"These soaring prices...having a brutal impact on the world’s poor, who spend much if not most of their income on basic foodstuffs. ... The consequences of this food crisis go far beyond economics.... there’s little question that sky-high food prices have been an important trigger for popular rage.Climate change is a war against the young; and the poor.
... ominous story....severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning. ...."
Stale blog offering Perspective on ideas, issues and life from Nevada County, California - belaboring the obvious since 2003
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Krugman connects popular unrest to food shortages to climate disruption
Droughts, Floods and Food - the current food price surge may be just the beginning.
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And whenever scarcity increases in any of these markets, speculators hop in and amplify prices.
ReplyDelete...which brings us to Brad DeLong's semester of economics in two brief blogposts -
ReplyDelete* The power of markets (tinyurl.com/PowerOfMarkets)
* 7 ways markets can go wrong ( tinyurl.com/WaysMarketsGoWrong)