And, yes, extreme weather and high oil prices are major contributors to those price hikes

Leading experts, reported in the media, have made the case that high food prices are one of the triggers of MidEast unrest.  Bizarrely, people who were once full-time professional journalists now dismiss the serious reporting of their fellow journalists — and are apparently completely unable to distinguish between underlying causes and triggering events.

• Washington Post headline (1/14):  “Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence“
• Guardian headline (1/15): “Jordanians protest against soaring food prices:  Protesters angry over high food costs and unemployment call for the prime minister to step down, in an echo of Tunisian demonstrations”
• NPR story (1/30):  “Rising Food Prices Can Topple Governments, Too:  Political unrest has broken out in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and other Arab countries. Social media and governmental policies are getting most of the credit for spurring the turmoil, but there’s another factor at play.  Many of the people protesting are also angry about dramatic price hikes for basic foodstuffs, such as rice, cereals, cooking oil and sugar.”

I quoted all that in my Sunday piece, as well as Robin Niblett, director of the Chatham House, who was interviewed at Davos (click here) and said the Egyptian riots “were driven partly of course by the rise of food prices.” Similarly, NPR notes:

Rising prices are “leading to riots, demonstrations and political instability,” New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini said during a panel discussion. “It’s really something that can topple regimes, as we have seen in the Middle East.”

That high food prices are historically a major driver of political unrest is pretty much an uncontroversial historical fact.  Indeed, there is actually recent research on this very subject:

Economists at the University of Adelaide, for instance, recently examined the impact that food prices have on civil conflict in 120 countries in the past 40 years. “Our main finding is that in low-income countries increases in the international food prices lead to a significant deterioration of democratic institutions and a significant increase in the incidence of anti-government demonstrations, riots, and civil conflict,” the researchers note. The same finding does not hold true in high-income countries, where citizens can better afford food.

That’s from a long analysis in Slate on how higher food prices are helping to fuel unrest in Egypt, “Protesting on an Empty Stomach,” which explains:

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In a globally warmed world, the saying will be rewritten:  When it rains, it deluges.   The warmest sea surface temperatures in Australian records have been fueling floods called ‘biblical’ “” floods covering an area “the size of France and Germany combined.” ABC News has explained “Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming.”

But now, water-logged Queensland is bracing for Category 4 Yasi, which itself is crossing over the warmest waters on record for the region.  Meteorologist and former hurricane hunter Dr. Jeff Masters has the details:

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At a Washington DC press conference, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials blasted President Obama’s call for a clean energy future. Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said a national clean-energy standard is “ridiculously premature,” even though 25 states have renewable and alternative energy standards, the first established in 1983. The institute’s president, former Bush official Karen Harbert, said that the United States should instead allow “increased access to land for oil and gas drilling both onshore and offshore,” drilling a deeper hole with fossil fuel dependence.

This opposition to clean-energy job creation on behalf of big oil is nothing new for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the 2000s, the chamber led the opposition to action on climate change, promoting global warming denial. Its history of defending pollution at the expense of the health of the American public and American jobs, however, goes deeper:

1999: Chamber of Commerce opposes reinstating Superfund taxes on toxic polluters. In a letter earlier this month to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, two large pro-business groups urged Congress not to reinstate the taxes. “Raising taxes on industry runs directly counter to congressional efforts to reduce taxes,” said the top officials at the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. [National Journal, October 19, 1999]

1997: Chamber of Commerce fights stronger smog and soot standards. The Chamber questioned the scientific studies used by the EPA to justify the tougher health standards, arguing that more research should be done before businesses are burden with standards that will require new and expensive additional pollution controls. [AP, May 28, 1997]

1993: Chamber of Commerce opposes trade sanctions in NAFTA for failure to enforce environmental laws. “Authority to impose sanctions against private interests in any of the three countries should remain with the individual governments, and not be ceded to some supranational body not accountable to voters,” said Willard Workman, vice president, international, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. [Journal of Commerce, April 13, 1993]

1992: Chamber of Commerce opposes binding global warming treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that it would block any attempts to include binding commitments to reduce gases related to global warming. [Greenwire, September 16, 1992]

1990: Chamber of Commerce attacks Clean Air Act revision. The Chamber said that the proposed legislation would ”vastly increase the cost and complexity” of environmental regulations – perhaps costing U.S. industry $20 billion more a year. The Chamber of Commerce particularly objected to provisions of the Clean Air bill that would tighten pollution controls related to motor vehicles, smog, coal and toxic chemicals. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 23, 1990]

1988: Chamber of Commerce criticizes call for action on global warming as a “scare statement.” The Chamber’s Harvey Alter called the ”Blueprint for the Environment”’ prepared by 30 environmental groups full of ‘broad scare statements,” including: that ”…global warming threatens to devastate the world, but no timeframe is mentioned. Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer will damage agriculture and marine life and cause an epidemic of skin cancer, but no mention of the remedial actions now in place is made.” [Inside Energy, December 19, 1988]

