Hunger Strikes In America

“Every month, she said, hundreds of thousands of Oregon’s poor run out of food stamps by the third week and are forced to turn to food pantries and soup kitchens to keep from starving.

Denise Holland, executive director of South Carolina’s Harvest Hope food bank, told the World her organization provides food for 200,000 families across the state. “Every year we conduct a survey of how many people we are serving,” she said. “For the past six years, the rate has risen by about 30 percent every year.” Hunger Spreads Across U.S.

Oregon has 425,000 that are on food stamps. This number only represents those that qualify for food stamps, not those who barely miss the qualification levels, or those that don’t bother with them anymore. Many years ago, I was severely injured and could not work at all, and received a whopping $13 a month in food stamps. Some people, though qualified, receive so little help that it is utterly meaningless.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass), co-chair of the Congressional Hunger Center, charged recently that 40 percent of those eligible do not receive food stamps. The average benefit is $1 per person per meal.

This has been going on all over the country. Over 37 million now live in poverty. Recently, I read about the tragedy of families living in Appalachia. The poverty there is beyond striking. They are not alone, all across America as the economic meltdown continues, the issue of simply staying alive worsens each day.

Here’s a future scenario on the probable path of mankind. How many people understand this significance? And while you ponder that, ponder this grandstanding tidbit. I wonder if she rushed home to wash her hair.

Occam’s Razor basically states that “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.” The projections that the world will reach 9+ billion humans by 2050 simply isn’t based on reality. We’re not going to be able reach that number because there won’t be enough food or energy.

The rise in population and importantly, living standards is directly tied to the availability of cheap petroleum energy. Oil produces everything we have today, including our plastic filled oceans.

There is a very real and ever present danger in the belief that we can resolve our problems by creating more of them. The unintentional effect is almost always the same, we keeping making things worse. Here’s one I’ve never posted, trawlers ruining the oceans, more pics here. The need to feed the teeming billions has us scraping the bottom of the oceans. The simple solution is not even being considered because it isn’t politically expedient. Some ideas, like this one, are modestly admirable, but woefully inadequate.

The problem of feeding the world has long since severely damaged the health of the planet. As bad as the oceans are, it’s even worse on land. Global soil erosion is considered the worst environmental problem in the world by some. The present global drought conditions will make this matter even worse as arable land dries up.

Hunger will strike in every city in America, if it hasn’t already. In many parts of the world, starvation is very real. It’s unthinkable in the “land of plenty”, but it’s already happening. As the economy unwinds and energy costs spiral higher and higher, eating a sufficient quantity of calories for millions is questionable. What will happen when the collapse is in full swing?

If this is depressing, then there’s always Prozac, the “eternal sunshine” fix available at a pharmacy counter near you (grim humor).