Starvation is Good for the Environment

Starvation is a cornucopia of blessings for the environment! Just think about it. By reducing the number of people on the planet, we're reducing our ecological footprint. As people starve, they become less active, using fewer resources. Starving people don't buy gasoline and so they drive less, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. It's all good.

That's why, in the spirit of Mr. Al "There are too many people in the world and I think one of them is you" Gore, we rejoiced at the news that setting fire to food via ethanol production has caused a massive increase in food prices and sparked food riots.

Surging commodity prices have pushed up global food prices 83% in the past three years, according to the World Bank -- putting huge stress on some of the world's poorest nations. Even as the ministers met, Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was resigning after a week in which that tiny country's capital was racked by rioting over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.

Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently has broken out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Ethiopia. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to deter food theft from fields and warehouses. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned in a recent speech that 33 countries are at risk of social upheaval because of rising food prices. Those could include Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana, Uzbekistan and the Philippines. In countries where buying food requires half to three-quarters of a poor person's income, "there is no margin for survival," he said.

That margin for survival belongs to Gaia, baby.

If Mother Earth could talk, she would ask you to starve.