[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy



Yuri Kuchinsky <bg364@torfree.net> wrote:
> 
> : It would also be my guess that at the turn of the century there were
> : 800 million hungry out of a population of a billion.
> 
> How do you know this? The number of hungry people on the planet is now 
> greater than ever!
> 

The FAO figures you quote indicate "malnourished" people.  FAO classifies
people with sufficient caloric intake, but with a diet 'insufficiently
varied' as malnourished as well.   Still a problem, of course, but please
define it properly.

In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished.  A
man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week.  Most children suffered
>from  rickets and other defiency conditions.  Many castles and manor homes
tossed trenchers (crusts of bread) and other dinner-table scraps to hungry
people who clustered outside, who fought bitterly for line rights.  Often,
a government official would, upon their yearly visit to a village, find
that starvation and disease had wiped out the entire populace sometime in
the past year, with none the wiser.

Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults, as water was too
dangerous to drink.  When you did drink river water, you were taught to
"strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
naturally in it.

Even the wealthy had their problems.  Food poisoning was endemic, fruits
and vegetables were unknown out of season, seafood was impossible unless
you lived near the coast, and at thirty-five, you needed soft food as your
teeth had all rotted out...unless an abcessed tooth killed you, as was
quite common.

This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to.  I'd
prefer to work out our problems and stay here.

--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net

"We must make this an insecure an uninhabitable place for capitalists and
their projects.  This is the best contribution we can make towards
protecting the earth."
   - Environmental organization 'Ecotage', Earth First! offshoot.




Follow-Ups: References: