WEBVTT - Ep 191 Famine: More than starvation 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.360 I must admit I write this piece while starving, too 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.440 hungry to think clearly, too weak to sit upright for long. 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.080 I do not feel ashamed, because my starvation is deliberate. 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.720 I refuse my hunger, even as it decays me. I 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.640 can survive no other way. Famine is no longer a threat. 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:18.480 It is here. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.160 Some days, my stomach cramps as I try to revise 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.479 a single paragraph. My fingers feel dry and achy, parched 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.800 from lack of fluids. Hunger is loud. I read, but 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.280 hunger is shouting in my ear. I write, but the 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.519 maw snaps with every keystroke. I wonder how can I 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.000 keep my mind sharp when my body has gone so 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.360 thin and dehydrated. The hunger starts with a rumble, and 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.879 it spreads so quickly my legs barely carry me to 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.199 the nearest internet cafe. There, I try to keep up 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.960 with work and commitments, charge my devices, and catch a 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.920 brief connection to the outside world. But with a heavy 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.840 laptop bag on my shoulder, the journey feels less like 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.840 a short walk and more like crossing a desert. One day, 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.840 in particular, I had been working NonStop, pushing through dizziness 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.520 and exhaustion, By the time I reached the stairs to 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.560 my apartment, my legs were barely holding me up. My 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.759 blood sugar had crashed. I collapsed just as I reached 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.679 my bedroom. I was rushed to the nearest GP, where 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.199 I was given an IVY to stabilize me. The next morning, 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.800 I was back at work, not because I had recovered, 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.400 but because I felt I could not afford to stop. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.240 The urgency to bear witness outweighed the need to rest. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.520 This is not about ego. It's about refusing to disappear, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.280 about resisting the slow erasure that comes with war and famine, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.880 about insisting that our thoughts and our work continue, even 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.040 when it must be done in the ruins in Gaza. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.960 To be an academic today is to refuse to be 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.720 reduced to a statistic. There are days when continuing feels impossible. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:03.080 The body simply gives out. Reading leaves me lightheaded, concentration 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:08.000 slips away, Teaching becomes a battle to remain coherent. The 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:12.360 most basic truth remains difficult to say aloud. We are hungry, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.760 not by accident but by design. When did naming that 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.160 become taboo? This is not just about hunger. It is 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:25.000 about being forced to fight for survival in silence. To 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.160 generate knowledge in the context of hunger is to think 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.080 through pain, To teach students who have not eaten and 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.960 still tell them their voices matter. To insist against all 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:43.120 odds that Gaza still thinks, still questions, still creates. That 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.040 in itself is an act of resistance. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:43.200 It is so horrific what has happened. It's really hard 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.600 to have words. Yeah, I don't have them, Like I 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:52.000 can't articulate everything that yeah, yeah. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.760 That firsthand was excerpted from a really incredible article that 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.000 I encourage everyone to read that was titled too Hungry 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.480 to Think two Week to Sit Upright, Concentration Slips Away, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.680 The Struggle to stay focused as an academic in Gaza 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.400 by Ahmed Kamal Janina, and it was published in The 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.880 Guardian on August nineteenth, twenty twenty five. We'll link it 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.760 in our show notes and on our website as well. 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.440 Hi, I'm erin Welsh and I'm erin Arman Updike and 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.280 this is this podcast will kill you. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.440 Welcome to the second episode in our two part series 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.680 on starvation and famine. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.200 Yes, we're back with part two. This week. We are 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.760 continuing our discussion of starvation, famine, hunger, and malnutrition, words 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.480 that have been used a lot lately in discussions surrounding 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.080 the ongoing genocide and famine that's happening in Gaza, as 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.279 well as the conflict that's raging in Sudan. 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.120 So in these two episodes, we are addressing the distinct 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.000 meanings of each of these words. And we started out 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.560 in last week's episode going through the physiological and psychological 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 impacts of starvation. So if you haven't listened to last 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.120 week episode, it's not entirely necessary for this one, but 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.159 it will help provide a lot of the context for 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.160 understanding the starvation component of famine. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.839 And this week we are discussing famine. You know, it's 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:19.280 definition or definitions, what it means to declare a famine, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.360 what causes famine, how famines have changed throughout history, and 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.960 what is happening currently with the famine in Gaza and 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.640 the food insecurity crises in other regions of the world. 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.240 Yeah, and as with last week's episode, we have quite 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.680 a lot to cover, so we are jumping right in 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:39.560 right after the shortbreak. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.960 As you took us through last week, Aaron, the physiological 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.880 effects of starvation or undernutrition or malnutrition go way beyond 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.000 simply not having enough to eat and enough energy to 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:21.599 function properly. Every single part of our bodies is impacted. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.200 Our immune systems leaving us more vulnerable to infections, our 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:30.080 hormones affecting our reproductive systems, our organs leading to premature 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.599 heart failure, our minds, leaving us foggy and depressed and apathetic. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.720 And just as we can't isolate starvation's impact on one 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.560 part of our physiology and ignore its other effects, we 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.560 can't pretend that mass starvation happens in a vacuum, that 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.479 one day the crops failed and there simply wasn't enough food, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.919 that the cost of famine comes solely down to the 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.800 direct physiological effects of starvation multiplied by the number of 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.040 people impacted. That's not the way that it works. The 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.479 causes and consequences of famines are far more complex than that, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:12.120 and ultimately each famine is unique, deserving of its own 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:17.960 focused examination. But looking back at the vast history of famines, 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.080 which have been with us for all of our species 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.120 time on this earth, we can draw out some general 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.760 patterns to help us understand the present and the possible future. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:33.640 This is an enormous area of scholarship, like absolutely enormous, 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.600 and there are people who have dedicated many people who 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.640 have dedicated decades of their lives to the study of famines. 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.960 And I really struggled with how to approach this episode 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.480 and also like feeling like I can't, like I'm not 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.880 capable of doing this, but you know, I thought you should, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.680 I tell the story of just one famine, should talk 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.840 about famines in history, And ultimately what I decided to 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:04.240 do was to break this down into five chapters definition, causes, consequences, trends, 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.640 and the future of famine. It's an oversimplified attempt at 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.600 trying to understand famine and contextualize what we're seeing. And 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.520 this is far from exhaustive coverage of a massive and 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:20.400 massively important topic. But fortunately there are there's some additional 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.960 reading that I can point you towards. So for this 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.800 episode just wanted to shout out sources in advance. I 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.400 mostly relied on a few books, so the book Mass Starvation, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.880 The History and Future of Famine by famine scholar Alex 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:37.440 de Wall, Famine A Short History by Cormick Ograda, Poverty 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.880 and Famines An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation by Nobel 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.800 Prize winning economist Amartya Sen and Red Famine Stalin's War 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.760 on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum, as well as a handful 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:54.480 of papers. So let's get started, yeah. Chapter one. Definition 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.840 of famine. What is famine and why is it important 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.640 to define it? Famine exists at the extreme end of 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:07.000 a spectrum of food scarcity. Simply put, a population experiencing 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.400 famine is not able to access adequate food, leading to 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.800 an elevated death rate. It is an event, a deviation 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.920 from normal life. Throughout human history, different cultures and languages 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.320 have used many different words to signify a famine. The 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:28.680 ancient Roman orator Cicero used Praisin's caritas to mean present 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:34.319 dearness or dearth and future of fames for future famine 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.000 fames or I'm not sure how you say it is 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.360 where famine comes from its fames and so it's a 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.760 Latin word for hunger or starvation. It's like the word famished. 