Food Doom and Gloom

[Whitehall]

Did a little research on world food and population growth. Depressing.

Ever wondered why Egypt gave up on beating Israel? The answer is they are in a terrible population explosion and they can\'t feed themselves and they have no foreign exchange to buy food. The US government now GIVES them a third of their population\'s dietary needs every year. Yet, their population will double in 31 years. Saudi Arabia is in a similar place except they have oil and can buy on the open market. However, their per capita income is half what it was in the 80\'s and their population will double in 23 years. About 40% of the population in Arab countries are below age 15 so the pressures are just beginning. Iraq has similar demographics and needs to import food too.

Scary. I hate to see the US resort to using food as a weapon but that\'s what\'s going to happen. We product 38% of the grains in international trade and have unused capacity yet. Someday, even that won\'t be enough. In the mean time, today\'s Haiti is the prototype for the Third World - overpopulation and ecological disaster then collapse for those who couldn\'t escape.

Somebody show me the bright side.

[EXIT63]

!!!!!!EMBRACE CAPITALISM NOW OR DIE!!!!!!!!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

It\'s sad to think that we want a flat screen tv, or a new dvd player, etc... some people in this world just want a decent meal. I had an experience in S. America (Equador). I fed five orphans who were running around the streets asking people for money. I asked what they wanted money for and they responded \"food\". I bought them all hamburgers and soda and dessert (It was about ten bucks for the five of them and myself)... You\'ve never seen a bunch of kids look so delighted! It was like christmas for them! Imagine what it\'s like if you can\'t even buy food regardless of how much money you have (parts of Russia, Egypt, and central African nations)
We as \"civilized\" nations are so spoiled with our BMW\'s satellite TV, and big fancy homes. We just don\'t even realize it.

[EXIT63]

!!!!!!EMBRACE FREEDOM, LIBERTY, THE RULE OF LAW, AND MARKET ECONOMICS NOW OR DIE!!!!!!!!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Practice birth control religiously and don\'t have children. If your parenting instincts are killing you and you must have children, don\'t have more than two. Adopt if you can\'t live without a bigger family than that. Better still, adopt them all. Support Planned Parenthood and abortion rights by contributing funds and volunteering time.

[Elana]

Amen FTR!

[Whitehall]

In fact, if one deducts immigrants and their decendents, over the last about 20 years, the US population has been stable. In other words, we\'ve balanced our growth and it is only because of immigration that our population has increased.

WE are not overrunning the world, its the Third World populations.

[EXIT63]

...WE are not overrunning the world, its the Third World populations...

If I may paraphrase. We are not overrunning the world. The world is overrunning us.

[druid]

people i heard one time that 80% of the world\'s resources are consumed by 20% of the world\'s population. Now if that is true (seems like it sometimes if you look at the abbudances we have in western world) then how is the earth gonna support the same standard of living in the US (or any other modern western civilation) for the rest of the world? The bottom line is the world is one F_CKED place. Always has been, and I don\'t see it changing. Slavery, the Holocaust, Atomic warfare, prospects of genetic engineering, terrorism, etc. Hell look at the middle east. No offense to anyone but I think GOD flushed the toliet on the middle east. Everytime that christian\'s children fund commercial comes on I can\'t bear to watch it. As soon as I graduate from college and get a real job I am gonna sprosner a couple of kids, I know that won\'t change the world but it has to start somewhere......Hell maybe the big asteriod will come soon and make everything right........

\"Life ain\'t fair\" -- One Big F_cking understatement.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

We=human beings

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I hate to say it but most of those companies that let you \"sponsor\" a child are full of crap. I have a friend do it. He started getting e-mail from the kid he was sponsoring. Think about that, some kid sitting in a grass hut in bumba-gumba land typing away on his laptop asking you to send food?
If you want to help the needy children join the peace corps, or get your ass out there and help them. Paying a corporation to save the world\'s deprived isn\'t gonna help as much as we\'d like to think.

[belgareth]

RscuRngr is right! Most of those organizations spend 70% or more of all collected moneys for administrative costs. That\'s true of almost all the save the world groups, including environmental, feed the hungry, world peace etc. Very little gets to those who really need it.

There are several issues I don\'t see mentioned. We are one of, if not the richest nation in the world. The elite drive their big cars and live in fancy homes while children go hungry within a couple of miles. Perfectly good food is thrown away by the ton on a daily basis. One charitable organization locally has started an arrangement with many local resturaunts to collect the food that would otherwise end up in the dumpster. They then serve it to needy families. Surprisingly, many of the large chains are prohibited by corporate policy from participating. Managers have been fired for giving away left-over food at the end of the day. Charity begins at home, folks. We need to feed, shelter and educate our own children first.

