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Posts Tagged ‘world food shortage’

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Nicole Hughes:

U.S. Media Ignores Link Between Midwest Floods and Global Warming

Top 10 Houseplants for Removing Indoor Air Pollution

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Andy Kondrat:

Dubai to Build Rotating Positive Energy Tower

Bioethicist Peter Singer Tackles World Food Shortage

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Jon Popham:

Americacorps Workers Assist Flood Ravaged Town

Australians “Out-Fat” Americans

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Giulia Rozzi:

Progressive Book Club

Oprah Recommends “A New Earth”

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Gina Telaroli:

Human Rights Watch 2008 Film Festival Update

SilverDocs 2008 Update


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Awesome.Peter Singer, possibly the world’s most renowned bioethicist (I mean, how many others can you think of?), found himself on NPR’s Marketplace today to discuss this food crisis we’re in the midst of. Dr. Singer starts with a very simple question: “Why are we in the midst of a food crisis when world production of food per person has actually grown steadily since the 1960s?”

There are a few reasons according to Dr. Singer, not least of which is our new forays into ethanol production, which takes 100 million tons of corn off our tables. But it’s the meat people eat that’s really doing it. Dr. Singer breaks it down old skool:

But most corn isn’t eaten by humans; it’s eaten by animals and that’s the biggest part of the problem. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 756 million tons of grain plus most of the world’s soybean crop are fed to animals and that amount has increased sharply in recent years as Asian nations have become more prosperous and their populations have started eating more meat.

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