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.080 For instance, in ancient Egypt, the word for famine is 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.040 combined with is one combined that combines both hunger and plague, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.360 which is I think relevant in the context of how 0:09:55.400 --> 0:10:02.319 infectious disease occurs. Alongside oh, yes, Khalian word for famine, keristia, 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.320 means dearness, so like things that are scarce and expensive 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:11.960 and difficult to obtain. In medieval England, the word dearth 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.000 was used to refer to famine as well as dearness, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.040 and the German word for famine hunger snot and probably 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.920 really butchering that pronunciation. It refers to hunger associated with 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.920 scarcity of food. Some famines have their own specific name. 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.520 There's the holodomor with death by hunger in Ukraine nineteen 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.839 thirty two to nineteen thirty three, the Skull Famine in 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.720 India seventeen ninety to seventeen ninety one, the Great Hunger 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.000 or Black forty seven for the eighteen forty five to 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.520 eighteen fifty two famine in Ireland, Metunia or the Scramble 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.880 in Tanzania nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty. And that's just 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.200 to name a few. Like many, many famines have their 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:58.520 own names. Until very recently, there was no formalized, agreed 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.079 upon definition of famine. People didn't need one to recognize 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.679 it as it was happening. They didn't need to understand 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.920 the physiology of starvation to recognize its effects in themselves, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.680 their children, their neighbors. They didn't need a formal death 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:17.240 toll to grasp the magnitude of devastation. But as we've 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.280 discovered in recent decades, having a standard threshold beyond which 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.560 we can declare famine is crucial for decision making and 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:31.000 delivering aid, especially as humanitarian aid organizations have grown. In 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.120 the early two thousands, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.840 or IPC system was developed for the Food and Agriculture 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.319 Organization of the United Nations, and it consists of five phases, 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.240 so phase going from phase one, which is none or minimal, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.400 and that means that households are able to quote meet 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.120 essential food and non food needs without engaging in atypical 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.600 and unsustainable strategies to access food and income end quote. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:00.640 And I'm not going to read the deaths of each 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.920 of the other phases until phase five. But phase two 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.960 is stressed, Phase three crisis, Phase four emergency, and in 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:14.199 phase five, which is catastrophe slash famine quote, households experience 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.480 an extreme lack of food and or cannot meet other 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:23.800 basic needs even after full employment of coping strategies. Starvation, death, destitution, 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:29.600 and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. For famine classification, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.959 area needs to have extreme critical levels of acute malnutrition 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:39.120 and mortality end quote. So these phases are determined at 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.359 the household level, whereas famine is an area wide classification. 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:48.560 So how many households are experiencing extreme food scarcity? The 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.680 threshold for famine is one in five households or twenty 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.120 percent in a specific area facing a complete lack of 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.240 food and other basic needs. Starvation is evident with more 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.960 than thirty percent of children acutely malnourished, households are destitute, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.040 and death rates exceed two per ten thousand per day 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.520 measured as excess mortality. So it's not just like how 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.400 many people are dying, it's how many people are dying 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.440 above the basisine the average. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.600 I feel like, what is so thank you for walking 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.400 through all of that classification. We will link to those 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:25.800 by the way for people who want to read all 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:32.319 of it. That level, Like that classification is so extreme, yes, 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.760 and I feel like that is like an important thing 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.200 to just highlight, Like we're talking about twenty percent of 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:44.720 households not having any access to food, thirty percent of 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.360 people experiencing severe. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.800 Acute malnutrition like children. Yeah, that's really extreme. 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.160 It is so a lot of places in the world 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.520 currently are in level four, which is emergency, but not famine, 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.400 and like that is also very extreme. 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.920 It's extreme. It's just yeah, like the word, I think 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:08.480 the word famine is not used lightly by these organizations. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.320 This is a very deliberate decision to say this is 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.400 a famine, and there are criteria that that must be met. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.960 And I also want to just make a note here 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:23.440 about excess mortality, because I think there's tends to be 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:28.000 this idea that famine means Frank, starvation, You're death by starvation, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.600 and it's not. Excess mortality includes and I'm quoting from 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.840 Alex D. Wall here, quote anyone who died of any 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:40.359 causes above the baseline. It includes deaths from communicable diseases 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.320 often the single biggest cause of death, exposure and exhaustion, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.720 and in some instances violence as well. Including all of 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.280 the deaths can be justified because famine is not just 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.320 an aggregate of individual cases of starvation. It is a 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:01.000 far reaching social disruption that involves epidemics of an infectious diseases, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.640 movements of desperate people, crime, and an array of other 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.400 social disorders. End quote. Famine is more than starvation on 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.640 a large scale. Yeah, period, way more, way more. The 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.960 IPC classification of famine is very specific and technical, and 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.960 that is by design. It makes no reference to the 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.880 cause of famine. It is politically agnostic, which is really 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:32.280 important when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid. A declaration 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:36.760 of famine as outlined by those clearly defined criteria allows 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:41.080 humanitarian aid protocols to be enacted. It frees up resources 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.200 and funds to deliver aid, and it draws international attention 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.200 and action to the crisis, hopefully before it's too late, 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.480 although if it's if a famine is declared, it already 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.280 is too late for many people, a lot of people. 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.760 The IPC system for declaring famine is crucial for acknowledging 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.080 the need for public action, but it's not really something 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.640 that we can use to identify or describe historical famines, 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.960 which often lack the demographic data to determine something like 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:15.120 excess mortality, like how do the estimated six hundred thousand 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.640 deaths from the nine hundred and sixty seven CE flood 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.480 in Egypt translate into additional mortality. How much of that 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:27.120 is above the baseline for the two nine to two 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.400 oh three BCE famine in China that killed eighty to 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.400 ninety percent of the population, what was that baseline population? 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:35.520 Wow? 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.720 Yeah, we needed just a different approach for studying historical famines. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.160 And in two thousand and four, how and Devereaux proposed 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.960 intensity and magnitude scales for characterizing famine. And the magnitude 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.200 scale is what seems to be the most often used 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.320 for historical famines, and it comes down to like total deaths, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.040 not as a proportion of the population or over a 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.120 set time period. A great famine is one that has 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.960 killed at least one hundred thousand people, and a catastrophic 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.919 or calamitous famine I've seen both used is one that 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:15.680 has killed over one million. Between the years eighteen seventy 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.000 and twenty ten, at least one hundred and sixteen million 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:26.000 people died in over fifty great and catastrophic famines, a 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.920 truly staggering number. One hundred and sixteen million people, jeez, 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.360 and just over you know, in one hundred and forty years. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:39.360 But the vast majority of those one hundred million deaths 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:44.919 happened before nineteen eighty. What changed. I'll get there in 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:52.679 a bit, but first let's talk about the causes of famine. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.800 So Chapter two, Causes of famine. Why do famines happen? 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.719 Food shortage from crop failure, other disruptions in the food supply, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.400 rising food prices, armed conflict, political will, more things, sometimes 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.520 all of the above, a blend of things. I think 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.320 there's often a tendency to think of famine as a 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:30.760 natural force. You know, drought or floods, fire, agricultural pests, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:35.480 fungal epidemics, volcanic ash blotting out the sun, destroying any 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.719 available food and bringing starvation to the land. And historically 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.000 that may have occasionally been the case. There may have 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:47.399 been famines that were caused directly by crop sequential crop failures, 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:52.240 solely crop failures. But today, and I think for centuries, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.239 you could argue famine is exclusively man made, started or 