Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As the impact of the interruption of Russian fertiliser sales and Ukrainian grain supplies approaches, climate alarmists are mounting a campaign to claim the coming food price spike as a “climate crisis”.
War in Ukraine and Climate Change Could Combine to Create a Food Crisis
Russia’s invasion is halting the delivery of wheat to areas suffering from drought and other climate impacts
By Sara Schonhardt, Benjamin Storrow, E&E News on March 16, 2022
Russia’s war in Ukraine is squeezing food supplies in countries that depend on those two nations for critical grains and cooking oils.
The halt in agricultural shipments out of the Black Sea has sent the price of wheat and fertilizer soaring and prompted growing concerns of a global food crisis.
In Turkey, people are scrambling to buy cooking oil in anticipation of further price hikes. Thailand faces surging costs for fertilizer and feed stock. Egypt, the top importer of Russian wheat, has banned exports of homegrown grain, and Indonesia has halted exports of palm oil, a potential substitute for other vegetable oils. Aid groups worry that rising prices will exacerbate hunger in already vulnerable countries.
The Russian war is affecting two of the world’s agricultural powerhouses and comes as the global food system is already dealing with supply chain constraints due to the Covid-19 pandemic and climate-charged weather events.
Climate change could make the situation worse if agricultural production in the world’s other breadbaskets is disrupted this year by extreme weather events, said Jonas Jägermeyr, a climate scientist and crop modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Sciences.
“Climate change is increasing weather and yield variability and if severe weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, or floods will hit this season there will be compound effects, destabilizing the food system further,” Jägermeyr wrote in an email. “China already indicated that their wheat outlooks are very poor and other world regions don’t look great either.”
…
Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-in-ukraine-and-climate-change-could-combine-to-create-a-food-crisis/
China’s food production is messed up because during the last few decades of economic growth, there was inadequate enforcement of safe disposal of industrial waste – so a lot of it ended up in landfill or in rivers, creating widespread heavy metal and toxic waste pollution. Much of that pollution is now likely spread across previously uncontaminated land by the floods.
In addition, in the 2020 floods, a lot of poorly constructed dams were demolished, to save the in my opinion poorly constructed Three Gorges dam.
Even with all these problems, the rest of the world was well on track to fill the resulting food shortfall, before Russia decided to start shelling a nuclear reactor in the heart of Europe’s bread basket, and interrupted sowing this year’s crops with their military invasion.
To try to attach the fake climate crisis to these almost entirely manmade problems, in my opinion in the hope of scoring a few cheap political points, well I think you can guess my opinion of such an act.
Ukraine = Squirrel
It’s a distraction from the destruction of the U.S. economy.
It’s also the new reason for everything bad. The climate alarmists are just trying to ride the Ukraine train. “We’re all gonna die!! and ummm… oh, yeah… somehow Ukraine is involved.”
I think you must mean the destruction of the Russian economy. The US economy is still growing at a moderate rate, with the Fed forecasting 2.8 % growth for 2022 (the first quarter report is due out in a few weeks). Inflation is a problem, of course, partly fed by the snap back from the COVID recession and partly fed by the runup in oil and gas prices which are boosted by demand at an all time high but supply still recovering from the 2020 COVID market tank, and now goosed by the Russian war against Ukraine. The unemployment rate is quite low by historical standards at 3.8%.
When the economy is growing at 2.8% and inflation is around 10%, the economy is NOT growing. It’s shrinking.
Exactly, Steve. I think Duane is getting his info from CNN and Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki.
That’s not to say that the Russian economy isn’t struggling. It is. But the economic sanctions are allowing BRICS to set up their own financial systems not tied to the U.S. dollar or petrodollars.
Interesting times.
I’m getting my information from the real world, not FoxBullshitNews.
The Fed’s forecast is the Fed’s forecast. We all know where the inflation came from. And the unemployment rate is the freaking official US unemployment rate.
I suppose you’re one of the deadenders who believe that the Democrats stole the 2020 election, even though ALL the non-insane political leaders of the GOP admit that it’s all bullshit, made up by the insane megalomaniac Donald (Putin’s BFF) Trump.
Get your head outta your ass and live in the real world.
I had nothing to say about the 2020 election. Nor Trump nor Putin. Fantasize all you want, Duane. Project away. Don’t hold back make up whatever you like.
My comment that was about the U.S. economy growing, which Steve laid out. The two numbers are all you need.
Inflation is very high and fuel costs are hitting the wage earner folks very hard. Food prices have gone up rapidly.
People are noticing. A distraction is politically astute. I say it’s Ukraine. Feel free to argue that it is some other thing.
