WEBVTT - How Famines Work 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:05.000 So hey, let's talk about this cool new podcasting push 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.719 called tripod hashtag tripod. There's this really cool thing going 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.159 on right now the podcasting industry, which is one thing 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.840 I love about the podcasting industry is that we all 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.439 like try to support one another. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.639 Like what's good for us is good for other shows. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.239 It's like, uh, all boats ride with the rides with 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.760 the tide or something. That's right. So there's this new 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.800 push going on. It's this cool program called tripod t 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:35.080 r y pod as in try a pod, right, get it? Yeah? 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.400 And the whole basis of this is that we podcasters 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.839 are asking you podcast listeners to go tell a friend 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.440 to go try podcast not necessarily ours. I mean, if 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.479 you want to recommend stuff, you should know, we're always 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.240 fine with that. But even if it's some other one 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.520 that um that you like or love even more, just 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.560 turned a friend onto podcasting is basically the whole point. Yeah, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.160 I mean you're probably gonna hear this on a lot 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.880 of podcasts. And the the whole deal is, even though 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.840 podcasting has come a long way since we've started, it's 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.120 still sort of a baby of a medium. Yeah, half 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.399 of a half of a percent is what we always 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.520 say in the podcasting industry. But a lot of people 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.400 still don't even know what podcasts are. So, uh, get 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.760 out there, tell a family member, tell a friend what 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.200 podcasts are. Recommend when you like, tell them how to 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.480 get it. Uh, you know, just go out in your 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.800 backyard and put your ear to the sky until you 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:29.920 hear a podcast. Yeah, that's a big one too, because 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.040 a lot of people are like, Okay, sure I've heard 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.640 a podcast, I have no idea where to start. Yeah, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.200 so recommend a good way to listen, maybe how you listen. 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.199 And we really appreciate it, Like the whole industry appreciates 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.440 you spreading the word. That's how we grow and that's 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.520 how we've grown on behalf of the entire podcasting industry. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:52.400 Thank you. Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House 0:01:52.400 --> 0:02:01.120 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.280 on Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.280 did jeer stir that should we say what just happened here? 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:16.880 Or focus like, oh, what is this? Probably twenty something 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.600 thirty something episodes, Let's get up there and for the 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.240 first time ever, right before we went go, Jerry said, focus, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.720 what does that mean? Usually she goes, huh what I 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.480 don't get It is just me so bothering you guys, right, exactly, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:38.480 the smell that's so Jerry. Focus Alright. I feel pressure now, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.040 yeah I do. I'm a little off now, Jerry. So yeah, 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.280 that worked. All right, let's concentrate. All right. So we're 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:51.520 talking Chuck about use your eye okay, yeah, I got 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.880 something large in it. We're talking about famine today, yes, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:03:00.800 which goes with our super sad uh horrific geo political 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.240 catastrophe sweets. Yeah, this probably will not be chock full 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.000 of humor. No, I try to think of a way 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.040 to insert some jokes. There's not unless we go on 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.799 a tangent. Do you remember the eighties stand up comedians, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.960 like they would make just the worst jokes that just 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.160 would not fly, Like they get chased off stage by 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.840 people with like like just the jokes they would make 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.960 aids jokes and and famine jokes. Yea, yeah, he's just 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.120 like the material they would make jokes about, and they 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.040 like they weren't even remotely funny, you know, it was 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.120 not not nuance or smarts or anything. Yeah, I think 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.240 as Sam Kennison made like starving Ethiopian kid jokes, give 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.600 him a sandwich, cameraman, wouldn't him? Was that him? I 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.160 think so, like just people can't do that today. It's 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.280 a different world. So yeah, there probably won't be any 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.440 jokes in this one. Uh, what there will be is 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.960 tons of information and hopefully everybody who will understand famines 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.400 after this can come together and prevent them for the 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.120 rest of eternity, unless climate change gets that says we'll 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.520 see at the end. Yes, I just spoiled it though, 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.320 didn't I. I'm glad you said that was relevant. Yeah, 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.880 so everybody has a pretty good idea of what famine is. 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.280 It's when you run out of food and a bunch 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.239 of people start dying. That's actually pretty close to the 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:30.280 real definition. But there's this guy who's a scholar of famine. 