[Peace-discuss] "Food Riots Erupt Worldwide" and analysis

[John W.]

At 09:55 PM 4/29/2008, n.dahlheim at mchsi.com wrote:

>Dear AWARE,
>
>     The food riots are the tip of the iceberg, pun intended.  Dr. Hansen of
>NASA GISS, along with a calvalcade of the world's top cryospheric scientists,
>already believe that the Artic will be free of summer sea ice by as early as
>2013-2015 and that we already face a very high likelihood that we will lose
>all of Greenland's ice sheet and face five meter sea rise in the next few
>decades....  The global environmental crisis is quickly starting to spiral 
>out
>of control, and the War on Terror has prevented us from seeing the real
>problem: "terraism."


And until 2015 we'll go on sipping from our plastic bottles of Himalayan 
spring water while debating the precise definition of "liberalism"....




>----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
>From:    Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
>To:      peace-discuss at anti-war.net
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] "Food Riots Erupt Worldwide" and analysis
>Date:    Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:57:19 +0000
>
> > Some commentary passed along by Ken Salo to the CUCPJ Discuss list...
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:42 PM, Mandi Smallhorne 
> <mandiwrite at icon.co.za> wrote:
> >  > Food Riots Erupt Worldwide
> >  >
> >  >  By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet. Posted April 25, 2008.
> >  >
> >  > Food riots are erupting all over the world.
> > <snip>
> >  > As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia,
> >  > Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
> > <snip>
> >  >  Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased
> >  >  demand from China and India, whose economies are booming.
> >  > Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and
> >  > climate change have all played a part.
> > <snip>
> >  > Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank
> >  > and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage
> >  > to impose devastating policies on developing countries. By
> >  > requiring countries to open up their agriculture market to giant
> >  > multinational companies, by insisting that countries dismantle
> >  > their marketing boards and by persuading them to specialize
> >  > in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and
> >  > even flowers, they have driven the poorest countries into
> >  > a downward spiral.
> >  >
> >  >  In the last thirty years, developing countries that used to be
> >  > self-sufficient in food have turned into large food importers.
> > <snip>
> >  > First, it is essential to have safety nets and public distribution
> >  > systems put in place. Donor countries should provide more aid
> >  > immediately to support government efforts in poor countries
> >  > and respond to appeals from U.N. agencies, which are
> >  > desperately seeking $500 million by May 1.
> >  >
> >  > Second, we should help affected countries develop their
> >  > agricultural sectors to feed more of their own people and
> >  > decrease their dependence on food imports. We should
> >  > promote production and consumption of local crops raised
> >  > by small, sustainable farms instead of growing cash crops
> >  > for western markets. And we should support a country's
> >  > effort to manage stocks and pricing so as to limit the
> >  > volatility of food prices.
> >
> > The diagnosis is correct, but the prescription won't work.
> >
> > The North won't give up its energy-intensive ways of life, and the
> > South will continue to emulate them, so climate change cannot be
> > stopped -- ii will only accelerate.
> >
> > Agriculture, once abandoned, cannot be quickly restored: the
> > destruction of agriculture that once made food self-sufficiency
> > possible and its replacement by imports of agribusiness products over
> > the last several decades has already changed work and residential
> > patterns of the South dramatically, dispossessing, displacing, and
> > urbanizing people, creating enormous slums, and pushing people into
> > informal sectors.
> >
> > The supply-side squeeze will continue:
> >
> > (1) Underinvestment:
> >
> > (a) Exploration and production: capital and technology are in the
> > jealous hands of multinationals of the North that have difficulty
> > finding oil reserves that yield high profits at low costs; the
> > governments of the South that own the best oil reserves are faced with
> > rising domestic energy consumption that they have long subsidized, and
> > many of them also lack capital and technology necessary to increase
> > outputs (the Southern governments, especially populist ones, need oil
> > profits to subsidize the populace's immediate consumption overall, not
> > just energy consumption, build public infrastructure, and so on, which
> > subtracts from their ability to invest back into oil; and
> > multinationals of the North deny them access to the best technology);
> >
> > (b) Refining: deregulation and privatization in many countries and
> > environmentalism in some countries have led to inadequate refining
> > capacity.
> >
> > (2) War: conflicts -- the empire and/or its clients versus often
> > Islamist guerrillas -- will continue to disrupt production and supply,
> > from Iraq to Nigeria.
> >
> > (3) Sanctions: the empire covets oil producer countries that are not
> > run by its clients and targets them for regime change -- from Iran to
> > Burma to Sudan -- leading to underinvestment.
> >
> > (4) Labor conflicts: higher prices and tighter capacities strengthens
> > workers' hands.
> >
> > Unless something like a great depression curtails world oil demand
> > drastically, it is likely that oil prices will stay high and volatile
> > in the near future, pushing up food prices.
> >
> > Both structural (urbanization and lumpenization) and conjunctural
> > (higher oil and food prices) factors in many countries will resemble
> > the combination that led to Iran's Islamic Revolution.  I bet a lot of
> > governments will be toppled.
> > --
> > Yoshie
> > <http://montages.blogspot.com/>