The Sun is too harsh--Global Warming and the World's Food Crisis

p bfont size="3"The Sun is too harsh/font/b/p p font size="3"The San Francisco Bayview Newspaper recently published an excellent article titled, Superfund City (a href="http://sfbayview.com/2011/superfund-city/"http://sfbayview.com/2011/superfund-city//a), which spoke of the environmental and displacement issues facing the Bayview. It spoke of Double Rock resident and African Descended elder Jackie Williams who tends the garden in the Alice Griffith Housing Projectmdash;housing once touted as garden homes because they came with patches of land suitable for gardens. Ms. Williams spoke of the unusually harsh San Francisco heat. The sun is too harsh she says, It burns the plants. She and others from the community await the bulldozers that will signal the displacement of youth and elders from the community theyrsquo;ve called home for generations. The tragedy is the separation of people who have ties to the land by history, blood and legacy. Land is becoming increasingly scarce asnbsp;the insatiable appetite for profits plunders the planetrsquo;s resources by the capitalist elite. The world cries out for our attention, for people like Jackie Williams and other poverty scholars who care for the gifts provided by our earth mother. It is the children of this and future generations that will face major crises as the world tries to heal from imbalance. Who will teach our children to love the land and care for its gifts?/font/p p font size="3"Daily news reports show images of heat waves in the Northeast, responsible for the deaths of elders and the closing of schools. Scientists predict The permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat in the next two decades. Extreme summers are likely to occur in Europe, China and North America within the next 60 years. A recent New York Times article reported on the Destabilization of the food system and the role climate change is playing in this shift./font/p p font size="3"Farm production worldwide has ebbed to the degree that demand is exceeding supply, resulting in price hikesmdash;such as the spikes that hit in 2007. Those spikes accounted for increased hunger and political instability in many countries. Temperatures are rising quickly in the growing season in many high-producing agricultural countries. Scientists surmised that the change in climate would be tolerable because they believed that increased carbon dioxide levelsmdash;a byproduct of global warming and the main fuel for plant growthmdash;would energize the worldrsquo;s crop production, providing a counterbalance to the effects of climate change. Scientific studies and forecasts, however, have failed to factor in the possible effects of extreme weather on the food system./font/p p font size="3"The New York Times article also cited the Green Revolution, a worldwide agricultural push that began decades ago. Mexican farmers were at the forefront of the revolution--calling upon their indigenous scholarship and love for pachamamamdash;integrating this knowledge with modern scientific research to conceive intensive farming methods and facilitate improvement in crop varieties that would benefit countries including India and the Philippines. Farm production increased, driving prices down and by the late 1980rsquo;s, it appeared that food production had been stabilized. As a consequence, less money and resources were allocated to agricultural research./font/p p font size="3"Shifts in weathermdash;including the European heat wave of 2003---cut into the food supply as much as 30%, causing prices to double and triplemdash;resulting in food riots innbsp;scores of countries. The recent increases in food prices have caused the highest increase in world hunger in decades. The food and agriculture organization of the United Nations estimates the number of hungry people last year at 925 million. In the late 90rsquo;smdash;at the end of the Green Revolutionmdash;the number of hungry people had dropped below 800 million for the first time in modern history./font/p p font size="3"Other factors contributing to the worldwide food crises, in addition to climate changemdash;is the loss of agricultural land due to growing urban centers andnbsp;their water needsmdash;directly competing with farmers./font/p p font size="3"Scientists have come to realize the error of their assumptions regarding the role of carbon dioxide on food crops. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 40% since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It was assumed that the increase in gas would increase the output of crops but studies were done under controlled conditionsmdash;in greenhouses and special chambers. For the last decade researchers from the University of Illinois have studied the effects of carbon dioxide on crops by using real world tests on soybeans and corn. The soybean crop was planted and sprayed with extra carbon dioxide from a tank. The crop was slightly larger than expected while corn yielded no increase. Researchers are beginning to believe that the pros of carbon dioxide may not outweigh the negatives of other factors such as high temperature and low water. A recent paper published by Stanford University suggests that increased temperatures in France, Russia, China and other countries were decreasing crop productivity, putting additional pressure on the food system. The paper asserts an under recognition of just how sensitive crops are to heat and how fast heat exposure is increasing./font/p p font size="3"Researchers maintain that development of crop varieties resistant to drought and floods are possiblemdash;such as a new variety of rice in India, a Submergence tolerant rice that is able to survive and grow in flood conditions. They are unsure if crops can be made to survive in extreme heat, but see possibilities through genetic engineering. With the cutting back of research money that facilitated much of the groundbreaking work of the Green Revolution, farmers found themselves unable to obtain crop varieties such as the submergence tolerant rice. Africa, which did not reap the benefits of the Green Revolution, is pledging to increase farm development--a dozen countries on the continent are devoting 10 percent of their budgets towards that objective./font/p p font size="3"Oxfam, the international relief group has launched a new global campaignmdash;GROWmdash;in 37 countries to address the forecast that food prices will rise againmdash;as in 2007/08mdash;when the number of the worldrsquo;s hungry people exceeded one billion. The 2008 food spike pushed some 100 million people into poverty said Oxfam America president Raymond Offenheiser. The price increases in 2011 have done the same thing to another 44 million people. Oxfamrsquo;s report, Growing a better future, asserts that the food system is failing. It cites that half the worldrsquo;s food goes to waste due to politics and that too little attention and aid has been given to the half a billion farmers in rural areas where 80% of the worldrsquo;s hungry people live./font/p p font size="3"Growing a Better Future also reports that natural resourcesmdash;land and watermdash;are becoming scarcer. The amount of arable land per person has been cut in half since 1960. Shrinking glaciers will reduce flows to crucial riversmdash;the Ganges, Yellow, Indus and Mekong Rivers all depend on the Himalayasmdash;the reports says. The report also says that land is being taken away from food production to grow biofuelsmdash;as in the US where 40% of the corn crop is used to produce ethanol, increasing corn prices worldwide. This land scarcity is likely behind the push by speculators to buy land in larger parcels than necessary to turn a quick profitmdash;particularly in so-called developing nations. /font/p p font size="3"In an effort to take back the land and provide care-giving to Pachamama, POOR Magazine has realized the dream of homefulness, a sweat-equity housing model where people bring their gifts of art, music making, architecture and farmingmdash;scholarship that is not tied to financial resources. We have obtained a plot of landmdash;a gift and blessing from our ancestorsmdash;and will dedicated part of it to growing our own fruits and vegetables. This land was obtained through the concept of community reparations and the hard work of poverty scholarsmdash;mothers, fathers, youth, abuelitas, abuelitosmdash;who have dealt with the lies of capitalism and resist through art and care giving and respect for our earth mother. We plan on using alternative energy sources that will respect the gifts of pachamama and not contribute to its damage but be a part of the restoration and healing of Turtle Island.nbsp; The community launch of homefulness takes place in Oakland on Saturday July 2nd, 2011--Interdependence Day.nbsp; We invite the community to come celebrate with us.nbsp; For details:nbsp; a href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/3874"http://www.poormagazine.org/node/3874/a./font/p p font size="3"The New York Times reporter wrote in regards to the flood resistant rice: The miracle was the product not of divine intervention but of technology. I disagree with this assessment. It is the spirit that allows you to persevere. Without spirit, there is no creativity, there is no life and there is no revolution. You canrsquo;t divorce spirit from the land. /font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p p font size="3"　/font/p