Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Climate Change and Environmental Issues Billions face food shortages, study warns

That's a very flexible pronoun - "our". Who is "us" anyway?

In America, as you point out, obesity has become the number one health problem. And yet, one out of eight children in America goes to bed hungry each night. Are "we" those whose health is failing because we are so fat? Or are "we" those whose children are going to bed hungry? Is the hunger of one-eighth of America's children any less of a problem because of the obesity of others? Or is it, perhaps, more of a problem, because of the sheer irony of the tragedy in the face of such excess?

The world has advanced in so many ways: we live longer, travel faster, communicate more widely, kill more efficiently . . . and per-acre food production (again, as you have pointed out) is at an all-time high. And yet one out of twelve people on the planet is malnourished. Are we "them"? Are they "us"? Or are they perhaps some other race of creatures, bound on other journeys?

It would cost about $13 Billion annually to address the basic needs of these, what I consider to be, fellow beings. Do you consider them to be fellow beings? If you had a dozen grandchildren, and one of them were starving, would you dismiss that child's suffering because the other eleven were prosperous?

$13 Billion annually. That's about how much Westerners spend each year on perfume. Yes, it may be true that starvation, per capita, is at its lowest point in the history of humanity. But to some of "us", that doesn't make it not a problem.