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.680 His name is Cormac o Grata and he um has 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.120 written several books on famines and studied famines and he's 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.960 a pretty sharp tack. So people kind of looked at 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.880 him to say, what's the actual definition of a famine 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.640 and he says in his best Irish accent, Uh, it's 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.599 a lot like malnutrition. But it's a lot worse. There's 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.280 a lot more crisis, there's a lot more death. YEA. Specifically, 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.760 he says, it's a shortage of food or purchasing power 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:03.640 that leads directly to excess mortality from starvation or hunger 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:10.120 induced diseases. And um, that's an important addition because it's 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:15.320 not just hunger starvation related, but all the disease that 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.400 comes along with that that can kill people very much 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.080 more easily because you're so under nourished. Right, And we'll 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.080 find out too, it's a It forms a bit of 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.719 a vicious cycle because people start to get hungry and 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.400 start to starve and start to suffer from disease. They 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.480 have an even harder time, say, working in field produce crops, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:37.839 and so the whole thing just keeps getting worse and 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.520 worse and worse. Once it passes um breaking point, it 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.240 really starts to spiral out of control. Yeah, it's a 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:52.160 it's a three pronged terror of poverty, hunger, and disease, 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.720 all contributing to one another. Right. So, Cormeco grads definition 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.960 of a famine is a daily death rate um of 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:07.320 above one per ten thousand people. Is that ten thousand? Yeah, alright, 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.320 I had a period and not a comma. That's uh, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.800 that's European and I didn't, is it. It's gotta be 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.680 because that didn't. That's like point zero zero zero one 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.000 percent of the population per day, is that right? Yeah? 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.159 I think that is ten thousand, because just off the 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.000 top of my head, like the normal American death rate 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.440 is like eight hundred and twenty three per one hundred 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.640 thousand people, So that is significantly more daily death rate. 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.320 That's the first characteristic. Yeah. Number two is the proportion 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:47.600 of wasted children is above and wasted means there there 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.480 muscle masses withering away due to starvation. Yeah. Technically it 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.440 means they weigh too standard deviations or more below average. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.200 And just that term itself is like the most heartbreaking 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.760 thing you can wasted children. Yeah, in any sense, that's 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:04.800 not a good thing, because especially when it has to 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.120 do with famine. Uh. And then finally, the prevalence of 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.920 what's called quash or core, which is um it's basically 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:18.080 an extreme malnutrition due to protein deficiency. Yeah, and those 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.680 pictures everybody who grew up in the eighties and saw 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.640 the pictures of the starving children in Africa that were 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.240 just little skin and bone kids, but they had these 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:33.600 huge bloated pot bellies. That's a classic hallmark of quash core. Yeah, 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.640 very sad. Yeah uh. And then he went on to 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.240 qualify further with severe famine that means a daily death 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.800 rate above five out of ten thousand, uh, proportion of 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:49.080 wasted children above and then that same quash or core prevalence. Right, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.520 So if quash your core is around, you got a 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.000 famine on your hands. That's not a normal thing that 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:58.800 happens in a normal food secure population. Yeah. And that's 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:04.200 that's the main distinguishing factor between famine and just what 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.080 you would consider malnutrition. And this is all tied into 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.440 what we call food security, right, and we we we 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.480 talked about food security before, I think maybe in desertification 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:17.560 or something like that. Yeah, I know we have at 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.559 some point, but we talked a lot about the food 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.679 the green Revolution to which factors in but um, food 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.280 security is that means you have you have food available, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.720 you can get to that food or that food can 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.840 get to you readily, and you can use that food 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.360 to meet your health needs. You can leverage it to 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.679 make your population healthy. Yeah, Like if it's if your 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.560 entire countries food supply is twinkies. You do not have 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.760 food security. There's an abundance of it. People can get 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.080 to it very easily. It's probably affordable for everybody, but 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.839 it's not nutritious. Or if your country has nothing but 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.199 like the finest fruits and vegetables and proteins, but only 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.880 the very wealthy have access to it because it's too expensive, well, 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.520 you don't have food security. So, according to the u N, 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.320 if you have food security in a nation, all people 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:13.000 at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:17.120 and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and get 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.560 this food preferences for an active and healthy life. Yeah, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.520 which I mean we'll talk about Ethiopia some later, but 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.560 at one point the goal was, which they you know, 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.120 never met, was that not only would they have food 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.640 one day readily available, but be able to choose what 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:35.800 they wanted to eat. Like there's something you don't think about. 