When tomorrow's historians assess the origins of the Arab Spring Revolution, a number of plausible causes will present themselves. Oppressive regimes, brave and unemployed populations, digital communications and WikiLeaks -- all are factors in uprisings that have spread across the Middle East and North Africa. Yet like almost every revolution in history, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Empire, the recent turmoil was catalyzed by skyrocketing food prices. And in a worrying portent of climate change's capacity to bring chaos, it is a flurry of extreme weather events which has caused this record surge in the price of food staples.
While few predicted the Arab Revolution, there was plenty of warning. The last time world food prices spiked, in 2008, violent riots broke out across the developing world, including in Egypt. Then, in January, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index reached the highest levels on record, up 20% on last year. An FAO economist quietly voiced his concern that civic unrest was likely; the rest is, or will soon become, history.
Even more than corruption and repression, hunger drives people to revolt. It was hunger that literally and tragically lit the torch paper in Tunisia when a young salesman named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight after officials confiscated his supply of fruit and vegetables. The World Bank estimates that the average person living in a poor developing world city spends around 66% of his income on food. In years like 2008 and 2011, when the global supply of food will fail again to meet global demand, the effect on this typical citizen is magnified. High food prices reduce peoples' ability to meet even basic needs.
Food has been central to the uprisings, stoking resentments related to other problems such as unemployment and authoritarianism. "Bring us sugar" was the chant in Algeria as demonstrators looted flour warehouses. Government responses to the protests are an indication of food's critical role. Tunisia's deposed president Ben Ali tried and failed to appease the crowds with a promise to reduce food prices. In Yemen the government offered protestors a cap on food prices while the Algerian Interior Minister attempted to "turn the page" on food riots with cuts on sugar and cooking oil duties. In a similar move, the Iraqi government has delayed a planned increase in import tariffs.
Alongside growing demand from emerging giants such as China and India, a lack of supply is to blame for the price rises as unusually extreme weather has devastated harvests in key export nations. The pattern is remarkable. Last summer Russia experienced its worst droughts in half a century, prompting a ban on wheat exports from the world's second largest exporter. Then we saw floods in Canada and Pakistan disrupt the planting season. Finally, in January, Cyclone Yasi wreaked havoc on Australia, another vital exporter of wheat and sugar cane. The net result was a significant leap to 245 points in the FAO's Cereal Price Index -- and revolution in the squares of Cairo, Tunis and Tripoli.
It would be premature to blame this spurt of extreme weather events on climate change. Yet we can say that in the future climate change will cause an increased rate of precisely the type of disruptive weather that causes food shortages. The most recent findings from the International Panel on Climate Change forecast more regular droughts and floods, including in strategically crucial export nations like Australia and in African countries which already struggle to feed themselves.
The relationship between climate change and food prices is further complicated by the emergence of biofuels as a source of 'clean' energy. First generation biofuels like corn and sugar cane offer lower carbon intensities than fossil fuels, but they also divert crops away from food production. Experts dispute the exact effect, but many observe a direct food versus fuel conflict. The International Food Policy Research Institute attributed 30% of the increase in food prices between 2006 and 2007 to biofuels. The Bush administration, which strongly backed bioenergy, had previously suggested the figure was 3%. Higher oil prices add to the vicious circle: they simultaneously drive up food prices and make biofuels more economically viable. So if we want to address climate change to avoid food price hikes and the accompanying geopolitical upheaval, we need to think very carefully about our use of biofuels.
Food shortages can spark conflicts anywhere. But the unsettling reality is that some of the nations most vulnerable to the global food market are also among the most strategically critical in security terms. Many Middle Eastern and African countries are high net importers of food, which means they are at the mercy of price volatility generated by events on the other side of the world. Egypt, for example, is the world's biggest importer of wheat. A poor harvest in Australia, where people spend 19% of their income on food, can bring chaos in Egypt, where that figure is closer to 50%.
Climate change presents a double whammy for nations like Egypt. Their food deficits will increase as climate disruption hits domestic crop yields. Yet when they turn to the international markets to make up the shortfall they will encounter more price spikes as climate-related weather events strike exporting nations.
We do not yet know if the recent uprisings will leave us in a better world. They have ousted notable despots in some countries and opened the way for civil war in others. One thing is clear, though. The revolutions serve as a warning of how extreme weather can, via volatile food prices, drive geopolitical chaos. The human impact of climate change is suddenly tangible.
Tommy Stadlen is a London-based strategy consultant who specializes in sustainability. He is an op-ed contributor to media outlets across the world on climate change and sustainable business.
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Arabs have dignity, they are not the slaves working for food and getting angry when it is scarce. You will discover that their uprising is against the dishonest people who had alliances with their dictators and helped them oppressing them. The dishonesty of this alliance is so tremendous, the 2 sides were sometimes justifying their alliance as one against Al-Qaeda criminals. So it was like pretending that all Arabs are potentially criminals. Now the insulted and dishonestly treated Arabs are reacting. The reason is not the thermometer or food prices but the disrespect that is continuing ...
Who were against birth control and against China’s one-child policy? Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
In 2005, Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, said "The world today could feed about 12 to 14 billion people." He wanted to fight the myth of overpopulation.
U.S. population could reach 438 million by 2050.
Let's ignore the fact that such a law would be a gross violation of civil rights, and would be smacked down by the Supreme Court almost immediately. Let's ignore the fact that in China, this law led parents to abort or abandon untold numbers of females. Let's ignore the fact that Bush and Reagan weren't the only ones who opposed it.