The YSM and Psaki point out the 2.8% and say the economy is growing, but it takes more than that to understand the picture.
Biden said that inflation isn’t real. That’s all the information Duane needs to know. His hatred for anyone who likes Trump does the rest.
Take your meds Duane. The short bus will be along any moment with your Russian colluuuusion.
Anything that makes Biden look bad, makes Trump look good. At no cost can Trump be allowed to look good.
Trump so badly damaged the Corrupt in intrenched lyrical class that they will stop at nothing to ruin him and those around him. He showed Americans that we can succeed without government programs. He showed America can be energy efficient as well as energy independent.
The Dems are soooo afraid of TRUMP! that they continue to try to find a way to charge him with a felony to make him ineligible for the presidency.
The Dems are not the judges and juries, or the Dept. of Justie, in case you hadn’t heard that. Trump’s organization has been charged with tax crimes, but not him personally, at least not yet. Whether personal criminal charges are filed is up to the Dept. of Justice, now thankfully depoliticized since Trump was booted from office … and then judges and juries will take over.
Frankly Democrats are itching for Trump to be the nominee in 2024, which would make for an easy win for Biden. Their biggest concern is that Republicans replace Trump with an actual non-insane candidate, forcing Democrats to run an issues based campaign.
Biden has lost too many suburban women, blacks, and Hispanics. They won’t come out to vote for him even if they don’t come out to vote for Trump. Without their votes Biden goes down. Sometimes the truth hurts.
It really is sad the way Duane’s hatred of Trump has completed robbed him of the ability to think rationally. Those so called charges are nothing more than a disagreement in how certain tax laws should be interpreted. In days past, they would have resulted in a small fine at the most. However now that the Democrats have fully weaponized the Justice Department, nobody who isn’t from the far left is safe.
Wow – another insane MAGA?
You guys shoulda learned years ago that you are merely Trump’s patsies.
Trump is the most effective person in the world at making himself look bad. That’s why the American people rejected him in 2020, and if he is on the ballot again in 2024 we will reject him again.
Had enough yet of Trump’s congratulations of Putin for invading Ukraine?
You really do seem to believe the pabulum you invent.
The inflation will moderate, it’s temporary. GDP growth is real growth.
You don’t even understand what inflation is. Inflation is expansion on the money supply above the growth rate of GDP. Rising prices are just a symptom/result of inflation. Inflation is NOT temporary. Once the money supply has been expanded it is not somehow magically contracted.
You really do believe whatever Biden tells you to believe.
Keep lying to yourself.
I will keep citing facts, you know, those pesky things that MAGAs like you cannot tolerate because it interferes with your political masturbation fantasies.
Gee, Duane your worry is palpable. I think the Dems are toast, too.
Is that you Simon?
What you cite aren’t facts. To bad you are too blind to see that.
Fascinating how everyone who disagrees with you loves Trump.
Bless your little heart, sweety. Y.ou are just so precious, pretending you can think and whatnot
Duane, the terrible truth in all of this is that the U.S. can be a massive supplier of all of these things. I know you get your talking points from the White House but consider the possibility and the desirability of the U.S. shifting entirely to producing its own oil and supplying all of Europe with the oil they need. Not just oil but wheat, soybeans, corn, and hundreds of other things. Russia and China would be like the two emo or goth kids at the back of the class– no one cares about them, they aren’t amicable, they could disappear and no one would care. (Or they could throw away their facades, stop treating their citizens like crap, stop their saber-rattling on the world stage, and play nicely with others.)
I don’t deal in talking points, I deal in facts which obviously many if not most of the self-satisfied MAGAs here cannot tolerate.
Was that reply in the talking points memo as well?
DuhWayne,
The Composite Leading Indicator recovered very quickly from Covid but has recently started to drop again (even before Putin invaded). Oil production in the U.S. has nothing to do with Putin’s war, you’re just spewing Demorrhea. Oil production is growing at a very slow rate already and is soon to be negatively impacted by Biden’s illegal refusal to sell on-shore Federal oil leases.
While gasoline demand did hit an all-time high last summer, it started to plunge in December (again, before Putin invaded) at a rate faster than last year’s winter decline. It’s now recovering at a slower rate than last year and is no longer near the all-time high.
Biden’s poor economic and energy policies are leading to a repeat of Carter’s stagflation, energy crisis, and economic malaise.
Get your facts straight. World crude oil demand rose steadily through 2021 due to the recovery from COVID – which you MAGAs are still pretending was a deep state coup against the Maximum Leader Trump – and USEIA projects demand to continue to grow throughout 2022 (up by 3.2 mbd) as production finally begins to catch up to demand by second quarter 2022.
