And aquifers do go dry.
And if we exceed the natural limits of production for crops indigenous to an area or introduce crops not native to the area to falsely bolster production we can see failure, death and societal disruption. Think Ireland and the potato famine.
What is a food bubble?
That's when food production is inflated through the unsustainable use of water and land. It's the water bubble we need to worry about now. The World Bank says that 15 per cent of Indians (175 million people) are fed by grain produced through overpumping - when water is pumped out of aquifers faster than they can be replenished. In China, the figure could be 130 million.
Has this bubble already burst anywhere?
Saudi Arabia made itself self-sufficient in wheat by using water from a fossil aquifer, which doesn't refill. It has harvested close to 3 million tonnes a year, but in 2008 the Saudi authorities said the aquifer was largely depleted. Next year could be the last harvest. This is extreme, but about half the world's people live in countries with falling water tables. India and China will lose grain production capacity through aquifer depletion. We don't know when or how abruptly the bubble will burst.
All that being said, how does the author get from a reasonable argument to this:
"The question I get asked most is "What can I do?" People expect me to say change your light bulbs, recycle newspaper, but I say we must restructure the world economy, especially in energy. It's about becoming politically active. If there's a coal-fired power station near you, organise to close it down."
Do I detect an agenda here?
Somehow, someway, the author of this article thinks that reducing countries, such as America, to the poverty levels of the Third World, will make everything all right. He starts his argument by basing it on the wholly conceivable idea that people will go hungry because aquifers are being drawn down beyond their ability to refill quickly enough and somehow ties that simple theory into global warming and then into coal fired power plants.
He makes a leap in logic that defies rational thought. But then I guess I should be used to this from the Progressives.
This is the problem. The author has stated a theory which I would tend to see as reasonable and provable. We can find common ground here. Since we've done essentially the same thing many times before there's no reason to think that we can't make the same mistake again. But is the answer to the problem crippling others in areas of the world completely removed from the problem at hand? There's no common ground to be found here at all. And do we really need to "restructure the world economy" to keep people from starving?
Only if you real goal has nothing to do with the "food bubble".
By polarizing this issue, as they do so many others, the environmentalists make it damned near impossible to arrive at a solution. My guess is that the lives of those that will be affected by this failure in agriculture are secondary to the larger goal of control of the worlds resources and thus control of the worlds wealth that underlies all of the Progressive environmental agendas. Honestly, they'd probably not mind seeing a few million people starve since humanity is a blot on an otherwise pristine globe. And they'd be able to use the bloated, rotting bodies as part of their propaganda.
While this dangerous Marxism might go over well at the U.N., to the rest of us it's a pile of crap. The problem is, the rich and politically connected have figured out a way to make even more money from all this by trading carbon on the Chicago Climate Exchange and more power through environmental controls so I don't expect this to end soon.
So the author's right, it is "about becoming politically active". Only not in the way he wants. We need to keep our eyes open to the threat this sort of scam presents to our way of life and keep the pressure on our politicians to avoid any association with it. The problem is, all we can offer is votes and honor. The enemy can promise money and power.
We've got a hell of a fight ahead of us.
As an afterthought, I'm going outside now to start a fire (carbon based energy - global warming) to boil down the sap from my maple trees (removing water from trees - drawing down aquifers) to make syrup for my pancakes. How many must die so that I can enjoy my breakfast? OH, THE HUMANITY!!
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Oh fudge! It's always our fault! It's never the fault of these stupid third worlders who refse to learn anything about responsible management of natural resources!
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