[Marxism] Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?

[Dennis Brasky <dmozart1756@xxxxxxxxx>]

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> The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for
> food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse
> By Lester R. Brown
> Scientific American
> April 22, 2009
>


>  clip --
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> One of the toughest things for people to do is to
> anticipate sudden change. Typically we project the
> future by extrapolating from trends in the past. Much of
> the time this approach works well. But sometimes it
> fails spectacularly, and people are simply blindsided by
> events such as today's economic crisis.
>
> For most of us, the idea that civilization itself could
> disintegrate probably seems preposterous. Who would not
> find it hard to think seriously about such a complete
> departure from what we expect of ordinary life? What
> evidence could make us heed a warning so dire-and how
> would we go about responding to it? We are so inured to
> a long list of highly unlikely catastrophes that we are
> virtually programmed to dismiss them all with a wave of
> the hand: Sure, our civilization might devolve into
> chaos-and Earth might collide with an asteroid, too!
>
> For many years I have studied global agricultural,
> population, environmental and economic trends and their
> interactions. The combined effects of those trends and
> the political tensions they generate point to the
> breakdown of governments and societies. Yet I, too, have
> resisted the idea that food shortages could bring down
> not only individual governments but also our global
> civilization.
>
> I can no longer ignore that risk. Our continuing failure
> to deal with the environmental declines that are
> undermining the world food economy-most important,
> falling water tables, eroding soils and rising
> temperatures-forces me to conclude that such a collapse
> is possible.
>
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> full ---
>
> <
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-shortages&sc=WR_20090428
> >
>
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> "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."- *Voltaire*
>
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