标题： 粮食危机与北非和中东的政治不稳定 显示英文标题

标题： The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East

摘要： 社会动荡可能反映多种因素，如贫困、失业和社会不公。 尽管可能有诸多相关因素，2011年北非和中东的暴力抗议以及2008年早期的骚乱时间与全球粮食价格的高峰相吻合。 我们确定了一个特定的粮食价格阈值，超过该阈值后抗议事件很可能发生。 这些观察表明，抗议可能不仅反映了政府长期的政治失败，还反映了脆弱人群的突然绝望境地。 如果粮食价格持续高位，可能会出现持续且加剧的全球社会动荡。 在我们发现的粮食价格高峰之下，还存在一个持续上涨的趋势。 我们推断这些趋势，并在2012-2013年确定了一个跨越到高影响领域的交叉点，即使没有价格高峰也是如此。 这意味着，避免全球粮食危机和相关的社会动荡需要迅速而协调的行动。 显示英文摘要

摘要： Social unrest may reflect a variety of factors such as poverty, unemployment, and social injustice. Despite the many possible contributing factors, the timing of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 as well as earlier riots in 2008 coincides with large peaks in global food prices. We identify a specific food price threshold above which protests become likely. These observations suggest that protests may reflect not only long-standing political failings of governments, but also the sudden desperate straits of vulnerable populations. If food prices remain high, there is likely to be persistent and increasing global social disruption. Underlying the food price peaks we also find an ongoing trend of increasing prices. We extrapolate these trends and identify a crossing point to the domain of high impacts, even without price peaks, in 2012-2013. This implies that avoiding global food crises and associated social unrest requires rapid and concerted action.