Summary - Selection 28

Food Scarcity: An Environmental Wakeup Call by Lester Brown

Lester Brown is relaying a message common these days. The world needs to make changes, otherwise we will continue to spiral into irreversible damages such as loss of food, water, and land. As the population increases (and has increased in the last 30 years) the need for land and food to sustain the population has also increased. Indicators of higher grain prices would be something to watch out for to know if a "crisis" might happen. Millions of people as it is are living off of very small amounts, and for prices to rise would mean that people cannot feed their families. If we continue to abuse the environment as we are, climate change will effect us greatly in simply effecting our water availability and land use. Some solutions could be to raise taxes or to charge for water to prevent waste, but ultimately Brown believes it is a political choice to stop the harmful things we are doing now and to enforce the change so that we can also sustain our future generations. There is a need to find a balance between food and people, and finding an energy balance could help the effects of the future. Specifically, Brown believes the common message of reversing deforestation, stopping the loss of planting and animal species, stabilizing fisheries, aquifers, soils, and reducing carbon emissions and fossil fuel burning. All should be common knowledge, and we have the tools to make these changes. It is simply a matter of putting them into force, on a global scale.