Year 3, Month 9, Day 14: When We Talk About Reducing Poverty, This Is NOT What We Had In Mind.

The Chicago Tribune notes a new report from Oxfam. Are you poor? Too bad, loser:

LONDON (Reuters) – Climate change may pose a much more serious threat to the world’s poor than existing research has suggested because of spikes in food prices as extreme weather becomes more common, Oxfam said on Wednesday.

More frequent extreme weather events will create shortages, destabilize markets and precipitate price spikes on top of projected structural price rises of about 100 percent for staples such as maize over the next 20 years, the charity said in a report.

Droughts in the U.S. Midwest and Russia this year have helped to propel prices for maize and soybeans to record highs and United Nations food agencies this week said that world leaders must take swift action to ensure that food-price shocks do not turn into a catastrophe that could hurt tens of millions of people.

This is going to get really really ugly. Sent September 7:

While spiking food prices are going to clobber poor people, climate change’s impact on worldwide agriculture is only just beginning to be felt. When rising sea levels submerge low-lying areas, the farmers who are turned into refugees and forced from their homes will face profound and devastating losses of land, income, heritage and hope. When insect species travel to new areas to keep up with a rapidly transforming climate, they’ll bring new diseases with concomitant public health impacts — and guess who’ll do most of the suffering? It won’t be the “one percent,” that’s for sure.

When infrastructure crumbles under the assault of extreme weather, the very wealthy may find themselves inconvenienced, but it is those without economic power whose lives will be shattered. Affecting food, land, health, and work, climate change will swell the ranks of the world’s powerless in ways that our politicians have completely failed to anticipate.

Warren Senders