One of the hardest things for people to do is anticipate sudden change. This chapter summarizes the shortages and the probabilities of the world going short on food in years to come. As demand for food rises faster than supplies are growing, the resulting food-price inflation puts severe stress on the governments of countries already teetering on the edge of chaos. Further, States fail when national governments can no longer provide personal security, food security, and basic social services such as education and health care. Our global civilization depends on a functioning network of politically healthy nation-states to control the spread of infectious disease, to manage the international monetary system, to control international terrorism and to reach scores of other common goals. If that doesn't happen, humanity is in trouble.This article goes on to mention a new sort of food crisis regarding agriculture and and the ever growing demand for grain. People in low-income countries where grain supplies 60 percent of calories, such as India, directly consume a bit more than a pound of grain a day. In affluent countries such as the U.S. and Canada, grain consumption per person is nearly four times that much, though perhaps 90 percent of it is consumed indirectly as meat, milk, and eggs from grain-fed animals. And in other agriculture news as water tables have fallen and irrigation wells have gone dry, China’s wheat crop, the world’s largest, has declined by 8 percent since it peaked at 123 million tonnes in 1997. Whats next, is a plan to help stop the decline of production and ubiquity of food by protecting the soil, recycling our water, and transitioning from fossil fuels to a more renewable form of energy.
According to Lester Brown, what is the greatest threat to global political stability?
When governments lose their monopoly on power, law and order begin to dis- integrate. After a point, countries can become so dangerous that food relief workers are no longer safe and their pro- grams are halted; in Somalia and Afghanistan, deteriorating conditions have already put such programs in jeopardy.
Failing states are of international concern because they are a source of terrorists, drugs, weapons, and refugees, threatening political stability everywhere.
Women's Indigenous knowledge and Biodiversity Consevation
This chapter goes over women's knowledge and intelligence and how it plays a crucial role in the biodiversity and preservation of the planet (from a women's perspective in a way) in agriculture, forestry,industrialization, etc. The marginalization of women and the destruction of biodiversity go hand in hand. Diversity is the principle of women’s work and knowledge. This is why they have been discounted in the patriarchal calculus. Yet it is also the matrix from which an alternative calculus of "productivity" and "skills" can be built that respects, not destroys, diversity. When speaking and talking about the production and preparation of plant foods, women need skills and knowledge. To prepare seeds they need to know about seed preparation, germination requirements and soil choice. Seed preparation requires visual discrimination, fine motor co-ordination, sensitivity to humidity levels and weather conditions. There are a number of crucial ways in which the Third World women’s relationship to biodiversity differs from corporate men’s relationship to biodiversity. Women produce through biodiversity, whereas corporate scientists produce through uniformity.
What is an Ecofeminist?
Ecologically focused feminists who call themselves ecofeminists see important connections between the domination of women and the domination of nature under the patriarchal social and political framework that characterizes most of the world’s human cultures.
Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems
This chapter takes you through an overview that illustrates the extent to which human activity has exerted a global impact on the Earth’s ecosystems during the past century. They consider the consequences of land transformation, alterations of marine ecosystems, modifications of major biogeochemical cycles, and biotic disruptions.
Oceans Human alterations of marine ecosystems are more difficult to quantify than those of terrestrial ecosystems, but several kinds of information suggest that they are substantial. The human population is concentrated near coasts about 60% within 100 km,and the oceans’ productive coastal margins have been affected strongly by humanity. .Many of the fisheries that capture marine productivity are focused on top predators, whose removal can alter marine ecosystems out of proportion to their abundance. Water is essential to all life. Its movement by gravity, and through evaporation and condensation, con- tributes to driving Earth’s biogeochemical cycles and to controlling its climate. Very little of the water on Earth is directly usable by humans; most is either saline or frozen. Altercations in the biochemical cycles, the modern increase in CO2 represents the clearest and best documented signal of human alteration of the Earth system. There is no doubt that this increase has been driven by human activity, today primarily by fossil fuel combustion.
They report that almost 50% of the Earth’s land surface has been transformed by human endeavors. All of these changes are ongoing, and in many cases accelerating; many of them were en trained long before their importance was recognized. The rates, scales, kinds, and combinations of changes occurring now are fundamentally different from those at any other time in history; we are changing Earth more rapidly than we are understanding it. We live on a human dominated planet and the momentum of human population growth, together with the imperative for further economic development in most of the world, ensures that our dominance will increase.
Would it help to reduce the impact on earth if we were to reduce the population?
Recognition of the global consequences of the human enterprise suggests three complementary directions. First, we can work to reduce the rate at which we alter the Earth system. Humans and human-dominated systems may be able to adapt to slower change, and ecosystems and the species they support may cope more effectively with the changes we impose, if those changes are slow. Our footprint on the planet might then be stabilized at a point where enough space and resources remain to sustain most of the other species on Earth, for their sake and our own.
What role, if any, should zoos play in conservational education?
Relying on captive populations lulls us into a false sense of security, drawing attention away from threats to wild populations and habitats which, if not protected, could be destroyed leaving no viable location to return to. The substantial costs of captive breeding could be used more effectively to protect these wild species and habitats.
Is it ethical to keep animals in zoos?
After seeing the life span of animals in zoos compared to in the wild it is astonishing. Not only from illness or natural causes, but from man made causes such as automatic doors. Animals were created to roam free with their other animal counterparts.
Do you enjoy visiting zoos?
I do enjoy visiting zoos, one of my passions is animals and although captivity may not be the best place for them. It's really the only real chance a ordinary person has at seeing exotic and amazing animals up close.
King Corn
King corn managed to make me think a lot more about what i'm putting into my body, and this soft spoken movie gets its point across by settling in among its rural Iowa subjects and following the lead of its goofy every man c-producers/stars, as they attempt to farm a single acre of corn. The film starts from planting corn seeds and progresses to what is made of corn and the effects that has on all of us. Where this documentary distinguishes itself, however, is in the unusual amount of warmth it lets into the mix. With respect, refraining from sarcasm, superiority, or a,bush. King Corn insists what we recognize the corn belt's beauty and intelligence along with its somewhat self-induced plight. it's air to say that a meaner documentary might have packed more punch. King corn will put you off corn or a while, but this is as much a thoughtful mediation on the plight of the american farmer as it is a rant against our expanding waistlines. It was an informative and thought provoking documentary about corn.
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