War and Food Security

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Sun, 2010-08-08 12:17

Protrucio

THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WAR AND FOOD SECURITY EFFECT US ALL.

Food insecurity increases in cconflict zones around the world. It could be argued that food insecurity produces militants. What is Canada's covert involvement in the perpetuation of global warfare and the resultant repurcussions related to food insecurity?

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/08/06/USMilitaryInColumbia/ AND.....

The already fragile food situation in Gaza has been seriously aggravated by the conflict, according to a report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
[www.fao.org]

FOOD INSECURITY IN CANADA? You bet. http://www.ryerson.ca/foodsecurity/

Saskatchewan is commonly known as "the bread basket of Canada" we have been experiencing weekly climactic devestatios effecting crops......there is no doubt that climactic events are effecting food security in Canada and around the world......are we at war with planet earth.....some would say that we are.......

ETC ETC ETC.......

Sat, 2010-08-07 20:12

George Victor

I take it that the "we" is all of our species? At war with Earth? You might say Homo sapiens, the "naked ape" is unwittingly waging war on his descendants through the abuse of Earth's biosphere. It's like all those concerned parents who buy the SUV for their children's safety. And Earth is far too big a concept to be grasped by conspicuous consumers.

Sat, 2010-08-07 20:50

Protrucio

Yes the "we" refers to homo sapiens. I guess there will be more wars over water resources. I guess food security issues are linked to water quality and supply.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Water/Crisis_BG.html

"As demand for water hits the limits of finite supply, potential conflicts are brewing between nations that share transboundary freshwater reserves. More than 50 countries on five continents might soon be caught up in water disputes unless they move quickly to establish agreements on how to share reservoirs, rivers, and underground water acquifers. The articles and analysis below examine international water disputes, civil disturbances caused by water shortages, and potential regulatory solutions to diffuse water conflict." quoted from: http://globalpolicy.org/the-dark-side-of-natural-resources/water-in-conf...

"In an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict, the Pacific Institute initiated a project in the late 1980s to track and categorize events related to water and conflict, which has been continuously updated since." http://www.worldwater.org/conflict.html

Sat, 2010-08-07 20:57

Protrucio

Here is a link to pags showing a timeline for water conflicts areound the globe. http://www.worldwater.org/conflict.html

Sun, 2010-08-08 02:40

Green Bone

Different patches of land on this planet have different ecological load-carrying capacities. One big problem is that a lot of countries in Europe and Asia and East Africa, rich and poor, are grossly overpopulated, to the point they can't grow enough of their own food. The same goes for potable and irrigation water. India is a particularilly frightening case, since half the country's electric grid runs wellwater pumps supplying irrigation and drinking water from non-renewable "fossil" aquifers, which will run out in a generation. When you consider that starvation is already a problem in India, the country has nukes and ethnic strife still bubbles up there, you get nightmares. Since the last "Band Aid" famine in East Africa, the population has more than doubled. The problem is that too many traditional societies favour big families, as in 20 kids, and are not willing to change this. This is also a problem in rich traditional societies, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We have to start pushing these countries to adopt responsible family planning policies, and ban food and water exports. Countries should be self-sufficient, calorie and water-wise, and not keep expecting handouts (Ethiopia, Bangladesh), or buyouts (Kuwait, South Korea). Progressives need to stop being so PC about this.

Sun, 2010-08-08 08:11

George Victor

You left out China's new and growing factory farms in eastern Africa (much of the produce going to China). Say what to China? (And what does it mean to be "PC"? )

Sun, 2010-08-08 09:41

Maysie

Ah, the overpopulation bullshit argument.

Oh, hi Green Bone.

I notice North America is absent from your list of countries to blame. How convenient.

There's nothing PC about shifting the focus from "overpopulation" to "over consumption" Guess which countries over-consume? All the developed nations. Including Canada.

Focussing on poor countries is a whole bunch of things, all of which you would probably consider "too PC", Green Bone. Doesn't make it any less true however. If you'd like to find a website and discussion board that bashes poor countries and blames them for issues of food insecurity and over-population,there's lots out there. Have fun now!

Or take the Earth Day Eco-Footprint Test

And hey, here's a wacky idea How about some facts instead of yammering speculation and racist ideas as "facts"? Ecological footprint by country

UAE is #1, USA is #2. After Kuwait at #3, all countries are European up to #14. Except for Canada at #9. There's a lot of blame to go around, fairly, rather than just what you imagine are levels of consumption and harm to the planet. Have you thought about why you find it easier to target poor countries? Even when the facts don't support your arguments?

[Sorry for my part of the drift from the topic of food security.]

