Everywhere you look, you heat, drought and fires the imagination. This state of Oklahoma in the centre of the inter-American firestorm. Eighteen days in a row temperature is about 38, recurrent drought and so many fires in neighboring States that emergency services cannot cope and with no place to wait.

This is a hot summer marching across the United States. The first six months of the year, broke temperature record and as a consequence - the clouds of insects. Drought prevails in 52% of the United States, in the Midwest of the degree of aridity has been growing steadily, 66% of the corn crop in the state of Illinois in "bad" or "terrible". The entire corn crop in the country were affected by 48 percent, the soybean crop and beans - 37, next year the situation with the harvest is unlikely to improve. According to the statement of the Department of agriculture "three quarters of fertile land, where growing two-thirds of grain countries in the area of drought". What's worse, with no place to wait, nor heaven, nor from Congress, which has deferred a decision on providing assistance to farmers experiencing the strongest since 30-ies of the drought.

In General, such unnerving stuffiness no one remembers. And it is happening now. What may await us in the future?

Hungry war - our future: heat, drought, rising food prices and riots

Great drought 2012 is coming to an end, but it is obvious that the effects will be most severe. More than half of the States are in the area of arid disaster in 2012 crop of corn, soybeans and other crops are guaranteed to be lower than expected. This will cause the growth of food prices and the U.S. and in other countries, the level of poverty among farmers and low-income citizens will grow worse have poor citizens of the countries-importers of U.S. agricultural products.

This is only the beginning. If you believe the stories, the rising prices of food always entailed social unrest and clashes.

Food is available food is critical for human survival and health maintenance. The lack of available food causes anxiety, despair and anger. In the United States for foodstuff, on average citizens spend 13 percent of their income, and this is a relatively small. Consequently, the price increase in 2013, not much will cost a pretty penny to people with average incomes and higher. However, it can greatly complicate the situation for the poor and the unemployed who have no savings. Later in regions with high unemployment may increase resentment and cause a negative attitude to the current government, as well stimulating manifestations and other forms of dissent.

It is internationally this drought can cause the worst consequences. Many Nations depends on the import of grain from the United States, they cover their own shortage of harvest. Besides, droughts and floods harm the crops around the world, so it is expected overall reduction in food supplies and rising prices on the international scale.

The hunger games 2007-2011

What happens next is not precisely to predict, but if the forecasts rely on the recent past, there is nothing good to not wait. In 2007-2008, when the price of rice, corn and wheat jumped by 100 percent, a sharp increase of prices led to food riots in more than two dozen countries, including Bangladesh, Cameroon, Egypt, Haiti, Senegal and Yemen. In Haiti protests were held with frequent cases of violence and cruelty, faith in the government's ability to cope with difficulties so fell that the Senate has voted for resignation of the Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis. In other countries there were clashes of protesters with police and army were killed.

This price increase was largely attributed to increase in prices of oil, has made more expensive the collection, processing and transportation of the harvest.

Next jump of the prices in 2009-2001 years have linked to climate change. A large part of Eastern Russia in 2010 swept severe drought, reducing fees wheat in grain-producing regions, up to one-fifth of the expected and prompting Moscow to ban all exports. The drought and harvest of grain in China, and severe floods destroyed much of the Australian wheat crops. These events made wheat prices to rise by 50 percent, and the prices of other food products rose by almost a third.

These events have sparked a wave of protests. This time the center of the events moved to North Africa and the middle East. First, Algeria, then Tunisia, where young vegetable seller Mohammed bouazizi has set himself on fire in protest against the abuses of government. The anger at rising prices for food and gasoline intensified protests against corruption and arbitrariness of the authorities, resulting in the Arab spring. Similar reasons caused the riots in Egypt, Jordan and Sudan.

About drought this year, analysts have already warned of instability in Africa, where maize is the basis of the diet, and increase the number of unrest in China, where the growth of food prices will greatly complicate the lives of citizens with low income. Increase of prices for food products in the US and China will also reduce the level of consumption of other goods, slowing world economy and causing the same worries.

The hunger games 2012-??

If it was just one bad harvest in one country, this deficit would dissolve in the global indicators and the situation through time would be corrected. Unfortunately, the drought 2012 - not a temporary nuisance, and the inevitable consequence of global warming, with far-reaching the expected consequences. Expect a repetition of these events, will become hotter, it will occur more often and on a global scale.

It is still early to discuss the methods scientists to forecast future climate change, but it is expected that the correlation is high. And if the warming will be a sudden? Then what to expect from the future?

When we talk about global warming, we think about the growth of temperatures, prolonged droughts, severe storms, fires and destruction of crops. But it is physical, not social manifestations warming. The social consequences will be food riots, mass starvation, the collapse of States, mass migration and clashes, up to full-fledged wars. If heat and drought will force many people to leave their homes, their country, and to replenish the population of slum areas around big cities, the probability of conflicts between the slum dwellers and citizens will rise dramatically because of dissatisfaction with the last new neighbors.

One such incident took place in 2008 in the slums of Johannesburg (the largest city in South Africa; approx mixednews.ru). Hungry slum dwellers workers from Malawi and Zimbabwe suffered massacres by South Africans, many were beaten and even burned.

Thus, our attention naturally focuses on the obvious manifestations of severe drought: damage to crops and rising food prices. But we cannot ignore the social and political consequences that hardly will show themselves before 2013. Clearly any academic research history gives us hints on developments expected in the future: a decade of increasing heat, prolonged droughts, food shortages and billions of hungry, desperate people.