alt Hacker NewsThe drought explanation seems particularly plausible for the Hittites, IMO. They had grain storage, but ~3 years of drought would exhaust that. So if the climate becomes just a bit drier the chance of such a three year run increases enough to likely crash their society.
Today we have a huge buffer from the large use of grain to feed animals. In a crisis it could be diverted as human food, with some effort. Large geographic range from global shipping also smooths out blips. Still, a Toba-like eruption would be bad news.
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idiotsecant • today at 1:25 PM
It's unlikely that rich countries would experience famine as severely as poor ones and consequently they would probably still demand meat. Grain that could feed people would still feed livestock.
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> Today we have a huge buffer from the large use of grain to feed animals.
This, plus the gigantic amount of agricultural land being used for biofuel production (almost as much as cattle food).