Global Warming Will Cause Famine In Africa

A recent report by the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) research group says global warming will cause famine in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The international research group says millions of people are already suffering from food shortage in these areas and climate change will make it even worse, the state-funded BBC reported.

“We are starting to see much more clearly where the effects of climate change on agriculture could intensify hunger and poverty,” said Patti Kristjanson, an agricultural economist with the CCAFS initiative that produced the report.

They said exactly the same thing about global cooling. These fine people are completely full of shite.

Newsweek April 28, 1975


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55 Responses to Global Warming Will Cause Famine In Africa

  1. Latitude says:

    global warming will cause famine in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa??
    And how is that any different than famines not caused by global warming?

    • Ill wind blowing says:

      It is the extent of famine that will be different. Simply put, there will be more famine.

      • No doubt more than when 40 million people died of famine in China in 1960.

      • Ill wind blowing says:

        Steve, the Chinese famine of 1958-1961 was mostly the result of Mao Zedong’s disastrous agricultural policies. Drought only had a small effect on that situation.

        The estimates vary from 20 to 43 million deaths.

        As far as the effects of future famines are concerned, it is simply a matter of time before deteriorating weather conditions bring us to a state worse than any that has occured since the Bubonic/Pneumonic plague of the 14th century.

      • Latitude says:

        Scientists have been predicting doom for over 100 years now…

        …got any idea of a time line?

        When can we start to see some progress on this doom stuff?

      • Jimbo says:

        “Africa is now one of the world’s fastest-growing regions”
        6 of the top 10 and 7 of top 10 projected are in sub-saharan Africa.

        Yet it’s all doom and gloom as usual. 😦

      • Jimbo says:

        Plant growth rate to increase while most of Africa is set to receive more rain with projected global warming. The biosphere has been greening. Am I a born optimist? 😉

      • andykn says:

        It is optimisitic to think that food will grow tomorrow where the people live today. The migrations that might be required could be, er, entertaining.

      • suyts says:

        Andy, it isn’t like that. The fact is the farming techniques used over there are abysmal. Were they able to utilize the progress we’ve seen in the U.S.(or other 1st world agri-country) the land requirements diminish.

      • Jimbo says:

        Are you referring to the 50 million climate refugees?

        There are nomadic herdsmen in Africa. They are used to moving. I mentioned the Sahel, people will move to areas that are ripe for farming. They always have. The Sahara used to be green and people didn’t have a problem with it. Look on the bright side sunshine, the 1970s Earth Day predictions are ALL way off base. 😉

  2. Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be that people in sub-saharan Africa and South Asia are just mind bogglingly poor at farming & also trying farm areas that have been crappy to mediocre for all of recorded history.

    I have a brilliant solution: let’s produce food in areas that suit the type of food we’re trying to produce and then use a cheap and readily available energy source to move that food to the areas that people want to live. And we will ensure that the energy investment is used as efficiently as possible by using a highly fungible system of credit exchange on an entirely voluntary basis. That way if somebody wants to do something more efficiently they’ll get an immediate return in the form of unspent quatloos.

  3. LOL in Oregon says:

    Hey, what’s the problem?
    We need that food to make biofuel so we can ATV it in the wilderness!

    Besides, it “decreases the surplus population”.

    Or, at least, that’s what the California refugees keep telling us.

    LOL in Oregon

  4. Ill wind blowing says:

    “They said exactly the same thing about global cooling. These fine people are completely full of shite.”

    This is a non-issue within a non-issue.

    First, the majority of scientific papers in the 1960s and 1970s were in favor of warming not cooling. Also, what a common magazine says about something is irrelevant, whether the issue happens to be right or wrong.

    Second, and most important, regardless of whether the Earth cools or warms, there will be diminishment and destruction of crops if the cooling or warming is quick and severe.

    By quick I mean a few decades. That is not enough time for civilizations to properly adjust to changes in ecozones in a densely populated world. Human societies do not have the flexibility that nature does.

    By severe I mean just a few degrees plus or minus our present temperatures.

