Category: Energy

Energy – Food: Mass starvation: the price of food

Published on by New Human Touch

"One of the features of famine is that the price of food rises. Ever since there have been food markets, high

food prices have caused protests, and they have been

implicated in numerous riots and upheavals. And, in so far

as political upheavals can in turn lead to conflict and repression,

they increase the risks of famine in a vicious feedback loop.

But the cause of famine is not a shortfall in global food production

with respect to the world’s human population. What this means is that

the food industry should not use fear of global food crisis or famine as a

justification for its production methods and its business models.

Further improvements in agricultural and food technologies are welcome and may

make a modest improvement to protection from famines in so far as they contribute

to lower poverty and better food systems."

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy – Food Mass starvation: the global food crisis

Published on by New Human Touch

"The global food crisis had numerous causes,

including the diversion of agricultural land to biofuels

production, rising prices of fertilizer and oil (energy prices

are a significant supply cost in mechanized cereal production

as well as transport), production falls in some countries,

low food stocks and speculation in the food market.

The volatility of global markets can, through a series of unfortunate

events, suddenly push scores of millions of people into poverty and

raise the risk of famine."

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy – Food: Mass starvation: protocols for a specific prohibition on starvation

Published on by New Human Touch

"The Geneva Convention in 1977 adopted two protocols for a specific prohibition on starvation.

The ban on starvation on the civilian population

contained in Article 54 of the First Additional Protocol

begins as follows:

1 Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

2 It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render

useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population

such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops,

livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works,

for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population

or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians,

to cause them to move away or for any other motive.

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy – Food: Mass starvation: considerations of future are put aside

Published on by New Human Touch

"Extreme hunger displaces all other emotion or thought.

Human beings become focused more and more exclusively

on food and on doing anything necessary to obtain food:

the reduction of human beings to simply biological beings.

Anything other than food, than translating resources into energy

to keep the body alive, is put aside.

Considerations of future are put aside.

The value of food is solely its energy content."

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy – Food: Mass starvation: hunger can be inflicted

Published on by New Human Touch

"It takes about two months for a healthy adult to die of outright or frank starvation.

Deaths from starvation typically have a complex etiology

with different causes, including malnutrition, infection and

exhaustion, combined to kill individuals. Starvation can be

the outcome of seeking to degrade or humiliate a person or persons

with the aim of demonstrating mastery or forcing them to do something

such as abandon their homes. Hunger can be inflicted on people as punishment

because of their identity or because they have refused to surrender.

What forced starvation and genocide have in common is that those in authority 

just didn’t care whether those in their care lived or died. Both are primarily

political projects that consider (some) human lives expendable or worthless."

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy 22 – Food: Mass starvation 00

Published on by New Human Touch

"Famine is a crisis of mass hunger that causes

many people to die over a specific period of time.

Achieving a standard definition of famine, let alone

an operational categorization of different kinds and

severities of food crisis, is extraordinarily complicated.

The necessary elements of famine are hunger, crisis and increased mortality.

It involves hunger and starvation, disruption and disease, and social breakdown.

Famine is a social, economic and political phenomenon as well as a nutritional one.

Famines can occur without a food shortage or without mass outright starvation unto death."

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine

Energy – Yoga: Dear body

Published on by New Human Touch

Yoga teacher says: "Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing to think. Breathe. You are stronger than you think."

Dear body, 

I have been working you out all my life. As a child, we did ballet, rhythm gymnastics, volleyball, and all types of team sports. It was the core of our playground. 

We got absolutely hypnotized by Michael Jordan during our teens, so we consecrated several years to basketball. Despite affecting scholarly marks, it also saved us from drugs. It cost a few wrist and ankle sprains too. 

We used to bike until the day we fell and needed stitches. Then, more than a decade later, a special one brought the love of riding back again, and now it is our means of transport. 

We continued roller skating until the day we went down a road, and our leg's skin was so abrased that we couldn't wear long pants for a couple of weeks. 

We enjoyed playing Sunday's softball matches for a couple of years, but a kick swept us, breaking several of our knee ligaments. Chi kung and swimming provided a miraculous recovery.

We discovered the ectasis of body and mind communion when practicing rock climbing, but it also brought a few sprained fingers. The death of a lovely friend in the rocks stopped us from trying again. 

We continued running throughout our whole life, with more or less consistency. 

Dear body, at some point in between, we started to do yoga—nothing serious and more like an excuse to spend quality time with friends. We tried different styles, teachers, and locations. But, somehow, yoga resonates inside. It keeps the boat afloat throughout the mental tsunamis and the soul's darkest nights. Yoga brings no more traumatic injuries, no more competition, and no more expectations. Just thoughts blowing away when the ceiling fans turn on, and tears transmute into drops of sweat. 

Is yoga the way? 

I do not know. But for us, now, this is the way.

Dear body, I used to think you were a painful, fat, and weak musculoskeletal system. Please, accept my sincere apologies. Despite everything I put you through, you recover from every single lesion. You use the pain to get out those things the mind unconsciously puts in but cannot throw out. You remind me to eat well, rest and sleep. 

There are always two sides to the story, and I did not listen to yours (although you speak clearly and loudly) until the New Human Touch flourished. 

You are my teacher, my temple, my source of energy, and no machine could ever be as magical, mysterious, and complex as you: the human body. 

Please accept my love, and thank you for this lifetime. 

Always yours, 

Energy – Food: right to food

Published on by New Human Touch

Swinburn, B. A., Kraak, V. I., Allender, S., Atkins, V. J., Baker, P. I., Bogard, J. R., Brinsden, H., Calvillo, A., De Schutter, O., Devarajan, R., Ezzati, M., Friel, S., Goenka, S., Hammond, R. A., Hastings, G., Hawkes, C., Herrero, M., Hovmand, P. S., Howden, M., … Dietz, W. H. (2019). The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report. The Lancet, 393(10173), 791–846.

Energy – Food: human health and well being

Published on by New Human Touch

Swinburn, B. A., Kraak, V. I., Allender, S., Atkins, V. J., Baker, P. I., Bogard, J. R., Brinsden, H., Calvillo, A., De Schutter, O., Devarajan, R., Ezzati, M., Friel, S., Goenka, S., Hammond, R. A., Hastings, G., Hawkes, C., Herrero, M., Hovmand, P. S., Howden, M., … Dietz, W. H. (2019). The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report. The Lancet, 393(10173), 791–846.