crisis of food, crisis of heart
People are starving all over the world.
People who already live on a knife's edge of hunger and need are being pushed further into hopelessness.
This is scrambling my mind and weighing on my heart. I seldom say this about anything, but the global food crisis feels so huge and so hopeless to me.
* * * *
As societies collapse, the people clinging to the bottom rung of the economic ladder will always feel the effects first, and the people on the top will be sheltered the longest. At the very top, consumption - and superconsumption - blithely continues. The tide rises, the people on the bottom drown, and people further up the scale begin to feel the effects.
We see this all around us, as formerly middle class Americans huddle in tent cities, as people riot for food, as rice is delivered in armoured vehicles.
For those of us who already view the global situation as a series of resource wars, this development fits squarely into the picture. The very scary picture.
If the spectre of people starving all over the world doesn't move us, perhaps the spectre of riots, terrorism and massacres will.
Canada is home to much of the world's fresh water and large reserves of oil. How will that figure in?
We know that one major factor contributing to this global crisis is biofuels. We knew it was obscene to grow food for cars, instead of people, but the people with cars can pay, and the people who need food cannot, and profit drives the world.
* * * *
This morning I was crunching some numbers, figuring out how to pay some bills while we save for our vacation. I'm researching where to buy pasture-raised meat. We are planning our party, and filling up our gas tank, and watching baseball on cable TV. And people all over the world are sinking into desperation because the price of a bag of rice is more than their monthly income. It's obscene.
I feel helpless. Please tell me I'm not. Please tell me, what can we do?
People who already live on a knife's edge of hunger and need are being pushed further into hopelessness.
This is scrambling my mind and weighing on my heart. I seldom say this about anything, but the global food crisis feels so huge and so hopeless to me.
* * * *
As societies collapse, the people clinging to the bottom rung of the economic ladder will always feel the effects first, and the people on the top will be sheltered the longest. At the very top, consumption - and superconsumption - blithely continues. The tide rises, the people on the bottom drown, and people further up the scale begin to feel the effects.
We see this all around us, as formerly middle class Americans huddle in tent cities, as people riot for food, as rice is delivered in armoured vehicles.
For those of us who already view the global situation as a series of resource wars, this development fits squarely into the picture. The very scary picture.
If the spectre of people starving all over the world doesn't move us, perhaps the spectre of riots, terrorism and massacres will.
Canada is home to much of the world's fresh water and large reserves of oil. How will that figure in?
We know that one major factor contributing to this global crisis is biofuels. We knew it was obscene to grow food for cars, instead of people, but the people with cars can pay, and the people who need food cannot, and profit drives the world.
* * * *
This morning I was crunching some numbers, figuring out how to pay some bills while we save for our vacation. I'm researching where to buy pasture-raised meat. We are planning our party, and filling up our gas tank, and watching baseball on cable TV. And people all over the world are sinking into desperation because the price of a bag of rice is more than their monthly income. It's obscene.
I feel helpless. Please tell me I'm not. Please tell me, what can we do?
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