Paul Krugman has caused quite a stir with his claims that the riots in Egypt are the result of:
global warming > causing bad weather > causing crop failure > causing increased food prices > causing riots.
It’s rather circular logic IMHO, and one that isn’t supportable by the data at hand.
First, there is a piece, Debunking Krugman: NYT’s “Soaring Food Prices – Blame the Weather”. The author, who is open to the possibility that global warming might be problem, shows that Krugman knows not of what he speaketh. As she says, “This is so far off base, Paul Krugman, I hardly know where to start.”
Andrew Bolt has a very good piece in which he reminds us that “food production is in fact at near-historic levels and the Egyptian regime actually keeps food prices pretty stable through massive subsidies.”
So food prices probably did not trigger the problems in Egypt. In fact, because of subsidies that keep bread prices constant at low levels, many poor folk are favorably inclined toward the current regime.
Also, on Pielke, Jr’s website, Richard Tol reminds us that IPCC reports tell us that for modest global warming (of the order of 1 to 3 degrees C, I believe) , global food prices may decline. And this is despite the fact that, as shown at WUWT, negative Socioeconomic Impacts of Global Warming are Systematically Overestimated, while positive impacts are underestimated. (This is in two parts; Part II is here).
Pielke Jr. has this graph on his website to speak to the issue:
Note the spike in prices 1972-1976. The food crisis in the 1970’s wasn’t driven by weather either.
During that 70s food crisis, many of the same arguments were made that are being made today:
“We’re running out of food! People in (enter random developing country name here) will starve! There’s unrest in the third world!”
Remember this? From Wiki:
Erlich’s The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich (who was uncredited), in 1968.[1] It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. Fears of a “population explosion” were widespread in the 1950s and 60s, but the book and its charismatic author brought the idea to an even wider audience.[2] [3] The book has been criticized in recent decades for its alarmist tone and inaccurate predictions.
Well we all know how those predictions turned out.
Thanks to Indur Goklany, who contributed to this article.
Anthony,
Sorry if this is a bit long but it’s needs the telling.
You might like to refer your readers to The Daily Reckoning by Bill Bonner – someone who knows what he’s talking about, being down in the trenches, rather than up in Academia, where, when it comes to economics, you can guarrantee, they’re always wrong – particularly this article:
http://dailyreckoning.com/growth-or-hot-money-whats-really-affecting-food-prices/
The take home, to coin a phrase, is similar to that which I wrote on Keith Kloors blog visa vie Romms rubbish on the same theme:
This extraordinary ignorance of even the simplest economics is what is astounding. Worldwide food price inflation has nothing to do with enviromental causation, whether that be bad harvests, ‘global warming’ or, indeed, a rise in the production of ‘biofuels’! Neither now nor in 2007 (remember that far back?): in both cases, to put it simplistically, though with different complications, caused by the massively inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve (affectively negative interest rates, constant re-inflation of the Wall Street Bubble of a Thousand Holes by the printing of money – $1.2 trillion in the last year – constant deficit sclerosis etc etc), devaluing the worlds reserve currency (probably, over the last two decades, the biggest devaluation in world history), hence making commodies in general (not just food – all commodies!) rise in price for all other currencies. This, in combination with large speculative flows in anticipation of, and in conjunction with, capital flight from risky holdings – goverment bonds, sovereign debt, financial instruments etc – into the always safer bet of commodities – from gold through oil to potatoes – as well as the consequent competitive devaluation of all other currencies just to keep par – is the complete, if crudely put, explanation of these short to medium term fluctations. Not global warming, nor any corollary pressure on production – which, as usual, is becoming more and more productive (as Pielke Jnr shows) and is outstriping supply in accellerated fashion, as it has been doing for the past 100 years.
If this was merely caused by ‘climate disruption of food production’ then how come food commodities verses other commodities have remained stable? If the former where the case, then food commodities would have inflated visa vie these other commodities.
If crude material causation where the only spring of human history one would, with far more justice, put the North African revolts at the feet of the Federal Reserve! And, of course, the larger context of the historicle uneven developments of West verses East but that’s for another lecture!
But cirtainly not climate change!
