Foods currently lost and wasted could feed around 1.26 billion people per year.

 Fertiliser – the key ingredient needed to help crops grow – is in short supply across the world. Global prices have also sky-rocketed in part because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia, which is under Western sanctions, produces large amounts of potash, ammonia and urea. These are the three key ingredients needed to make chemical fertiliser. Russia exports around 20% of the world’s nitrogen fertilisers and combined with its sanctioned ally Belarus, 40% of the world’s exported potassium

The amount of fertiliser available globally has almost halved, while the cost of some types of fertilizer have nearly tripled over the past 12 months, according to the United Nations. 

 The population of England and Wales has hit a historic high of 59,597,300, an 6.3% increase on the 2011 figure of 56,075,912 – an extra 3.5 million people. It means the wider UK population is almost 67 million, once census results published last month for Northern Ireland, showing a population of 1.9 million, and the latest estimate for Scotland, of 5.47 million, are added in. 

The total is on course to break the 70 million mark in the next five years, but population growth has decreased slightly over the last decade. Under-15s make up a declining proportion of the population, and at 10.4 million have been overtaken in numbers by the over-65s in the last decade.

With 434 residents per square kilometre, England now ranks as the second-most densely populated country in Europe after the Netherlands (507 persons per sq km).

Present and projected increases in the population only pose a problem under the conditions imposed by capitalist society—the laws of profit first and can’t pay, can’t have. 

Capitalism is not only a system of artificial scarcity, it is also a system of organised waste. Countless millions of workers are to be found in the armed forces, many more in the security and law and order business, with many times that number employed in the field of commerce and finance.

The problem becomes not one of feeding the growing population, but of organising production and distribution on a rational basis. While we can expect the Malthusian prophets of doom to remind us that every new child means an extra mouth to feed, they will neglect to add that it also means an extra pair of hands, an extra brain, capable of contributing to the common good. It is no state secret that production is not primarily produced to satisfy needs. It is produced for the market and with a view to making profits.

Socialist society will ensure that the resources of the Earth are used in a manner that ensures every man, woman and child is adequately fed, cared for and housed—something capitalism has never been capable of overseeing.

 The Supreme Court has been throwing its weight around lately. Not content with sabotaging legislative attempts to restrict access to mass-murder weapons, it has now overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), which established a legal right to abortion.

For most, although not all of its existence, the Supreme Court has played a reactionary role in American society. Indeed, it is one of the mechanisms – the Electoral College is another – that the Founding Fathers created for the express purpose of weakening the democratic elements in the Constitution. That is why an effort to democratize the Constitution may have to precede the establishment of socialism in the United States. 

It seems puzzling that people who claim to care so much for the ‘right to life’ of the fetus should so stubbornly uphold the right to buy and bear firearms designed to kill lots of people very fast. Their motto, I suppose, is: the right to life ends at birth.

Abortions will continue whatever the law may say. Making them illegal has never stopped them and never will stop them. 

Remarkably, the Guttmacher Institute has shown that the abortion rate in the US was higher when in most states abortion was illegal.

David French, writing in the June 2022 issue of The Atlantic, cites this fact, but avoids drawing the obvious conclusion that criminalizing abortion is pointless or even counterproductive. He still favors ‘legal protections for unborn life’ – a pretty phrase that obscures the ugly reality of desperate women, together with the physicians and nurses who try to help them, being arrested and dragged off to jail.  

According to medical specialists, of the 42 million women who have abortions worldwide each year 20 million have abortions that are illegal and therefore especially unsafe (there are risks even in legal abortions).

How are illegal abortions performed? 

“Methods of unsafe abortion include drinking toxic fluids such as turpentine, bleach, or drinkable concoctions mixed with livestock manure. Other methods involve inflicting direct injury to the vagina or elsewhere—for example, inserting herbal preparations into the vagina or cervix; placing a foreign body such as a twig, coat hanger, or chicken bone into the uterus; or placing inappropriate medication into the vagina or rectum. Unskilled providers also perform dilation and curettage in unhygienic settings, causing uterine perforations and infections. Methods of external injury are also used, such as jumping from the top of stairs or a roof, or inflicting blunt trauma to the abdomen.”

Some 68,000 die as a result, the main causes of death being ‘hemorrhage, infection, sepsis, genital trauma, and necrotic bowel.’ Five million suffer long-term health complications, which ‘include poor wound healing, infertility, consequences of internal organ injury (urinary and stool incontinence from vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulas), and bowel resections.’

So the issue is not: abortion yes or no? The issue is under what conditions abortions will be performed. By qualified physicians In hygienic clinics? Or in back streets, with resort to all sorts of desperate and dangerous methods? 

Most people admit that abortion is an abhorrent procedure, not to be undertaken lightly. However, making it a crime does much more harm than good. This is one of many social problems that cannot be solved by punishing people. 

In a socialist society, abortion will be a rare event. On the one hand, there will be free access to a wide variety of safe, effective, and unobtrusive contraceptives for both sexes. On the other hand, people will no longer be forced to prevent births because they cannot afford to take care of another child. A few abortions will continue to be performed for health or other reasons. 

Stephen Shenfield

World Socialist Party of the United States

The right to life ends at birth – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

  In Georgia and Mississippi, Black women are more than twice as likely to die in pregnancy as white women.

 A significant proportion of the petrol and diesel which British drivers put into their cars comes from biofuels – these include vegetable oils from plants such as oilseed rape, wheat and sugar beet. The UK biofuel industry is an industry supplying 293 million litres in 2020.

A new report by thinktank Green Alliance has said ending biofuel use in the UK would free up space to grow food for 3.5 million people.  The huge area of land used to grow crops which go to be vehicle fuel could return to food production instead. Plant biomass production uses nearly three-quarters as much land as the entire UK potato industry and is a “strong factor” in rising food prices in the UK due to increased competition for land.

Biofuels have previously been touted as a solution to the climate crisis, but the analysis said their emission-cutting impact “has proven minimal, and in some cases, even worse than fossil fuels”. This is because burning biomass still produces greenhouse emissions in much the same way burning fossil fuels does. This is on top of the stored carbon released into the atmosphere when land is repurposed for biofuel production.

Almuth Ernsting, co-director of campaign group BiofuelWatch said, “Ending the use of food to make biofuels would immediately relieve food prices and protect millions from going without enough food…”

Ending use of UK-grown biofuels in petrol could feed 3.5 million people, says think tank | The Independent

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.