World food shortage

[numbercruncher]

wot - even if we cause the most unfixable problems?

Yup. Most our problems here can be fixed anyways.

If you live in a country that cant feed itself, your in deep doo doo, stop breeding, dont expect us responsible people to pick up the slack or make any sacrifices. I read in an earlier post that Thailand is asking people to eat less rice, so how long can that work, up until people get one grain each ?

China has worked it out (1 Child policy), why cant all these other foolish countries/cultures/religions work it out ?

If War doesnt sort us out, mother nature will im sure

 

[treefrog]

such as?

why would i suspect that retort is confrontational. However will post a few that pop to mind if you are having trouble

AIDS refugees Antarctica resource depletion Biological Diversity sovereignty Climate Change Militant Religion Torture Cold War Military growth Unemployment United Nations Ocean pollution Urbanization
Grog fags and "illegal" drugs, Ozone layer damage War Pollution Economic Imbalance Water Problems radioactivity, world economic system

 

[Dezza]

There was speculation that China may abandon the 1 child policy due to the increase male population in comparison to females. The Chinese prefer males over females and are therefore aborting a lot of the female foetuses in order to keep their namesake and family pride.

If this happens, we're in trouble. Peter Costello's 'one for the nation' comment might be slowly working in Australia as well.

More mouths to feed, not enough feed for the mouths.

Info on 1 Child Policy story from SBS last month: http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/china_may_change_onechild_policy_541917

 

[disarray]

china can get away with it because they are a disciplined culture with strong leadership enforced with heavy punishment. you'd never be able to enforce something like that in africa where is there is rarely any stable government to make laws at all.

AIDS refugees Antarctica resource depletion Biological Diversity sovereignty Climate Change Militant Religion Torture Cold War Military growth Unemployment United Nations Ocean pollution Urbanization
Grog fags and "illegal" drugs, Ozone layer damage War Pollution Economic Imbalance Water Problems radioactivity, world economic system

are you for real???

 

[stargazer]

There is no food shortage in the world there is an abundance of food. There is just alot of overweight greedy people that could do with sharing it.

Cheers
SG

 

[treefrog]

are you for real???

there ya go, didn't expect anything constructive

probably best tho' getting too far off topic

 

[numbercruncher]

There is no food shortage in the world there is an abundance of food.

Do you have some proof of that statement ? Seems there is a growing shortage, just google it !

I do agree with your sentiment that there is also no shortage of fatties who could eat less and share more, but it enevitably leads to everything being finite, eventually we wont be able to produce more food, well it looks like we are producing much less already thanks to drought and Biofuels etc.

I still dont get this Global socialist thing many are alluding too, Australians are reasonbly responsible, having on average on two Children per family but folks are suggesting we continually tone down our lifestyles to defacto support people whom have like 10 children ? Where does it stop, when we are all eating rice crackers and water ?

 

[Kimosabi]

I wonder if the food shortages have anything to do with this:

Georgia Guidestones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

 

[Sir Burr]

China has worked it out (1 Child policy), why cant all these other foolish countries/cultures/religions work it out ?

If War doesnt sort us out, mother nature will im sure

See 4 Corners tonight? I think this story has been on before?

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2219617.htm

Chinese parents like boys to carry on their family so girls are aborted. Oversupply of boys, who are they to marry? Maybe that will reduce population further.

Also, the 1 child policy has caused trafficing in children. Over the single child, they get fined so the 2 child is sold (A$500-A$2000) off if the parents can't afford the fine.

 

[questionall_42]

See 4 Corners tonight? I think this story has been on before?

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2219617.htm

Chinese parents like boys to carry on their family so girls are aborted. Oversupply of boys, who are they to marry? Maybe that will reduce population further.

Also, the 1 child policy has caused trafficing in children. Over the single child, they get fined so the 2 child is sold (A$1500-A$2000) off if the parents can't afford the fine.

