Reuters:

U.N. agencies and the World Bank pledged on Tuesday to set up a task force to tackle an unprecedented rise in global food prices that is threatening to spread social unrest…

…”We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an unprecedented challenge of global proportions,” the United Nations said in a statement…

An “unprecedented challenge?” But we had thought something else was already a bigger challenge? (Feeling a bit “challenged out” by now? Do you find a degree of “challenge fatigue” setting in?) In any event, why is this price surge happening now, you ask? Well, Reuters has the answers, as always:

…The surge is due to several factors, including increased demand in developing countries, higher fuel costs, drought in Australia, the use of crops for biofuels, and speculation on global commodity markets…

Actually, quite a few people accurately foresaw this one coming. Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2007:

…The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world’s total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.

This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high…

It’s not just the evil Americans, though:

…The European Commission is using legislative measures and directives to promote biodiesel, produced mainly in Europe, made from rapeseeds and sunflower seeds. In 2005, the European Union produced 890 million gallons of biodiesel, over 80 percent of the world’s total. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy also promotes the production of ethanol from a combination of sugar beets and wheat with direct and indirect subsidies. Brussels aims to have 5.75 percent of motor fuel consumed in the European Union come from biofuels by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020…

Also pushing demand has been the reality that windmills and solar panels do not work particularly well in powering motor vehicles. That being so, ethanol has become one means to try in practical terms immediately to address the years of the UN’s and prominent (and not so prominent) individuals‘ calls about the urgent need to do “anything” to arrest “climate change”. “Anything” now seems to be revealing itself: millions may starve.

…Demand for petroleum continues to increase faster than supplies, and new sources of oil are often expensive to exploit or located in politically risky areas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest projections, global energy consumption will rise by 71 percent between 2003 and 2030, with demand from developing countries, notably China and India, surpassing that from members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development by 2015. The result will be sustained upward pressure on oil prices, which will allow ethanol and biodiesel producers to pay much higher premiums for corn and oilseeds than was conceivable just a few years ago. The higher oil prices go, the higher ethanol prices can go while remaining competitive — and the more ethanol producers can pay for corn. If oil reaches $80 per barrel, ethanol producers could afford to pay well over $5 per bushel for corn…

And remember, that article is 12 months old. $80 looks like cheap oil, now. So matters will likely get worse before they get better.

This crisis seems a rather more immediate, and easily provable one than “climate change”, given that there is no doubt that it is “man-made” and that “the consensus” is that death by starvation can take only about 3-6 weeks. Suddenly, rising seas c. 2050 and drowning polar bears appear problems not quite as urgently requiring resolution as they had seemed even a year ago. Or, then again, maybe the necessary “action plan” to “save the planet” is starting to come together nicely?

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One way to offset the need to use staples for ethanol and also allow more oil to be used for refinement into petrol/gas for motor vehicles, might be to try to generate more electricity with nuclear? Hold the phone, though: now, we are informed, nuclear is no good option either, and suddenly it is not because of the reactor waste, which is the usual reason for opposing it. You’ve probably already guessed what will be the new objection, shared with us (unsurprisingly) by the BBC:

Nuclear’s CO2 cost ‘will climb’

With options closing in on us from every direction, it is indeed beginning to look like our end is approaching:

But that above is, of course, just for illustrative purposes; none of us will be permitted tombstones because unless carved by wind power, creating them generates C02. However, suddenly it seems we have gotten something of a stay. For while Armaggedeon had, last December, been scheduled for 2013, it appears now that date’s been pushed back a bit.