From the New York Times, today, on ‘Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger‘:
From the Star, a few months ago, on ‘Obesity Becoming World Crisis‘:
According to the United Nations, there are now more overweight people in the world than starving people. Maybe time for some give and take, literally? What do you think? Do you have any ideas of how to make this work?
And then you take a closer look at the pile and it becomes even more disgusting. Yes, it’s painful to see side by side and also necessary.
words, pictures, so loud and haunting, how humbling.
my greenadine is fixed. thank you again.
startling to see the compariosn
my girlfriend started this org when she was on on a missionary trip – it feeds only a sector of this population, yet it’s efforts are remarkably admirable – especially with so much of the politics so unsupportive
http://www.whatiffoundation.org/
on the other side of the spectrum – when i was a size 24 I looked around me for others as big as I, it was affirming – see they are big too, I am not the only one. It’s when I came to realize that there were so many that were so big that it occurred to my how horrifying it was – my weight gain was circumstantial – chronic pain caused me to stop moving, it was a mortifying time in my life to be so victimized
on the other side of it and an advocate for weight loss i see bigger issues, addictions that are fostered by the american diet that people really really struggle with, and the mentality attached has such indifference and apathy
i am not trained to work with these bigger problems
Thanks Mary, Thanks Nadine.
Karen, thanks for the insight. Nice Foundation. I just wonder where they are going to find the food now!
I totally agree, the American system is all wrong, and is fostering a culture of obesity from birth. As you know the cheapest and most marketed foods also happen to be the most processed, unhealthy, and also carbon emission producing goods. There needs to be a whole effort on several fronts: education, health, nutrition, policy, business, agriculture, and distribution.
I just joined a very exciting Peace Innovation initiative with Stanford University, and can’t wait to get going and experiment with using Web 2.0 technology to start some mini efforts in this area potentially. I will keep you all posted on our progress.
Well, I’m always in favour of the approaches that complement each-other and lead to solutions to several different problems.
For example, if you whack up a huge tax on all fossil fuels and timber the moment they come into contact with the economy, and use that money to put in renewable energy, mass transit and alter the roads so that neighbourhoods and more bikable and walkable – then cheap processed food is no long cheap so people buy less of it, they walk more so they’re less obese, they spend more time travelling so have less time to watch tv and thus don’t want as much processed food, there are less carbon emissions from transport, the roads aren’t as congested, and so on and so forth.
There are lots of ways to approach it, that’s just one. The point is to have someone with the guts to suggest it. And listening to your Presidential candidates talk like it’s 1999, no mention of climate change, peak oil or the Iraq war – I don’t think you’ve got that coming. You need to make better choices.
Oh and how does this help the hungry? Short-term, not at all. Longer-term, it stabilises food prices at a lower level. Because prices like taxes are something that whatever they are, people can adjust to; it’s just when they quickly rise that you’re in the shit.
Yes, Kyle, it is all connected, and we ‘just’ need to re-balance everything. It’s all pretty common sense, and yet as you know the crowds don’t always go with what’ s best for them. Irrational beliefs, and the force of habits, and collective madness get in the way. The whole collective consciousness needs to tip enough for things to start moving back in the right direction. I am not sure we have reached that point yet. I think the food crisis, as awful as it is for those suffering from it the most, may get us closer to that threshold.
Well ultimately the people need to be able to grow the food in their own areas, they can’t import forever. And Haiti’s problems really are environmental problems. Do you have google maps? Go look at the Haiti-DR border.
There are really only two reasons there are ever famines: environmental problems, and civil conflict (including a tyrannical government). Sometimes environmental problems will help give rise to civil conflicts, as for example today in Darfur in Sudan. But let’s look at Haiti. With its neighbour Dominican Republic, it’s a really good example of what environmental degradation does – because they’re on the same island, with the same weather and so on.
As one site puts it, in 1925 the country was 60% forest-covered, by 1988 it was 2%. Now it’s close on zero.
“The most direct effect of deforestation was soil erosion. In turn, soil erosion lowered the productivity of the land, worsened droughts, and eventually led to desertification, all of which increased the pressure on the remaining land and trees. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that this cycle destroyed 6,000 hectares of arable land a year in the 1980s. Analysts calculated that, at the rate of deforestation prevailing in the late 1980s, the country’s tree cover would be completely depleted by 2008.”
By contrast, the neighbouring DR is 28% forest-covered, and half the army is engaged in forestry work. Haiti has a medium HDI of 0.53 or so, and DR a medium-high one of 0.78. DR has a per capita GDP of around $10,000, while Haiti is under $2,000. Looking at rich-poor gaps, the Gini index measures this, and while DR’s is high at about 53, Haiti’s is higher still at about 60.
The lack of forest cover means that when a hurricane hits their common island, more Haitians die than Dominicans, simply because the lack of trees to anchor the soil means more landslides. That means more destruction of homes, and more years rebuilding – only to be hit by another hurricane, or a coup or something. And then of course the whole place is turning into a desert, since without forests to help keep moisture and topsoil, it just flows away into the Caribbean.
