Food: Our Weakest Link?

Lester R. Brown, one of the world's most renowned environmental authors and founder of the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute , has just released his new book, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.

Why is it important? Well, as some of us may have noticed, global society isn't exactly stable at the moment. Mr. Brown believes a lot of this instability comes down to food. We'd be wise to agree with him.

Food is the one thing we all need. But it's not that easy to get anymore. Population growth, water shortages, soil erosion, climate change, increasing demand for meat and dairy products, land grabs, using grains for biofuel... all these things, Brown argues, makes food the weak link of global society:

"I used to think, for our modern, technologically-advanced society, food couldn't be the weak link. I now think not only that it could be the weak link but that it is the weak link." 



Now, I always try to blog with an optimistic, often jovial attitude to environmental issues. I toyed with the idea of writing some sort of Anne Robinson joke in here, or perhaps drawing a Weakest Link cartoon where the contestants were various foods. But I can't. This is far too serious an issue to joke about. Things need to change.



How does this all tie in with EMERGE and FareShare? Preventing waste, my friends. If there's one thing simple thing we can all do to help ease this situation, it is to not waste food

You can read Chapter 1 of Full Planet, Empty Plates for free here.
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Laurence
The Contemporary Caveman


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