Of course, with the spike in oil and gasoline price in the runup to the Russian attack on Ukraine, and continuing through last week, that naturally depresses demand somewhat .. and that is obviously why oil dropped from $130 a barrel a week ago to just $96 a barrel this week.
But of course most MAGAs are completely ignorant of the laws of supply and demand, and stupidly believe that politicians control markets instead of the other way around.
You’re (fecklessly) trying to deceive, again, DuhWayne. You weren’t talking about the world’s economy, you were talking about the U.S. Now you (dishonestly) switch to world oil demand. Biden’s policies affect the U.S. first – then the world. He’s already tanking the U.S. economy – most of the world will follow.
I don’t know about you, but I did my undergraduate with a minor in economics – I doubt that you did because you seem to be ignorant of even basic economics. While I was enrolled in econ, the main topic was stagflation, clearly caused by the same bad democratic economic and energy policies that Biden is invoking.
I believe government spending is included in the GDP. So any GDP growth includes all the growth in spending by the federal government over the past year. Without that boost from the feds what would the GDP growth actually be?
You are exactly right. Here is the way the GDP numbers work. The federal government could spend $100 billion and hire a bunch of workers at $100,000 each to dig holes in the ground. The Government spends another $100 billion paying the same people $100,000 each to fill them in again.
The Government statistics will show that GDP increased, unemployment rate decreased, average wages increased, income inequality decreased, and all we did was dig holes and fill them in.
Somewhere in the fine print that no one pays attention to our outstanding debt increased $200 billion.
This may seem ridiculous, except that we are spending hundreds of billions throughout the Government that is the economic equivalent to digging holes and filling them in, with Nancy Pelosi arguing that digging holes and filling them in are good jobs at high wages that benefit the economy.
Meanwhile the vast farm land in the United States of America is used to plant corn to put into our gas tanks. Will the US plant wheat this year instead?
not if number one landholder Gates has a say it will be rewilded or trashed for alt energy and GMO crapcrops
I believe you meant organic crapcrops.
GMOs are the only thing keeping the world from starving. They are the cornerstone of that other green revolution, the one that has saved over a billion people from starvation over the last 50-70 years.
Typical effect of government selection of winners and losers, not market demands.
Some farmers will be able to plant more wheat, but crop rotation requirements, fertilizer costs, and being so close to planting in many parts of the country will not allow for a huge surge towards wheat production until later this year.
The fertilizer issue is a big input cost for wheat, and it has been spiking the past several months.
Government subsidies are a big input as to why I live in the middle of a giant corn field.
Well OK Milwaukee isn’t the middle, but I can drive 200 miles or more in every direction and still see corn fields.
Using prime agricultural land to fill our gas tanks is in my humble opinion, a crime against humanity.
They would have needed to procure the wheat seeds, and unless someone had the foresight to have surplus available in the US and Canada, there probably isn’t that much that can be done this year.
The real question is how many farmers survive 2022 and are able to plant anything at all in 2023. The USA hasn’t really started the mid-west planting season yet. Those tractors are pretty solid and don’t run on unicorn farts. The combines for harvest are even bigger and drink fuel like there’s no tomorrow. Parts that have to be shipped around the world won’t be cheaper, either.
“Climate change could make the situation worse”
OR
“Climate change could make the situation better”
OR
“Climate change could do nothing”
Who knew?
The farmers around my woods primarily grow corn and soybeans. From what I’ve been told, the price of fertilizer is too high for them to make money from those crops so they are going to let the fields lay fallow or plant turnips to replenish the soil.
When the crop reports come out for this year, I can see the green mob blame it all on climate change because everything is about climate change to those morons.
In any case, I think it is going to be a bad year for many crops this year.
The green mob is riddled with bolsheviks and unlike morons, they know exactly what they are doing.
This again? Nonsense!
Try looking at the world as if it isn’t all a plot
Maybe greens only reject free market solutions because the free market has refused to accept fantasy claims that renewables are cheaper than coal.
Try looking at the world as if it isn’t all a plot
____________________________________
So what’s the difference between politics and a plot?
Plot: A plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful.
Politics: The activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.
There are people in this world who want to destroy capitalism, sneer at democracy and engage in subversive activities in order to gain power. That pretty well defines the Bolsheviks.
The USSR crashed December 26th 1991. All the old Bolsheviks who ran that monstrosity didn’t go quietly into the night.
