World Food Day

The Challenge of Feeding the World

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 ~ October 16 is World Food Day, established to raise global awareness of wide-spread hunger all over the world. Many organizations are today calling attention to this most basic human right—to have enough to eat.

The Institute of Food Technologists, for example, is highlighting the importance of industrial innovation in providing solutions to global hunger:

Just as society has evolved over time, our food system has also evolved over centuries into a global system of immense size and complexity. The commitment of food science and technology professionals to advancing the science of food, ensuring a safe and abundant food supply, and contributing to healthier people everywhere is integral to that evolution. Food scientists and technologists are versatile, interdisciplinary, and collaborative practitioners in a profession at the crossroads of scientific and technological developments.

The innovative scientists and researchers at Phytelligence are part of that global solution that will provide more food, of better quality, faster, to more people.

Native

A Sense of Belonging

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 ~ Tomorrow I will have lived in the Seattle area for 30 years.

I moved here to take a job at a then small and mostly unknown software startup that later moved to Redmond. I thought I'd live here a year or two, and then go back to school. But I never left.

I passed the "most of my life" threshold years back.

My children were all born and raised here.

Back in the early 80's many people had bumper stickers on their cars with an image of Washington state and the single word "Native". For some, there was evidently a sense that too many people (like me) were moving here from somewhere else and somehow ruining the lifestyle for the natives.

I haven't seen one of those bumper stickers in at least 10 years, maybe 20.

Did the natives all leave? No. They may be few, but they're still here.

So what changed?

Are we more accepting? Or did we just give up?

We Need More Public Transit

And Public Transit Needs Us

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 ~ Why public transit?

Riffing on Stuart Smalley: It's good enough, it's smart enough, and doggone it, people like it!

Americans, regardless of political affiliation, support public transit. Everyone who takes public transit contributes to decreased congestion, decreased carbon emissions, and decreased oil/gas use. It's funny to think otherwise. Public transit riders also save money.

Public transit revitalizes communities and leads to economic (re-)development. People choose public transit if given a level of service that represents something close to a comparable choice. Public funding of public transit makes sense, and smart political leadership just gets it done. Unfortunately, others still don't get it.

The demographics in America are changing. The outer ring suburbs are dying and not coming back; both empty-nest Boomers and younger Millennials want to live in livable, walkable cities well-served by public transit where they don't even need to own cars.

Why support pubic transit? It's really rather simple:



Public transit: good, smart, and people like it.

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Cross-posted to Fare-Free NW blog.

Speaking the Obvious

Rapa Nui's Descent into Darkness

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 ~ Many people insist, with all manner of justifications, that we can not, we should not, change the way we generate or use energy because we're not running out of oil, the climate isn't changing, and we aren't destroying our ecosystems everywhere one looks. Cornucopia forever.

What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?

USA, Inc.

Numerical Overview of Our Financial Problems

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~ Mary Meeker, perennial star analyst on Wall Street, narrates a detailed and highly factual overview of the current US financial mess. It's 44 minutes long, but is one of the best and most comprehensive recounts I have seen. Please watch, or look at the slideshow. Well worth your time:



The presentation does a very good job placing context around the revenue and spending levels of our federal government as well as the historical and current drivers that got us to this point and which, left unchanged, will make our problems dramatically worse in coming decades.

Climate Change and Food

Growing Food Insecurity

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~ A detailed study highlights how small changes in climate will have huge impacts on the food supply to billions of people, especially in the still-developing world.

The CGIAR Research Program study, "Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics," is the product of a team of scientists focused on "especially disastrous" impacts with the potential to affect billions.

The researchers pinpointed areas of intense vulnerability by examining a variety of climate models and indicators of food problems to create a series of detailed maps. One shows regions around the world at risk of crossing certain "climate thresholds" -- such as temperatures too hot for maize or beans -- that over the next 40 years could diminish food production. Another shows regions that may be sensitive to such climate shifts because in general they have large areas of land devoted to crop and livestock production. And finally, scientists produced maps of regions with a long history of food insecurity.

A More Frugal Economy

Remarks by Futurist Glen Hiemstra at WCTA

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I had the pleasure yesterday of introducing Glen Hiemstra to the monthly breakfast meeting of the Washington Clean Tech Alliance (WCTA). Glen gave a wide-ranging but thematically coherent and engaging talk on what the future might hold over the next 10-50 years. One key point was how we have moved, perhaps permanently, to a "frugal economy" where people have less, buy less, and want less. It may be making a virtue of necessity for some, but for others, especially those focused on sustainability, it has a deeply satisfying appeal.

Climate Change Islecide

Island Time Comes to an End

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Climate change is raising sea levels. Those seas have swallowed uninhabited islands, and now start to threaten populated ones too:



Carteret Island is part of Papua New Guinea, and one of many Pacific Island communities under threat.

The World's Changing

Speculate on the Next 50 (or 200) Years...

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I've posted before about Gapminder, one of the most engaging and useful date presentation tools freely available on the web. This 4 minute presentation details how income levels and life expectancies of the world's countries over the past 200 years. Thought-provoking.



How will the future look? Will countries bunch, or separate into discrete clusters? The separation of China into provinces is suggestive; not all benefits will be spread equally.

Peak Soil

Historically, Soil Loss Presages a Civilization's End

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The world's population is depleting too many things. While it may be possible to develop alternatives for some materials, it will not be easy to replace the substrate that nourishes us:

The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet’s land surface is the foundation of civilization. This soil, typically 6 inches or so deep, was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. But sometime within the last century, as human and livestock populations expanded, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation over large areas.

Topsoil is eroding away in much of the world, exacerbated by climate change and the increased plowing and livestock raising necessary to feed an ever-growing population. Wind and water are taking it away in the Middle East, in many parts of Africa, in the Amazon, and in many other places.