I attended a joint meeting with the Action for UN Renewal and World Disarmament Campaign national conference, highlighting food security, climate change and prospects for peace.
The conference consisted of 4 speakers, Duncan Green (Head of Research, Oxfam), Prof. Lord M Desai (Economist), Rita Payne (Chair, Commonwealth Journalists Association) and of course the co/chair of Action for UN
Renewal and WDM Vijay Mehta.I was beginning to understand more and more how things interlink in terms of trade, food shortages, development, business practices and economic groundwork. Speakers illustrated how the finance system is manipulated to cover the rich and how much more emphasis needs to be put on climate change by empowering farmers and poor people to fight droughts and prepare for harvest in the worst conditions.
We have superior technology which is not globally shared and there is much research needed to employ technology to make agriculture and harvesting more efficient without back-breaking labouring and dependence on the right climate. Those that depend on farming are the ones suffering from starvation and causing security uproar.
Duncan Green's speech made me think about our food crisis very deeply, considering this is my first insight to the real problems of food shortages and climate change.
"We are entering the age of scarcity", he said, speaking of how high oil prices is bringing up food prices, and the large consumption of meat taking up valuable resources for humans. Another problem is bio fuel (diesel/petrol made from maize, sugar...etc). This is a problem because poor people are losing out on these products as food resources for their own community or potential income. Instead, the techonology of biofuel is being consumed by the rich through other means. Bio fuel is a major competitor to food prices and not entirely a win-win situation at all.
Duncan also touched upon water scarcity and carbon energy.
1/ Rivers being drained, eg. river basin in South Australia running dry
2/ Unequal access to water and access to sanitation (Duncan says sanitation is more important than vaccination)
3/ Water shortage will bring battles in countries (security issue like the fight over the Nile)
4/ In terms of carbon - we have the technology for it but not the politics
5/ To keep global warming low, we need 1ton of carbon per person (one flight per person)
6/ Food prices is not affecting everyone - Tesco's income as gone up by 10%
7/ Carbon should be rationed by price and regulation
We need to decide which route to follow: Darwinism (survival of the fittest) vs Gandhism (cooperator).
I say we need to empower women within the home, to educate and regulate these changes. The more we do as individuals, the quicker we bring about change.
In between the seminar, I had the pleasure to meet Vijay and managed to rouse his suspicion in my interest in political development, and persuaded him to accept me into his UN committee. Very soon, I could become a campaigns researcher for his team.
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