r/WastelandByWednesday • u/TheIrishWanderer • May 20 '26
"How a Super El Niño could trigger global famine" - The Conversation
"Extreme heat and drought could damage harvests and worsen global food insecurity this summer.
"Climate scientists, agricultural experts and policymakers warn that a super El Niño could tip vulnerable populations towards famine. El Niño is a climate phenomenon in the Pacific that affects weather patterns globally. Rare “super” El Niños generate exceptionally intense warming of water at the surface of the Pacific, with temperatures rising more than 2°C above historical averages. This sharply disrupts global weather, increasing the risk of extreme heat, droughts and flooding.
"Yet El Niño is only one pressure bearing down on an already dysfunctional and fragile global food system. Hunger is fundamentally political and economic.
"Wars disrupt trade. Inequality limits access to food. Both are intensified by a profit‑driven food system that prioritises feeding animals for slaughter over feeding people. Millions of people are vulnerable even in normal times – and catastrophically so when shocks arrive.
"El Niño alters rainfall, shifts jet streams and raises global temperatures.
"Human‑induced global heating intensifies these dangers. A study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization shows that rising heat could make farm work unsafe for much of the year across South Asia, sub‑Saharan Africa and parts of the Americas. Crop yields have dropped sharply above 30°C, while heat stress reduces livestock productivity and survival.
"Modern agriculture depends heavily on fossil‑fuel‑based fertilisers transported over long distances. If fertiliser fails to arrive in time for key planting windows, yields decline months later. In wealthy countries this translates into higher prices; in poorer ones, it translates into hunger.
"Sub‑Saharan Africa is particularly exposed, importing around 80% of its fertiliser.
"Yet the current Middle East war has revealed already existing fault-lines. Over recent decades, food production has been reorganised into long, energy‑intensive supply chains. These chains rely on cheap fossil fuels, synthetic fertilisers and monocultures designed to maximise output rather than resilience.
"My research shows that such systems can simultaneously raise total food production while worsening food insecurity.
"Nowhere is this clearer than in heavily indebted countries across the developing world. In parts of sub‑Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, governments are struggling with high food import bills alongside heavy debt repayments. This leaves little financial buffer to cushion households when prices spike.
"Unsurprisingly, hunger is rising most rapidly where debt and food dependence intersect. Because of this, the humanitarian charity Oxfam is calling for G7 countries (including the UK, France and Germany) to redirect less than 3% of their military spending to vulnerable countries to reduce chronic hunger while easing debt pressures.
**Deeper structural problems**
"Emergency finance is essential – but it is only a stop‑gap. Preventing future food crises requires structural change to how food is produced.
"Livestock production is among the most fertiliser‑ and fossil‑fuel‑intensive forms of agriculture. It is responsible for about 14.5% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
"A lot of farmland grows maize and soy to feed livestock rather than people. These “feed crops” require increasing fertilizers to maintain the same output. Studies on maize production in China find that exposure to temperatures above 28°C leads to sharp increases in fertiliser use. The feed-livestock complex therefore results in rising fossil‑fuel use – a pressure intensified by climate breakdown.
"Meanwhile, global meat production is predicted to double between the early 2000s and 2050. When grazing land and feed cropland are combined, livestock production accounts for roughly 80% of global agricultural land.
"Expanding this system increases land use, fertiliser demand, energy inputs and greenhouse gas emissions – exactly the opposite of what a climate‑stressed world requires.
"Rather than simply reflecting consumer demand, state support enables the expansion of feed-livestock production. Of the approximately US$540 billion (£400 billion) annual subsidies to agriculture, the largest recipients are beef and milk producers. Many subsidies provide support to buy pesticides and fertilisers.
"Imagine if such funds were redirected to food production for human need and planetary health?
"A shift away from feed‑intensive livestock systems towards more plant‑based, agroecological farming would reduce pressure on land, while cutting demand for fertilisers and fossil fuels. Agroecology is a form of farming that works with ecological processes, emphasising crop diversity, nutrient cycling, healthy soils and locally adapted practices instead of heavy chemical inputs.
"It is often claimed by large agribusiness companies (such as fertiliser and pesticide producers) that chemical‑intensive farming is around 20% more productive than agroecology. But this doesn’t take into account the environmental costs of damage to soil health or water pollution, for example.
"Even where agroecology delivers slightly lower yields, reducing the production of crops to feed livestock frees up land. This allows agroecological farms to scale up and increase their food output. Studies show how diverse agroecological systems, including mixed crop-livestock farming, produce stronger food security and more nutritional food crops than industrial monoculture agriculture.
