Food shortages and rising food prices are getting more intense  around the world.  What will it take for prices to stabilize?  The answer to that is probably “a stable climate”, and we don’t have that anywhere on earth.

Global food supplies will face “massive disruptions” from climate change, Olam International Ltd. predicted, as Agrocorp International Pte. said corn will gain to a record, stoking food inflation and increasing hunger.

“The fact is that climate around the world is changing and that will cause massive disruptions,” Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam, among the world’s three biggest suppliers of rice and cotton, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “We’re friendly to wheat, corn and soybeans and bearish on rice.” — Bloomberg

Yesterday on the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC, the group of pundits that gather every morning were discussing rising food prices around the world. They decided there was no explanation for it, it’s just happening.   It really had them stumped.  That’s because  “climate change” is not in their vocabulary — yet.  Soon, it should be unavoidable.

The food shortages are only beginning and it will get much worse over the next 10 years unless something is done as soon as possible.  All my reading has led me to believe that adapting to a 4 degree C rise in global average temps is not something we can expect to be able to do.

The analysis below was recently written, and it’s about this question: could we actually adapt to a 4 degree C temp. rise, or even worse, and should we believe that we can? If we can, can animals? Can plants? Can insects? It’s probably not reasonable to assume anything alive today could necessarily adapt to such extreme changes.  If adaption is unlikely, countries have to act fast to try to stop the instability of the climate, which is beginning to be noticed by nearly everyone at this point. It’s important to note that the survival of the rich is not the same thing as “adaptation” for the rest of us. Individual wealth will be a factor in “adaptation” because it will determine if a person can move to another location or not, and afford food and water.

From 4 Degrees Hotter, a new report by David Spratt of Climate Code Red, Australia.

Global political failure to reach agreement on greenhouse gas reduction measures in accord with the scientific imperatives will result in 4 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100, if only the present levels of commitments by nations are achieved.

But is talk of, and planning for, adaptation to a 4-degree warmer world realistic, or delusional?

4 degrees became a sensitive issue in 2008 when an influential and controversial paper by Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows of the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research concluded that:

“…it is increasingly unlikely any global agreement will deliver the radical reversal in emission trends required for stabilization at 450 parts per [...]