Thread by @SteB777

"‘Climateflation’ could push up UK food prices by more than a third by 2050, report says"

As people know, I have been warning of "climateflation" food shocks for a very long time. Unfortunately, this study makes the same mistake others make.

1/🧵theguardian.com/business/2025/…

It mistakenly focuses on this being a steady rise in food prices, due to an increase in extreme weather events.

This fundamentally misunderstands the nature and impact, of extreme weather events. Yes, there could be this upward steady rise, but that's not the real danger.
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By its very nature, extreme weather events are essentially unpredictable, except they will increase in intensity and frequency.

The real danger, with food being treated as a commodity in a free market, is what happens in a given year, if food supplies are seriously impacted.
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If a series of extreme weather events line up, to seriously impact food supply in a given year, and we are seeing many extreme weather events each year, "climateflation" could result in price rises of many hundreds of percent, not just a steady rise.
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The laws of supply and demand, determine market prices. The reason, what I say, is not only possible, but almost certain, because it has already happened. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, led to sunflower oil, and other foods, nearly doubling in price, within a single year.
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This was not climate related, but as climate impacts, will greatly increase global conflict, they can't easily be separated.

With climate induced food hyperinflation, in a free market, there is no limit to how high these prices rises could be.
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We could quite easily see food prices trebling, quadrupling, or more in a given year. This would totally destabilize our societies, and actually drive wars. Not only could some countries stop exports, but that has already happened.
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Economists, when modelling impacts look at smooth predictable trends, whereas ecologists, know that it is not the steady conditions, that determines population levels of a species, but the impact, in a given year.
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Likewise, what determines climate impacts on our societies, on our economies, is not the steady increase in climate impacts, but what happens, when the ducks line up in a given year, and a critical threshold is breached.
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The hypothetical food yield over 10 or 20 years, is not the critical problem, it is what happens in a single year. It doesn't matter if food yield would hypothetically, return to normal over the next 10-20 years.
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If in a given year, food became unaffordable, to a significant proportion of the population, governments could fall, financial crashes, big conflicts could start, and there would not be a return to normal the next year, because everything would have irreversibly changed.
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As I say, there's nothing hypothetical about anything I say. Series of sudden and unpredictable extreme weather events are already the norm. It just takes them to happen in a certain combination, a perfect storm, to greatly impact agricultural yields in a free market economy.
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It would be very difficult in such a massively interconnected global economy for a government, to suspend normal market mechanisms, to stabilize hyperinflation, when many critical parts of the supply chain, lie outside their control.
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Governments, are moving towards being far less coordinated, far more in competition, far less cooperative, which would make any coordinated global cooperation, very difficult. Neoliberals, and most modern governments are, would be loathe to suspend market mechanisms.
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As I say, the problem is that this is inherently unpredictable. Governments, would not be aware going into a given year, that this is going to be the year, when a combination of extreme weather events, suddenly impacts agricultural yield.
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Even part way, into this perfect storm of extreme weather events, it would still not be clear what was going to happen. Droughts can come to an end, prolonged heavy rain can abate, extreme heat, can end.
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But it's what happens, when those extreme weather events, don't abate, but they get worse, and increase. This will only be visible with hindsight.

I just wrote a series of threads about neoliberalism.

17/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1947958…

One of the problems with neoliberalism, and its obsessive focus on economic growth at any cost, is it throws aside the precautionary principle and potential planning for catastrophes. It says why burden ourselves with costs, planning for catastrophes, which might not happen.
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We saw this with the COVID pandemic, where suddenly health services were faced with a sudden shortage of PPE, because emergency supplies, had not been maintained, to cut costs. It also happened with food supplies.
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It suddenly became apparent, that food retailers and supplies like supermarkets, only had 10 days supplies in them, unlike 40 days supply as was the case in the past. Neoliberalism tends towards a just enough mentality, to reduce costs.
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This is okay, when everything is working in a predictable way, but the problem, is when we suddenly find ourselves, outside the expected norm, with a Black Swan Event, only visible with hindsight.
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“There are now no non-radical futures. The choice is between immediate and profound social change or waiting a little longer for chaotic and violent social change. In 2023 the window for this choice is rapidly closing.” @KevinClimate

22/bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/04/18/no-…

This is what is so bizarre and reckless about the neoliberal mindset, which has zombified modern governments.

At the very point in history, when radical change to our societies is guaranteed, they have thrown their lot in with business as usual, never changing.
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Our societies are the least prepared for massive radical changes, as at any point in human history, to ensure maximum profit, and economic growth, to make billionaires even richer. This at the point in history, when massive global change, radical change, is guaranteed.
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We have the worst possible leadership across society, not just in government, with those at the top being obsessed about their careers, their personal wealth, when we need wise and selfless leadership, not neoliberal zombies, and self-obsessed psychopaths
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