The latest WunderBlog from Jeff Masters discusses something that I have not heard of before: food system shock. His blog started out this way: “The greatest threat of climate change to civilization over the next 40 years is likely to be climate change-amplified extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major global grain-producing “breadbaskets” simultaneously. A “Food System Shock” report issued in 2015 by insurance giant Lloyds of London outlined a plausible extreme shock to global food production that could cause rioting, terrorist attacks, civil war, mass starvation and severe losses to the global economy.”
The blog goes on to discuss the Lloyds of London report and to describe what it might take to put the global food system into shock. It also describes some previous years when we got closer than you might have thought. It’s a fairly long and detailed but fascinating article which brings together extreme weather, crop markets, and risk analysis.
