Roger Pielke Jr. has a nice, short post in reaction to Paul Krugman’s opinion in the NY Times blaming climate change for the unrest in Egypt…
Go read –> Roger Pielke Jr.
Addendum comments by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
Based upon this quote from Krugman:
But the evidence tells a different, much more ominous story. While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which 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.
There is no other way to interpret this than “I told you so” from Krugman directly linking climate change and the disparate weather events of the past year or two to food prices and the crises in the Arab world. To various commenters who are defending Krugman religiously, do you doubt that Krugman is linking the events implicitly or explicitly? Remind you, this is the same Nobel prize winner that less than a few hours after Congresswoman Giffords was shot blamed conservatives for the so-called “Climate of Hate“. How does he have ANY credibility at all — especially with anything related to physical sciences?
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The London Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard may have nailed it:
“…..Einstein was right – honey bee collapse threatens global food security
“The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN’s index of food prices hits an all time-high, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our food security….”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8306970/Einstein-was-right-honey-bee-collapse-threatens-global-food-security.html
…Lady in Red
Perhaps its time to add to Lord Acton’s observation thus
Power and media attention tends to corrupt and absolute power and intense media attention corrupt absolutely.
Krugman is a good little lying puppet.
He has, over the course of writing at the Times, shown himself to be completely delusional or just taking orders.
islam is Egypt’s problem.
If you want to argue with me about that, this is just the thread on WUWT I’ve been waiting for.
It’s not offtopic because this thread is about: Why Egypt is really demanding ‘change’
Oh Anthony, please let me slay some dragons here. It would be such a joy.
After reading Krugman’s piece on Egypt/AGW in the NY Times it’s now obvious to all the he has removed all doubt that he is a scientific imbecile. How does he function in a modern society when he is so out of touch? To me, even worse than the article are the comments of so many who agree with what he say about AGW. There must be some sort of “stupid gas” among the better known components of the atmosphere.
thegoodlocust says:
February 7, 2011 at 1:38 pm
“Well, if you look at Pielke’s graph then food prices have been going down for 100 years. Can we blame that on climate change too since CO2 increases crop yields?
Also, I believe I recall Krugman implying that meat prices were going up, when AFAIK they have been flat – probably due to the fact that unlike the grains mentioned they aren’t involved in biofuel production.
Doh that damn logic again…I’ll never get a Nobel prize at this rate.
Goodlocust,
You are looking at the data through blinders of climate change denialism. Certainly the long term reduction in price of grains is a result of the mechanization of agriculture, use of chemical fertilizer, and improved seeds.
The long term reduction in meat prices is a result of the [?] in grain prices, as well as the rise of factory farming, which greatly reduces the cost of raising meat.
All of these factors are extraneous to any fluctuations in climate.
Actually since 1999, the price of pork has risen, once short term fluctuations get averaged out.
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=pork&months=360
To repeat, Krugman’s does not say that the current spike in grain prices is a result of global warming. It is due to weather fluctuations. He says a specific case cannot be blamed on global warming. What he did say is that this sort of event is likely to increase in frequency in the future, as global warming proceeds. It is a statement about the future , not about the specific price spike we are currently encountering.
To claim that he is saying the current spike is due to global warming is a straw man argument. Typically people who don’t have a good case for their ideas, will resort to a straw man argument.
Roger,
You fail to make your case. First you overstate Krugman’s claim and then assert they there is no scientific evidence linking climate change to food prices. Krugman presents a plausible causal sequence. He has not claimed have found a statical correlation. He has not claimed to have proved anything. He is raising a thought provoking plausible possibility.
It seems plausible to me that the spike in your graph around 73-74 is due to the oil embargo. But I cannot make a statistical argument for this. Krugman’s case is weaker than this, but it is plausible.
Krugman’s piece can be criticized. One could make a case that the evidence linking climate change and food prices is so weak that one should not use it to provoke public concern. (*) But that is not what you have done. Comparing his argument to Pat Robertson’s claim is absurd and insulting. Your calling Krugman – a man far more accomplished than you are – “an uninformed pundit” is also ad hominem.
