Political Forecasting is failure prone.... particularly in despotic regions like the Middle East and North Africa. Most of us following and commenting on this had visions of Yemen first, then maybe Algeria or Iran... Libya was not at the top of the list.
Oh, well.
That's the problem with forecasting... the future doesn't always cooperate.
6 or 7 years ago, upon becoming "peak oil aware", I really thought the argument about declining petroleum production's effects on food supply in the short term had merit... then after research (and some experience running a small farm) I came to the conclusion that weather would be the bigger issue (at least in the short term)... but in watching the MENA smolder and flame I am not so sure that fossil water isn't bigger than "Peak Oil" for much of the world, certainly MENA and China. I was well aware of the issues facing the U.S. and the Ogallala Aquifer, but did not make the leap that other fossil water sources are similarly impacted.
In my experience events never unfold as predicted. Yet unfold they do. Oil for front month delivery is up $5 and December is up nearly $3.50. Several posts ago I mused that the jerks getting over on the rest of us via the "Homeland Security" budget were trying to scare the sh#! out of the electorate... and that they needed somebody, somewhere to blow something up... and that Al Quada is getting swept aside by a tidal wave in the MENA... I didn't think these regimes would last a couple of years, and certainly not the decade... well, at the pace this is coming I'd say that 50/50 its all over by Christmas.... and even if it is, the Homeland Security folks will find a new "enemy" we need to spend $800 Billion a year worrying about.
If you read the first link listed above you will see that somebody is "expecting" the Middle East to experience a doubling of the population in 30 years... WTF is that somebody smoking? Where is the water and food going to come from? China? They have no water. The U.S.? We will be a wheat importer in a decade or so... (I should point out that I do not believe that "climate" is the threat. There is a BIG difference between climate and weather. Yet in all of the doomer posts I read these folks simply can't let the climate change shot pass by... read this excellent post by Stu Staniford on why the climate change pitch is a non-starter... I agree with Stuart... food prices are high, grain inventories are low, and we can hypothesize all we want... but nothing in the data supports the "climate change" story as the culprit. On the other hand, the graph at the beginning of the article, while showing clearly the fallacy of the climate argument would argue that a very unfortunate weather year would have a huge impact, given that inventories are so very low... and given that inventories of both corn and wheat, and now soybeans (and I must say that I do not follow that crop and inventory like I do corn and wheat for reasons I am not sure of), are low would suggest that its not acreage (deciding which crop to plant) issue but something else... exactly what I have no idea. Being a blogger, I am always happy to provide a hypothesis, but would prefer to wait for more data (as in next year's crop and weather!)).
How the price of food and oil are balanced is the $64,000 question, and they could easily be balanced as to be very satisfactory to their respective producers, but for those that see cheap food as a right somewhat like cheap oil that outcome is going to be somewhat less than satisfying. Farmers are going to be the next group the Left hates.... cause they are going to make an awful lot of money with corn and wheat at $25 to $50 per bushel. I can just see it now...
Egypt was small potatoes next to Libya, and Libya is medium potatoes compared to Algeria and Iran, who are in turn altogether about the potato that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is....
Anybody that thinks KSA doesn't convulse badly just ain't paying attention.
An Oil shock could come at any time.