Panama Canal Truth –Major Climate News 5/1/24
Cocoa prices continue to fluctuate wildly as traders try to measure the effects of weather that has destroyed crops in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which supply about two-thirds of the industry’s worldwide inventory. Some investors’ gamble now depends on what the weather will be like next year. After reaching $12,000 a tonne, cocoa dropped to $9,000 and then rallied again. According to the FT, “In a bid to encourage farmers to invest in their plantations and boost yields, both Ghana and Ivory Coast’s regulators have increased the set prices paid to farmers.” Uncertainty about the weather next year means the plan may not help much. Climatecrisis247 believes that artificial attempts to manipulate cacao prices will probably not work when crop figures start to appear next year. This means that chocolate prices, already well above record levels, may not drop. That, in turn, means the chocolate industry will suffer as it tries to raise consumer prices to offset its costs. Food markets that use chocolate may have to move to replacements.
US Disaster –100 Tornadoes
Texas Disasters –$100 Billion Price Tag
The US Senate released a report that shows large oil companies knew about the effects of their activities on the environment many years ago. The report, titled: Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts To Avoid Accountability For Climate Change,” showed Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science. The authors wrote: “Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science.” Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber were accused of trying to delay the report. Climatecrisis247 believes that the report means that lawsuits against Big Oil for covering up their knowledge by cities and states have additional support. Most of these locations are areas where oil exploration and production cause environmental harm. The total price tags of these suits run into the billions of dollars. Big Oil faces a crisis like Big Tobacco did in 1998. The total damages from the settlement of the legal cases involved was $206 billion over 25 years.
Kenya Deaths
Massive floods in Kenya, which have killed nearly 200 people, have been blamed on climate change. The floods have also displaced about 200,000 people since March. Kenyan President William Ruto commented to CBS, “My government is going to… make sure that citizens who are victims of climate change, who today are suffering floods, they are suffering mudslides, are looked after”. Climatecrisis247 believes this is one more in a series of disasters brought on by climate change. The most widely known of these was heavy rains in Dubai.
Panama Canal Truth
The drought, which caused problems with water levels in the Panama Canal and reduced the number of ships using it daily, was not caused by climate change. The trigger was El Nino. According to the AP, “A team of international scientists found that El Nino — a natural warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide — doubled the likelihood of the low precipitation Panama received during last year’s rainy season.” Climatecrisis247 believes this is another case in which climate change is blamed for an environmental disaster caused by natural weather patterns. In turn, this changes the nature of the climate change debate. The question is whether this will weaken the hand of those who say human activity triggers most climate disasters.