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.120 You really take that for granted here in the United 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.800 States and elsewhere. Um, it's not just having food, but like, 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:46.240 oh I might like to eat this or that. You know, uh, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:48.360 all right, so a lot of things can affect this 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.480 food security. UM. And We're gonna talk about all these 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:53.640 as throughout the show as they relate to famine. But 0:09:54.080 --> 0:10:00.199 obviously you think of natural disasters first, and probably drought first. Yeah, 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.240 that's a that's a big one. If you don't have 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.720 water and rain, you can't grow crops, usually uh, crop blight, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.760 which we'll talk a little bit about the potato famine 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:16.080 in Ireland later on. Um, but any kind of disease pest, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.839 even like over abundance of weeds, could conceivably ruin a 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:25.120 crop flooding, extraordinarily cold weather, extraordinarily hot weather, we'll just 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.360 say weather patterns in general, Yes, severe weather. And then 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.839 a big one which a lot of people, a lot 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.439 of people I think, mainly think of natural disasters or 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:39.960 natural factors, and political conflict is one of the big, big, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.400 big contributors. So here's this is what we're coming to 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.840 though eventually, is there's a big debate on what causes famine. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.880 And for many, many years everyone said, well, don't be dump, 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:57.680 droughts caused famine, right, But studies, much more recent studies 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.520 have found that actually, if you kind of peek behind 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.760 the curtain a little bit, yeah, there was a drought 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.400 and it started the famine, But what actually caused the 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.480 famine or caused it to be horrible is usually government, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:15.480 either government that has bungled something or um just is 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.679 it moved to actually care to do anything to alleviate 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:20.959 the famine. As we'll see. Yeah, what I gathered from 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:27.480 reading this was most famine throughout all of history has 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.959 been caused by natural factors, but modern famine, like from 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:37.680 the nineteenth century on, has largely been that plus government factors. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.800 Does that sound about right? I think the very presence 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:50.440 of famine in the globalized era is just because of 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.320 governments screwing things up. Yes, because there is enough food 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.120 defeat everyone at this point, right, and enough of a 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.959 trade supply lines and government aid agency NGOs who are 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.439 working to get that food to those people, and prices 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.480 that a lot of times there's people standing in their way. Yes. 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.280 Another big It can be sort of a domino effect too. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.079 So when you have food security in one place start 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:20.079 to crumble or wayne, uh, then you have another country nearby, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:25.880 maybe it may start stockpiling for themselves, uh, fewer exports 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.960 and protecting their own population, and then that drives up 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.600 process prices for people that were depending on importing that 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.880 food and it just starts this big vicious cycle, right exactly. Um, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.199 back in two eight there were food riots in Bangladesh 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.000 and Haiti and Egypt. Do you remember that because of rice? Right? 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.800 It was because of rice. But the global food price 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.240 head like when they look at food prices, they look 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.719 at baskets of foods around the world, UM, put them 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.800 together and say this is how much food costs these days. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.319 It rose between two thousand two and two thousand eight. 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.080 Food prices rose a hundred globally, and a lot of 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.679 people got priced out of the market. And when they 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:13.120 looked at what happened, apparently that price increase was due 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:18.120 to using food for biofuels, like using crops that normally 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.400 would have gone to food, we're being used to create 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.960 energy like biofuels, right, And so that drove grain prices 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.480 up through the roof because speculators got involved and food 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:34.000 was being diverted from the food supply into the energy supply, 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.640 and then crop land was being increasingly diverted to produce 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.560 the stuff for the energy supply as well. And it 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.600 had a huge effect that just drove food prices up 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.560 around the world. One of the big problems that can 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.520 contribute to famines. As we'll see in a lot of famines, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:57.040 there are people still producing food for export because they 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.800 can't afford it. But their country starving to death. But 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.760 they can't afford it because they don't have the money. 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.120 So ts but the rest of us, you have the money, 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:12.120 so keep growing that food. Yeah, it's pretty devastating effect. Uh. 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.760 And it's obviously most devastating for um. And you always 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.760 hear about this, the two groups, the elderly and the young. UM. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.000 I don't know about the total number of children, but 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.480 the stat that I have from the u N, the 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:29.320 most recent STATA have, is that twenty one thousand children 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:36.040 die of hunger every day day yep, every four seconds. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.200 Oh it's awful. Yeah, it's sobering to say the least. 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.240 So uh, you know what happens is, especially if you're 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.360 young or you're old. Uh, that disease sets in and 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.200 little kids and old people can't fight it like um, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.600 you know the parents can. And then you know the 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.360 parents are in bad shape too. Well, it's not like 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.640 anyone's doing great. When you're malnourished, your immune system starts 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.320 to dig cline and when your immune system starts to decline, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:07.120 that's the disease comes in, especially if um, a group 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:12.040 starts to migrate in search of food, because then you 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.600 could be living in um unsanitary conditions and everybody has 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.720 lower immune systems and you're basically in a herd. Now 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.000 moving like moving to a different place to get food, 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.000 and so a disease can just rip through a population. