no car, no electricity. The food had spoiled in his refrigerator. The storm had ripped off large sections of his roof. He had no working plumbing to flush with. No water to drink. And as of Friday afternoon, he had seen no sign of government help.

“What can I do?” he said. “I’m not angry. I just want some help.”

Florida’s Panhandle coast devastated by historic Hurricane Michael

Entire oceanfront communities in the Florida Panhandle were virtually obliterated, an Air Force base suffered “catastrophic” damage and at least six people were killed by Hurricane Michael, a sucker-punch of a storm that intensified suddenly and now ranks as one of the four most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States.

“This one just looks like a bomb dropped,” said Clyde Cain, who is with the Louisiana Cajun Navy, a group of volunteer search-and-rescue teams that went to Florida to help in Michael’s wake, just as they did last month during Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas.

And elsewhere, in Canada

 

It’s Snowing So Much in Canada That Crops Can’t Get Harvested

• Deluge delays harvest after Russian crops hurt by dry weather
• Canada wheat faces threat of quality downgrades, farmers say
  Mike Ammeter barely received a drop of rain on his Alberta farm all summer. Now, wet and snowy weather has kept him from harvesting his crops for five weeks.
  
  
  “There’s a lot left to be done,” said Ammeter, 58, who hasn’t been able to harvest any of the 1,300 remaining acres of canola, wheat and barley that’s sitting under 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) of snow on his farm west of Red Deer, Alberta. “The wheat is going to be downgraded for quality. Those losses are already done.”

It’s unfortunate timing for Canada, one of the world’s top wheat suppliers and the biggest canola exporter. The U.S.-China trade war and production problems for Russia and Australia are creating an opening for Canada to grab more market share in the global crop trade. While the nation’s wheat exports are running ahead of last year so far, further harvest delays could impede some of those sales.