Sun, 2010-08-08 10:24

George Victor

This is such a threatening message! Is Green Bone still one of our number? We're only coming up on 7,000,000,000 people now but perhaps when it's 10,000,000,000 or some arbitrary number in between it will be conceded there are too many. Lovelock says any more than 1,000,000,000 is not sustainable. Enough of the branding and labelling, please. That's just intimidation in a humanitarian cloak.

Sun, 2010-08-08 11:19

Maysie

Threatening? George, I'm allowed to express my opinion. Just as you are allowed to express yours.

I've labelled and branded nobody in this thread. George, you need to back off making stuff up about me.

Sun, 2010-08-08 12:18

#10

Catchfire

Moving to International News & Politics.

Sun, 2010-08-08 15:26

#11

Green Bone

@Maysie, the U.S. is still living within its ecological (though not petroleum) footprint. This means they have enough local food production to feed their populations. Rich countries like Holland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Kuwait don't. This is why South Korea, Kuwait and the like are leasing and buying land in North America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia for food production. The Russian government did the right thing by banning food exports, which is something Canada should also consider. And exporting fresh water should be a no no.

I don't know why people won't touch the issue of overpopulation. Too many people in too many countries continue to have huge families. Coupled with advances in water treatment and vaccinations, this has lead to a dangerous level of growth in countries like India. That is one country that has far too many people for its available freshwater resources. When the wells run dry, the day of reckoning will come, and it won't be pleasant. And local areas of North America are already grossly overpopulated. The Southwest is also already aquifer-dependant for much of its freshwater needs. Southern Alberta is dangerously maxed-out, with respect to the local water supply, despite developers' wet dreams about a two million Calgary population. And China's vaunted One Child policy is a joke, full of loopholes and exceptions, and bribery of officials. And yes, the PRC is doing the imperialist thing in Africa. Here's an interesting article, BTW.

Large families are the result of culture, not wealth. Poor people in Russia and Ukraine have small families, as they do in the UK and North America. Rich people in the Middle East have big families. Religion is a big factor, but also the fact that countries like Canada, the U.S. and Russia went through the Total War Economies of WW I-II, where working women deferring childbirth became the norm. Income doesn't have much of an effect, nor does education. When the Soviet Government educated women and industrialized Central Asia, the population their grew. The birthrate stayed the same, but people lived longer. And, now, western societies have brought in a raft of natalist programs, like daycare, that let people have their cake and eat it--working and having lots of babies. Throw in fertility treatments, which stupid people here in Alberta want to fund, and western birthrates are climbing again.

We can play the polictically-correct game and not criticize the completely irresponsible cultural norms of traditional societies, which advocate very large families. We can play the religious wacko card (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever), or entertain nationalist crazy fantasies that say we have to be fruitfull and multiply like rats. We can daydream about high-tech breakthroughs in food production that will never come. Any of these approaches will get us into big trouble. The fact is that we were overpopulated by the Second World War, which was fought over Lebensraum and resources, by overpopulated Germany, Italy and Japan. The Green Revolution borrowed time, but Mother Nature is a nasty bitch of a loanshark, and is calling in her debts with things like groundwater depletion and desertification. GM crops and other tweaks have only improved yields by single-digit percents, and Sci-Fi fantasies like urban vertical hydroponic greenhouses are just as unlikely as flying to Alpha Centauri. Actually, with the collapse of plankton levels, a Soylent Green future is looking more likely. Horrendous famines in countries like Ethiopia never convinced people to do the sane, responsible thing and have smaller families--they just count on more food aid and being able to migrate.

The fact remains that having fewer mouths to feed means greater wealth, not the other way around. It's time to smarten up. Aid and trade has to be tied with family planning and reductions in birthrates. We have to watch our own backyards, too, and sharply curb immigration, defund fertility clinics, freeze housing development and ban food and water exports. This year, harvests are horrible from Canada to China due to floods, and the mice and locusts are on their way in Australia, so stock up on flour. And lets pray that, when India, Pakistan, China and other countries do start fighting over food and water, which they will, they'll leave the nukes in their silos.

Sun, 2010-08-08 15:45

#12

Protrucio

Population size and migration patterns do impact the quality source and availability of food.

So what are some of the resources that global food security depends on?

Would Canada's food security ever be challenged?

1.) predicatability of climate

2.) predicatability of "growing" supplies and food prices.

3.) water

4.) arable land including good soil

5.) stable sustainably sized populations

6.) egalitarian societies

And there are more resources besides these that food security depends on such as trade routes and

transportaion as well as the absence of war.

Numbers 1 to 6 are now systematically under threat from a variety of identifiable

sources such as:

a.) Exploitative and collusive governments

b.) Exploitative and collusive corporations

c.) climate change

d.) environmental degredation and pollution

e.) over and under population

f.) interpersonal, ethnic and or tribal, interstate and international conflict. etc

(col·lu·sive (k -l s v, -z v). adj. Acting in secret to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful goal.)

