Thin posting and orange crate labels

I've been trying to get real work done and so thin posting of late.  Hopefully inspiration will strike again soon. 

Way off topic: Today's google doodle brought back memories of Riverside, CA where I grew up.  The early orange growers in that area had labels on their crates that looked a lot like this.


Little known fact: Riverside, CA is where the first navel orange trees in North America were grown.  Last time I checked, a couple of the first trees were still alive downtown.  I grew up Arlington Heights, in the middle of the last vestiges of those early groves.  We got the water for our property from the Gage Canal, one of California's first.  It predated all the big water projects that ultimately made California what it is today.  I still miss the fresh oranges and avocados, and all kinds of other things we grew, on our little hobby farm.

More on Weather and Civil Conflict

A study just out in Nature, coauthored by Soloman Hsaing, Kyle Meng and Mark Cane,  finds El Nino events are correlated civil conflict.  Sol is a recent Columbia PhD who has been working as a post doc on an NSF grant I have with Wolfram Schlenker and David Lobell.

What makes the study interesting is that it documents a link between conflict and weather fluctuations that are predictable and larger-scale--a bit closer to climate change.  That could be a lot different than documenting a links between conflict and localized acute weather events.

The study is featured on the cover of Nature and is getting a ton of press coverage.

Here's a nice summary at Time.

Here's another at the Washington Post.

I don't think anyone knows what to make of the correlation.  The only mechanism that obviously comes to mind is food prices.  But I've never played around with conflict data.  And it's amazing how playing around with the data can change one's perspective on things.  Someday... Right now I have too many old and ongoing projects to finish up and get out the door.

Update:  The Economist is currently featuring this work on its front page, along with some past work by my colleagues and myself.