There are two situations that have been with us since the beginning and will be with us when this world ends its life cycle……homelessness and hunger.
The promise of politicians says that if you live right then these two situations will never know your name……well my dear friends….that is a LIE! (capitalized for effect)
Take homelessness…….
These men and women, and increasingly children, are the collateral damage of the corporate state, their dignity and lives destroyed by the massive transference of wealth upward, deindustrialization and the slashing of federal investment in affordable housing begun during the Reagan administration.
It is 8 a.m. I am in the small offices of Street Roots, a weekly newspaper that prints 10,000 copies per edition. Those who sell the newspaper on the streets—all of them victims of extreme poverty and half of them homeless—have gathered before heading out with their bundles to spend hours in the cold and rain.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/08/homeless-america
The necessities are shelter (home) and food…..in some regions food is almost a luxury item…..famine is always with us somewhere in the world….(BTW an Iphone is not a necessity)
Scientists are getting concerned about the global food supply…..
Researchers from Washington State University have published a new report of the Great Drought, the most destructive known drought of the past 800 years – and how it sparked the Global Famine that claimed the lives of 50 million people. The scientists warn that the Earth’s current warming climate could spark a similar drought, but even worse.
One of the lead researchers, Deepti Singh, a professor in WSU’s School of the Environment, used rainfall records and climate reconstruction models to characterize the environmental conditions leading up to the Great Drought, a period in the mid-1870s known for widespread crop failures across Asia, Brazil, and Africa. The drought was connected to the most extreme manifestation of the El Nino supercycle ever recorded.
“Climate conditions that caused the Great Drought and Global Famine arose from natural variability. And their recurrence — with hydrological impacts intensified by global warming — could again potentially undermine global food safety,” lead author Singh and her colleagues wrote in the Journal of Climate, published online Oct. 04.
The release of the study came days before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that global warming could cause intense droughts, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
I realize that the term “climate change” is a dirty word in some circles…..but that should not matter…..making damn sure that the food supply holds should be a priority…..not a partisan issue….sadly it is not.
Why not?
On a side note….Americans lead the world in wasted food……Americans waste about a pound of food per person each day, with people who have healthier diets rich in fruit and vegetables the most wasteful, research has found.
About 150,000 tons of food is tossed out in US households each day, equivalent to about a third of the daily calories that each American consumes. Fruit and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown out, followed by dairy and then meat.
How pathetic is that?
