We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say [food shortages]
52 replies, posted
Posted by [URL="http://motherboard.vice.com/profiles/brian_merchant"]Brian_Merchant[/URL] on Monday, Sep 10, 2012
[IMG]http://assets.motherboard.tv/post_images/assets/000/013/637/climate-riots_large.jpeg?1347299725[/IMG]
What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It’s hunger, plain and simple. If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.
In [URL="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf"]a 2011 paper[/URL], researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest.
The [URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425019/the-cause-of-riots-and-the-price-of-food/"]MIT Technology Review[/URL] explains how CSI’s model works: “The evidence comes from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause.” Plot the data, and it looks like this:
[IMG]http://www.viceland.com/viceblog/80453462Riots-global.jpg[/IMG]
Pretty simple. Black dots are the food prices, red lines are the riots. In other words, whenever the UN’s food price index, which measures the monthly change in the price of a basket of food commodities, climbs above 210, the conditions ripen for social unrest around the world. CSI doesn’t claim that any breach of 210 immediately leads to riots, obviously; just that the probability that riots will erupt grows much greater. For billions of people around the world, food comprises up to 80% of routine expenses (for rich-world people like you and I, it’s like 15%). When prices jump, people can’t afford anything else; or even food itself. And if you can’t eat—or worse, your family can’t eat—you fight.
But how accurate is the model? An anecdote the researchers outline in the report offers us an idea. They write that “on December 13, 2010, we submitted a government report analyzing the repercussions of the global financial crises, and directly identifying the risk of social unrest and political instability due to food prices.” Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest food prices in Tunisia. And we all know [URL="http://utopianist.com/2011/02/protest-gone-pop-how-we-watch-forward-remix-the-revolution/"]what happened after that[/URL].
[IMG]http://www.viceland.com/viceblog/63314903tunisia-riots.jpeg[/IMG]
Today, the food price index is hovering around 213, where it has stayed for months—just beyond the tip of the identified threshold. Low corn yield in the U.S., the world’s most important producer, has helped keep prices high.
“Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe,” Yaneer Bar-Yam, one of the authors of the report, recently [URL="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/08/20128218556871733.html"]told Al Jazeera[/URL]. “When people are unable to feed themselves and their families, widespread social disruption occurs. We are on the verge of another crisis, the third in five years, and likely to be the worst yet, capable of causing new food riots and turmoil on a par with the Arab Spring.”
Yet the cost of food hasn’t quite yet risen to the catastrophic levels reached last year. Around the time of the riots cum-revolutions, we saw the food price index soar through 220 points and even push 240. This year, we’ve pretty consistently hovered in the 210-216 range—right along the cusp of danger. But CSI expects a perilous trend in rising food prices to continue. Even before the extreme weather scrambled food prices this year, their 2011 report predicted that the next great breach would occur in August 2013, and that the risk of more worldwide rioting would follow. So, if trends hold, these complex systems theorists say we’re less than one year and counting from a fireball of global unrest.
But the reality is that such predictions are now all but impossible to make. In a world well-warmed by climate change, unpredictable, extreme weather events like the [URL="http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/7/12/it-s-official-america-is-now-a-massive-natural-disaster-zone"]drought that has consumed 60% of the United States[/URL] and the [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/heat-forces-ranchers-to-sell-herds-to-cut-losses.html"]record heat that has killed its cattle[/URL] are now the norm. Just two years ago, heat waves in Russia crippled its grain yield and dealt a devastating blow to global food markets—the true, unheralded father of the Arab Spring was global warming, [URL="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/01/30/207426/egyptian-tunisian-riots-food-prices-extreme-weather-and-high-oil-prices/"]some say[/URL].
And it’s only going to get worse and worse and worse. Because of climate change-exacerbated disasters like these, “the average price of staple foods such as maize could more than double in the next 20 years compared with 2010 trend prices,” a [URL="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ib-extreme-weather-extreme-prices-05092012-en.pdf"]new report from Oxfam[/URL] reveals. That report details how the poor will be even more vulnerable to climate change-induced food price shocks than previously thought. After all, we’ve “loaded the climate dice,” as NASA’s James Hansen likes to say, and the chances of such disasters rolling out are greater than ever.
This all goes to say that as long as climate change continues to advance—it seems that nothing can stop that now—and we maintain a global food system perennially subject to volatile price spikes and [URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/aug/02/world-teetering-brink-global-food-crisis"]exploitation from speculators[/URL], without reform, our world will be an increasingly restive one. Hunger is coming, and so are the riots.
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I'm supposing third world nations are more at risk of mass rioting for food than first world nations given that first world nations tend to have better infrastructure to get food where it needs to go?
Also, I wish they had at least a few more examples of food prices = revolution other than just Tunisia. It would make the connection more concrete, at least to my eyes.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;37625153]I'm supposing third world nations are more at risk of mass rioting for food than first world nations given that first world nations tend to have better infrastructure to get food where it needs to go?[/QUOTE]
I didn't even notice that food prices went up in 2011 so unless there's a mass famine I don't think most first world countries are going to notice.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;37625153]I'm supposing third world nations are more at risk of mass rioting for food than first world nations given that first world nations tend to have better infrastructure to get food where it needs to go?
Also, I wish they had at least a few more examples of food prices = revolution other than just Tunisia. It would make the connection more concrete, at least to my eyes.[/QUOTE]
Obviously.
Problem is that as food prices go up, the rioting will spread westward.
