NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: La Niña cuatro tops $2-trillion in damage

Futureworld brings you Mindbullets: News from the Future, to spark strategic thinking about leadership, innovation and digital disruption. These fictitious scenarios aim to challenge conventional mindsets and promote understanding of the future context for business. 

Dateline: November 29 2024

For the first time since records began, we have had four La Niñas in a row, and the damage caused by the notorious weather system since 2020 is estimated to exceed $2-trillion globally. From floods in Pakistan and India to wildfires in the US to torrential rain in Australia and drought in South America, La Niña has wreaked havoc across continents.

Unexpectedly, it’s not the intensity or severity of the slightly cooler Pacific seawater that causes the damage, but the length of time the phenomenon hangs around, and the fact that it has arrived for a fourth time — hence the “cuatro” moniker. An extended La Niña means the affected regions have no chance to return to “normal” — if such a concept is still valid.

In terms of climate change, the opposite cycle, El Niño, accelerates global warming and brings heavy rains to other parts of the world, but drought to Southern Africa. La Niña causes good rains and bumper crops in SA, but drought in East Africa, while also helping to “pause” global warming. Neither of the two is universally preferred; possibly the “neutral” position on the El Niño oscillation is most benign, overall.

But while La Niña is welcomed in some countries, heavily populated areas like Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil and the US are the most adversely affected. And that’s where the majority of people have the most to lose; disasters like floods cause the most damage where forests have been cleared and housing is dense, and drought is felt more keenly where growing communities use more water every year.

Whether it’s worse weather and more extreme conditions, or just more people to suffer and infrastructure to be damaged, the costs have mounted every year that La Niña has persisted, and now total about $2-trillion in insurance losses alone. But the economic impact on trade and industry — from agriculture to mining to energy and shipping — is incalculable.

• First published on Mindbullets 22 September 2022

Global food crisis bites

Biofuel and meat off the menu as feast turns to famine

Dateline: May 27 2024

Since early 2020, we’ve seen a steady uptick in food prices, and now it’s reached crisis proportions. Not only are food staples becoming unaffordable for poorer communities, but there just isn’t enough to go around. Four years ago there was an abundance of food; now over 1-billion people are staring famine in the face.

How did this happen? Gradually, then suddenly. Covid-19 and climate change disrupted supply chains and bumper harvests; then the war in Ukraine and sanctions blocked grain exports and fertiliser supplies, while sending energy prices soaring. In a perfect trifecta of disruption, full silos could not be emptied, gas for fertiliser became scarce and costly, and fuel for planting, harvesting, and shipping surged.

Within months, 25 countries had banned the export of various food products, seeking to protect their domestic food security, which only made the global situation worse, while super-exporters like Brazil enjoyed a demand bonanza. Depressed yields due to flood or drought on three continents added to the crisis.

“This is a worse catastrophe than the [Covid-19] pandemic,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres, “And all countries must solve it together! We must start by ceasing the production of biofuel and biodiesel, and drastically reducing the grain we feed to [farm] animals.”

Reducing meat consumption and promoting vegetarian diets will go a long way to alleviating corn shortages, but cultural habits take a long time to change. More effective hi-tech solutions are available, like indoor and “vertical” farming, and producing protein with precision fermentation. Gene-editing crops can increase yields and lower fertiliser requirements.

All these remedies come with a cost, and the poor will suffer the most. But if we collaborate on a global scale, ramp up the technology, and fight this crisis the way we fought Covid-19, perhaps we can create the “good future” together.

And everything will be back on the menu.

• First published on Mindbullets 26 May 2022

• Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.