Are you aware that the worst drought in half a century is hitting several African countries?

No?

I'm not surprised, because the highest profile article in news results on Google is the damage it's doing to South Africa's wine production.

 

Interestingly, even the bottom pair of links, which do talk about drought and touch on some of the human consequences, both link the drought to climate change, which is bollocks - it is driven entirely by El Nino. That won't stop anyone starving, but it does mean the rains will return this year as ENSO returns to a neutral or La Nina phase.

The interesting part for me is how the drought and impending human disaster hasn't been on the news.

Considering a hundred dead French people dominate TV screens and media pages for weeks on end, you'd think 50 million people under threat might be a story, but it's clearly Someone Else's Problem. They aren't going to climb aboard a floating tub and try to get to Greece; they won't be turning up at the US-Mexico border, they'll just quietly die and rot, unseen by the vast majority of mankind as they go about their daily business.

The only media outlet giving it extensive coverage is the legendary Spiegel, from Germany. They raise an interesting point that Addis Ababa is above reproach, no matter how many die, because they're christians and members of the Coalition of the Billing and they sit neatly on the dividing line between the Muslim north and the friendly christian states to the south.

I'd even suggest you send some money to UNICEF or Save the Children, but there's no point. The mad mullahs of capitalism in Addis Ababa will no more starve as a result than you and I, and billions will continue to be poured into bridges and buildings while what little flesh is left in the rural areas shrivels under the relentless sun and dry paddocks.

This is what the War on Terror has brought us.

In a world without the idiotic alliances and wars, this is a solvable problem. The world produces far more food than required to feed the population - that is blatantly obvious just by the number of obese people, but also by the fact that we already throw away 30-50% of all food produced.

 

[ Home ]