Prediction 126
Over the next ten years, we will make measurable global progress in all five areas of the human condition: food, access to clean water, health, education, and the price of energy.
Bet 126
Duration ? years (02003-?)
Predictor
Patrick C. Burns
Challenger
Steven B. Kurtz
Stakes $400
will go to longbets.org if Burns wins,
or Planned Parenthood Int'l if Kurtz wins.
Add your voice to a conversation with the bettors:
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Specifically, I am betting that 10 years into the future, the five indices of global human welfare given below will show improvement. You may pick any metric from each of the five indices, and you will win the bet if ANY of the five indicators shows a global negative trend over the 10-year life of the bet.
** Food (per capita average calorie intake, percent or absolute number of malnourished, percent or absolute number of people underweight). Data Source: United Nations FAO
** Water (number of people without access to clean water, percent of people without access to clean water, etc.). Data Source: United Nations Millennium Indicators per UNICEF - WHO
** Health (life expectancy at birth, childhood immunization rates, infant mortality rates, life expectancy after age 30) Data source: United Nations or U.S. Census Bureau
** Education and Quality of Life: universal primary school education, adult literacy, percent of people with access to radio/TV/phone, parity of female to males in education, or partity of female-to-male wages. Data source: UN Development Indicators per UNESCO
** Energy: That the amount of energy required to produce a $1 worth of GDP will decline (this is a universal way to measure the price of energy). Data source: UN Millennium Indicators per World Bank.
Note that all of these indices are direct measures of human welfare. While I believe human welfare will improve, I also believe we will lose both wild places and wild creatures for the next 50 to 75 years as forests are fragmented, coastal and pelagic systems are over fished, reef systems are destroyed, wetlands are drained, and market hunting continues apace in some parts of the developing world. To put it another way, I believe that the human condition will generally improve for the next 10 years (and for the 50 years after that) while many overall negative trends for wild places and wildlife will continue apace. In short, I believe the history of the last 500 years will continue for the next 10 years and the next 50 years after that. This bet is for a 10-year period; we can continue the bet after that if the other bettor so desires.
Primary driver is my belief in the imminence of 'Hubbert's Peak' (oil production). This will affect agriculture (increasingly industrial), pharmaceutical production, transportation of food and other essentials, and general increasing dependence on non-human calories in global societies.
The metrics I select are:
"Absolute number of malnourished"
"number of people without access to clean water"
"life expectancy at birth"
"adult literacy" (need to clarify % or gross#)
The energy metric is a loaded question, as a severe energy shortfall will force more human calories to be used per $ of GDP. I'd rather use the per capita use of non-human calories. This would indicate whether life was 'easier' or if more sweat was required during life.
The metrics we agree to are as follows:
1. Absolute number of malnourished children. Source: UNICEF data as at http://www.childinfo.org/eddb/malnutrition/
2. Number of people without access to clean water as determined by U.N. Millennium Indicators at http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp per UNICEF - WHO
3. Average life expectancy at birth as determined by United Nations Stats as at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/social/health.htm
4. Literacy of those aged 15-24 as determined by U.N. Millennium Indicators at http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_worldregn.asp
5. The amount of energy required to produce a $1 worth of GDP (Burns says it will decline). Data source: UN Millennium Indicators per World Bank.
Over the next ten years, we will make measurable global progress in all five areas of the human condition: food, access to clean water, health, education, and the price of energy.
"per capita average calorie intake"
One glutton + five starving = 6 healthy diets.
"One glutton + five starving = 6 healthy diets"
The author of the prediction appears to have anticipated this:
"You may pick any metric ..." and goes on to list some:
** Food (per capita average calorie intake, percent or absolute number of malnourished, percent or absolute number of people underweight). Data Source: United Nations FAO
So if you believe malnourishment or underweight will increase either as a percent or in absolute numbers, gluttons will not prevent you from winning the bet.
So if you believe malnourishment or underweight will increase either as a percent or in absolute numbers, gluttons will not prevent you from winning the bet.
Ah, but /in theory/ there could be a global decrease in average per capita food intake based soley on gluttons eating more healthy diets. If so I'd be 'winning' on an unfair basis.
Of course that is a very, very, very unlikely outcome.
So which metric would you pick, if you wanted to win fairly? You have identified problems with using averages (per capita).
So which metric would you pick, if you wanted to win fairly?
Hmm, I think I'll decide that in about 9 1/2 years time. ;-)
Seriously, I'd pick whichever metric, for whichever of the five indices that shows the most marked degredation at that point. Although there are theoretical problems with the 'average per capita' one for food I don't think I'd need to use a loophole like that.
This was one of the closer cut bets, but I think the bettor has taken a high risk position for three reasons.
1. 10 years is short enough that it is possible to make reasonable extrapolations from the current situation. My (layman's) assessment is that things may be improving, but certainly not uniformly, quickly and reliably. There are also a number of worrying possibilities for the near future - high on the list being an American economic slump/crash with associated knock on effects.
2. The flexibility of the bet is all on the side of those disagreeing with the bettor's position. Any one measure, of any one metric is sufficient. My personal guess would be that water is among the most risky. (Climate change & the emphasis on big-money big-loan big-engineering 'solutions').
3. Those countries that are worst off tend to have the fastest growing populations (and vice versa). A slight improvement might well be offset by this effect.
> Seriously, I'd pick whichever metric, for whichever of the five indices that shows the most marked degredation at that point.
Seems to me that the challenger should state which metric he claims will have degraded at the time of the challenge.
Quote "Specifically, I am betting that 10 years into the future, the five indices of global human welfare given below will show improvement. You may pick any metric from each of the five indices, and you will win the bet if ANY of the five indicators shows a global negative trend over the 10-year life of the bet."
Hmm, seems to be "capable of misinterpretation" at the least. I'd suggest that the bettor should clarify the point.
If I was betting, I would bet on water. I've got a feeling that buying real estate with water rights is going to be like buying real estate with oil rights, and humanity at large will be just as considered. A lot of people will be saying, "I'm so thirsty I'ld drink anything."
I would take a look at the Millennium Indicators and the FAO data on food. I think you will see that in nearly every region calorie intake is going up and the absolute number of the very hungry is going down -- this is not a mathematical artifice, but the way it's been for a pretty long time. Ditto for human access to potable water. A statistical game is not being played -- things really are getting better for humans even in the developing world. Are things getting better uniformly? No. Some places are getting better faster than others, and in a few countries some things are getting worse, but taken as a whole humans are getting healthier, wealthier, and more literate and those trends will continue (they are very old trends).
Food, water, health, education and energy improvements in the next 10 years will not be all that much improvement as compared to the last 10 years(1993 to 2003) and that means it amounts to not much to write home about. Poverty is rampant after centuries if not millions of years after human
beings came into existence. As long as poverty is not eradicated entirely,all the five essentials mentioned will not be availbale in poverty stricken areas(more than 80% of the world etc.);not only that even in supposedly developed countries such as Canada,US,Western Europe there is a very sizable population in ghettos etc. who can't afford these 5 essentials. Talking about health, about 40% to 60% do not have health care in US including children. Canada and Western Europe are better off than US in this, only because
of universal health care provided by the governments. So as
long as we keep criticising them saying it is socialism etc.
I don't expect this screwed up so called capitalism solving any of these problems and this prediction will remain at the max the biggest pipe dream ever conceived!
I agree that capitalism won't solve the problem of Third World poverty. One of the 'hidden' problems with capitalism is that as rich nations get richer, the race to be super-rich in rich nations becomes more and more difficult. It (on average) requires a faster and greater consumption of raw materials; it requires higher profit margins.
Both the raw materials and the profit margins are found by exploiting non-rich nations, where materials and labor are far cheaper. As a result, these nations are -- through a combination of intentional and unintentional means -- kept poor.
One example is the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), a nation both poor and torn by a civil war that stubbornly refuses to end, but also a nation with incredible mineral resources -- millions of tons of diamonds, coltan (a very valuable source of tantalum, needed for electronics), cobalt, copper, uranium, etc. The war in the Congo has killed over three million people, but it has been prolonged by US and multinational corporations because it prevents the government there from keeping that wealth in the Congo.
The US literally put Mobutu Sese Seko's dictatorship in power in the Congo in the mid-60s, for example, because he facilitated the presence of US corporations. Mobutu gradually realized he could keep more wealth for himself by limiting US corporate interests, and so US-trained military leaders in Rwanda and Uganda invaded key resource-rich areas of the country.
Those military groups set up unsanctioned (illegal) colonial-style governments, which receive millions in funding both from US corporations and the US government itself. In return, US and multinational corporations have unreasonably cheap access to extremely valuable resources, plus extraordinarily cheap labor.
