punditman says...
The question before The House is as follows: Should we feed cars or people? If the cars were in charge, we know what they would choose. I mean just look at how they behave.
As Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute points out in The Great Food Crisis of 2011, the US harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons of which went to grain ethanol distilleries to feed automobiles. That amount could have fed 350 million people for a whole year. But it didn't. Maybe the cars are in charge. This is insanity.
The issue of food security is real, and unless you think the human race is one big joke and deserves extinction, it's not exactly a laugh riot. Unless you're a car.
The question before The House is as follows: Should we feed cars or people? If the cars were in charge, we know what they would choose. I mean just look at how they behave.
As Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute points out in The Great Food Crisis of 2011, the US harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons of which went to grain ethanol distilleries to feed automobiles. That amount could have fed 350 million people for a whole year. But it didn't. Maybe the cars are in charge. This is insanity.
The issue of food security is real, and unless you think the human race is one big joke and deserves extinction, it's not exactly a laugh riot. Unless you're a car.
Brown explains that unless we change our priorities, increased food shortages and rising food prices will contribute to a rather dystopian future with unhappy results for billions. He lists a myriad of causes including the aforementioned use of grain to feed hungry cars, population growth, overgrazing, rising affluence, the demand for meat, soil erosion, aquifer depletion, loss of cropland to non-farm uses like suburban sprawl, the diversion of irrigation water to cities, shrinkage of irrigated area, and of course climate change—with its crop-withering heat waves and melting mountain glaciers and ice sheets. Sorry to spoil your Bagel B.E.L.T.
Brown says that governments need to "quickly redefine security and shift expenditures from military uses to investing in climate change mitigation, water efficiency, soil conservation, and population stabilization." This sounds long overdue. Punditman and Peacenik concurr. But will this be enough?
What are some other possible solutions? Punditman is starting to think that total veganism may be necessary. And a ban on internal combustion. We may end up vegans anyway once there are no more species to kill off. But these memes need to be marketed as cool and tough because love of cars and love of steak dinners seem to go together, even though they're so 20th century. Punditman would settle for a ban on beef production and mandatory solar powered cars. It would save on health care costs as well.
One commentor suggests "euthanasia for all persons over 60." Do I hear 50? Then we are really talking savings. Wait, punditman has a birthday coming up. Punditman is looking for answers. Are you?
