Terribly disturbing DK, to see the trend of "those made poor" increase, due to political unbalance, turmoil and recessions; in regions of the world embroiled in military war, or corruptions(like Darfur and the Congo.)

It is difficult for me to understand, how on this planet of plenty; that more in numbers than those fed... go hungry.

The poor make fantastic decoys to political gains, and strategic military uprising. This must end! We must insist that every government around the globe, hold respect for every human life.

Example: If a mother in Canada, cannot afford to take care of her children on welfare; then childrens aide, can take her children; and give those children to strangers to raise; at twice the income the single mother on welfare was given to raise the same child??

Canada's Welfare Watch is a good group to read about incompetence in social policy and programs aimed to end impoverishment, among societys most vulnerable.. women and children and the aged and like me.. the physically disabled.

Life is hard.. I do not find it worth living when it has no quality, only hunger, worry and living in slumlord buildings.

I am moving, as my building(a duplex) is sold; where do I go? How? Who will help me? nobody.. nowhere..I will be robbed, exploited.. by landlords and movers just like last time(4 years ago).. and what's worse than that.. nobody in town cares, not even the police. Those that could easily financially help.. wont' and don't.

so, it's hard to read about the good philanthropic work does, when it does not reach out to help and support the all...

Yes, those of us made poor...wonder too..why the crisis even exists in the first place?

Love,
North

Hi DK:

Check these out:

http://drishtikone.com/?q=blog/food-crisis-and-water-shortage-looming-planet-anybody-bothered
http://drishtikone.com/?q=blog/next-energy-powerhouse-human-body

Three major macro economics culprits for food shortage:

-Diversion to produce Ethanol
-Move to more meat consumption than grain consumption in diet of people in China and other rising economies (meat needs much more land and water to be
produced)
-Population growth

So, lets not jump from the cliff into the sea - from oil energy sources to ethanol.

.... and Vegetarian diet will do a LOT of good to this planet! Fish are disappearing from the waters in large and alarming numbers.. there has been an entire issue of National Geographic on that.. and the livestock that is grown is drying up the water tables.. and consuming more than it can give!

Cheers,
Desh

Dear DK

What we are witnessing is the "Mother of all Bubbles," ecological overshoot, whereby humanity is exceeding the earths carrying capacity. In the current mortgage and sub-prime mortgage bubble we are seeing the first signs of many wholly ecological bubbles to come. The world is not only at peak oil, but well past peak water, land, climate, oceans, food and energy in general.

Rising food prices are the front edge of the food bubble---a result of over-population, climate change, water shortgages and land scarcity. Clearly the addition of a billion more people every decade and a half, physical limits upon arable land and fossil fuels---as well as exceeding the atmosphere's waste absorption capacity and minimum amount of intact terrestrial ecosystems necessary to power the biosphere--are severely negatively impacting economies and individual's well-being. Growth and livelihoods based upon unreasonable presumptions of continued resource outputs from dwindling ecosystems are a dangerous unprecedented "ecological bubble" that threatens civilization and mass apocalyptic death.

It is too late to return to the relatively stable set of climate patterns with with we evolved, but fortunately there is a growing awareness of this from Zimbabwe to Flint, Michigan. Basically, it is unstoppable, unfixable, except in the fleeting
media/politics Band-Aid sense of the illusions that politicians dream up when they write their campaign "plans for change."

So, as individuals we might as well get on with finding a way to live simply, sustainable, equitably and justly with the Earth and each other. Because, when the water, food and climate bubbles fully burst----we are going to need each other.

I wonder if we may have to actually resort to birth-limits like in China? Two children per family only?

Dear DK....do you feel this may become unavoidable?

Love,
North

I see you have a facebook profile DK.
If you create a myspace profile as well, let me know, as I am also on myspace...click my name to go to mine.

http://www.myspace.com/northdesigns

DK

I don't know what the food situation is in the other OECD countries, but the US is not immune from the potential for food shortages, food riots and food insecurity.

