The Real Cost of Driving

Today I'll share with you a few thoughts about a very serious topic. As usual, these things come from me reading the newspapers. I know, a shameful habit. Should grow out of it, right? Reading newspapers, no matter how biased and filtered they are, how the facts are tampered and the effects diluted and minimized, so we all let out politicians fuck our living conditions far beyond our wildest dreams, well, it's not a good practice. People should read... well, actually they shouldn't read at all. Celebrities and Reality Shows should be people's only concerns.

Yesterday, reading the Népszabadság Online, which I don't read as often as perhaps I should, I was shocked by an article stating that food prices would be growing some 12% to 13% next year... in addition to what it has already grown. I read the article, and really, it was talking only about poultry and pork. But it was "fine, because 20% of the consumers prefer imported, more expensive meats anyways". This all due to the Avian Flu. Question: forget my utter stupidity, but how does the Avian Flu affect the pigs? Pigs finally fly in Hungary? Surprisingly, local specialists argued, that it wasn't so bad, because an increase of 12 to 13% on food prices would only affect the inflation 3 percentual points. Then the article went out of the way talking about the producers and how it was so very hard for them, and how they were getting broke because Hungary can't put up with the EU standards of "no animal cruelty" (it seems Hungarians like their food well tortured, well killed, well cooked), then there was no way that given the current market tools producers could... blah, blah, blah... At one point there was a tiny glimpse of something: people don't care for higher quality, but for the price of the food. Why? Well, try being kinda like "poor" and having to "eat". Need food, have little money, what do you do? Buy what you can afford. In the mean time, the producers are getting broke, so more people becoming poor, more people trying to buy cheap food.

But this is Hungary, and Hungary is Schengen Space, EU country, right? Well, today my attention was caught by another article, this time in the Washington Post. The title of the article is "Food Crisis Is Depicted As 'Silent Tsunami'". Not something that would make many go read it, yet I kinda stranded there. I won't quote the entire thing, though I would like to, because I have no publishing or republishing permision, but there are a few things that I would like to bring to your attention. "Food Crisis" is a phenomenon happening around the world. You can feel it harsher in poor countries, and yet is actually something happening world wide. The price of food is growing out of proportion to the point where people can't buy food with their daily earning. There's people making US$0,50 a day, and want to know something else. It's not in that article, but it's in many others: many of those who make $0,50 a day or even less, are children. Kids taken out of school to go work and support their families. Oh yes, in real life, those two quarters don't go to one person, but more than one, many maybe, and there comes a point where the saying "where one eats, two eat too" is no longer appliable.

20,000,0000 children starving.

A child dies every five seconds for causes related to hunger.

There are many causes for this "food crisis" and many scenarios. Some countries do not produce food at all, and are completely dependant of importations. In other countries there is food, but people can't buy it because they have no money. In other cases the farmers grow less crops because they don't have enough money to grow more, and they are not subject to loans. What is happening here? Well, people don't have jobs or they have jobs but they are not being paid enough. People are not given the chance to educate themselves and their kids to ensure a better lifestyle, and then, the means of production and the food itself is cut. Thomas Malthus said in his book that there would come the time when the land would not produce enough to feed the world and so mankind would know its end. Ironically, we have not reached that point, but rather our greedy ways and our pitiful resource and need prioritizing is pushing us to teh verge of the extintion. Because, to add to the "food crisis" factors such as the oil prices and the biofuel are having a bad influence on it. Rising oil prices keep farmers from the fuel to make their tractors and machines work, so they produce less, but then when you take part of the grains produced and make biofuel out of it instead of giving it to people to eat, you are starving people and killing them around the world.

Now this is not the absolut root of the problems, but please take a second to think. Each time you are filling the tank of your car, you are taking away gas that could be put in a tractor to sow the land and make food for people. Of course, if you think small you could say: "If I don't buy it, they won't either because they have no money", but if you stop buying it and others do too, the price of gas would lower and so the farmers, most of which are not subsidied by the Government, will be able to buy it and work the land. You can use other means of transportation such as public transportation or bikes or your own feet, the farmers need their tractors. A lot of people live in the same city they work, yet they use their car to drive down ten blocks and make traffic jams. Other people live in cities, I know this, that have been planned for car driving. Move closer to the office or, really, give public transportation a shot, even if it makes you wake up earlier. Oil is needed. Arabic, American, Venezuelan, Russian... please understand that it is needed, and until we don't find new ways to produce, and I think going back to plowing with horses or sheer manpower is not a choice now, we MUST decide where these resources should go.

I know many of you would like to turn then to the "miraculous biofuel". Since it was proposed, it sounded like a bad idea. At least to me. I've published here two pictures, which are too sides of the same coin. Biofuel takes the food from the people so some can run their cars. Please! Stop that!! Biofuel is not a solution! It's murder!

This makes me think, you know? How dare different organizations forbid certain productive procedures due to "animal cruelty" and yet some politics and some products are allowed even if they are a clear case of "human cruelty"? How many more people must die from starvation so Annie can get her brand new car for her Sweet Sixteen and Johnny can have a car for each day of the week? How many must die so Pablito can drive a block to buy a fucking bottle of water from the convenience store, and Lucía take the car to go work instead of using the metro because she wants to spare her brand new Prada shoes. How many must die so that the fat asses of the world don't have to make the effort? How many must starve to death so that big cities are not replanned and clean technology public transportation means are not improved? Yes, there are options, electrical options to the gas consuming busses and taxies. There are tramways and trollis (is there a name in English for the electrical buses we call trolibusz in Hungarian?), and for fuck's sake, grab that fucking bike and ride it. People pay loads of money to sweat on a spinning bike in a gym when they could pay some bucks for a bike and ride it everyday to the office. Not so much glam in it? Well, dying of hunger or promoting the starvation to death or other people has not much "glam" either. You are in no condition to ride a bike to your office? So you sit through 45 minutes to 1 hour in a spinning class and you can't take the same time to pedal to your office? Give me a fucking break.

You all know I don't have a car, and you all know I was basically holding up due to economical reasons. Too much to pay for, gas, mechanic, taxes, insurance, technical checkings... I didn't have a car because it was not a profitable investment for me. I did planned to get a car when I moved, but not anymore. You may have a car and use it all you want, but I will not have a car so that people can die out there, farmers can broke and people starve so I can wake up 30 minutes later. Fuck no. I will not be an accomplice to this crime. I will not become an accesory to this massive murder.

Yet, let's be clear, this is not a solution to the problem, but allow me to make of this a statement, a sign of what I will not tolerate, and a banner, a flag to tell the world that insensitive producing and consuming must stop. Take a look:

"THE REIGN OF THE MARKET MUST STOP."