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2010-09-01
Study: CEO Compensation Totaled $598 Million At The 50 Companies That Laid-Off The Most Workers

Peak Oil And The German Government - Military Study Warns Of Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

Mystery Over Russian General Found Dead On Turkish Beach

Internet Freedom - Will Russia's Bloggers Survive Censorship Push?

Life In Baghdad's Slums - Fighting to Survive In Sadr City

Moral Bankruptcy At HSH Nordbank - Investigators Look At Frameup And Iniquity At German Bank

Study: Illegal U.S. Immigration Has Slowed Considerably

Inquest Told MI6 Employee's Body Was In Padlocked Bag

Report Claims Andy Coulson, Prime Minister's Media Adviser, Discussed Hacking Phone Calls

Ferrari Recalls 458 Italias After A Spate Of Fires

Probe Of Alyeska Pipeline Spill Uncovers Troubling Pattern

Defiant Dick Fuld Blames False Rumors And The Fed For Lehman Bros. Collapse

U.S. Toll Rising In Afghanistan, 22 Soldiers Killed Since Friday

Charity Oxfam Hit By Fatal Bomb As U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Visits Troops In Afghanistan

Gov. Schwarzenegger Tells Top California State Officials To Stop Hiring

Australian Economy Surges 1.2 Percent In Second Quarter

Police: At Least 1 Hostage Taken At Discovery Channel Headquarters

U.S. Sen. Murkowski Concedes Primary Election Race To Miller

2010-08-31
U.S. Salmonella Scare: Farm Inspections Reveal Manure, Mice And Maggots

U.S. Warns East Coast To Brace For Impact Of Hurricane Earl

Commentary: The Sarrazin Debate - Germany Is Becoming Islamophobic

Commentary: The Sarrazin Debate - Germany Is Becoming Islamophobic

Hell On Earth - The U.N. Documents Congo's Bloodbath

Baghdad On High Alert As U.S. Officially Ends Combat Mission

Mexico Seizes 'La Barbie', Drug Lord Infamous For Beheadings

Greenland's Prime Minister Lambasts Greenpeace For Raiding Arctic Oil Rig

Interview With Ex-CIA Agent Michael Scheuer - 'Only The Taliban Are Not Corrupt'

'I Did Nothing Wrong' - German Gulag Prisoners Recall Their Ordeal

Stock Investors Brace For Another Ugly September

Four Israelis Shot Dead Near Jewish Settlement On Eve Of White House Talks


Commentary: The Geopolitics Of Food Scarcity
2009-02-12 18:41:07 (81 weeks ago)
Posted By: Intellpuke
(Read 1566 times || 0 comments)
Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Lester Brown, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute and author of "Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing To Save Civilization". Mr. Brown's commentary appeared on Spiegel's online edition for Wednesday, February 11, 2009.

In some countries social order has all begun to break down in the face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Cold the worldwide food crisis portend the collapse of global civilization?

One of the toughest things for us to do is to anticipate discontinuity. Whether on a personal level or on a global economic level, we typically project the future by extrapolating from the past. Most of the time this works well, but occasionally we experience a discontinuity that we failed to anticipate. The collapse of civilization is such a case. It is no surprise that many past civilizations failed to grasp the forces and recognize signs that heralded their undoing. More than once it was shrinking food supplies that brought about their downfall.

Does our civilization face a similar fate? Until recently it did not seem possible, but our failure to deal with the environmental trends that are undermining the world food economy - most importantly falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures - forces the conclusion that such a collapse is possible.

These trends are taking a significant toll on food production: In six of the last eight years world grain production has fallen short of consumption, forcing a steady drawdown in stocks. World carryover stocks of grain (the amount remaining from the previous harvest when the new harvest begins) have dropped to only 60 days of consumption, a near record low. Meanwhile, in 2008 world grain prices have climbed to the highest level ever.

The current record food price inflation puts another severe stress on governments around the world, adding to the other factors that can lead to state failure. Even before the 2008 climb in grain prices, the list of failing states was growing. Now even more governments in many more low and middle-income countries that import grain are in danger of failing as food prices soar. With rising food costs straining already beleaguered states, is it not difficult to imagine how the food crisis could portend the failure of global civilization itself.

Today we are witnessing the emergence of a dangerous politics of food scarcity, one in which individual countries act in their narrowly defined self-interest and subsequently accelerate the deterioration of global equilibrium. This began in 2007 when leading wheat-exporting countries such as Russia and Argentina limited or banned exports in an attempt to counter domestic food price rises. Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, banned exports for several months for the same reason. While these moves may reassure those living in exporting countries, they create panic in the scores of countries that import grain.

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