No one who's in any position to do anything about this sort of thing -- which goes on all over the Third World, and even in many developed countries -- has any interest in changing the situation. It's nothing new; it's not very different from the early days of colonialism, or even historical trends of exploitation that go back (at least) thousands of years.
Capitalism works very well for some people, always at the expense of other people. It's not a zero-sum game, and it does create a lot of wealth, but capitalism itself knows no ethical boundaries; it seeks the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance almost always means that people who don't have financial power get screwed by people who do.
I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that capitalism is the problem, but it's definitely not the solution, either. It's symptomatic. As long as people can exploit each other, they will, pretty much as fast as they can.
FYI:
Eco-Economy Update 2003-7
For Immediate Release, August 27, 2003
Copyright 2003 Earth Policy Institute
RECORD TEMPERATURES SHRINKING WORLD GRAIN HARVEST
Monthly Drop Equal to One Half of U.S. Wheat Harvest
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27.htm
Lester R. Brown
On August 12 at 8:30 a.m., the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its
monthly estimate of the world grain harvest, reporting a 32-million-ton drop
from the July estimate. When grain futures markets opened later in the
morning, prices of wheat, rice, and corn jumped.
This 32-million-ton drop, equal to half the U.S. wheat harvest, was
concentrated in Europe where record-high temperatures have withered crops.
The affected region stretched from the United Kingdom and France in the west
through the Ukraine in the east. The searing heat damaged crops in virtually
every country in Europe.
The soaring temperatures of the past several weeks rewrote the record book.
On August 10, the temperature in London reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38
degrees Celsius)--the first triple-digit reading on record in the United
Kingdom. France had 11 consecutive days in August with temperatures above 35
degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). In Italy, temperatures reached 41
degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit).
The heat wave in Europe started in early summer when Switzerland, situated
in the heart of Europe, experienced the hottest June since recordkeeping
began 140 years ago. In July the heat wave spread across the rest of Europe.
Crops suffered the most in Eastern Europe, which is harvesting its smallest
wheat crop in 30 years. In the Ukraine, the wheat crop, already severely
damaged by winter kill, was reduced further by the heat, plummeting from 21
million tons last year to 5 million tons this year. As a result, the
Ukraine, a leading wheat exporter last year, has been forced to import wheat
as bread prices threaten to spiral out of control. Romania, which was
particularly hard hit by heat and drought, is expecting to harvest the
smallest wheat crop on record. The Czech Republic is expecting its poorest
grain harvest in 25 years.
The prolonged heat wave, which persisted through mid August, also reduced
the German grain harvest. The German Farmers Union reports that in
southeastern Germany some farmers may lose half of their grain crop.
This reduced estimate of the world grain harvest will expand the world grain
shortfall this year to 82 million tons. With projected world grain
consumption of 1,912 million tons exceeding production of 1,830 million tons
by 4 percent, the world is engaged in a massive drawdown of grain stocks.
(See data at http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htm.) With
this year's drawdown, world grain stocks have dropped to the lowest level
since the early 1970s. When world grain stocks dropped to a dangerously low
level in 1973, world prices of wheat and rice doubled.
As atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels climb higher each year in an
unbroken ascent, they are creating a greenhouse effect, raising the earth's
temperature. Over the last quarter century the earth's average temperature
has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius or more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.
As temperatures rise, crop-withering heat waves are becoming more and more
common. Last year the grain harvests in India and the United States were hit
hard by high temperatures and drought. This year Europe is bearing the
brunt.
During this life-threatening heat wave Europeans may have felt that the
temperature could not rise much higher, but the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), a group of some 1,500 of the world's leading climate
scientists, is projecting a rise in average global temperature of somewhere
between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius) during
this century if we continue with business-as-usual energy policies.
Even if the earth's temperature increases only a few degrees, as in the low
end of the IPCC projections, we will likely see heat waves far more intense
than anything we can easily imagine. If rising temperatures shrink harvests
and drive up food prices, consumer pressure to reduce the use of fossil
fuels will intensify. Indeed, rising food prices could be the first global
economic indicator to signal the need for a fundamental shift in energy
policy, one that would move the world toward renewable energy sources and
away from climate-disrupting fossil fuels.
# # #
It is commonly known that ocean stocks are declining, probably due to overharvesting. Fish farming is meeting demand in many areas, but there are problems and questions re sustainability of this practice. It is dependent in many cases upon high inputs of 'trash fish' meal for food, antibiotics, and energy intensive water treatment. Then it must be transported under refrigeration.
==================================
August 14, 2003
African Lake’s Fish Yields Plummet as Global Temperatures Rise
A lake in East Africa that houses 18 percent of the world's freshwater is suffering as the world gets warmer, scientists say. The productivity of Lake Tanganyika, which borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Burundi, has dropped 20 percent since the 1950s, resulting in a 30 percent decrease in fish yields. According to a report published today in the journal Nature, the findings indicate that the impact of regional effects of global climate change can be larger than that of local anthropogenic activity or overfishing.
As the second largest lake, Lake Tanganyika is one of the world's great freshwater ecosystems and provides 25 to 40 percent of the annual animal protein supply to the countries bordering it. Catherine M. O'Reilly of Vassar College and her colleagues used local records, sediment cores and water measurements to track the water body's history over the past 80 years. They found that the air temperature in the region increased by about 0.6 degree Celsius, whereas the deep waters of the lake warmed by 0.31 degree. At the same time, the scientists determined that wind velocities in the region have decreased by 30 percent since the 1970s. Together, these factors reduced the rate at which organic matter is created, thus lowering the number of fish that the lake can sustain. "Our research provides the strongest link to date between long-term changes in lake warming in the tropics, recorded by instruments, and declining productivity of the lake's ecosystem, as seen in sediment cores," says study co-author Andrew Cohen of the University of Arizona. "This work provides a clear indication of the regional effects of global climate change, and especially global warming, on tropical lake ecosystems."
Modeling forecasts for the area predict additional temperature increases of around 1.5 degrees C within the next 80 years, which could have dire consequences for the inhabitants of the region who depend on the lake for food, the researchers note. "To date, most studies have found significant effects of climate change in the northern hemisphere," O'Reilly observes, "while our study indicates that substantial warming is also occurring in the tropics, and that it is having a negative impact on some ecosystems." --Sarah Graham
Drugged Waters
Does it matter that pharmaceuticals are turning up in water supplies?
By JANET RALOFF
Chemists at an agricultural research laboratory run by the Swiss government were screening lake water for pesticide contamination when they ran across a puzzling result. Their instruments turned up a compound that resembled mecoprop, an herbicide they had been looking for, but it wasn't a perfect match.
(snip)
"These findings are not all that surprising," observes James F. Pendergast, acting director of the Environmental Protection Agency division that regulates what comes out of sewage treatment plants. For quite a while, he notes, water quality engineers have recognized that one of the highest-volume contaminants emerging in effluent -- especially early in the morning -- is caffeine, a drug excreted by all those people who down a cup or two of Java to jolt their bodies awake.
Although he was unfamiliar with the new European studies documenting drugs in water, Pendergast says that he has no reason to doubt their findings or the possibility that they might herald what could be found in U.S. waters, if anyone were to look.
He's also not surprised that European chemists have stumbled onto the issue before U.S. scientists. A number of environmental issues -- from methyl mercury buildups in acidified lakes to reproductive risks from hormone-mimicking pollutants -- became hot research topics in Europe before U.S. researchers jumped on the bandwagon, he says."
full 1 page piece w/references:
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/3_21_98/bob1.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994024
Arsenic's fatal legacy grows worldwide
19:00 06 August 03
Fred Pearce
The growing trend around the world to drink water from underground sources is causing a global epidemic of arsenic poisoning. Tens of thousands of people have developed skin lesions, cancers and other symptoms, and many have died. Hundreds of millions are now thought to be at serious risk.
The latest evidence comes from the valley of the river Ganges in India, one of the most heavily populated areas on the planet. High levels of arsenic in groundwater were once believed to be confined to an area around the river delta, and Bangladesh in particular.
But a new study by a leading expert shows arsenic has invaded the valley all the way to the Himalayas, an area that is home to half a billion people. And a new survey to be published this October reveals that arsenic is more widespread than previously imagined (see map).
Mass poisoning
Jack Ng of the University of Queensland, Australia has found that people are at serious risk in 17 countries around the world - including China, Vietnam, Argentina and the US, where many communities are failing to meet new health limits set by the World Health Organization (Chemoscope, vol 52, p 1353).