At the same time, we need to help educate the people in other countries about birth control, AIDS awareness, nutrition, farming techniques, irrigation and hygene. We cannot feed the entire world ourselves but we can help them learn to feed themselves in large part.

[Whitehall]

\"WE=human beings\"

Typical girl-think. Americans have responsibility for our piece of territory and the people who live here. If \"THEY\" screw up their land by overpopulating it or making the wrong choices, it can\'t be our responsibility because we don\'t tell them what to do. Accountablity can not be separated from authority.

The whole notion of the disappearance of the nation-state was baloney. Somebody has to be responsible for the land and its care. Population control starts with the people.

One could say that the US is assisting making a future population crash in Egypt worst and more horrific than it would otherwise be. The longer we feed them, the more mouths there will be to feed and the hungrier everyone there will be when the US food is cut off or otherwise reaches it limits. We\'re like a facilitator for an alcoholic - we keep feed them drinks until they hit rock bottom. The sooner they start to feel the pain of overpopulation the sooner they\'ll start to control it.

Needless to say, the US has to regain control of its own borders. The huge wave of immigrants legal and otherwise has served only special interests in the US - immigrants as voters for the Democratic Party, immigrants as cheaper workers for big business, immigrants as household servants for the middle and upper classes. I admire them as individuals but recognize the danger as a matter of policy.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Typical male territorialism, never mind a Scrooge point of view (\"Let them die, then, and decrease the surplus population\"). Try to think a little more globally. Overpopulation is a global problem. Third world/overpopulated/underfed countries are already more than feeling the pain. Birth control is expensive. Until it\'s dirt cheap and readily available to a populace that\'s educated in its use, their only option is abstinence. And you know that\'s not gonna work.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me ... I don\'t suggest linking arms and swaying to Kumbayah, but I do think it\'s everyone\'s personal responsibility to avoid breeding like rabbits. Including us in the US. Even though on that score we\'re not the worst offenders.

And, Whitehall, I\'m a Democrat from a long, long line of Democrats, and my family has been here since just after the revolution. I certainly don\'t thank the Republicans for the war-mongering, chest-thumping embarassment of a jackass, shameless whore-to-big-business-president we\'re suffering under now, and apparently, I\'m not alone in my opinion.
e.g.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/...715852,00.html)

I don\'t love you any less for your abysmal politics, but for the sexist slur and the crack on my party, with all due respect, you can kiss my butt -- if you can get the poker out of your own long enough to bend down that far.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Whitehall]

\"but with all due respect, you can kiss my butt.\"

Let\'s not go mixing fun with politics. You\'d let me kiss you anywhere I wanted no matter what my politics were.

I\'m all for giving away birth control information and devices but when the US does that we\'re accused of being \"genocidal.\" Besides, some one else has to take responsibility for using it. And let\'s not get into how self-serving the Roman Catholic Church\'s policy opposing birth control is.

My politics may be \"abysmal\" in your opinion, but my science and knowledge of human nature are right-on. My predictions will come about, it\'s a simple extrapolation of well-understood population dynamics. Malthus was right.

As to pain and misery in the Third World, we haven\'t seen anything yet - that\'s the point. My concern is for my children and grandchildren - how do we spare them the pain and misery and leaving them the best world possible. Having children inspires taking the long view and thinking hard about responsibility.

And I can claim that I\'ve practiced Zero Population Growth even though I\'ve sired 5 children and support(ed) them all. It took three wives so four adults resulted in 5 kids. BUT, two of those kids were twins, a natural occurance so I figure I netted out.

Why is it that all the sexy women are Democrats? I\'ve seldom meet a sexy Republican woman.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Incorrigible .... lol

If Malthus was right, then we have little to worry about. Between AIDS and war, we\'ll have wiped out a significant portion of the populace on the planet and so contaminated the rest that it\'s uninhabitable. Our numbers will per force decrease. So not to worry. Maybe that Republican boy\'s good for somethin\' after all.

[oscar]

Whitehall,

As we grow the population beyond the point at which the world\'s grain supplies can sustain us all, we need only look to the third world and say, \"Let them eat meat!\". That is, provided they can overcome the aversion we humans (profess to) have to cannibalism.

As sick and twisted as this sounds, don\'t even try to fool yourself into thinking that this is not a possibility. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and starving people have reached this level of desperation before. Probably far more often than our \"civilized\" history books care to admit.

I don\'t endorse cannibalism, but I don\'t think it takes a Nostradamus to forsee that in a situation where there is no food, and thousands of starving people, the strong will prey upon the weak in order to survive.

Kind of a grim \"bright side\", granted.

Oscar

[Whitehall]

I happen to work across the street from one of the very few cemetaries in the US that holds the graves of true cannabals. Surviving members of the Donner Party were buried here in San Jose in Oak Hill.

