Strategic Food Reserves

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Humanitarian_Trust

Virtually every scientist knows that our civilization is on the edge of massive harvest failures.  We can’t predict when and where failures will happen, but we know that continued global warming will render large areas too hot or dry or flood prone for their historical crops and livestock.  Yet we have no strategic food reserves.  We abandoned such safety measures in favor of price manipulation back in the 1990's.

        Hopefully, farm practices can adjust to gradual changes in climate, but there will always be periods of mismatch and low production.

I believe that we should have an international convention to identify areas of Antarctica where vast numbers of grain-filled shipping containers sealed with nitrogen gas can be parked without upsetting local flora and fauna.  The convention could supervise rational allocation of container-parking spaces among participating nations.

Nations owning the reserves would be able to use them to satisfy their own needs and to sell or lend them to other nations – those with fertility rates below three babies per mother.  The reserves should not be sold to nations with higher fertility rates.

We could experience a temporary crop failure due to global warming and the opposite.  For example, a large volcanic eruption or a large asteroid collision could bring on a year or more of dark and cool summers.  A large solar storm could disable much of our communications and control apparatus at a critical time.  And then there is the threat of nuclear winter.

It is irresponsible not to have a generous strategic food reserve.  Any significant food shortage will result in a breakdown of social order the likes of which cannot be imagined.

The distribution of fertility rates is presented in the following map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Total_Fertility_Rate_Map_by_Country.svg

Sad Truth

It’s worse than inconvenient.  It’s devastating and inevitable.  Our quest for satisfaction is rapidly depleting the resources needed for our descendants to satisfy needs, desires, comforts, etc.  Our institutions (religions, governments, schools) reflect our primitive tribal instincts and so cannot respond rationally.  Astrophysical and geological events will destroy us even if we could respond rationally.

Given these facts: What matters?  What should we care about?  What should we do with our temporary existence?  I would argue that suffering matters, that we should care about and try to minimize unnecessary suffering.  That would be worthwhile.

Most suffering is out of our control.  Wild sentient animals suffer much of the time with hunger, fear, exposure, disease, parasites, injury, etc.  Western societies generally recognize a duty to treat domesticated animals humanely.  Modern medicine is advanced though poorly distributed.  But we haven’t figured out how to prevent crime and war.  We harm each other unnecessarily and often regrettably.  We don’t have the institutions to address the suffering coming our way due to over consumption and resource depletion.  Every effort to address this problem is met with political opposition.  The promise of tax breaks prevails over reason.  No political system and no religious movement promises better outcomes.

We need a new institution built with new technology.