The revelations come as efforts to find and replace millions of poisoned tube wells are making little headway in Bangladesh, where an estimated 50 million people are at risk in what the WHO calls the world's worst mass poisoning disaster.
It emerged in July that the Bangladeshi government has spent less than $7 million of the $32 million given by the World Bank in 1998 for an immediate clean-up. Bank officials have now ordered the government to hand over the cash to affected villages.
Tube wells
The new focus of concern is Bihar, an Indian state that is home to 83 million people upstream of the Ganges delta. In northern India, 80 per cent of the population drink water from underground sources, mostly from simple hand-pumped tube wells sunk in the past 30 years to replace polluted surface water supplies. Most tube wells have never been tested for arsenic.
In 2002, Kuneshwar Ojha, a schoolteacher living close to the river, became very concerned after his wife and mother died of liver cancer and other family members developed skin lesions.
He took water samples from the family tube well to Dipankar Chakraborti, director of environmental studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta, who originally uncovered the mass arsenic poisoning on the Ganges delta (New Scientist print edition, 16 September 1995).
Chakraborti confirmed high concentrations of arsenic in the sample, and enquiries revealed that 18 young people had died from apparently arsenic-related illnesses in the village of Semria Ojha Patti in the past five years, and a hundred more were sick with early symptoms, such as skin lesions.
The only fit people were the Dalits, or untouchables, who because of their lowly status were not allowed to drink water from village tube wells.
Since then, hundreds of similar cases have emerged in the district, and the authorities have banned people from using many tube wells. Parts of Semria Ojha Patti are now abandoned.
Over the limit
In July, Chakraborti reported that more than half of 200 wells surveyed around Semria Ojha Patti contained levels of arsenic above the government limit of 50 micrograms per litre, which is itself five times the WHO limit (Environmental Health Perspectives, vol 111, p 1194). This is a higher proportion than in Bangladesh, he says. But it remained unclear whether the poisoning is more widespread.
This week, Chakraborti told New Scientist that a new survey of 3000 tube wells, completed only days ago in a wide area of Bihar, has found that arsenic levels in 40 per cent of them exceed the WHO limit, and 12 contain water at more than 20 times the limit. More than half of adults examined show symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
"The same pattern we saw in Bangladesh is being repeated," Chakraborti says. "There, we began with the discovery of three villages. Now thousands are known to be affected and more are being discovered all the time. Our early warnings were ignored then. Now we are warning about Bihar. We feel that this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Earlier in 2002, doctors in Nepal also warned that 10 million people in the Terai plain, part of the upper Ganges valley, may be drinking contaminated water. Many already have symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
Chakraborti says large proportions of the half a billion people living on the plain, from crowded northern India to the delta region of Bangladesh could be at risk. Because the poison only builds up slowly in the body, every year of extra exposure increases the risk.
Deadly deposits
In most of these areas, few people drank groundwater until around 20 years ago, when aid agencies began promoting it as a safe reliable source of drinking water to replace surface water contaminated with sewage.
But rivers leach arsenic from mountains and often deposit it slowly in silts beneath major rivers. Typically, high levels dissolve in underground water when the local chemistry leads to reducing conditions. The British Geological Survey is being sued in the UK courts for failing to spot arsenic in a survey of Bangladeshi groundwater a decade ago.
Vietnam is also facing its own arsenic crisis. Recent tests by Michael Berg at the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science in Duebendorf show that groundwater from tube wells sunk beneath the Red river delta, home to 11 million people, including the capital Hanoi, contain arsenic levels up to 300 times the WHO safe limit. Symptoms of arsenic poison could soon emerge, says Berg, as people accumulate poisons from tube wells first installed seven years ago.
19:00 06 August 03
--
http://populationinstitute.ca
http://www.scientists4pr.org/ Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.—Kenneth Boulding
This is an effect from declining fish stocks in traditional areas.
Steve
==========================
Trawling seamounts threatens ocean's biodiversity
09:00 31 August 03
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition.
Hundreds of deep-sea species new to science are disappearing before they can be identified or studied, oceanographers are warning. The organisms are being pushed to extinction by trawlers targeting undersea volcanic mountains called seamounts.
In the past two years, scientists have found that seamounts are home to an astonishing diversity of species, with 40 per cent endemic to each mountain. Thousands of new species have been discovered in recent years - 600 on just five seamounts.
With 30,000 seamounts estimated to be in the Pacific alone, a huge slice of biodiversity is at risk. "They are hot spots for the evolution of new species," says Karen Stocks, an oceanographer with the University of California at San Diego.
Although many coastal seamounts have been fished for decades, the researchers are warning that faltering fish stocks mean fishing fleets are heading into deeper waters in search of new catches. The boats are increasingly targeting pristine oceanic seamounts, home to highly marketable species such as orange roughy, alfonsino and deep-water redfish.
Slow recovery
Trawlers are often the first to discover seamounts, which they target using sophisticated sonar equipment. But bottom-trawling nets can do immense damage within a year or two.
Studies in the Tasman Sea show that coral and crinoids, a group of suspension-feeding echinoderms, cover 90 per cent of pristine seamounts. Once fished by trawlers, that figure drops to 5 per cent, and the seamount loses half its biomass. And recovery is painfully slow.
Some seamounts in the north Pacific have still not bounced back 50 years after boats first trawled them, says John Dower, a fisheries oceanographer at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Stocks organised an international symposium in Oregon last week to gauge the growing threat from commercial fisheries. Delegates were told that fewer than 150 of the world's seamounts had been studied in detail, and that maritime nations should cooperate to manage these habitats before it is too late.
Stephen Leahy
Your analysis of what is going on in the Congo omitted the Simbas, communist guerrillas who led major bloody uprisings throughout the mid-1960s, and again in 1978. Apparently world communism also relied on exploiting less-advanced nations and poor people, because the Soviets and the Chinese were very active in the Congo. They just never got the press that Mobutu did.
The situation in the Congo is more complex than US companies setting up shop, paying chump change for labor, ore and diamonds and basically vacuuming all the wealth out of the country.
If you have to have a bogeyman to blame, King Leopold of the Belgians is the fellow to talk about. At the turn of the last century (19th to 20th) Belgium laid claim to the Congo and made both the Congo and the Congolese the personal property of the King of Belgium.
The Belgians ran the Congo with an iron hand, suppressing dissent quickly and violently, and in general acting worse than you might think "civilized" people were capable of being.
This went on until the Congo started breaking out in revolution in the 1950s and 1960s - with strife not only between Belgians and Congolese, but communist and noncommunist Congolese nationalist parties. Much of the bloodshed in the 1960s and all of it in the 1978 uprising was directly traceable to the pro-communist rebel troops who raped, slaughtered and burned their way through the Congo - with leaders trained at Patrice Lumumba University, the KGB's terrorist and subversion academy in Moscow.
In this mess, the US picked first Tshombe, then after his death, Mobutu, because the pickings weren't slim, they were non-existent. No choice but to back the biggest bully in the schoolyard and saddle him with an American ambassador to cajole and bribe the Maximum Leader out of his worst outrages. Crappy situation, but it was what it was.
Politically, the Congo is a total mess. We've tried importing Western democracy, heck, even English-style socialism, but they didn't take in Congolese soil. The only real solution is to let the people who live there try to work out a government they can live under.
Name the economic system that has a proven superiority over capitalism. Take your time....
Then name the political system which is provably better than a functioning democracy.
A number of posts here have blamed capitalism for the ecological ills of the world. However, I notice that each of the examples mentioned were in countries that are either socialist or crony capitalist (an essentially noncapitalist setup where political cronies of the government are given monopolies in certain lucrative markets).
I think that a well-functioning democratic state with a capitalist economic system would be able to hold its own in negotiations with foreign companies. If that's not the case, then the national leaders are either corrupt or incompetent. The issue then is not American exploitation of the country versus something better, because nothing better exists - the alternative would be exploitation by companies from another country which are willing to pay bribes or otherwise convince the national leadership to act in a manner contrary to the nation's interests.
So what's better? Look at Cuba. They are the textbook example of a poor Communist country exploited by a rich Communist country, then left adrift when that country became no longer Communist or rich.
Russia itself is a case study in how corrupt leadership can devastate a country.
Even socialist governments transparent enough to be largely honest are experiencing problems with funding social and economic programs. Planned economies - even exemplary ones such as Sweden (which recently announced that due to budget cutbacks, the Swedish army is now only operating from 9 am to 5 pm) - are spiraling down the path of economic failure - essentially because the economic models on which their planning is based are faulty and didn't predict the conditions which are causing shortfalls in tax money.