Griff,
You’ve have to admit that your climate cult compatriots in Extinction Rebellion aren’t libertarian free marketeers, are they? They’re all hard left lunatics.
According to Barry Anthony it is all a plot 🙂
And another lie spewed by the lie spewing liar.
griff doesn’t want us to take his leaders at their words.
Mr. griff: It doesn’t look like a plot, it looks like it’s getting a shave by a drunk barber named Biden.
they could grow grazing crops(turnips are ) lucerne etc and fatten some healthy animals who just happen to fertilise as they go;-)
stop using the expensive high input commercial crap seeds
Organic, AKA biodynamic agriculture, was an outgrowth of the rejection of science that led to the rise of National Socialism. Heinrich Himmler was a great advocate for biodynamic agriculture.
The other issue was that the output of the Haber/Bosch nitrogen synthesis is explosives feedstock, which was used for that purpose, not growing crops.
The Third Reich was noted for famines and food shortages.
Not a clue Ozspeaksup.
If a large number of farmers decided to grow crops to fatten animals the price of the animals would soar leaving little profit .
You and so many urban dwellers can not see that food prices are going to increase rapidly around the world .
1
The Ukraine supplies a large volume of wheat to the world and that is being disrupted and a lot will never be planted this year .
2
Fertilizer is in very short supply around the world and some such as DAP , Urea ,and SOA sulphate of ammonia have increased by up to 400 %.
3
Shipping freight rates have increased 600 % in some instances .
4
Fuel costs for tractors and harvesters has increased 60% .
5
The world is set for rapid inflation and a lot of people around the world will be in trouble finding the money for basic food and energy costs .
Some of the severe flooding mentioned above in china is certainly the result of climate change…
Go and do some reading Griff – start with the climate/weather experiences of the Chinese people in the 19th Century.Then try a bit further back.
Wrong.. Its all just natural variability, zero evidence of any human cause.
Huge floods have happened in China many times, just look at the geomorphology of the river systems.
And there’s me thinking that flooding is caused by rain.
No, it’s not.
I am sure that Mr Xi will immediately repent and stop burning coal and start building HVDC interconnectors 🙂
And another lie spewed by the lie spewing liar. You are on a roll!
Once again, griff claims that things that have been happening forever, this time must have been caused by CO2.
Why? Because that’s what he wants to belive.
And once again you’ve lost the capacity to provide “supporting evidence” for your bald assertions.
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” — Bertrand Russell
Are you blaming Noah’ s flood on climate change good Grief
The under production of fertiliser in the West is the result of anti fossil fuel policies.
But on the plus side: that war will come to an end and the Ukrainians will resume doing what they do best, growing wheat. Then, clearly, the climate crisis will be over and activists can find another cause to annoy us with.
I hope so. A doctor friend thinks Putin is terminally ill, his face looks puffy lately, which might be the result of treatment for lymphoma. So there is a real risk this war won’t end well.
oh good lord you too? he had covid, so think steroids making face puffy maybe?
if Putin keels over then we would be in FAR worse trouble
Bidet crap for brains started this fustercluck and putins been patient for too long, the media psyops via f u overbook and antisocial media is nauseating in its hypocrisy.
Puff Face Putin has a certain ring to it. I hope he croaks. The sooner the better.
I was thinking his mental state is reminiscent of either an untreated STD or hepatic encephalitis. I doubt in this day and age it’s heavy metal poisoning.
Novichok?
Uggghh
I really miss the days when the Goldwater rule was widely respected and observed by physicians of all stripes. Anyone doctor who diagnoses a world leader they have never examined based on a few seconds of video evidence is engaging quackery of the highest order. Trump broke the medical profession’s brains.
Here is an anecdote which represents only one data point in an extremely small sample size: in the early 1980s, my primary care physician correctly diagnosed the Pope with a skin cancer on his head, as he saw a picture of the Pope on a magazine cover when the doctor was in an airport. So, “diagnosing a ‘world leader’ they have never examined based on a few seconds of video evidence” has been done. However, I would agree that it would be highly preferable for any doctor to examine his or her patient in person, and that most “diagnoses” of Putin are extremely speculative at best, and wildly incorrect at worst.
Putin’s war has been a political lifesaver and a godsend for the climate crackpots.
It has allowed them to obscure the complete and total failure of European wind and solar electricity generation.
It has allowed them to shift the blame for their responsibility for skyrocketing prices of electricity, petroleum and its derivative products.
They would do it anyway….
I thought the evil CO2 has produced a 10% greening of the earth, according to NASA? How does increased plant food in the atmosphere, producing greening, not increase crop production? The disgusting invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the sanctions against Russia, is another matter.