Sun, 2010-08-08 18:27

#13

Green Bone

@Protrucio, we're due for another dustbowl, soon. Apparently, it's a cyclical event.

Also, more proof that developers are evil slime, regardless of what country they operate in. Southern Russia and former Soviet Central Asian countries are also living with the legacy of commie/state-capitalist irrigation policy.

Sun, 2010-08-08 19:51

#14

Protrucio

The level of denial regarding the impacts of environmental degregulation in Canada is frightening to me. I am aware of this Canadian climate of denial primarily via CPAC where anybody can witness Canadian parliamentary proceedings and also by means of mainstream media.

Related to this: now, in Saskatchewan we no longer have SCN where an individual could have seen provincial governmental hearings.

Hence, there seems to be a slow erosion of Canadian institutions which had offered a connectivity between publics and governemnt. Perhaps to some extent at least REALNEWS NETWORK http://www.therealnews.com/t2/ makes up for some of the deficit.

I am very concerned about the rift between Canadian publics and their governments: federal. provincial, local. At the same time, I am becoming aware of alternative pro-democratic developments in Canada, which have the potential of restoring the balance between the governed and the governing.

Another related issue is that even the use of the term pro-democracy is frought with profound questions since many armed revolutionary groups call themselves "pro-democratic"!!!!!!

As a specific case in point (not of armed revolutionary groups - although there is a lot of crime here) Saskatchewan depends on one main water supply which as it may turn out is being compromised by Alberta oil/tar sand activity. It is very difficult to get relevant, plausible information here concerning the environmental impacts of the oil and gas industry in this Province. I would like to pursue this with you. At the same time I will examine all of your links.

Thanks once again for your contributions!

Mon, 2010-08-09 13:04

#15

Protrucio

Land leases in Africa and elsewhere impact global food security.

"A million hectares in Uganda. Some 690,000 hectares in Sudan. And 500,000 hectares in Tanzania. These are just a few of the numbers that have appeared on the bargaining table in the past year as foreign firms scramble for land leases in Africa"

http://www.globalenvision.org/tags/food-security

Mon, 2010-08-09 13:22

#16

Protrucio

The Open-Source War

By JOHN ROBB

Published: October 15, 2005

IN September, the Defense Department floated a solicitation for a company to build a "system of metrics to accurately assess U.S. progress in the war on terrorism" and make suggestions on how to improve the effort. As a software executive and former Air Force counterterrorist operative, I began thinking: how would I build this system and what would I recommend?

Enlarge This Image

Tim Lane

My first task would be to gauge our progress in Iraq. It is now, for better or worse, the epicenter of the war on terrorism. By most measurements, the war is going badly.

Insurgent attacks have been increasing steadily since the invasion, and the insurgents' methods are growing more sophisticated. American casualty rates remain high despite an increasingly experienced force and improvements in armor. The insurgents have also radically expanded their campaign of violence to include Iraqi troops, police officers, government officials and Shiite civilians. Since the American military's objective is to gain a monopoly on violence in Iraq, these developments indicate that it has sustained the commercial equivalent of a rapid loss in market share.

Despite this setback, the military and the Bush administration continue to claim progress, though this progress appears to be measured in the familiar metric of body counts. According to the military, it kills or captures 1,000 to 3,000 insurgents a month. Its estimate of the insurgency, however, is a mere 12,000 to 20,000 fighters. Something is clearly wrong. Simple math indicates we have destroyed the insurgency several times over since it started.

Perhaps Iraq's insurgency is much larger than the Defense Department has reported. Other observers estimate that up to 20 percent of the two million former Baathists may be involved in the insurgency. This estimate would partly explain the insurgency's ability to withstand high losses while increasing its market share of violence.

The other likely explanation is one the military itself makes: that the insurgency isn't a fragile hierarchical organization but rather a resilient network made up of small, autonomous groups. This means that the insurgency is virtually immune to attrition and decapitation. It will combine and recombine to form a viable network despite high rates of attrition. Body counts - and the military should already know this - aren't a good predictor of success.

Given this landscape, let's look at alternative strategies. First, out-innovating the insurgency will most likely prove unsuccessful. The insurgency uses an open-source community approach (similar to the decentralized development process now prevalent in the software industry) to warfare that is extremely quick and innovative. New technologies and tactics move rapidly from one end of the insurgency to the other, aided by Iraq's relatively advanced communications and transportation grid - demonstrated by the rapid increases in the sophistication of the insurgents' homemade bombs. This implies that the insurgency's innovation cycles are faster than the American military's slower bureaucratic processes (for example: its inability to deliver sufficient body and vehicle armor to our troops in Iraq).

