We’re in the midst of a global food crisis — the second in three years. World food prices hit a record in January, driven by huge increases in the prices of wheat, corn, sugar and oils. These soaring prices have had only a modest effect on U.S. inflation, which is still low by historical standards, but they’re having a brutal impact on the world’s poor, who spend much if not most of their income on basic foodstuffs.
Maybe this wouldn't be the best time to mention another contributing factor, such as green policies which increase the cost of electricity which especially hurt the poor. Evidently, when pain is inflicted upon the poor by the decisions and actions of folks like Paul Krugman that is not a crisis. It's tough love. Otherwise, its a crisis.
The consequences of this food crisis go far beyond economics. After all, the big question about uprisings against corrupt and oppressive regimes in the Middle East isn’t so much why they’re happening as why they’re happening now. And there’s little question that sky-high food prices have been an important trigger for popular rage.
Really? For some reason this "important trigger" seems to have escaped the people actually protesting in places like Tunisia. Indeed, the inflation rate in Tunisia for was only 3.5-4.5% which ranks only 120th in the world in terms of inflation. So, where exactly is this supposed source for "food rioting"? When one looks at the photographs of the protests in Tunisia one does not see people complaining about a lack of food. They are complaining about politics.
In fact, it was the Tunisian regime which attempted to make this all about food prices, and that was an approach rejected by the Tunisian people:
Protesters chanted slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a day after he went on TV to promise lower food prices and new freedoms for Tunisians. Demonstrators shouted "Ben Ali, out!" and "Ben Ali, assassin!" One poster read "We won't forget," a reference to the rioters killed, many by police bullets.
Pent-up anger at unemployment and at a leadership many see as controlling and corrupt has exploded into protests and clashes with police over the past few weeks. The official death toll in the riots is 23, but that figure has not been updated in days. Opposition leaders put the figure at three times that. [ed. emphasis added]
It was, in actuality, the political success of the protests in Tunisia which were the triggers of the protest movements in other repressive regimes in the area.
So, where does this myth of food riots come from? From the global warming cabal, where else?
Krugman links to this piece from "Climate Progress" (gee, with a name like that you simply HAVE to trust their objectivity, right?):
Expert consensus grows on contribution of record high food prices to Middle East unrest
Uh oh. It's time for another "consensus," eh? OK, so who are your "experts" Climate Progress?
"Experts" linked in the story include:
Ben Grossman-Cohen, press officer for Oxfam. (enough said.)
Derek Thompson of The Atlantic who writes on economics, and actually had this to say about Egypt:
Blame President Hosni Mubarak, who has shut his country off from the global economy. As Zachary Karabell reports in the Wall Street journal, the country ranks 137 in the world in per-capita income (behind Tonga, ahead of Kirbati). The government has failed to capitalize on $2 billion in annual U.S. aid, $5 billion in Suez Canal dues and $10 billion in tourism, which flourishes despite, not because of, the country's infrastructure.
Egypt's brand of socialism strangles the private sector in at least two significant ways. First, most investment projects must be reviewed by the government and with public ownerships dominating finance, that makes it especially difficult for entrepreneurs to get access to funding. Second, corruption is rank. Egypt ranks 111th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009, according to the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedoms, and "bribery of low-level civil servants seems to be a part of daily life."
So, this expert, doesn't blame the "acute shock" of the rise in foodstuffs. He blames Mubarak's brand of crony socialism. Thomson doesn't blame floods; he blames corrupt political policies.
Another expert cited by Climate Progess is economist Nouriel Roubini who said...
Rising prices are "leading to riots, demonstrations and political instability," New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini said during a panel discussion. "It's really something that can topple regimes, as we have seen in the Middle East."
However, a look at Prof. Roubini's vita shows no published work on the question of food/commodity prices and political instability. Now, Roubini may have a gut feeling on the matter, and his experience generally on issues of political economy may give his gut feelings a little more weight than some others, that is hardly the basis to declare "consensus" on the matter.
The last "expert" Climate Progress invokes to create "consensus" is...wait for it... themselves!
So, creating consensus seems to be a little like Napoleon crowning himself emperor. (It's probably good work if you can get it.)
But here is the crux of Krugman's lying:
While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning.
This is simply wrong scientifically. There is no evidence conecting these weather events to climate change. None. Oh, there is plenty of speculation on the part of economists, journalists, press officers, and partisan hacks of all stripes, but there is no proof. There is no evidence that we are witnessing extreme weather events that are more servere or which occur more often than in the past.
Sadly, a complete lack of evidence is never enough to deter the truly fevered.
Krugman continued:
As always, you can’t attribute any one weather event to greenhouse gases. But the pattern we’re seeing, with extreme highs and extreme weather in general becoming much more common, is just what you’d expect from climate change.
Typical Krugman. "You can't do X, but I'm gonna do it anyway."
Until the warmists tell us what weather wouldn't "be expected" by their theory (i.e. what would count as falsifying their hypothesis), there is no reason to pay attention to them. For them, every possible occurrence is compatible with their theory, which is the same thing as saying their theory is meaningless.
ADDING:
Noel Sheppard points to the following graph charting wheat prices:
Commenting on this graph Roger Pielke Jr. states:
Good luck disentangling a long-term climate signal in the long-term data, which shows a significant decline in grain prices, much less attributing such a signal to a particular cause. Efforts to link short-term wiggles to the effects of greenhouse gas emissions go well beyond the canons of empirical science, to use a polite euphemism from The Climate Fix.
Whatever Krugman is on about, it isn't science.
Gleaned from Memeorandum.
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