It will come to cannabalism, certainly, but that is not a solution. Should cannabalism become prevalent, people will cut back on raising children - they are the preferred cut, BTW, like veal. Why make an investment by feeding kids if someone stronger is just going to steal them and eat them? Thank goodness chickens can\'t think! Besides, it\'s just not a thermodynamically sound proposition.

The rule of thumb during hard times is that just about everyone will steal, one in ten will murder for food, and one in a hundred will eat people.

Maybe Red has a recipe for roast kid for us?

[Mtnjim]

From what I have read, *currently* we grow MORE food than is needed-there need be NO starving people. The distribution infrastructure is the problem (that and greedy people in power). The article I read pointed out that in many of the areas where famine was occuring, more than enough food was already in thecountries (in the major cities and ports of entry) rotting in werehouses because there were no roads that could be used to move it into the areas where people were starving. In areas where food could be air dropped, local strongmen were sending out their private armies to collect all of the food, then forcing the local populace to pay for the food.

But YES I agree, humans are infesting and overrunning the world forcing out other species.

Jim

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hm. Isn\'t that odd? No recipe for roast kid. There is one, however, that caught my eye ... for a dish called Cochon a la Chauvin....

calls for a bigger oven than I have, unfortunately.

[franki]

Only to think about cannabalism is really disgusting. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

from FullTiltRedhead:
\"I don\'t suggest linking arms and swaying to Kumbayah, but I do think it\'s everyone\'s personal responsibility to avoid breeding like rabbits. Including us in the US.\"

Actually we need a whole lot more kids in this part of the world. In Germany for example population will decrease from 85million now to 65million people in 2050. (included a moderate immigration) It won\'t be very different in other western countries. Because people grow older and the \"babyboom generation\" decided to have less kids than their parents (anti-conception etc.) we are now stuck with this problem.

[Whitehall]

Franki,

I wish California had such a problem!

I realize that it does offer challenges to a society to be shrinking and growing older on average. Yet it will offer opportunities to clean out slums, reclaim forests and other wild lands, and to devote more resources to the children that you do have. OK, maybe not many slums in Germany!

Here in Silicon Valley, the schools are starved for funding and crowded, the roads are packed, and people are rude to each other since the civic glue has loosened, mostly because of massive immigration. On the other hand, the swirl of cultures is fascinating and stimulating and you can find any sort of cuisine (other than cannibal) offered anywhere on the planet. Some of the world\'s best and brightest come here to make their fortunes. One high school educated American lady summed it up - \"America is the best place in the world to live - as long as you\'re not an American!\" She was on the losing end of immigration.

Some analysts have attributed WWI to the massive population explosion Germany saw under Bismarck (and a similar one in France). We\'re seeing the start of similar or worst population-driven hostilities in the Middle East.

Red,

I bet if I translated your recipe from French, I would be insulted. Can you be more direct?

[franki]

Whitehall,

\"Here in Silicon Valley, the schools are starved for funding and crowded, the roads are packed, and people are rude to each other since the civic glue has loosened, mostly because of massive immigration.\"

We have pretty much the same problems here in the city\'s, but the biggest problem here is the demographical problem of the population growing older and decreasing. How to fund for these people\'s \"old-age-pensions\" and their healthcare?

\"\"America is the best place in the world to live - as long as you\'re not an American!\" She was on the losing end of immigration.\"

That is one of the reasons why the American economy is (still) running much better than the european. The brightest heads in the world will go to the US AND the mexicans will come to serve as a cheap work-force. Afaik the USA understood the importance of immigration to keep their society alive very early. Immigration is in the first place a great opportunity and not a threat. Unfortunately people are only slowly acknowledging that.

[EXIT63]

Immigration is one thing. Assimilation is another.
How about we reduce the number of hyphenated Americans and increase the number of Americans. In other words.

SPEAK ENGLISH ! ! !

A large number of immigrants today don\'t give a ratsass about America. Therein lies a problem. And neither do the politicians. All they see is more votes and more recipients of big government largesse.

Please don\'t misunderstand. I know waves of immigrants built this country and their are plenty of newly arrived immigrants that I like very much. Just sometimes I feel like were being overwhelmed by those that don\'t have the love for this country that their predecessors did.

[franki]

\"their are plenty of newly arrived immigrants that I like very much.\"

LOL ......

[EXIT63]

Disclaimer

[franki]

You (also) meant the ukranian stripper-girls with that, right?

[EXIT63]

If immigration consisted of Eastern European females exclusively. I\'d be a happy man.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science...eut/index.html

Talk about food being doomed - check it out.... I thought I was just a sucky fisherman. Looks like it might just be because there aren\'t too many fish left in the sea (literally not figuratively) [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

PS - woohoo I\'m now a \"newbie\"!! so long stranger!....

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Congrats on making rank! glad you\'re here