Food Price Riots Popping Up Around The World

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latin_rite said:
Yup. Gotta love how someone talks about how a famine is gripping large parts of the world and clowns here start denying it or making light of it, talking how they can go to a all you can eat joint for 8 bucks or tells them to stop farming with oxen and start using tractors. No wonder christianity has a world wide image problem. But hey if they have no rice tell them to eat cake eh? The more i read of this site the more right wing protestant it appears. maybe the catholics in the u.s are leaving the chruch in droves because they see no difference between evangilisim and catholisim:shrug:
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I do believe your comments correctly reflect some of the earlier views stated in this thread. There were posts that seemed to make light of the hunger problem being brought to attention in the OP. I personally found such levity disconcerting and made no bones about it, eventually quitting the discussion in disgust.

Politics aside (and I lay it firmly aside because no threat to Christianity to me seems more ominous than the current obsession with fusing faith and secular ideologies), some of the views expressed do not reflect well on us as Catholics.
 
latin_rite said:
Yup. Gotta love how someone talks about how a famine is gripping large parts of the world and clowns here start denying it or making light of it, talking how they can go to a all you can eat joint for 8 bucks or tells them to stop farming with oxen and start using tractors. No wonder christianity has a world wide image problem. But hey if they have no rice tell them to eat cake eh? The more i read of this site the more right wing protestant it appears. maybe the catholics in the u.s are leaving the chruch in droves because they see no difference between evangilisim and catholisim:shrug:
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I do not see how one can view this topic fatuously. I do think it is a realistic possibility that the human population will fall by about (or more) 700 million by the end of the 2010s. (I give it about a 40% chance due to increase commodity speculation and a potential supply crunch for oil.) I wonder assuming availability for an alternative energy infrastructure what will be the opinion on religion after such a catastrophe? I wonder if people will abandon religion realizing a God who allows such suffering isn’t benevolent in any way. I did not develop a belief in the Christian God at an early age despite my parent’s Catholicism because I intuitively discovered the powerful problem of evil objection. If no such infrastructure can be built (using coal, natural gas, and fissionable isotopes are stopgaps, but they are of course finite resources), a further declivity in population can be expected to occur.
 
How is God responsible for our refusal to be good stewards? The real cause of hunger and famine, is not that the world does not have enough food (i.e. God has provided for us all) but that food is inaccessible to some because of high prices, low wages or unemployment, war, political unrest and sometimes trade policies.

How can that be God’s fault? Man’s failure to share, to govern with justice and fairness, to intelligently use resources; man’s avarice and excesses and plain lack of concern for those outside his chosen demographic group…those things are responsible for people dying of hunger.

What I really don’t get is this: if God is considered irrelevant or non-existent, how exactly does He get to be blamed for the mess we’ve created?
 
seekerz said:
How is God responsible for our refusal to be good stewards? The real cause of hunger and famine, is not that the world does not have enough food (i.e. God has provided for us all) but that food is inaccessible to some because of high prices, low wages or unemployment, war, political unrest and sometimes trade policies.

How can that be God’s fault? Man’s failure to share, to govern with justice and fairness, to intelligently use resources; man’s avarice and excesses and plain lack of concern for those outside his chosen demographic group…those things are responsible for people dying of hunger. What I really don’t get is this: if God is considered irrelevant or non-existent, how exactly does He get to be blamed for the mess we’ve created?
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seekerz, I certainly agree with you about the political injustice that lies behind a good deal of the world hunger problem right now. However, I think it is also misleading for Bread for the World and other well-intentioned organizations to keep on parroting the line that “it’s not a problem of too little food; it’s simply a problem of distribution.”

There are problems in distribution, to be sure, but there is also the problem of “human exceptionalism” – too often in religion humanity is set apart. as standing outside the natural order, unconstrained by the natural limits that control unbridled growth of population. We may be able to manipulate food supply better than squirrels or elephants or blue whales, but there are limits to the number of humans this planet can support. I ascribe guilt to religion insofar as it refuses to deal with the problem of human overpopulation. Those who willfully and knowingly say there is no conceivable limit to the number of humans the earth can support will bear some guilt later for the death by starvation of billions of women, men, and children.

Petrus
 
drpmjhess said:
seekerz, I certainly agree with you about the political injustice that lies behind a good deal of the world hunger problem right now. However, I think it is also misleading for Bread for the World and other well-intentioned organizations to keep on parroting the line that “it’s not a problem of too little food; it’s simply a problem of distribution.”
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They are absolutely correct!

There is plenty of food – it just doesn’t get to the hungry. The reason for that is often tribal warfare, brutal dictators who use starvation as a weapon, and so on.
drpmjhess said:
There are problems in distribution, to be sure, but there is also the problem of “human exceptionalism” – too often in religion humanity is set apart. as standing outside the natural order, unconstrained by the natural limits that control unbridled growth of population. We may be able to manipulate food supply better than squirrels or elephants or blue whales, but there are limits to the number of humans this planet can support. I ascribe guilt to religion insofar as it refuses to deal with the problem of human overpopulation. Those who willfully and knowingly say there is no conceivable limit to the number of humans the earth can support will bear some guilt later for the death by starvation of billions of women, men, and children.

