World on the Edge, Part II:The Consequences

Professor Wayne Hayes3/4/2014 | V. 0.1, Build #1

Chapter 5:

The Emerging Politics of

Food Scarcity

Consider the Ukraine.

As Russia invades the “Breadbasket of Europe”.Recall Brown’s first pages, 3-4,

on recent grain shortages in Russia.Read a Ukranian historical recollection

and watch Harvest of Despair, bottom right.

Recall the surge in grain prices in 2007 and 2008.

Consider some consequences.

• World grain prices tripled in some cases.• The U.N. World Food Program estimated

that 18,000 children died each day.• Relief funding was stretched as the cost

soared and the need multiplied.

Three trends are driving demand.

1. The human population is growing by 80 million each year, mostly in poorer countries that often can’t feed themselves (p. 60).

2. 3 billion are moving up the food chain (pp. 60-61).3. Grain is converted to ethanol, so fuel and food

compete. In the USA in 2009, 119 million tons of grain out of 416 million went to ethanol distilleries.

Note again that Brown uses an economic model around trends in supply and demand.

Can supply keep up?

Note the trends on the supply side: soil erosion, aquifer depletion, head waves, drought, melting ice sheets and mountain glaciers, diversion of irrigation water to cities (p. 61).

Brown singles out loss of cropland to human settlements, such as cities.

Consider China --- and Brown is a China expert.

In 1995, China produced and consumed 14 million tons of soybean, a balance.

In 2010, China still consumed 14 million tons of soybean but consumed 64 million tons. Half of the world’s exports of soybean arrive in China. This drives deforestation in Brazil and other ecological changes.

A new politics of food scarcity is emerging.

Since food may be held off global markets, some countries and corporations are trying a new and frightening tactic:

Long term bilateral trade agreements--- also called land grabs (p. 63).

Who is buying arable landin other countries?

• Saudi Arabia, recently self-sufficient• China• India• South Korea• Egypt• Libya• Bahrain• Qatar• United Arab Emirates

Who is selling its arable land?

• In Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Vladivostok (Russia, near China)

• In Africa, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique --- Brown calls Africa “the new frontier”

• In Latin America, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay Consider: Hyundai harvests soybean in Russia

and India harvests corn in Ethiopia. See pages 63 to 69 for this story.

Note the conclusion to this chapter.

Brown notes that a new but perilous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging.“Land grabbing is an integral part of a global power struggle for food security. Not only is it designed to benefit the rich, it will likely do so at the expense of the poor” (p. 71).

Chapter 6: Environmental Refugees:The Rising Tide

Brown starts the story of environmental refugees in the USA: One million environmental refugees were evacuated from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. They are no longer evacuees. They are environmental refugees.And how about Sandy at the Jersey coast?

Examine the dimensions of prospective environmental refugees.

1. Rising sea levels could inundate 634 million inhabitants of low lying areas by perhaps 2050 --- we don’t really know (pp. 73-75). The potential property damage is in the billions of dollars.

Examine the dimensions of prospective environmental refugees.

2. Destructive storms destroy and kill, such as Katrina and Sandy, or Hurricane Mitch (11,000 dead in Honduras and Nicaragua).

3. Advancing deserts has affected 250,000 square miles of Brazil. In Mexico, 400 square miles are abandoned to deserts each year. Since the Age of Acceleration, about 24,000 villages have been abandoned in China.

Examine the dimensions of prospective environmental refugees.

4. Falling water tables forces abandonment of land, creating water refugees (pp. 78-79).

5. A new category has appeared: environmental refugees from toxic and hazardous catastrophe: Love Canal and Times Beach in the USA; the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev, Ukraine; 459 “cancer villages” in China; the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan.

Brown concludes that

. . . in effect, the story of environmental refugees will not go well or look pretty (pp. 81-83). Look to the armed protection of many of the world’s borders between haves and have-nots. Look to the carnage of desperate people driven from their homes and communities. Watch closely, for many such people remain invisible.

Chapter 7: Mounting Stresses, Failing States

Consider Somalia: “Somalia is thus now a base for pirates and a training ground for terrorists” (p. 85). Law and order has broken down.

An essential hallmark of a failing state is the inability to provide food security (p. 90) --- again, Brown connects to food.

Some tragic consequences of failing states.

• The number of failing states is increasing. See the mounting list from Foreign Policy, p. 87.

• In 3 out of 4 failing states, the population growth is high, between 2% and 4%.

• In 7 out of 10 failing states, 40% of the population is under 15 --- a ticking time bomb.

80% of failing states can’t escape the demographic trap.

Consider Sudan. It suffers from inadequate infrastructure and a deteriorating natural resource base.

Mortality is falling but fertility is still high, so the number of poor people swells: “As a result, large families beget poverty and poverty begets large families. This is the trap” (p. 90, emphasis added). Sudan is breaking down. The solution appears to be educating girls.

Brown concludes on a worrisome note.

“Virtually all of the top 20 countries [failing states] are depleting their natural assets --- forests, grasslands, soil, aquifers --- to sustain their rapidly growing populations” (p. 91).

Of course, expect no foreign investment and expect debt to mount.

Brown has concluded his explanation of the global crisis.

He will turn next to how to achieve his four goals:1.Cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2020.2.Stabilize population at or below 8 billion by 2040.3.Eradicate poverty.4.Restore earth’s natural systems: forests, soils, aquifers, fisheries.