Second, there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency that can be exploited. Like software developers in the open-source community, the insurgents have subordinated their individual goals to the common goal of the movement. This has been borne out by the relatively low levels of infighting we have seen between insurgent groups. As a result, the military is not going to find a way to chop off parts of the insurgency through political means - particularly if former Baathists are systematically excluded from participation in the new Iraqi state by the new Constitution.

Third, the United States can try to diminish the insurgency by letting it win. The disparate groups in an open-source effort are held together by a common goal. Once the goal is reached, the community often falls apart. In Iraq, the original goal for the insurgency was the withdrawal of the occupying forces. If foreign troops pull out quickly, the insurgency may fall apart. This is the same solution that was presented to Congress last month by our generals in Iraq, George Casey and John Abizaid.

Unfortunately, this solution arrived too late. There are signs that the insurgency's goal is shifting from a withdrawal of the United States military to the collapse of the Iraqi government. So, even if American troops withdraw now, violence will probably continue to escalate.

What's left? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting I.B.M.'s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency. This is similar to the strategy used to halt the insurgencies in El Salvador in the 1980's and Colombia in the 1990's. In those cases, these militias used local knowledge, unconstrained tactics and high levels of motivation to defeat insurgents (this is in contrast to the ineffectiveness of Iraq's paycheck military). This option will probably work in Iraq too.

In fact, it appears the American military is embracing it. In recent campaigns in Sunni areas, hastily uniformed peshmerga and Badr militia supplemented American troops; and in Basra, Shiite militias are the de facto military power.

If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades. This is a far cry from spreading democracy in the Middle East. Advocates of refashioning the American military for top-down nation-building, the current flavor of the month, should recognize it as a fatal test of the concept."

John Robb is working on a book about the logic of terrorism.

See: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/09/bazaar_dyna... What side is he on do you think??????

Mon, 2010-08-09 13:30

#17

humanity4all

Once again some comments evidence the mentality of the countries that are threatening the planet!

If you are going to have a serious discussion about food security, the primary fact to be addressed is the family of countries that wage war throughout the planet and are making plans to expand their wars!

The citizens of such nations are the real terrorists because their lack of response to their governments' militant actions is culpable! For example, in the United Kingdom, in 2003, two million people marched not to go to war, what happened to the other fifty-eight million?

Only when the world addresses the issue of military invasion by certain countries, then we will be able to address food security!

Mon, 2010-08-09 14:02

#18

Protrucio

You are right. Ideally democracy is supposed to be a system of governance which ensures "humanity for all". In practice and in reality there are self appointed exemplars of so called national democratic systems of governance, pretending to bring their gifts of democratic freedom, by means of unlawful military invasion.

Mon, 2010-08-09 18:12

#19

Protrucio

Furthermore,

"The war on Iraq has so monopolized public attention as to obscure the regime change taking place in the United States. We may have invaded Iraq to bring in democracy and bring down a totalitarian regime, but in the process our own system may be moving closer to the latter and further weakening the former. The increasing power of the state and the declining power of institutions intended to control it has been in the making for some time. In ceasing to be a genuine opposition party the Democrats have smoothed the road to power of a party more than eager to use it to promote empire abroad and corporate power at home. Thus the elements are in place: a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers." written bey Sheldon Wolins writing about INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM http://www.thenation.com/authors/sheldon-wolin

Sheldon Wolin

Mon, 2010-08-09 20:32

#20

Protrucio

Pat Mooney: on Climate Change and Food Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_sRszCaDzs

Mon, 2010-08-09 20:52

#21

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Green Bone wrote:

Different patches of land on this planet have different ecological load-carrying capacities. One big problem is that a lot of countries in Europe and Asia and East Africa, rich and poor, are grossly overpopulated, to the point they can't grow enough of their own food. The same goes for potable and irrigation water. India is a particularilly frightening case, since half the country's electric grid runs wellwater pumps supplying irrigation and drinking water from non-renewable "fossil" aquifers, which will run out in a generation. When you consider that starvation is already a problem in India, the country has nukes and ethnic strife still bubbles up there, you get nightmares. Since the last "Band Aid" famine in East Africa, the population has more than doubled. The problem is that too many traditional societies favour big families, as in 20 kids, and are not willing to change this. This is also a problem in rich traditional societies, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We have to start pushing these countries to adopt responsible family planning policies, and ban food and water exports. Countries should be self-sufficient, calorie and water-wise, and not keep expecting handouts (Ethiopia, Bangladesh), or buyouts (Kuwait, South Korea). Progressives need to stop being so PC about this.