    • Latitude says:

      You are either very young and not well read….
      …or somehow you have managed to miss almost every bit of history

    • P.J. says:

      “if the cooling or warming is quick and severe.”

      It is always “if” with warmists …

    • suyts says:

      Horse shite. You need to define a “few” a wee bit more, because if it is confined to 2-3 degrees one way or the other, I suggest we won’t notice a thing.

      • P.J. says:

        Don’t waste your breath … in the “Nazis take new form” post, he was saying the same thing about sea-level rise (ie: a few decades). That could mean anything.

      • suyts says:

        Yeh, I know. But he’s fun to play with. There’s getting to be fewer and fewer of these diehards totalitarian misanthropists, we have to take advantage while we can.

        I’m almost wistful for a time when there were more……..almost.

  5. Robert Austin says:

    Steven says,
    “These fine people are completely full of shite.”
    I think these fine people actually exceed their shite volumetric capacity. It brings to mind an old term as related by my WW2 veteran father. A “blevit” is defined as 11 pounds of shite in a 10 pound bag. One might say that these fine people have exceeded their fecal capacity and have achieved the exalted state of blevitude. Their righteousness allows them to spew without regard to fact or even common sense.

  6. andykn says:

    If “the state funded BBC” having reported the recent report by the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security research group is worth highlighting, why is it not worth linking to? And why suppress the fact that your linked source is also state funded?

    And to compare a research group report with an inaccurate news report is just even more dishonest. Do you really have no better argument against all the world’s major scientific institutions?

    • suyts says:

      Steve didn’t write that, that was part of the story that was presented.

      More, it isn’t dishonest to show the exact same alarm was sound over 35 years ago over the exactly opposite difficulty.

      • andykn says:

        Still doesn’t explain the PressTV link rather than a BBC one, nor trying to compare a scientific report with an inaccurate news report. Unless it’s all you have.

      • suyts says:

        “Unless it’s all you have.”

        andykn, did it occur to you to peruse this site. I believe Steve has just a few more offerings you can read and comment upon. And, why do you think the news reports is any less accurate than the scientific report?

        In my estimation, all Steve was doing was showing the parallels to the hyperbole given to both issues. The lingo hasn’t really changed that much, has it?

    • Sounds like a bunch of short circuited neuron paths.

  7. andykn says:

    “why do you think the news reports is any less accurate than the scientific report”
    You have just got to be kidding! When has any news outlet ever reported science terribly accurately and especially not nice juicy scare stories? He’s not comparing like with like at all.

    And I’m the one that needs to “bury my head a little deeper”? Do you people think irony is the opposite of creased?

    • suyts says:

      Same extreme inflated hyperbole.

      Or are you one of those that believes just because they call themselves a scientific group that they are actually conducting science?

      • andykn says:

        I’m sorry, but I don’t think it hyperbole (and certainly not “extreme” “inflated” hyperbole as you put it with that delightful lack of irony I’m getting used to round here) to scorn the suggestion that news organisations and scientific onse both present science equally accurately.

      • suyts says:

        Andy, how can you argue they’re presenting anything differently? They presented both almost identically. I’m glad you’re getting used to being here! Hopefully, other than sniping about how information is presented you can move on to actually discussing the information presented.

    • Paul H says:


      I may have missed some of your earlier posts, so excuse me if I have misunderstood you.

      You seem to be suggesting that the cooling scare of the 70’s was just a media induced frenzy. If this is the case you clearly have not read the many posts here over the last few months which prove clearly that many scientists (climate and others) were saying the same thing.

      • andykn says:

        If that’s true then why compare a scientific report with a scare story instead of some of this proof?

      • Paul H says:

        I am not sure what you mean by scare story. The Newsweek story contains many quotes from ” scientists”.

        I honestly don’t care if you believe me or not, but Steve and others on this site have uncovered many other examples.

        I suggest if you really want to know the truth, you go away and do some homework of your own.

