Save Food, Save The World
July 7, 2008British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated that the average household in the UK is wasting around 8 pound sterling per week on unnecessary food bills. Brown’s suggestion that the British public should think more carefully about their food shopping in an attempt to reduce the horrifying effect of the credit crunch seems laughable. With the cost of oil soaring and the cost of living up by a reported 9.5 per cent, it seems like a drop in the ocean to have two sausages for dinner instead of three.
As Brown and the rest of the G8 gather in Japan to discuss the world’s dilemmas, we must reuse our leftovers and make a list before we go shopping. Don’t forget to ignore the ‘special offers’ at the supermarket too, these usually get thrown away in the end as you simply have too much food. So, Gordon Brown heads to the G8 summit with the nation’s hopes in his hands and the end of the credit crunch a long way off in the future.
Rising fuel costs, food prices and a global credit crunch have severely damaged many of the world’s economies including in Britain where house prices are plummeting amid fears of a recession. The Labour government in the UK have also suffered a massive dip in popularity with public fears that a recession will affect millions of families across the country. Labour maintains that the financial difficulties have occurred due to uncontrollable external factors, so the UK continues to look for answers from a government that seemingly has none.
Brown is reported to be optimistic that a deal will be put in place to secure more liberal global markets. The summit is gaining importance with every day that passes as prices continue to rise and the countries’ economies are stretched further and further. Fuel price rises and food shortages are the main problems for the western world while promises of aid to Africa remain undelivered thirteen years later. So, where will the G8 take us and will they prevent the seemingly inevitable global recession?
The key issues that are increasing the risk of a global recession have been the agricultural price rises of 40 per cent as well as the oil prices doubling to almost 150 dollars a barrel. As the world struggles to come to terms with economic uncertainty, it becomes clearer that even with the new supplies of oil reported in Iraq we must continue to search for and develop alternative fuels.
U.S. energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, stated the country’s intention when he admitted that industrialised nations will have to aggressively promote “investment in renewable energy and other alternative energies technologies, as well as the development of tradition hydrocarbon resources.” The nations that are represented at the G8 – USA, Russia, UK, Japan, Italy, France, Germany and Canada are responsible for more than half of the world’s energy consumption.
So the world will look on as the ‘Big 8′ meet at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit to discuss global issues including environment and climate change, African development and peacebuilding. With so many major problems to tackle and overcome, it makes it even more difficult to listen to Gordon Brown and count out your chicken nuggets when you’re preparing your dinner.
Dear James,
In response to your article I rather think you have missed the point. When Gordon Brown says to save food, and only serve up what you intend to eat I think he has an excellent point. By encouraging people to save their food, and not throw things away so wastefully we may turn around the current trend of our society where everything is easily disposable.
To you perhaps counting out the chicken nuggets may seem trivial but if that happens at every meal time it will soon add up, especially if the whole country joins in with the same mentality. Remember that even small incremental changes to the individual can make huge changes globally. By eating fractionally less we can save millions of pounds in fuel and packaging.
It is coming to a point where it may become too late for our planet and we need to stop the trend before it reaches that point. We cannot afford to be so wasteful and so to put down an attempt to save the environment, no matter how small seems somewhat wrong.
I would encourage people to listen to Gordon Brown, particularly about chicken nuggets, and save everything they can. If we can get everyone thinking like this then changes will happen globally.
Thank you,
Jon Clarke BSc (Hons)
Thank you very much for your comments Mr. Clarke. Are you a Labour politician by any chance? I think it is you who is missing the point…
I am merely trivialising the issue of saving food as it seems that countries shift responsibility rather quickly when issues of climate change, inflation and fuel costs are discussed.
I am told to eat less, turn the lights off and have fewer baths and yet we live in an age where obesity is rife, water is pumping out of damaged pipes and Las Vegas uses more electricity in a second than my family will use in our lifetime.
So, why do these changes always full onto our shoulders? It really doesn’t make sense to me, but maybe that’s the point. If I sat there in their ivory tower for just a day maybe I could see it from their point of view.
Forget what you know.
Consciousness, unconsciousness and leadership
I’m experiencing a deep sense of sadness as I reflect on an event at the recent G8 summit meeting in Japan in July, 2008. The event was a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner where the agenda was — hang on to your hat, and take a deep breath — famine and the global food crisis.
First, some details:
· Participants were served 24 different dishes during their first day at the summit — just hours after urging the world to reduce the “unnecessary demand” for food, and calling on families to cut back on their wasteful food use.
· The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses — including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a “G8 fantasy dessert”.
· The banquet was accompanied by five different wines from around the world, including champagne.
· African leaders — including the leaders of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal, who had taken part in talks during the day — were not invited to the function.
· The dinner came just hours after a ‘working lunch’ consisting of six courses.