You're truly an ignoramus and I can't believe George would be defending you. Yes, the world is overpopulated, but the reason most nations don't feed themselves is because under the economic model forced upon them, they grow for export. Have you heard of the Irish Potato Famine? It was huge. Millions of Irish died and many emigrated. The Irish, under brutal, white, British colonial rule, relied on potatoes as their staple food. The crop was afflicted with the blight and it failed. During the entire crisis, Ireland was exporting food to Britain. The discipline of the market was cited as the reason. NOTHING has changed sicne then. Prior to British occupation, famine in India was rare. Under British occupation famine was regular and now greater numbers of Indians go hungry as India adopts the "green revolution" technology and grows ever more food for the "global", as in export, market.

Live Aid? Ethiopia never stopped exporting food. We, today, produce enough food to feed the world. We choose not to. Hunger and famime are social choices we make under the capialist model.

Your biggest pile of stinking bullshit is that the US lives within its ecological footprint. The US representing just 5% of the global population consumes a good 24% of the world's energy and likely a similar share of other resources.

Mon, 2010-08-09 21:20

#22

Protrucio

Yes Frustrated Mess your example of the Irish potato famine is compelling. Raj Patel argues that we can produce enough food for the world and produce it sustainably. He makes the case in this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cp6hmslGlY&feature=related

Even so I think that the ways in which populations are aggragated effects food sovereignty. As masses of children women and men are being compelled to live in unsustainable conditions because of war mongering empires it appears as if we cannot feed everbody.

Mon, 2010-08-09 21:52

#23

George Victor

You have to watch that you dot the i and cross the t hereabouts, Green Bone. Generalizations get dumped on by those whose intetrest in scatology gets in the way of moderate criticism. Clearly what you mean is some countries are able to look after themselves and some are not and the reasons for their not being able to can lead to knotted knickers, hereabouts.

I no longer feed the goldfinches nyjer seed (an Indian product...let them eat black sunflower) and I'm sure there are other agricultural products from India that are exported for the bigger buck in the Western markets (some rice no doubt, and canned products), but it seems to take a Putin to put a stop to exports for profit. Anyone reading Graeme Smith's earlier reporting from Pakistan (before the deluge) will realize that they just won't have enough water for crops in a normal year.

Mon, 2010-08-09 21:58

#24

George Victor

Right on, FM. You should read that bastard Gwyn Morgan in today's G and M "New economic order demands new attitude." I'll try and get some of it on here later.

Mon, 2010-08-09 22:03

#25

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Protrucio wrote:

Yes Frustrated Mess your example of the Irish potato famine is compelling. Raj Patel argues that we can produce enough food for the world and produce it sustainably. He makes the case in this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cp6hmslGlY&feature=related

Even so I think that the ways in which populations are aggragated effects food sovereignty. As masses of children women and men are being compelled to live in unsustainable conditions because of war mongering empires it appears as if we cannot feed everbody.

We can't do it for long. And we can't do it at all so long as we remain trapped within a societal model that values what has been extracted from the Earth moreso than the Earth itself.

Mon, 2010-08-09 22:27

#26

al-Qa'bong

Quote:

Clearly what you mean is some countries are able to look after themselves and some are not and the reasons for their not being able to can lead to knotted knickers, hereabouts.

I suppose if, say, Eritrea had 11 carrier groups roaming the seven seas, and 700+ military bases scattered about the planet, they might be able to "look after themselves"also.

Mon, 2010-08-09 22:28

#27

Fidel

It says [url=http://www.mindfully.org/Sustainability/Americans-Consume-24percent.htm]... that it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. That's a lot of fresh water. And if we've ever pondered whether something could happen like in that old Hollywood sci-fi movie with Charlton Heston in Soylent Green, I think it has already. We've had problems with mad cow disease, and I read somewwhere that it was suspected human corpses infected cows drinking from the Ganges River.

Mon, 2010-08-09 22:35

#28

George Victor

Beautiful example of what I stated, alQ. All roads (and questions/critiques) lead to Rome, even though the Po isn't in immediate danger of drying up...unlike all those glacier-fed streams. Watch Alberta dry up over the next decade....but I'm forgetting. Back to Rome.

Mon, 2010-08-09 23:06

#29

Protrucio

Speaking of Rome....Rome needs bigger and larger cows grazing on more and more grass or huddled in hurds fenced in or in sheds feeding on chicken heads and whatever else. Oh wait I forgot there are rumours that Rome is going organic! Only the rich in Rome will ba able to afford the luxury of organic foods in the coming so called age of austerity measures and possibly engineered scarcity, well maybe.

Hey in case you haven`t already seen it take a look at this video Fidel it`s about great big super cows! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmkj5gq1cQU&feature=fvw

Tue, 2010-08-10 06:44

#30

humanity4all

Food security is related to imperialism which stems from a philosophy of being superior. This superiority cannot control nature. Nature will adapt to survive, as oppossed to the European that lacks the humility to seek answers from other cultures, especially other cultures that have been in existence longer than them!

