Excellent report! One thing many don’t realize is the sky rocketing birth rate! Most countries are at less than 2.0 births per families but Muslims world wide average 7.8 births per family. while here in the us we might not notice to much but other countries especially Muslim countries are noticing in a very big way! Pakistan is not only having a food crisis but much of their country has no reliable water source! countries like Great Britian and France are noticing with most their citizens only averaging 1.3 births per family but their Muslim families averaging 7.8 is making a big dent in problem in those countries! Our world is changing! Will we be ready for all that is about to hit? So much is in play right now. I would say your best investment right now would be in food and water. Better stay on your toes and know whats happening around the world! Most US citizens are pretty clueless on what is happening or why it’s happening. It is going to effect us one way or another very soon!
[quote=RNcarl][quote=Damnthematrix]
<snip>
And if you can’t see we ARE like a cancer on the planet… you just don’t get it.
Mike.
[/quote]
So… I guess I don’t get it.
A cancer kills its host. The host is a being that has intrinsic value in and of itself. I didn’t know the earth was a conscious “being”. Further, if that is true, then the fish, fowl and every living creature ON the earth is a parasite - a cancer. No?
The earth is our spaceship. Our life-support system. We need to take care of it. If we break it, yes, we will die. It is only because we have come close to the capacity of the ship that we now see her beginning to creak and groan under the weight.
I knew I should have just rolled my eyes and walked away…
[/quote]
I felt a need to add my 2 cents. Cancer (any malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division) seems to describe our growth doesn’t it? We are growing at an exponential (abnormal) rate and damaging the planet around us. It doesn’t matter that we are the smartest animal on the planet or that we have compassion, we can’t seem to control ourselves.
BTW, this planet, at least the parts that really matter, are very much alive. We are not riding around in a big dead spaceship. The soil that supports our crops is teeming with life. There are millions and millions of micro organisms per acre. When we fertilize as we do without respect for what is living in the soil, it dies and we can’t grow crops without more and more fertilizer. We still have no clue how much damage the Gulf oil spill caused to the life there and within hundreds of miles.
Basically we are smart people living irresponsibly and uncontrolled, as if there was no tomorrow. If that’s not a cancer, what is? On the other hand, If we’re so smart and compassionate, why do we continue to do dumb things for dumb reasons every day?
DRHolden,We’re expecting rational responsible behavior from society. Its not likely and the source of my modern malaise is just that. Lucidity is a uniquely individual accomplishment.
robie
Present day Exponential Global Malnutrition Statistics - World Food Program
Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we've compiled a database of useful facts and figures on world hunger.GLOBAL HUNGER
CHILD HUNGER
- 925 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union; (Source: FAO news release, 14 September 2010)
- 98 percent of the world's hungry live in developing countries; (Source: FAO news release, 2010)
- Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people;
(Source: FAO news release, 2010)
- Women make up a little over half of the world's population, but they account for over 60 percent of the world’s hungry. (Source: Strengthening efforts to eradicate hunger..., ECOSOC, 2007)
- 65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. (Source: FAO news release, 2010)
MALNUTRITION
- More than 70 percent of the world's 146 million underweight children under age five years live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone; (Source: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, UNICEF, 2006)
- 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths; (Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2007)
- The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum; (Source: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, UNICEF, 2006)
- One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight; (Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2007)
- Every year WFP feeds more than 20 million children in school feeding programmes in some 70 countries. In 2008, WFP fed a record 23 million children. (Source: WFP School Feeding Unit)
- It is estimated that 684,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and zinc (Source: WFP Annual Report 2007)
- Undernutrition contributes to 53 percent of the 9.7 million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries. (Source: Under five deaths by cause, UNICEF, 2006)
- Lack of Vitamin A kills a million infants a year (Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, UNICEF)
- Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people.6 Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent. (Source: World Health Organization, WHO Global Database on Anaemia)
- Iron deficiency is impairing the mental development of 40-60 percent children in developing countries (Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, p2, UNICEF)
- Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 25 percent of the developing world’s pre-schoolers. It is associated with blindness, susceptibility to disease and higher mortality rates. It leads to the death of approximately 1-3 million children each year. (Source: UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. World Nutrition Situation 5th report. 2005)
~ VF ~
If Adolph and ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin could have foretold of your longing for a pandemic of epic proportions maybe they would have been a little more ambitious than just the paltry 100 million slain.
However, your continuation of drawing of breath casts doubt that you believe your own drivel. Feel free to remove all doubt, lest you be thought a hypocrite.
Think globally, act locally.
Earthwise,
Look above at my previous post. Along with exponential growth, the more countries that can no longer export their own oil with diminishing (currently 6.7% globally) levels requiring all of their own (Egypt, with Mexico shortly) for internal use, escalating food costs and a collapsing pegged currency (the United States Dollar), can you not see the current number of people suffering from malnutrition (925 million) doubling and more in less than a decade?
There are currently well over 40 million people on food stamps in the United States, and a further 4+ million people due to reach 99 weeks unemployed in 2011, that add to a near equal number in 2010, who will all told have no means to support themselves, and no major preparation to meet the future …
This isn’t about how much you agree, it is more about what you think is factual enough to act on your own need for safety, security and sustainability.
I am fully sick of petty gripes and fallouts on this forum, on issues that are plainly explained in the Crash Course series in spades …
~ VF ~
[quote=Vanityfox451]Earthwise,
Look above at my previous post. Along with exponential growth, the more countries that can no longer export their own oil with diminishing (currently 6.7% globally) levels requiring all of their own (Egypt, with Mexico shortly) for internal use, escalating food costs and a collapsing pegged currency (the United States Dollar), can you not see the current number of people suffering from malnutrition (925 million) doubling and more in less than a decade?
There are currently well over 40 million people on food stamps in the United States, and a further 4+ million people due to reach 99 weeks unemployed in 2011, that add to a near equal number in 2010, who will all told have no means to support themselves, and no major preparation to meet the future …
This isn’t about how much you agree, it is more about what you think is factual enough to act on your own need for safety, security and sustainability.
I am fully sick of petty gripes and fallouts on this forum, on issues that are plainly explained in the Crash Course series in spades …
~ VF ~
[/quote]
You miss the point. I didn’t dispute the data; in fact, I never even addressed that issue. But, it’s one thing to observe that there will be a population decline in the future, and another to gleefully cheerlead for such an outcome, and still another to conclude that it’s desirability stems from the notion that man is a cancer on the biosphere. Moreover, it’s arrogant and condescending to claim that those who may hold a different opinion “just don’t get it”
You may be sick of petty gripes, but I’m sick of the callous disregard for the potential of the suffering and misery of our fellow man. Which is the more offensive of the two?
.
Remember the speech by John Hayles, a former mayor of New York, speaking at a rally in Chicago. The speech was reprinted in the New York Times "on March 27, 1927. Read it and know what happens. Greetings from the next Egypt (Spain)
I started a thread on this a couple of weeks ago. Am I that far ahead of the curve? :^)
I will reiterate. Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat. If something goes in, something else must go out in return. If it’s not oil, what is it? Mummies?
There seems to be a broken link in this post. This doesn’t seem to be working:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=EG
Excellent analysis (as always). Egypt also suffered through the whole Muslim Brotherhood issue, which at the time, those in power in the US government were supporting. Nothing is ever as it seems…