Are we already facing geo-political mayhem?
sduford on Mar 13 2008 at 8:14 am | Filed under: Politics, Science
I think the geo-political mayhem that has been forecasted by many, and for a multitude of reasons, is beginning to appear much sooner than anyone had predicted. A combination of overpopulation, overfishing, pollution, climate change, high oil prices, and the folly of biofuels is pushing up the price of staple foods at an alarming rate.
I have seen the price of corn and chicken go up 50% over the last year in Panama, and that is hurting the poor people. Now the UN is sounding the alarm:
The prices of basic staples — wheat, corn, rice — are at record highs, up 50 per cent or more in the last six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies such as India and China to climate- and weather-related events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts that have devastated harvests in many parts of the world. High oil prices have increased the cost of transporting food and purchasing fertilizer. Some experts say the rise of biofuels has reduced the amount of food available for humans.
The effects are widely seen. Food riots have erupted in countries from West Africa to South Asia. Communities living in countries where food has to be imported to feed hungry populations are rising up to protest the high cost of living. Fragile democracies are feeling the pressure of food insecurity. Many governments have issued export bans and price controls on food, distorting markets and presenting challenges to commerce.
In January, to cite but one example, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for $77-million (U.S.) to help feed more than 2.5 million people pushed over the edge by rising prices. In doing so, he drew attention to an alarming fact: The average Afghan household now spends about 45 per cent of its income on food, compared with 11 per cent in 2006.
(emphasis added)
This is scary and appalling, but it seems that once more, we the rich Westerners will continue as we always have, and mostly ignore the third world.
On a somewhat related note, I came across a pretty good article today dealing with peak oil.
I know there are many people who discount all or parts of the peak oil
arguments that have been made, often claiming that the free market &
technology will provide some kind of panacea.
`Energy Descent Pathways: Evaluating potential responses to Peak Oil’
by Rob Hopkins offers a pretty good discussion & overview of this
topic in a free 58 page PDF document available here:
http://tinyurl.com/25lh2x
Thanks for sharing that Gordo.
Something that’s going to become more obvious than ever after November, is this entire energy crisis is artificial - just like the last one in the 1970s - so that a tiny minority of old-money, filthy-rich can get richer by driving everyone else into destitution, but poverty would actually be a step up from where most of the “free” world finds itself today.
THERE IS NO ACTUAL OIL SHORTAGE, but there is a lack of productive capacity in a certain, oil-rich third-world region, and a lot of willingness by the cartels and middlemen to keep it that way so the price stays high.
And after you look at this, pray tell me how you can continue to buy the Papist/altruist myth of the wealthy Westerners: Thanks to 70 years of trying to wet-nurse, bottle-feed and spank the rest of the world, we have nothing but a rapidly-disintegrating cheap veneer of respectability, propped up by an abundance of unpaid debt!