facts about hunger

poem

hunger . . . weapon of mass destruction

The praise about fantastic discoveries and advances in every field of human development, by a selective group of people who can afford to benefit from it all, are overrrated in my opinion. The reality is: the great majority of the world population has seen little change, and continue in despair,dying, while wishing to reach simple basic survival needs: water, food, health crisis, shelter, polluted air to breathe, education, safety. Aside from other tragedies as the violence of political conflicts and war.

Philosopher, ethicist Peter Singer words present us with a perfect variable , from which to begin a “string” of critical thinking debates on the subject:

Within the context of basic concepts, definitions of government, state, nation-state, institution, national development, power and authority, the one that must be highligted is the definition of government:

In his book A Theory of Justice (1971) American moral and political philosopher John Bordley Rawls (1921-2002), envisioned justice as fairness, in which a democratic society of free citizens would hold equal basic rights, while cooperating within the egalitarian system. And consequently, on theory of the laws of peoples, which would extend toward a more peaceful and tolerant international order.

The other side of this argument points toward the International Borrowing and Resources Privileges, in which international institutions continue to effect on domestic economic prosperity, as a result from governments burrowing money on behalf of their country, incurring in major obligations to repay the debt at the cost of their citizens. A powerful and systematic occurrence practiced by developed nations obstructing developing countries from thriving.

Garrett Harding, on the other hand, in his Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor (Psychology Today, September 1974), uses planet Earth as metaphor of a spaceship, trying to persuade countries, industries and people to stop wasting and polluting the natural resources.

All the arguments are profound forcing actions toward solutions.

mapping hunger 1820-2015

The World Bank, and the years of research by Economist Max Roser, published a serie of statistics in an interactive format, highligting the world living in absolute poverty from 1820-2015.

Published online at OurWorldInData.org., departs from the seminal paper written by Bourguignon and Morrison in 2002.

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POVERTY

The World Bank

The World Bank began in 1944, evolving from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) as a facilitator of post-war reconstruction and development, to an associated group of five development institutions with a mission to the present-day mandate of worldwide poverty alleviation. They have been publishing data on absolute poverty since1981.

The Bank uses an updated international poverty line of US $1.90 a day, of the cost of living across the world poorest countries (the previous line, in 2005, was of $1.22 a day. As a result of this new line, plus a new country-level data on living standards, they announced “proudly” on October 4, 2015, that global poverty have fallen from 902 million people to 702 million people . . .

You can read the different changes since then and up to 2022 by clicking at the link below

2022 update

question yellw question

stop and think: isn't the meager amount of US$1.90 a great point of reference everytime we waste on unnecessary consumption Or, throw away food . . . just because?

shopping girl

world poverty map now

Max Roser (2016) World Poverty. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. .

Below is the latest visual interactive representation of poverty in the world today. Explore it!

hunger in images

No artist, in my opinion,boy desert has captured with his lens the calamity of hunger more than Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist Sebastião Salgado. I will never be able to find words to describe the briliance of his body of work.

He traveled over 120 countries for his photographic projects. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and I strongly reconmend reading his books.

Sahel: The End of the Road. images defies the notion how we speak about hunger, reminding everything the world has forgotten about the obligation which defines the role of governing: to protect the lives of human beings. His images will be forever a call to action, in which no matter how many robots we create; engage in space exploration; create fantastic movies of delusional characters of superheroes, while oblivious to the billions of human beings who do not have basic needs for survival.

where is the world’s conscience?

Sebastião Salgado TED Talk

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dark eyes
mother child

number of people living in extreme poverty by continent

Impact of hunger by state

State percentage

YOU CAN ALSO READ THE COMPLETE REPORT AND RESEARCH BY CLARK MERREFIELD AND LAUREN STREIB, FOR THE DAILY BAST (article05.19.10 8:35 AM ET) by clicking : OUR MOST POLLUTED STATES

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MISSISSIPPI 22.0%
ARKANSAS 19.9%
LOUISIANA 17.6%
KENTUCKY 17.5%
TEXAS 17.2%
OHIO 16.9%
ALABAMA 16.8%
MISSOURI 16.8%
NORTH CAROLINA 16.7%
OKLAHOMA 16.5%
TENNESSEE 16.3%
MAINE 16.2%
OREGON 16.1%
KANSAS 15.9%