100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

[touchring]

At the current rate of weather change, one day, there will be a freak weather condition that will cover the tropics, the Amazon jungle with frost, killing millions of hectares of jungle and destroying millions of hectares of farmland on a global basis, reducing world food supply by 20%.

Food prices rise 10-20x, famine will breakout in India and China, tens of million of poor people in both countries starve to death. A hundred million people worldwide starve to death.

And Americans go on diet. ;)

[Rajiv]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

Food prices rise 10-20x, famine will breakout in India and China, tens of million of poor people in both countries starve to death. A hundred million people worldwide starve to death.

A distinct possibility -- though my casualty estimates are much higher than yours. Primarily because very little excess food capacity exists today.

My view is that it is more likely to be of the order of the Bengal famine of 1770 on a larger scale.

[Jay]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

A distinct possibility -- though my casualty estimates are much higher than yours. Primarily because very little excess food capacity exists today.

My view is that it is more likely to be of the order of the Bengal famine of 1770 on a larger scale.

An economic good by nature must be scarce.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.
By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the company and its agents. The company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. Land revenue decreased by 14% during the affected year, but recovered rapidly (Kumkum Chatterjee). According to McLane, the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768. ^[4] Globally, the profit of the company increased from fifteen million rupees in 1765 to thirty million in 1777.

[Rajiv]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

An economic good by nature must be scarce.

Continuing along your line of thought - The Fourteenth Banker - Financial Crime, the Statute of Limitations, and Simon Wiesenthal

It was asked, what would the 14th Banker find essential in Financial Reform legislation? I will take one piece of that question today because today I am angry. I was thinking about Civil versus Criminal consequences and the lack of prosecution that has gone on in regard to the financial crisis. Today the European Union announced a bailout of immense proportion to try to stabilize the Eurozone and bring the immediate market turmoil to an end. One reason that such is required is that there has been theft. The usual bunch of suspects are implicated.

I am certain that the penalties for financial crimes are lax. I am equally certain that financial crimes were committed and that these are egregious, premeditated, and extremely lucrative. If somebody (the SEC for example) fines a company after the fact for crimes that were committed by individuals who were enriched by the crime, justice has not been served. Individuals must be held responsible.

I looked at the FBI web site. This tells me that the value of all property crime in America in 2007 was $17.6 Billion. That’s just a Thursday’s work on Wall Street. In 2008 approximately 2.4 million Americans served time, most for drug or property crime. How many of these had worked on Wall Street? I’m sure it’s not many.

The transactions that have contributed to the financial crisis are immensely complicated and the firms engaging in them can effectively obfuscate. Identifying individuals, providing just punishment, and the removal of such individuals from society will take a long time. It is certain that the vast majority will go unpunished. The New York Statute of Limitations seems grossly insufficient given the magnitude of these crimes. Further, the class of felony that such crimes fall into should be reviewed.

If Goldman or others had information on the financial status of Greece that was not public information, then traded on that information in the CDS or currency markets, they have traded on inside information. This is in addition to the multitudes of other violations which are already alleged. Where are the arrests? I understand the investigations may take a long time. Quite honestly, the effective prosecution of such crimes may take decades.

Who is our Simon Wiesenthal? Who will track down these criminals in the coming months, years, decades? Perhaps we need some old men to spend their last years in prison after thinking they effectively fleeced the world. Perhaps the cycle of crises can be mitigated if the prosecution for these particular crimes continues for decades and every so often Wall Street is reminded that there is no sanctuary and that individuals will be hunted down at whatever time in whatever place.

Do not tell me these are small matters. People starve when you manipulate markets to speculate the price of corn up 100%. People die when you do not put proper safety equipment on a well to save a half million bucks and then destroy an ecosystem. Some people jump onto subway tracks. Some have heart attacks when their life savings are gone. Some burn to death in street riots. Do not tell me these are small things, errors in judgment, rogue actions. If we have figured out anything, have we not figured out that these are systemic problems and that the institutions involved make decisions that the rewards justify the risks, not just financial risks, but also the risks of sanctions or prosecution of any sort? Are we going to do anything to alter the balance of risk and reward so that the rational decision is to do the right thing?

[we_are_toast]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

At the current rate of weather change, one day, there will be a freak weather condition that will cover the tropics, the Amazon jungle with frost, killing millions of hectares of jungle and destroying millions of hectares of farmland on a global basis, reducing world food supply by 20%.

Food prices rise 10-20x, famine will breakout in India and China, tens of million of poor people in both countries starve to death. A hundred million people worldwide starve to death.

