I came over this story actually on Facebook this week and then I found the blog and its blogger 'Dairy Carrie' who was responsible for this coverage.
Surprisingly, this wasn't even covered in any news, given the scale and devastation it had caused. After a week, we can find some places where it has been reported. The Guardian also covered this story and can be found here. Fox news also covered it and can be found here
It was very concerning to read the blog and articles that covered this event. I urge you to read it if you haven't done so. I have to say is really relevant to my topic of interest. This is a case of localized abrupt climate changes and how it had created social disorder. In terms of the affects to the future of cattle supply, the local economy, and the disruption to the ranchers themselves, both emotionally and economically.
I quote from the farmers affected by this;
"Livestock were initially soaked by 12 hours of rain before 48 consecutive hours or snow and winds up to 60 mph.""The livestock loss is just catastrophic ... It's pretty unbelievable.""We just had one of the worst droughts ever and now we take a hit like this."From that we could see how surprised they were by this snow storm happening during this period! The cattle themselves can normally deal with the cold since they will grow fur when winter comes, but this storm came in such a time that even the biological evolution of the animals did not foresee. Shows how abnormal this event is! Actually, it also shows how vulnerable our food supply is to changes in climate. What if changes in future climate would mean this kind of events will become more common around the world and the chaos and social disorder it causes might be multiple times worse, and with further geographical extent!
I will leave you with a note with regards to the 'Hurricane force' storm that's about to hit the UK. How much chaos will it cause? Are we prepared for it? And ask yourself this, if climate change in the future means more hurricane level storms will hit the UK, will social disorder arise (eg in all aspects like economic, environmental, political etc)?! For one I believe the UK is not at its slightest prepared for wind storms of this caliber.