(*) Cassandra above gives just this sort of critique. Even though I do not agree with her, she does give a valid argument.
Irrational fear of global warming has led us to feed cars rather than people on a massive scale, certainly enough to worsen cyclical food shortages due to weather and political events, as farmers commit more of their crops to ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland is smiling all the way to the morgue. Imagine even one child starving to death because of the CAGW fearmongering. Then imagine millions. Even Al Gore has had enough, and has turned against biofuels.
Another contributer may be the excessive easing of the US dollar by the Federal Reserve. Serious people believe that much of the liquidity the Fed has been pushing has moved right overseas into foreign markets (that often price goods in the US Dollar). Although general inflation within the US is tame, the rest of the world is rife with commodity inflation (ie food, minerals, materials, oil) with devastating effects on the usual victims: the poor.
There is a growing body of thought that the Fed needs to stop their “quantitative easing” program or even more stress on the Egypts of the world will follow (not to mention the debasement of the world’s only reserve currency destroying global trade in general, and an eventual fall into an inflationary spiral here in the US).
See the Krugman-in-Wonderland blog for a good knockdown ( a couple posts down ) …
http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/
@kwinterkorn says:February 7, 2011 at 2:47 pm
I partly agree. However fear of global warming is not irrational. But it is used by certain business groups to push for government policies that help them. Nuclear power companies do this too. This is why many economists prefer a cap and trade system. Then market forces rather than lobbying clout direct resources.
The Dunham/Krugman Effect.
H/t, Gee, I wish I could remember it’s so good.
================
RockyRoad says:
February 7, 2011 at 1:59 pm
“Indeed! I say we increase CO2 production dramatically to help plant growth…”
So true, in fact we should sue the EPA on behalf of plants because they…they have no voice!
eadler says:
February 7, 2011 at 2:29 pm
“Goodlocust,
You are looking at the data through blinders of climate change denialism. Certainly the long term reduction in price of grains is a result of the mechanization of agriculture, use of chemical fertilizer, and improved seeds.”
I never said there weren’t other factors involved. I was demonstrating the simplistic reasoning used by Krugman from the perspective of “climate change denialism” as you put it, which, using his flawed reasoning, would be just as valid as his own propositions.
“To repeat, Krugman’s does not say that the current spike in grain prices is a result of global warming. It is due to weather fluctuations.”
Only in the most narrow and narrow-minded of readings, but clearly wrong in both context and intent. For example, Krugman says,
“While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which 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.”
So yes, he says it is due to “weather” and then says that weather is what we’d see due to greenhouse gases. Your legalistic defense demonstrates that you can do little else other than argue semantics.
As for more examples Krugman also says:
“But that’s not the whole story. Don’t let the snow fool you: globally, 2010 was tied with 2005 for warmest year on record, even though we were at a solar minimum and La Niña was a cooling factor in the second half of the year. Temperature records were set not just in Russia but in no fewer than 19 countries, covering a fifth of the world’s land area. And both droughts and floods are natural consequences of a warming world: droughts because it’s hotter, floods because warm oceans release more water vapor.
As always, you can’t attribute any one weather event to greenhouse gases. But the pattern we’re seeing, with extreme highs and extreme weather in general becoming much more common, is just what you’d expect from climate change. ”
Hmm…all these suggestions and implications? All this talk about record heat waves…what could Krugman possibly be implying?
Well, he says:
“The usual suspects will, of course, go wild over suggestions that global warming has something to do with the food crisis”
Ah, so Krugmans says that he is suggesting that the food crisis is caused by global warming. Oh my! My “straw man” argument really looks weak at this point. But we still have more from Krugman:
“But the evidence does, in fact, suggest that what we’re getting now is a first taste of the disruption, economic and political, that we’ll face in a warming world. ”
There you go, he says this food crisis is the “first taste” of the problems caused by global warming.
Are you going to argue semantics some more? It really doesn’t cast you in a good light, but I suppose you must defend an “intellectual hero” of the left.
Urederra says:
February 7, 2011 at 2:07 pm
My point?
