The Third World
It's somewhat frightening to read that the Millenium Development Goals will take another 150 years to reach if the current trend continues. I've been sitting reading about poverty, development and hunger for a presentation on the Third World. Just the term is fascinating and a brilliant example of how the Western World sets the standard and sees themselves as the role model for everyone else. The second world is gone though, those countries have now fallen into either the first or the third world. Development wise, mostly the third world.
"People are more likely to experience hunger if they are disable rather than able-bodied, black rather than white, a child rather than an adult, poor rather than wealthy, a rural dweller rather than a town dweller, and an inhabitant of a developing country rather than a developed country."
Seem like such obvious statements. Horrible and scary statements, but obvious. So then the question is, why is it so hard to do something about it? One theory about hunger in the world is called the orthodox, nature focused explanation. When I read about this I was at some places horrified with what they were saying. They believe that the problem of hunger is highly related to human overpopulation. And that it is only with a large disaster of some kind that this can be dealt with, like starvation for instance. Since this will result in large amounts of deaths and thus the population will be adjusted to the food resources available. When I read this I remembered something I studied in geography during my IGCSE's. The corelation between the populatin of lynx and hares, if I remember correctly. It was that as the population of lynx increases the amounts of hares will be reduced since more of them are needed to feed the lynx. As a result of the decreasing population of hares, lynx will find it hard to find food and thus some will starve and the population will decrease. As a result the hare population will increase again. And so it goes. Circle of life I guess. But it is frightening to think of this as the situation for human beings. Especially in a world where it has been proven that there are sufficient food supplies to feed the world population. The problem is not that of too little food. It's that of lack of distribution. And while the developing countries are being encouraged by the developed to open up their markets for free trade they themselves close their own markets and protects them through subsidies and other methods. It is very frustrating to live in a world where the developed world ALWAYS adapt double standards. ALWAYS.
It's just a matter of acting. Putting in a little bit of an effort. A bit of thinking. But are we willing to do that? No. Because we're lazy, and we care about us more than them.
It's an uneven world we live in. And it becomes worse when people won't even acknowledge that.
"People are more likely to experience hunger if they are disable rather than able-bodied, black rather than white, a child rather than an adult, poor rather than wealthy, a rural dweller rather than a town dweller, and an inhabitant of a developing country rather than a developed country."
Seem like such obvious statements. Horrible and scary statements, but obvious. So then the question is, why is it so hard to do something about it? One theory about hunger in the world is called the orthodox, nature focused explanation. When I read about this I was at some places horrified with what they were saying. They believe that the problem of hunger is highly related to human overpopulation. And that it is only with a large disaster of some kind that this can be dealt with, like starvation for instance. Since this will result in large amounts of deaths and thus the population will be adjusted to the food resources available. When I read this I remembered something I studied in geography during my IGCSE's. The corelation between the populatin of lynx and hares, if I remember correctly. It was that as the population of lynx increases the amounts of hares will be reduced since more of them are needed to feed the lynx. As a result of the decreasing population of hares, lynx will find it hard to find food and thus some will starve and the population will decrease. As a result the hare population will increase again. And so it goes. Circle of life I guess. But it is frightening to think of this as the situation for human beings. Especially in a world where it has been proven that there are sufficient food supplies to feed the world population. The problem is not that of too little food. It's that of lack of distribution. And while the developing countries are being encouraged by the developed to open up their markets for free trade they themselves close their own markets and protects them through subsidies and other methods. It is very frustrating to live in a world where the developed world ALWAYS adapt double standards. ALWAYS.
It's just a matter of acting. Putting in a little bit of an effort. A bit of thinking. But are we willing to do that? No. Because we're lazy, and we care about us more than them.
It's an uneven world we live in. And it becomes worse when people won't even acknowledge that.
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