From Barry Carter:

Re: Forecast: global warming may bring giant drought (Oct. 19): Most people have a favorite disaster scenario. Some favor global warming, others favor peak oil. Financial collapse is the favorite of many people but geological cataclysm is favored by others. Regardless of which disaster you may favor, the most immediate problem that develops, as a result of any disaster, will be related to food shortages. Already it is estimated that one billion people are starving on earth.

Most disasters reduce food production or availability. Climate change causes flooding, drought and unseasonable freezes which all reduce food production. Peak oil reduces the availability of petro chemicals for fertilizer and pesticides as well as the fuel to transport food for long distances. Financial collapse makes it more difficult for everyone to produce and purchase food. Geological cataclysm can even cause an ex-president to apologize for policies that reduced the local food supply in Haiti in favor of imported rice from the USA.

Even social disasters are most likely to cause suffering through starvation. When the structures we have built to serve us loose their way and begin to believe that we are here to serve them, they try to monopolize our sources of supply. Whether these are corporate structures, government structures, belief structures or religious structures does not change this pattern. Read more here.

On the page above I discuss ways that most of us can use to help insure our own food supply in these times of change. If we could increase food production and nutrition while also increasing carbon sequestration in soil this would be a great way to mitigate the changes we are facing in each disaster scenario.

Barry Carter
Baker City, Oregon