As the article points out, it's greatly matter of climate - something that we don't expect to get exactly better, anytime soon, but quite the opposite.
To program or to farm; instead of lawyers, maybe these two professions will be in demand.
I mean, you obviously should take this with grain of salt (as long you have some left HE HE HE HE), it's just a model prediction, various things can influence it, but if I was you, I would try to look for alternate sources of food, just in case.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;37625162]Problem is that as food prices go up, the rioting will spread westward.
As the article points out, it's greatly matter of climate - something that we don't expect to get exactly better, anytime soon, but quite the opposite.[/QUOTE]
Do not worry westerners, our lawyers will protect and provide for us.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;37625162]Obviously.
Problem is that as food prices go up, the rioting will spread westward.
As the article points out, it's greatly matter of climate - something that we don't expect to get exactly better, anytime soon, but quite the opposite.[/QUOTE]
I have a hard time imagining cities across Europe and North America having simultaneous riots but I can accept the plausibility of grim reality when needed, sadly.
I hope it we get more food. And invest in better farming technology, like vertical farming for big cities.
I'm a skinny fuck who doesn't eat a lot of food to begin with. I'm a good 2-3 meals away from starvation.
[QUOTE=camacazie638;37625184]Do not worry westerners, our lawyers will protect and provide for us.[/QUOTE]
I wasn't aware that everybody was rushing to be a lawyer.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;37625211]I wasn't aware that everybody was rushing to be a lawyer.[/QUOTE]
I watch Law & Order, I think I got the basics
There's a joke being made here and it's sailing right over my head.
So why can't they just give everyone all of the food
I frankly fear for the future
Call me a pessimist, but with all our agricultural inventions and genetically modified crops, we can feed every human on the planet. Even then people are starving, from the simple economics of supply and demand and many living on dollars a day.
When the population expands past 8, 9 or 10 billion, can you imagine how much worse this will get?
[QUOTE=MRTW113;37625275]I frankly fear for the future
Call me a pessimist, but with all our agricultural inventions and genetically modified crops, we can feed every human on the planet. Even then people are starving, from the simple economics of supply and demand and many living on dollars a day.
When the population expands past 8, 9 or 10 billion, can you imagine how much worse this will get?[/QUOTE]
People are starving because if they price of food drops dramatically, it'll put a lot of farmers bankrupt - and then who will grow the food?
Not to mention that a lot of those starving already can't afford much food to begin with and it's expensive to hand out free food all the time to them, no matter how humanitarian or noble it may be.
[QUOTE=RosettaStoned;37625266]So why can't they just give everyone all of the food[/QUOTE]
Because of reality....
In other words who wants to work for no pay?
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;37625211]I wasn't aware that everybody was rushing to be a lawyer.[/QUOTE]
Well with the whole [I]"Apple VS everybody"[/I] ordeal, it seems like it's a stable and well paying job.
Won't gasoline amounts dropping also affect this? Literally every part of agriculture is fuiled by it.
[editline]11th September 2012[/editline]
Sorry for shitty spelling, the backspace key on my android is malfunctioning.
Perhaps instead of investing in my high-performance street car I should be investing in preparation tools.
Time to load up on ammunition, canned food, firearms, gasmasks and lots and lots of vodka....
[QUOTE=Mr. Smartass;37625411]Won't gasoline amounts dropping also affect this? Literally every part of agriculture is fuiled by it.
[editline]11th September 2012[/editline]
Sorry for shitty spelling, the backspace key on my android is malfunctioning.[/QUOTE]
There's most likely a giant web of reasons all tied together, some causing others, others caused by a bunch.
Riots happen because of food shortages, food shortages because of fuel shortages, fuel shortages because of whatever, whatever shortages because etc.
I have noticed some groceries are becoming more and more expensive, good to know my breaking point will be next year.
Rioting in poor countries will leave them vulnerable to extremists, who can grab power by promising to fight for food. This could force first world countries to send troops to various places in order to protect strategic resources. This, as Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, will cost huge amounts of money. So while first worlders may not pay that much more for [i]food[/i], they will still pay.
That's just one possible consequence.
and then NWO
I thought companies fuck over farmers a lot and the price changes come from nigh-monopolies deciding they want more lamborghinis per month, though?
Like how whole live chickens cost a farmer 28 cents or so.
Don't we get these bullshit fearmongering predictions every year?
dont worry guys i got this my friend has like 10 bullets
durr free murrkettt will survive!!! and fix this
[QUOTE=MRTW113;37625275]I frankly fear for the future
Call me a pessimist, but with all our agricultural inventions and genetically modified crops, we can feed every human on the planet. Even then people are starving, from the simple economics of supply and demand and many living on dollars a day.
When the population expands past 8, 9 or 10 billion, can you imagine how much worse this will get?[/QUOTE]
Since in western societies 50% of the food is thrown away(mostly in restaurants and super markets), I hope this will be an incentive to get better.
[editline]11th September 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Bobie;37626088]durr free murrkettt will survive!!! and fix this[/QUOTE]
The speculation with food is a part of the problem.
Well it has to happen eventually, it doesnt seem like anything will change if there aren't some serious wake up calls at this rate. Better sooner than later, maybe we can get on that venus project train within the millenium. :v:
Well, just glad that denmark is pretty much self sufficient in food.
I'm a bit confused. Am I reading this right? Is it going to be third world countries? Or does it include UK, USA, AUS, etc?
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