If Only They Could Eat Our Exhaust 7 March 2008

I admit I’m a fan of Jeffrey Sachs. He runs around with Bono (whose cultivated persona always makes me laugh), does his best as an economist to solve the world’s problems, and writes in a compelling manner. But could it be that he’s a touch too hopeful? That however much poverty has contracted in the past decades, this contraction, like the U.S. (and global) economy is a soon-to-be-burst bubble blown up large by an overheated and quick-burning oil economy? Am I delusional in thinking the coming decade is going to find a large surge in the number of starving humans? Do I dare call Sach’s hopefulness naive? I don’t want to. I want to believe. I want to think Nike-like slogans, espoused by our political poppets, can save us all. Even though I know the kids in this photo can’t quite afford shoes. No, they can’t.
From the Asia Times Online:

Soaring global rice prices are hitting the stomachs of Asia’s poorest citizens. The people of East Timor, where nearly 40% live on less than 0.55 US cents a day, have just been told they may not receive their annual quota of food aid.

“We have been forced to provide less food to East Timor; provide less rice than we intended to,” Paul Risely, Asia spokesperson for the United Nations food agency, told Inter Press Service (IPS). “We have requested the people of East Timor to look for local substitutes.”

“Any chance to reduce high malnutrition rate is severely curtailed,” added Risley of a country that suffers from chronic malnutrition, where some 46% of the children are stunted and 42% of children below five years are underweight. Currently, the WFP has pledged to feed one in five people in East Timor which has a population of 1.1 million people…

…last year Vietnam placed limits on rice exports in order to meet domestic demand, triggering a spike in the price of its grain in the world market. The ban stemmed from national food security concerns in the communist-ruled country. Hanoi wanted to avoid a local food shortage due to flooding in the rice-growing central regions.

Yet, such a weather-related feature, which some are attributing to climate change, was only one reason to push global rice prices to new heights. Another trigger includes the steady rise in oil prices, making fertilizer more expensive, pushing the cost of harvesting up, and increasing the cost of transporting the grain.

Read the entire article here.