r/science • u/calliope_kekule Professor | Social Science | Science Comm • 2d ago
Environment Modelling shows a 2°C warmer world makes it far more likely that major farming regions fail at the same time, pushing world crop prices into sudden spikes.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aeae541.5k
u/NihiloZero 1d ago
To be clear... "pushing world crop prices into sudden spikes" means "increasing the number of people who starve."
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u/Direct-Translator-75 1d ago
This is such a mad way of communicating it. It's everywhere in the news. "Food prices might rise". Nah bruh, people die.
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u/BotherEconomy4413 1d ago
I don't think anyone cares unless it is them personally. And yeah. By then it too late.
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u/RocketRelm 1d ago
"Because clearly what we need is our science papers to use less accurate and sensationalized verbage."
I would much rather have at least some raw facts available without moralizing stapled on, regardless of whether I agree with a given viewpoint. We don't need literally everything to be click bait.
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u/Konker101 1d ago
Shareholder profits tho
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u/btmalon 1d ago
This would be beyond shareholder profits. This would be an actual logistical nightmare regardless of what economic system you live under. Similar to gas going up after the Straight of Hormuz blockade.
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u/cuntmong 1d ago
if people are desperate there is always money to be made. capitalism baby
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u/tomatoesrfun 1d ago
I’ll always think of that scene in the Grapes of Wrath when farmers were dumping oranges into water canals and burning them rather than giving them to starving people.
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u/DaEnderAssassin 1d ago
So what your saying is they could fire the logistics side of things and increase the prices even higher? That sounds like a win to them, atleast for the current quarter/year.
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u/NimusNix 1d ago
Shhhh, shhh shhh, they can only think in terms of class warfare. The fact human stupidity existed before capitalism is an arcane subject approaching myth to them...
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u/RealKillerSean 1d ago
Remember the shareholders can afford…. You can’t!
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u/maxm 1d ago
Shareholders are just people with savings. Typically for their pensions.
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u/RealKillerSean 1d ago
Pensions are gone unless you have a SEP IRA. 401ks are not as good as the old options.
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u/TRKlausss 1d ago
Shareholders can’t earn money if there is nothing to sell, doesn’t matter at what price.
Sure, they will sell whatever they have at a higher markup, but if all crops fail altogether, they won’t be able to supply any. In a fair market, prices are high because no one is selling, not because sellers just push it up…
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u/ironykarl 1d ago
I'm assuming they meant the shareholders of companies that have pushed us this far, because they profit from the status quo (e.g. oil companies)
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u/TRKlausss 1d ago
Oh totally. Oil companies are the primary source of that, there is a lot of contention now here in Germany about whether we should tax harder when a company has too much revenue (Übergewinnsteuer)
Obviously the current government loves companies and lobbies, and are fighting hard against it, but the polls are already showing it beautifully.
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u/JurboVolvo 1d ago
Oh and they need that ice to melt so they can ship more oil in the northern hemisphere…
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u/My_Plump_Wheel 1d ago
Especially in import-dependent developing nations where food already accounts for a massive percentage of household income. When multiple breadbaskets fail simultaneously, export restrictions usually follow almost immediately, compounding the supply shock.
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u/Crayshack 1d ago
We'd also see some places that are not currently import dependent suddenly become so with such cropland failures.
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u/ScienceMajestic8716 1d ago
And they are worried about people having less kids.
That's the only way the world can heal without a huge crisis.
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u/LetMePushTheButton 1d ago
Bill Gates over there with his 300k acres of farm land being the largest private farmland owner in the USA.
He’ll be the next ‘legitimate’ trillionaire while we all die and political power in further entrenched into the hands of the owner class.
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u/fishblurb 1d ago
It's okay. The rich already have plans to kill the poors 'stealing' their god-given share of resources. They're already starting with ICE and all.
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u/CardiologistPrize712 15h ago
And not like... People from nebulously far away countries the viewer hasn't heard of, of global food networks shut down every country on earth will be digging mass graves, even the rich ones.
