Wednesday, August 21, 2013

"The modelling used here is quite special": As record crops grow this summer, insane new paper suggests that CO2 will cause cereal grain prices to increase 40% by 2050

And of course, the "solution" is to make energy more expensive and less reliable.

Climate models predict hard times ahead for global food production | Carbon Brief
The research [Tol/Betts et al], published in the journal Climatic Change, shows that under both optimistic and pessimistic scenarios of future emissions, the many effects of climate change could together cause food production to fall 0.5 per cent by the end of this decade, and 2.3 per cent by the 2050s.

As a result of the decrease in food production, the price of food is set to rise, the paper says. By midcentury, staple foods like cereal grains, sugar cane and wheat are expected to be around 40 per cent more expensive than at present.

Fruit and vegetable prices are expected to rise 30 per cent by 2050, while the cost of rice is likely to be almost 20 per cent higher than today:
...
The modelling used here is quite special, because as part of looking at how climate change could affect food production, it also looks at how climate change will affect water availability.
Get Ready For Food Prices To Go Way Up, Thanks To Climate Change | ThinkProgress
Climate change will likely push food prices up 20 to 40 percent, regardless of cuts to future carbon emissions, new research in the journal Climatic Change concluded.

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