Doomsday prophecies are nothing new. The end of our world has been predicted many times, yet onward it spins, with an ever-growing human population. Sea levels are rising, Earth’s temperature is rising, and, in response, animals and plants are slowly migrating north. (Oh, the changes I have seen since I was a child in central Maine. Believe it or not, there was nary a Japanese beetle to plague us.) But so far, at least, our little lives go on much as they always have. We work, we play, we raise our families. And we consume. Boy, do we Americans consume. 

Now, environmentalists can be a gloomy lot, and end-of-the-world, doomer predictions play right into their pessimism. It is hardly surprising that people with sunnier, more optimistic natures tend to dismiss these predictions, especially when we haven’t had any great, worldwide catastrophes in recent times. 

No one, of course, can say for certain what the future will bring, and we humans are endlessly inventive. However, just because we haven’t had a recent worldwide catastrophe, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about the way people—especially those of us in rich countries—are depleting resources. Earth has a finite supply of water, land, and resources. The more people there are, the less there is to go around. This is only common sense, a homely virtue that often seems to be in short supply. Those of us who are concerned about food—and shouldn’t we all be?—often wonder how in the world everyone is going to eat if the human population goes ever upward. 

In yesterday’s New York Times, Mark Bittman reviewed Julian Cribb’s book The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It.  Since I haven’t read the book, I can’t make direct comments on it, but here is a short excerpt from Bittman’s review: “Much of ‘The Coming Famine’ builds an argument that we’ve jumped off a cliff and that global chaos — a tidal wave of people fleeing their own countries for wherever they can find food — is all but guaranteed. The rest of the book concentrates on catching an outcropping of rock with a finger and scrambling back up. The writing is neither personality-filled nor especially fluid, but the sheer number of terrifying facts makes the book gripping.” 

Not a fun read, by any means, but The Coming Famine will be going on my to-be-read pile. And, there are things as individuals that we can do. Bittman writes “Dietary change is primary, and can be as simple as eating a salad instead of a cheeseburger and an apple instead of a bag of chips. Waste less food. Compost. Garden, even if (or especially if) you live in a city. Choose sustainable food, including fish. And so on.” 

I’m preaching to the choir, I know, but let’s face it—this mindful path toward food is not always an easy path to follow. It is often more expensive and more work, and most of us like to eat fat, salt, and meat. Restraint is not always easy, but our own health and the health of our planet could very well hinge on restraint.