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KozmoNau7 | 4 years ago

Maybe, just maybe we should take a long hard look at just how fragile and easy to topple all of our supply chains are, and actually do something to build in more resilience, to better weather adverse conditions.

With how the climate is changing, we are only going to see more and more instability and disturbances to production and shipping in the future, due to climate refugees and unrest.

We've played a dangerous game of brinkmanship and now we're paying the price.

discuss

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josephcsible|4 years ago

> how fragile and easy to topple all of our supply chains are

I'd say that our supply chains are pretty resilient if toppling them takes every government in the world shutting down their economies and locking everyone in their houses for months, all at the same time.

Red_Leaves_Flyy|4 years ago

That is not what happened though. Oil kept flowing, remember the tankers with no where to port? Container ships kept chugging. Cargo planes and repurposed commercial crafts kept transporting. Factories kept cranking out widgets. Rampant consumerism definitely took a a pause which hurt the industries we all rely on to survive.

Industries need to reevaluate their resilience to disruption and plan for the unthinkable. The feeling of schadenfreude, as I recall the countless canaries enumerating the consequences of fragile supply chains that no one even vaguely understands, is sad and predictable.

imtringued|4 years ago

It was a good stress test. I think it will take natural disasters with permanent damage to the electric grid and internet infrastructure for it to be crippling.

gruez|4 years ago

> Maybe, just maybe we should take a long hard look at just how fragile and easy to topple all of our supply chains are, and actually do something to build in more resilience, to better weather adverse conditions.

hindsight is 20/20. just in time delivery help keeps food waste low, but before covid there were tons of articles lamenting how much food waste there was in america and how we needed to reduce it. I suspect a similar sentiment would exist for hundreds of square miles of valuable land put to non-productive use (warehouses) because we wanted to keep a bunch of inputs on hand just in case.

simorley|4 years ago

> Maybe, just maybe we should take a long hard look at just how fragile and easy to topple all of our supply chains are

A global pandemic hasn't taken out the supply chain. So I wouldn't say fragile.

> With how the climate is changing, we are only going to see more and more instability and disturbances to production and shipping in the future, due to climate refugees and unrest.

Global warming is going to open up the northwest passage and the arctic trade routes which would cut shipping times by a huge percentage from asia to europe. It would be the greatest boon to world trade in human history.

> We've played a dangerous game of brinkmanship and now we're paying the price.

Seems like we are always on the brink of something. It's neverending and it's always wrong.

KozmoNau7|4 years ago

> Global warming is going to open up the northwest passage and the arctic trade routes which would cut shipping times by a huge percentage from asia to europe. It would be the greatest boon to world trade in human history.

Climate change is going to cause droughts and starvation for millions and millions of people, who are either going to die or desperately seek to migrate to the parts of the world that are less inhospitable.

An increase in potential global trade is a drop in the ocean against the instability that large scale climate migrations are going to cause, especially considering how hostile our governments and media have acted against immigrants for decades.