Petrus
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Many nations have tried population control – and found that, aside from being hideously immoral – it creates more problems than it solves.
 
vern_humphrey said:
Many nations have tried population control – and found that, aside from being hideously immoral – it creates more problems than it solves.
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You have to use the means of libertarian paternalism to conduct a successful population control program – it cannot be forced.

But if we do not find a way to ethically solve the problem, nature will do it for us – it will be an unpleasant “correction” to a sustainable carrying capacity. It is not possible for an ecosystem to have too many high-trophic level organisms. Because of this and the finitude of petroleum resources, it is likely that humanity will be shorted.
 
ribozyme said:
You have to use the means of libertarian paternalism to conduct a successful population control program – it cannot be forced.
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It still doesn’t work – it creates a large elderly population with too few younger people to care for them. And that’s aside from the serious moral issues.
ribozyme said:
But if we do not find a way to ethically solve the problem, nature will do it for us – it will be an unpleasant “correction” to a sustainable carrying capacity. It is not possible for an ecosystem to have too many high-trophic level organisms. Because of this and the finitude of petroleum resources, it is likely that humanity will be shorted.
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Overpopulation warnings go back about 250 years – and we still produce more than enough food for everyone.
 
drpmjhess said:
There are problems in distribution, to be sure, but there is also the problem of “human exceptionalism” – too often in religion humanity is set apart. as standing outside the natural order, unconstrained by the natural limits that control unbridled growth of population. We may be able to manipulate food supply better than squirrels or elephants or blue whales, but there are limits to the number of humans this planet can support. I ascribe guilt to religion insofar as it refuses to deal with the problem of human overpopulation. Those who willfully and knowingly say there is no conceivable limit to the number of humans the earth can support will bear some guilt later for the death by starvation of billions of women, men, and children.
Petrus
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Of course there is a concievable limit to the number of humans Earth can support. Are we there yet? No.

Do you remember “The Limits of Growth” by the Club of Rome? It was a quite popular book when I was in college in the early 70’s. All about the horrors of overpopulation (by 2000). It’s quite funny when I look back and think that I was taken in by it at the time. None of it came true. Get a copy and read it, and then look around.

Life and death belong to God. Although we cooperate with him in creating new life, we have no such directive with regard to pre-emptively aborting life, or (of course) taking human life that already exists. Perhaps God has other plans that we’re not aware of that will make “overpopulation” a non-issue.

And those who pre-emptively talk people into contraception & abortion & euthanasia under the guise of “the problem of human population” certainly will bear some guilt when they stand before God in judgment, and God says to them “Tell me what you did with your life…”
 
The difficulty is so many of our problems become politicized – to the point where we can’t do what works, we must do what is politically correct. This is true of AIDS, poverty, and world hunger.

And sadly, the politically correct approach usually makes things worse, not better.
 
ricmat said:
Do you remember “The Limits of Growth” by the Club of Rome?.. None of it came true. Get a copy and read it, and then look around.
And those who pre-emptively talk people into contraception & abortion & euthanasia under the guise of “the problem of human population” certainly will bear some guilt when they stand before God in judgment, and God says to them “Tell me what you did with your life…”
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(1) Limits to Growth was fundamentally correct then (except as to timing); it is still fundamentally correct today. Look around you: massive starvation, two million children dead each year from waterborne illnesses, Himalayan glaciers melting back, glaciers that for millennia have secured the water supply for all Asia; the fossil water of the Ogallala Aquifer declining a meter per year; petroleum on which we all depend coming close to gone forever. Limits to Growth was spot on (if a little early).

(2) Who is suggesting abortion and euthanasia as instruments of population control? That would be truly horrifying. That’s why we need to have serious international conversation about how to begin curbing growth now – through education and voluntary measures – rather than waiting until totalitarian governments impose the unthinkable on us.

(3) A head-in-the-sand attitude about population control ignores one fact: the earth will at some point be at zero human population growth, just as in the past it has been at zero squirrel or elephant or rhinoceros population growth. The question is whether we reach ZPG voluntarily, or whether we wait until famines, epidemic diseases, and resource wars impose ZPG on us. I prefer to work for it calmly and rationally, rather than waiting fatalistically for it to overtake us.

Petrus
 
vern_humphrey said:
The difficulty is so many of our problems become politicized – to the point where we can’t do what works, we must do what is politically correct. This is true of AIDS, poverty, and world hunger.

