I hear so often that so many people want to end poverty and world hungry. I am more inclined to accept that poverty is a state of mind that in many cases is due to misaligned priorities. If you can't feed your family because you chose to spend the money on a new pair of name brand overpriced shoes so that you can fit in with your peers or present an illusion of wealth, then you havent met your basic necessity for nutrients...poverty. I often wonder why people choose to ignore logic and not better prepare themselves. Just my thoughts.
World hunger, likely due to the carrying capacity of the environment, is natural. Non-human animals experience hunger more often than we know. It's Nature's population control so to speak. I have never seen anyone go up against the established principles/laws of Nature within a natural setting and succeed. So do I accept that world hunger will end; only if the population is below the carrying capacity of the environment. Not sure when or if this will happen during my lifetime. Just my thoughts.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Very complex topic, over 3 million children die of starvation every year.
1.3 billion tonnes of human food is wasted every year, about 1/3 of what is produced.
Poverty and wealth are relative terms, you can't have one without the other.
We have far exceeded the renewable carrying capacity of the plant, in Oz and the USA we consume twice as much per person of natural resources than in Europe. If everyone in the world consumed as much as the average European the sustainable population level would be about 2 million. 2,047,129 to be exact. Joking, these figures are naturally quite rubbery but serve as an indication, personally I would be happy with a global human population of 2-3 hundred million leaving 7.3 billion people too many, but it's ok, I am getting together a list of names and addresses. Lies, damn lies and statistics, here are some more. [worldometers.info]
Rugglesby
Level 8
Dec 28, 2017
0
World Hunger is due to poverty and inequality, not scarcity of food (as you said, "carrying capacity of the environment" ), nor bad choices made by those individuals (in impoverished countries, people often spend up to 80% of their income on food). The Green Revolution greatly revitalized and increased the output of some systems tenfold compared to the productivity in the 1800s. GMO and other technology have and will allow us to continually increase the productivity of our food production systems. Currently, food production systems worldwide produce enough food for 10B people, that's 1.5 times the current population. Poor people simply don't have the power to get
Poverty and inequality are caused by history. There are examples of that in our country as well as abroad. I do some development work in rural Nicaragua focused on education and clean water, and the situation for people there is that they simply don't have access to quality education or other resources. Most people have to drop out of school around the 3rd grade to help on their family's subsistence farm, and they never learn to read (literacy rate of about 10%, mostly clergy and local govt)
If you are interested in the subject, I'd recommend taking this free class in Feb. I took it a couple of years ago:
The Challenges of Global Poverty
A course for those who are interested in the challenge posed by massive and persistent world poverty.
[edx.org]
Their intro video
Cheers.
Gener
Level 5
Dec 26, 2017
0
First I would like to state that I highly support your suggestion of education but again, who will monitor what is told to people, especially those who believe they are in desperate situations. And I am impressed with your physical participation in rural Nicaragua. Most people find it easier to write a check. But being a part of the community is more effective in my opinion.
The "carrying capacity of the environment" is very real. Hunger is caused by the lack of food and poverty is not always the culprit however poor choices and lack of preparation do contribute. As a Biologist now exploring my elevated self in academia, my research of evidence supporting and refuting various topics keeps me grounded. I, like so many others, was not aware that the definition of poverty has evolved to present more variations of poverty. [unesco.org]
Also, the concern for Genetically Modified "anything" is growing. Transferring the genes
from one organism to another organism seems to be the answer, but at what cost. The target genes can carry genes that can and have caused more harm to the organism than good. The goal is to feed billions of people but what happens when the primary resource for all organisms is obtained; reproduction or more organisms to feed. So I do agree that education is necessary.
I am concerned for those individuals that face hunger daily but I am also concerned about the status of our planet. It will not expand to feed and house another 2.5 billion more people. My goal too is to come up with a practical solution and oftentimes the solution to a problem lies within the origin of the problem.
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