One more thing about Syria

Actually, Syria is just a departure point here, and I am going to be linking to articles, but my own writing will be short today, and these are good articles.

Granted, there is a long and complex background to the violence in Syria, both for things that happened within the country and external influences, but there is something that has made the situation much worse:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/10/drought-helped-caused-syrias-war-will-climate-change-bring-more-like-it/

Yes, drought was a factor in leading to displaced persons, which never really increases stability. Now, while climate change appears to be a factor, mismanagement of resources was also a factor, but remember, mismanagement of resources is pretty common. Let us also consider that part of the article is security forces looking ahead to how this might affect other parts of the world, and then check out this article:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/we-are-now-one-year-and-counting-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say--2?

Yes, food shortages can lead to people having not much energy, which makes rioting harder, but before that you get to them being irritable, scared, and less able to weigh consequences and alternative strategies, because it is hard to maintain concentration when you are hungry. These will include people not just hungry on their own, but desperate to feed their families.

That's a global thing of course, but what about the United States, where we have such an abundance of food that we worry more about obesity than hunger?

Well, actually, we should worry about hunger, because there is already more of that than you would expect, and hunger and obesity are not mutually exclusive. There are ways in which recurring hunger will contribute to obesity.

Anyway, that's an interesting thought. We seem so modern and advanced for food riots, but there are a lot of problems with the system. The Farm Bill stems from the great depression, and its purpose was not only to help farmers, but to make sure that there was always an adequate food supply. It doesn't work very well now, because corporate interests have turned that into something where you have fields full of crops that can't be eaten without tons of processing, and where most of the benefits are going to corporations, not family farms.

(See the movie King Corn for more on this.)

Part of the Farm Bill is also the SNAP program, with food stamps, and that relates to hunger too, and it could relate to riots. We'll spend more time on that tomorrow.