Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?

Last Updated on Friday, 13 November 2009 19:34 Written by Renfield Wednesday, 29 April 2009 18:05

The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse

By Lester R. Brown

* Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.
* Such “failed states” can export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees.
* Water shortages, soil losses and rising temperatures from global warming are placing severe limits on food production.
* Without massive and rapid intervention to address these three environmental factors, the author argues, a series of government collapses could threaten the world order.

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.

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