Population

But don't you find it frustrating that if we used our pooled knowledge and finances we could do so much? Someone splits the atom and we use it to kill people etc. I wish I could look at things from the glass half full perspective.

Most people are not evil or wicked, but in general they find it difficult to see the bigger picture. Their instinct is to look after first their own family, then their immediate friends and neighbours, then their own local area, their nation and finally the whole world.
Wider concerns need publicity to remind people of their existence, and organisational ability to make changes where they are necessary. These can seem ( and often are!) like "political interference) to those on the receiving end.

Yes, crimson, I do find it frustrating that our efforts to help people who need it are frustrated by power-hungry, power-holding political greedy gutses in developing countries. But.... globally the population growth rate is falling and should continue to fall as living standards slowly but surely rise.

World Food Day - 16th October

There is enough food in the world for everyone to have enough to eat, but it is unevenly distributed.

Can you imagine North America 'giving' surplus food to North Korea, for instance?

Like oil, food is political - and some countries are seen as more deserving than others.

Beginning to sound like George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World [have to admit to not having read the latter..] all coming back from what was the future but is now the past to haunt us in the present. Two legs good etc. Cried last time I saw Animal Farm at the theatre!

Brave New World has an extra dimension of scariness now- more than when I first read it as we hadn't at that time envisaged in vitro fertilisation!!

We went to a talk given by one of the people who pioneered IVF and he was very much in fear of his life when he was doing it [I'm sure he told us he'd had death threats]. So many things that we just take for granted in life now; IVF, cloning, genetic engineering etc.

Human beings have been practising genetic engineering since the dawn of agriculture when we started to 'genetically engineer' by keeping the strongest seed strains and re-sowing them for the next crop. Likewise with domesticating animals from the wild. Think wolves ——> all modern dog breeds. They just didn't call it genetic engineering, but that's what it was, and still is. Test tubes and petri dishes are not really scary and genetic engineering is not new.

Although aware of the concept, I was in the 70's, unaware of the practicalities. I became even more aware while undergoing treatments for infertility, and the birth of the first 'test-tube' baby happened soon after my first adoption. When, as a student, I first read Brave New World, I was not thinking about it as a way of providing me with a family!

1984 is the book that is REALLY depressing. I remember the film too: John Hurt made a wonderful Winston Smith.

The catchphrase derived from the story was 'Big Brother is Watching You'. I remember a few years ago when i was doing a late-in-life degree in German and French. We were reading a German article about Big Brother in the modern TV sense, but I had not encountered the genre and never watch crud like that anyway. I was totally confused by the article, and thought I was misunderstanding the German, because I was looking for references to George Orwell and 1984!! When the lecturer asked why i was looking so upset, I told him I could not find any references to George Orwell, and did not understand what the whole thing as on about..

I got laughed at by the young 'uns. Most embarrassing, but when they explained the telly programs to me, all i could ask was 'why'? I still don't understand why the genre exists!!

And sorry - I waffled off the subject.

That's OK, joan . I've never watched Big Brother on TV either, nor have any wish to. Having read Orwell's book at least a decade before 1984, I was also puzzled by the title of the TV programme when I first encountered it. Still am, but not enough to investigate, as it doesn't look tempting enough. Sometimes I think we need a Yawn! emoticon.

I watched the first few series of Big Brother; partly because my kids were teenagers at the time and it gave us another thing to talk about. It went downhill over the years, but I do think youngsters learned a lot about interacting with people [needed even more in the facebook/twitter age]. I loved George Orwell books. One of my favourites was A Clergyman's Daughter which showed how easily one can get into a downward spiral out of which it's difficult to emerge. As relevant today as it was then when we see people sleeping in the streets. Joan; have you heard of an Australian folk family called The Fagans? We went to a concert last night and their son was one of the support acts. He sings with his partner, Nancy Kerr. Last night his parents performed with them as they were over here on babysitting duties, a second grandchild having been born recently. They sang a capella and it was lovely to see and hear. I thought what a wonderful life their two boys were going to have, being brought up surrounded by beautiful music. Their music is an unusual mix of traditional british folk and antipodean [is that the right word?] stuff; but it works beautifully [no didgeridoos, though]. Sorry; going off at tangents again....

The "educate a girl...." bit.

Crimson - I loved Orwell's other novels too - did you read "Coming up for Air"? And I was in a situation where I had to teach the essays too; it was so good for me because I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to read them. Glad I did!

Ah! Thanks, ariadne.

Butternuyt Water is political too. I have lost track of the number of times the US has vetoed a UN resolution to include access to clean water as a human right.

Butternut Sorry – I'm typing in chords again.

Ariadne; it was a long time ago that I read them..after having the children I had to change the sort of book I read; however, books like Clergyman's Daughter and Germinal moulded me into the sort of person I became [and hope I still am].I read all of Orwells' books [I think].

absentgrana - I quite agree - water is crucially important - and is often overlooked.
It is interesting that 'water' is seen as something different from all the other humanitarian needs. In fact I see it as the most pivitol influence for future health and progress in countries that have difficulties .............. regardless of the political dynamics that exists.

Can't say I've enjoyed the tv Big Brother but the other offshoot - Room 101 - has amused me!

I remember reading years ago about privatisation of water in Bolivia. In the end the people revolted and kicked the companies out of their country. The companies involved were Becthe and Suezl who were part of six water companies who have increased six-fold over a 12-year period. Apparently in 1990 up to 51 million people received their water from private companies. The figure has risen now to more than three hundred with operations spanning fifty six countries and two territories.

Scary thinking about it!!!

My brother, an engineer, was an executive for Yorkshire Water. The prices walloped up year after year once it was privatised, and in the end he took the golden handshake because he was sick of being told to make good, hardworking needed people redundant.

The whole privatisation thing stinks - some things should not be there for profit and water is one of them.

Well, today is the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes; I was listening to the news just now; the "responsible" number of children for us in the UK to have is 2.1 ( yes, I know, but it was a statistician!) We are in danger of becoming the most densely populated country in (I think) Europe. So what do we do about it?

And in Africa, while there is room for more people, the resources aren't there. About 900,000,000 people in the world already don't have access to safe water anyway...so what can be done about it?

DH and I are committed to Wateraid, but there is so much more to do....

Education, education, education. Or legislation? That was the question asked on the radio.

What about a policy?