Chapter 568 Heavy Burden
Xinghe year 3, October 3rd.
The northern hemisphere is once again covered in ice and snow.
The Arctic ice cap is developing rapidly southwards, taking advantage of the coldness of the ice and snow.
The Great Lakes were completely frozen over and the Baltic Sea was no longer navigable.
The productive time for open-air agriculture in mid- and high-latitudes is becoming increasingly shorter, leading to a further decline in total agricultural production.
Even if the four major forces increase the scale of indoor agriculture, there is still no way to make up for the reduction in open-air agriculture.
At this time, a trend quickly spread throughout the free world.
Many ordinary people and middle-class groups have unanimously called for reducing investment in armaments and aerospace and shifting resources to agriculture and people's livelihood.
This trend spread very quickly and exploded with great force.
Affected by this, all industries of the four major forces have fallen into a state of shutdown to varying degrees, which has once again put the already precarious market and material supply into crisis.
Yet many naturals have had enough.
With increasingly severe weather and increasingly heavy burdens, the military industry and aerospace industry are almost turning into money-devouring monsters.
Although finance and healthcare are also money-eating beasts, the problem is that these two industries are profitable.
The situation is just the opposite in the military industry and aerospace industry.
Now the entire free world is suppressed by the Sapiens Corporation. No matter how much armaments are invested, there is no possibility of defeating the other side. This is like a bottomless pit, which makes people feel extremely resistant.
The same is true for the aerospace industry. Sapiens has too great an advantage in low-Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, Venus and other planets. The free world has no hope of catching up and no way to benefit from the aerospace industry.
This has led many people to be extremely dissatisfied with the large-scale investment in military industry and aerospace.
Among the four major forces, the Free Union and the European Union both experienced large-scale riots.
Lucia, on the other hand, managed to bear some of the pressure, while her uncle did not have any major problems because of the bloodletting therapy he had been receiving for nearly half a year.
Even as time went by, the problems within the Europa Union and the Free Union became more and more obvious.
…
South Pacific.
Wellington, New Zeeland.
As an island with a temperate oceanic climate, the original annual average temperature here is around 10 to 30 degrees Celsius, making it a very suitable area for living.
But ever since the global cooling, things have been troublesome here.
For example, in the southern region, temperatures begin to drop below zero degrees in winter.
What's even more troublesome is that this change is unstable. It is easy for the temperature to be over 10 degrees this week and several degrees below zero next week.
This kind of irregular short-term weather changes is too fatal to agricultural production .
This situation resulted in a 30-50% reduction in forage production in New Zealand, a 37% reduction in kiwifruit production, a 25% reduction in grape production, and a 31% reduction in grain crop production.
In the face of global food shortages, New Zealand can only ask its big brother America for help. However, America is also struggling at the moment and naturally has no way of squeezing out food to help New Zealand.
It's because of this that several big burdens have now appeared within the free union established by America.
Several of his younger brothers had serious food supply problems.
The Maple Leaf Country, which is constantly being eroded by the Arctic ice cap, has a food production capacity of less than 30% of its previous level, and now it is very difficult for it to even be self-sufficient.
Japan and South Korea, which were originally unable to be self-sufficient in food, were squeezed by the sudden climate change. Even though their population was reduced by more than half, their food self-sufficiency rate still dropped to only 20-30%.
The food self-sufficiency rate of the other conjugated father and son, the Kingdom of Britain, also dropped to only 53%.
The granary and pasture of Kangaroo Country was almost half destroyed at this time.
The food crisis plaguing the entire Free Union, coupled with the riots that broke out in various places, further caused chaos within the Free Union.
New Zealand naturally has no way to remain immune.
As October began and spring arrived in the southern hemisphere, New Zealand did not feel the warmth of spring and the blooming of flowers. Instead, it experienced heavy rains for more than a week.
The continuous heavy rain, accompanied by hail and strong winds, has caused many farms to suffer from flooding.
With the arrival of spring in the southern hemisphere, the rapidly growing ice sheet in Antarctica is also shrinking. In this case, a large number of icebergs are separated from the ice sheet and drift to low-latitude waters with the ocean currents.
In the waters near New Zealand, more than a dozen icebergs of various sizes have recently appeared. In addition, along with the icebergs, there is also thick sea fog, which has seriously affected shipping.
New Zealand, which was already isolated in the South Pacific, now felt even more lonely and helpless.
A wave of defeatism is growing within New Zealand.
On the streets of Wellington.
Several drunk young men picked up beer bottles and angrily smashed the glass door of the bank.
Bang!
Shattered glass splattered all around, leaving dense spider-web marks on the glass door.
"Fuck!"
"I'm almost bankrupt! What right do you bastards have to ..."
"I won't give up!"
Several young men were roaring crazily, then smashing things everywhere, picking up trash cans, chairs, glass bottles and the like that they saw around them and smashing them at shops on the street.
This behavior was like a spark falling on a powder keg, and instantly many people who were already suppressing their anger joined in.
Smashing things, setting fires and beating people broke out in this neighborhood and then spread to the entire city of Wellington.
Beep, beep, beep... The police car with sirens sounding was blocked in the streets and alleys.
There were screams and explosions everywhere, smoke and fire filled the streets, and chaotic crowds running around.
Bang, bang, bang! After a while, short bursts of gunfire rang out again.
It's chaos.
The city of Wellington was in chaos.
This sudden chaos lasted for two days and two nights, during which dozens of people were killed and thousands were injured.
Although the chaos was temporarily quelled through the use of force, the management of New Zeland has already felt the pressure of the impending storm, as well as the undercurrents surging in various places.
Food supplies were running low, and sourcing from elsewhere was becoming less possible.
New Zealand has urgently contacted companies in the Kangaroo Country, the Pampas Republic, the Transvaal Republic and other countries that could potentially export grain, but the other party also has no grain.
Of course, the only place in the world with enough food now is Homo Sapiens.
But the problem is that it’s hard to get food from the Homo Sapiens Company!
In fact, it is not only New Zealand that is in a dilemma now, but Japan and South Korea are also extremely entangled.
Although America gritted its teeth and gave them a batch of genetically modified corn, the food gap is still very large.
Even without mobile phones, computers, daily necessities, etc., you can still grit your teeth and get through it.
But without food, people will starve to death.
Even the Kangaroo Country could not bear the losses and took the initiative to slaughter nearly 5 million sheep. On the one hand, it reduced the consumption of grass and feed, and on the other hand, it sold the meat of these sheep to ordinary people at a low price, barely stabilizing the domestic prices.
New Zealand had no choice but to learn from the Kangaroo Country and slaughter some sheep and cattle and replace part of the grain with meat.
This is the only solution.
Although the consequence of doing so is that it will be more difficult and take a long time to restore the inventory of sheep and beef cattle.
But they had no choice.
On the other hand, the Nordic region of the European Union also experienced a snowstorm that was even heavier than last year after the fall of this year.