The lunch/dinner misstep is a metaphor for the unconscious, hypocritical and insensitive behavior many leaders and managers manifest when they espouse values that purportedly support the well-being of their organizations and then engage in the sort of excesses and unethical behavior that only undermines their integrity, respectability and credibility.
Betrayal and the corporate world of today.
Betrayal and mistrust are rampant in the corporate world today. Take, for example, corporate bosses who paint a rosy picture of the future, then show thousands of workers to the door, then pile work on the unfortunate individuals who remain. Or those who urge employees to take care of their health, then denigrate them for using the gym on ‘company time’ while expecting them to work 70-hour weeks, including weekends. Then there are those leaders who drive their organizations into the ground financially and walk away with huge bonuses and severance packages for doing so — while their employees walk away with nothing.
These and many other examples of daily betrayal are creating a pervasive atmosphere of mistrust in the workplace.
The excessive spending and lavish consumption of the G8 participants points to the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness when it comes to living life by taking the high road, to living life by following one’s inner moral compass and to living life by serving others.
Consciousness and unconsciousness defined
There are four basic levels of consciousness:
· Not conscious (instinctual, ego-driven) — The behavior of the G8 leaders is simply being unconscious — allowing their lower-level, ego-driven, base, and selfish desires to drive, completely unaware of the consequences and the impact on greater good’ of the community.
· Subconscious —habitual, robotic, reactive.
· Conscious — aware, intelligent, conceptual, reflective
· Superconscious — (intuitive, guiding, truthful, loving, universal
It’s not about contempt for others. It’s about being conscious! Awake! Aware!
The behavior of the G8 folks is one of being unconscious — allowing one’s lower-level, ego-driven, base, instinctual, selfish and blind desires to have free reign, completely unaware of the consequences and the impact on the “larger good” of the community, of humanity.
It’s not about arrogance. It’s not about greed. It’s not about politics. It’s not about contempt for others.
It’s about being conscious! Awake! Aware! It’s about the fact that no one — NO ONE — said, “Wait a minute! What are we doing here? Something doesn’t feel right to me.” No one!
That’s unconsciousness. That’s being disconnected from our True and Real Self. Unconscious.
Consciousness is about spiritual (not theological, not religious) intelligence and the fundamental principles that govern the behaviors of our leaders.
It’s about honesty, sincerity, self-responsibility and self-awareness.
It’s about living one’s core values — assuming one has core values and has thought consciously about how to live them at 9:00 Monday morning.
It’s about integrity. It’s about walking the talk. It’s about being a business person and human being at the same time.
It’s about taking the high road.
How does it apply to you?
Consciousness is about viewing my life right here and right now, from the 25,000-foot level and asking:
“What am I doing right here, right now?”
“Who am I being, right here, right now? Am I acting in alignment with my core values?”
“Is there harmony between what I think, say, feel and do, and if not, why not? How can I create that harmony for myself?
“What am I thinking about and what do I think about what I’m thinking about?” “Am I ‘going along to get along’ even though I know it’s inappropriate?”
Consciousness is simply about being decent right where I am. That’s who successful and truly respected leaders and managers are.
Consciousness is simply about having and showing character and working for the highest good of all concerned, right where I am. That’s what successful and truly respected leaders and managers do.
Consciousness is about showing up, authentically, with integrity, and acting to make the workplace, and the world, a better place — for everyone — even if it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient. Pure and simple.
Consciousness tugs on our sleeve consistently as we reflect on the following questions:
· How aligned am I with my core values?
· When my colleagues, bosses, direct reports, clients, friends, and family observe my behavior, do they consistently observe me “walking my values talk?”
· Do I ever act in a way that others might perceive as arrogant, haughty, egotistical or greedy? If so, do I care? If not, why not?
· Do I show concern for my fellow at work, at home, at play, when I comment on the world at large, and when I’m out and about?
· At what level of consciousness do I live my life most of the time?
· Have I ever spoken up when I felt I needed to tug on someone’s sleeve about their inappropriate behavior?
· Do I gloss over unethical or immoral workplace behavior as the “cost of doing business?”
· Do I exhibit the change I’d like to see everyone else exhibit?
· Have I ever betrayed another person? Have I ever been betrayed? How did I feel in either or both event(s)?
(c) 2008, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and SpiritHeart. All rights in all media reserved.
With the current uncertainties with food prices there is a greater need for us to conserve and be increasingly economical about food consumption at home. We have become wasteful as consumers of food and have never really had a need to feel otherwise before this crisis started. Blaming the rampant consumerism of the supermarkets has now irrelevant in this discussion. The situation now is that if we don’t change our food habits this situation could easily escalate completely out of control. The responsibility is now on us all to change our food buying and food consuming habits.
Simple food saving tips are things we need to get used to and practice more regularly. Most of these are common sense and can be quite creative. You can find a list of free food saving tips at sites such as http://www.foodcrisis.co.uk amongst other similar sites as well.
We all need to contribute to a fairer and more food wise program for ourselves.