And sadly, the politically correct approach usually makes things worse, not better.
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Yes, it is politically incorrect to talk about population control these days.
 
drpmjhess said:
(1) Limits to Growth was fundamentally correct then (except as to timing); it is still fundamentally correct today. Look around you: massive starvation, two million children dead each year from waterborne illnesses, Himalayan glaciers melting back, glaciers that for millennia have secured the water supply for all Asia; the fossil water of the Ogallala Aquifer declining a meter per year; petroleum on which we all depend coming close to gone forever. Limits to Growth was spot on (if a little early).
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Uhhh…sorry. What The Limits to Growth predicted has not happened. The cost of virtually everything is less than it was then, even including food prices. Glaciers come and go, they always have. Saudi Arabia alone has a 200 year supply of oil for the whole world. If we allow nuclear energy, or find a way to clean up coal, we have a lot more than that.

OK - perhaps Limits could be correct some day, but we have no way of knowing “how early” it is right now. Perhaps a few thousand years early. As I said, God may have other plans anyway.
drpmjhess said:
(2a) Who is suggesting abortion and euthanasia as instruments of population control? That would be truly horrifying.

(2b)That’s why we need to have serious international conversation about how to begin curbing growth now – through education and voluntary measures – rather than waiting until totalitarian governments impose the unthinkable on us.
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2a. There’s a blog called Secondhand Smoke which covers this in great detail. wesleyjsmith.com/blog/

2b. Unless you’re talking properly applied NFP, I’m not sure what education and voluntary measures you are referring to.

Since you are a Catholic theologian, I assume you’re not talking about condoms, or other forms of artificial contraception.
drpmjhess said:
(3) A head-in-the-sand attitude about population control ignores one fact: the earth will at some point be at zero human population growth, just as in the past it has been at zero squirrel or elephant or rhinoceros population growth. The question is whether we reach ZPG voluntarily, or whether we wait until famines, epidemic diseases, and resource wars impose ZPG on us. I prefer to work for it calmly and rationally, rather than waiting fatalistically for it to overtake us.
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This is a bit like shooting and killing the suspicious guy walking past your front door because you think he might be going to break into your house and rob you.

What if the guy who was going to invent the next new farming breakthrough, or a new type of wheat that is fungus resistant, or the gal who was going to invent the warp drive to take us to new planets is one of those who is the victim of ZPG…well, you would have just shot yourself in the foot.

God told us to go forth and multiply. I don’t recall anything about ZPG. Maybe we should do what Jesus did, and what Adam didn’t do, i.e. ask for God’s help.
 
ricmat said:
Uhhh…sorry. What The Limits to Growth predicted has not happened. The cost of virtually everything is less than it was then, even including food prices. Glaciers come and go, they always have. Saudi Arabia alone has a 200 year supply of oil for the whole world. If we allow nuclear energy, or find a way to clean up coal, we have a lot more than that…
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Do you have any evidence to back up this extraordinary claim? Those who know what they are talking about note that most major fields worldwide are in decline or near peak.

That doesn’t affect that basic argument that humanity will reach ZPG at some point. There will be a point at which the planet reaches the maximum sustainable population of humans, just as it has a maximum sustainable population of squirrels, great white sharks, salmon, etc.
 
ribozyme said:
I do not plan to have children so I guess you cannot call me a hypocrite.
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That’s not hypocritical, unless you are encouraging other people to have huge families. We have two, the replacement rate. There are a few families in my sons’ Catholic school who have three; one family has four; by far the majority have one or two children.
 
drpmjhess said:
Do you have any evidence to back up this extraordinary claim? Those who know what they are talking about note that most major fields worldwide are in decline or near peak.

That doesn’t affect that basic argument that humanity will reach ZPG at some point. There will be a point at which the planet reaches the maximum sustainable population of humans, just as it has a maximum sustainable population of squirrels, great white sharks, salmon, etc.
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Well then, I guess that where ever I read this was written by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. And whatever link I would post would be countered by a link that someone else could find. I’m too lazy to try to sort it out at this point. I remember in 1973 buying my first car, and telling my Dad that likely it was the last gasoline powered vehicle that I’d ever buy, because there wouldn’t be any gas in a few years. Club of Rome said so. Even with the recent gas hikes, adjusted for inflation gas is selling at about the same cost as it did in the late 70’s.

Yes, before the discovery that crude oil could be pumped from the ground, concern for the supply of whale oil to light the lamps of the world was a concern. Whales were declining, whale oil was getting really expensive. Too many blasted PEOPLE wanting to light their homes. But it’s not a concern any more. Because we learned to pump oil. When the oil runs out, we’ll come up with something even better. Unless the agenda is not to find something better, but to kill off all those blasted people that infest the planet. I wonder whose agenda that is.

Again, as I said originally, there IS some limit on growth, but perhaps we don’t reach that limit for thousands of years. And perhaps God has other plans for us in the meantime.

The whole concept of ZPG is anti-life, and therefore anti-God. There are groups that propose totally eliminating people so “nature” can get back to normal (I live in California, so perhaps I’m more aware of this stuff). This isn’t what God intended.
 
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