Wednesday, April 23, 2008

World Food Crisis

If you haven't read the stories under the dire headlines, you should. Here's one from Time magazine online, regarding the World Food Programme (a U.N. agency) and its recent inability to distribute enough food to the poorest populations. Astronomical oil prices and the use of grain crops for biofuels worldwide have exacerbated shortages in money and food. What can we do about it? Any ideas?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You asked for suggestions...

We need to reduce our reliance on oil. Quickly! If people would stop driving everywhere - perhaps drive only half as much - fuel consumption would be (obviously) cut in half, relieving the world's panic for oil.

Also, if the USA decided to quit killing people in Iraq, they could direct that war money to feed the hungry. The money spent on that war would be enough to feed all the world's poor. How sad is that?

Mary Louisa said...

Thanks for your response, Jen. I agree that reducing our reliance on oil and stopping the war are sure to improve things. I don't know about the hungry in Canada, but the hungry in the U.S. are going to get a LOT hungrier as the costs of food and oil rise.

I'm going to step up and help more locally. I'm also going to look for ways to cut my family's driving and electricity use. I'd love to hear from more readers about what you can try.