"The main problem is that the earth is hot, flat and crowded"

“Food shortages caused by global warming may be cause of world-wide unrest.”
Food shortages caused by global cooling, the Federal Reserve, and Wall Street/COMEX/CME may be cause of world-wide unrest.
There. Fixed it for ya.

While debating the effect of globacoolawarming on food production is interesting, the true insanity in this article is blaming unrest and revolution in Tunisia and Egypt on food prices. Certainly when food prices fluctuate in poor countries it has a bigger impact than in wealthy ones, and you could even argue that it was the straw the broke the camel’s back I suppose, but the notion that it is the main factor, or even a major one is a new level of… I can’t come up with a word that is appropriate and isn’t a major insult along the lines of an ad hominem attack. To hold out the spectre of unrest in those countries as a sign of things to come when (not if!) global warming arrives (in the NEXT century no less…just 89 years to go!) is so bereft of facts, logic and reason to anyone who pays the slightest attention to world politics that the worst ad hominem attack I could come up with would be insufficient. Turning a blind eye to who is fomenting unrest in the middle east and why is ten times as dangerous as blaming fluctuations in food prices and then compounding the sin by tying them by some tenuous absurd logic to changes in climate that might happen… in “the next century”. Not only is Chicken WarmaLittle screaming that the sky is falling, the little b****rd is claiming that he can see the cracks in the sky from something that hasn’t happened yet and won’t for a century.
Further, the notion that the food shortages in various poor countries is a consequence of price fluctuations or ethanol production is equally a determined effort to be willfully ignorant of the blindingly obvious. I’m 50 years old and cannot remember a time in my life when there was NOT strife and famine in one part of Africa or another. Food is cheap, and it is so cheap that even the poor countries can afford it. Incredibly incompetant and insanely corrupt management is the one, and the ONLY significant factor in food shortages anywhere in the world. Zimbabwe was transformed from the bread basket of Africa to a fiscal basket case where mice are now a staple food by corrupt and idiotic management. North Koreans subsist on 4 ounces of rice per day so their “dear leader” can pretend to be a nuclear power while his citizens barely survive and mostly from hand outs from the rest of the world. South Korea with near identical resources struggles with obesity as an emerging health risk. Israel is just as much desert as Egypt, but is a net exporter of food. Historicaly the WHOLE REGION suffered periods of famine for centuries and the population mostly survived quite well at the heights of the Egyption empire(s) because food sources were well managed, and that was millenia before refrigeration was even invented! Gaza WAS an exporter of food until the Israelis withdrew and abandoned gigantic greenhouse infrastructures that were promptly torn to pieces to make rockets by the exact same people who then complain that they don’t have enough food and it isn’t their fault. Incompetence and corruption resulted in starvation in Africa and elsewhere decades before global warming was invented, and growing crops for ethanol too for that matter. Good management with the most primitive of technologies allowed empires such as Rome, Egypt, the Dynasties of China and others to remain stable for centuries at a time. Read their histories and yes, you will find their empires crumbled as they were torn apart, no longer capable of defending themselves, by the barbarian hordes from without and the hunger driven revolution from within. The tragic consequences had nothing to do with fluctuations in food supplies or the availability of military forces to protect the people. The empires failed because they became mired in corruption and incompetent in managing their resources.
So Chicken WarmingLittle can point at food shortages and claim they are responsible the fall of governments, but it is a lie of gargantuan proportions. The food shortages are the consequence of corrupt and incompetent management. The revolutionaries are screaming for their ouster, and rightfully so. But the barbarians are gathering at the gates while their prophets are already inside masquerading as the voice of reason, an accusing finger levelled at the corrupt incompetent government while the other hand quietly unlocks the gates.
Chicken WarminLittle says there are no barbarians and the gates don’t even need to be locked. We should worry about events a century from now instead.
No wonder that chickens run around for ten minutes after you cut their heads off. They’re too stupid to know they are dead.
My apologies for the ad hominem attack. Not fair to the chickens at all.

It may be “hot, flat, and crowded” for “them,” but it certainly is not for AGW promoter Tom Friedman. Take a peek at his spacious, cool, and lush manse in Maryland. Wonder what it costs to maintain that perfecto green lawn in the hot Maryland summers.
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/friedman/friedman-mansion.htm
By the way, about ~40 years ago author John Brunner wrote a novel called “Stand On Zanzibar,” in which he calculated that by the year 2010, all of the planet’s predicted 7 billion population could stand shoulder-to-shoulder and fit on the island of Zanzibar.
Take a look at Zanzibar on any map, and I think you’ll also disagree with Friedman that the planet is even “crowded,” although it is most certainly the case that mankind remains prone to hubris (e.g., CAGW), solipsism, and apocalyptic fantasies, and that these are all endemic parts of the human condition.

At first my thought ‘how do people come up with such notions?’ but in reality the truth sucks. A greenhouse will produce far more vegan material than nature on the same plot.
What in the Northern hemisphere is driving the food quantity? ESA and EPA.

HK:
…wilful (sic) misinterpretations…could have no better example than people here suggesting the “flat” comment could mean anything other than in the Friedman sense.
Aw, come on, HK–give us illiterati a break. It takes time for these sophisticated East Coast neologisms to percolate down to us West Coast working stiffs. The Tribune’s circulation is currently 37,118. How many of those good folks have ever read Friedman’s book? We are experienced enough to know that a statement that appears to be nonsense is much more likely to be a misquote or keyboarding error, than a really, really creative use of an everyday word.
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

Charles Higley says:
February 13, 2011 at 9:40 pm
They should not blame food prices on global warming. Blame it on the idiots who think converting food into fuel is a good idea. Biofuels offer not net gain in anything except in wasting resources in terms of crops and cropland, decreasing milage, and destroying engines. Oh, and a few people make fortunes having been graced with huge funding to build biofuel factories and continuing subsidies to keep them afloat.
The 15% ethanol/gasoline was dictated to give those poor ethanol makers a boost in business, as those poor guys have suffered a decrease in demand with the recession. Heaven for bid that they should suffer like everybody else; the government is helping them out specifically over everybody else. How nice.
As the extreme environmentalists basically do not like people and also think that starvation and disease are acceptable means of decreasing population, they are fine with biofuels raising food prices.
This year’s food price spike is a result of bad weather causing a dent in supply. Another recent factor in reduced supply is the use of soybean oil and corn oil for fuel. This made stockpiles low so that the effect of bad weather was magnified. In addition there is hoarding by speculators.
It is wrong to blame the use of corn based ethanol on environmentalists. Most environmentalists agree that it is counter productive as an environmental measure, does nothing to help carbon emissions, and consumes more land for corn production that is destructive the environment. Everyone hates ethanol except the corn farmers and the distillers such as ADM, but they have won an extension of the tax credit for one year.
The current levels, set to expire December 31 of this year, include a 45-cents per gallon subsidy on ethanol production. For the taxpayer, that totals about $7 billion a year. On November 29, a mixed group of organizations sent a letter to congressional leadership, officially making their case against any extension.
The list included industry, environmental, and political groups like the American Meat Institute, the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, the National Meat Association, Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, FreedomWorks, the National Taxpayers Union, the Heartland Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Even former Vice President Al Gore recently admitted his original support for the subsidies was a mistake.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/09/despite-strong-opposition-ethanol-subsidies-set-to-be-renewed-in-tax-deal/#ixzz1E4ydOOg5

HK;
Yuck. That promo for Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0” gives his new inspirational neologism: “Geo-Greenism”. Which he sez is the mandatory solution for all, starting with the US, of course.
When I think of Friedman, “Soylent-Greenism” is what comes to mind.