Let's just focus on economics. China's one-child policy is eventually going to cripple the nation, when those "only children" grow up and have to pay taxes for their retired parents and grandparents. In a few decades, the gap between working people and retired people will be higher in China than in any other nation in the history of the world.
Let's see the consequences of overpopulation.
- US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015.
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day
- Rare-earth prices rise
- U.S. must expand shale gas production.
Shale gas means polluted water and could mean earthquakes
- 10 big american cities are running out of water : Orlando, Atlanta, Tucson, Las Vegas, Fort Worth, San Francisco, San Antonio...
“Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid. Throughout much of the eastern United States, pH in rain is less than 4.5.
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkt/resource/docs/2005atlas.pdf
Carbon dioxide is not the only thing that makes rainwater acidic. Sulfur dioxide released from burning coal has a greater impact because it combines with water to make sulfuric acid. Heard of that one? That's because it is a much stronger acid than carbonic acid, which is weak and so relatively unknown among the public.
The fact that rainwater contains CO2 is not big news. It is the main method by which CO2 is carried out of the atmosphere in the carbon cycle. This cycle also includes the dissolution of carbonate minerals, the sedimentation of marine calcifiers, and the outgassing of volcanoes. It does not change the fact that human beings are taking carbon out of the ground at an accelerated rate and burning it, putting it into the atmosphere much faster than it can be removed. Yes, precipitation will eventually remove all of the excess CO2 humans have put into it. How long is that estimated to take, though? On the order of hundreds of thousands of years. Long enough that without intervention, neither you or I, nor our great-great-great grandchildren could ever hope to see the end of it.
Facts mean little outside of their proper context.
That rain is doing a piss-poor job of washing it out it seems.
The only thing booming in the third world is population, not their economies or their food production. we ship tons of us aid food to these regions every year and they only seem to hate us more, and grow more un-selfsustainable with every passing year.
We will just have to coerce people to accept higher food prices since the 'market' deserves the return it has decided is appropriate.
If you have to change the name of the phenomena from global warming to climate change, then there's clearly a flaw in the theory's logic.
We should be spending money on fixing problems like pollution and overflowing landfills. Those things, without question, are major environmental dilemmas. The jury's still out on global warming.
If republican believe there is no climate change going on, let THEM pay the costs of climate change on society. Lets tax THEM if the are wrong. Lets let them pay for increases in food and water prices, for social unrest related to climate change, for changes in coastlines and increased flooding, for increased droughts and crop failures.
It will be FAR less expensive to stop global warming (assuming we are not already too late) than it will be to deal with the consequences. Lets hold Republican accountable for being wrong on this one.
And yes, we should only listen to climate scientists, whose career rests entirely upon the existence of global warming. There are credible scientists who disagree, you just don't like them.
For the last time - I am not saying that global warming is a complete falsehood. I happen to believe that it is (until someone can explain away the Medieval Warm Period, I remain a skeptic) - but you're right, I am in the minority, and have no scientific background. My guess is you don't either. Still, popular academic opinion changes by huge margins over time, so just because the majority of scientists believe in man-made climate change now, doesn't mean that that majority will hold in a few decades.
In light of this, why don't we focus on pollution? It seems to me that environmentalists have completely forgotten this issue.
Jump ahead a few decades. The number of children born by each Arab woman remained constant but the number of live births and those becoming old enough to have more children went from twenty percent to eighty percent. As oil rose in price and food stayed low plus the governments building of better medical areas we had the rat pack exploding.
Now, food prices are tied to oil prices that are tied to commodity traders and the harsh changes in production.
Now, food will be one of the factors of the new Arab Revolution, but tied into it will be rising oil prices, natural disasters and the huge growth in use by India and China.
The Arab Revolution will spark the natural resource demand. The Arabs are many but no where near the numbers or industrialization of India or China. What could happen if the new Arabs decide to close the pumps--why an invasion by European and in the Future, Eastern countries.
But no, "it" will always be detrimental.
How do you explain away the numerous ice ages and thaw cycles over the melinum?
Psssttt... the climate has been "changing" from day one, but now it is a power grab more than anything else.
As for rain, do you know that greater amounts of precipitation can accompany on average drier soils? More rain can cause flooding that can ruin crops. When rainfall patterns are constantly changing (which is what happens in "climate change") then farmers logically have difficultly in knowing what and when to plant. More uncertainty in the climate makes for less successful harvests.
If you are absolutely certain that climate change will produce overall benefits in terms of harvests, then don't worry. But, I for one wouldn't bet my next meal on it being a positive change for all or even most..
What if the last 20 years of increasingly warm overall temps on earth ARE causing climate change? What if melting polar ice is reducing ocean salinity, affecting climate equalizing ocean currents. What if warmer temps are exposing methane in the permafrost, exacerbating the problem with huge increases in greenhouse gases?
If you are wrong, the cost to mankind for not acting is overwhelming. Changes caused by inaction will result in crop failures, water failures, desertification and increased variance and severity of weather. We might still be able to reduce greenhouse gases to safe levels if we act NOW.
So, if you are wrong, we don't act and even the wealthiest person won't be able to isolate himself from the upheaval caused by human aided climate change.
If you are right, then we spend a relatively smaller amount trying to control greenhouse gas emissions that we would on the huge costs of dealing with climate change. We can undo this prevention strategy after a short period of scientific observation.
I think we should hold Repulbican accountible for being wrong on climate change. As costs are attributed to climate change- food price increases, water shortages, weather related catastrophes, flooding, water table failures, and so on- Republicans should have to pay taxes for remediation.
Hah! That'll be the day.
Which strategy is safer?