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Edited on Wed Apr-23-08 05:59 PM by kristopher
Let me lay out what I've seen.
The OP makes a case about world hunger that is apocalyptic. I quote:
"And I admit, I’m worried about my fellow environmentalists - because I think they are about to lose their favorite distraction. When no one was looking, we got an answer. Fast crash wins. And we’re in it now.
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In early 2008, the world’s food and energy train came off the rails....
Then relates to the UN statement, tying in nuclear weapons: "The UN warned that 33 nations were in danger of destabilizing, and the list included major powers including Pakistan, Mexico, North Korea India, Egypt and South Africa. Many of these hold nuclear weapons."
So the tenor of the piece is one eliciting anxiety.
While there are a lot of very severe problems, the uniqueness, linkage and severity of the problems as presented in the article is poorly established and tenuous at best. As demonstrated by the use of Haiti as an example. Just as Haiti has a set of circumstances that aren't addressed in this article, all of the other examples offered also have their own unique set of circumstances.
This type of anxiety isn't anything new. You can find the same mindset in each and every age, always finding omens of the final disaster in the severity of the problems faced by the world they live in.
Do you remember the nuclear clock being just a couple of seconds before midnight? Those problems can be real.
But let's take another example, terrorism. Although the terrorist are a real danger, if seen in the perspective of other world problems, they are just another challenge. Even though their is a distinct potential for them to kill millions of people, some people are able to evaluate the problem coolly and recognize when someone is conflating a number of loosely related problems into an amalgam designed to do nothing but elicit anxiety.
That is what I see happening with energy issues and climate change.
Those who believe in action on terrorism to the point of desperation, want support to the extent that they lose sight of the hyperbole in their zeal. The more flawed arguments the terrorism avenger makes, the more they self-validate the faulty mental model they've created.
Climate change, energy, overpopulation, hunger, famine, droughts, natural disasters, wars and sheer cussed human stupidity are all part and parcel of what we've been dealing with for a long, long time. If they mean the world is coming to an end, then it has been that same long, long, time in coming.
Let's take a concrete example. Most of the oil production is controlled by state entities. Sometimes those entities act to address world problems related to crude production. What if, instead of a petroleum shortage due to geologic constraints, we are looking at a world community acting to put the US on an energy diet whether we like it or not. They spent the 80s and 90s turning the production of this societal lynch pin into an affair informed by newly enhanced (computers) understanding of economic behavior of people. (Did you see Syriana, and get the main point of the movie) The price of gasoline is now DOUBLE the highest predicted for now at the time of Kyoto, while coal is 1/4 of the price predicted. I interpret that as coal being our non-reaction and the price of oil being their response to our non-action. I mean, we were expected to take action on this issue. We've made a lot of "good for the world" arguments to all of these state players about why they should pump oil every time our economy gets a cold, but under both clinton and bush we were buttheads and abdicated our leadership role on CC (a proven global crisis) to focus on our coal industry and then, to top it all off, we invaded IRAQ for fossil politics under the guise of responding to 911.
If you had control of the oil spigot, what would you do; continue to feed a bloated powermad but necessary beast, or tame it and put it on a healthy diet?
All that is MY speculation on the facts I see. I have no 'proof' and I claim none beyond what is offered above.
To close, here is the article snip GG provided (thanks!) from the World Bank head: "WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Wednesday called for a new coordinated global response to deal with spiraling food prices exacerbating shortages, hunger and malnutrition around the globe.
Speaking ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, Zoellick said the global food crisis now required the attention of political leaders in every country, since higher prices and price volatility were likely to stay for some time.
Severe weather in producing countries and a boom in demand from fast-developing countries have pushed up prices of staple foods by 80 percent since 2005. Last month, rice prices hit a 19-year high; wheat prices rose to a 28-year high and almost twice the average price of the last 25 years.
Around the world, protests against higher food costs are increasing and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports, he said.
Zoellick said the World Bank estimated 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices."
Does the tone of that match the alarmist way it was used in the OP? Or is it more in the nature of saying this is a manageable problem we need to turn our attention to?
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