Massive worldwide slaughter of farm animals to push food prices up 14% — a climate story

Via valued Twitter friend MiroCollas, we find this important story. Food prices are set to go markedly higher worldwide.

Raw Story and The Guardian:

Farmers who cannot afford feed ‘liquidating’ pig and cattle herds will drive food inflation to record high, says Rabobank report

The mass slaughter of millions of farm animals across the world is expected to push food prices to their highest ever levels. ...

Farmers across the world have begun a mass slaughter of their pig and cattle herds because they cannot afford the cost of feed, which has soared following the worst US drought in living memory, according to a report published on Wednesday.

Experts at investment bank Rabobank warn that the mass “herd liquidation” will contribute to a 14% jump in the price of the average basket of food by next summer. ...

US farmers, who are suffering from the worst drought since the 1930s, have already reduced their cattle herd to the smallest since 1973.

Of course there's an upside — for the .01%. Near the end we're told that "global food traders are expecting bumper profits."

But back to the cause, this is a climate story. Record droughts cause farmers to slaughter pig and cattle herds because of feed prices. Just like in the sea, if you kill off the plankton, you start losing whales.

Expect more of this, much more. We've got roughly .8°C (1½°F) warming now, and this is the result. There's double that in the pipeline, inevitable, can't be stopped. And that's if we end the carbon-dumping industry today. If we don't end carbon-dumping now, that "in the pipeline" number gets pushed ever higher.

(See here for my personal climate model.)

It's ironic the way the crisis feeds itself. The more we carbonate the air, the more we need air conditioning; thus more carbon burned.

The more we heat the air, the more we fry the fields, the less food we have for more people. Therefore we create more political chaos when what we need most is a considered, orderly solution.

It really comes down to one problem — The Carbon CEOs are determined to sell the last molecule they own, regardless of the price to the rest of us. Will we let them?

Of course, they always ask, "At what cost?" implying that somehow putting them out of business will be inconvenient for us.

This story is about the cost of not putting them out of business.

GP

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