Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, April 18, 2008
On April 9, we published a little entry about bigger families becoming the new status symbol. We mentioned that Ted Turner thinks global warming could lead to cannibalism. Could it be the famous ‘mouth of the south’ got it right?
Market analysts started to verbalize that the cost of food would be taking a sharp
rise as the price per barrel of oil kept hitting record highs. Stories about an eminent lack of food looming on the horizon weren’t being dealt with, not with any sense of urgency at least. No, there was no time for that, not with the U.S. election coverage, designed to send the nation into a collective coma playing non-stop.
Then Ted Turner came out with his comments on too many people too little food and how someday we would all be dead from starvation and those left would be eating each other.
A day or two later the news did mention the Haitians were actually rioting over the price of food. Those riots did result in lowering the price of rice. Then, like a pot that finally boiled over, the stories began to spill out over the Internet. The crisis is still only trickling out over cable news. But, the news about LiLo, the Britster, Obama and Clinton is still abundant. Abundant Hollywood and Washington D.C. news, unlike the world wide lack of food.
Port-Au-Prince, Cairo, the sub-Saharan, and Malaysia. Governments in some Asian countries have too limits on how much rice can be purchased in an effort to limit the hoarding of food by panicked shoppers. Even Thailand which exports millions
of tons more rice than it consumes has taken steps to limit the amount of rice shoppers can buy.
El Salvador’s President Saca calls the impending crisis a scandalous storm that might become a hurricane. “How long can we withstand the situation? We have to feed our people, and commodities are becoming scarce.” Saca also said, “This is a perfect storm,” while attending the World Economic Forum on Latin America earlier this week.
On April 11, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)warned that food riots in developing countries will spread unless something was done about the price of food for the poor. FAO director General Jacques Diouf said at a news conference “The reality is that people are dying already in the riots.”
There are reportedly food riots taking place in 22 nations already. Food riots had already broken out in Indonesia, the Philippines and Haiti plus several African countries. North Korea may be on the brink. Will global warming clean out a cupboard near you?
Labels: Food Crisis, Food Riots, Food Shortage, Global Warming, Ted Turner, U.N. FAO
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Where Has All The Food Gone? Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard; maybe it’s there.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Ted Turner recently made the collective tongues start wagging when he said, “Global warming could lead to cannibalism.”
The famous Turner, who has 5 children of his own, recently told Charlie Rose one way to combat global warming was to stabilize the population. I guess that’s fine for the little people, but for those in the world with the means to transport them in huge gas guzzling tanks and the means to feed all those extra mouths the rules just don’t apply.
“Too many people are using too much stuff” says Turner. Who could disagree with that? There are too many people using too much stuff. But, who is using too much stuff really?
I’d be happy to go toe to toe with Turner. I’ll give up one of my private jets for every one he will give up. Heck I’ll even give up three of my children if he gives up three of his. As you can probably tell…I only have 2 kids. Back in the 70’s I decided to go with that whole zero population growth idea. You know the one that would be good for the planet…Ted opted out on that notion back then. It’s always nice to see that people can change their position; even if it is ‘after the fact’.
The Department of Agriculture estimates that each American child costs an average of 204,060 to raise until the age of 18. They must be estimating how much it costs to raise one of Turner’s kids, or Britney Spear’s kids. For the average Joe, that figure is as meaningless as me saying I’ll give up one of my private jets…In whose world?
“In a world where the young rich use their $13,000.00 Birkin bags as diaper bags…” Are you kidding me? What is a Birkin Bag?
According to Ted Turner, just feeding these kids is going to be a challenge when global warming finally takes over. Ted says, in 30 or 40 years “basically none of the crops will grow”. “Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.”
Heads up Ted…if the ‘rest of us’ stop having kids..there won’t be anything for your progeny to eat. You might want to start rethinking your position ‘again’.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau the median income in the U.S. was $48,201.00. We have people like Turner to thank for pushing up those numbers. America loves to ‘rank on a curve’. The bottom 20% of households earned less than $23,202.00.
The top 6.37% roughly earned 1/3 of all the income…Well done.
Maybe 6.37% of the people need to stop “using too much stuff”.
Labels: Birkin Bag, Global Warming, Ted Turner
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Bigger Families the New Status Symbol. But can you really haul them without a Hummer?
