Essay by Eric Worrall
If only there was a way to preserve and stockpile of food, to help carry us through shortages.
Climate change could lead to food-relatedcivil unrest in UK within 50 years, say experts
Sarah Bridle Professor of Food, Climate and Society, University of York
Aled Jones Professor & Director, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Published: October 12, 2023 11.31pm AEDTThe emptying of supermarket shelves during the COVID pandemic demonstrated the chaos that disruption to the UK’s food supply can provoke. Could this type of disruption have a different cause in the future? And what might the impact on society be?
These are the questions we sought to answer in our new study, which involved surveying 58 leading UK food experts spanning academia, policy, charitable organisations and business.
Our findings indicate that food shortages stemming from extreme weather events could potentially lead to civil unrest in the UK within 50 years. Shortages of staple carbohydrates like wheat, bread, pasta and cereal appear to be the most likely triggers of such unrest.
The UK’s food system appears to be particularly vulnerable to significant disruption. This vulnerability can be attributed, in part, to its emphasis on efficiency at the expense of resilience (the ability to withstand and recover from shocks). This approach includes a heavy reliance on seasonal labour and practices like “just-in-time” supply chains, where products are delivered precisely when needed.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-could-lead-to-food-related-civil-unrest-in-uk-within-50-years-say-experts-214754
The abstract of the study;
Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation
by Aled Jones 1,*,†, Sarah Bridle 2,†, Katherine Denby 3, Riaz Bhunnoo 4, Daniel Morton 5, Lucy Stanbrough 6, Barnaby Coupe 7, Vanessa Pilley 8, Tim Benton 9, Pete Falloon 10,11, Tom K. Matthews 12, Saher Hasnain 13, John S. Heslop-Harrison 14, Simon Beard 15, Julie Pierce 16, Jules Pretty 17, Monika Zurek 13, Alexandra Johnstone 18, Pete Smith 19, Neil Gunn 6, Molly Watson 2, Edward Pope 10, Asaf Tzachor 15,20, Caitlin Douglas 12, Christian Reynolds 21, Neil Ward 22, Jez Fredenburgh 22, Clare Pettinger 23, Tom Quested 24, Juan Pablo Cordero 2, Clive Mitchell 25, Carrie Bewick 26, Cameron Brown 6, Christopher Brown 27, Paul J. Burgess 28, Andy Challinor 29, Andrew Cottrell 10, Thomas Crocker 10, Thomas George 8, Charles J. Godfray 30, Rosie S. Hails 31, John Ingram 12, Tim Lang 20, Fergus Lyon 32, Simon Lusher 6, Tom MacMillan 33, Sue Newton 6, Simon Pearson 34, Sue Pritchard 35, Dale Sanders 36, Angelina Sanderson Bellamy 37, Megan Steven 6, Alastair Trickett 38, Andrew Voysey 39, Christine Watson 40, Darren Whitby 16 and Kerry Whiteside 41
Abstract
We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.
Read more: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/20/14783
The full study is a little more interesting than the Conversation article, they discuss supply chain disruptions which might actually happen, such as a repeat of the Carrington event, a coronal solar mass ejection which could do widespread damage to fragile electrical systems.
But the suggestion climate change might cause such disruption is absurd.
We’re used to unseasonal foods pretty much any time of year, because high speed global transport, including air cargo, ensures we have access to whatever we need or want. A decade ago, when the lettuce crop failed in Spain due to heavy rain, within a week lettuce imported from the United States was hitting the shelves of British supermarkets.
What if a major disaster, a coronal mass ejection or global war cut shipping routes?
This would be a very uncomfortable time for the UK, if it caught Britain unprepared. But slow moving changes are not in the same category as an out of the blue catastrophe which suddenly destroys global communications and shipping navigation systems. Any warning, like a significant uptick in weather disasters leading up to shortages, and a little preparation, would make it easy to cope with any supply disruption.
Our ancestors solved the problem of surviving for months without fresh food. Jams, conserves, pickles, canning, drying, there is a long list of ways to make foods outlast their normal shelf life.
Absolute worst case any climate related supply disruptions would be temporary, and could easily be bridged with a stockpile of preserved or frozen food. We already know from the paleo record that global warming is no threat to average global food production, regardless of the alleged impact on localised weather disasters.
