The Rest of It.

News Items, Wednesday, Part 2.

1. Sea levels on U.S. coastlines are forecast to rise on average by about a foot by 2050, surging with meltwater from ice sheets and glaciers as a result of climate change, federal scientists said Tuesday. The estimates were released in a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other federal and academic institutions. Globally, sea levels rose about 0.55 feet between 1920 and 2020, according to the report. Across the U.S. coast on average, in the last 100 years, sea levels rose about 0.9 feet. The new forecasts revise a 2017 NOAA assessment that mapped sea-level scenarios on the long-term horizon up to 2200. The new report describes detailed outcomes for the next 30 years for the first time. (Source: wsj.com, noaa.gov)

2. Parts of Africa are contending with a wave of inflation that is, by some measures, even worse than the supply shocks cascading around the rest of the world. Food prices are at their highest levels in over a decade, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, compounding the plight of some 40 million people thrown into poverty by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdowns. That is creating a food crisis that threatens to spill over into unrest. In some places, it is already driving people to emigrate. (Source: wsj.com)

3. Inflation is growing on the farm. American farmers are paying significantly higher prices for their weed-killing chemicals, crop seeds, fertilizer, equipment repairs and seasonal labor, eroding some of 2021’s windfall from rising crop prices. Higher farm costs could help push up grocery bills further in 2022, analysts say, following a year in which global food prices rose to decade highs. Supply-chain constraints and staffing problems are leading to higher prices for products and supplies across a variety of industries, especially food. U.S. inflation hit its fastest pace in nearly four decades last year. Food prices surged 7% in January, the sharpest rise since 1981, the Labor Department on Thursday said, as meat and egg prices continued to climb at double-digit rates. (Source: wsj.com)

4 Suppliers sharply boosted prices last month, in a sign upward pressure on already high consumer inflation continued to build at the start of the year. The Labor Department on Tuesday said the producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 1% in January from the prior month, the sharpest rise since May 2021 and a pickup from December’s revised 0.4% rise. The gains reflect pandemic-related disruptions from the Omicron variant of Covid-19 at the start of the year and continued strength in consumer demand, economists said. (Source: wsj.com)