October 17 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The movie below is written and directed by Peter Joseph. It is 123 min long and offers a lot of food-for-thought. We welcome your comments.

Posted in Identity Management, Security Measures, Health Preparedness, Economic Issues, In The News, Water Issues, Food Security, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Environment, Politics | No Comments »

October 9 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The number of articles around the world that describe people’s reactions to the mounting financial crisis is on the rise. As the number of private and corporate bankruptcies grow so will the pressure on governments and societies affected by the crisis. The situation is of particular concern in the Northern Hemisphere given the approaching winter months and possible disruptions to just in time food deliveries.

Posted in Economic Issues, Food Security, North America | No Comments »

April 23 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Forget oil prices; shortages of food, and in some places water, are rapidly becoming serious concerns. The bubble that is our Western world often prevents us from seeing the dangers posed by our system; distracted by fears of job loss, unmanageable personal debt and an unending supply of mind-numbing entertainment pumped into our homes through the intravenous that is mass media, we can’t see what difficulties our way come. Step away from immediate and local concerns for a second, scan the international headlines on an internet search and suddenly some alarming trends become apparent: food prices are soaring, the hungry are rioting and some food producing countries are moving towards self-protectionism.

So long as there is processed food across the street in some store’s freezer or selling products in our market is still more lucrative than in the country of origin, why have grounds for concern, right? How long, however, can economics be expected to trump survival; our post-Cold War mentality leaves us still believing in a capitalist system as if it were religion, some divine law of existence that will neither change nor disappear. It’s unthinkable for most people to even conceive that our current system could be any other than what it is. Indeed, just broach the topic with someone and prepare for a touchy backlash of, what else could it be: a dictatorship? communism? what else is there? 

This inability to accept that systems come and systems go leaves us incredibly vulnerable to change. Lacking creativity to even imagine that there should be change renders us incapable of ever preparing for it.  

As an industrialized society we moved en masse to urban centres. We bought into a system - buying food from a network of stores, taking water from a network of pipes, wearing clothes mass produced in distant lands - and in the process became entirely dependent. If suddenly there was a break in the system and we no longer had access to the things that we need, what would happen?

Despite the comparative luxuries some of us have heretofore enjoyed in the West, the time has for us to reconsider the viability of our system. Hopefully, this will occur before the current food shortages, which are only just beginning, truly come to affect us - which inevitably will happen given how connected the system, upon which we as individuals have become so dependent, has become to the wider global network.

Posted in Food Security | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

At last, a Western politician is aware of the looming threat posed by poor food security planning. Britain’s David Cameron is apparently pressing for measures that would foster the local production of food. His reasoning, which is quite correct, is that with increasing demands on food due to consumption and some types of biofuel production countries which depend upon other regions to feed them might find their citizenry are a whole lot hungrier than before. This isn’t rocket science, it’s a simple numbers game - so why haven’t other leaders come to the same conclusion? 

In a country such as Canada with a limited growing season, one would think that we would have a thorough national food security policy. A plan that encourages Canadians to stockpile should something nasty like a flu pandemic hit in the dead of winter, shutting down borders and airports effectively cutting off our winter food supply. Such a plan might have supported the small family farm, a now nearly extinct mode of production, to generate produce and livestock purely for local consumption. Or it might have put limits on factory farming techniques which aren’t flexible enough to cope during emergencies and are thought to heavily pollute the environment (to say nothing of its impact on human health). Heck, maybe it would just have any old plan, something other than telling the people through commercials to be prepared for a 72-hour period? Alas, it’s the local grocery store or nothing.

Food Security, I am afraid, like Pandemic Preparedness is lost on most Westerners. Few in the West, if any, can remember a real tangible crisis which threatened their lives. A couple brushes with recessions, outbreaks of disease and water contamination do little to smarten the bureaucrats and political leaders up.  It’s all easily forgotten when in the next minute they are on to the latest issue for which none of them were prepared.

Until we step back and see the bigger picture, we will be doomed to run around after each event trying our best to cope in the aftermath. We have been fortunate in a country like Canada that none of these issues has ever really spiralled out of control, too much, at least not in living memory. How much longer can we rely on the resiliency of the international system to maintain the current status quo? 

I certainly hope we don’t find ourselves only just rethinking things at the point of starvation. 

Posted in Food Security, North America, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Toledo Blade reported recently that Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania may have hit a road block in ratifying an agreement that would limit water withdrawal from the Great Lakes. If four states within the same country can’t adopt an agreement after 4.5 years of negotiations, why should Canadians expect that their “gentlemen’s agreement” is enough to protect our interests regarding the Great Lakes basin?