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:04.120 perpetuated by political decision, their mismanagement, or malice, not, as 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.320 Thomas Malthus claimed in seventeen ninety eight, an inevitable outcome 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.640 of uncontrolled population growth, nature correcting itself by bringing down 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:18.200 a population to a more appropriate level. Yeah, Malthus, Yeah, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.359 there's In Alex de Wall's book, he refers to it 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.960 as like the Malthust zombie. I think it's like this idea, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.840 this concept that just won't die, that somehow food will 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.040 be the only limiting factor. It won't be. There will 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.399 be many things before food or contributing and we're not 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.280 even close to that. That's a whole separate discussion anyway. 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:39.880 Should we do a whole episode and how we haven't 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:41.040 reached carrying capacity? 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:47.480 Okay, no, no, no no, but yet you know, governments 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.199 have used Malthus's prediction as an excuse for inaction in 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.919 a number of famines in India. For instance, in the 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.760 Great Irish Famine of the eighteen forties. During that famine, 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.360 that or during all these famines, the English government kind 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.359 of just shrugged and went, well, you know, what do 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.719 you expect leaving millions to die. It was sort of 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.000 this like, well, this is what Mauthas said would happen. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.679 You brought it upon yourselves, upon yourselves. Yeah, nothing we 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:18.040 can do. And in those famines, food was not the 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:23.160 limiting factor. Ireland and oftentimes India was still exporting food 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.679 as forced by England or preventing its delivery in India. 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:32.800 If India wasn't actively exporting, famines do not happen, as 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.480 Mouth is claimed. Our planet is capable of producing enough 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.480 food for the global population. You know, whether climate change 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.560 will play a role and shifting that is a question 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.440 that remains to be seen. It probably will, but we 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.359 are not there yet. We're not there. We're not there yet. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.240 We have not been there historically. We are not there 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.080 currently in the year twenty twenty five. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.879 Which doesn't mean that climate we shouldn't worry about climate change. 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.480 That's under We should, but it's just so many reasons. 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:08.000 It's not Malthus. Yeah, Malthous. Famines happen because people will 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.120 them to. In his book Mass Starvation, de Wall makes 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.440 note of the word to starve and its multiple meanings. 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.560 A person can starve and they can also be starved. 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:24.439 Hunger is a very effective weapon and tool of conquest. 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:30.879 It's deadly, it's demoralizing, it's disruptive. It completely reshapes and 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:38.600 erodes every aspect of your life. Whatever the goal submission, humiliation, suffering, genocide, 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:44.200 many governments have and continue to wield starvation to accomplish 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.520 those goals. Like during many colonial conquests by European governments, 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.080 like the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.680 the early twentieth century, like the Holodomor in nineteen thirty 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.680 two to nineteen thirty three, which was intended by Stalin 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:03.200 to destroy Ukrainian identity and culture, like the Nazis used 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:07.120 repeatedly during World War II, including during the Nazi Hunger Plan, 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.800 which was not enacted fully but intended to kill a 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:16.000 calculated thirty million people, like the US's World War II 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:21.359 Operation Starvation was actually named that where I'm one hundred 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:25.480 percent serious. They dropped mines into Japanese harbors to disrupt 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:31.119 food shipments and it actually intentionally to cut off food supply, 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.600 or during the Vietnam War when they killed all the 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:41.400 crops defoliation with napalm ecoside, like Israeli leaders who use 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.600 hunger as a weapon and prevent aid from being delivered 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.159 During the two thousand and eight to two thousand and 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.880 nine Israeli siege of Gaza. An advisor to the Israeli 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.560 Prime Minister is reported to have said, quote, the idea 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.159 is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.560 to make them die of hunger end quote. I get 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.600 that quote. Yeah again, Outright starvation deaths during famine are rare. 