An unusually warm June in 1975 hurt Soviet grain harvests.
Flooding related to LaNina Hurt Australian harvests.
There was a global spike in grain prices in 1975.
An unusually warm summer in 2010 hurt Russian grain harvests.
Flooding related to LaNina is currently doing a job on Australian crops.
A fairly scholarly article, Russia had 11 Major famines between 1845 and 1922.(Pre communism) http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-FAM.PDF
We can use the ‘it was all communism’ excuse, but the ‘it was all communism’ doesn’t explain the famines that occurred between 1845 and 1922.
Russia has had a bad harvest every 10-12 years for 160 years. If that coincides with an event in another major bread basket, say Australia, then food prices spike.
Vented.
“But the evidence does, in fact, suggest that what we’re getting now is a first taste of the disruption, economic and political, that we’ll face in a warming world. ”
notice the ‘new term’ work in on this article?
Seems to me the whole piece is designed to make this word a legitimate descriptive totem for climate news induced panic…
Krugman is also doing a double duty by completely avoiding the muslim brothers in the room. Of course, islam is the ‘environmental ideology’, right? It sure is a low-carbon existence for human life, that’s for sure…
Krugman is working at the ‘machine’s’ mouth piece, the NY Times, because he is a cog in the same apparatus… Looks like the Times has found it’s new Duranty for our times Evil Empire… I think it’s a sick society that allows this sort of deception to continue like it’s a real newspaper…
thegoodlocust says:
February 7, 2011 at 4:14 pm
eadler says:
February 7, 2011 at 2:29 pm
“Goodlocust,
You are looking at the data through blinders of climate change denialism. Certainly the long term reduction in price of grains is a result of the mechanization of agriculture, use of chemical fertilizer, and improved seeds.”
Goodlocust says:
I never said there weren’t other factors involved. I was demonstrating the simplistic reasoning used by Krugman from the perspective of “climate change denialism” as you put it, which, using his flawed reasoning, would be just as valid as his own propositions.
Krugman’s reasoning was not simplistic at all. Your version of what he said is what is simplistic.
Eadler says,
“To repeat, Krugman does not say that the current spike in grain prices is a result of global warming. It is due to weather fluctuations.”
Goodlocust says:
Only in the most narrow and narrow-minded of readings, but clearly wrong in both context and intent. For example, Krugman says,
“While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which 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.”
So yes, he says it is due to “weather” and then says that weather is what we’d see due to greenhouse gases. Your legalistic defense demonstrates that you can do little else other than argue semantics.
Why don’t you make an argument against what he actually said, instead of your interpretation of what he said?
Are you saying that the price spike is not due to weather? Are you saying that there is no evidence, based on climate models, that more frequent drought and flood are not outcomes of continued global warming? He specifically said that no single event can be attributed to global warming. Do you disagree with that?
Goodloucust says:
As for more examples Krugman also says:
“But that’s not the whole story. Don’t let the snow fool you: globally, 2010 was tied with 2005 for warmest year on record, even though we were at a solar minimum and La Niña was a cooling factor in the second half of the year. Temperature records were set not just in Russia but in no fewer than 19 countries, covering a fifth of the world’s land area. And both droughts and floods are natural consequences of a warming world: droughts because it’s hotter, floods because warm oceans release more water vapor.
As always, you can’t attribute any one weather event to greenhouse gases. But the pattern we’re seeing, with extreme highs and extreme weather in general becoming much more common, is just what you’d expect from climate change.”
Well, he says:
“The usual suspects will, of course, go wild over suggestions that global warming has something to do with the food crisis”
Ah, so Krugmans says that he is suggesting that the food crisis is caused by global warming. Oh my! My “straw man” argument really looks weak at this point.
But we still have more from Krugman:
“But the evidence does, in fact, suggest that what we’re getting now is a first taste of the disruption, economic and political, that we’ll face in a warming world. ”
There you go, he says this food crisis is the “first taste” of the problems caused by global warming.
Are you going to argue semantics some more? It really doesn’t cast you in a good light, but I suppose you must defend an “intellectual hero” of the left.
