"Climate Change Isn't Everything"

Via Vox's "Future Perfect" newsletter, a new book:

Climate Change Isn’t Everything: Liberating Climate Politics from Alarmism

Please be aware that you're certainly hearing everything bad and rarely anything good. From Hannah Ritchie's latest:

Temperatures might have broken records, but so has crop production ... Rice and corn both achieved record yields this year. Wheat was a bit below last year’s high ... 

From 1876 to 1878, a rare El Niño, combined with another weather oscillation – the Indian Ocean Dipole – led to severe drought across India, China, South America, and parts of Africa. Tens of millions died from famine. 

We won’t have tens of millions dying from famine this time. Yes, there have been severe droughts ... But modern agriculture, global supply chains, and political structures mean we’re much more resilient to extreme events.

Many breadbaskets have achieved and maintained high yields due to agricultural tech and innovations. Yields across the world have doubled, tripled, over more over the last 50 years.

But support is also available for regions where disaster has struck. Aid support can plug acute shortages. Global trade means that imports can fill holes in demand. And in well-governed countries, governments often step in to support affected communities financially.

... Look at the history of famines – of which there are many events leading to millions of deaths – and we find very few in democracies. Famines have nearly always occurred in colonies or autocracies.

Global hunger today is still a massive problem ... But it’s not because the world can’t produce enough food: it’s caused by large inequalities in production and distribution, poor governance, and exacerbations such as conflict.