Bloomberg’s news agency recently published a story claiming that climate change has caused rising food prices, a problem that will only get worse in the future. This is false. Data clearly show that world food production has dramatically increased as carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have increased and the Earth has modestly warmed. Growing conditions have improved as has plant health, and flawed climate models’ forecasts aside, there is no meteorological or biological reason for believing such conditions will worsen in the future.
The Bloomberg story, “What Climate Change Costs You at the Checkout,” begins by listing a variety of factors, from the COVID lockdown to the Iran war, that have spiked food prices periodically over the years, complete with a graphic detailing geopolitical events that caused price spikes and the subsequent equally sharp declines once the various crises were over. So far, so good. Then the story goes off the rails.
“[A] less obvious force is also ratcheting up prices, but its effects risk lasting longer and being harder to predict,” claims Bloomberg. “Climate change is turning one-off weather shocks into more regular events that can decimate harvests and strain supply chains.
“As their effects compound, extreme heat and droughts threaten to make climate inflation an economic fixture,” the Bloomberg story continues. “Economists predict that the higher temperatures climb, the more bloated household costs like groceries may become.”
Those paragraphs are replete with false claims about both worsening weather and worsening crop production.
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