A quick look at the tables at your link show that poverty levels have been cut in half in the US during the last 50 years. Maybe Will was a little off in his recollection of the period of time during which US economic prosperity had the impact he suggested, but his conclusion seems sound.

First a comment on the economics: I’m not qualified to comment on the presumption that climate changes will cause greater frequency of extreme weather, or critique the analysis that ties greater frequency of extreme weather to increases in the prices of food staples in particular economies. However, the economic conclusion that follows these big assumptions seems simplistic.

Hypothetically higher food prices would cause more poverty in any economic model, when all other variables are held the same (any first year macro-economics class would teach you that). However, in this hypothetical scenario, assuming that all other variables would be unchanged is pretty stupid. So let’s assume that the models wouldn’t be that flawed. This takes me to my second comment.

Presumably in this model, the changes in climate and food prices would cause significant changes in a large number of other economic variables inside the local economies being studied, and outside these local economies, and changes in political and individual activities would occur too. I’m assuming this model captures all of these potential changes. The model must be darn complex.

But models in economics and finance differ from those in the physical sciences because in the end they are models of human behavior. They are at best approximations because the variables and parameters change through time. The more complex the model, the greater the impact of these dynamic variables on the output.

This study really takes the cake. Not only does it presume that very complex global climate models give useful output about a regional climate (which they probably don’t), it then uses this output as the input for a complex economic model on regional agricultural pricing (which undoubtedly has flaws too) and then takes that output and uses it as an input into a complex model of a country’s society, politics and economy, to study how this would affect one segment of that economy’s population… and then reports the output of this last model as somehow conclusive.

Good grief. Who pays for this drivel?

Why do I think your climate change stats are just as bogus?

They could not too. Which is much more likely. Excellent example of garbage in-garbage out, or maybe garbage in-hysteria out. Money for drivel.

I note that the June satellite anomaly was zero. No change in average global temperatures for 30 years. In July it was 0.4degC. Lots of noise in the data, and Antarctic ice is at its greatest extent since measurements began. Why would there be more extreme weather events? What “climate change”?

If you are really concerned about poverty, the answer is simple. Looking back over the last 40 years of economic prosperity, which has been shared by everyone, it is driven by trade and capitalism.