I recommend you take the time to listen to some of the ideas espoused by JR Saul.

www.thmonthly.com.au/evening-john-ralston-saul-2599 and www.themonthly.com.au/conversation-john-ralston-saul-ramona-koval-2478.

He is basically concluding what many of first nations philosophy espoused to, "all eating from the common bowl" and not three to four per cent of the planet's population controlling about forty per cent of the planet's resources!

Tue, 2010-08-10 06:56

#31

humanity4all

My apologies, the first referrence in #29 should be www.themonthly.com.au/evening-john-ralston-saul-2599.

Tue, 2010-08-10 15:47

#32

George Victor

humanity4all wrote:

Food security is related to imperialism which stems from a philosophy of being superior. This superiority cannot control nature. Nature will adapt to survive, as oppossed to the European that lacks the humility to seek answers from other cultures, especially other cultures that have been in existence longer than them!

I recommend you take the time to listen to some of the ideas espoused by JR Saul.

www.thmonthly.com.au/evening-john-ralston-saul-2599 and www.themonthly.com.au/conversation-john-ralston-saul-ramona-koval-2478.

He is basically concluding what many of first nations philosophy espoused to, "all eating from the common bowl" and not three to four per cent of the planet's population controlling about forty per cent of the planet's resources!

Saul lectured on that to a Guelph audience last winter. Never did get around to explaining how we return to that Eden, and a black man in the audience at the River-run Centre could not say that he noticed all that much difference in Canadian vs U.S. attitudes towatd an integrated society as a rresult of that beginning.

I also heard Saul lecture to an audience of teachers and administrators at the Peel Board of Ed centre in Mississauga about 12 years back. The key to our beginings then was the unity of French and English brought about by Baldwin and Lafontaine and explained in his Siamese Twins.

Heartwarming stuff. Highly theoretical, when you take a moment to look around.

Tue, 2010-08-10 21:37

#33

humanity4all

In response to #31, I am obviously listening to a different Saul. Try "John Ralston Saul;Metis, First Nations and Canadian Identity, Part 1 of 7 at www.youtube.com?=ESgaGrltqY&feature=related.

Wed, 2010-08-11 16:24

#34

Green Bone

Frustrated Mess wrote:
Ethiopia never stopped exporting food. We, today, produce enough food to feed the world. We choose not to. Hunger and famime are social choices we make under the capialist model.

Your biggest pile of stinking bullshit is that the US lives within its ecological footprint. The US representing just 5% of the global population consumes a good 24% of the world's energy and likely a similar share of other resources.

Ethiopia--export food?! The problem with East Africa is water scarcity, and the fact that drought-tolerant crops, like millet, have low yields. Remember that Ethiopia's population doubled since the last famine. Get that? After mass starvation, people decided to have more kids they couldn't feed. At some point, people have to accept responsibility for getting themselves into a mess. This is not like the Potato Famine, or the Holodomor, or the Great Leap Forward, where wealthy landowners, or commie technocrats were the architects of starvation. This is a case where the people themselves dug themselves into a hole, then kept on digging. If people in East Africa kept their family sizes reasonable, famine would be a non-issue. Other parts of Africa, like Mauritania, are heavilly dependant on fishing, which will be out of the picture in a generation. People in these societies simply have far too many children, something that hasn't changed before, or after any imperialist power (Arabs, French, Italians, Chinese) ran their countries. Having enormous families is a "social choice," if there ever was one.

Thanks to a lot of rainfall from the Gulf of Mexico, decent soil and climate, the U.S. produces more than enough food and freshwater for itself. The exception is the Southwest, which depends heavilly on groundwater. Canada has more of a problem, as the arable land only constitutes about 5% of the country, mostly in the South, where developers are building houses. The water supply in Canada is not as secure, either, especially in places like Southern Alberta. Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Holland are overpopulated to the point they'd starve if they didn't import food. South Korea has already begun buying up and leasing farmland in other countries, to ensure food security; Kuwait, Libya and China are also doing this (including Canadian land). India has a lot of land...but way too many people, and most of its freshwater comes from so-called 'fossil' (deep) aquifers which don't replenish themselves and will be drained in a couple of decades. Half of India's electric output (that's a lot of CO2, people) pumps these wells. China has comparatively little arable land, so must import cereals and legumes to feed itself. China's agricultural output peaked in 2003, but has been falling ever since.