We might start minding our own interests by first looking past the many layers of bureaucracy which are so conveniently blamed for our lack of initiative around security measures (“oh, that’s provincial jurisdiction,” or “U.S. states and Canadian provinces can’t enter into binding agreements”) and finally do something that will protect the future of precious fresh water resources. Environmental degradation certainly won’t stop because this department or that province has been deemed responsible for what happens on an issue.

Perhaps we just need a reason to take fresh water resource depletion seriously. How about the plans of the Governor of New Mexico to have resources “shared” among the states - after all, he believes, that Great Lakes region is just “awash with water.” Care to share valuable water with green lawns in deserts, anyone?

Posted in Water Issues, North America, Politics | No Comments »

February 26 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Associated Press has reported that “A “doomsday” seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.” At last the big boys are preparing for serious disaster, when will it be time for the average person to shift their perspective and take some responsibility for their own survival?

Currently, the average person acquires food from local stores, without much thought, for a few days ahead. Should anything minor and temporary happen (forget nuclear fallout, this could just mean border closures or a strike) food supply in a place like Canada would be considerably disrupted - particularly in the winter as we have become increasingly dependent on imports from California, Mexico and elsewhere. The convenience and monotony of grocery store procurement has blinded many of us to the fact that systems are not impermeable to disruption or collapse. Furthermore, the more complex and centralized the system the more vulnerable it is to threats and widespread destruction, much like a domino effect - such is the nature of a system that is reliant on say a central point of food distribution that ships products out across long distances to stores agreeing to carry said produce exclusively. Attack the centre and it all falls down.

Unfortunately, most people don’t want to think about such things. Thus, it’s easier to just continue as they always have, dependent on a wider system ignorant of the dangers that such dependency creates. If only more people would entertain the possibility of these threats and make plans, (obviously not on the scale of the Norwegians,) to truly guard their own interests the world might be that much more stable.

Posted in Disaster Management, Food Security, Europe | No Comments »

February 14 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Refugees of the Blue Planet is a must watch documentary that illustrates how little value is placed on the individual and, indeed, entire communities at the expense of our current consumption-driven system. Although many in the West find it easy to brush off the threats of food and water scarcity and rising sea levels as a distant scare to poorer nations, much of what has led to such crises stems from our own choices.

What is particularly enlightening about this documentary is the inclusion of Canadians who are pushed off farms due to oil and other production. What’s particularly shocking is how the neighbours and fellow-townspeople will turn on such victims of so-called progress in this so-called advanced nation.

This should be mandatory viewing for everyone.

Posted in Disaster Management, Water Issues, Environment, Politics | No Comments »

January 22 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Age in Australia has published an article discussing Professor Julian Cribb’s recent report The Coming Famine. A kind thank you to Professor Cribb for sharing his report with us:

“Humanity is eating more food than it is producing.As world food prices soar to record levels, scientists are warning that global food supplies are rapidly diminishing due to water shortages, fiercer and more intense droughts, soil loss, increased land competition from crops grown for biofuel and humanity’s apparently insatiable appetite for meat.

According to leading science writer Julian Cribb, the greatest challenge this century will be to double global food production with less land, less water and less nutrients — all in drier and hotter conditions.

Speaking yesterday at a Melbourne conference, Professor Cribb said that while public awareness of climate change had grown exponentially, the world had remained relatively ignorant of the fact it was entering a prolonged period of food shortages.

According to his discussion paper, The Coming Famine, there will be about 9.3 billion people living in the world in 2050 who will eat as much food as would 13 billion people at today’s levels. The UN’s environmental program estimates global food output must rise by 110% to meet demand for food in the coming 40 years.” Click here for more.

Posted in Water Issues, Food Security | No Comments »

January 21 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is a phenomenal article that ran in the Geelong Advertiser today highlighting the limitations of “silo-view” in assessing threats. The article was written by Julian Cribb, adjunct professor at University of Technology, Sydney.

Posted in Food Security | No Comments »

January 17 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Kampala Monitor has reported that:

“Police say they are registering rising numbers of domestic fights and inter-family scuffles at Gbukutu and Maji Muzuri water points as natives exchange blows in the scramble to secure water for desperate families. It is envisaged that the water scarcity and resultant animosity would only worsen in the coming drier months of February and March.”

Water, like food, is an absolute necessity for existence. As a result, rising tensions among populations that experience shortages of either water or food should be expected. Unfortunately, most world leaders have been very short-sighted about the looming risks associated with such shortages, often failing to carry-out adequate preparations in advance. Although most westerners are quick to brush off incidents in Africa as isolated cases, the question begs, what will be the probable fallout of water or food shortages in Europe or North America?

Posted in Water Issues, Africa | No Comments »