[1] FAO. 1961-1999. Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Cited by David and Marcia Pimentel in World Population, Food, Natural Resources, and Survival, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, February 28, 2002.
[2] My information comes from the Agence France Press report of February 22, 2004. This is one of 50,300 hits that came up when I entered the search 'pentagon AND famine AND report' into the Google search engine.
[3] P. Beaumont 1985. "Irrigated agriculture and groundwater mining on the high plains of Texas," Environmental Conservation 12: 11pp, cited by Pimentel, 2002.
[4] Encylopaedia Britannica CD98, and J.D. Soule and D. Piper. Farming in Nature's Image: An Ecological Approach to Agriculture Island Press, Washington, DC, 1992. cited by Pimentel, 2002.
[5] "Nary a drop to spare," Geographica, National Geographic, July/05.
[6] Info from Goddard space flight center website, report dated Feb 27/01.
[7] Peter Goodspeed, "Kazakh dam spells doom for grossly polluted Aral Sea." National Post, Oct 3/03.
[8] P.H. Gleick, Water in Crisis, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, cited by Pimentel, 2002.
[9] "Glacier meltdown," New Scientist, May 8, 2004, pg 7.
[10] R.A. Houghton, "The worldwide extent of land-use change," BioScience, 44(5) 1994, 305-313, cited by Pimentel et al, 2002.
[11] Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress, House of Anansi Press, Toronto, 2004, pg 77-8.
[12] B.R. Doeoes, "Environmental degradation, global food production, and risk for larger-scale migrations," Ambio 23 (2), 1994, pp 124-130, cited by Pimentel et al, 2002.
[13] USBC. 2000. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2000, 200th ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Government Printing Office, cited by Pimentel et al, 2002.
[14] David Adam, "Goodbye Sunshine," The Guardian, Dec 18/03. See also David J. Travis, Andrew M. Carlton, and G. Laurentsen Ryan, "Contrails reduce daily temperature range," Nature, Aug 8/02, pg 601.
[15] Stanley Johnson, The Green Revolution, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1972, pg 11.
[16] L.A. Tatum, The Southern Corn Leaf Blight Epidemic, Science, March 1971, vol 171, pp 1113-1116. See also H. Garrison Wilkes & Susan Wilkes, The Green Revolution, Environment, vol 14 no 4, October 1972, pp 32-39.
[17] Robert Uhlig, "Banana's days cut short by rampant fungal disease" report from Daily Telegraph reprinted in National Post, Jan 17/03, pg A15. See also Fred Pearce, "Going Bananas" New Scientist, Jan 18/03, pp 26-28.
[18] David Suzuki and Holly Dressel, From Naked Ape to Superspecies, Stoddart, 1999, pp 120-121.
[19] Lost Crops of Africa , vol 1, Grains, National Academy Press, Washington, 1996, pg 262, 264.
[20] Harold W. Milner, "Algae as Food," Scientific American, vol 189 No 4, Oct/53, pp 31-35.
[21] Several companies produce various 'granola' and other bars that are represented as food, but most of them are primarily candy. The food bars I suggest here would not sell well in a corner store but they would be food on which people could live for months at a time.
[22] Microlivestock, little known small animals with a promising economic future, National Academy Press, Washington, 1990 (BOSTID), pg 9.
[23] Eric O. Callen, "Food habits of some pre-Columbian Indians," Economic Botany 19, no. 4 (1965): 335-43. See also "Analysis of Tehuacan coprolites," in The Prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley: Vol. 1. Environment and Subsistence, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1967, pp 261-89.
[24] Roya Nikkah, and Zachary Abraham, "Grilled guinea pigs are low on cholesterol," National Post, Oct 25/04, pg A2.
[25] Microlivestock, Little Known Small Animals With a Promising Economic Future, National Academy Press, Washington, 1990.
[26] According to Matthew 3:4 and Mark 1:6 John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey. I know that some people who are apparently disgusted by the idea of eating insects insist that the 'locusts' he ate were the fruit of a carob tree but, whether John ate insect locusts or not, most people in that part of the world used to and many still do. There is no question that the locusts named as kosher in Leviticus are insects.
[27] Julieta Ramos-Elorduy, Creepy Crawly Cuisine, translated from Spanish by Nancy Esteban, Park Street Press, Rochester, VT, 1998.
[28] David & Marcia Pimentel, World Population, Food, Natural Resources, and Survival, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2002.
[29] Minilivestock Environment Sustainability and the Local Knowledge Disappearance by Maurizio Guido Paoletti and Leandro Dreon, Department of Biology, Padova University, Padova, Italy.
[30] I forget where I first learned this rule of thumb but before using it here I confirmed it with Dr. David Pimentel, professor of agricultural ecology at Cornell University.
[31] Hugh Brody, The Other Side of Eden, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2000.
[32] Insects can carry diseases that we can catch, but that is something else. The fly that lands on garbage and then on your steak is a potential hazard, but no more so than if you used your fork to stir garbage and then, without washing it, to eat the steak. Insects raised for food would not have access to sources of infection.
[33] Lost Crops of Africa , vol 1, Grains, published by the Board of Science and Technology for International Development, National Academy Press, Washington, 1996, pg 273.
[34] Richard Foot, "Millions of tonnes of potatoes destroyed," National Post Jan 28/05, pg A9.
[35] Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities, UN Development Program, New York, 1996. See also Land Use in Transition in Urbanising Areas., edited by Ralph E. Heimlich, The Farm Foundation in cooperation with USDA Economic Research Service, Washington DC, 1989.