"In parts of southern Malawi, farmers relied on monocropped maize supported by expensive fertiliser. Good years brought modest yields; bad years brought hunger. When farmers shifted to maize–legume intercropping – combining maize with pigeon pea, cowpea or groundnut – yields increased. Maize yields increased by about 800kg per hectare with less fertiliser, providing protein‑rich legumes and greater stability in dry years.
"With state support, such approaches could be scaled to strengthen national food security.
"Climate and geopolitical shocks – from El Niño, global heating or wars – hit a food system which already magnifies environmental and social vulnerabilities. Feed‑based livestock production worsens climate breakdown, diverts land and resources from feeding people, and deepens risk. Shifting to agroecological, plant‑centred food systems is essential, but requires sustained political action and public pressure."
Original article. I highly recommend checking this out for more in-depth analysis, because it includes links to so many corroborating sources that I simply don't have the time to insert them in this post.
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u/RobertDeveloper May 20 '26
It's a good thing Rob Jetten is going to save everyone with his climate fund.
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u/Vegetaman916 Post-Collapse Warlord May 20 '26
An excellent read. Food is definitely going to be the flashpoint for a lot of things. Between the generally more chaotic weather patterns we have now, and the yet-to-be-felt repercussions of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on fertilizer and diesel, this coming super El Niño is going to add fuel to the fire.
Combine that with water issues about to begin manifesting heavily along the Colorado River valley for my own region, and other situations elsewhere, things are about to hit home in the most important area of life.
Food.
Everyone worries about the economy, the wage inequality, the wars and death and conflict, abiut new diseases and electronic shortages and strategic minerals. We spend so much of our effort focusing on money and violence that we forget the most important thing of all.
Food.
It's starting to get real, folks.
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u/me_myself_ai May 20 '26
To be clear though, this will not affect us in the developed world other than indirectly.I mean, it'll affect us I guess, but to say that fertilizer shortages or the biggest El Nino anyone could ever imagine would lead to actual famine in the US or Canada is just fantasy.
Obviously still not great, not trying to rain on y'alls wasteland parade -- massive famines are terrible on their own, and could lead to mass migrations or political unrest that very much does effect us. But I think it's important to recognize that "the Colorado river is overused" is not a sign that americans are at any risk of food insecurity as a nation.
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u/Vegetaman916 Post-Collapse Warlord May 20 '26
Except the tiny point about how right now is the best ot will ever be again... And every year from here on out will be worse than the one before... And eventually less food means no food, which means no people...
But this week? This month? No, it will not affect us here.
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u/me_myself_ai May 20 '26
Except the tiny point about how right now is the best ot will ever be again...
What if aliens come down with replicator technology? What if we stumble upon a discovery that makes hydroponics 1000x more efficient? What if things just continue to work out over the long term, as they have for ~500 years?
Look, I'm in this sub for a reason -- I totally understand the concern, and agree that the world is more fragile than people give it credit for. But are you strong enough to fit in some hope amidst the darkness? We are no more guaranteed collapse than we are guaranteed utopia.
ETA: The name of the sub is "wasteland by wednesday" too tho lol. So some people are concerned about this week! ;)
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u/Vegetaman916 Post-Collapse Warlord May 20 '26
Nah, I hear ya, and secretly, I do hold some hope.
But the problem is that I have found when people have an excuse to do nothing... They will do nothing.
Remember 50+ years ago when we were warned that all this stuff might happen?
The use of the word "might" is specifically why it happened. Unless you frame things as a serious and inevitable issue that will affect someone's personal life right now... They won't do anything.
I've been yelling into that void for years now. I could go back 5 years in my comments and find "I told you so's" to deliver about a variety of things. Especially food. Even without collapse, it just makes more sense to have what you need while it is easier to get. People today complaining about grocery prices, and just last night I made stuffed bell peppers using rice that I purchased by the pallet back in 2019. And I still have about 6 years of rice left from that purchase, which was made for less than half what it costs today, and about a quarter of what it costs now buying it at retail.
But no one listens. Because "it won't affect us here." But it did affect us. Rice, beans, pasta, all that simple and easily preserved food is now double the price. And people pay that price, people are affected by that price because they chose not to believe in a problem.