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.360 Well yeah, and and uh that's article points out that 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.400 refugees are not often resettled in, you know, the most 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:38.000 hospitable areas either, so uh, moving doesn't necessarily help the 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.360 cause in a lot of cases. Um, all right, let's 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.240 take a break and we're gonna come back and talk 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.040 a little bit about some of the more noteworthy famines 0:15:48.080 --> 0:16:20.800 throughout history. All right, So I said, we're gonna talk 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:27.760 about historical famines. I lied, that's coming later. Is that 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.440 all right? Yeah? That's fine, all right, So we're gonna talk. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.880 He sent this great article, Um, what was the name 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.240 of it? The History of Humanity is a history of hunger. 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.560 It was written by a guy named Mark Joseph Stern 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.600 on Slate. This is a good one. Yeah. Yeah, he's 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.680 basically ringing the bell. He's saying Hey guys, Uh, there 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:49.480 seems to be this movement towards looking at famines as 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:55.120 the result of dictatorships, which we'll get into super interesting. Um, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.160 but let's not forget something else, and it's a little 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.520 something called global climate change, because I think from Stearns perspective, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.440 and he doesn't put this explicitly, but he basically says, yes, 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.320 dictatorships can have this effect and have had this effect. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:16.119 That's proven. But really, honestly, that's fairly localized from a 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:21.159 globalized perspective. Right, even if it just happens in China, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.000 that's still technically local as far as the globe is concerned. 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.280 And that means that there's other people around the globe 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.879 that can help the people in China or Ethiopia or 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.640 Ireland or wherever a famine happens. Again, so we've got 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.679 stuff in place, but if the entire global food supply 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.439 starts to become threatened by climate change, then we're all toast. 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.360 I think is ultimately the message of what he's saying. Yeah, 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.399 and he he was kind of saying like he kind 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.600 of set up really well throughout history and then said, 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.000 but nowadays, you know, things have never been better there's 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.520 more food than ever. Supply chain is more robust, so 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:57.760 like we shouldn't have anything to worry about, right, like 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.240 on a global scale. And that's when he said, you know, 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:02.320 you might want to look at some of these studies 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.000 and uh, one of them, there was a report from 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:09.240 the U N inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change and 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.960 they said that rising temperatures around the globe are cutting 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.359 into global food supply. Um. I think to the point 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.720 now where if it continues at current levels, there could 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.720 be a two cut in crop harvests each decade moving forward. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:26.959 And it might not sound like a lot two percent 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.359 a decade though, but when you couple that with a 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:34.000 rising population, that's a problem. Um. Especially like in the 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:35.840 short term, you might think, oh, well, you can grow 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.320 more food more places if if it's warmer, if things 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:43.080 are melting, Yeah, and certainly more CEO two will increase 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.920 yields in the short term, but um, in the long term, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.240 warming trends will make crops wilt, especially near the tropics. 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 I saw one step that said a three percent I'm sorry, 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.320 a three degree celsius increase in temperature at the tropics 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:04.320 could uh cut on crops. So it's you know, it's 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.240 a real threat. Yeah. Well, even without a massive temperature 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.000 change like that, are an increase in CEO to One 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.280 of the trademarks of UM climate change is severe weather, 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.360 which we're seeing more and more. It seems too much rain. 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:22.040 Severe weather is not enough. Yeah yeah, or either one 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.280 over like a couple of year period you're not going 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.320 to be able to grow crops, or you're growing season 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.840 is going to be shortened, or the whole crop will 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.040 just be wiped out right there at the end, who 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.040 knows well. And then the other thing you need to 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.400 think about, which he points out, is what we can 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.440 invent our way out of this, like technology will take 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.640 care of it always. And the study from NASA there's 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.520 a more dire wind from NASA than even the U 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.240 n one UM that basically says we're screwed UM And 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.520 the NASA one says technological change tends to raise both 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.159 per capital resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.520 basically meaning it's just it's sort of a net net, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.360 like we can't invent our way out of it, Like 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.000 it's net net up to the point where we run 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.919 out of resources and then we're toasts. So there is 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.520 a big threat from climate change. But what Stern's saying 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.000 is actually kind of retro to tell you the truth, 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:24.399 because up until the last couple of decades, everybody looked 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:31.479 at famine as strictly a a natural disaster, and it 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.959 it started to become increasingly apparent of what kind of 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.920 a man made disaster famine can be, especially when people 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.200 started to look at China's Great Famine back as part 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:49.720 of Mao's cultural revolution. So Chuck China I didn't really 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.080 realize this. I don't think I didn't know a lot 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.280 about it either. There is there's a something called when 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.560 Mao took over, when the Communists took over China UM. 