Clarion Content

Wanted to take a time out here at the Clarion.

We want to acknowledge how grateful we are to be where we are, in this country, in this day and age. We, like almost all Americans, should be profoundly grateful we are in no imminent danger of starving. During the course of human history this has not been the case for most human beings. Though things have improved, steadily if unevenly, still in the last 50 some odd years since the end of World War II, during the dawn of a post-modern era, untold millions have starved.

Any American who has traveled to the so-labeled 3rd world and gotten outside of the resorts will tell the tale. Unequivocally, most Americans are lottery winners in the game global population distribution. We are very lucky. We should be grateful. And hopefully we are grateful.

It is our firm belief that many Americans know this and feel gratitude. It is again to the fore because of the global food crisis that is unfolding. The good news is there has been some recognition and awareness as this situation has developed. Already America and Great Britain are responding with emergency food aid. The bad news is how severe some commentators say the situation is and how though the issue was seen coming, how little proactive action was taken. The skyrocketing cost of transportation is a key element in the rise of food prices. This price surge has been significant. The costs of other commodities have also been on the rise. The expanding middle class of China and India are contributing to the demand boom pushing price pressures.

Conditions are dire in some places. While it is not clearly dire in all of the following countries there have been outbreaks of rioting in Haiti, Cameroon, Bangladesh Indonesia, Cambodia, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal. The crisis has been further stoked by the concomitant rise in the costs of staple cooking oils and fertilizer in many of the same countries. Tragically food crises tend to have exponential ripple and multiplier effects that make them worse as they go on. Malnutrition leads to less work, less fields getting tilled and planted, less efficient harvests. (As does more expensive and therefore less used fertilizer.) Worse yet, rather than respond by lowering tariffs and barriers and encouraging the production of more food, many governments have been responding with export bans and other attempts at hoarding.

The situation is difficult and there are no easy answers. We here at the Clarion don't have one. We firmly believe that deescalating the conflict in Iraq would remove some of the risk premium imposed on world oil prices and that this would have substantial positive knock on results for the price of food. But it is going to take some time for any long term changes in the course of policy, whether: deescalation, free trade or a change in biofuel strategy, to filter down to the local market place.

Emergency food aid and charity are vitally important in the short term. It is an American responsibility. (All wealthy countries share in this responsibility.) Amazingly enough, it is even an opportunity, an opportunity to burnish America's global reputation to remind the world what America once stood for, not preemptive warfare, but the Marshall Plan, not Gitmo, but the Peace Corps. America has many faces and does amazing things, the billions of dollars aid and charity that appeared in the wake of the Asian Tsunami tragedy of 2004 was but the most recent testament to this.

The final thought, gratitude. Gratitude. Not only should America and Americans participate in giving food aid worldwide, we should be profoundly grateful most of us don't need it. There are many places on this earth where stocked grocery stores and easy access to clean water would seem like luxuries.

Don't forget to give locally too!!

Labels: ecology, food, thought