World's poor are up in arms over food prices

People are rioting in the streets over the spiralling cost of food, but what is causing the crisis?

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There were street riots over the price of basic foods in Mexico and India last year, and in Jakarta, Indonesia, last week. China and Russia have slapped controls on food prices to prevent unrest and inflation. Low-income Americans are feeling the pinch of 10 per cent increases for bread, 19 per cent for milk. Italians boycotted pasta for a day last September in protest at a 7 per cent price ...

Read New Scientist / World's poor are up in arms over food prices (subscription required).

Danish bakery poster on rising bread prices. Doesn't mention "climate change" or "global warming" but blame the Chinese for buying our food, two years of bad harvests, biofuel, droughts in Southern Europe and empty granaries.

Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential

A very interesting report by Bellarby, Foereid, Hastings and Smith published by Greenpeace: Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential.

Agriculture is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Greenpeace’s new report Cool Farming details the destructive practices resulting from industrial agriculture and presents workable solutions to help reduce its contribution to climate change. These practical changes will benefit the environment as well as farmers and consumers throughout the world. This report details for the first time all direct and indirect contribution agriculture has on climate change. It was written by Professor Pete Smith, a lead author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, and his research team at the University of Aberdeen.

It may seem a bit off topic for this blog. But agriculture is ecosystem management. Obviously, bad management may change the ecosystem in unfavorable ways - like polluting it, degrading it or feed climate change. Which may in turn lead to conflict. Or perhaps sustainable management could help stop wars both future and present?

Bahrain environmentalists protest the mass destruction in Iraq

"War is the first enemy of the environment [...] The use of depleted uranium affects those living and future generations. Many children are being born deformed or are getting cancer because of the depleted uranium. [...] We lit candles to remember victims of Bush's terror against the environment and humanity"

- Khawla Al Muhannadi

Report: Peak Oil And The Australian Army

This paper discusses the impact of the peaking and then decline in world oil production — commonly known as Peak Oil — on the Australian Army from a Raise, Train and Sustain perspective. Peak Oil is described as the implications of Peak Oil at a global and national level. The likely impacts of Peak Oil on the Australian Army are then analysed against four of the inputs to military capability, being personnel, equipment, training and doctrine. The paper suggests a number of actions that can be taken to reduce the impact of Peak Oil on the Australian Army.

Read 37 page PDF-format report by Major Cameron Leckie.

Climate Change as a Security Risk

UN warns on climate change-related conflict

"We allow conflicts to arise and then invest a lot in peace-building afterwards,” Achim Steiner, the head of [UN Environment Programme], told the Financial Times. “What this report is saying is to invest in preventing some of this from happening and you will have a far lower human and economic cost. You risk also far less conflict in the world and that means preparing your governance for these kinds of scenarios."

"It’s not just a question of ice melting in 30 years. If you look at food inflation running at 18 per cent in China [this year] on the back of Australia’s drought that’s increasing wheat prices, it is happening now." [British official]

Africa: Climate Change - Heating Up Conflict

Increasing pressure caused by climate change on essential resources like water could not only trigger domestic conflicts but also have a destabilising effect globally, warn UN officials. [(my emphasis)...] "We are not trying to depoliticise the [Darfur] conflict," said Steiner, "[but] we need to learn, to understand, that if we had taken into account some of the factors [related to climate change], we could have avoided some of the conflicts that have exploded. [...] If we look at South Asia alone, the melting [glaciers would mean] tens of millions of people will have to leave their livelihoods. Where will they go? How will they impact on the host communities that receive them?" said Steiner. "We must look at the potential security threat posed by these changes - we cannot bury our heads in the sand."

Both articles are essentially about the release of the report Climate Change as a Security Risk. According to a quick Google search it sells for "only £67.50". Fortunately, it also turns up Climate Change as a Security Risk - Summary for Policy-Makers.