During the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 5-8C hotter than today, one species which did notably well were our monkey ancestors. If a bunch of monkey ancestors with brains the size of matchboxes could figure out how to thrive in a much warmer world, I’m pretty sure we could figure it out.
The only real threat to food production is our government’s policy responses to climate change – ill considered government policies which drive up the price of food and energy, attacks on global shipping which threaten to make mass transport of food and other goods impractically expensive. The simultaneous political attacks on affordable energy, nitrate fertiliser and agricultural pesticides and fungicides are a grave risk to prosperity and food production. If any food shortages occur in the next few years, the culprit is far more likely to be climate policy than climate change.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
More rubbish. It is ironic that they give COVID as an example. It is a great example but not for the reason they think. It is a perfect example of just how much a government can screw things up. The sooner the government gets out of the CAGW business the sooner the rest of us can relax and look forward to a long and healthy life. I have no respect for these low life trouble makers.
It appears that none of the people involved in this “study” bothered to check with the UN IPCC nor read its latest 2021 Assessment Report (AR6). They would have learned that the latest science shows there has been no increases in extreme weather events outside of normal annual and decadal variations. Their great observation is that extreme weather events randomly affect crop production around the world and lead to minor shortages at different places and times.
And research also shows that while the climate might have warmed gently over the past 50 years, food production and yield has greatly increased: certainly helped not hindered by all the extra CO2 and the little bit of warmth.
There are more cellphone cameras around to photograph bad weather for the nightly news.
And there are more “scientists” willing to ignore or falsify factual data for ideological or pecuniary reasons.
Well yeah.. if they get rid of fossil fuels, and nitrogen+ fertilisers…
… there will certainly be food shortages, in both growing and distribution.
AND cover thousands of acres (hectares for you brits) of fertile and productive farmland with solar panels and bird choppers, removing them from productive use.
No we do acres, none of that Johnny Foreigner nonsense. Pints and miles too.
Very true.
But there be fewer people left to eat the food so maybe it will even out?
“If a bunch of monkey ancestors with brains the size of matchboxes”
Oh… I didn’t realise they had “climate scientists™” back then ! 🙂
ROFL 🙂
Likely not a box of kitchen matches. Those were used to light gas stoves.
Aled Jones eh? I think he should stick to his day job and continue, “Walking in the Air”
The major food problem in the UK is that too much good farmland is increasingly being covered with solar panels or crops that are grown for energy or is used for rewilding, planting trees etc. Then there is the burgeoning population due to excess and uncontrolled migration, with a huge and growing demand for housing.
When will Europeans finally kick out the immigrants? America wanted millions of immigrants in the 19th century due to a rapidly expanding industrial economy. Europe doesn’t have that- so no work or housing for them.
No, the 19th century US needed millions of immigrants to occupy territory that once belonged to the native Americans and keep them off. The rapidly expanding industrial economy was the result of the exploitation of basically free land and resources.
The housing is being built on good farm land too.
Ah the inverse of the authors strikes again. 😉
“”Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest””
50 years, maybe? Or perhaps a little sooner…
“”BBC Arabic reporters backing Hamas on social media say Israeli hostages have been ‘arrested’
Corporation is ‘urgently investigating’ anti-Israel bias””
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/14/bbc-arabic-reporters-back-hamas-anti-israel-bias/
BBC investigates itself again – well we all know how that’ll turn out, don’t we? Like the Labour investigation into it’s own anti-Israel bias. It needs an outside agency to investigate, not an internal whitewash.
Can anyone explain this?
“”Net zero must offer ‘carbon value for money’, says Carney”
It’s doubtful Carney knows what he means so no hope for the rest of us
It must have been All Too Hard [TM] to go and talk to their colleagues in the Agriculture faculty. They could have explained the geographic and climate zone dispersion of wheat growing.
Meat or dairy didn’t seem to get a guernsey, so they can probably be excused for not talking to the Veterinary Science faculty. Perhaps they needed to chat to the entomologists instead.
The shortage will be alleviated by an obvious source.
Ha! GB went through a “food crisis” during WW II and for several years after, with severe rationing, and managed to successfully fight a war while the shortages continued. There were no imports from Europe. And for about a year of that time German U-boats were sinking ships faster than they could be launched, there by significantly curtailing inbound shipments of food from everywhere else.
Things got so bad for a time that Churchill ordered the unloading of ships with cargoes of food that did arrive at the ports to have priority over those with war materials and pleaded with the Longshoremen to make their maximum effort to unload them as fast as possible.