  8. andykn says:

    “presented identically”? It’s not the typeface I’m worried about. it’s the content. The global cooling scare of the 70s was a news scare, it was never a popular theory amongst scientists “almost unaninimous is just wrong, as we could see had any science been shown. That’s why the comparison is invalid, one is a news scare story misreprenting science, the other is science. You can’t have a debate that starts with such a fallacy. It’s hardly “sniping” to point out complete falsehoods.

    • suyts says:

      Andy, there was a significant portion of scientists concerned about the cooling trend the world was experiencing. Did the media take advantage and sensationalize the words of the scientists, yes. In a very similar manner as what is going on today.

      Yes, there are differences, but none that would make any difference to the average layperson. You know, those people who vote. The point is, if one were to strip the hyperbole and sophistry from either period of sensationalized science, we’d probably be more apt to have rational discussions about the conditions today.

      I understand why it is important for alarmists to pretend there wasn’t a significant body of science concerned about global cooling, but the parallels are there. Personally, I’m not interested in trying to convince the inconceivable about that occurrence, but if you wish to see where many of us stand on it, go here, and scroll down. Or simply use the search bar here and look for global cooling. You may be enlightened. I find it an amusing side story to the larger one.

      But back to the topic at hand, yes you’re correct, one story is a news scare story that misrepresents science. The other is a scientifically generated scare news story misrepresenting the work as science.
      Now, I assume you’ll disagree with me so, being the generous person that I am, I’ll throw you a softball pitch to get the conversation moving to show it isn’t science that they’re spewing.

      Where, pray tell, is it warming (more accurately, where did it warm) the most that moves the temp anomaly upward? Is it the polar regions or the “South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa” regions? Next, can you tell me when there was not food shortages in these areas? This is why history is important to climatology. We have to discern if the phenomena we are seeing is unique or attributable to other occurrences, such as 40% of the global corn production going down our gas tanks.

      Now, are you ready to back up your assertion about that bit of hyperbole being science or are we to continue to quibble about the alarmist history revisionism?

  9. andykn says:

    If there was a “significant body of science concerned about global cooling” it should be presented as a counterpoint to the scientific paper reported. To mee it looks like the news scare story is all there really is. We can’t even easily see if the scientific report has been “misrepresented as science” as it has been fed through two news outlets. I find that telling too.

    “Back to the story at hand” “Next, can you tell me when there was not food shortages in these areas”, even with the two news feed filter it seem that the report is saying that these problems existed and will get worse, not that they didn’t exist before, the suggestion seem to be a strawman.

  10. andykn says:


    I prefer to get my science from papers written by scientists. Not news quotes from “scientists” of which I’m sure anyone can find many. After all, look at how many people quote the US’s less well qualified answer to Ulrika Johnsson, Anthony Watts.

  11. Mike Davis says:

    The problems have existed in those regions for thousands of year and that is why people have migrated from those areas. The problem gets better and it gets worse depending on weather patterns. Nothing new here and any claims by ANY group at any time are attempts to alarm others. Nothing new in what is being discussed and your “Scientific Body” that is being paid to do research is just regurgitating a recurring issue and blaming the “Cause du jour” when it is the weather patterns that naturally change. There are probably news articles and scientific research into the famine problem from 3,000 years ago.
    Your “Scientific Body” is a government funded advocacy group as are all “Scientific Bodies such as UCS, NAS, Royal Society. The BODY does not DO science but advocates the need for more research funding to give work to their members. Any reports from these groups are begging for money. They are attempting to justify their existence and doing a poor job of it.

  12. andykn says:

    Headline: Global Warming Will Cause Famine
    Text: climate change will make it even worse
    So “cause” or “make worse”? People here are attacking “cause”, which I’m betting doesn’t appear in the report at all, or even the BBCs story on it. Just the obscure source the blogger has carefully chosen.

    • suyts says:

      Andy, weren’t you just admonished to actually read the contents of which you’re commenting on?

      “because climate change will have longer term impacts on production trends….”pg11
      mr. semantics strikes again.

