Thanks for posting that. Very interesting.
The Malthusian crowd was as loud and dominant then as the global warming crowd is today. Their meme was that the new ice age was going to freeze us all to death if the growing population and shrinking food supplies didn't starve us to death first.
Naturally, their prescription was exactly the same as the prescription of their modern counterparts: give us total control and we'll save the planet.
Most of those jackwagons then, as now, did not even know the name of Norman Borlaug.
Malthusians, that’s a term I use to not know and looked it up afterwards, so if they were against the author’s heroes, the author’s heroes must be good guys. That’s a very intellectual term though I know many here probably know it.
This is one of my favorite videos of all time. WARNING: Harsh language. (The name of the show is Bullsh*t.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvNopv9Pa8
Here’s their wonderful, touching segment on Norman Borlaug. (And they eat the anti-GMO radicals alive.)
Proud U of Minnesota alum!
A good reminder....the Alex folks will scream about GMOs though so be prepared
Borlaug was always a champion for employing genetically modified foods as the solution for hunger. He would call out the "Food Luddites" for their demonization of companies like Monsanto. For decades, Borlaug fought technological illiterates and chemicalphobes, as well as corrupt governments that would use food as a weapon. His accomplishments are so profound that it is absolutely stunning that so few people know of him. He is the most important American that you've never heard of.
My third-grader came home from school a few months ago with a homework assignment that was an article written about how Rachel Carson saved the Peregrine Falcon by banning DDT. It presented Carson as a hero, and as the mother of the environmental movement. I spent the evening with him explaining the truth about Carson and encouraging him to ask his teacher the next day when they would be learning about Norman Borlaug. He asked the next day, but the teacher had no idea who he was.
Our schools are celebrating a person who is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, mostly children, who live in some of the poorest places on earth. They do this while totally ignoring an American who saved a billion people, mostly impoverished children in the third world, from starvation.
Thanks for posting this. Borlaug's life needs to be celebrated, even if it is only by conservatives, and Borlaug was an exceptional conservative.
A video about Norman Borlaug by Andy Andrews called “The Butterfly Effect” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6fBAT8f-s
BTTT
His legacy will be mixed.
Humans are simply UNABLE to handle his new strains of wheat, as we haven’t had enough time to adapt to it.
On the other hand, there is more than enough food for EVERYONE in the world to be fully fed, providing food can get to them (i.e., politics or warfare doesn’t stop the distribution).
Given the choice between starving or eating unhealthy food, the food option wins.
bump