Massive starvation

Pesticides have played a key role in the world s rising crop yields. As the authors in this book note, the Green Revolution s plant breeding miracles and fertilizers might have failed to prevent massive human starvation and wildlands destruction if the higher yield potential of our crop fields had simply nourished more bugs and weeds. 

The effects of volcanic emissions on climate were noted by no less a person than Benjamin Erankhn. While hving in Erance, he commented on the persistent haze, dimming of the sun, and unusually cold summer of 1783 and speculated that a volcanic eruption might have been the cause (Franklin, 1789). Although he was not aware of a massive fissure in Iceland at the time, his observation was correct. On Iceland an eruption rained ash that caused death of grass and starvation of hvestock and killed 25% of the population from the resulting famine. 

A full appreciation of the toll of forced resettlement in Ethiopia extends far beyond the standard reports of starvation, executions, deforestation, and failed crops. The new settlements nearly always failed their inhabitants as human communities and as units of food production. The very fact of massive resettlement nullified a precious legacy of local agricultural and pastoral knowledge and, with it, some thirty to forty thousand functioning communities, most of them in regions that had regularly produced food surpluses. 

Massive blood or plasma protein fraction transfusion Nonparathyroid hypercalcemia Carbohydrate refeeding after starvation Large doses of penicillin... 

The removal of the a-amino group from amino acids involves two types of biochemical reactions transamination and oxidative deamination. Both reactions have been described (Section 14.2). (Recall that transamination reactions occupy important positions in nonessential amino acid synthesis.) Because these reactions are reversible, amino groups are easily shifted from abundant amino acids and used to synthesize those that are scarce. Amino groups become available for urea synthesis when amino acids are in excess. Urea is synthesized in especially large amounts when the diet is high in protein or when there is massive breakdown of protein, for example, during starvation. 

Some physiological or pathological stimuli induce the liver cell to synthesize or break down some protein selectively. Even during starvation the content of all liver protein does not drop simultaneously. For example, while the activities of catalase, xanthine oxidase, alkaline phosphatase, and acid phosphatase drop at various rates as starvation progresses, that of glucose-6-phosphatase increases. Hydrocortisone and tryptophan administration induces a massive increase in tryptophan peroxidase activity. In either case, at least part of the increase in enzyme activity results from de novo enzyme synthesis. If tryptophan administration is interrupted, the activity of the peroxidase returns to normal. During the induction, turnover rates of other proteins do not change. 

During the twentieth century, ways have been found to increase agricultural production enormously. This has been chiefly due to the researches of chemists and of plant breeders, and between 1950 and 1984 world grain production per person increased by nearly 40 per cent. Since then population increase has outstripped further gains in agricultural production. Although the chemical industry has so far helped to prevent worldwide starvation, it is clear that there is a desperate need for a massive international effort by politicians, economists and scientists to stabilise the population of the planet and to provide for the needs of everyone. Such a programme will be enormously expensive, but the consequences of inaction would be catastrophic. 

FUTURE OF CEREAL CRAINS. It seems likely that the worldwide demand for cereal grains will continue to rise along with the steady growth in population. However, not much land is left for expansion of the acreage which is presently allotted to grain crops. Therefore, certain other measures have been either instituted, or are under consideration, so that additional supplies of grain may be made available to prevent malnutrition and starvation from occurring on a massive scale. 

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