And Americans go on diet. ;)

Most people think of Global Warming as simply temperatures everywhere getting warmer. More likely, we can expect many more extreme events around the world, but mostly in the temperate zones. Drought one year, followed by normal, followed by floods, early frosts, late frosts, insect and fungal infestations... And it's the temperate zones where most of the worlds food (grain) is grown.

Canada and the U.S. may very well come out ahead, but given the monoculture crops of modern agriculture, we are probably fairly close to an event that will take many minds off of how well the stock market is doing.

[alcyone]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

Since everything is connected, it is all a matter of choice of consciousness... not known for mincing words, the most enlightened sage of our age once wrote...


‘Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of Catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be. It is only the truth that can save us; truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the truth or being destroyed.’

A message issued by the Mother on 26 November, 1972, just before a major cyclone hit Pondicherry on 5.12.1972.

[touchring]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

A distinct possibility -- though my casualty estimates are much higher than yours. Primarily because very little excess food capacity exists today.

My view is that it is more likely to be of the order of the Bengal famine of 1770 on a larger scale.

Yes, I've factored that in, but we have to consider that China and India will be rather well off and powerful nations by then, and they will be able to procure food (using a mix of economic, political influence and maybe even military force) from other nations. However, still not enough to save everyone by virtue of their massive population.

[doom&gloom]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fsn/~...010-0724-2.mp3

FSN covers weather forcasts for the near term...

[Ghent12]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

Perhaps I have unwarranted skepticism in this brand of doomerism, but I don't buy any of this. Global famine (and related crises such as population explosions and resource depletion) have been the "crises de jour" for four decades and have yet to play out in any meaningful scale. If you were to talk to a person in the 1970's and were to find out that they were afraid of exactly everything you are afraid of, perhaps that should be seen as an indication that the "threats," though perhaps real, are overblown or the mitigating factors are too easily overlooked.

Peak cheap oil will have consequences, surely. That's kind of a wild card with difficult-to-envision ameliorating actions or policies. However, I don't think the future of the planet will be defined by mass starvation any more than is happening presently.

[doom&gloom]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

I would agree. the Kunstler view of the demise of industrial ag is severly flawed. industrial ag has much grander economies of scale than small farms (I own both types now). Buying local is great for your veggies and fruits where possible, but industrial soy, wheat, corn, cotton, etc. will not die with higher energy prices. the prices of those commodities will just go up. people who acquire a taste for meat products will not readily revert back to rice and grains.

As energy prices rise (hopefully slowly), we may eventually get to a "rationing" system where I see rationing in the order of:

1) government
2) transport systems and ag
3) everyone else

Hungry people bring down governments. Food is a basic staple, and tradeable for oil. Ag will still be an important export no matter what the oil price, though Kunstler is correct in that thr 1000 mile salad and Chilean strawberries may become luxuries for most.

[Rajiv]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

Peak cheap oil will have consequences, surely. That's kind of a wild card with difficult-to-envision ameliorating actions or policies. However, I don't think the future of the planet will be defined by mass starvation any more than is happening presently.

It is not peak oil that is of immediate concern in World agriculture. It is the growing population, and "Peak Water" - Agriculture has over the last 30 years been increasingly dependent on ground water supplies. Ground water supplies are being used at much faster rates than can be replenished by the rainfall that occurs over the land. This is occuring not only in the "developing countries," but also in the US and other parts of the "developed world"

[flintlock]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

I don't think famine is inevitable but rather will occur due to the usual incompetence in planning and allocation of resources. The same reasons most famines have always happened.

[Jay]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

Perhaps I have unwarranted skepticism in this brand of doomerism, but I don't buy any of this. Global famine (and related crises such as population explosions and resource depletion) have been the "crises de jour" for four decades and have yet to play out in any meaningful scale. If you were to talk to a person in the 1970's and were to find out that they were afraid of exactly everything you are afraid of, perhaps that should be seen as an indication that the "threats," though perhaps real, are overblown or the mitigating factors are too easily overlooked.

Peak cheap oil will have consequences, surely. That's kind of a wild card with difficult-to-envision ameliorating actions or policies. However, I don't think the future of the planet will be defined by mass starvation any more than is happening presently.

Said another way, the diminishing return worlds of Ricardo and Malthus never took into account nonrival knowledge transfers.

[touchring]

Re: 100x more horrific than world depression, world famine by 2020?

A distinct possibility -- though my casualty estimates are much higher than yours. Primarily because very little excess food capacity exists today.

My view is that it is more likely to be of the order of the Bengal famine of 1770 on a larger scale.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...bxng00k7mCy2kA

Russia loses quarter of crops in drought: Medvedev

MOSCOW — One quarter of Russia's crops have been lost in a record heatwave and drought, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, warning that many farms were now on the verge on bankruptcy.

A taste of what is to come if industrializing countries continue to pollute the air.