In order for riots to break out the whole food supply doesn't have to be wiped out. It just has to be threatened sufficiently. When people realize their vulnerability and the fact that there is no short-term solution to a severe enough drought[or floods] in the Midwest they will have no clue as to what they should do. Other nations can't make up the difference because no other nation has a surplus of grain in good times let alone when they are having droughts and floods also.(Robert Felix, "US Food Riots Much Closer than You Think")

I think I read somewhere that the US now only has 60 days of wheat storage whereas it was once six months or so.

Dear DK and everyone,

The situation seems more and more critical and real solutions will not be found as long as we search from the same frame of mind as the one which has created the problems. The solution IS a new frame of mind, a realization of our unity.

It is becoming impossible to keep pretending that we are sparate. Whoever still clings to that illusion, individuals and nations alike, will be hungry with the hungry and thirsty with the thirsty until the walls come down in their mind and heart. That's where they have been imagined in the first place...

When the walls between us fall, we will have arrived at the solution: I and my brother are the same. I and all living beings around me - are the same. I and the fields, forests, oceans and stars around me - are the same. This is one life, one being, and it is sacred.

From that state of mind, we will find immense and never lacking gifts in our hearts to be offered with love to those who are being this oneness together with us. There is nothing other than love in a world without walls.

This realization is possible right now, in this moment. Not only for the rich, but also for the poor. It is a realization that the entire human race has to access for us to "find" the solution. The process is accelerating as this one Being is awakening to its own nature, and is pouring out gifts of love and clarity to itself, without holding back.

What we can do is trust this process and surrender to the abundance of love, of resources and solutions which are pouring out through our hearts and minds. Lack, fear, tragedy and chaos are the vanishing illusion, while love, abundance, perfect order and harmony are the reality which is becoming more and more obvious to and through us.

#7 Yo Aurora, still on the trail....excellent. Mayhap, someday we shall share victuals, face to face.

Would a kiss be permissable? ;)

Ed, I see you're still in Love :) Whatever "victuals" are, I'm sure we're already sharing them, lol... particles, particles in the mirror...
And I'm sure you know that whatever one is asking, one is asking of oneself, which is so incredibly funny when one thinks of it, isn't it?
Wishing you a bright day, friend :) Here's a hug, permission asked for and granted by the one :D:D

#9 Oh my, how you feed me and my chuckles do o'erflow, heaped up and runneth o'er, mayhap, as far as Sverige or is that porrige. :))))))))))))))))

Were we to 'kiss,' where would we put the food?

Riddle for the day.

Answers on a piece of paper, please

Ed, since we all are one, while you are kissing you can put the food in any third person's mouth standing nearby lol.

You seem to be on a song today...what have you found!

#12 Harb, I am always on song, you know that ;)

Speaking of song, I looked out of my kitchen window at lunchtime, (on topic?) and to my delight, a pair of blue tits are nesting in my hand-built nesting box(!) That must be it.

So there, you are my delight, also...you noticed me.

Humble thanks dear friend.

Dear DK,

Great question; the place we should all have our attention. Had the attention been in the right place and action taken 27 months ago when awareness was provided we might not be in this situation?

The answer to your question is that the world wasn't reading intent blog and or following the directives.

Or some agents that could have created the cause for the effect failed to do so, so I suppose that was not in the divine plan.

At least as early as Dec 8th 2005 here on Intent blog [click my name for example and detail] 27 months ago. I recommended the planet start growing more Amaranth switching to it as a food staple and I recommended storing up a third.

I think it was also mentioned in those ACTA pieces that I did.

I had suggested this as early as 2004 in other places as well as the cause and effect chains that would lead to the need to do so.

Perhaps it was just like that story of Noah nobody really listened, their attention drawn by other things, many were not at the level of consciousness needed for survival, which is sort of an evolutionary filter I suppose.

I also recommended soil surface remineralization (Rock Dust) and seaweed application.