And yet the Britons did not starve.
If I were the average Brit, I would be much more concerned about the shortage of energy.
We are – it’s 4C and…. the heating is on
2C alarm…..
It’s now 6c
Yep
Looking at the temperature anomaly visual one would get the idea that 5℃ to 10℃ is frying the affected areas. Its so hot people must wear sweaters.
Soon enough you’ll be a-boil
“The UK’s food system appears to be particularly vulnerable to significant disruption.”
Yes, it was called the U-boats and I don’t recall lots of stories of civil unrest during the food shortages of the Second World War.
There was a real live enemy then as opposed to a Climate Emergency which is invisible to everyone
“Climate Emergency”. The artificial enemy.
(“We have met the enemy and they are us”.)
“Climate change could ….”
Stopped there.
There’s that word again!
“If only there was a way to preserve and stockpile of food, to help carry us through shortages.”
There is- unless the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining.
Knocking out the GPS systems wouldn’t disrupt shipping, it doesn’t take long to learn to use a sextant and you can still buy a Nautical Almanac and a book of Nories Tables..
How many skilled navigators are there and does every ship carry one?
Depends. The ‘flags of convenience’ system of registry means that skill levels are probably lower than one might expect.
I’m available, for a price, GPS goes out, price goes up.
Youtube
As a Navy pilot, I learned that Earth-bound navigators use a geo-centric model. At first this startled me, but it’s obvious–why would you use something else to navigate on the Earth. I mentioned this on Compuserve a few years back, and someone claiming to be a Naval navigator with 20 years of experience said I was full of crap. If he’s correct, I wonder why all the data in the Navigator’s Almanac is with respect to someone on the surface of the Earth. I also wonder what type of model this so-called Naval navigator was using if not a geo-centric one.
“on Compuserve” wow.
News tip: State outlines climate threats, possible responses
https://articles.recorder.com/State-Outlines-Climate-Threats-Possible-Responses-52647617
I hope one of the editors here will turn this into a full story here. I was tempted to post all of it here but I don’t want to interject it into another’s essay and it’s a few days too late for the open thread.
Essentially, it shows just how utterly insane is the state of Wokeachusetts. I consider this state to be the epicenter of the new climate religion. Once you read this article you may agree.
I stopped reading at 50 years and 4.3 feet of sea level rise.
If I want to read fiction, there are better writers with more interesting stories.
And all the crazy sh*t in that article is the official version of the “climate emergency” by the state of Wokeachusetts! They make no pretense of science- no reference to any research- not even the IPCC- they just spit out endless nonsense- and now they’re planning on what to do about the sea rising 4.3 in 27 years! They will destroy the state’s economy and environment. And of course, in this state, nobody dares challenge the climate party line- not in the media, academia nor the business world. The state is now monolithic AGW.
No doubt a well-established, scientific, math based protocol, just like AI. All while implementing the centrally planned agricultural policies and processes that led to famine in the Soviet Union and CCP. Won’t they be surprised when it takes less than five years, rather than fifty, for the fake Greens to run out of food.
How long did it take Sri Lanka?
The more likely scenario are shortages due to the “smart people” attempting to fix the supply chain through micromanagement than anything the climate might impose. Think people like Mayor Pete who are experts on bike lanes and “road diets” imposing electric trucks as the solution to everything.
Don’t forget “racist roads!”
Another shiboleth regularly trotted out by the climate nut jobs.
If temperature alone was that big a problem for agriculture, then agricultural production should have been plummeted during the last 100 years as temperature rose during that period.
Instead production and productivity skyrocketed. It turns out warmth is good for plants, as is more CO2 in the air.
Research shows that trees are growing faster too.
Consumption linearly projected despite population growth slowdown while production held constant despite yield improvement records?
From the article: “Shortages of staple carbohydrates like wheat, bread, pasta and cereal appear to be the most likely triggers of such unrest.”
All garbage that nobody needs to eat. If there is going to be a food shortage, it will be manufactured by the governments of the world and their Supra-government managerial class such as the WEF.
Now, now- how are Italians and Italian Americans gonna survive without spaghetti? I had a great spaghetti dinner last night- whole grain pasta with home made sauce from home grown tomatoes.
Earth is not the same everywhere.
Did I say otherwise? Wtf
“All garbage that nobody needs to eat.”
