Daily Digest 9/2 — Hurricane Ida Shows Fragility of Agricultural Supply Chains; OPEC+ Agrees to Stick to Existing Oil Output Hikes…

Economy

Hurricane Ida shows the fragility of agricultural supply chains – Quartz

Hurricane Ida barrelled into the Louisiana coast on Aug. 29, bringing 150 mph (230 kph) wind gusts, torrential rain, and widespread power outages to New Orleans and the surrounding region. It also brought all shipping traffic through the mouth of the Mississippi River to a grinding halt, snarling supply chains at the start of a crucial period for US grain exports.

The US Coast Guard closed the Mississippi to barge traffic ahead of the storm on Aug. 28, and the New Orleans International Airport shut down passenger and cargo traffic on Aug. 29. The Port of New Orleans closed its container shipping terminals on Aug. 30 and stopped all “breakbulk operations,” which refers to moving cargo from large ocean freighters to smaller barges for transport up the Mississippi River.

Environment

OPEC+ agrees to stick to existing oil output hikes – Al Jazeera

OPEC and its allies agreed to stick to their existing plan for gradual monthly oil-production increases after a brief video conference.

Ministers ratified the 400,000 barrel-a-day supply hike scheduled for October after less than an hour of talks, one of the quickest meetings in recent memory and a stark contrast to the drawn-out negotiations seen in July.

Seaborg completes experiments to optimise its molten salt reactor design – Nuclear Engineering International

The Danish nuclear reactor company Seaborg Technologies is currently completing important experiments in collaboration with both experts from Neutron and Muon Source (ISIS) at Oxford (UK) and European Spallation Source (ESS) research centre in Lund in Sweden. The goal is to understand how neutrons in modern reactors behave. The new knowledge should allow Seaborg to optimise their reactor design. The company is aiming for 2025 for having its first reactor online. Seaborg is developing compact thorium-based Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs).

Our household farming future – Resilience.org

To reiterate my basic position, I think we face a future of high climate, water and land/soil stress, lower energy and capital availability, and socioeconomic/political turbulence and contraction. In these circumstances, I think farm societies will emerge that are strongly based on smallholder households devoting much or most of their attention to the intensive cultivation of small land areas for meeting their own food and fibre needs.

Madagascar is suffering from a climate change famine – Quartz Africa

Madagascar is being hit by one of the modern world’s first climate change-induced famines—a disaster that underscores the profound unfairness of a planet heated up by carbon emissions.

The famine, caused by a devastating, four-year drought, is placing at least 30,000 people in the most extreme stage of food insecurity: a level five famine, as defined by the World Food Programme (WFP). At least 1.1 million are in some kind of severe food insecurity, the United Nations has said. “People have had to resort to desperate survival measures, such as eating locusts, raw red cactus fruits, or wild leaves,” Amer Daoudi, a senior director at WFP, told the UN earlier this year.

Health

FDA denies Sen. Lee’s request for hearing on NAC supplements – Natural Products Insider

FDA has denied a request by a U.S. senator to hold a hearing regarding an ingredient widely sold in dietary supplements.

U.S. Sen. Michael Lee (R-Utah) requested FDA schedule a public hearing to clarify its position on the use of N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) in supplements.

In a letter notifying the senator that his request was denied, FDA official Andrew Tantillo stated FDA is reviewing a citizen petition filed by the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). He noted interested persons may submit comments on CRN’s petition, which concerns the regulatory status of NAC.

FDA asserted in 2020 warning letters that NAC cannot be lawfully marketed in a dietary supplement because it was first approved as a drug in 1963. Industry representatives have urged FDA to reverse its position.

Australia Becomes a Hermit Continent – The Atlantic

Before 2020, the idea of Australia all but forbidding its citizens from leaving the country, a restriction associated with Communist regimes, was unthinkable. Today, it is a widely accepted policy. “Australia’s borders are currently closed and international travel from Australia remains strictly controlled to help prevent the spread of COVID-19,” a government website declares. “International travel from Australia is only available if you are exempt or you have been granted an individual exemption.” The rule is enforced despite assurances on another government website, dedicated to setting forth Australia’s human-rights-treaty obligations, that the freedom to leave a country “cannot be made dependent on establishing a purpose or reason for leaving.”

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