Now, DR is hardly a paradise; like Haiti it’s had military dictatorships, bloody revolutions, and as I mentioned has a big rich-poor gap. But nobody’s eating mud cakes in the Dominican Republic.
So basically if we want Haitians to do well, we have to provide them some political stability (that’s what 8,000 UN troops are there for) and then help them replant their forests and that sort of thing. I mean, obviously we have to send them basic foodstuffs in the meantime, it takes years to grow forests. But we have to help them build their future.
Now, environmental issues are not the only issues in the world. But they’re the issues that make the difference between plain old poverty, and eating mud cakes.
Kiashu, I second you, and would add that growing your own food burns a lot of calories, too. Everyone should be growing some kind of vegetable garden- even if it’s only lettuce and tomatoes. And if there’s real food on hand, and you’ve grown it yourself, you’re far more likely to eat it.
And I agree that a carbon tax is likely an excellent solution for many ills. Perhaps then we’d stop taking food out of the rest of the world’s mouths to fill our gas tanks.
Thanks Ilex. There is a whole movement here in the Bay Area towards urban gardening. So simple, and so powerful. What you are doing on your blog is very powerful. I love all your gardening stories!
Hmmm, I had a big post that seems to have disappeared.
Let’s see… if you have google earth, go look at a picture of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border. It’ll be very clear where it is. That’s because DR has 28% forest cover, and Haiti, which had 60% in 1925, now has less than 1%.
As a result, any time it rains the topsoil is washed away, and when there’s a hurricane everyone’s homes slide away in mud. So the country is turning into a desert.
And that gives you a death spiral effect. You’re some Haitian farmer and try to grow lots, so you cut down forests to have more land to grow stuff, but the rain washes away your topsoil so you have no surplus grain to sell and send the kids to school. And then a big storm comes and wipes it all out and you have to rebuild. So you can never build your wealth, you’re always only just surviving at best.
Thus, Haiti has under $2,000 pc GDP, DR $10,000; Haiti an HDI of 0.53 or so, DR 0.78; and while DR has a high rich-poor gap as measured by Gini Index of 53, Haiti’s is worse at 59. [Figures all from memory, check ’em if they sound crazy.]
I mean, the Dominican Republic is no paradise. They’ve had coups, military governments, civil conflict – but at least nobody’s eating chunks of mud in the Dominican Republic. Why? They kept their forests.
Basically the only reasons anyone ever starves are environmental problems and civil conflict. If they’ve got both, like in the Sudan, then they’re really screwed. So what you need is to stop the civil conflict – thus, 8,000 UN peacekeepers in Haiti – and try to mitigate their environmental problems. In Haiti’s case, you’d probably try to plant forests with them.
Because in the end every area has really got to be able to feed itself. It’s the only sensible way to do things. You can’t go on imports and handouts forever. So we have to do things to help them feed themselves. Of course we should continue sending them food in the meantime – but our ultimate aim should be to help them help themselves.
And that needs a government policy in Haiti, and other similar countries. Any individual farmer or other person, as an individual, is going to have a strong incentive to cut down any nearby forest. But it’s bad for everyone together, and bad for that individual in the long run. Yet if your family is hungry today, what else are you going to do? Topsoil degradation will kill us in ten years, hunger will kill us today. So it only works if it’s co-ordinated at the top level with the bottom.
Ultimately, in the long run virtually ever inhabited portion of the Earth is capable of feeding itself; areas will have disasters and need help, but I’m talking about the long-term trend. But it takes peace, a non-tyrannical government, and care for the environment.
Not that I’d cry if people were seizing Big Macs off people and sending them to Haiti, of course. But I’m thinking of the long-term.
Kyle, your earlier post ended up in spam, and I just retrieved it.
Thanks for your long view on the problem. I totally agree with you.
“Do you have any ideas of how to make this work?”
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/
Haiti’s problem isn’t just one of desertification, it is also a victim of US neoliberal trade policies.
In the 1980s Haiti produced 95% of the rice it consumed, but then the US flooded the market with cheap imported rice, and the agricultural sector collapsed. Farmers couldn’t compete with the imported rice, lost their land and moved to the cities, to work in the assembly plants.
Now instead of Haitians farmers feeding the Haitian people, we have Haitian workers producing goods for American consumers. For pennies an hour.
Reijn, you may want to read Gary Peters’ guest post today. He is making similar points.
As beneficiaries from the Western lifestyle, we each carry our share of the responsibility in the Haiti’s – and other developing countries – disaster.
And we need to not close our eyes, and use our brains to figure out intelligent ways to give back what we have taken.
The juxtaposition of the two images is… startling.
That summarizes and concertizes the most blaring dysfunctional aspects of the system.
Great job Marguerite.
Welcome back, Jacques!
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