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u/vitringur 1d ago
No, it does not mean that. It can. But it does not necessarily.
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u/TsumeOkami 1d ago
Under what circumstances does it not mean that?
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u/vitringur 1d ago
Under any of the countless circumstances where people simply do not just forego other expenditures in their lives in order to pay the higher prices.
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u/Bawfuls 1d ago
As long as we live under globalized capitalism it does
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u/vitringur 1d ago
Globalized capitalism is the only reason we have plentiful food supply in the first place...
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u/TsumeOkami 1d ago
It's almost as if optimising supply chains to within an inch of their lives with no room for error is actually pretty dangerous
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u/Jokerit208 2d ago
That's an intended feature, not a bug.
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u/POEness 2d ago
There are only two futures: we kill the rich, or they kill us.
They know this. We don't
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u/Jebral 1d ago
We're all dead, man.
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u/HigherandHigherDown 1d ago
Oh come on, I'm sure a few million people have a reasonable shot at some form of dystopian, post-apocalyptic life.
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u/Exita 1d ago
Bluntly, if you’re here on Reddit, you class as ‘the rich’ in this scenario. The western world will find ways to cope. The third world will die.
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u/Aiyakiu 1d ago
I don't agree. The Trump administration did one thing admirably well - we keep seeing, in multiple photographs surrounding him, who the "rich" in this scenario is. And they've been, and are building, bunkers.
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u/PrimordialXY 1d ago
You don't need to agree, objectively speaking you're very likely in the top 10% of the total population in terms of purchasing power. Literal billions of people would trade lives with you
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u/jankenpoo 1d ago
They won’t kill us. They need us to build our own prisons on the moon and Mars.
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u/nothanks86 1d ago
You think we're going to survive doing that?
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u/jankenpoo 1d ago
Well it’s probably cheaper to keep you alive once you’re on the moon or mars, but only until there’s no need for your labor or you’re injured. Then you just get spaced
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u/TsumeOkami 1d ago
It's a feature of the fuckin free market economics cult we're forced to live under
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u/Q-ArtsMedia 1d ago
It's called famine and let's not beat around the bush on it. When, not if, the crops fail anarchy will rise.
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u/TsumeOkami 1d ago
The article clearly says that this will happen and says diversifying and improving capacity to store food to prevent shortages is important
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OrangeandMango 1d ago
Thing is, when we look at the world and those that will starve, you are part of the rich (as is probably everyone on Reddit)
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u/Asymptomatic_Moose 1d ago
This is a really good point. Average Redditor, most probably from a Western country, will definitely be on the menu and not the eating party. Today's "problematic" immigration will look like an average tourist season compared to hundreds of millions of hungry people coming from countries left barren by drought and heat.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 1d ago
Higher chances they just line the border with troops like it’s the dmz
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u/Golden_Hour1 1d ago
Genuine question but if it ever got to the point of a billion people fleeing their country due to unlivable conditions, what exactly do you do? That many people cant be spread out in "livable" countries its just not feasible especially if those countries are already dealing with food scarcity
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u/Asymptomatic_Moose 1d ago
You are still thinking in terms of regular immigration processes. This is going to be more like scenes from World War Z
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u/waltwalt 1d ago
Unless their government builds them boats they are not showing up in North America, Europe on the other hand...
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u/turbosexophonicdlite 1d ago
South and Central America exists too.
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u/waltwalt 1d ago
If you think America is going to let an actual wave of immigrants wash across it you haven't been paying attention the last decade or two.
If waves of starving immigrants show up they will actually build that wall.
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u/Ansiremhunter 1d ago
You arm the borders with military
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u/wittnotyoyo 1d ago
Create a new paramilitary force focused on immigration, fund it better than the marines and set them loose without those pesky things holding them back like ROE or the UMCJ.
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u/Asymptomatic_Moose 1d ago
How many people do you think they can kill? Thousand? A million? 10 million? There's 100 times more coming
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u/ffddb1d9a7 1d ago
This is unironically going to be a big problem and a major reason why many nations are harping on border security now. I'm a bleeding heart lefty commie but the reality is you do need to close the door at some point.