The United States oscillates between being a largely capitalist and a largely socialist state. The last successful piece of economic planning was Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress cooperating to pay down the national deficit. However, to do this, Clinton had to cut defense and intelligence spending to the point where the United States could no longer deter attacks on American soil, and 9/11 happened. Goodbye balanced budget, because we are going to have to kick some ass for many years to solve the terrorist problem, but we also need a healthy economy to fund our government, so we have to use tax cuts - and they're working, the Dow Jones averages have been over 9500 for a long time now, and hiring is picking up as well. But we're running up a deficit that we're going to have to pay down again. Fun.
So none of the available national economic and political models ever approach being perfect. Or have I missed one? (Seriously, anyone who knows a economic system that avoids the pitfalls of capitalism, socialism and communism, speak up!)
The problem in all these poor countries with arsenic in their wells and God Himself knows what-all else is corrupt leadership. Period. End of paragraph.
A non-corrupt government would act aggressively for its citizens' health and demand market prices for the ores and other materials it exports, and competitive wages for its workers.
So - if the ecological problems are the US's fault, we must correct the problems at their source. Right?
Wheedling them and giving money to the politicians that never makes it to the people hasn't worked, and that's been the State Department's approach
That leaves one proven option: imposing an honest government
That approach was the one we used in the early and mid-Twentieth Century in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
When American troops were present and required civil functions such as taxation, collection of customs, and police work to be conducted professionally and honestly, these countries prospered. After American troops left, the dismal, usual pattern of poverty because of poor and corrupt government returned.
Either we're responsible for the mess (in some strange fashion I can't understand), in which case we should set up a government capable of serving its people well, or;
we're not responsible because the countries concerned are sovereign states which presumably enjoy the support of their citizens and in which corruption is a part of the consensus in the country.
A third alternative would be nice. Any ideas?
Name the economic system that has a proven superiority over capitalism. Take your time....
This isn't really on topic here. I doubt that future generations will want to look back on endless political arguments. (Although I could be wrong, maybe they'll be thought incredibly amusing). I will therefore keep this short.
1. If solutions were always limited to those that had already been demonstrated you wouldn't have got as good as 'capitalism' in the first place.
2. There is no country in the world whose economy is, or has been, purely capitalist. Every country has, and continues to, interfere in the free market. Moreover there are a significant number of current trends in the US for more interference with the free market rather than less.
My personal opinion is that there are very, very, few 'isms' that I trust, and that most statements such as "The more ____ the better." fail for sufficiently large values of ____.
Paul Blay said:
"Name the economic system that has a proven superiority over capitalism. Take your time....
This isn't really on topic here. I doubt that future generations will want to look back on endless political arguments. (Although I could be wrong, maybe they'll be thought incredibly amusing)."
It IS on topic here, Paul - because you and several other posters have flatly stated that capitalism - and specifically capitalism as brought to the developing world by US-based companies - is somehow responsible for the ecological mess in those places.
The bet predicts measurable progress toward improvement in several factors relating to the human condition worldwide by a certain date.
The statements in this thread that capitalist investment in the developing world was a retarding factor in that process don't provide any PLAUSIBLE reasons for the destruction of a livable human habitat in so much of the developing world.
It isn't Microsoft's (or any other US company's) fault that arsenic is leaching from the Himalayan front range into Indian and Bangladeshi ground water.
The poor response to that fact on the part of the local governments concerned is purely local political corruption.
Measureable progress toward improvement in the human condition worldwide is something the people in those countries will have to provide for themselves, both in the usual manner of not crapping up their local environment and in the relatively new manner of electing officials who will exert themselves to make things better for their people.
Water shortages threaten Africa
By Grant Ferret
BBC Africa editor
Scientists and researchers meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have warned of the growing threat posed by water shortages across Africa.
They say that in little more than 20 years' time, the number of people without access to clean water could double to over 600 million.
This would force the continent into an ever greater reliance on food aid.
The scientists say the shortages in Africa are part of a global trend of increasing water consumption.
High-yield crops
The scientists from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research said shortages must be addressed at all levels - from the way farmers use water to international policy.
They say that if present trends continue, one third of the world's population will have insufficient water by the year 2025.
But it is in sub-Saharan Africa that the problem is worst.
Already afflicted by periodic droughts, the researchers suggest the region will suffer more widespread shortages as the population grows.
They predict a shortfall in crop yields of over 20% because of insufficient water, with many governments too poor to finance the food imports needed to make up the difference.
To tackle the problem, the scientists are hoping to carry out a long-term programme to develop new breeds of high-yield crops which require less water.
But another of their suggestions is to put pressure on Western governments through the World Trade Organisation.
They say that agricultural subsidies in North America and Europe determine where food is grown, and that decisions taken by the WTO are possibly the single most important factor in shaping global demand for food and, as a consequence, the amount of water required to produce it.
======================================================================
A workable, if politically incorrect solution to the water problem in sub-Saharan Africa would to refill the Qattara Escarpment in Libya's eastern desert.
How? Digging a canal the good old-fashioned way would cost more money than is probably available for the project.
There is another way, however. France alone is sitting on 82 metric tons of plutonium reclaimed from fuel assemblies of its own power reactors and those of other countries. We could blast a canal, or even a tunnel, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Qattara Escarpment, filling it once again.
I don't claim to be an expert either on nuclear detonations or on the effects of introducing that much water into the Sahara, but I do know that
(a) we can make nuclear explosives "clean" enough to make the residual radioactivity problem a small concern - and remember that whatever radioactivity remains in the excavation will be diluted by trillions of tons of water;
(b) the Qattara Escarpment WAS once an inland sea or lake, so the local flora and fauna must have evolved to tolerate humidity at one point;
(c) the problem is urgent enough that any unnecessary delay in solving it in one way or another is immoral.
I used France and not the US as an example because I think all parties concerned would be more comfortable with a European power setting off nukes in Africa than they would be if we were doing it. However, we have expertise in "clean" nuclear explosives that, judging from the releases of radioactivity from even their underground testing in French Polynesia, the French may not have.
This is a driver in the *potential* 'fat cat' societies longevity peak. I'm not a subscriber, so can't get the article.
Steve
==========================
Kate Douglas
Eat fast, die early
RAMPANT obesity among children threatens to reverse rises in life expectancy in the UK, the country's "food tsar" has warned in an attack on the "fast-food, couch potato" culture sweeping the nation's youth. If nothing is done, "for the first time in a hundred years life expectancy will actually go down", John Krebs, chairman of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) told the London-based newspaper The Observer. His comments have ignited a debate about whether fast food advertising aimed at children should be banned, and whether the food industry should be forced to add less salt, sugar and fat to foods marketed to children. "We are staring at a public health time bomb," said Krebs. Nearly 10 per cent of 6-year-olds and 15 per cent of 15-year-olds are obese. Some estimate that the problem could cut life expectancy by nine years.
(about the author of article)
After graduating from Manchester University with a degree in Analysis of Science and Technology, Kate began her career as a journalist sub-editing for the Turkish Times in Istanbul. On returning to the UK, she worked as an editor at the Royal Society. She has been at New Scientist for 11 years now. When she's not adding sparkle to features about evolution, anthropology and the like, she can be found falling off mountain bikes and cliff faces.
--
http://populationinstitute.ca
http://www.scientists4pr.org/
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.—Kenneth Boulding
Even if the plan could be effected, the water is saline. To desalinate it requires massive amounts of energy. Do you think it is reasonable to expect that to happen as peak oil ensues? Or maybe you doubt peak oil??
Steve
The United Nations food agency has warned that world hunger is rising again, despite international efforts to reduce poverty.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) annual report says nearly 850 million people go to bed hungry every night, mainly in Africa and Asia.
The number of undernourished people is climbing by 5 million a year, it says.
The agency warns that the UN goal of halving world hunger by 2015 is looking increasingly remote.
The FAO report, entitled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003", calls the latest figures a "setback in the war against hunger".
It says that according to the most recent available figures from 1999 to 2001, there are 842 million chronically hungry people in the world.
The overwhelming majority of them, 798 million, are in the developing world.
(snip)
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3236364.stm
Published: 2003/11/25 11:59:00 GMT
It IS on topic here, Paul - because you and several other posters have flatly stated that capitalism - and specifically capitalism as brought to the developing world by US-based companies - is somehow responsible for the ecological mess in those places.
Have I? As this thread is only two pages long and I've made relatively few posts I'm sure you'll be able to quote where I have said so.
I note you have made no other response to the post of mine you quoted text from except to state that it is on topic.
23 December 2003
You are in: SciDev.Net Home > Opinions Home > Opinion Article
Clean water: a global pipe dream?
