Natalie,
At 22:00 31/07/2011, you wrote:
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?
Deeply distressing though all this is, where would I get the food
from? The world is already close to maximum production. Besides,
increasing food acreage is now being turned over to biofuels and
grain to feed livestock for the more prosperous consumers. The total
amount of basic 'survival-food' (grain) is declining significantly.
The only other point I can add to what I wrote originally is that
humanitarian aid from advanced nation governments is less than half
of what it was only 20 years ago even though the need is greater.
Private middle-class aid from these countries via the large charities
is also declining -- and quite steeply since 2008/9. Now that the
world's currency system is becoming more and more chaotic, and
investors are searching around for safe assets, even second-grade
agricultural land is now high on the list. Millions of the starving
will be pushed and pulled into refugee camps and cities.
I can see no other possible practical answer. The whole tragedy will
have to play itself out over the course of the next two or three generations.
Keith
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>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
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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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/
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