Krugman did not say that the food crisis is caused by global warming. That is your invention. What he said is that some people, like yourself, would be irate at the suggestions that global warming has “something to do with the food crisis“. He made clear what he meant by ” something to do with Global Warming”. Global warming will result in more weather events such as we have experienced recently. He does not blame the current problem on Global Warming, since he says no specific event can be blamed on Global Warming. It is not a matter of semantics, it is a matter of accurate thinking. If you refuse to understand the difference, it is for the purpose of making a straw man argument.
In the entire length of your post, you haven’t taken issue with any of the facts that Krugman presented, or showed any error in logic. Your argument is made against your own version of what Krugman said, simply because you don’t like the idea that global warming will lead to more drought and floods. If you don’t believe this then why not argue the real point instead of using Paul Krugman as some kind of whipping boy, the way conservatives are used to doing?
Noelle
Useful idiot. Look it up. Sheesh. Seriously?
“DesertYote says:
February 7, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Noelle says:
February 7, 2011 at 11:30 am
“The kind of thing we’d expect to see” and ” extreme weather in general becoming much more common” are not the same as blame.
###
BS ……….”
THIS
In reply to my post
eadler says:
February 7, 2011 at 10:39 am
Anthony wrote:
REPLY: Your might want to look carefully at the post author before launching rebuttals – Anthony
Sorry. The author’s name is in fine print.
Ryan M wrote:
[RyanM: sounds like climateprogress in here]
I am not aware Climateprogress has a post on this topic. If they do, I didn’t read it.
Does Ryan M have a substantive reply to what I said?
REPLY: For somebody always harping on details, the fact that you complain about “fine print” while at the same time lecturing us on details not included with articles suggests that your opinion is not balanced. Your multitude comments, over 18 hours days, dominate most every thread these days, and it makes me wonder if somebody isn’t paying you to disrupt this blog. So here’s the question: who are you and what’s your purpose here? Given the volume of commentary you have here, it’s a fair question. Note that your welcome is getting worn out here, some insight would be helpful. – Anthony
harrywr2 says:
February 7, 2011 at 11:11 am
…The fickleness of Russian weather has created no shortage of historical food security problems. Of course we used to blame it on communism, now we blame it on climate change. Personally I blame it on the weather.
—
No, it was pretty much the result of communism.
@Urederra
The six or seven million Ukrainians who had to die for Stalin to get his collectivism going reminds of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, who will die if Obama is successful in, necessarily, having energy prices skyrocket.
eadler, let me get this straight. When snow and cold is up to my hoo hah, I’m not supposed to be fooled by it? I was raised on a farm. We grew winter and spring wheat, oats, alfalfa, and Timothy hay, along side raising cattle and hogs. The ranch qualifies as a “Century Farm”. As in, it’s been in business a long time. Please explain how we should have instead ignored the cold spells, wet spells, and yes, the dry years – and stayed in business.
You. Know. Nothing.
@harrywr2
Periodic famines were common the world over prior to 1922. The developed world developed modern agriculture and famines pretty much subsided, except in the Soviet Union, were collectivism was a total failure. Collectivism will always fail.
My post seems to have been sent into the 3rd dimension.
I have noticed a new shift in the way AGW is promoted.
Nowadays there seems to be more appearances of the phrase “… is consistent with the predictions of global warming”
By my reckoning most of the stuff that happens in the world is consistent with the vague ‘predictions’ of AGW.
As well as GW, GC and AGC…
For that matter we can add in the predictions of Global Constant Climate etc.
Such events which are consistent with these predictions include a bit of rain, a bit of wind, a bit of drought, waves rolling onto the beach, trees growing, trees falling over, the Steelers beating the Packers, vice verse, me going to Burger King…..
etc.
I wonder how much more vague these ‘predictions’ are going to become.
“The world will soon enter a period of uncertainty in matters of the heart. A nearby planet will offer some advice which may be hard to interpret. The globes lucky number is … blue…”
No credibilty and no different from a rock star trying to stay in the public eye with pathetic and provocative behavior…….see l. Lohan