19 December 2003
Source: British Medical Journal
More than a billion people still lack access to clean water. Nor is there much available. Some 95 per cent of the world’s freshwater is locked deep in the ground, far from the reach of millions in the drylands of the developing world.
In this article, Rhona MacDonald, assistant editor at the British Medical Journal, reveals the chequered history of the effort to get clean water to the developing world. Barriers and problems have abounded — from water conflicts to aid that fails to monitor local needs, and a lack of essential funding.
MacDonald says that the outlook is grim if a truly cooperative effort fails to get off the ground. Governments, donors, nongovernmental organisations and communities need to pull together — and urgently. For far too many millions, time is running out.
Link to article in the British Medical Journal
Reference: BMJ 327, 1416 (2003)
Scientists Measure Pollution in Humans
Sat Dec 27, 5:58 PM ET
By PAUL ELIAS, AP Biotechnology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Davis Baltz shops for organic food and
otherwise tries to live as healthy as he can. So he
was shocked to learn that the pollutants collecting
inside his body sounded much like a Superfund cleanup
site: pesticides, flame retardants and other nasty,
man-made chemicals turned up in a recent test.
"What that told me is that no matter what I tried to
do, the plumes of chemicals that we are passing in and
out of everyday give us exposure," said Baltz, who
works for Commonweal, an environmental group in
Bolinas, Calif. Commonweal and the Washington-based
Environmental Working Group funded tests for Baltz and
eight others at $5,000 apiece.
For decades, researchers have sampled the air, land
and sea to measure pollution from power plants,
factories and automobiles. More recently, they have
expressed concern about mounting "e-waste" discarded
tech gadgets that contain flame retardants, lead and
other toxins.
But there's been trouble determining precisely how
much pollution gets absorbed by humans. Now, in a process called biomonitoring, scientists are sampling urine, blood and mother's milk to catalogue the pollutants accumulating in humans. They call the results "body burden."
Though the tests are yielding scary lists of contaminants found in the body, their links to disease are less clear. Nonetheless, proponents say such testing will help researchers learn what role the environment plays in causing disease and how to treat it.
Many chemicals such as PCB and DDT, both banned
decades ago, remain in the environment for years and
build up in the body over a lifetime.
It's not a new phenomenon. Rachel Carson wrote about
the poisons in her 1962 book "Silent Spring," which is
widely credited for jump-starting the environmental
movement.
But until now, researchers were left mostly to guess
about exactly how much and how many of the toxins
lingered in our bodies.
Few of the estimated 75,000 chemicals found in the
United States have been tested for their health
effects, Baltz and other biomonitoring proponents say.
By looking directly in the human body, they hope to
catalogue the environmental influences that may cause
disease.
Already, several studies have been completed:
_ In March, California researchers reported that San
Francisco-area women have three to 10 times as much
chemical flame retardant in their breast tissue as
European or Japanese women.
_ Indiana University researchers reported at the same
time that levels in Indiana and California women and
infants were 20 times higher than those in Sweden and
Norway, which recently banned flame retardant.
_ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news
- web sites) earlier this year released data from
2,500 volunteers tested for 116 pollutants and found
such chemicals as mercury, uranium and cotinine, a
chemical broken down from nicotine.
The CDC also found that black children have twice the
level of cotinine than other children, implying they
were exposed to more secondhand smoke than their peers
of other races.
Meanwhile, Mexican-American children were found to
have three times the amount of a chemical derived from
DDT compared with other children. Scientists suspect
that Mexico and Latin America countries may still be
using the banned chemical.
Next month, state Sen. Deborah Ortiz plans to renew
calls for California's polluters to finance testing of
contaminants in mother's milk.
"This will allow women to better make informed
decision about their health," said Ortiz, a Democrat.
"And the information will help researchers and public
health officials."
But some fear that biomonitoring results could be
misinterpreted and frighten new mothers from breast
feeding their babies.
"We are clearly concerned about what effects the
stories of biomonitoring will have," said Barbara
Brenner, executive director of the San Francisco-based
Breast Cancer (news - web sites) Action nonprofit
advocacy group. "Any rational woman will say to
herself, `Should I be breast feeding?'"
Others see political motives behind some of the tests.
"Everyone's exposed to substances and there's no
evidence that the low levels people are exposed to are
harming anybody," said Steven Milloy, author of "Junk
Science Judo: Self Defense Against Health Scares and
Scams." "It's a waste of time and money that only
serves to scare people."
Milloy noted that despite all the chemicals, the
overall U.S. population is living longer and
healthier.
Although the tests conducted on Baltz and other
Commonweal volunteers, including public television
journalist Bill Moyers, are too expensive for most
people, proponents believe costs will go down as
technology advances. Moyers' body had traces of 84
toxins, including lead and a byproduct of mercury.
There's still a debate among advocates over which of
the 75,000 chemicals to specifically look for when
biomonitoring. And even when chemicals are found,
there's little an individual can do.
But Baltz said the knowledge can at least help
consumers make more informed choices over what they
eat.
"Since we don't have a whole lot of control over most
of the environment, we can take charge with the food
we eat," he said. "There are few places where you can
exercise such power than controlling what we digest."
This refers to degradation of water supplies.
Steve
-------------------------------
EXCERPT: According to an Israeli Army Radio news report, 84% of the underground drinking water reservoirs in the Tel Aviv region of Israel are now so polluted by industrial waste that they are unfit for human consumption, a report presented to Israel's President Katzav by Adam Teva v'Din - the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED).
According to the Jerusalem Post (via Our Shared Environment), two of the worst polluters are Dead Sea Bromine, a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals Ltd., and Makteshim-Agan Ltd., a subsidiary of Koor Industries, both world leaders in their fields that manufacture a range of chemical products based on minerals and other raw materials extracted in southern Israel. Experts at the Israeli government's Geological Survey Institute say there is widespread evidence that billions of gallons of acidic and saline compounds discharged from the factories over several decades have badly contaminated the region's groundwater.
LINK: http://www.eces.org/articles/000687.php
Bush admin must feel betrayed by science. Will the sleepwalking voters notice the superstition, spin, & lies? The Union of Concerned Scientists also came out with a report (see their website)
> Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher
> population than it can sustain.
The Observer | International | Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change
will destroy us
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe
costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The
Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas
as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict,
mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to
the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and
secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global
stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to
its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the
Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has
repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they
will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national
defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew
Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the
past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at
transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US
national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant
and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of
the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would
challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered
immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a
rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.
Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of
respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its
policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a
former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that
suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White
House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the
catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening
phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to
global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.
A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice
their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US
to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American
officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with
complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.
One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of
the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief
scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue
as indefensible.
Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John
Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government
and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal
fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic
change.
Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and
the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of
terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then
this is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire
warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of
document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority
is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally
speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national
security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush
Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added
Watson.
'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the
Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty
scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob
Gueterbock of Greenpeace.
Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher
population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water
and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the
planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought
widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations
that could soon be repeated.
Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate
change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It
is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to
point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'
Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster
happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could
start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable.
It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'
So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove
vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to
accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with
Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in
his campaign.
The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's
cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank
dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net
Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast
experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's
push on ballistic-missile defence.
Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the
suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying
to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this
government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'
Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and
oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received
sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the
evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,'
he added.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
Steve:
Sure, the water introduced into the Qattara would be saline, but it would also evaporate, increasing the ambient humidity of sub-Saharan air and making the area more habitable. Obviously, this needs to be confirmed by computer modeling.
Also, there is lots of sunlight there which could be concentrated with mirrors and used to boil and thus both desalinate and purify that water, which would then be available for human use, irrigation and other fresh water applications.
VPF
I agree at least partially with Vance, here. Passive solar distillation-desalinization of sea water is a very inexpensive, reliable, efficient way of producing fresh water in a lot of areas, and it's easily scaled up. Facilities can be almost solid-state, with no moving parts.
It may or may not catch on in a big way, but many parts of coastal Africa are prime candidates.
Minority view. But the 4 horsemen seem to be ramping up their efficacy.
Steve
Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004
A century of increasing life expectancy may be ending
By Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - A century of steadily lengthening life spans may soon be over, a prominent population expert warned at a recent conference on aging and health.
"The modern era of dramatic increases in life expectancy is about to come to an end in the developed world - including the United States - as well as in the underdeveloped world," said Jay Olshansky, a demographer at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
"Life expectancy might very well decline in this century," he told last month's annual meeting of the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.
Other population specialists agree with Olshansky that the trend toward longer lives probably will level off in coming years, but they doubt life spans will shrink.
Olshansky blamed the rising tide of obesity and the re-emergence of deadly infectious diseases for threatening to dash Americans' confidence that each new generation will live longer than the one before.
