"The Scarcity Fallacy" by Stephen J. Scanlan, J. Craig Jenkins and Lindsey Peterson
Poverty and hunger are two global issues that have, and hopefully won't always be linked. Today, the world is home to over one billion starving people. The authors state that the idea of scarcity started with Thomas Malthus and his book An Essay on the Principles of Population. Malthus' thesis was that the world's population would continue to grow exponentially and we wouldn't be able to food ourselves. However, he was quite mistaken. Food production has grown much more than the world's population. Even so, the fact remains that there on still over one billion hungry people inhabiting the earth. Why is this? Food scarcity actually doesn't exist; "on a per capita basis, food is more plentiful today than any other time in human history." The problem is that there are so many underdeveloped and impoverished countries in which most of the population can't afford to feed themselves and their families. Studies have shown that ninety six percent of hungry people live in developing countries. These people also spend well over half of their incomes on food, compared to Americans who spend only fifteen to twenty percent. The authors cite a source that said, "the same amount of grain needed to fill an SUV’s 25-gallon gas tank with ethanol could feed a single person for a whole year." The article also notes that "it would cost less than one percent of the current U.S. stimulus package to save a generation around the world from poverty and its consequences, including hunger." However, this is not the only way to solve this problem; much can be done, but not enough action has been taken.
Hunger is an issue that is very widely talked about today, especially with such world crises in the past decade including the hurricanes in New Orleans, and the problems facing Rwanda and Darfur. Some of the stats that the article presents are mind-boggling. One less gallon filled in an SUV can feed a person for entire year. Even if this seems plausible to correct, will it actually happen? All of the developing, impoverished, and hungry countries of the world are too focused on becoming fiscally stable that they are blind to the fact that their people are starving. People in world powerhouses such as the United States have taken notice to this and have acted, but clearly more action must be taken to save the world from this ongoing, and growing problem.
1. If all SUV-drivers in the United States knew about the statistic in the article, would they switch to driving a sedan or a hybrid?
2. There are many things stated in the article that can be done to help the world's hunger problem. Have organizations been implementing these ideas into their actions to help the hungry?
Jordan, to respond to your first question I would say that it's extremely improbable. It's very hard to relate a gallon's worth of fuel in your tank to feeding a person for a year. But as an interesting test i will pose a question to you. You own a Lexus RX 300 which is an SUV and you also have just read the article. Therefore you can be classified as an SUV-driver in the United States who knows about the statistics presented in the article. Would you fill your gas tank up one less gallon at the fuel station? Would you consider switching to a hybrid or sedan because of the statistics you just learned?
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