That sounds a bit like what a radical vegan would say about eating meat.
Ok eat carbs till you have metabolic disease.
It looks like the Sun is capable of wiping out most all electrical and electronic equipment on Earth.
“Giant Solar Storm 14,000 Years Ago Leaves The Carrington Event in The Dust”
“The Carrington Event was a major reality check for a rapidly industrializing humanity. In September 1859, the Sun unleashed an eruption so powerful it sent electrical currents sweeping across Earth’s surface, wiping out telegraph systems around the world, with fires and mayhem.”
“We’ve not seen its like since, but ancient evidence suggests that our Sun is capable of more – so very much more. In the rings of ancient, partially fossilized trees, scientists have found evidence of a solar storm at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the Carrington Event.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-solar-storm-14000-years-ago-leaves-the-carrington-event-in-the-dust
I don’t understand how the same organizations can assume that events14000 years ago are compatible with tipping points and catastrophic change that happens in 30 years.
//www.dutchnews.nl/2023/10/saturdays-chill-ends-record-run-of-15-plus-temperatures/
”Saturday was the first day since May 17 that the temperature dipped below 15° in the De Bilt weather station near Utrecht, ending a record run of 149 days, weather bureau Weerplaza said. The previous record of 148 days was set in 1982.”
So NO global warming for 40 years it seems to me.
Logic! How dare you.
15c = 59f, for my fellow Americans
Thanks, and some of us actually know how to convert. And a few of us know how to derive the formula(s).
“Our findings indicate that food shortages stemming from extreme weather events could potentially lead to civil unrest in the UK within 50 years.”
If my count is correct, 57 individual “academics” have added yet another “academic” publication to their CV’s for asking an embarrassingly obvious question and reaching a preordained and equally obvious, though vague and distant, answer through a minimally rigorous process of interviewing selected “experts”. For you taxpayers wondering where the money goes when we invests in “science” this should clear that up. Any academic adventure that ends in “might”, “could”, “possibly”, “maybe”, “in some distant future” can be well replaced by opening the daily paper and reading your horoscope.
On the plus side this clearly proves that we have a wealth of poorly allocated resources that we could repurpose for something really useful, along with a very long list of people who aren’t yet properly contributing to the improvement of society and for whom we could find real and productive tasks.
Utilitarianism would be unkind to the young and the old.
attacks on global shipping which threaten to make mass transport of food and other goods impractically expensive.
ask yourself why gobal shipping is so Cheap.
https://policy.defense.gov/Portals/11/Documents/FY18%20DoD%20Annual%20FON%20Report%20(final).pdf?ver=2019-03-19-103517-010
the amrican taxpayer subsidizes the Freedon of Navigation.
The full study is a little more interesting than the Conversation article, they discuss supply chain disruptions which might actually happen
supply chain disruptions.
lets see.
ships being grounded in canals.
labor shortages preventing unloading
war— straights of malaca etc.
tariffs— other vstupid Trump ideas.
east china sea typhoons.
It surprised me to learn that tariffs are so often conservative in origin.
There were no tarrifs prior to Trump?
Canals? so sea levels are going to fall.. ?
Plenty of labour being imported into the UK.
Wars….. shirley the UN will stop them.. that is they were formed for, wasn’t it.
Tariffs.. yep , just let China keep dumping cheap labour products, and destroying local producers…
East China sea has never had typhoons before… really !?
So the whole thing is based on fantasies and imagination.
just let China keep dumping cheap labour products, and destroying local producers
The Chinese, whoever they are, can’t make anybody anywhere buy their products, regardless of the price. If an American sees a Chinese product that’s suitable for his purposes and it’s cheaper than its US counterpart he would be crazy not to buy it. In that way he has money left over to buy other things. If you’re worried about the survival of local producers, in addition to tariffs or import bans it should also be forbidden to trade in used products. No one should be able to buy a used car because that would have a negative effect on the auto makers. After reaching a certain age or mileage cars would be destroyed. Things would be great for the auto industry, less so for Joe Consumer.
If it’s bad for the US to allow free import of products from China or anywhere else wouldn’t it be ethically consistent to refuse to export products to those same countries? If the Chinese want and are willing to pay for whatever it is that the US has for sale there must be an unappreciated value that Americans fail to recognize. They should be required to buy any available production that would otherwise go overseas, don’t you think?