Borlaug

More than half the country is overweight or obese, yet one in seven Americans goes to bed hungry at night. According to the FAO, the number of malnourished people worldwide rose to over 1 billion this year. That is roughly 1/6th of the world population. Meanwhile that population is on track to grow to 9 billion by mid-century. The only problem it seems, is where will the food come from?

Now that Norman Borlaug, the Nobel laureate widely known as the father of the Green Revolution has died it may be time to ponder this question. Borlaug's introduction of high-yielding plant varieties, combined with very generous helpings from petro-calories, has been credited with making Mexico a net exporter of wheat in 1963, and doubling yields in Pakistan and India. There is little doubt that the Green Revolution caused the enormous population boom that occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. As a result of that boom, both India's and China's populations passed the 1 billion mark.

Many believe Borlaug saved over a billion people worldwide from starvation. For that reason, and for his contributions to world peace through increasing food supplies, Borlaug received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. One thing Borlaug certainly contributed to was to grow a lot of people.

And a lot of these people are now very fat people who are increasingly unhealthy and unhappy. When it comes to peace, it has now been amply documented that all of Africa's incessant wars, genocides, revolts and carnages are due to resource limitations and climate effects that follow directly from overpopulation.

Sadly enough, world hunger has not declined. Instead the number of hungry people has only grown. Last year millions more were added to list of the starving and millions will be added every year in the foreseeable future.

One can only wonder where the contributions to world hunger and peace lie? To say nothing of the enormous damage done the environment. The rapid population growth has led to a resource depletion of unheard of scope. Nearly every food source on the planet is at, or over capacity. It has been estimated that the world's oceans will be depleted of edible fish species around 2030. Agricultural land is likewise near capacity and only widespread rain forest destruction is staving off the inevitable, Last year's cereal crop was the largest on record. It could barely sustain the present population, let alone an additional 50%.

However, fear not. our white knight Bill Gates is coming to the rescue. Recently he addressed the first United Nations food summit since 2002. Pretty soon all aid workers around the planet who aren't yet using Microsoft OS's will be outfitted with the latest version of Windows 7. Needless to say the fabulous features of Windows 7 will enable great strides in the war on hunger.

If you think that is a silly or overly cynical statement, think again. When is it finally going to dawn on people that modern technology has yet to solve one problem it did not create? And it has created plenty.

Before we go too far off the deep end here, let me remind you that I do not oppose technology. As a matter of fact I love technology. But I also see the limitations of technology. And one key limitation is that too many people believe technology is the solution to all our problems. No doubt, Borlaug believed technology would end world hunger, when all it has done is exacerbate the problem. He probably believed it would lead to peace, when all it has done is promote genocide in Rwanda, and Darfur.

So far, technology has done nothing but accelerate things.

Technology does speed up life, but more than anything, it seems to speed up our demise.