Note: the one child policy in China is only applicable in urban centres. The rural populations (about 60-70% of the population) are entitled to breed to their hearts content. The one child policy has had an impact on dereasing China's population growth, but it is still increasing significantly since the policy was implemented.

 

[disarray]

alright treefrog, i'll bite

AIDS refugees Antarctica resource depletion Biological Diversity sovereignty Climate Change Militant Religion Torture Cold War Military growth Unemployment United Nations Ocean pollution Urbanization Grog fags and "illegal" drugs, Ozone layer damage War Pollution Economic Imbalance Water Problems radioactivity, world economic system

aids - originated in africa, medical advances in treatment coming from where? oh yeah, western civilisation

refugees - blame the unstable host country, not the west who is taking them in (at GREAT social and financial cost)

antarctica - what about it? australia is quite forceful in defending southern waters from exploitation

resource depletion - the chinese and indians are doing quite well in catching up, but yes, america is over the top in resource usage

biological diversity - 99% of species that were alive are now extinct and mother nature has given us 5 distinct extinction periods that culled up to 90% of ALL biological diversity on planet earth. we are not a patch on her.

sovereignity - yeah there is still colonial messes to clean up but the inability to resolve them isn't the fault of the west, its the fault of the people who won't negotiate solutions.

climate change - mother nature again. saw a good doco about a possible coming ice age because of artic melting (a cycle which pre-dates industrialisation by quite some time). we don't know enough about climaology yet to be making definitive statements.

militant religion - so its our fault people blow themselves up on buses because of the misrepresentation of the teachings of a 6th century paedophiliac warlord? sure.

torture - as old as civilisation and sometimes practiced in the animal kingdom. but amazing thing, its actually outlawed in western civilisation (american dodgyness aside)

cold war - what about it? its over. looks pretty resolved to me

meh i'm bored now and couldn't be bothered to refute the rest but coming up with a bunch of stuff then going "yeah all this stuff is unsolvable and the fault of western civiliation" is rubbish. flagellate yourself all you want but i'm not buying into your cultural guilt trip. omg western civilisation caused unsolvable radioactivity!!1

 

[Smurf1976]

Biofuels.

Let's say you are a fairly typical office worker living in a major city. Today you got up, had a shower, drove to and from work.

OK, now you ate roughly 10 or so MJ today.

Your hot shower used about 33 MJ of fuel at the power station.

Your computer running and 4 fluoro lights in the office running for 8 hours used about 40 MJ of fuel into the power station.

And your car driven 25km each way ate about 180 MJ of petrol.

Then you got home and cooked a meal. Another 20 or so MJ of fuel burnt at the power station - that's far more energy than the food you cooked actually contains.

You do the math. If we're going to switch to even 5% biofuels then that's an awful lot of starving people.

Here in Australia, we could completely starve everyone in NSW, ACT, Vic, Qld, SA, WA and NT and, after on-farm fuel use is accounted for, we still won't have enough ethanol to replace fossil fuels in Tasmania. Hmm... Starve practically the whole country and still not have enough to run a place with 28 hydro schemes and less than half a million people. Not what I would call a sensible plan.

Biofuels are a sensible use of agricultural wastes etc but that's it. Turning huge amoutns of corn or wheat into a trivial amout of petrol extender doesn't stack up unless you've got a food surplus to start with - which we did until a handfull of ethanol plants were built.

 

[treefrog]

alright treefrog, i'll bite



aids - originated in africa, medical advances in treatment coming from where? oh yeah, western civilisation

refugees - blame the unstable host country, not the west who is taking them in (at GREAT social and financial cost)

antarctica - what about it? australia is quite forceful in defending southern waters from exploitation

resource depletion - the chinese and indians are doing quite well in catching up, but yes, america is over the top in resource usage

biological diversity - 99% of species that were alive are now extinct and mother nature has given us 5 distinct extinction periods that culled up to 90% of ALL biological diversity on planet earth. we are not a patch on her.

sovereignity - yeah there is still colonial messes to clean up but the inability to resolve them isn't the fault of the west, its the fault of the people who won't negotiate solutions.