A baby born in the United States in 2002 is likely to live, on average, to the ripe old age of 77.4, according to the National Center on Health Statistics. That's 30 years longer than a child born in 1900 - a gain of more than three months per year - thanks to modern medicine and public health measures.
World life expectancy has more than doubled over the past two centuries, from roughly 25 years to about 65 for men and 70 for women.
"Many people share the view that life expectancy will not increase much more, and a few people think that life expectancy will decrease," James Vaupel, an expert at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, said in an e-mail interview.
However, Vaupel said, "most demographers and other experts think it is likely that life expectancy will continue to tend to increase in most countries."
There are contrary trends. Russians, on average, live seven years less than they did before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, according to the World Bank. A dozen sub-Saharan African countries have seen their life spans shrink, largely because of AIDS.
"Biology can play out quite differently in different countries at different times," said Richard Suzman, associate director of the Institute of Aging at the National Institutes of Health.
"Jay Olshansky's position is a minority perspective in demography," Suzman added. "However, majority positions in science sometimes turn out to be wrong, and so minority positions should certainly be entertained."
"There is a small chance - less than one in 100 - that Olshansky's prediction of declining life expectancy might possibly prove correct," Vaupel said.
Another skeptic is James Oeppen, a researcher at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure in Cambridge, England.
"If Dr. Olshansky is correct, he won't have to share the accolades with a large group of like-minded contemporaries," Oeppen scoffed.
Despite the doubters, Olshansky says "there is sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that human life expectancy will decline in the 21st century."
"We see two storms approaching: obesity and infectious diseases," he told the Washington aging conference.
Obesity, he said, is "a global pandemic" that's already reduced life expectancy worldwide by 3.5 years. The impact of obesity on longevity is about the same as cancer, he said, and will double or triple in coming years, shortening lives by seven to 12 years.
In addition, Olshansky said, "we have created a tinderbox for the re-emergence of infectious diseases." The causes include growing resistance to anti-bacterial drugs, more and swifter travel among countries and higher susceptibility to disease in an aging population.
He said deaths due to infectious diseases had risen by 39 percent since 1980, after declining sharply since the development of antibiotics in the middle of the last century.
Olshansky admitted that his shorter-life scenario may not come to pass. "No one has a perfect crystal ball to tell what is going to happen in the 21st century," he said.
---
For more information on the Web, go to: www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus027.pdf
Just an update.
Steve
===========================
Wednesday, 8 December, 2004, 11:40 GMT
'No drop' in world hunger deaths
A Sudanese refugee waits for food in a camp on the Sudanese Chad border A child still dies of hunger every five seconds, eight years on from a pledge to halve the world's hungry by 2015, a United Nations agency has said.
The annual UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report says present levels of hunger cause the death of more than five million children a year.
The number of chronically hungry people has hardly budged since 1996.
But the FAO says the target of halving that figure remains within reach, and has urged richer nations to do more.
'Ruined lives'
It argues that fighting hunger is a good investment, saying the global costs of achieving the 2015 target pale against the price of not acting.
The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004 report says hunger and malnutrition cost about $30bn (£15.5bn) each year in direct medical expenses, with indirect costs costing billions more.
The FAO estimates an annual funding increase of $24bn (£12.4bn) to reach the hunger target would be repaid almost five-fold in increased productivity and income.
Lynn Brown, chair of the report's working group, said: "The number of hungry people remains intolerably high, progress in reaching them unconscionably slow and the costs in ruined lives and wasted resources incalculably large."
A worsening situation in China and India, the world's most populous nations, is largely blamed by the FAO for the recent rise in hunger levels.
However, all but one of the countries with the highest levels of hunger are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Governments set the target of cutting the number of undernourished people by half in 2015 at the UN World Food Summit in 1996.
But by 2000-2002, the number of chronically hungry in developing nations stood at 815 million, only nine million fewer than the estimate made a decade earlier.
The FAO's Hartwig De Haen said the 2015 target was "ambitious but still feasible".
The problems generally remain the same as they've been for decades -- logistics, politics, warfare, economics. Globally, the problem isn't food production, although that's frequently a local problem. Large parts of Africa are drowning in war of one kind or another, damaging existing infrastructure and preventing it from being used properly, encouraging government corruption, and preventing economic development.
There are agricultural problems, but political, social, and economic problems (which are often hardly distinct from one another) are the ruling factors. Those could change in the timeframe of the bet, but I don't think it's inevitable.
----------------------------------
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0626/women.html
26 June 2005 09:05
...
The Director of the UNDP's Human Development Report Office, Kevin
Watkins, said that most of the countries which account for the bulk
of maternal deaths have made no progress at all towards reaching the
millenium development goal, and some are going backwards.
----------------------------------
the current report itself...
----------------------------------
Human Development Report 2004
Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/
----------------------------------
plus...
----------------------------------
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1718568,00.html
Dire forecast for Africa's kids
09/06/2005 11:27 - (SA)
New York - Africa has fallen so far behind in efforts to reach key
United Nations (UN) development goals that about three million more
children on the continent will die in the year 2015 than if the
targets were reached, according to figures released by a UN agency.
The UN development programme (UNDP) projections paint an extremely
dire picture for Africa over the next 10 years. They say at its
current pace, sub-Saharan Africa will dramatically fail to meet the
UN millennium development goals on child mortality, education and poverty.
"Business as usual will carry a high price in terms of lost lives and
lost human potential for Africa," Kevin Watkins, direct of the UNDP's
human development report office, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Child deaths are projected to rise from the current level of 4.8
million in sub-Saharan Africa to about 5.1 million; the only region
in the world where the rate continues to rise. If the region were to
meet the millennium goal of cutting mortality rates by two-thirds,
there would be two million deaths, Watkins' projections showed....[continues]
-------------------------------------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/africa/4347194.stm
Sunday, 16 October 2005, 15:04 GMT 16:04 UK
UN warns of rising hunger deaths
The number of people dying from chronic hunger and related illnesses is on the rise, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
More than six million people have died from hunger this year, said WFP director James Morris, in comments to mark World Food Day.
"Hunger and related diseases still claim more lives than Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined," he said.
He urged givers of aid not to forget the scale of the problem.
"The number of chronically hungry people is on the rise again, after decades of progress. We're losing ground," he said.
According to the WFP, 25,000 people die from hunger and poverty every day.
Malnutrition is a serious problem in many parts of the world including North Korea, Haiti and Afghanistan.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most seriously afflicted area, where conflicts and the spread of Aids have exacerbated the effects of hunger.
The spotlight is now on Malawi, where millions of people are facing a food crisis, Mr Morris said.
Criticism
Both Mr Morris and UN special rapporteur on the right to food Jean Ziegler have criticised the actions of many nations towards the problem of hunger.
Mr Morris said developed countries spend more every week subsidising farmers than they do in a year on helping starving children.
Mr Ziegler complained that while the UN's member states spent more than a trillion dollars on arms in 2004, donations to the WFP had fallen by $219m.
This had already led the WFP to reduce food rations for thousands of refugees in East and West Africa, Mr Ziegler told AFP news agency.
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UN Takes Action Against Chronic Disease
“The cost of inaction is clear and unacceptable. It is vital that countries review and implement the health actions we know will reduce premature death from chronic diseases.”
- Lee Jong-wook, WHO Director-General
Chronic illness will continue to claim more lives worldwide than any other single cause unless the global community takes steps to address public health issues, according to the World Health Organization’s new report, Preventing Chronic Diseases: A Vital Investment. With the anticipated death toll from chronic disease in 2005 at 35 million –more than double the number killed by infectious diseases each year – the UN health agency’s report challenged countries to lower chronic illness death rates by two percent annually until 2015.
With 17 million people killed prematurely due to cancer, stroke, heart disease, and diabetes, the chronic disease epidemic has most heavily impacted the developing world. Deaths in low and middle-income countries account for 80% of all deaths from such illnesses. Acknowledging the potential for an avian flu pandemic, the WHO report cited the need to combat infectious diseases and “invisible” chronic disease epidemics simultaneously in these regions.
The economic price of inaction is predicted to account for $1.1 trillion in losses over the next decade for India , China , and the Russian Federation alone, with foregone government revenues representing billions of dollars of that total.
Preventing Chronic Diseases: A Vital Investment incorporates recent data from nine countries, including Brazil , China , India , and the United Kingdom , includes four parts:
*
“Preventing Chronic Diseases: A Vital Investment” provides a preliminary overview of the WHO’s main findings and most important proposals for action.
*
“The Urgent Need for Action” details the main contributors to the chronic disease epidemic and its worldwide distribution.
