Cuban President warns of world food crisis

Cuban President warns of world food crisis
http://www.vnanet.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&NEWS_ID=202906

Cuban President Fidel Castro asserted the lack of fuel in the world and its current price will lead to an increased problem in food production, Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency reported.

Production of grain and cereal is increasingly being used for the production of alcohol for automobile fuel, stated President Fidel Castro in his address to the seventh session of Cuban National Assembly.

He said the world faced this situation because too many countries had been influenced by the high consumption models of the industrialised nations. This caused many problems for developing countries.

This is a good point. Food products will be more valuable as fuel than nutrition for multinational energy corporations. The poor could quite possibly starve so the wealthier nations can drive.

....a coming world wide food shortage will have duel causes. A changing environment will affect the grain growing periods/process and then add to that he fuel to process/move the food and it could add up to a true disaster.

in the 13th century. I had no idea how much damage it did and how many historical events it affected, including the birth of America, massive famine in Europe and the extinction of the Vikings in Greenland. All this and it was a only a minor climate change in the grand scheme of Earth's history.

Try to catch it if you can.

Very interesting. But I have to wonder in light of the current climate situation. Are we having global warming or just an absence of a mini ice-age. The program really went on about how great things were prior to the 13th century, when it was warm. Growing wine grapes in England and such.

Interesting that the shift from the warm period to the mini ice-age took place in only 10 years during which weather saw a lot of extremes.

If there ever was an advertizement for the benefits of global wrming this is it.

Global warming causes polar ice to melt, shutting down Gulf Stream, creating shift in temperatures. Areas once moderate in temp. turn extremely cold or extremely hot accordingly.

Rather than 'global warming', a better term would probably be 'climate change.' IOW, global warming doesn't mean everything becomes hot.

We must limit population growth, as it is destroying the planet.

from famine!

Fidel is not just making things up as Bush does:

Climate change likely to increase famine: FAO

Global warming is likely to significantly diminish food production in many countries and greatly increase the number of hungry people, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says.

The FAO says in a report that food distribution systems and their infrastructure would be disrupted and that the severest impact would likely be in sub-Saharan African countries.

"There is strong evidence that global climate is changing and that the social and economic costs of slowing down global warming and of responding to its impacts will be considerable," the report said.

Many scientists fear rising temperatures, blamed mainly on heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels, will melt ice caps, raise sea levels by almost a metre by the end of this century and bring more floods, droughts and storms.

Global warming would increase the amount of land classified as being either arid or insufficiently moist in the developing world.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1378213.htm?news_id=16

An "Inconvenient" Opportunity:

Why a Climate Change Resource Page Now?

Around Memorial Day, an unusual movie will be premiering in theaters across the country. Unlike most summer blockbusters, the film features no car crashes, no love scenes and no basketball-playing dogs. This movie's drama derives from the fact that it tells a story unfolding in real-time, right outside our windows. It’s the story of climate change, and the movie is called An Inconvenient Truth .

The Reform Movement considers climate change to be one of the most important issues we face today. In 1998, the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution acknowledging the “threat of climate change,” and declaring, “Together, the people of the world can, and must, use our God-given gifts to develop innovative strategies to meet the needs of all who currently dwell on this planet without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Effects of climate change are already being seen around the globe, from the increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes, to disappearing glaciers, to ever-worsening drought in sub-Saharan Africa. The five hottest years on record have all occurred within the last decade, and recent studies show that the world’s poor will bear the brunt of climate change’s negative effects. Climate change is not merely an “environmental” issue: it is a crisis with far-reaching moral and humanitarian implications, and it is an issue that demands urgent action.

The Religious Action Center is timing the launch of our climate change resource page to coincide with An Inconvenient Truth’s release in order to begin a conversation that we hope will spread through congregations and communities across North America. The movie presents an important educational opportunity for its audiences and challenges us to take action. Please take advantage of this page's discussion questions, text studies, sample sermons and more, so that together we can to work to place climate change at the center of our national agenda and begin to take steps to reverse its effects.

http://rac.org/advocacy/issues/issuecc/challenge/intro/

He fears that the growing dependence on palm oil in Malasia will lead to deforestation and an increase in food importation. I imagine Monbiot sees all of Papua Mew Guinea planted in palm oil groves, the soil rushing downhill to fuel the biodiesel market, in effect turning the current imported food nations of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates into the model, only with palm oil substitutede for petro-oil in the tropics.
It is like our own craze to turn corn into whiskey -- oops, I mean ethanol. Corn is good for succotash, hominy, and corn meal and bourbon...not for running cars! Ditto for Brazil. These crops are energy intensive and not really all that simple to harvest, save for mechanization. The next step, after fermentation,is multiple distillations to increease the alcohol content. Natural fermentation stops at about 18% alcohol, the alcohol then kills the yeast. One has to pass the natural alcohol through a still in order to increase the alcohol content. This requires heat. Then the alcohol is used to fuel an internal combustion engine for personal transportation.
There appears to be no way out of this cycle right now, people are too wedded to their cars and scooters and other trinkets.

I would like to read it.

Here in Florida the sugar industry bears a major responsibility for the pollution of the Everglades and watershed. I wonder what pollution impact it has in Brazil.

:hi:

Now is the time to get together with a local CSA farm (Community Supported Agriculture).

It makes sense economically, ecologically, and also in the realm of basic food security.

This page has the key links for learning more... http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html