Time to Get Serious About Climate Change: The Truffle Crisis.

[NNadir]

AUPS, France -- Philippe Daniel opens a slim briefcase so buyers can glimpse his wares, then snaps it shut with a wary glance over his shoulder.

Daniel is not dealing in contraband but in truffles _ tubers prized for their heady fragrance and rich, earthy flavor. One of the world's most sought-after gastronomical treasures, truffles fetch astronomical prices, and sellers like Daniel are always alert for spying competitors.

Daniel used to deal in big quantities. But for the past five years, drought has been parching the Var region of southeast France as well as truffle-producing regions in Italy and Spain _ and today he can fit his entire weekly harvest in a single plastic bag.

He's not the only one.

Organizers at the market in the Var village of Aups, where Daniel plies his wares, have had to suspend the weekly wholesale auction, where middlemen used to bid tens of thousands of dollars for mounds of truffles. The reason: these days there simply aren't enough of the fragrant fungi...

... severe drought in the early '60s more than halved the harvest, bringing it down to about 50 tons. But the trufficulteurs, as truffle farmers are known, contend this current dry spell is longer and more acute.

"Climate change has got the seasons out of whack, it's hotter than it used to be and it rains lots less," said Jean Montesano, 76, a trufficulteur for more than half a century. "I want my grandson to take over, but if things continue like this, who knows if there will be anything left."

Production in France has been in slow decline for 100 years _ from 1,000 tons a year to just 50 tons, according to the Agriculture Ministry _ under the march of urban sprawl into the fungus' forest habitat and the migration of farming folk to cities...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022201174.html

[ious]

1. We Love CO2

Global logo launched for "We Love CO2"

http://www.usdoj.gr/co2/

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Anyone who wears that needs a CO2-filled room. nt

[ious]

5. CO2 is God's gas

CO2 is a wholly beneficial transparent, odorless fertilizer gas; the principal driver of biomass diversity and productivity.

Anthropogenic CO2 occupies about 0.0019% of the earth's atmoshphere and is not and never will be a significant driver of climate change.

CO2 does not accelerate global warming, it delays global cooling.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071023marswarming.htm

[NNadir]

6. And this explains precisely why real estate on the planet Venus is soaring.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Well, you definitely need the sarcasm smiley there ...

unless you're trying to look like a troll.

[kestrel91316]

10. Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

So, are you saying that the greenhouse effect does not exist? Or that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas?

Because you need to back that up with some controlled studies published in some refereed scientific journal. I await such.

(crickets chirping)

[eppur_se_muova]

3. NOOOOOOOOOOO!! The Var region ...

is where they grow all the best cane for woodwind reeds!!

:cry:

[NNadir]

4. Really? I didn't know that. Truffles and woodwinds!

It almost makes one feel worrisome.

Actually there are a lot of little things like this that will change life as we know it.

[LiberalEsto]

7. Once the rich start to "suffer"

maybe something will finally be done about global climate change.

[tom_paine]

9. Once the rich start to suffer...

...then the rest of us will suffer tenfold. Along with tyranny and immorality, it's the only part of "trickle-down" that works.

We have long past the point where the Rulers of Amerika feel any connection, and I mean ANY connection with the 99% belwo them. Oh, the 2 or 3% immediately below are valued in the same way the Jews who carried the billy-clubs and kept the barracks in line at Auschwitz were, but valued as human beings? :rofl:

No, when the rich run out of energy, why they'll just get us to lug their sedan-chairs on our shoulders as so many of our ancestors did. At least in Amerika, our rulers are in a pre-1776 mindset towards us, though while the illusion is still necessary you won't catch any of them saying it in public nor their fellow rich Cable TV media blather-heads doing the same nor holding their fellow rich, the only ones who are actually human beings to them, to the fire.

Face it, our rulers are probably welcoming climate change as a long-overdue mass thinning out of the overpopulated peasant population. They only need enough of us to police and imprison the other half, plus a few more to carry their sedan-chairs when the oil runs out.