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u/fgreen68 1d ago
Focus on the billionaires driving Maybach/Rolls. There are working class people that can lease AMG Mercedes or buy them used.
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u/Legionof1 1d ago
Start with the Bentley and Rolls first, some people just like fast German cars for some reason.
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u/Soracaz 1d ago edited 1d ago
He have the numbers, the still fertile land, and the common sense for the vast majority of us to band together and fix it still. The planet does not care for us one bit, if we all suddenly died off everything would be back to normal within a decade.
But the billionaire class needs to go if we are to survive. They gotta go. Today.
Eat 'em all.
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u/Lower-Limit3695 1d ago
It's gonna take technological miracles to sustain agricultural production. Fortunately one solution over the horizon is electro-farming which removes the need for sunlight to grow crops and replaces it with acetate.
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u/n00b678 1d ago
3/4 of agricultural land is used for animal agriculture, which provides less than 20% calories globally. We don't need any technological miracles, we just need to minimise consumption of animal products.
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u/Aiyakiu 1d ago
There's also more to it. You have cultural norms, tradition, and psychology involved here too in the workers/industry, the surrounding peoples affected, and the people who consumed the product. You can't just demand all the cattle farmers to swap to sustainable farming like a snap of the fingers. Who will invest in changing the infrastructure? Then there's also how people react when their lives are changed by an external force (we saw how people dealt with COVID, it wasn't uplifting).
Edit: I also want to answer my own question here - governments should invest in changing the infrastructure. But we see how well that's been going. I don't see a small chance that the free market changes things for the good of the people instead of profit.
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u/croutonballs 1d ago
yes, exactly, we are locked into a catastrophic timeline because we are too slow and resistant to change and we like stupidity
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u/ZebraTank 1d ago
When beef is $30/lb consumers will switch and then producers will reduce beef production, leaving more arable land for other things. And if $30 isn't enough, then $100 will be.
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u/Exita 1d ago
Not always that simple. In the UK at least, most animal grazing is on land which is unproductive for growing crops. Fine for grass and animals though.
So grazing animals allows use of otherwise unproductive land and is therefore more efficient than growing crops alone.
Clearly not true everywhere.
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u/wildlifewyatt 1d ago
It isn't just about grazing. It is about crops grown to feed livestock. The UK uses ~40% arable land for of its wheat and barley that is fed to livestock https://www.wwf.org.uk/press-release/transform-uk-farmland-boost-food-resilience
They also import a lot of soy to feed their livestock. So the UK is not some shining example of doing it right. The reality is when possible and practical, from an environmental standard (less land use, less water, less GHG, etc.), people who heavily limit or eliminate their animal product consumption. We are talking into a catastrophe, and we need to begin rapidly adapting.
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u/Exita 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even that isn’t a simple as it sounds. You’re right - a lot of wheat does go to feed. A lot of that depends in whether the wheat is ‘milling quality’ or not - and that can depend on loads of factors, including the weather and the quality of the ground. So a farmer can grow wheat fully intending it for human consumption only to find that no one will buy it - so it goes for feed.
Agreed that we shouldn’t be importing soya. Grass fed beef is by far preferable - though it’ll be unpopular due to the expense.
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u/n00b678 1d ago
Then we could regrow forests there. Most of the Scottish highlands were covered by the Caledonian Forest before they were displaced by mainly pastures.
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u/Exita 1d ago
So the answer to ‘we don’t have enough land to grow food’ is… remove even more land by growing trees?
If this is the crisis people are saying it is, we might be rather glad of sheep growing on marginal grassland.
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u/n00b678 1d ago
Rewilding pastures and other excess land would bind a lot of carbon, offsetting 2/3 of all emissions this century. But some people prefer steak, I suppose.
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u/WitnessSorry2054 1d ago
Yeah at 2 degrees that maybe will do it but it wont stop there
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u/n00b678 1d ago
The added value is that it would reduce the emissions (and therefore warming) and cause massive carbon uptake due to land use change.
