PerspectiveBomb Cyclones and Breadbaskets: How Climate, Food, and Political Unrest Intersect
As climate change continues to increase both the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, extreme consequences can emerge across and downstream from these supply chains. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report discusses at length the challenges that increasing global population and climatic volatility pose to food and water scarcity—and, consequently, to social and economic systems. As a result, weather and climate forecasting— coupled with the computer-aided modeling of economic and political resilience to such events—could help improve predictions of political flashpoints greatly at a time of unprecedented environmental change.
The torrential downpour, ice, and eventual flooding of the US plains on March 15 and 16 left ranchers stunned. The aptly named “bomb cyclone”—the official term employed by meteorologists—brought increased economic anguish to the Midwest. Vast stretches of productive farmland were flooded and rendered unusable, as cattle corpses rotted. Estimates of the impacts to just Nebraska’s livestock sector topped $400 million. Tack on another estimated $440 million in losses to the Cornhusker state’s row crops, plus $449 million in infrastructure costs, and that makes for more than $1.3 billion in total direct costs from just one extreme weather event in just one state. Total economic losses across the Midwest from the record-breaking flooding this spring are now estimated to be over $12.5 billion.
David Harary and Sunny Petzinger write in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that with damages still being tallied even now, the full impact of lost stored grain, feed, and cattle on the 2019 planting season is still unknown. While grain prices did initially increase substantially, a combination of both strong global supply and shifting international trade policies has since allowed prices to drop. Foreign markets that rely on US corn and beef may be at a particularly vulnerable junction. As the largest producer of these two commodities in the world, any shocks to the U.S. agricultural market can have a significant impact on food security and political stability overseas.
They write:
As climate change continues to increase both the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, extreme consequences can emerge across and downstream from these supply chains. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report discusses at length the challenges that increasing global population and climatic volatility pose to food and water scarcity—and, consequently, to social and economic systems. As a result, weather and climate forecasting— coupled with the computer-aided modeling of economic and political resilience to such events—could help improve predictions of political flashpoints greatly at a time of unprecedented environmental change.