Russia's crop situation is so bad they've banned wheat exports. Vietnam and, off and on, Argentina have already done this. Canada and the U.S. are looking forward to very poor harvests this year, and there are predictions of an imminent Dust Bowl in the near future. South Australia is expecting locusts and mice. All of these silly, pie-in-the-sky ideas of hydroponic urban greenhouses and growing slabs of beef in factories are nothing more than techies' wet dreams, with zero hope of comercialization. GM crops are not really panning out, with, at best, single-digit percent increases in yield. Rain and dirt are still the most cost-effective way to produce food.

Soylent Green, set in 2022, is pretty creepy, in that some of the things have already come to pass. Plankton levels are declining annually. We saw how animal carcasses were processed into prion-laden animal feed. During the Holodomor and Chinese Famine, cannabalism was rampant. The Nazis used human fat for soap, candle tallow and leather, and there are rumors that things like this are happening in China. After all, what else can you do with all of those dead dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners and ethnic minorities? After the melamine milk scandal, which killed Chinese babies, I would put nothing past the PRC.

Here's an article that may be of interest:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-short...

Wed, 2010-08-11 17:58

#35

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Again, you have no idea what you are speaking of. Water scarcity is a growing and critical problem for the US. But you wouldn't know that from your propaganda sites. The US expends 10 fuel energy units for every one food energy unit produced. You do the math. If it wasn't for the rape and pillage of other nations, including originally First Natons, the US would have expired years ago. It is why they maintain 700 bases and murder tens of thousands every year.

Here is a link for anyone wanting to know where you're coming from:

Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism and the Hypocrisy of Hate

Wed, 2010-08-11 18:11

#36

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

You ought to be. Read the link I provided.

Wed, 2010-08-11 18:12

#37

Protrucio

Green Bone,

May I please quote you on my Word Press Blog? If you want me to provide further references to a website\blogsite you might have on my blog I will. Although I may not agree with all of your analysis I appreciate your insights and especially your hard hitting style. Wish you were either a journalist with RealNews.com for example or else in the House of Commons. Not kidding. Now following Greenwash on Twitter.

Wed, 2010-08-11 18:13

#38

Protrucio

I did. I have. I am reading the link you provided. thank you.

Wed, 2010-08-11 19:10

#39

Merowe

That is some deeply unpleasant shit you are pushing, Mr.Bone. How are we to think well of you if you insist on placing this insulting muck before us? The arguments - such as they are - are transparently contrived to give cover to some deeply racist beliefs. It is clear the beliefs came first and the arguments sloppily pastiched from cherrypicked factoids ripped from their contexts and smooshed together only after the fact.

World population is out of control because the brown people are reproducing without a care in the world - presumably because they're really stupid, perhaps its a genetic thing? - and rich western nations - hey, like the one we live in, coincidence or what? - urgently need to STOP ALL IMMIGRATION now!

Fuck me but you must be thick as a plank if you can't see your chain is being jerked. There's nothing wrong with some of the data, it is simply the construction that is put upon it that is so disheartening.

I'm no expert on matters Ethiopian but I do know their cultures, which have been around far far longer than our own evolved sophisticated coping strategies to deal with the episodic droughts in their harsh environment. But these have gradually broken down in the face of violence and civil war in which superpower meddling was a significant component.

Some cultures traditionally favoured high birth rates to compensate for infant mortality and it is not unreasonable to expect a delay - of a few generations perhaps - before they recalibrate to adjust to the improved expectations of modern living. Likewise in the wake of a famine it is entirely natural that a population increase the birthrate to replace those lost.

Now, take a nugget like 'the U.S. produces more than enough food and freshwater for itself' - on the face of it, fair enough. Until you realize its food production is based on an industrial agriculture dependent on imported fuel. The vaunted 'self-sufficiency' disappears in a puff of diesel fumes. Balance the playing field - let's see the US really do self sufficiency and forego the oil imports!

Rubbing salt into the wound, climate change driven by OUR culture and not those you are so keen to exclude from our earthly paradise is presumably the cause for declining wheat production. So OUR industrial agriculture is somehow fucking OTHER nation's food production - and they don't have the resources we do to deal with such problems.

I suppose as the global situation continues to deteriorate principally because of the criminal narcissism of the 'first world' we will see a lot more self-serving arguments from the privileged nations defending their right to their unfair slice of the pie. I'm glad I won't live forever.

Wed, 2010-08-11 19:20

#40

George Victor

You have the fault placed correctly, Merowe...it's just that the grandkids are about to be dealt the blow...we won't live forever but they will inherit our inability/inaction to do something for our progeny. That's why I am so utterly sickened by the never-ending back and forth about fault and responsibility. Finally, of course, it is our species' libido lettin' us all down...old Homo sapiens.

Wed, 2010-08-11 19:59

#41

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

It isn't our libido, George, If only it was.

Wed, 2010-08-11 20:32

#42

George Victor

We're not libidinous by comparison with so many species, FM?

