Chapter 520 Self-rescue
The bosses behind the four major forces.
This emergency meeting began in their respective safe houses through a very confidential exclusive network.
Caesar looked at the other people on the video interface, and then spoke first:
"Everyone, this sudden climate change is very likely to become a huge crisis for us. Now open-air agricultural production in high-latitude areas has been seriously affected. If the situation continues to deteriorate, you should all know the consequences by then."
Thomas Morgan and others naturally knew this, after all, they also had think tanks and professional meteorologists within their own organizations.
It is precisely because they know that this sudden climate crisis may bring about a catastrophic disaster that they hurriedly held a secret meeting.
As one of the few people in the Free Union who was qualified to attend the meeting, the Duke of Windsor had a gloomy expression:
"The ice sheets in both the North and South Poles are expanding, and the interruption of the North Atlantic warm current has had a huge impact. The temperature in the British Isles has dropped by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius compared to previous years. In addition, the unstable climate has also had a significant impact on agricultural production in mid- and low-latitudes."
In response, Louis Comte of the Europa League came straight to the point: "We are all aware of these situations. Let's all talk about how to solve them!"
Thomas Morgan said solemnly, "Our meteorological research team has studied it and also used supercomputers to simulate it. Unless the North Atlantic warm current can be restored to normal, the ice age will be difficult to stop."
Caesar frowned and proposed a simple and crude idea: "Increasing the use of fossil fuels or directly releasing the methane produced by fermentation into the atmosphere can enhance the greenhouse effect and suppress the outbreak of the ice age?"
"this……"
Everyone looked at each other.
However, the Duke of Windsor shook his head and said, "It's useless. The carbon dioxide and methane we release can increase the greenhouse effect, but the solar energy reflected by the ice sheets in the North and South Poles exceeds the insulation effect brought by the greenhouse effect."
"And if you continue to release carbon dioxide and methane, the oxygen content in the atmosphere will continue to decrease, causing health problems. You don't plan to stay in an artificial biosphere for the rest of your life, do you?"
Obviously, although Britain has declined to the point where it has to join a free association in order to survive, some of the legacy left over from the era of the British Empire still remains.
At least their research on atmospheric science is better than that of Lucia, who is impatient and leaks a lot of information.
Many meteorological research groups have now discovered that the continued release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane will not only fail to suppress the arrival of an ice age, but may accelerate it.
Because carbon dioxide is water-soluble to a certain extent, it can dissolve into seawater, causing the seawater to become acidic.
Coupled with the rising sea temperature in tropical waters, which affects the change in seawater salinity, this will cause changes in deep-sea density currents.
This is one of the underlying reasons for the current interruption of the North Atlantic warm current.
The ocean current systems of the five oceans are all connected together. As long as there is an abnormality in one part of the ocean current, the ocean currents in other sea areas will also be affected.
Kaiser proposed increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, which would result in hotter tropics, colder polar regions, and more frequent extreme weather in mid-latitudes.
This is obviously a bad idea.
"Do you have any suggestions? We can't just do nothing, right?" Caesar was also anxious.
Master von of the Europa Union looked at everyone and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "How about increasing the scale of indoor agriculture and nuclear power plants?"
"Indoor farming? Nuclear power plant?" Caesar was very confused.
Technically speaking, if we push for indoor agriculture and nuclear power plants, it can indeed solve the problem of agricultural production reduction caused by extreme weather.
The problem is that this investment is also an astronomical figure.
However, without indoor agriculture and nuclear power plants, future open-air agriculture in mid- and high-latitude regions will definitely be seriously affected.
You know, the population of the four major forces is not small at this time.
Its Free Association has 520 million people, Russia has 130 million people, the European Union has 450 million people, and other forces have 790 million people.
In addition, there are some small forces attached to the four major powers, including 160 million people in Central Asia and other Asian regions (excluding the neutral West Asia region), and 80 million people in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe.
The total population of the free world is currently 2.13 billion.
For such a large population, if the food standard is calculated based on 400 kilograms of food per person per year, 852 million tons of food will be needed.
If there were no sudden climate change, the four major powers could easily produce 1.4 billion tons of food out of the 852 million tons of food in their home countries alone.
However, this is no longer possible. The agricultural production capacity in high-latitude countries such as Russia, the Maple Leaf Country, and Europe may be halved.
Agricultural production in the Great Lakes Plain in northern North America, the northeastern coastal plains, and the northern Mississippi Plains will also experience varying degrees of reduction.
Based on this year's situation alone, ABCD and agricultural data analysis agencies of major forces predict that the food production in the free world will drop by 200 to 300 million tons this year, leaving only about 1.05 to 1.1 billion tons.
In addition, the production of cash crops such as sunflower seeds, rapeseed, soybeans, peanuts, sugarcane, beets, and cotton will also be reduced by 20 to 30%.
If the four major forces had not taken ruthless measures, prices would probably have skyrocketed by now.
There was panic buying of food, cooking oil and sugar in many places. In order to deal with the panic buying, the four major forces had no choice but to initiate purchase restrictions and at the same time do their utmost to crack down on hoarding.
However, these countermeasures are only temporary solutions and do not address the root cause.
If the problem of agricultural product supply is not solved, purchase restrictions and crackdowns on hoarding can only stabilize the situation for a period of time.
There was a debate about Master von's proposal, with the main disagreement being how to lower the production costs of indoor agriculture and the safety of nuclear power plants.
In fact, they have another choice, which is to abandon some high-latitude areas and migrate the population to middle and low-latitude areas.
This plan was opposed by Lucia and the European Union.
Russia does not have any low- and middle-latitude regions, while the European Commonwealth has only the narrow and long Mediterranean coast as a low- and middle-latitude region.
In fact, none of the four major forces are willing to give up the high-latitude areas. After all, although these places are cold, they are rich in various resources and are also their rear base for resisting the Homo sapiens company.
If the population is relocated to mid- and low-latitude areas, they will basically be next to the Homo sapiens company, which is simply delivering food.
Do you know why only more than 10 million people in Lucia go to work for Homo Sapiens companies?
The reason is that the distance between the two sides is too far. Due to various restrictions, it has become much more difficult for ordinary people to work in a Homo sapiens company.
As for those areas that are closely connected to the Sapiens company, such as Annan, no matter how restrictive it is, many people find ways to go there to work.
Now the four major forces are eager to be separated from the Homo Sapiens company by the Pacific Ocean.
As for whether the four major forces have ever thought about joining forces to fight the Sapiens company, they have certainly thought about this idea and even done supercomputer simulations.
However, the results of various simulations were not very good, either the whole army was annihilated or it was a complete defeat.
Thomas Morgan knew that the Sapiens Company could electrocute a person silently, which made him give up the idea of fighting a decisive battle with the Sapiens Company.
Now they just want to maintain the status quo and not mess with Sapiens.