To put it simply, if you print trillions of dollars, it must buy something – hence inflation. Gresham’s law. Krugman NYT article misleadingly cherry picked various worldwide agricultural yearly production figures- in fact, for instance, wheat production, one of the most staple of staple products, is up by some way – as if there was merely the producers, on the one side, and the ultimate consumers, on the other and no world market in between! Either he is totally ignorant of his alleged subject or I would not like to say? Noble prize, my a–!
Here is the FAO site with all the graph’s that show when the food prices started to hike.
They coincide with the bio fuel scam.
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex/en/
E.M.Smith, You seem to have written more or less similar to what I attempted to post but mine got swallowed by the aether, probably because it had a link and thus was spammed. Anyway, bravo! Krugman wouldn’t know economics if it hit him in the face. Simply put, if you print trillions of dollars they have to buy something – hence inflation. If there were a problem with food commodities why are they stable visa vie other commodities? Etc etc.
I’m not sure about Krugmans’ sanity, but I do know that 70% of the Egyptian populace works for the government.
“So food prices probably did not trigger the problems in Egypt. In fact, because of subsidies that keep bread prices constant at low levels, many poor folk are favorably inclined toward the current regime.”
Well, it just makes sense not to ‘annoy’ your employer.
E. M. Smith’s argument of dollar decline also play’s a big role.
Population growth rate, and rate of growth of economic indicators cannot be sustained unless we manage to get off the planet and harvest the universe.
1% growth rate does not sound high, but it means the population roughly doubles every 70 years. I.e. The number of people on the planet doubles roughly every generation if the growth rate is 1%.
Now, it does not really matter what the actual growth rate is, but the point is that a constant rate of growth leads to exponential increase in number of people.
At 1% our great grand children will share the planet with roughly 52 billion other souls. The great grand children with 448 billion!
It is obvious that either the growth rate will need to reduce by some means, or more preferably, we will have to obtain resources including lebensraume from somewhere other than just this planet.
William Herscell made the connection between food prices, the price of grain, and sunspot numbers.
Everyone thought he was mad, though he did observe that during high sunspot periods, the price of grain decreased. Yield was greater, but so was the quality.
During low sunspot periods, yields and quality were lesser, driving up the price.
I’m always slightly puzzled when Erlich’s predictions of mass starvation are derided. As far as I’m aware, around 30,000 people a day die of hunger.
Its not happening in Australia, the US or Europe, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. To the poorest people in the world, a near doubling over 5 years in the cost of basic staples must be very hard indeed. Enough to stop you being happy with your government.
Did AGW cause it? Well, it again stands to reason that we have farm where conditions have been suitable. If the climate changes rapidly, then our farms will be in the wrong place, and so yields will be down. Of course this applies whether the climate change is “natural” or man made. Either way, if it is changing, farmers have to keep on top of it.
In the far south west of Australia, you pretty well always get enough rain to bring in a crop. If you own a farm down there, I suggest you don’t sell, because you’ll be making a lot of money for a long time.
typo: William Herschel
Global warming is the culprit:
(alleged) global warming > mandatory (EU) biofuels > food scarcity > increased food prices > riots.
What happens there with food prices, could happen in the west with energy-bills:
(alleged) global warming > mandatory expensive wind- and solar energy > subsidized by energy tax > increased energy bills > riots.
Facts can be so troublesome when you’re trying to make a good point:
If he cared to read the news a month ago when all this N. African stuff started, he’d know that the riots started in Algeria when food prices went up because the GOVT RAISED TAXES ON FOOD.
Please note that the misguided corn-for-ethanol program only adds about $0.25/bu to the cost of corn (currently selling for ~$6.50/bu, up from $3.80/bu five months ago. Grain prices follow petroleum prices. Right now, about 1/3rd of the US corn crop goes to EtOH. If the ENTIRE crop were turned to fuel, it would only satisfy about 2% of the world’s yearly automotive fuel demand. To put that in perspective, we could save 10% just by keeping our tires properly inflated.
Murray Grainger says:
February 8, 2011 at 12:55 am
“Speaking from personal experience, I have noted that ever since AGW started I have gotten older every year.”…………………….”Something must be done, and quickly, before it is too late!”