climate change - mother nature again. saw a good doco about a possible coming ice age because of artic melting (a cycle which pre-dates industrialisation by quite some time). we don't know enough about climaology yet to be making definitive statements.

militant religion - so its our fault people blow themselves up on buses because of the misrepresentation of the teachings of a 6th century paedophiliac warlord? sure. - thinking more of george dubya

torture - as old as civilisation and sometimes practiced in the animal kingdom. but amazing thing, its actually outlawed in western civilisation (american dodgyness aside)

cold war - what about it? its over. looks pretty resolved to me

meh i'm bored now and couldn't be bothered to refute the rest but coming up with a bunch of stuff then going "yeah all this stuff is unsolvable and the fault of western civiliation" is rubbish. flagellate yourself all you want but i'm not buying into your cultural guilt trip. omg western civilisation caused unsolvable radioactivity!!1

dis, if you are going to tackle the term paper you need much more application - many of those responses are incomplete and/or present only a biased capitalist viewpoint and you failed to address all issues - all in all a paper showing a thought process in some disarray - only four marks out a possible ten.

 

[disarray]

uh yeah its an internet message board man point is you are just running off whatever you don't like the state of then saying its all western civilisations fault. i think you'll find its a bit more complicated than that.

 

[robert toms]

I remember reading that in Rome,I think in the time of Pompey and republic,that grain supplies from North Africa were stifled by pirates etc.Rome could not feed its population,so an edict came down that farmers could only put 10% of their land to growing grapes,the rest to grain.Grapes were being grown to the detriment of the population.
Wine grapes were being grown predominantly,resulting in reliance on grain imports.

Remember when Yeltsin's laissez-faire democracy was in favour with the carpetbaggers...both western and home grown.
There were literally people starving in Russia.
Now the west complain about Putin's controlled democracy.Putin is very popular and I believe everyone is getting their tucker.Where does that come in the hierarchy of needs?

Cannot rely on the free market to feed people...The more things change the more they stay the same !

 

[treefrog]

I remember reading that in Rome,I think in the time of Pompey and republic,that grain supplies from North Africa were stifled by pirates etc.Rome could not feed its population,so an edict came down that farmers could only put 10% of their land to growing grapes,the rest to grain.Grapes were being grown to the detriment of the population.
Wine grapes were being grown predominantly,resulting in reliance on grain imports.

Remember when Yeltsin's laissez-faire democracy was in favour with the carpetbaggers...both western and home grown.
There were literally people starving in Russia.
Now the west complain about Putin's controlled democracy.Putin is very popular and I believe everyone is getting their tucker.Where does that come in the hierarchy of needs?

Cannot rely on the free market to feed people...The more things change the more they stay the same !

that must have been the start of socialism rob, capitalists would just have eaten the grapes - much heathier than grain

 

[treefrog]

uh yeah its an internet message board man point is you are just running off whatever you don't like the state of then saying its all western civilisations fault. i think you'll find its a bit more complicated than that.

agree fully with the complicated bit - but was angling (devil's advocate) for a bit more reasoned thought to a coupla posts just prior to you joining discussion - cheers
ps only jewelry item i own and wear (less these days) is a 22ct gold dollar symbol

 

[robert toms]

Tree frog you are right...as history shows the capitalists or ruling elite would say let them eat cake.
But in Rome you had to give them bread and circuses.Has anything changed since then?

 

[Aussiejeff]

Tree frog you are right...as history shows the capitalists or ruling elite would say let them eat cake.
But in Rome you had to give them bread and circuses.Has anything changed since then?

The Roman Empire along with it's "elite" rulers were crushed by masses of poor Barbarians?
The "elite" French Royalty and ruling class lost their heads en-masse to starving peasants?
etc..etc..etc..

 

[robert toms]

The French elite lost their heads...but the Roman Empire was very enduring...has any other mob lasted as long?
In the end we all end up kaput!