Baby, It's Weird Outside

Remember the heat wave in Russia laast summer?  The forest fires?  The loss of their wheat crop due to drought?   How about the floods in Pakistan and the loss of their cotton crops? 

Climate change models predict unusual and extreme weather events.   Like severe droughts.  Hmmnnnn... we seem to be happenign another drought.  This one is in northern China.  From Forbes ....
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/02/14/business-health-care-providers-us-business-highlights_8308227.html

BEIJING (AP) - Provinces in China's severely parched northeast have been ordered to step up emergency irrigation as part of a $1 billion effort to minimize the loss of crucial wheat crops. China is the world's largest wheat-growing nation but its wheat belt has gotten virtually no precipitation since October. Expected shortages of the crop in China have already pushed up global prices for the commodity. The government's Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said in an online statement late Sunday that the drought situation remained "grim" and urged local officials to dig more wells and carry out other emergency irrigation measures. The U.N.'s food agency has warned the drought is driving up China's wheat prices, and now the focus is on whether China will buy more from the global market, where prices have risen about 35 percent since mid-November.

China doesn't usually import wheat.  If it is forced to import, wheat prices are going to increase again.  This is going to affect you, dear reader.   Your bread and pasta is going to get pricey.  Unhappily, higher food prices probably aren't enough to wake up the middle classes in North America and get them to riot in the streets demanding action on climate change.