Failed States and No Cook Rice:

I read with great interest today about a new strain of rice developed in India. This rice may be made ready to eat by soaking rather than by boiling in water. Now this may seem to be an unimportant development by folks that don’t have a scientific viewpoint. Water you see has a very high specific heat. That is to say it takes quite a bit of heat to raise water to its boiling point. Heat and energy in this example can be used interchangeably. That is to say water requires more energy to be raised to its boiling point than almost any other substance.

Now this fact is not interesting until one connects it with an over populated island like Haiti which just underwent such disastrous earthquakes. Part of the reason that Haiti was so decimated by the earth quakes is because the population of Haiti has cut down most of the trees to make charcoal for cooking. This same thing can be seen to be happening in the poorer parts of Africa. The trees could not hold the land in place when the island was lashed by several hurricanes a few years ago. I will not say this is the only reason Haiti is today experiencing problems. What I am saying is that cooking fires that leave the land barren of trees are an indication of problems that will arise in the future.

I think anyone that does not realize that we have more humans living on the planet than we can safely support has missed the obvious. We are running out of everything including cheap energy. While we lower the overall population and find new sources for energy we simply must actively practice conservation at all levels of society. When we can do that with minimal impact upon those who are currently alive I think we should. I strongly urge that countries that are large energy users help by eating rice that does not require cooking. Of course this assumes a water supply that you do not have to kill the bacteria by boiling. Bacteria in the water supply is of course the other reason one might boil rice.