Keith,
Apart from change of the rebel regime, how would you go about getting
food to countless starving Somalians, if not at a distribution centre?
Dropping relief packages isn't that easy. What are your thoughts?
By what I've read, entire villages are forced to leave home because
crops have failed and livestock have starved to death. They depart en
mass for settlements they think can assist in some way. The distribution
centres seem to be coming to these large congregations of new nomads and
refugees. Their abandoned lands, as you state, unfortunately go up for
grabs. Yet were they to stay, they'd just die off without a fighting
chance, or be forced out by on-going violence, and the government would
get their lands anyway.
Donation campaigns for this type of crisis are organized to accumulate
funds completely apart from ongoing missions. It's therefore food that
is surplus, never would have been rounded up for anyone else. I have
reservations when it comes to Red Cross, for example, who failed to get
"special" donations distributed to Katrina and Tsunami victims well
after the first years of incident, but their efforts don't tend to feed
or provide water, mostly just blankets and tents. The Humanitarian
Coalition appear to be getting through because rebel forces now want the
support of the people for governmental power. It costs them nothing, and
relieves the worry of an uprising. The Coalition is comprised of
organizations more effective at relief than just charity, and a lot of
suffering will be relieved. Hopefully, a better government will emerge,
or at least the realization that it's hard to stay wealthy without a fed
working class to conduct the manual labour.
Natalia
On 7/30/2011 4:08 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Contrary to most projections I think we're probably close to maximum
world population already -- maybe still rising for another 15-20
years, but scarcely longer than that.
As I see it, we're already running into a fundamental limit to food
production due to freshwater shortages. No doubt gains will be made
by the agriculturalisation of large tracts of land in Africa that are
now being bought by China and also Western and Middle Eastern
investment funds, but the additional carbohydrate will be
preferentially sold for livestock feed in order to upgrade the diets
of the millions of newly rising Chinese, Brazilians, etc. The improved
diet of one new middle-class person effectively deprives the (almost
total) carbohydrate diet of at least three or four others. Meanwhile
populations in the advanced countries are declining fast due to the
TFR (total fertility rate) being already less than replacement.
Whether this will be compensated for by immigration from Africa, etc,
is a moot point. Resistance to immigration is becoming fiercer from
year to year. But even if immigrants replace the die-offs in the
advanced countries they'll also adjust to less-than-replacement family
sizes within two generations.
I don't donate to appeals from the large charities such as the present
big ones which are active in Somalia for two reasons, despite the
poignant scenes we see on television: (a) it encourages "refugee-itis"
from huge areas around a newly-erected camp (or even a rumour that
there might be one), even attracting many of those who were just about
surviving. This empties the landscape more effectively than drought
and actually encourages corrupt politicians to sell/lease land to the
investment funds; (b) food that's bought by the charities for the
refugee camps is actually depriving food from equivalent numbers of
people elsewhere.
Keith
At 01:06 30/07/2011, you wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/27/world.population.growth/index.html
*Earth to hit 7 billion mark this year, straining developing regions*
By *the CNN Wire Staff
*July 28, 2011 9:28 p.m. EDT
The world population hit 6 billion people in 1999 and is set to
The world population hit 6 billion people in 1999 and is set to reach
7 billion this year.
*STORY HIGHLIGHTS*
* The "demographic center of gravity" is shifting to less-developed
regions
* Growth has been dramatic: It was just in 1800 that the world held
1 billion people
* The developing regions will face big difficulties with food,
water, housing and energy
*(CNN)* -- Earth will become home to 7 billion people later this
year, and most of the planet's growth will affect the developing
countries the most, straining those regions' limited resources, a
Harvard University professor said Thursday.
The world's growth has been dramatic: It was just in 1999 that the
global population reached 6 billion. United Nations projections call
for the population to reach 10.1 billion in 2100, according to David
Bloom, a professor of economics and demography at the Harvard School
of Public Health, in an article published in the July 29 issue of
Science/.
/
By 2050, about 2.3 billion more people will be added, nearly as many
as the total living on the globe as recently as 1950, Bloom said.
Humanity grew slowly through most of history, taking until 1800 for
the population to hit 1 billion.
In the past half-century, the population grew from 3 billion to about
7 billion.
Forecasts call for the world's "demographic center of gravity" to
shift from more-developed to less-developed regions, Bloom wrote in
his article, according to a Harvard news release.
This means the developing world will face hardships in providing
food, water, housing and energy to their growing populations, with
repercussions for health, security and economic growth.
The demographic picture is indeed complex, and poses some formidable
challenges.
--David Bloom, professor of economics and demography, Harvard School
of Public Health
"The demographic picture is indeed complex, and poses some formidable
challenges," Bloom said.
"Those challenges are not insurmountable, but we cannot deal with
them by sticking our heads in the sand. We have to tackle some tough
issues ranging from the unmet need for contraception among hundreds
of millions of women and the huge knowledge-action gaps we see in the
area of child survival, to the reform of retirement policy and the
development of global immigration policy. It's just plain
irresponsible to sit by idly while humankind experiences full force
the perils of demographic change," Bloom said.
In the next 40 years, virtually all (97%) of the world's 2.3 billion
projected increase will be in the underdeveloped regions, with nearly
half (49%) in Africa.
Meanwhile, the populations of more developed countries will remain
flat. As those peoples age, however, there will be fewer working-age
adults to support retirees living on social pensions, Bloom said.
"Although the issues immediately confronting developing countries are
different from those facing the rich countries, in a globalized world
demographic challenges anywhere are demographic challenges
everywhere," Bloom wrote.
In 2011, about 135 million people will be born and 57 million will
die -- a net increase of 78 million.
But uncertainly exists about the global projections, Bloom wrote.
Depending on whether the number of births per woman continues to
decline, population predictions for 2050 span from 8.1 billion to
10.6 billion, and the 2100 projections vary from 6.2 billion to 15.8
billion, Bloom said.
*CNN's Michael Martinez contributed to this report.
*
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/
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