Putin made no secret of the fact that he believed the incursion of NATO into Ukraine was an existential threat…
Paranoia is an ugly thing.
BTW, “incursion”? Really?
Greg is right. Putin has been telling the West for a long time not to expand NATO.
all good till the bit re shelling chernobyl. russians worked hard to limit and make that safe. mighta made some mess near- but not at it.
and like all the rest of the mess hand it to joe n milgoons to start this crap and run insane psyops for the gullible to take the heat off his own screwups
They may have worked hard, but it wasn’t their funding. Most came from Western Europe.
There is NO CLIMATE CRISIS!
THE CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED!
5000 years ago, there was the Egyptian 1st Unified Kingdom warn period
4400 years ago, there was the Egyptian old kingdom warm period.
3000 years ago, there was the Minoan Warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Roman warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Medieval warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, came our current warm period. You are claiming that whatever caused those earlier warm periods suddenly quit causing warm periods, only to be replaced by man’s CO2 emission, perfectly in time for the cycle of warmth every 1000 years stay on schedule. Not very believable.
The entire climate scam crumbles on this one observation because it shows that there is nothing unusual about today’s temperature and ALL claims of unusual climate are based on claims of excess warmth caused by man’s CO2.
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/warm_periods.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/climatehistory.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/warm_periods.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com
Feel free to disagree by showing actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing serious global warming.
I guess it is all over for Canadian agriculture, energy, and everything. Wow, did I miss something?
It will take years, or maybe never, to correct Trudeau’s “leave-it-in-the-ground”, “no-more-pipelines”, “save the rain forest”, “save the whales”, “tax wealth”, “big-subsidies-to-media-who-follow-the-storyline” policies.
So we need to start yesterday
Yes, and food production could be hurt if a meteor strikes the earth … with minorities hurt the worst!!!
Yada yada yada blah blah blah
It’s straight out of the Alarmunists’ Manifesto: 1. Never let a good crisis go to waste, and 2. Anything bad that happens is exacerbated by “Climate Change”.
It’s all so childish – especially that they don’t seem to realise the seriousness of what’s happening.
They’re playing a game, in the sure and certain knowledge that they can go running home to mummy in her warm, comfy and well stocked house if their game should go pear-shaped
how do you get any sort of message across to that sort of thinking.
You can ‘tell them off’ but they’ll be be right back in the playground tomorrow doing the very same things – constantly ‘pushing the envelope’ as children do.
Climate alarmists should be stripped of all their food, have their electricity, water and gas shut off and vehicles seized.
Why is the USA buying fertilizer from Russia? Joe Biden must energize Americas mining sector and end the bureaucracy to allow the mining of more nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in order to make fertilizer for America. We also must release America’s agricultural section so that we can get back to feeding the world.
Sooo…… climate alarmists don’t know about grain storage and grain elevators, and other such things?
Checking BarChart commodities prices, there’s plenty of grain available, with May 2022 prices (delivry) holding pretty steady for now. That’s in the USA.
If there is a food price spike, the alarmists will likely be the source of it.
While there are plenty of stores today that might not be the case this time next year. My farmer friends say the cost of seed, fertilizer, and fuel is going to impose severe constraints on how much they can plant and harvest this year. Winter wheat this spring won’t be affected much but corn, soybeans, milo, and even rye will be during the summer. Winter wheat planting this fall will be impacted as well.
I’m going to try and expand my potato and onion area this spring for putting back for winter. As long as the Biden admin is in power its going to get worse and worse for food prices. Grow as much as you can!
Raise sheep and tell the Homeowners Association that they are poodles. 😉
It will become an ESG,F issue at that point.
It’s not a climate crisis that’s causing our problems, it’s stupid government crisis that’s the cause, starting with Biden and his leftist government and administration. To paraphrase Gov. Huckabee’s response to VP Harris saying that Biden is giving Americans what they wanted, “Americans got what they wanted, but they don’t like what they got.”
To be fair, the increasingly cold weather everywhere on Earth is reducing food production. Also the diversion of food products into ethanol production is taking its toll, thanks to ‘Global Warming’ hysteria. Fortunately all this is slightly offset by rising CO2 levels.
Eric. Please do not use NPR as a source. Their fake news reports are slanted towards the globalists. You know better than that.
The man made problems are:
Reduced gas supply leading to reduced fertiliser production because of a war with Russia and anti-fossil fuel policies.
Reduced food production caused by a war in a major wheat producing area and sanctions on a major wheat producer.
Increased inflation caused by printing money.
You can blame Biden for a lot of that.
Andy