Wed, 2010-08-11 21:23

#43

Green Bone

There's nothing "racist" about pointing out the fact that it's plain irresponsible to have a dozen or more kids.

The same could be said about fecund first-worlders, like David Suzuki (5 kids) and Bono Vox, who preach environmental causes but don't practise it when it comes to their own issue.

Wed, 2010-08-11 21:27

#44

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Well, George, we are no more libidinous as other species and yet we have managed to push them out of their habitat rather than them ours. Also, unless you are to argue humans only discovered their libido with the onset of the industrial revolution, I think you will find that for millions of years human population grew along a steady line before increasing exploding. So what changed? Oil George. Oil allowed us to increase our carrying capacity and we did so rapaciously. But population growth was also part of policy since the start the of the industrial revolution and closure. More humans meant not just more workers (the commodification of human labour) but more consumers for what was produced. Capitalist growth, wholly dependent upon ceaseless growth, depends on the ceaseless growth of human consumption and, therefore, human populations.

Our misinformed friend, for example, fails to note that immigration policy is not driven by any desire to do right by those displaced and dispossessed by Western expansionist policies, but by economic policy alone.

Wed, 2010-08-11 23:41

#45

Protrucio

When nations are dependent on imports from food cartels to feed themselves then their food security is always under threat. The global economy seems to have been rigged to make nations dependent on the IMF and FOOD CARTELS etc. Canada imports most of its food especially from the United States.

Margaret Webb writing for the Toronto Star has written that in Canada about four retailers control more than 70 per cent of grocery sales; two companies control 95 per cent of finished cattle slaughter; two control two-thirds of flour production; globally, just 10 multinationals control two-thirds of proprietary seeds, the basis of food

Thu, 2010-08-12 01:49

#46

Protrucio

One of the major keys to understanding food security are INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS. For example, patents, plant breeders' rights, trademarks and copyright – and their relations to other rules on biodiversity are essential requirements for understanding food security. Looking through the lens of intellectual property (IP) at the future control of food and farming demonstrates that rules on IP are central to struggles over the distribution of wealth and power in the 21st century.http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/397-3/

Canada's pending free trade agreement with the EU threatens to give intellectual property rights to EU business interests. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publication...

Thu, 2010-08-12 01:55

#47

Protrucio

Here is a link to a cartoon on CETA CANADIAN EUROPEAN TRADE AGREEMENT http://www.canadians.org/trade/documents/CETA/CETA_ten.pdf

Thu, 2010-08-12 04:24

#48

George Victor

Not to be too Freudian about it, but many (most ?) other species, FM, have seasonal urges. The American Goldfinch is the late nester hereabouts because of its dependence on seeds...and they are most abundant in late summer. I think our urges - like Henry the VIII's - preceded oil. Before fire even. Fire might have been the turning point when rate of replacement of the eaten was assured. :)

And that reminds me, the goldfinches have not been around for their daily sunflower seeds for a couple of weeks now.

Fri, 2010-08-13 03:57

#49

Protrucio

Speaking of population control: "Now it is reported that the UK government-sponsored Sustainable Development Commission believes that curbing people’s right to reproduce should be central to the fight against global warming (1). Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the commission and is also a patron of the Malthusian campaigning group the Optimum Population Trust, wants to turn population control into the key objective of environmental campaigning. So the totalitarian impulse towards controlling people’s reproductive lives has now received the blessing of sections of the British political elite." From http://www.frankfuredi.com/index.php/site/article/284/

Mon, 2010-08-16 03:45

#50

Merowe

Aren't there enough real problems in the world without raising THIS bogeyman? I read the garbage from 'Frank Furedi', 'sociology professor' and gibbering idiot and I have to ask, besides titillation what is the point of this idiotic scare-mongering? According to this twerp 'the sacredness of human life' is under attack because some people are suggesting we consider adjusting the human population to the carrying capacity of the planet.

The most obvious rejoinder to such emptyheaded nonsense is that with 8 billion souls on the planet, there has NEVER been this much sacred life in history. Most people in the west don't want large families and the few delusional primitives who do won't affect the overall trends. In much of the 'developing' world climate change has already started undermining the carrying capacity of the land and we'll see a quick and unpleasant downward adjustment.

Mon, 2010-08-16 08:49

#51

George Victor

Probably the thread title should include the obscenity of religion in that relationship between food and war. Not that one can safely mention "action" around the relationship of any of the above, hereabouts. We can indeed expect a "quick and unpleasant downward adjustment" in numbers, Merowe, even as we engage in a neutral, valueo-free, non-judgemental, racist free discussion of "the problem."

I believe the total number is just nudging 7 billiion now, and indeed, "souls" wouldn't fit an action-oriented discussion.

War and Food Security

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