Murray, A solution is at hand, but, was it Maurice Chevalier who, when asked if he liked growing old, replied that it was better than the alternative.
Interesting. In normal post-normal times George W. Bush would get the blame. Has the left finally moved on?
Personally, I am very upset about this. The price of Arugula has just skyrocketed, to say nothing of other essential foods such as shiitake mushrooms and truffles. I just don’t know what to do.
Chris says:
February 8, 2011 at 4:29 am
Population growth rate, and rate of growth of economic indicators cannot be sustained unless we manage to get off the planet and harvest the universe.
At 1% our great grand children will share the planet with roughly 52 billion other souls. The great grand children with 448 billion!
Current projections are for a peak population of 9.2billion around 2050 and we will never make 10 billion.
Or revolutionaries stirring up trouble to grab power for themselves.
This stunt by Krugman isn’t the first time he’s been found butchering the role of expert.
About 60 seconds of airtime is enough to make most viewers scramble for the remote to change the channel.
People haven’t noticed much yet, but this bubble of expectation, politically and financially, for the ‘green re-making’ of our society has created the potential for a correction that will make the housing crisis look like small beer.
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Actually Krugman is right about the cause but he got the chain of events wrong.
Global warming -> good weather -> high corn, sugar, soy production -> foolish notion that food crops can be used as feedstock for transportation fuels without consequence -> subsidies to make fuel derived from corn/sugar/oil competitive with oil -> staple food prices skyrocket -> mass starvation
Dopes like Krugman are soon going to learn the hard way that global warming is a good thing and that global cooling is the bad thing.
Mass starvation is not due to lack of available food, it is due to lack of responsible government. Starvation is quite literally a political problem. The percentage of people suffering malnutrition in the world has falled steadily, about half what it was in 1970. China, India, and even Bangladesh, to a lesser degree, have severely reduced their food problems by having more efficient and repsonsible government. Mass starvation is pretty much a sub-Saharan African and North Korean problem, and due almost entirely to corrupt governments. If people would get over their unreasonable aversion to genetically enhanced produce, the problem would be even further minimized. For some reason the lefties are hell bent to reverse every technological advance of the 20th Century while embracing the worst of the politics, Communisim and Fascism.
John Brookes says:
February 8, 2011 at 4:36 am
I’m always slightly puzzled when Erlich’s predictions of mass starvation are derided. As far as I’m aware, around 30,000 people a day die of hunger.
>> John Brookes says:
February 8, 2011 at 4:36 am
I’m always slightly puzzled when Erlich’s predictions of mass starvation are derided. As far as I’m aware, around 30,000 people a day die of hunger. <<
The deaths by starvation are not due to overpopulation or food shortages, but by dictators blocking food distribution. Starvation is being used as a means of killing off of internal enemies when it's cheaper than other means (and also less likely to be recognized as genocide by UN bureaucrats). If the world population were half what it is today and food output doubled, those people would still be starving to death.
Krugman got a Nobel prize? Amazing.
Which other disaster story can be connected to boost “Global Warming’s” falling stock? AGW’s links to: WMDs, giant meteor, hostile Aliens, Islamism, escaping (artificially created) superbugs, Armageddon………. ?
He may not have it so wrong; just wrong point of view.
Global Warming Scam > stupid desire to avoid using petroleum > idiotic funding for biofuels > food and crop land stupidly used to make biofuels > food prices rise > riots in Egypt in part due to food prices.
Biofuels are evil. All should be cancelled.
Lack of food caused by the weather was one of the factors causing the French Revolution so it’s not completely far fetched:
From Wikipedia:
“These problems were all compounded by a great scarcity of food in the 1780s. A series of crop failures caused a shortage of grain, consequently raising the price of bread. Because bread was the main source of nutrition for poor peasants, this led to starvation. The two years previous to the revolution (1788–89) saw meager harvests and harsh winters, possibly because of a strong El Niño cycle caused by the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland”
High food, energy and commodity prices in any country are caused by over-spending governments and inflation of money supplies by central banks(US Federal Reserve). The US Federal Reserve still claims there is not enough inflation.