08/07/2004: "The Oil We Eat"

Subtitled: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq

Originally from Harper's Magazine

You might find this funnier if you read it yourself…


This begins innocently enough:

The journalists rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We'll follow the energy.

I love a good conspiracy!

Now, The Good Lord has chosen not to reveal the secrets of the 'extended page' configuration so click on the link or go to Comments to see the rest...

Forgive me.

We then proceed to a rant about how a small proportion of the world controls & consumes the majority of the worlds resources:

"We [the US] have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of it's population" he quotes.

OK, it's true.

Then

More than two thirds of humanity's cut of primary produce results from agriculture, two thirds of which in turn consists of three plants: rice, corn and wheat.

They are to the plant world what a barrel of refined oil is to the hydrocarbon world.

To this end, the rich have domesticated & manipulated these species and also developed agrisystems and even whole economies to cultivate, exploit & subsidise the cultivation & exploitation of Nature's favourite miracles.

Iowa's fields require the energy of 4000 Nagasaki bombs every year.

Particularly apposite considering the time
of year.

OK; got it?

Now it degenerates:

The Basque people are probably the lone remnant descendants of Cro-Magnons, the only trace.

Forget the polsyllabic organics. It is nitrogen … that we should fear most.

More than 45% of that [corn sweeteners] becomes sugar, especially high-fructose corn sweeteners, the keystone ingredient in three quarters of all processed foods, especially soft drinks, the food of Americas poor and working classes. [my emphasis]

A two pound bag of breakfast cereal burns the energy of a half-gallon of gasoline in its making. All together, the food processing industry in the US uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel for every calorie of food energy it produces.

This is the end result of a factory-farm system that appears as a living, continental-scale monument to Rube Goldberg, a black-mass remake of the loaves-and-fishes miracle. Prarie's productivity is lost for grain, grain's productivity is lost in livestock, livestock's protein is lost to human fat - all federally subsidised for about $15 billion a year, two thirds of which goes directly to only two crops, corn and wheat.

I live among elk and have learned to respect them.

… I did not hesitate but went straight to my job, which was to rack a shell and drop one cow elk…

I used a rifle to opt out of an insane system.

Yea!

Again; you might find this funnier if you read it yourself…


lerevdr on Sat 07-Aug-2004 @ 18:16 e.s.t [click here for more SALVATION]
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