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:01.800 One of the things that Mao set his sights on 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:06.480 Chairman Mao Mousley doing was that he wanted to show 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:10.000 the West just how great communism was, the same dream 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.399 of Stalin Um. But he also wanted to be the 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.840 top guy in the communist world too, so he was 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.159 very ambitious and one of the ways to do that 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.440 was one of the same path that Stalin had followed, 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:27.160 which was what We've got a lot of agriculture here, 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:32.760 Let's use our agriculture to fund and finance industrialization. We're 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.760 gonna shock the system. We're gonna take these old agrarian 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.000 backwards ways, we're gonna put him together in this great 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.200 communist way, and we're gonna squeeze as much productivity out 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.359 of them as we can. We're gonna funnel that money 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:48.920 into the workers in the cities. We're gonna make China 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:51.600 the glorious leader of the world, and we're gonna catch 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.240 up to productivity, uh, to the productivity of the UK 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:59.359 or the US within ten years, five years, which is insane. 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.280 It's called the Great Leap Forward. Uh. And it was 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.600 a five year plan, which you're right it was. It 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:07.520 was I mean to call it ambitious, it was. What 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.800 it was was a disaster in the making. Because what 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:14.520 happened was, especially when you live under someone like mouse Tongue, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.480 you're gonna have people that are afraid to tell the 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.560 truth about what's going on. So what happened from the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.760 very beginning is officials, either driven by fear or just 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.320 because they were so caught up in the movement, started 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.919 um exaggerating reports of crop success, like they were literally 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.000 reporting like three to five times what they were really 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.679 bringing in with their crops. Uh. And then the authorities 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.680 came along and basically took those crops to the urban centers, 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.120 killed off anyone who had any opposition to this. Well, 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:49.199 I think they will also kill off locally to like 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.520 if we were gonna say no, this guy's lying about 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.080 crop yields, but the local people would would take care 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.080 of you. Yeah, you just disappear. Uh. And so what 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.800 happened in this is an actual quote, um mouse tongue said, 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.480 to distribute resources evenly will only ruin the great leap forward. 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.440 When there's not enough to eat, people starved to death. 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:10.680 It is better to let half the people die so 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.200 that the others can eat their fill. So there you 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.360 have it, right. It was very clearly a man made famine, 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.879 like they were aware of it, um. And you you wonder, 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.720 like why were they coming to grab the grain? Well, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.320 grain had turned from something that people produced locally for 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:31.720 basically local consumption, into a national commodity that was used 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:34.600 to feed these workers and then to sell on the 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:39.840 global market to finance the glorious revolution. Right, So when 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:42.680 grain was turned into a commodity and people were given 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.439 quotas to meet, if you wanted to get ahead, you 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.000 could just say, oh, we had this great great yield 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:51.000 this this year, so we've got all this green. And 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.960 there were cases where the Chinese government would come and 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:58.800 requisition more grain than the the than they had then 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:02.080 they'd even grown that based on these false reports. Right, 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.520 So people started to starve. Clearly, Mao had no problem 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:07.359 with it because it was the people out in the 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:10.520 and it was the farmers, not the workers, who were starving. 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:15.760 And in three years, the lowest number anyone's willing to 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:18.600 say of the total number of people who died in 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:22.920 three years from this famine is fifteen million people. Yeah, 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:27.480 that's the lowest. That's what the Chinese government itself officially says. Yeah, 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:31.000 I've seen numbers. I've seen a total population loss and 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:34.640 that means thirty five million deaths and forty million people 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:38.600 that weren't born because of all this, So total population 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:43.520 loss of seventy five million um. And it's still apparently, 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:46.840 like I looked into it today, it's very taboo to 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:49.240 even talk about it today in China, and they don't 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:51.920 they don't even call it a famine. They call it, uh, 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.080 three years of natural disaster or three years of difficulties. 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:58.760