the images introductory to the article paint a very simple but profound message - we're using up more food than we're producing. to this, i preach simple messages, which i can only hope to set by example. for those who have been my housemates, you may roll your eyes at how anal i am about 'waste not, want not'. i will eat every grain of rice from my plate, with nary a single one left when it is popped into the wash. i will eat cereal and bread 3 days after its displayed expiration date. i will not cook a new meal, lest that dried up, stale and sinewy fried chicken has been consumed. and as long as that cup of milk in the corner of the fridge's second shelf doesn't smell funky, you can damn well bet i'm going to down it.
and still, if you've been my housemate, i criticise you. and i cry for every time you cook too much, and dump it all the next day, because it is not fresh. have you no shame? do you spare no thought for those wanting, and those waning for want of anything. anything, at all. to eat? disgrace.
i digress. but, my means are simplistic at most. things do not start or end by eating diarrhoea-inducing leftovers. you cannot change the world with and solve its hunger problems with empty preaching. you can, however make a difference by doing the small things in a multi-pronged approach to related problems.
everyone's abuzz with the global fuel crisis. oh, sweet hypnotoad jesus, we're running out of highly-pressurized-over-billions-of-years dinosaur fossils, whatever will we do? stop puffing the magical viscous black dragon, that's what. renewable energy is the quantum physics of our generation, and if someone doesn't discover something revolutionary soon, we're kinda f*cked. but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try what we already have at hand.
recycling; reducing carbon-prints; limiting energy, water and resource usage; all of these things tie in with making better on our promise to gaia of... things. which i won't really mention because that's going off topic. pulling it all together again, was my point that energy and foodstuff really is more related than you think. from the article quoted, up to 30% of american corn production in 2008 was government-mandated to use as ethanol-soaked biofuel. excessive energy use has limited agriculture and farming in various developing countries and negated the potential of lands for such use. solving our energy problems could play a huge part in solving our hunger pangs, too.
so, get rid of that gas-guzzling suv. nobody's falling for your overcompensations.
al gore was a huge advocate for global environmental awareness. though we may laugh at manbearpig and wave off global warming as a government conspiracy, there is truth behind the doomsday heralds' words.
disequilibrium of the meteorological nature impacts our lands from the overt floods, to desiccating droughts, from ominous typhoons to ravenous earthquakes. taking care of the planet really does take care of ourselves, and i guess this extends much further than the simple argument of cattle-farming and sorghum-planting. lest we forget katrina, haiti and indonesia.
again, i need lessons in cutting to the chase. there's so much more i would like to write about on this issue, as it is close to heart to me. but i think, it ties up very well at this point, with another one of my social criticisms, that of 'oh ye, monetary'. in the immortal words of kevin carter, i leave you here with his pulitzer prize winning image.
I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...
the inspirational article can be found here.
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