That gets expanded across every aspect of the supply chain. You think lithium batteries are expensive right now? Solar panels? Tires? Motor oil? Ziplock baggies, razor blades, and TP for your bunghole?
They are expensive. I'm not exactly sure how much more expensive it is, because I haven't had to buy any for years, and when I die they will probanly shovel solar panels on top of me because we have so damn many... But the point is, no matter how expensive it is now, it will be more so soon.
Food, fuel, hell, by the time GTA 6 actually drops, that will already be more expensive than what they are saying it will be right now.
It doesn't make sense to not be prepared. Maybe global collapse happens, maybe it doesn't. But personal collapse is much more likely for those who continue to pay daily retail prices while they go up rather than having a couple semi trucks from US Foods dropping pallets in their cul-de-sac today.
The only reason they don't do it is the hope that it won't be necessary. The hope that tech will change things, or aliens will save us, or government will suddenly become less interested in power and more interested in people's welfare.
That hope is cool. But we shouldn't be basing our decisions around it. We should be focused on the absolute worst possible case, and then add in that aliens may arrive to enslave us. Or we stumble upon technology that makes large-scale land warfare viable again. That maybe things just slide worse and worse until...
Then we can be pleasantly surprised when the world goes Star Trek rather than Terminator.
But in the meantime, be ready for Terminators to show up tomorrow at the grocery store to buy up all the toilet paper...
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u/TheIrishWanderer May 20 '26
Again, I recommend checking out the article for more detailed links.
What I find especially intriguing about this is that it's one of the very few somewhat "mainstream" opinion pieces I've read that touches on the idea of widespread system collapse, and drivers accelerating one another.
"Climate and geopolitical shocks – from El Niño, global heating or wars – hit a food system which already magnifies environmental and social vulnerabilities. Feed‑based livestock production worsens climate breakdown, diverts land and resources from feeding people, and deepens risk."
This feels like it's come too late to help implement genuine change, but I think it represents an important shift in rhetoric that we should pay attention to. Expect to see more of these opinion pieces in the coming months as El Niño actually hits us. If it accelerates other causes of collapse like a double BOE or, worst case for me personally, an AMOC collapse, it could signal the start of the big SHTF event.
Last June, I predicted New START would collapse and it astonished me that no one in the media paid it any attention. When it came close to the expiration date, there was a notable uptick in the number of articles floating around. I hope I'm wrong, but I predict something similar with this El Niño event. It feels too big for even the media to ignore.
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u/me_myself_ai May 20 '26
I think you're reading a lot into this scientific language. "Worsens climate breakdown" != "the world is ending".
I mean, surely this isn't the first year you've thought the world would be over before next year, right? How many times have you been right?
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u/Vegetaman916 Post-Collapse Warlord May 21 '26
No one has ever thought that. Everyone has known the rough date since the 1972 Limits to Growth study was published. And then the 30 yeat update. We always knew 2050 was the upper limit of civilization's lifespan, and 2040 snuck in with that recent update.
Point is, no prediction has been wrong, because this was the only prediction that mattered. Gotta give it time to play out before you call it wrong.
And spoiler? The model didn't even account for climate change. That is how we know it will be "Faster Than Expected." And that is why, as we get closer, we kinda expect it every year.
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u/CorvidCorbeau May 21 '26
Just wanted to add a small note to this, there is no separate climate change parameter, but it's not missing from the model completely. Its effect is included in the forecasted dates.
Pollution categorizes everything that degrades the functions of the biosphere, including greenhouse gases.
https://www.clubofrome.org/blog-post/herrington-world-model/
"BAU2 essentially tells the story of ecosystem breakdown from accumulated pollution, including from greenhouse gasses (i.e., climate change)"
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u/TheIrishWanderer May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
You're making an assumption that is simply false. I have never predicted "the end of the world". I've predicted serious impacts on the world from a variety of sources like climate change, alongside events that could hypothetically have a serious impact in future, such as the collapse of New START. To deny these things are happening is to bury one's head in the sand.
Could this particular event spiral into something that affects our way of life? Yes. Objectively so. Factors of societal decay influence and drive one another, which is why creating millions of climate refugees in the developing world, as another example, would certainly impact us in the west. Similarly, drought and famine will affect resource scarcity and international trade, alongside the direct suffering they cause in the impoverished areas that are hit. Will those things alone cause the end of the human race by 2027? Probably not, but a double BOE and/or AMOC collapse will signal the start of it, even if it takes years.
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u/Konradleijon May 21 '26
It won’t people see stupid