Feed The World

If I have to hear Do they know it's Christmas? one more time I think I am going to barf. I wish I could remember the source, but once I heard someone sum up the situation very well. This person told a story about feeling how he had to finish everything that was put on his plate at the expense of his growing waistline. Then one day someone told him, “People are not starving in Africa because you stole their food, they are starving because of politics.” You see, we can feed the world. We have had the ability to do this for nearly 30 years. Buckminster Fuller declared this in 1980: “Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before - that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.” We have the food but it can’t get to the people because of the ruling government’s policies and/or war. Aid workers are leaving the Dafur region of Sudan because it is too dangerous and nobody is contributing sufficient armed forces to guarantee their safety. If the UN were to send forces to the area it’s likely that their mandate would be too limited to permit them to have any effect. I found an interesting timeline of the situation in Sudan at the UN website. It begins in March 2003. Still, a very recent entry, September 13, 2006, demonstrates my point. I really believe that the majority of people in this world are good and want to end hunger. Perhaps when we reach the Chaos Point forecast by Ervin Laszlo we will choose Utopia over Oblivion.

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