Time (July 1)
“Japan’s upper house gave final approval on June 12 for a $500 million, 20-year fund to promote Japanese culture overseas. Called Cool Japan, the multidisciplinary campaign is designed to plug everything from anime and manga to Japanese movies, design, fashion, food and tourism…. It’s unfortunate that the name of a campaign to showcase creative originality strongly echoes Cool Britannia, the pop-cultural flowering that took place in the U.K. in the 1990s.”
Tags: Cool Britannia, Cool Japan, Creativity, Culture, Design, Fashion, Food, Japan, Movies, Tourism, U.K.
The Wall Street Journal (September 3)
There’s only one way the world can feed 9 billion people and provide them with fuel and water. According to Nestle’s Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, politicians around the world must decide “no food for fuel.” Increasingly food has been diverted for biofuel production. About one half of corn production in the U.S. and rapeseed production in Europe already goes to biofuels, which are also water intensive (producing a liter of biodiesel can require over 9,000 liters of water). While the result of rising food prices from this diversion is merely “annoying” in rich countries, it means people “go hungry” or thirsty in the Third World.
Wall Street Journal (January 22)
“Four of every 10 rows of U.S. corn now go for fuel, not food.” In 2001, the figure was less than one in 14. This helps explain soaring food inflation. The Journal criticizes the government subsidies behind the shift to fuel use. “At a time when the world will need more corn and grains, it makes no sense to devote scarce farmland to make a fuel that exists only because of taxpayer subsidies and mandates.”
Tags: Environment, Ethanol, Food, Inflation
Financial Times (September 5)
The world needs to awake to the threat posed by global food crisis. After all, we’ve had two in the past 2 years. Riots sparked by food shortages in 2007-08 brought down governments in Haiti and Madagascar. Last week, a 30% spike in the price of bread, caused unrest in Mozambique. “Steps should be taken to mitigate the severity of crises when they strike.” Larger reserves are one of the first steps that we should take.
