Shortage of Food and Water^©

People get aggressive when they are thirsty and hungry. When they have children that are thirsty and hungry, they will be even more aggressive. Think about the things you have seen on TV news programs when a truck delivers food and water to people that do not have any. It is a common TV file clip during times of war refugee camp, weather disaster, etc. showing the people attacking the supply truck.

As a business student in college, I was forced to take a class that dealt with how the geography of the world influences the operation of businesses and how people live. At first, I was skeptical of the class. I began to understand what the professor said was true. The geography of where people live has a lot to do with how they live, the resources they have, what they do, and what they cannot do.

A group of people that has to depend on another group of people to provide them with supplies they need for their daily life will become dominated by the providers of the needed supplies. As the have nots grow tired of being dominated, they have to decide to stop using the supplies or find another source for the supplies. The providers of the supplies become dependant on the income they get from providing the supplies which can put themselves in a dangerous situation. If the user of the supplies stop getting the supplies from them, the power may shift from the supplier to the user.

There is always a need for water, food, clothing, and shelter by people. As technology advances, the resources needed to provide the needed resources can cause changes in who has the upper hand in supplying the resources.

I learned from the class that three items will be a major player in determining who has the upper hand in the future. They are food, water, and energy resources. The energy can be a combination that includes oil, natural gas, electricity, and new energy technology that will be developed. Several years ago, a hurricane came through where I live and knocked out our source of electricity for seven days and one hour. We did not lose the telephone service or water service. This experience emphasized to me the dependance my family had and still has on electricity.

This experience took me back to the college class and the way the professor emphasized how the countries in the future that controlled water and food can control other countries. Long term plans for providing water and food for a country’s citizens should be an important priority of the government. There is so much perceived need for economic land development that keeping land for food production is not as important as the taxes gained from the land produced by the developed land.

The excitement caused by the media reporting on damming a river and building a water reservoir can be unsettling to government leaders. Access to water is very important to producing food products.

The expense of purchasing oil from countries that see the USA as an enemy shows the theory at work. The USA has the oil and natural gas resources that can cause the USA to not purchase resources from countries that are anti USA. The resources cannot be used because of laws passed by the USA Congress. It is nice to see the loyalty of the members of congress to the citizens of the USA.

I have incorrectly expected cities and states that are near an ocean would put a priority on building facilities that convert saltwater to drinking water. The facilities will be expensive, but having limited access to safe drinking water and food growing water can be very expensive.

I used to live near the Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. These lakes were formed by the damming of the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River. The water that formed the lakes forced may families, businesses, and farmers to move at the insistence of the involved governments. I have heard people talk about how the formation of the lakes disrupted many lives of the members of the families that lived in the area that the lakes’ water took over. Politicians will have to take a lot of political heat when water reservoirs are built.

I wonder which causes the most political heat and voter unrest. No food or no water.

Dale “The Saint” Lee

A former resident of Pot Neck, Tennessee

Date last modified, September 14, 2010

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