A new book by Sebastian Hunger, 'The Perfect Storm', he has a wonderful description of how big boats go to the bottom, a crisis starts slowly and grows gradually but at a certain point becomes exponential. Can we map this description below on to modern agriculture since sometime in 80's or 90's. Now of course you can object and say what on earth do boats and agriculture have in common, and that's the question really, and if there are correlatives then what actions do we need to take?
The more trouble she’s in, the more trouble she’s likely to get in, and the less capable she is of getting out of it, which is an acceleration of catastrophe that is almost impossible to reverse... If there’s enough damage, flooding may overwhelm the pumps and short out the engine or gag its air intakes. With the engine gone, the boat has no steerageway at all and turns broadside to the seas. Broadsides exposes her to the full force of the breaking waves, and eventually a part of her deck or wheelhouse lets go. After that, downflooding starts to occur. Downflooding is the catastrophic influx of ocean water into the hold. It’s a sort of death rattle at sea, the nearly vertical last leg of an exponential curve.
Probably no comparisons of course are accurate but perhaps there is some truth in these types of analogies, which surely must merit our consideration.
The more trouble she’s in, the more trouble she’s likely to get in, and the less capable she is of getting out of it, which is an acceleration of catastrophe that is almost impossible to reverse... If there’s enough damage, flooding may overwhelm the pumps and short out the engine or gag its air intakes. With the engine gone, the boat has no steerageway at all and turns broadside to the seas. Broadsides exposes her to the full force of the breaking waves, and eventually a part of her deck or wheelhouse lets go. After that, downflooding starts to occur. Downflooding is the catastrophic influx of ocean water into the hold. It’s a sort of death rattle at sea, the nearly vertical last leg of an exponential curve.
Probably no comparisons of course are accurate but perhaps there is some truth in these types of analogies, which surely must merit our consideration.