1984: Chamber of Commerce opposes hazardous waste dumping ban. Harvey Alter, manager of the natural resources office at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argued a ban on the dumping of wastes containing dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, heavy metals, halogenated organic compounds and cyanides would only “promote illegal dumping”. [Chemical Week, August 8, 1984]

1982: Chamber of Commerce petitions to weaken Clean Air Act, claiming it kills jobs. “Obviously, the Clean Air Act needs to be changed,” said Dr. Harvey Alter, manager of the chamber’s resources and environmental quality department. “The construction ban has no place in this country. It is an inherently unfair punishment of communities and does not clean the air.” [Associated Press, July 15, 1982]

1981: Chamber of Commerce compiles secret hit list of federal employees for Reagan. In 1981, the Chamber compiled a ”hit list” of 18 government employees it urged the Reagan White House to dump from their jobs, including 10 EPA officials; Anthony Roisman, former chief of the Justice Department’s hazardous waste section; a half dozen Labor Department employes, and Maxine Savitz, deputy assistant energy secretary. [UPI, September 6, 1984]

Scientists make solar cells with cheap metal oxide

A team led by Dr Henry Snaith at the physics department combined the oxide with a thin dye printed on to glass to turn the sun’s energy into electricity.

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The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was created by Abraham Lincoln and chartered by Congress in 1863 for the express purpose of obtaining objective expert advice on a range of complex scientific and technological issues. Its international reputation for integrity is unparalleled. This spring, at the request of Congress, the NAS issued a series of comprehensive reports on climate change that were unambiguous.

The NAS stated, “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities . . . and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems.”  This conclusion comes as no surprise to the overwhelming majority of working climate scientists.

A group of distinguished scientists today released a letter to each member of the 112th Congress urging them carefully consider the importance of science in climate change policy. The letter emphasizes the importance of truly understanding the science of climate change, and stresses the need to prevent political ideology from clouding our scientific understanding of how climate change is impacting our way of life.

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Science advisor says the message was always there, asserts “The science of climate change is really very clear in its essentials.”

The climate is changing…  Human activity, particularly fossil fuel burning, is overwhelmingly likely to be the primary cause of the changes were experiencing. We’re already experiencing damages from these changes in climate. We will experience more unless and until we reduce our emissions.  These points are clear in the science.

John Holdren, who heads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, gave an extended interview Sunday on Platts Energy Week.  He made clear that the White House understands climate science and is still committed to talking about it and addressing it.

I and others have been critical of the President’s apparent soft-pedaling of the problem in the State of the Union (see “Obama calls for massive boost in low-carbon energy, but doesn’t mention carbon, climate or warming” and Brulle: “By failing to even rhetorically address climate change, Obama is mortgaging our future and further delaying the necessary work to build a political consensus for real action”).

The anti-science crowd and their fellow confusionists gleefully took the speech to mean that Obama was backpedaling on climate, but I mostly saw it as just typically horrendous messaging by the White House, along with evidence that the President personally doesn’t get the truly dire nature of the problem.

I know Dr. Holdren gets it, though, and while Axelrod and White House communications shop have been muzzling him for two years now, he certainly wasn’t shy about spelling out the basics of climate science in his interview.

Indeed, Holdren actually makes the case the President was talking about climate when he said in the SOTU that “clean energy technology” is an investment that will … protect our planet.”  Here’s the video:

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But still, top Republicans exploit Egyptian uprising to shill for more domestic oil drilling

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2009 report, “Impact of Limitations on Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf” analyzed the difference between full offshore drilling (Reference Case) and restriction to offshore drilling (OCS limited case).  In 2020, there is no impact on gasoline prices (right hand column).  In 2030, US gasoline prices would be three cents a gallon lower.  Woohoo!

I have previously written about the trivial impact of opening the OCS further to drilling “” The oil companies already have access to some 34 billion barrels of offshore oil they have barely begun to develop (see “The cruel offshore-drilling hoax“).

If you are concerned about the impact of high oil prices from Middle East instability, the only viable long-term strategy is one aimed at ending our addiction to this climate-destroying fossil fuel.  Even the once-staid and conservative International Energy Agency understands that (see World’s top energy economist warns peak oil threatens recovery, urges immediate action: “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us”).

But far from wanting to leave oil before it leaves us, top Republicans are exploiting the Egyptian uprising to press for more domestic oil drilling.  Think Progress has the details:

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TVMOB (aka The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) would be a Monty Python-esque self-parody were he not a prolific promoter of hate speech (see Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science are “Hitler youth” and fascists and links below).  [Please note that the picture on the right is now TVMOB but I still do not think he would ever participate in this competition.]

He is probably the most thoroughly debunked disinformer on the web (see “Climate scientists eviscerate Lord Monckton’s attempt to disinform the U.S. Congress” and “MN professor eviscerates Monckton in must-see video“).  But because TVMOB continues to spread disinformation at an impressive rate, physicist John Cook of Skeptical Science has put all of his myths — along with their rebuttals — in one place (click here).

Here is Cook’s intro to his new resource:

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