STARVATION IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Bill Tara
A couple of years ago I was talking to a guy and the topic turned to global warming. He and I both agreed that it was not a good thing (as you do) but he pointed out something that I had neglected to see - there was a great business opportunity there.
A friend of his had recently called him up with a business proposition – artificial grass. I’m not just talking Astroturf; I am talking third generation artificial grass. This was grass constructed to completely replicate a well cared for lawn, each tiny plastic blade extruded to mimic your favourite variety of lawn grass. He was sure he could make millions. Just think, less water and soaring temperatures but you can still sport a beautiful lawn. He didn’t say if it came with a full line of accessories such as plastic ants and plastic birds but can that be far behind. There is nothing like a little disaster to fire up the profit margin. Every cloud has a silver lining.
That grass is probably ripping off the shelf in Moscow. It has been the hottest summer on record. The heat has contributed to raging fires and projected failure of the wheat crop. The combination of the smoke from the fires, pollution and the heat is killing thousands of people. Science fiction you say - not at all. We are surprised, as usual, but we shouldn’t be. Scientists predicted these temperatures with a high degree of accuracy in 1999. Nobody listened.
The reason that nobody listened is that listening is bad for business. The reality of environmental degradation and the social injustice and economic turmoil for the poor and middle class are not simply inconvenient truths they are tragic and inescapable truths. Acknowledging the facts and implications of environmental degradation naturally brings forth a demand for urgent action and change on both the individual and social level but we have to ask ourselves why these changes are not forthcoming. Is the answer really artificial grass?
Life on planet earth is dying, gasping its’ last breath and we are going into premature grieving rather than locating the nearest respirator. The deniers of global warming, pollution of the oceans and rivers, contamination of food supplies and many other tragic problems caused by human actions have three possible agenda’s,
- 1) They all know that there is a buck to be made from tragedy.
- 2) They are damned if they will modify anything they do since they are happy as a pig in mud.
- 3) If they do believe that human activity is causing a disaster they propose that something be done in maybe ten or twenty years so that change is moderated (this also means that most of them will be dead or retired with a big nest egg).
Now I’m no psychologist but it strikes me that these reasons sound very like three of the five Kubler-Ross stages of grief. We got Denial, Anger and Bargaining as a sort of right-wing strategy of avoiding the stark prognosis of planetary death. Is it possible that Rush and Glen and all the nit-wit’s that rant every day on television and on the radio about loosing their freedom to be dangerously foolish really know, in their heart of hearts, that we have tipped over the slippery slope to planetary disaster and just can’t bring themselves to accept it. That is where true pessimism lives.
Right wing think tanks make it their task to undermine conventional science when it goes against business. Confusion about global warming, confusion about food choices, confusion regarding the dangers of smoking all trace back to the knee jerk attitudes of organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Marshall Institute. The arguments are not about responsible capitalism they are about the fear of change. They are the foot-stamping hissy-fits of childish minds that refuse to share their toys with others.
The talk about freedom from government control that is the battle cry of the tea party and Fox news is simply the highly effective propaganda of big business. We need more government right now, not less government; we need better government, courageous government willing to do more than talk tough. The myth that business will show care or compassion for the poor, the hungry or the environment is a sick joke. We simply need to look at the track record. When drug companies fudge their data to the FDA and make billions on a product that has death as a possible side effect and oil executives say that spills are unusual events when they happen monthly all over the world we are getting the true picture of business without oversight.
Until we have the will to make some fundamental changes in the so-called free market system we are going to continue having these problems. The planetary economy must reflect the fundamental role of environmental resources and the simple fact that these resources belong to everyone. Access to clean air, water and healthy food are human rights. When the interests of business despoil or deny this access it is the role of governments to call those businesses to account. The issue of food quality and availability need to be prominent in that discussion.
The world population is now roughly 6.5 Billion people. By the year 2050 it will be 9.2 Billion. The growth every year is roughly the same as the population of Italy. We can all agree that’s a lot of people. It’s time to fix up the guest room. Oh, by the way - all those people need to eat.
Feeding over 9 Billion people is a stretch especially when we take a few additional facts into account. One such fact is that some of the “emerging nations” like China and India and Brazil want to live that wild and crazy life-style pushed by America and Western Europe for the last fifty years. They want to have Video Games and Cell Phones and Viagra and Electric Toothbrushes - they also want to eat meat. They want burgers and sirloin tips and fried chicken they want to be like us. (Well…they don’t really want to be like us – they only want to buy like us.) This creates a very disturbing situation food wise.
Two problems emerge when we figure how to feed the world of 9 Billion; (especially on meat) the first is ethanol and the second is animal feed.
The global target for ethanol production is 31 Billion gallons a year by 2015. That ethanol production will be generated off of land now growing other crops like corn, sugar cane and wheat. Oops... less land for food. Big agribusiness is hog-wild about ethanol. George Bush the Younger, Dick Cheney and all the ex-energy honchos who copped government jobs pushed for it big time (as they used to say). It’s got environmental and patriotic creed - less oil, less foreign oil.
Ethanol had government subsidy written all over it from the start. What a neat solution, so simple and elegant, lets run our cars on food. But wait, you ask, what about the meat situation. What about those new Italians every year, the ones born in China and India and Brazil? Well...
That’s a problem but, like the grass salesman said, it’s also an opportunity! The opportunity is a perfect storm of future profit when the swirling growth of ethanol and the mammoth need for animal feed intersect creating a hurricane of money. Holy cow! (Or Golden Calf as you will) there is money to be made! At 8 kilos of grain to 1 kilo of beef are you getting a taste of the profits to be made? Are outfitting the Humvee to run on somebody’s breakfast?
You see, since actual food for human consumption is getting scarce what with feeding it to animals and automobiles, it is a good time to invest in the grain market. Much of this food used to be protected from speculation but the gutless whimps in Washington who are supposed to protect us all from being swindled took away most of the regulations. Our friends the bankers were major players in this particular little project. We all know that regulation or any state intervention is… Come on kids you know the answer – communism!! Give that kid a Trotsky action figure.
With those pesky regulations out of the way food has become a “robust” market investment, particularly futures. An executive with Brasil foods, a “low cost chicken and processed meat” producer was quoted in the Guardian money section saying that he “has a planet to conquer”. It’s a safe bet he will do it. I mean who will stop him? No government agency, that’s for sure. (Some of you I know are dying to find out what exactly separates a “low cost chicken” from an ordinary chicken but that will have to wait). So what happens in the long run?
When the price of basic foods goes up the first hurt are the poor of the world. Rice, corn, beans and wheat these products are actually eaten by ordinary people, most of them poor, all over the world (as well as by vegans and macrobiotic folks). The world cost of food rose by 80% between 2005 and 2008. According to a United Nations report this past June food prices could rise by an additional 40% in this decade. It was the rising cost of basic foods that caused food riots in many countries in 2008 and the worst is yet to come.
Increased hunger and starvation will persist and increase with global warming if changes are not made soon in policies of agriculture, food manufacture and food distribution. Individuals have a great part to play by changing their personal consumption, advocating social change in food consciousness and electing officials who will address these issues. If these social changes are not made then business will respond with the manufacture of “new” artificial foods and increased dependence on genetically modified crops. These steps will be taken under the banner of Food Security. We either change the way things work or throw up our hands and accept the fact that disaster is an opportunity and starvation is good for business.
