In http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf - - MIT Technology Review explains how CSI�s model works: �The evidence comes from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause.� Plot the data, and it looks like this:

Pretty simple. Black dots are the food prices, red lines are the riots. In other words, whenever the UN�s food price index, which measures the monthly change in the price of a basket of food commodities, climbs above 210, the conditions ripen for social unrest around the world. CSI doesn�t claim that any breach of 210 immediately leads to riots, obviously; just that the probability that riots will erupt grows much greater. For billions of people around the world, food comprises up to 80% of routine expenses (for rich-world people like you and I, it�s like 15%). When prices jump, people can�t afford anything else; or even food itself. And if you can�t eat�or worse, your family can�t eat�you fight.

But how accurate is the model? An anecdote the researchers outline in the report offers us an idea. They write that �on December 13, 2010, we submitted a government report analyzing the repercussions of the global financial crises, and directly identifying the risk of social unrest and political instability due to food prices.� Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire as an act of protest in Tunisia. And we all know http://utopianist.com/2011/02/protest-gone-pop-how-we-watch-forward-remix-the-revolution/ -

Today, the food price index is hovering around 213, where it has stayed for months�just beyond the tip of the identified threshold. Low corn yield in the U.S., the world�s most important producer, has helped keep prices high.

�Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe,� Yaneer Bar-Yam, one of the authors of the report, recently http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/08/20128218556871733.html - - drought that has consumed 60% of the United States and the http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/heat-forces-ranchers-to-sell-herds-to-cut-losses.html - - some say .

And it�s only going to get worse and worse and worse. Because of climate change-exacerbated disasters like these, �the average price of staple foods such as maize could more than double in the next 20 years compared with 2010 trend prices,� a http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ib-extreme-weather-extreme-prices-05092012-en.pdf - - exploitation from speculators , without reform, our world will be an increasingly restive one. Hunger is coming, and so are the riots.