There's no reason not to do it.
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u/LosMorbidus 1d ago
Looks like meat is back on the menu boys!
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u/Wise_Monkey_Sez 1d ago
It is also critical to remember that a 2 degree change is across the year.
If the winter is 5 degrees colder and the summer is 7 degrees hotter that means a 2 degree change across the year.
And this is what is happening in many places. the winter used to be 0 degrees, now it is -5. The summer used to be 30 degrees, now it is 37 degrees.
This is what a lot of people misunderstand about climate change. They think the summer was 30 degrees and now it will be 32 degrees.
It doesn't work like that.
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u/Ezekiel_29_12 1d ago
No, the headline is referring to the world average temperature being 2 C above the pre-industrial average. We're at about 1.5 C now and climbing.
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u/SillyOldJack 1d ago
We're no longer in the era of "climate change will cause mass humanitarian crises," and are now close enough to see the details of how it's going to cause said crises.
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u/risingsuncoc 1d ago
Not to mention, we’ve known this for a long time now
It’s the failure of governments to act that we’re in this situation
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u/Lollipopsaurus 1d ago
Would decentralizing farming and moving to a vertical farming model be safer for food stability?
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u/eggnogui 1d ago
While it's probable that yes, the time require to build all of that up would not be just a couple of years.
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u/NovelStyleCode 1d ago
Depends on how urgent it feels, if a country looks at their projections and sees complete collapse within 5 years if they don't secure food and water they're going to be a lot more eager to skip all of the red tape and turn this stuff into mega projects
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u/croutonballs 1d ago
safer but more expensive as it stands
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u/Thirdwhirly 1d ago
Money should not be the problem. It is, I know, but it shouldn’t be considering the benefits.
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u/MacroMicro1313 1d ago
I got an idea let’s make a nutrient paste out of whatever biological mass we can find. Perhaps some sort of starch perhaps
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u/coffeesgonecold 21h ago
Would it mean that some areas would benefit from higher temps become viable? Idk
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u/matchosan 12h ago
Is there a map showing these vulnerable areas in correlation to, say, the land that Bill Gates, or some other megalomaniac, owns?
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u/CapBenjaminBridgeman 1d ago
Yeah we are doomed, the only question is how long will it take before everything just collapses?
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u/PMacDiggity 1d ago
I expect we’ll see swings even greater than this once the AMOC collapses. Personally I think that will be the trigger event that caused mass migration and agricultural failure that will tip human civilization to the breaking point. Just as we can have LLMs design bio weapons. What a time to be alive.
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u/ghidfg 2d ago
Ok but what would it take to increase the weather by 2 degrees?
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u/TheunanimousFern 1d ago
It would take humanity continuing to treat the planet as we currently do. Which unfortunately seems entirely likely
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u/_Phil_McCracken_ 1d ago
Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep dumping greenhouse gasses. It’s settled science. Humans are the cause.
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u/Winter_Doge 1d ago
Well we are on track to passing that easily by 2100...
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u/kazarnowicz 1d ago
At the current rate of warming (which accelerated the past decade) we have 15 years before hitting 2C warming.
That is assuming the acceleration doesn’t continue, in which case we have less.
We are living in the exponential part of climate destabilization.
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u/No-Arugula8122 1d ago
If it warmer, there will be more plant growth and more areas that can sustain more plant growth. Way more people die from the cold than the warm. I am suspicious of some of these “models”
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u/xlvi_et_ii 1d ago
Plants need more than just heat - climate change is predicted to significantly increase the incidence of drought and change existing precipitation patterns.
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u/HigherandHigherDown 1d ago
Did you mean there will be more plant growth due to elevated CO2 levels? When it gets too hot the plants will stop photosynthesizing (for C3 plants at 40C), which will presumably be a problem. Water availability will also be an issue, more areas will experience drought, water will evaporate at higher rates, many aquifers are becoming increasingly depleted; this might limit the amount of time plants can open their stomata and thus photosynthesize. I really wouldn't count on a net positive in vegetated areas or plant biomass.
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