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.800 People are far more likely to die of infectious disease 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:13.800 or other causes, all of which still constitute famine deaths, 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.399 even if the goal isn't outright genocide or submission, and 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.400 a famine begins because of you know, say, harmful government 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.639 policy and subsequent denial or just like crop failings and 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.960 then subsequent denial and inaction in action, yeah right. What 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.879 that reveals is that those in power simply did not 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.960 care enough to do anything. During the nineteen forty three 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.880 Bengal famine that killed two to three million people in 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.359 India oh my gosh, which India at the time was 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.760 still under British control. Britain denied that there was any 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.240 food shortage. They blamed it all on people allegedly hoarding food, 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.840 meanwhile requisitioning food themselves for the war effort. And then 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.840 they refused to provide relief or allow any transport of 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:02.320 food into India because they were worried about it being 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:09.200 intercepted by Axi's forces, or enact any standard famine relief measures. 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:14.479 They didn't do anything. So, according to scholar Lizzie Collingham quote, 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.480 it is difficult to reach any conclusion other than that 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:21.680 racism was the guiding principle which determined where hunger struck 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:28.720 end quote And this famine which the scholar Amartya Sen 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.600 lived through and then inspired him to write some of 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:36.440 his ideas about the economics and the impacts of poverty 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:40.920 and famine. I think this it shows, as he pointed out, 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:45.440 how important it is to ask the question, is there 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:48.320 no food to buy? Or is it that there's no 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:51.440 money to buy food? Or is it that you are 0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:57.719 prevented from buying food? These are very crucial differences. Malthus 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:00.840 would probably say that famines happened when there's no food 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.000 to buy. There's just no food, there's no food. But 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:07.560 in this modern era and likely during Malthus's time, food 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:11.080 is never the limiting factor. It's about access and who 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:15.960 prevents access. There's a classic metaphor to describe the vulnerability 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:18.240 of a peasant throughout history, and it was created by 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.840 Richard Tawny in nineteen sixty six, and it's this metaphor 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:26.440 of a peasant standing up to his neck in water 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:30.200 so that even the slightest ripple can drown him. And 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:33.800 thinking about what causes those ripples or waves and what 0:25:33.920 --> 0:25:36.399 determines the height of the water in the first place, 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.960 I think that can be helpful in thinking about famine. 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:43.720 Maybe a ripple is a bad crop here. Maybe he's 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:48.080 knocked down because of his religious beliefs or just ethnic identity. 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:51.600 Maybe a wave comes in the form of an exorbitant 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:56.200 tax or a case of dysentery. When an entire population 0:25:56.640 --> 0:25:59.200 is up to their necks in water, that can make 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:03.200 them max extremely vulnerable to a famine, and that famine 0:26:03.240 --> 0:26:10.520 can have devastating consequences. Chapter three, Consequences of famine. What 0:26:10.840 --> 0:26:15.400 happens during and after a famine. Like we talked about 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:19.680 last week, starvation profoundly impacts the body and the mind, 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:22.560 making people more vulnerable to a whole host of other 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:27.320 dangers like infectious disease or exposure. And we talked about 0:26:27.359 --> 0:26:31.200 that largely in the context of purely starvation. Your immune 0:26:31.200 --> 0:26:35.359 system weakens, leaving you open to infection, for example. What 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:41.560 famine does is amplify those dangers one thousandfold. So like 0:26:41.640 --> 0:26:45.240 the men in the Minnesota starvation experiment undoubtedly had weakened 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:49.760 immune systems, but they had access to warm water, clean clothes, 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:53.000 medical care, fresh food. They had a safety net that 0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:57.160 simply does not exist in a famine. So let's say, 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:01.200 for example, that a person who's moving in famine conditions 0:27:01.280 --> 0:27:05.919 is exposed to typhus. Typhus ravages their weakened immune system, 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:09.560 and since hot water and clean clothes are out of 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:13.400 the question, the infected lice carrying the Typhus bacterium will 0:27:13.400 --> 0:27:16.639 spread to every member of the household, leaving all of 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:19.080 them too weak to cook with what little food they 0:27:19.080 --> 0:27:21.720 may have. And let's say one person is well enough 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:24.400 to venture out to get food. Maybe they'll be shunned 0:27:24.480 --> 0:27:27.200 out of fear of the disease, or maybe they manage 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:30.600 to get food, but it's spoiled or it barely resembles food, 0:27:30.600 --> 0:27:34.960 it has almost no nutritional content. If they recover from typhus, 0:27:35.119 --> 0:27:40.040 food poisoning or dysentery could deliver the death blow. When 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:45.440 political conflict drives famine, many people are forcibly displaced, and 0:27:45.760 --> 0:27:48.359 camps set up to house them can be hot beds 0:27:48.359 --> 0:27:52.000 of infection. You mentioned crowding and how there tends to 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:55.399 be crowding in famine. That's just like it facilitates the 0:27:55.440 --> 0:28:01.639