October 22, 2014

Climate change for many people is abstract, something to philosophize about.  It is a new challenge for us.  But the ways in which it affects people are not new.  Disease, poverty, violence, insecurity, hunger.  Lives of lost opportunity.  These are the conditions from which people have always tried to escape, and they are the conditions that a volatile climate creates. 

I spend much time studying climate change, and I read the statistics and predictions that describe its impacts.  That information gives knowledge but does not create an understanding of how climate change is experienced by those who are affected by it.  Hunger is one of those experiences.  If I wish to understand climate change, I should try to understand hunger.

The insecurity created by climate change will likely lead to many more hungry people.  Three days without eating for me is a small window into what many others throughout the world experience much more often.