We heard from our food broker here, in Washington State, that Rice was going to sky rocket here. Everything is going higher and higher.

It's interesting, and saddening to here what's happening all over the world.

It is interesting.  It's scary, too.  I'm really thankful to have grown up in abundant times.  I think people my age are really going to have to undergo a huge paradigm shift.

You're right.  We really are used to getting whatever we want at least in the U.S.  We expect the shelves to be stocked and complain about the prices being too high.  I do think that ethanol being made from grain is a huge mistake.  I know that legislation has already been passed to eventually make the shift to using the corn stalks and inedible parts of corn or sawgrass.  Of course, the rising corn prices and subsidies ensure that farmers are planting more corn but then they are planting less wheat.  Corn going in our gas tanks instead of peoples bellies just seems wrong to me.  Here everything is still available but there has definately been a noticeable price increase on milk, eggs and meat. 

I'm glad you mentioned about the ethanol and rising corn prices, decrease of available wheat.  It's really ironic.  I think the shift to ethanol is essentially a good idea.  It's a renewable resource and if I understand correctly, it burns cleaner.  But if a major dependence on ethanol develops, what kind of upheaval will we have if there is a drought as bad as in Australia in another major producing country?

I guess it's the same quandry as the petrol issue but the vagaries of a harvest seem much more volatile.

I watched this really good BBC documentary about ancient Egypt.  One of the reasons posited for the fall of the Egyptian Empire was a long famine from drought.  It was really scary the way the drought was described.  It wasn't just that people were starving, it was the chaos created by the implosion of the infrastructure.

I think I'm starting to get really maudlin.  Maybe my interest in apocalyptic fiction is starting to show.  I suppose i can think of a couple rays of hope.  The school I work at a lot does a lot of environmental appreciation in school.  I really believe the students think more about their impact on their surroundings than I was raised to think.  The second ray is that it seems like people in Japan are really starting to think the way that foods are over-packaged in plastic and baggies.  Sometimes I like it because I can keep individual serving of things fresh and useful, other times I get frustrated that to get a cookie I have to go through three layers of plastic.  Eco-bags (nylon or canvas shopping bags) are seeming to get a new life, too.  Most of this is from heavy push from the media in housewife hour TV shows.