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It's religion, dude! The world doesn't need Christ if it has scientists! |
Posted on 09/05/2006 5:16:29 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
A poor Iowa farm boy became one of humanity's greatest benefactors. --- Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970? You may be forgiven for not remembering, given some of the prize's dubious recipients over the years (e.g., Yasser Arafat). Well, then: Who has saved perhaps more lives than anyone else in history? The answer to both questions is, of course, Norman Borlaug.
Who? Norman Borlaug, 92, is the father of the "Green Revolution," the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. He is now the subject of an admiring biography by Leon Hesser... "The Man Who Fed the World" describes, in a workmanlike way, how a poor Iowa farm boy trained in forestry and plant pathology came to be one of humanity's greatest benefactors.
... Mr. Borlaug accepted an invitation from the Rockefeller Foundation to work on a project to boost wheat production in Mexico. At the time, Mexico was importing a good share of its grain.
....Mr. Borlaug and his staff spent nearly 20 years breeding the high-yield dwarf wheat that sparked the Green Revolution.
...The key to their success was painstakingly cross-breeding thousands of wheat varieties to find those resistant to highly destructive "rust" fungi. They also changed the architecture of the wheat, from tall gangly stems to shorter sturdier ones that produced more grain.
It was an achievement that made Mexico self-sufficient in wheat by the late 1950s and, when later deployed throughout much of the developing world, forestalled the mass starvation predicted by neo-Malthusians.... "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in "The Population Bomb," his 1968 best seller. "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now"...
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
ping
Indeed - The glass if half full.
Appears my glassES are half dirty.
"if half" should read "is half"
Interesting that he did it the old fashioned way. He must have started the project in the 1930's.
From the title I thought it was an article on Jesus.
But the population-controllers are still saying we need global abortion, contraception, sterilization and legalized buggers (that is, non-"breeders") because there's too many babies using up all our food...
I love stories like this, with all my heart.
Memo to self: get the book.
Most of those same nut jobs are against anything this guy has done. Have you seen the anti-bioengineered food wackos? These people have made starving third world countries afraid to take aid on the basis that it was bioengineered.
""The battle to feed all of humanity is over," biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in "The Population Bomb," his 1968 best seller"
Paul Ehrlich.... The stupidest man that has ever lived.
I'm not sure if it is "biotech" or just the massive doses of hormones in beef, chicken, and pork that is causing the ever increasing size - AROUND - of people.
Over-eating explains only a part of the obesity problem that is spreading (no pun) around (again no pun) the world.
...Borlaug was also featured in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, where he was referred to as the "Greatest Human Being That Ever Lived". In that episode, Penn & Teller play a card game where each card depicts a great person in history. Each player picks a card at random, and bets on whether they think their card shows a greater person than the other players' cards. Penn gets Norman Borlaug, and proceeds to bet all his chips, his house, his rings, his watch, and essentially everything he's ever owned. He wins because, as he says, "Norman is the greatest human being, and you've probably never heard of him." In the episode - the topic of which was genetically altered food - he is credited with saving the lives of over a billion people...I saw that episode. Great show!
Prince Charles leading the way.
"These people have made starving third world countries afraid to take aid on the basis that it was bioengineered."
Exactly correct. Here's a few details -
This incident on BE food took place about 3 years ago. The racist eco-fascists in the UN's NGOs tried to convince certain African governments not to distribute BE food to the citizens. The citizens heard about the BE food stored in warehouses, raided those warehouses and took the food and ate it.
Story over. BTW, not one African citizen died from eating BE food.
I believe the problem to be high fructose sugars found in everything. Combined with partially hydrogentated oils and you get the main difference between 'American' foods and the foods of the rest of the world.
Well, that and the amount of junk food items we have on the shelves. Don't get me wrong, portion size also has a lot to do with it...
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It's religion, dude! The world doesn't need Christ if it has scientists! |
The sedentary lifestyle of many in the "industrialized" world is probably the greatest contributor to obesity.
You got the message loud and clear, and in one form or another, that has always been the message. It's also the sole purpose of government schools.
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