      Actually, this reports makes several definitive statements, which is refreshing coming from an alarmist group. One of the statements is a hoot! “Areas where the maximum temperature during the primary growing season is currently less than 30:C but will flip to more than 30:C by 2050…” Very bold, if it weren’t for the elapsed time period necessary to fulfillment. We’ll be sure to set our watch alarms 39 years from now……gee.

      More, funny stuff that you can’t make up…… map on page 28(susceptibility to increased rainfall) and map on page 30 (susceptibility to drought)….. sigh more droughtflood undoubtedly caused by warmcold.

      An interesting side note……from the paper……”after Sen’s 1981 book articulating the idea that
      famines are not necessarily caused by a lack of food, but a lack of access to it (Webb et al 2006).”

      PJ articulated that very same thought on the Ehrlich page.

      the idea that famines are not necessarily caused by a lack of food, but a lack of access to it (Webb et al 2006).”—- I’ve heard that thought posited here recently.

      • andykn says:

        I’m not commenting on the report, just the way even what’s been printed here doesn’t add up.
        If the blogger wanted to start an honest debate on the report’s contents he could have produced the link you have and not chucked in some obscure news story about it instead.

      • suyts says:

        I think you’re attributing malfeasance where none exists. Like it or not, climate science is still heralded by news release and interpretive synopsis of the various reports and studies. (heck many studies are still behind various pay-walls so one must depend on interpretations to a point) One of the great things this blog does is to poke fun( I think technically its called “sarcasm”) at the hyperbole that gets generated between the science and the general public. (You should see how much fun we have with people like Romm. ) 🙂 I can assure you, Steve doesn’t like the news report anymore than you do.

        Andy, no regular on this site likes the hyperbole.(Except when we can have fun at others’ expense.) Most of us simply want to get past it. Pretending it doesn’t exist or ignoring it won’t make it go away. While many of us here believe much of the problem is in the science itself, most of us here also understand that much of it is the hype. Steve pokes fun at the hyperbole and extreme interpretations. The whole reason I’m engaged in the greater discussion is the public’s and decision makers perception of the issues.

    • suyts says:

      In case anyone is wondering how in the world I came by the report……(andy)

      I’ve just done a quick run through……. doesn’t say much but includes the necessary climate change drivel to continue funding.

      The droughtflood was humorous.

  13. Paul H says:

    The report states :-


    This sounds pretty much like causing famine to me, Andy.

    The pity is that the CCAFS actually does a lot of good work. After all climate changes all the time and different areas get to be affected by droughts etc. Their work is aimed at improving farming methods etc to enable the countries affected to overcome such problems.

    They really have no need ( except for grants) to get involved in global warming politics.

  14. andykn says:

    As we’ve already agreed that these areas are subject to famine anyway it would seem self evident to me that, as the BBC article apparently also said, that we’re talking about “mak[ing] it worse”

    • suyts says:

      How about causes an exacerbation of the events?

    • Mike Davis says:

      Worse than what? Current? Historic? The news article and report are worthless BS. A return to the LIA conditions would possibly wipe out a major portion of the current population as it did in the early part of the last millennium. what we have experienced during the last two hundred years is mild weather conditions compared to some historical periods and the globe can expect a return of those past conditions under normal circumstances. This entire AGW BS is leading countries down the wrong path and destroying economies that will result in FAMINE. Man made by the Chicken Little Brigade members such as you!

      • andykn says:

        Are all the world’s major scientific institutions predicting a return to the LIA?
        And where and what was “wipe out a major portion of the current population as it did in the early part of the last millennium”. I thought the early part of the last millenium was the MWP.

  15. Mike Davis says:

    Adaptation to severe weather events was the driving factor in the evolution of the human race and should remain the guiding principle of humanity going forward. Attempting to mitigate forces we have no control over is a fools game. Does it require a person to be a fool to be an effective climatologist or is being a fool the result of believing in the current mantra?

    • suyts says:


      Chicken/egg argument. Both necessitate each other…….lol

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