As IF Times

link Hunger Seen Worsening by Oxfam as Climate Change Heats Up World – Bloomberg.

They might have been able to get away with this back in the ’60’s when access to information was scant.  Images on TV of emaciated children holding bowls of milk would send people scurrying to write generous cheques to Oxfam.  Marketing to Americans’ natural compassion was an easy sell.  The current program of selling the idea of pervasive world hunger by tying it to the spurious cause of our day is either thinly veiled crappy marketing or simply pandering to the new generation of gullible people in America.

There’s probably somebody hungry in the world somewhere, but the chance that it’s linked in any way to global warming is as likely as a fat chicken in Ethiopia as one of my good friends is fond of saying.  People who count these kinds of things claim that Americans ( and that means Canadians too ) throw away over 400 pounds of food per person per year, so there’s no shortage here in North America or indeed most Western countries.  Unfortunately, this wasted food can’t just be transferred like a journal entry to those in the world who could legitimately use the food.  Indeed, in this part of the world, the people who are actively in the food distribution business such as McDonalds and KFC are demonized for providing too much cheap food.

According to Oxfam, ““The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fight against hunger, and it looks set to worsen,” In addition, Oxfam said. “A hot world is a hungry world.”   The people who penned this little slogan have obviously never spent any time in the tropical Amazon rainforest where it’s hot 365 days of the year and yet things still grow there like body hair at a lesbian convention.   They must also have never considered that in Saudi Arabia, where the average temperature is over 100 degrees for half of the year and yet few are starving there either.  The heat=hunger argument looks iffy.

So how is it that global warming only affects people in some parts of the world whereas in others, people have so much food that they’re throwing it away? This disparity of reality can be solved by looking closely at exactly which constituencies are served by Oxfam.  Their website claims ‘over 90 countries’, but when you look at the list:  http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/countries-we-work-in  The Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Russia and the UK  are probably not their main focus spots.  The vast majority of those countries served by aid are in continental Africa.  Interestingly, many of those countries listed are in the midst of on-going tribal and religious wars.  Anyone in the farmer business in any of those countries is not going to be interested in farming or ranching if someone is likely to plant a bullet in them.

The issue of hunger in these countries is one of security and political stability not one of a few hot days ’caused’ by someone driving their SUV.  Adding more tax to a gallon of gasoline will no more alleviate hunger than would taxing Listerine in America solve halitosis worldwide.  It’s all hot air.

link Germany Considers Tax on the Obese.

An older article from this summer, which at the time seemed preposterous, but now with the passage of events is coming closer to reality.  The urge to eat is THE primal desire overcoming all others in the animal kingdom.   For most animals, every waking moment is spent in the pursuit of food, closely followed by the need to avoid being food. 

In the case of man, the need to eat is not as urgent in most industrialized nations these days.  With food readily available in copious amounts and selection, the need to get the latest I-Phone or grab the hottest pop star’s event tickets have supplanted the urgency for simple sustenance.  Nevertheless, there is a vocal segment of the population intent on prescribing to others just how and what to eat.  More annoyingly, this group of know it all busybodies have managed to infect governments with their zeal to control meals.  It’s widely known that campaigns against the food offerings of the likes of McDonalds, KFC, PF Chang’s, Cheesecake Factory etc. have employed hundreds of lawyers and consumed countless millions of dollars in bureaucratic maneuverings in the pursuit of villifying these businesses.  Even the Whitehouse is is pushing salad bars in the nation.  

What this amounts to is the state telling people not just what to eat, but how to eat and in what portions.  How did this happen?  Presumably, if laws are passed, they should reflect the will of the people in some way.  Are we to believe that fellow citizens really care to regulate the food intake of their neighbours and friends.  Should we care whether or not someone goes for thirds at the buffet table?  In the animal kingdom, they can eat what and when they want to the degree that food is available.  Why shouldn’t those occupying the top of the food chain be able to do the same?

The stated intent of the food police is to prevent people from harming themselves by their own uncontrolled self indulgence.  In addition, the side effect is supposed benefits to the collective health care systems.  I would argue the opposite.  If in fact the products targeted by the food police are as toxic as they claim, it would actually benefit the health care system because early deaths would be less of an encumbrance to everyone else.  And by the way, what exactly is the benefit of thousands of years of evolution if the prescribed diet is flavored cardboard and unsalted granola?  Who wants to live to be a hundred if you can’t even enjoy the simple prurient pleasures of eating what you want?  Ironically, there’s a ongoing push to legalize marijuana coincident with the equally vocal push to demonize food. 

I say someone should initiate an ‘Eat what you want day’, or week, or month.  Gourmets and gourmands of the world should make their voices heard and push back against the tide of food totalitarianism creeping into the State.  Events such as ‘take a Big Mac to lunch Day’ or ‘Bring your daughters to Cheesecake Factory Day’ should be instituted in the calendar.  We can name such a movement, FREE!, which stands for Forget Restraint, Eat Everything!   Sort of a Sadie Hawkins day for food.  And come on, who doesn’t want to be FREE?