MAP: Extreme Weather Supersizes Global Food Price Tags

[polly7]

A new Oxfam report adds all sorts of price woes to what researchers already feared.

—By James West | Wed Sep. 5, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Democrats blame record drought. Republicans blame Obama. But one thing both parties agree on is that food prices are going up. In his acceptance speech at last week's GOP convention, Mitt Romney openly mocked tackling climate change as the opposite of helping working families, yet pointed to food prices in his long list of ongoing concerns: "Food prices are higher. Utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices, they've doubled," he claimed.

But Heather Coleman, Oxfam's senior climate policy adviser, sees this (ever-so-thin) overlap of (ever-so-tenuous) agreement as an opportunity. "Those of us who are truly aware of the impacts of climate change find it appalling that climate change could be used as a laugh-line," Coleman said in a Skype interview. "[But] there's a lot more that needs to be done and I think we can all come together on this issue of agriculture."

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Here are the scenarios Oxfam outlines as possible superchargers of world hunger by 2030:

[LiberalEsto]

1. I also blame genetically modified crops

that have caused weeds and pests to become resistant (thank you Dow and Monsanto)

and the bastards who play games with people's lives by speculating on food prices