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“What Works: The Evidence for Action” puts forth effective strategies to combat chronic disease.
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“Taking Action: Essential Steps for Success” presents a policy framework for governments and the global community to address public health issues stemming from chronic illness.
Risk factors contributing to increased incidence of chronic disease were predicted to rise in tandem with the death toll from such illnesses: The report projects an increase in the current global obese and overweight population by 500 million over the next 10 years without international efforts to combat the chronic illness epidemic. Aggravated by diets high in fatty and sugary foods and physically inactive lifestyles, obesity represents an avoidable risk that can be prevented by nutritious eating habits and exercise. Another primary contributor to the development of illnesses like cancer or heart disease is tobacco use. Advertising and consumption of cigarettes and other tobacco products has surged recently, particularly increasing the danger to low and middle-income countries.
In an effort to address the threat posed to public health by physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and tobacco use, the report calls for governments and the private global community to forge a united front against chronic diseases. Solutions such as increasing the nutritional value of school lunches, taxing tobacco, and reducing the salt content of processed foods could be both effective and beneficial. In addition to providing a framework for states to reduce chronic disease death rates, the report also asserts that the chronic illness epidemic could be addressed as part of the UN MDG targets.
The full report on chronic disease is available here.
Regional and country-specific information is available here.
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The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, scientists say
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/4724282.stm
Friday, 17 February 2006, 13:51 GMT
'Millions more starving' by 2015
By Ania Lichtarowicz
BBC News, St Louis, Missouri
The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, scientists say.
They were speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Despite great improvements in food availability in the 1960s and 1970s, these trends are reversing in many developing countries, they say.
The United Nations' goal of halving hunger by 2015 looks unattainable without new technologies and greater financial investment, they add.
Ten pre-school children die every minute from malnutrition and this number has not changed since the early 1980s despite global promises.
Professor Per Pinstrup-Anderson, from Cornell University in New York, says that improving agriculture is the key.
"When you put money in the hands of farmers that money is spent on creating employment and reducing poverty elsewhere," he said.
"We have found in our research that for every dollar you invest in agricultural research you generate about $6 of additional income among the farmers and about $15 of additional economic growth in the society as a whole. Much of that will help poor people in those countries."
More commitment needed
There is some good news though.
China and Vietnam have considerably increased food availability and cut the number of people who do not get enough food.
But this has only been achieved by improving infrastructure and using technology including GM crops to increase yields - which is missing in many other countries.
For instance, east Kenya last year faced a famine. In the west of the country there was an excess of corn, but this was shipped to Europe because neither the means nor the money was available to get the corn to those starving in the east.
Scientists at the AAAS meeting in St Louis, Missouri, say situations like this will continue to occur unless governments in developing countries increase their commitments to ending poverty and hunger
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The UN tries to put a positive spin on everything that it has as a project. With water they can't even manage to do that.
from:
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/
" In the early 21st Century, prospects for human development are threatened by a deepening global water crisis..."
"Beyond the household, competition for water as a productive resource is intensifying. Symptoms of that competition include the collapse of water-based ecological systems, declining river flows and large-scale groundwater depletion. Conflicts over water are intensifying within countries..."
full report available free as .pdf file from site url above
Steve Kurtz
Hope this topic primarily focuses on poorest cross-section of the world.
This clarification is important - because meaning or definition of “Welfare” in 2003-13 is very much different for those who are leading a middle-class life-style and for those who are still below a world’s poverty line.
Within the world’s poorest group, unfortunately the criteria for “Measurable Global Progress” as well as “Welfare” considered in this Bet are inadequate. At first sight, the selected criteria only appear to provide a feeble cover to poorest families who are perhaps leading a life of inhumane conditions.
Inhumane is an appropriate adjective particularly when seen from a wider lenes of technological, sociological, scientific and political progress enjoyed in 2006 by many of us. The institutional data referred for judgement criteria can possibly show a growth in “Absolute numbers” but may not necessarily portray correct picture in “Relative terms”. For instance, what’s about the impact of above average population growth amongst poor families. Secondly, how do we account for widening “Space” between resources approachable to a middle-class society and inability of poor people to access them at all.
In spite of aforesaid advantages to Burns's favour, it would be interesting to see whether he would really be able to wins the bet by 2013. Mainly because, “Mind-set” of those who matters (e.g. Politicians, Industrialists, Government Employees and consequently Social-worker’s own ideas, design and effectiveness etc.), specially in countries where many poor people live (e.g. India, which I know somewhat) may not change so rapidly.
Birth Rates "Must Be Curbed to Win War on Global Poverty"
The Independent UK
Wednesday 31 January 2007
The earth's population will approach an unsustainable total of 10.5 billion unless contraception is put back at the top of the agenda for international efforts to alleviate global poverty. A report by MPs released today challenges world leaders to put the contraceptive pill and the condom at the centre of their efforts to alleviate global poverty, tackle starvation and even help to avert global warming.
Gordon Brown has staked his future premiership on leading the world in tackling global poverty. And the report, by the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and reproductive growth, makes the point that the population surge presents a massive stumbling block for his ambition.
Since the 1970s, when coercion was used in India and China, family planning has become a dirty word among environmental and hunger campaigners. But the report warns that eight UN targets for reducing poverty in the developing world will be missed unless world leaders do more to stop the soaring birth rates.
The group says the UK will have to take on the religious ideology of the neoconservatives in the White House against contraception. The MPs call for an end to the so-called "global gag rule", that was reintroduced by President George Bush.
It has put non-governmental organisations outside the US "in an untenable position" and forced them to choose between carrying out their work safeguarding the health and rights of women or losing their funding from the US.
The Labour MP Christine McCafferty, who chairs the group, said there would be a 50 per cent rise in the world's population by 2050 unless family planning was made more freely available in the developing world, where 99 per cent of the growth is expected to occur.
The report says there is "overwhelming" evidence that the UN's millennium development goals will be missed if population growth is not curbed. The goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/Aids and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The report carries a graph illustrating the "bulge" in population growth in developing countries since the 1950s, while the birth rate in developed countries has stagnated. The worst-case scenario predicts that unless it is checked the earth's population could soar out of control to more than 36 billion over the next 300 years.
"Once population growth gains a certain speed it is hard to slow," says the report. "As a result of rapid population growth a generation ago, China has a growing number of young married women of childbearing age.
"In Africa, the diversion of attention from population and the stalled fertility decline has occurred just as population momentum was beginning to slow with extremely serious long-term implications."
The population explosion has led to an increase in the numbers in extreme poverty living on less than $1 a day. In 1990, 44.6 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa were living in extreme poverty and this grew to 46.4 per cent in 2001. Because of population growth, the number of people affected rose from 231 million to 318 million.
Many countries that lowered their birth rates, such as South Korea, have reduced poverty. But the MPs say: "Continued rapid population growth in today's poorest countries presents a serious barrier to meeting the millennium target of poverty reduction."
Richard Ottaway, the Tory vice-chairman of the group, said: "This is not the developed world telling the undeveloped countries what they ought to be doing. None of the poorest 50 countries think that their populations are too small and 80 per cent think they are too high."
UN Goals in Jeopardy
Reduce Extreme Poverty
Target: Halve by 2015 number of people who earn less than $1 a day.
Report: "Rapid pace of population growth means ... we are not even succeeding in keeping the numbers living in extreme poverty stable."
Universal Primary Education
Target: Ensure that by 2015 children will have a full primary schooling.
Report: "The number of school-age children can double every 20 years - an extra two million school teachers per year are required just to stand still."
Gender Equality
Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005.
Report: "The ability of women to control their own fertility is absolutely fundamental to women's empowerment and equality." So far, many lack it.
Combat HIV/AIDS
Target: Halt by 2015 and reverse the spread of HIV/Aids.
Report: "Some progress ... But population growth has a negative impact on gaining control over spread of HIV/Aid through increased urbanisation."
Reduce Child Mortality
Target: Reduce by two thirds by 2015.
Report: "Evidence reveals at least two important causes of child mortality are directly linked to population growth: high fertility and reduced access to safe drinking water."
Improve Maternal Health
Target: Reduce by three quarters by 2015 the maternal mortality rate.
Report: "High fertility strongly increases a woman's lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes."
Guard Environmental Sustainability
Target: Integrate principles of sustainable development into country policies.
Report: "Reversing the loss of environmental resources cannot be achieved in the context of rapid or even moderate population growth without addressing the demographic factor."
Water Provision
Target: Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation.
Report: "As population grows, the UN estimates two thirds of the world's population will face moderate to high water shortages by 2025."
