Food Crisis II - and this one is worse

 

Reuters – South Korean housewives buy vegetables at a market in Seoul February 1, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won

By Svetlana Kovalyova and John Mair Svetlana Kovalyova And John Mair – Thu Feb 3, 2:43 pm ET

MANILA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Record high global food prices showed no sign of relenting following a rash of catastrophic weather, highlighted by a major U.S. snowstorm and a cyclone in Australia, which could put yet more pressure on prices and spark further unrest around the world.
The closely watched U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index on Thursday touched its highest level since records began in 1990.
The index rose for the seventh month in a row to 231 in January, topping the peak of 224.1 in June 2008, when the world was last gripped in a food crisis.

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SHOOT: You've got to ponder how intelligent we are as a species when we can't do something as simple as feed ourselves.  But then for how long have intelligent people ignored the obvious - climate change, energy limits, ordinary resource limits.  Greed overcame our wits.  Now let's see if the penny drops second time round, or whether we never learn.  I somehow think we'll get the picture once we're forced to see it, not by successive monkey puzzles.  Because at the end of the day, we're clever, but we're not really that smart.  Not collectively anyway.