At this rate Iraq will be the least of the world's worries, I think we had already pointed that out before.

fyi: This is what I wrote to the newspaper a few minutes ago. I really don't know if anyone on these boards can help, but I thought, what the heck. Who knows.... Also the article about this homeless person is very interesting and is posted in my note to Scott below.
_____________________

Hello Scott,

I would like to remain anonymous, but I wanted to share this with you since you wrote a story about Stephanie

http://www.mercurynews.com//ci_8648342?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com

I met Stephanie yesterday after work about 6:30 p.m., since I thought she had fallen off her wheel chair, so I drove around to the Tech CU institution on 1st and Brokaw to see if she needed any help.

Stephanie seemed a little angry and before I got too far in asking how I could help her, she angrily grabbed my hand making a 1 inch cut from her finger nail on my thumb. It was only a scratch and I do not want to press charges. Even tho it hurt, I ignored her act, not realizing that I was bleeding, as I could understand the anger of someone in her condition sitting on the sidewalk without a home, job, or food.

After this initial meet & greet, she soften as I told her that there seemed to be little that I could do for her, except for the $20 that I handed her as I was going to leave. I could not get her to go to shelter and do not have further means to further help her. I was told earlier by a shelter director when I met another homeless man, called Tim, that they advised against taking a homeless person home, as well as having them get into my car. I was advise to call a taxi if the homeless person would accept the shelter.

Stephanie complained that the shelters where not safe, nor properly furnished with the basics such as toilet paper, etc. She eventually said that one was good when I mentioned the name City Team Ministries, but she said they would not take her cat. I have not followed up on her comment, as I just took her word. I told her that I would pray for her and in the end, we briefly held hands as I peered into the most beautiful green eyes that I have ever seen, other than my sister's when she cried. She was also angry with the City of San Jose for putting her out on the streets three weeks ago. After I left, a gentleman asked what he could do to help and I shared with him that she did not want to go to the shelter, so he asked if money would help. And I said yes, so he said he would give her $100.

Anyway, Stephanie said she was featured in the San Jose Mercury News, so I looked your story up as I could not find her cousin. Here was her message from last night as best as I can read her writing and what I heard. Maybe you can help her?

"Find and call Alan Hughes who use to live in Los Altos or maybe Los Gatos and tell him"

NOTE:

"His cousin Stephanie Sanborn [at] 1st & Brokaw, Alan Hughes of Los Altos and ask him, please, does he have even so much as a relative garden shed. I have lived in a tent and in some numerous sheds. I am low maintenance."

Stephanie said that she is proud, but if she has to beg so that her cat is taken care of she will. She seemed a little bi-polar, but in that condition, I suppose the mind would flip back and forth from anger to peace as she did a few times. She expressed her wishes for a little tent so she could be protected from the rain.

Regards,
Char
_________________________

I'm not sure that the hit that biofuels is warranted. Maybe, but to be sure, the double-up in diesel prices contributes to the costs of everything as much as biofuels.

It would be interesting to model our current situation WITHOUT biofuels, something that would surely drive up the price of petroleum (and the cost of food) even more. I'd sorely like to see it quantified.

If we grew our food vertically (http://www.valcent.net/s/HDVGS.asp?ReportID=264273), or if we grew potatoes which have a huge yield as compared to grain crops, if we began putting individual profit second to collective profit, we'd all benefit.

The UN dumping rice and grains on the third world at a fraction of the price than they themselves can grow it is deplorable.

I think at the heart of it is--as someone recently pointed out on IB--that our free market and fractional banking systems assume both an unlimited store of resources as well as rapid population growth, and without either, are completely incapable of functioning properly.

Need I tell my "bears at Yosemite" story once again?

The quickest way to tame global food inflation is for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. This will raise the value of the US dollar, which will lower costs by decreasing commodity speculation. Additionally, we must immediately cease the insane practice of using food sources to produce fuel.

I sure hope this "biofuels" backlash doesn't cause us to throw the baby out with the bathwater, Wall Street Weather.

Ethanol, because of yields, is an absolutelyk absurd use of crops to grow food. Deplorable. Yet you can increase yields dramatically with algae. Also, Jatropha Curcas is rapidly replacing the orange tree as the crop of choice among Florida growers. Canker and freezes have been wiping out the citrus crop, so Jatropha Curcas is saving local economies. The stuff will grow darned near anywhere.