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I was thinking about the growth rates of poorest of poor people over several millenniums. When I carefully see, I find little difference in their life style from the time of pyramids’ construction to present days.
This makes me wonder who are the beneficiary of our research, technology and development; are they primarily driven by the definition “those who matter” for the vote banks. What’s about “we as Governments” who are also trustee of those who do not have anything – including ability to ask for their fair share.
Finally, do we want to wait another seven millenniums. Time has come to go back to the drawing rooms and redraw our concepts of economics and politics.
In continuation of my previous two postings - here is an evidence how a poor person living in slums could transfer his extra-ordinary productivity to his wife. She eventually became a software engineer.
(Copying the whole story will be a violation of the copy-write. Hence I'm posting the web-address, hope it will work)
Pani puri funds Infosys dreams
Deccan Chronicle Friday 25 may 2007
http://www.samachar.com
Then search for above titled article
I urge you to note it is not an issue between one individual to another within a family. At global scale "we as Government and trustee" have to accelerate this process between one social-class to another.
If you have read above story, feel the sacrifice of the giver and the honest commitment of the receiver. I wonder whether right conditions exist for right reaction to happen - in our economic-political planet.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022608P.shtml
Also see below:
High Food Prices May Force Aid Rationing
Go to Original
Feed the World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits
By Julian Borger
The Guardian UK
Tuesday 26 February 2008
Huge budget deficit means millions more face starvation.
The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".
"We will have a problem in coming months," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs."
With voluntary contributions from the world's wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world's undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.
The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition.
"This is the new face of hunger," Sheeran said. "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."
WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.
The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.
"For us, the main concern is for the poorest countries and the net food buyers," said Frederic Mousseau, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam. "For the poorest populations, 50%-80% of income goes on food purchases. We are concerned now about an immediate increase in malnutrition in these countries, and the landless, the farmworkers there, all those who are living on the edge."
Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.
"The fundamental cause is high income growth," said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. "I estimate this is half the story. The biofuels is another 30%. Then there are weather-induced erratic changes which caused irritation in world food markets. These things have eaten into world levels of grain storage.
"The lower the reserves, the more nervous the markets become, and the increased volatility is particularly detrimental to the poor who have small assets."
The impact of climate change will amplify that already dangerous volatility. Record flooding in west Africa, a prolonged drought in Australia and unusually severe snowstorms in China have all had an impact on food production.
"The climate change factor is so far small but it is bound to get bigger," Von Braun said. "That is the long-term worry and the markets are trying to internalise it."
The WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June.
But the donor countries are also facing higher fuel and transport costs. For the biggest US food aid programme, non-food costs now account for 65% of total programme expenditure.
Global Impact: Where Inflation Bites Deepest
1. United States The last time America's grain silos were so empty was in the early seventies, when the Soviet Union bought much of the harvest. Washington is telling the World Food Programme it is facing a 40% increase in food commodity prices compared with last year, and higher fuel bills to transport it, so the US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away.
2. Morocco 34 people jailed this month for taking part in riots over food prices.
3. Egypt The world's largest importer of wheat has been hard hit by the global price rises, and most of the increase will be absorbed in increased subsidies. The government has also had to relax the rules on who is eligible for food aid, adding an extra 10.5 million people.
4. Eritrea It could be one of the states hardest hit in Africa because of its reliance on imports. The price rises will hit urban populations not previously thought vulnerable to a lack of food.
5. Zimbabwe With annual inflation of 100,000% and unemployment at 80%, price increases on staples can only worsen the severe food shortages.
6. Yemen Prices of bread and other staples have nearly doubled in the past four months, sparking riots in which at least a dozen people were killed.
7. Russia The government struck a deal with producers last year to freeze the price of milk, eggs, vegetable oil, bread and kefir (a fermented milk drink). The freeze was due to last until the end of January but was extended for another three months.
8. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to feed an extra 2.5 million people, who are now in danger of malnutrition as a result of a harsh winter and the effect of high world prices in a country that is heavily dependent on imports.
9. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced this month that Pakistan would be going back to ration cards for the first time since the 1980s, after the sharp increase in the price of staples. These will help the poor (nearly half the population) buy subsidised flour, wheat, sugar, pulses and cooking fat from state-owned outlets.
10. India The government will spend 250bn rupees on food security. India is the world's second biggest wheat producer but bought 5.5m tonnes in 2006, and 1.8m tonnes last year, driving up world prices. It has banned the export of all forms of rice other than luxury basmati.
11. China Unusually severe blizzards have dramatically cut agricultural production and sent prices for food staples soaring. The overall food inflation rate is 18.2%. The cost of pork has increased by more than half. The cost of food was rising fast even before the bad weather moved in, as an increasingly prosperous population began to demand as staples agricultural products previously seen as luxuries. The government has increased taxes and imposed quotas on food exports, while removing duties on food imports.
12. Thailand The government is planning to freeze prices of rice, cooking oil and noodles.
13. Malaysia and the Philippines Malaysia is planning strategic stockpiles of the country's staples. Meanwhile the Philippines has made an unusual plea to Vietnam to guarantee its rice supplies. Imports were previously left to the global market.
14. Indonesia Food price rises have triggered protests and the government has had to increase its food subsidies by over a third to contain public anger.
FAQ: Food Prices
Few winners and many losers
What is the problem?
In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, soya and oilseeds are at record highs.
Why are food prices rising?
The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalisation of agricultural subsidy programmes in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.
Who are the winners and losers?
Farmers are the obvious winners, as are poor countries that rely extensively on food exports. But consumers are having to pay more, and the urban poor in many developing states will be hardest hit, as they often spend more than a third of their income on food.
How long are prices likely to be high?
The US department for agriculture says the country's wheat stocks are at their lowest for 50 years and demand will continue to exceed supply this year. There is potential to bring more land into production in countries such as Ukraine, but that could take time. And as all foodstuffs have risen sharply in price there is little incentive for farmers to switch from one crop to another.
What about the EU's common agricultural policy?
High food prices certainly remove the need to subsidise farmers and so there is a chance, say experts, that badly needed reductions in CAP subsidies, which cost European taxpayers dearly, could now be within reach.
Are other commodity prices also rising?
Oil, metals and coal have seen their prices rise strongly as the global economy has expanded rapidly, driving up demand for almost everything, particularly from emerging economies such as China and India. Some economists think speculation may also play a part. Disappointed by the sub-prime collapse and falling property values in many countries, investors have piled money into commodities.
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-Ashley Seager
Go to Original
High Food Prices May Force Aid Rationing
By Javier Blas and Gillian Tett
The Financial Times of London
Sunday 24 February 2008
The United Nation's agency responsible for relieving hunger is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities.
The World Food Programme is holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term.
Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at "cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached" if donors did not provide more money.
"Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up," she said.
WFP officials hope the cuts can be avoided, but warned that the agency's budget requirements were rising by several million dollars a week because of climbing food prices.
The WFP crisis talks come as the body sees the emergence of a "new area of hunger" in developing countries where even middle-class, urban people are being "priced out of the food market" because of rising food prices.
The warning suggests that the price jump in agricultural commodities - such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans - is having a wider impact than thought, hitting countries that have previously largely escaped hunger.
"We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market," said Ms Sheeran.
Hunger is now "affecting a wide range of countries", she said, pointing to Indonesia, Yemen and Mexico. "Situations that were previously not urgent - they are now."
The main focus of the WFP to date has been to provide aid in areas where food was unavailable. But the programme now faces having to help countries where the price of food, rather than shortages, is the problem.
Ms Sheeran said that in response to rising food costs, families in developing countries were moving in some cases from three meals a day to just one, or dropping a diverse diet to rely on one staple food.
In response to increasing food prices, Egypt has widened its food rationing system for the first time in two decades while Pakistan has reintroduced a ration card system that was abandoned in the mid-1980s.
Countries such as China and Russia are imposing price controls while others, such as Argentina and Vietnam, are enforcing foreign sales taxes or export bans. Importing countries are lowering their tariffs.
Food prices are rising on a mix of strong demand from developing countries; a rising global population; more frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change; and the biofuel industry's appetite for grains, analysts say. Soyabean prices on Friday hit an all-time high of $14.22 a bushel while corn prices jumped to a fresh 12-year high of $5.25 a bushel.
The price of rice and wheat has doubled in the past year while freight costs have also increased sharply on the back of rising fuel prices.
The world's poor countries will have to pay 35 per cent more for their cereals imports, taking the total cost to a record $33.1bn (in the year to July 2008, even as their food purchases fall 2 per cent, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The US Department of Agriculture warned this week that high agricultural commodities prices would continue for at least the next two to three years.
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