There have not “always been” this many starving people
By Lis on April 20, 2008
VIENNA (Reuters) - Global food price rises are leading to “silent mass murder” and commodities markets have brought “horror” to the world, the United Nations’ food envoy told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday.
Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries.
Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the “madness” of people who think that hunger is down to fate.
“Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time — just as (Karl) Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass murder,” he said in an interview.
Ziegler blamed globalization for “monopolizing the riches of the earth” and said multinationals were responsible for a type of “structural violence”.
“And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to put a stop to this,” he said.
Ziegler said he believed that one day starving people could rise up against their persecutors. “It’s just as possible as the French Revolution was,” he said.
(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Giles Elgood)
For a range of articles about the dire situation that is escalating globally …. the horror of it ….. you can read a summary, with suggestions for action, by clicking here.
Meanwhile, I can’t get out of my head the opening lines of Carl Dennis’s poem, “Birthday”:
Now that the time remaining is insubstantial,
I need to review my history while asking
What exactly it suggests I’ve lived for
Topics: Participants | 5 Comments »
There’s been a leek!
By Lis on April 7, 2008
I swear, I will never, ever, ever, ever complain about the price of leeks again. This is the first leek I’ve ever grown from seed and it took almost a year! When I finally picked it we were all stunned at its size and its human qualities - I had to fight the boys to get it for dinner. I never thought I’d live to see the day when my boys played with a leek. Hah! Who needs KMart …. they don’t sell monsters as crazy as this one!
Topics: market, pumpkin | 7 Comments »
Dill’s Atlantic Giant
By Lis on April 3, 2008
This amazing heirloom pumpkin, a Dill’s Atlantic Giant, was grown in Bathurst by Keith Hungerford, and its brother or sister won a prize at the Bathurst Show! It then went on to be displayed at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. The breed has produced the world’s largest pumpkin weighing in at 496kg. It took 2 men to lift this one! Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Participants, garden, recipes | 5 Comments »
The Year of the Potato & the Doomsday Vault
By Lis on February 20, 2008
Today I stumbled across this amazing photograph taken by Maria Tefre for the Global Crop Diversity Trust. It’s of the Global Seed Vault being built into a mountainside cavern in Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen island around 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole. Its goal is to store the world’s crop seeds in case of disaster. Starting with 200,000 samples when it opens in February, the vault will have the capacity for around 4.5 million bar-coded seed samples in all.
Topics: Participants, bees, biodiversity, garden, pesticides in food, potatoes, seedsaving | 9 Comments »
Hypno Chicken!
By Lis on February 19, 2008
Yes, it’s true. You CAN hypnotize chickens. Click here to watch a video of how my children do it! I couldn’t believe it. The boys called me down to the chicken yard and all the chickens were lying on their backs with their feet in the air. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Participants, chooks, coal, garden, videos | 4 Comments »
It’s not enough that we do our best
By Lis on January 10, 2008
As more and more reports come in of food shortages around the world (this photo is from The Wire ), Churchill’s words ring in my ears:
“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
It is simply not acceptable any more to pretend this is not happening and to continue our lives as if everything is OK.
Topics: Participants, garden, permaculture | 1 Comment »
Strawberry Fields Forever
By Lis on January 8, 2008
What an inspiration you are Helen! It seems that it’s time to get this blog on the road again. My son Oscar and I have been busy in the garden for weeks now, watching and learning how nature works. We’ve managed, for example, to save strawberries from the damage caused by months of rain - by ruthlessly removing spotty diseased leaves and allowing healthy new ones to form! Snapping off all runners before they get a chance to root also diverts the strawberries’ energy from making new plants to making fruit. As a result we’ve started to feast on lush juicy strawberries every night. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Participants, Rosemary Morrow, biodiversity, chooks, faverolles, garden, permaculture, strawberries | 8 Comments »
Welcome to my office
By Helen on January 7, 2008
A long time has passed between drinks since my last entry…and all I can say is wow, 2007…what a year! So many people worked so hard, spoke up and acted out to bring about change and it worked. We won the battle but not the war and it feels to me as if now we are settled in for the long haul. Climate change got to the top of the agenda, the skeptics were voted out and pressure now has to remain on the new government who has promised so much. So congratulations to all you folks out there who worked your arses off bringing about a much needed change in this country…
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Participants | 4 Comments »
Systems collapse
By Lis on October 28, 2007
Systems collapse - suddenly, and when you least expect them to! A month ago my computer died …. I now have my second new logic board after weeks without being able to travel in the ether … and in the month that I’ve been “off the air” the roses and the poppy seedlings Susan gave me have begun to blossom and I have a bowl full of peas and mint out of our garden. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Participants | 2 Comments »
The agony and the ecstasy
By Lis on September 30, 2007
Pear blossoms
Spring is a time of agony and ecstasy. The garden is gloriously alive and the blossoms appearing everywhere are a promise of delicious fruit to come. Ecstasy. Then suddenly the winds start and the blossoms are blown away. Agony. As I try and prepare for our family’s food security into the future, wind is one of our biggest threats. Dust borne diseases are also carried by wind and in the disaster planning taking place for our area, it is expected that wind will cause more damage to humans than fire (and, of course, wind is what drives fires and can make them so lethal). I’ve been learning about the absolute necessity of building dense windbreaks around every house to reduce disease (which is filtered out by small furry leaved plants), to protect property from wind damage and to create the microclimates necessary for successfully growing food. Sydney once had a Green Zone for these very reasons, but it’s now been cut down by developers. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: dandelions, permaculture, recipes | 6 Comments »