Thread: Starvation.

Early Human life forms, pre-historic hominoids, historic humans, all faced one thing in common. Starvation. Why? Other Life Forms and development more suited and adaptable to existing food sources? Food sources available not suited to the human palate? Couldn't cope with the heat in the kitchen? Ended up being some other Species Dinner for tonight? Incompetent and stupid food gatherers? Starved for two million years before the micro-wave came along. True. westwind.

Incompetent and stupid food gatherers?

You don't need to be stupid to be unable to gather food that's not there because

1) someone else got to the fruit, nuts, roots or berries before you did
2) flood, fire or drought ruined this year's production.
3) insects or other pest animals wiped out the crop

The biggest contributor to starvation apart from these issues before agriculture came along was lack of storage for foodstuffs - and restricted range of foods suitable for long term storage in the first place.

But add in more than one bad season and even people with agriculture starve because of lack of stored, traded or produced food for them in the area where they live, right now, not just in the long distant past.

Millions of people have been coping with starvation for the whole of my life, simply by having experienced the misfortune of being born in a region of depleted resources, the depletion resulting from several causes in most circumstances.

The rapidly changing global weather has the potential to impact negatively our current agricultural and food storage, distribution methods especially if we experience significant loss for several years in succession as adelady points out. I read recently that the U.S. has just experienced it's poorest corn crop in six years and this may be just 'the tip of the iceburg.'

The Balsam Poplar trees in my yard are producing buds, in autumn, which is the first time I have observed such an anomaly. Not sure what effect this shall have on the their overall viability going into winter. Certainly causes me concern about the larger picture....

Dear scheherazade. You are located at the x-roads of our current climate change convolutions. What you see in your immediate area in the next 20 years will tell a story for this Planet that may be very far reaching indeed. All is not lost, not yet anyway. You may end up having Vine Yards and Peach Orchards over your back fence. Me, in South East Australia, might have to buy in a herd of Camels to get round. Guess all this weight I'm carrying around will keep me going for a little while while we develope underground mushroom Farms. westwind.

I'm of the opinion that I am fairly fortunate in my geographical placement, at least thus far, and if vineyards and peach orchards come to pass, that would be an interesting benefit, although I expect this may come after I have vacated the premises, lol. My horses could come in handy for transportation, and Morgan mares produce a goodly amount of milk while being able to forage on a wide variety of plant species that grow native here.

The horse has played a large part in our own distribution and diversification until supplanted by the internal combustion engine. There's nothing to say that they may not still have a role to play in the future as they require considerably less infrastructure than do their mechanical replacements.

Interesting to me that we still measure engine output in terms of 'horsepower'.

horsepower

noun (Concise Encyclopedia)
Common unit of power, the rate at which work is done. In the English system, one horsepower equals 33,000 foot-pounds of work per minute—that is, the power necessary to lift a total of 33,000 lbs a distance of one foot in one minute. This value was adopted by James Watt in the late 18th century after experiments with strong dray horses and is actually about 50% more than the rate an average horse can sustain for a working day. The electrical equivalent of one horsepower is 746 watts in the International System of Units; the heat equivalent is 2,545 BTU per hour. The metric horsepower (see metric system) equals 4,500 kg-m per minute (32,549 foot-pounds per minute), or 0.9863 horsepower.

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Millions of people have been coping with starvation for the whole of my life, simply by having experienced the misfortune of being born in a region of depleted resources, the depletion resulting from several causes in most circumstances.

I wish we'd quit looking at it as a "misfortune" and ask ourselves what sane individual living in such a place would think it was a good idea to bring an innocent baby into the world there. Couldn't they just either choose a better place, or just die childless?

Maybe that's an excessive amount of nobility to expect from people. I think it's a credit to Russia that its population is in decline. With all the difficulties and turmoil people endure there, maybe they have actually arrived at the conclusion I'm suggesting, and decided to spare the next generation the horror?

I like the part in Forest Gump, where Jenny tells him she had a son with him and he's just terrified the kid will be dumb like him. It shows a deep seated goodness that the character would worry about that instead of just letting his vanity take over and demand/expect/insist he needs to reproduce. I wish other people in bad circumstances were so good hearted as to think about things that way.

shades of Thomas Robert Malthus wafting o'er my mind.

Why? Other Life Forms and development more suited and adaptable to existing food sources?

Most other species has the same problem...whether they be an aged cougar, or yeast trapped in a bottle of wine.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Why? Other Life Forms and development more suited and adaptable to existing food sources?

Most other species has the same problem...whether they be an aged cougar, or yeast trapped in a bottle of wine.

For Lynx Fox. After Breakfast if I stroll past The Bakers shop and see a lovely fresh baked Loaf, I've got to have a Bakery. Strolling on, passing the Butchers, a nd seeing a nice steak, Rump Steak, then I've got to have a Bull, Steer etc. Seeing a lovely bunch of Grapes, I've got to have a Vineyard. And so on.

These feelings come from my brain . Memory. Get plenty of food in, there's going to be starvation.

I don't eat like a dog. But try to take something off my plate while I'm eating.....

And yet I've had plenty of food for over 60 years.

My re-action to food loss or shortage is unreasonable.. It just goes to show what has priority in the Brain Function, Starve a few times when young--the gut feeling is imprinted and lasts forever.

Could this be true for other Life experiences?

A little boy seeing his Father and Uncles involved in physically defending their home or town.. Is that imprinted? He will readily take up arms when older?

I think a lot of how we re-act to situations comes from our memory. Or Instinct. Lessons from the Past? westwind.

I don't know where this is going but "I think a lot of how we re-act to situations comes from our memory. Or Instinct. Lessons from the Past? westwind."
Absolutely we remember, just like the dog who having started a chase of my younger self on a bicycle, never forgot running more than ten miles as I coaxed him along, until I left him behind--he never chased my bike ever again (nor any other) and instead headed whimpering toward his house. All intelligent beings seem hardwired to remember bad experiences--starvation, the athetic coach who abused us, the entire bucket of ice cream (or red berries) that made us sick, closing a door on one's hand, giving chase until exhaustion--part of our survival programming.