Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Climate change contributing to rising food prices

Study links climate change and rising food prices, as I suggested back here, here, here and here. The study argues that changing weather patterns have held back the growth in global food production by around 5%, contributing about 20% of the recent doubling of prices (which also have other causes).

BBC: Nitrogen pollution estimated to be costing £55 billion to £280 billion annually in Europe alone.

Guardian: How to tell the difference between the rule of law and a police state in the light of Ian Tomlinson, the protester unlawfully killed by police and the subsequent alleged cover up.

Common Dreams: This is what resistance looks like.
H/T Matheson.

Paul Gilding: The great disruption arrives. Different authors use a variety of phrases to speak of the converging ecological and resource crises facing humanity: the great emergency, the long descent, Eaarth, planet triage, the Anthropocene, the great acceleration and so on.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases a new report that finds up to 77% of global electricity primary power generation from renewable power by 2050 is both technically and economically feasible. The primary barriers are political.

Guardian: Why supermarkets are odious. We are blessed with a weekly farmers market a few hundred metres from our door, and have a deal with a local farm to receive a box of fresh produce each fortnight. Even so, it is hard to avoid supermarkets entirely.

SMH: How much does an iPad really cost? Although Apple are far from the only company with shady production conditions, they are the largest and were recently fingered as also having the worst ecological record, so highlighting their failure is legitimate. These conditions are not inevitable. Companies could be held responsible for the full life-cycle of their product, which would provide a significant incentive to shift design assumptions away from built-in obsolescence (which is currently the industry standard). It is also worth noting that many of these pieces of equipment are not just bad for the workers who produce them and the ecological systems on which we all rely for life, but can be part of the shrinking of the consumerist soul into finding an identity and satisfaction in what is bought and consumed.

Guardian: In a secret deal between Pakistan and the US, agreed in 2001 and renewed in 2008, Pakistan allegedly agreed to unilateral US strikes as long as they were allowed to publicly decry them afterwards. I don't think that this kind of agreement is conducive to healthy international relations in the long term, as it undermines trust when parties are revealed to be dissembling.

And because I haven't raised enough controversial topics in this post yet, I thought I'd mention this new study of more than ten thousand children that found that breast feeding is linked to fewer behavioural problems.

18 comments:

byron smith said...

Guardian: More police misinformation about Tomlinson.

byron smith said...

One of the other factors in rising food prices are oil prices.

byron smith said...

FAO Food Price Index for 1990 - 2011. This is a very interesting graph and tells a worrying story.

byron smith said...

NASA animation of rising global surface temperatures.

byron smith said...

Stephen Leahy: Agro-ecology doubles production while halving greenhouse emissions according to a UN report. But it is, for some strange reason, opposed by industrial agriculture giants...

byron smith said...

More on Paul Gilding and his book The Great Disruption.

byron smith said...

198 methods of non-violent action.

byron smith said...

CP: Analysis of the IPCC report on renewables.

byron smith said...

These two stories are not good news for food prices.

Drought in Texas.

Drought in France.

There is no natural weather any more, only the climate that we are changing.

byron smith said...

BBC: Interview with Jody McIntyre, activist with cerebal palsy who was violently pulled from his wheelchair twice by police during the recent student protests and yet the reporter implicitly blames McIntyre, who responds - well, it must be seen to be believed.

byron smith said...

Guardian: the role of biofuels in rising food prices.

byron smith said...

SkSci on the IPCC renewables report.

byron smith said...

Carbon Brief: Update on the IPCC renewables report and some important clarification of the headline claim about potential for renewables to supply 77% of primary energy production by 2050.

byron smith said...

Paul Gilding: Like a grenade in a glasshouse.

byron smith said...

Dominic Rushe: Apple pips Exxon as world's biggest.

byron smith said...

Brave New Climate: IPCC renewables report taken apart.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Ian Tomlinson case: tried - and failed.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Another Met police bungle - black youth stopped and searched something like 50 times, many times arrested, and finally charged, only to have the charges dropped when CCTV footage undermined the police story.