Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation
<p>Classification of the employment types of the survey participants.</p> "> Figure 2
<p>Plausibility of the Societal Event as a function of time. Results of “In your opinion, how plausible is this Societal Event to occur in the next 10 years?” (<b>left</b>) and “In your opinion, how plausible is this Societal Event to occur in the next 50 years?” (<b>right</b>).</p> "> Figure 3
<p>Results on which Food System Scenario is most likely to have caused civil unrest if it occurs in the next 10 years (<b>left</b>) or next 50 years (<b>right</b>).</p> "> Figure 4
<p>Results of asking participants about the causes of Food System Scenario 1 (insufficient UK food, <b>upper panels</b>) and Food System Scenario 2 (food distribution problem, <b>lower panels</b>) for each of the two timeframes of 10 years (<b>left panels</b>) and 50 years (<b>right panels</b>).</p> "> Figure 5
<p>The commodities selected by the participants as being most likely to lead to civil unrest in each Scenario (Scenario 1: <b>upper panels</b>; Scenario 2: <b>lower panels</b>) for each timeframe (10 years: <b>left panels</b>; 50 years: <b>right panels</b>).</p> "> Figure 6
<p>Backcasting map of possible routes to the Societal Event (right of each panel) from the underlying cause (<b>left</b>) via the Food System Scenario type (<b>centre</b>), indicating expert ranking of the connection using line thickness—for 10 years (<b>left panel</b>) and 50 years (<b>right panel</b>). Additional themes from the free-text boxes are shown in lighter shaded boxes with dashed lines (these additional themes were not voted on by all participants and, therefore, line thickness is not indicative of ranking).</p> ">
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- Beyond the collective capability of governments and the private sector to control [7];
- Cause significant harm at the global scale, such as a large reduction in global population [8];
- Precipitate the failure of critical global systems, including the cluster of socio-technological systems sometimes called “human civilisation” [9].
2. Methods
Societal Event
3. Results
3.1. Causal Pathways Leading to Different Food System Scenarios
3.2. Developing Expanded Food System Scenarios
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. The Catastrophic Food System Disruption Expert Elicitation Survey
Appendix A.1. 10 Years
- Very unlikely (<5%)
- Unlikely (5–20%)
- Possible (20–50%)
- More likely than not (50–80%)
- Very likely (>80%)
- extreme weather (including storm surges, flooding, snow, drought)
- nuclear war
- trade restrictions or protectionism
- pandemic
- financial crash
- animal or plant pathogen
- ecological collapse
- computer virus, rogue AI or similar
- breakdown of electricity supply
- coronal mass ejection
- transport strikes
- lack of migrant workers
- popular carbohydrates (wheat/bread/pasta/cereal)
- most carbohydrates (including oats, potatoes, barley)
- fruit and vegetables
- dairy or eggs
- meat or fish
- extreme weather (including storm surges, flooding, snow, drought)
- nuclear war
- trade restrictions or protectionism
- pandemic
- financial crash
- animal or plant pathogen
- ecological collapse
- computer virus, rogue AI or similar
- breakdown of electricity supply
- coronal mass ejection
- transport strikes
- lack of migrant workers
- popular carbohydrates (wheat/bread/pasta/cereal)
- most carbohydrates (including oats, potatoes, barley)
- fruit and vegetables
- dairy or eggs
- meat or fish
Appendix A.2. 50 Years
- Very unlikely (<5%)
- Unlikely (5–20%)
- Possible (20–50%)
- More likely than not (50–80%)
- Very likely (>80%)
- extreme weather (including storm surges, flooding, snow, drought)
- nuclear war
- trade restrictions or protectionism
- pandemic
- financial crash
- animal or plant pathogen
- ecological collapse
- computer virus, rogue AI or similar
- breakdown of electricity supply
- coronal mass ejection
- transport strikes
- lack of migrant workers
- popular carbohydrates (wheat/bread/pasta/cereal)
- most carbohydrates (including oats, potatoes, barley)
- fruit and vegetables
- dairy or eggs
- meat or fish
- extreme weather (including storm surges, flooding, snow, drought)
- nuclear war
- trade restrictions or protectionism
- pandemic
- financial crash
- animal or plant pathogen
- ecological collapse
- computer virus, rogue AI or similar
- breakdown of electricity supply
- coronal mass ejection
- transport strikes
- lack of migrant workers
- popular carbohydrates (wheat/bread/pasta/cereal)
- most carbohydrates (including oats, potatoes, barley)
- fruit and vegetables
- dairy or eggs
- meat or fish
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Jones, A.; Bridle, S.; Denby, K.; Bhunnoo, R.; Morton, D.; Stanbrough, L.; Coupe, B.; Pilley, V.; Benton, T.; Falloon, P.; et al. Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation. Sustainability 2023, 15, 14783. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783
Jones A, Bridle S, Denby K, Bhunnoo R, Morton D, Stanbrough L, Coupe B, Pilley V, Benton T, Falloon P, et al. Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation. Sustainability. 2023; 15(20):14783. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783
Chicago/Turabian StyleJones, Aled, Sarah Bridle, Katherine Denby, Riaz Bhunnoo, Daniel Morton, Lucy Stanbrough, Barnaby Coupe, Vanessa Pilley, Tim Benton, Pete Falloon, and et al. 2023. "Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation" Sustainability 15, no. 20: 14783. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783