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7/28/2019 Conflits, rvoltes et environnement

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FOOD

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots,

Complex Systems Theorists Say

By Brian Merchant

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Whats the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-

upon humanfolk to fight back are manypoverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc

but t he big one is more primal t han any of the above. It s hunger, plain and simple. If

theres a single f actor t hat reliably sparks social unrest, its food becoming t oo scarce or

too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it

makes sense.

In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that

accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011

crashed when they did. The number one det erminant was soaring food prices. Their model

identif ied a precise t hreshold f or global food prices that, if breached, would lead to

worldwide unrest .

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3/8

The MIT Technology Review explains how CSIs model works: The ev idence comes f rom

two sources. The f irst is data gat hered by t he United Nations that plots t he price of food

against time, t he so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the

UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause. Plot the data,

and it looks like this:

Pretty simple. Black dots are the food prices, red lines are the riots. In other words,

whenever t he UNs food price index, which measures the monthly change in the price of abasket of food commodities, climbs above 210, the conditions ripen for social unrest

around the world. CSI doesnt claim that any breach of 210 immediately leads to riots,

obviously; just that the probability that riots will erupt grows much greater. For billions of

people around the world, food comprises up to 80% of routine expenses (for rich-world

people like you and I, its like 15%). When prices jump, people cant af ford anything else; or

even food it self. And if you cant eator worse, your family cant eat you fight.

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4/8

But how accurate is the model? An anecdote the researchers outline in the report offers us

an idea. They write that on December 13, 2010, we submitted a government report

analyzing the repercussions of the global financial crises, and directly identifying the risk of

social unrest and political instability due to food prices. Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi

set himself on f ire as an act of protest in Tunisia. And we all know what happened aft er

that .

Today, the food price index is hovering around 213, where it has stayed f or monthsjust

beyond t he tip of the identified t hreshold. Low corn yield in the U.S., the worlds most

important p roducer, has helped keep prices high.

Recent droughts in the mid-western United St ates threaten t o cause global catast rophe,

Yaneer Bar-Yam, one of the authors of the report, recently told Al Jazeera . When people

are unable to feed themselves and their families, widespread social disruption occurs. We

are on the verge of another crisis, the third in five years, and likely to be t he worst yet ,

capable of causing new food riot s and turmoil on a par with the Arab Spring.

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5/8

Yet the cost of food hasnt quite yet risen to the cat astrophic levels reached last year.

Around the t ime of the riots cum-revolutions, we saw the food price index soar t hrough 220

points and even push 240. This year, weve pret ty consistently hovered in the 210-216

rangeright along t he cusp of danger. But CSI expect s a perilous trend in rising food prices

to continue. Even before the extreme weather scrambled food prices this year, their 2011

report predicted that the next great breach would occur in August 2013, and that the risk

of more worldwide rioting would follow. So, if trends hold, these complex systems theoristssay were less than one year and counting from a fireball of global unrest.

But t he reality is t hat such predict ions are now all but impossible t o make. In a world well-

warmed by climate change, unpredictable, extreme weather events like the drought t hat

has consumed 60% of t he United Stat es and the record heat that has killed its cat tle are

now the norm. Just two years ago, heat waves in Russia crippled its grain yield and dealt a

devastat ing blow t o global food marketst he true, unheralded fat her of t he Arab Spring

was global warming, some say.

And it s only going to get worse and worse and worse. Because of climat e change-

exacerbated disast ers like these, the average price of staple f oods such as maize could

more t han double in the next 20 years compared with 2010 trend prices, a new report f rom

Oxfam reveals. That report details how the poor will be even more vulnerable to climate

change-induced food price shocks than previously thought. After all, weve loaded the

climate dice, as NASAs James Hansen likes to say, and t he chances of such disaste rs

rolling out are greater than ever.

This all goes to say t hat as long as climate change continues t o advanceit seems t hat

nothing can stop that nowand we maintain a global food system perennially subject tovolat ile price spikes and exploitat ion from speculators, without ref orm, our world will be an

increasingly rest ive one. Hunger is coming, and so are t he riots.

Follow Brian at@bcmerchantand Motherboard@motherboard, and on Facebook.

By Brian Merchant 10 months ago

Tags: food, riots, agriculture, environment , climate, science, 2012

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6/8

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105 comments

Will Danger Robinson

It's not just global climate change. It's simple hoarding of wealth and b locking of innova tion by the wealthiEVERYONE. If there are riots, they will throw crumbs to the poor to keep them quiet.

Reply Like January 20 at 6:26am

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Will Danger Robinson

Also, i f the US ci tiz enshi p doesn' t wake up , we ca n a ll wa tch th e 1% turn the US in to a thir d wo

Reply Like January 20 at 6:39am55

Cary Christensen

You soun d like some on e thats is on welfare


Cary Christensen

Get off your ass and g et to work. There is still lots of work and money to be made


Macebook Re turns Works at I do n't work for you, that's all you need to kn ow.

Eat the rich.


Steve Pender Bartender at Harrah's Las Vegas

If we ate the rich we'd be h ungry by lunch .

Reply Like May 15 at 8:30pm14

Gavin Morris Lowestoft

Steve Pender, No, because then we could eat their food.

Reply Like May 27 at 10:09am3

John A. MacKay Top Commenter

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7/8

, ,

Reply Like January 21 at 4:09am

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Khannea Suntzu Top Commenter

Maybe we need a more structural solution, and one that does not involve final solutions.

Reply Like January 25 at 5:26pm8

Steven Rawls

Maybe we just don' t need to send an ything. Take care of our own for a chang e.

Reply Like April 14 at 1:01pm21

Mike Griffin Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Steven Rawls

To put it in perspective, I had a in -law tell me that we has ha ppy that I was paying for his retire

to do with experience and the resources who should be he lping out the increasingly impoveris

reasonable.

Reply Like May 9 at 11:01am

Walter Haugen

If you want to lea rn how to g row food with a minimum of fossil fuels, contact me: wvhaugen@ hotmail.com. I

and work with your hands. There is no o ther way.

Reply Like December 5, 2012 at 8:34am30

Khannea Suntzu Top Commenter

And wh at if a bil lio n people sho w up on you r do ors tep hung ry?


Caroline Holding La Sante Union

I've been reading the actual p aper (hyperlinked in the piece) and its really interesting, but what I am findin

stated) that food insecurity is only important in the context of social unrest.


Walter Haugen

Correctomundo. As I wrote in my book, "Even the most progressive commentators on food prici

the farmer becomes poorer than the people he /she is supporting. Even the most liberal-minde

future scenario where the farmer makes as much money as a corpo rate manager or college p r


Craig Coelho Top Commenter

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8/8

201 3 Vic e Me di a I nc. Abo ut Co ntac t Pri vacy P ol ic y Te rms of Use

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systematically destroyed small independent farms. Liberal-minded socialists aren't the ene my

corporatofascist neocons who've corrupted enough of the government so as to make indepen


Walter Haugen

You obviou sly do not have a grasp on the prob lem. I give away thousand s of dollars of food ev

the farmer poor. I see the liberal-minded socia lists doing the same thing. When you actually pu

can chat.


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