March 23, 2026 • 52 mins
Have you ever been starving? Ben, Noel and Dylan hope the answer is "no" -- however, as the guy's learn in tonight's episode, the world is currently on the precipice of a massive hunger crisis. As conflicts ratchet up, government programs close down and the climate becomes increasingly chaotic, the next great famine may have already begun. And, sooner than the media wants to admit, that famine may be on its way to you.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Our brother Matthew is on Adventures today but will be
returning soon.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
We're joined with our guest super producer Max the Free
Trade williams chu Chu. Most importantly, you argue you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
So everyone, first off, thank you for tuning in, whether
on Netflix or on an available podcast platform of your choice.
(00:58):
Thank you very much for joining us, and folks, fellow
conspiracy realist friends and neighbors. Please make sure you grab
a snack for this one. I know sometimes I'll warn
people not to eat when they're hearing a specific episode,
but this is what you're gonna want to Noch to well.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Ben, as you say in the outline here, you do
have to eat.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yes, yes, we are quote you don't know checkers don't
necessarily have to eat. Checkers from there two thousand and
one ad campaign you Gotta Eat. We've talked about it
in previous episodes on multiple shows. It's just a brilliant,
very honest pitch.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
It's the good quote Checkers barrier to entry, you know,
for sustenance.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, yeah, you gotta eat, it's sure. Are you a snacker?
I am a snacker?
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm a snacker too. I actually have these
little bens in my pantry labeled snacks, and I just
try to rotate out fun stuff. A big fan of
the like meat sticks and granola bars and rice crispy
treats are fine, the kids like those.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah. My snacking habits are partially due to my regular
sleeping habits. And I also, as you know, Noel, I
travel pretty often, so I end up when you when
you travel often, you end up aggregating little snacks. Right.
(02:25):
You always got this little, what fun size bag of
peanuts or almonds and you put them in your backpack. Yeah.
Also shout out to good friend of the show, Diana Brown,
who years ago comedy writing partner of mine. Years ago,
she asked me, how can something be called fun size
(02:46):
if there's less of it? This was her objecting to
small Halloween candies.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
And then the question becomes is that what's the opposite
of fun size trauma size.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And is it large sure or is it smaller? I
don't know. These are very important questions to keep us
up at night.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And we have a series of very important questions coming
to us live tonight while we record on Friday, March thirteenth.
That's right, Friday the thirteenth. We got the ads coming,
We've got the IDEs on the way in about forty
eight hours as we record.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Now, double whammy of portentiousness, not pretentiousness. I think I
got it right the first.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You nailed it, man, So tonight, going back to that
series of questions, we are exploring a series of conspiracies
that will, by hook or by crook, for cook, impact
you directly. It does not matter how you vote, It
does not matter what religion you hold, who your parents are,
(03:52):
how you personally identify yourself. If you are a human being,
at any point in civilization, you have to eat on
a semi regular basis or you will die. And I know, right,
it's a bummer. It's a great unifier. Though it's true.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I mean death is the ultimate great unifier. I think
it's the one thing that none of us know anything
about but that we will all one day experience.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Right at least for a brief moment. We're still waiting
as we record now. We're still waiting on a conversation
we had about the spiritualism movement over on our sister
show of Ridiculous History. If you are dead and you
are hearing this now, tell us about the afterlife.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Drop us a review on your podcast platform of choice,
the Afterlife.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yes, yeah, give us a heavenly five stars or a
hellish five stars. As we'll see in tonight's episode, it
may be the case for a lot of people right
now that they will die due to starvation, and sooner
than you would like to think. This is the story
of the looming hunger crisis. We're going to pause for
(05:06):
a word from our sponsors, and then let's get into food. No,
you're relatively pro food, right.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Very pro food. You can almost call me a foodie.
But at the very least I do enjoy consuming it
for sustenance and survival. Let's take quick break here, a
word from our sponsors, and then we'll jump right in.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
H moment of silence for the brethetarians in the crowd.
Here are the facts. Food is one of the biggest
businesses in all of human history.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
As a general category, at the heart of culture and commerce,
eating is, you know, in addition to death, one of
the great human unifiers. It has so much potential to
define one's personality, one's connection to their ancestors, to culture,
(06:03):
as you said, Ben, and it's just a great way
of kind of creating community honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, some of the best television
produced out of the United States involves folks like Anthony
Ordained traveling around in programs like No Reservations where it's
kind of a food show, but really it's an anthropological
exploration of how food unites people. So regardless of your
(06:34):
differences with anyone you have ever met, read about, or
heard about, there is a very high likelihood that you
could bond with those strangers over a good dish of
something tasty, especially if you're both trying it for the
first time.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And not to mention too, it's a great way of
carrying on the traditions of your family members, your parents,
your grandparents before them, being able to kind of recreate
history by sharing a dish that was very important to you,
perhaps as a child and making it the way your
mom or your grandma used to make it.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I love that point, yeah, because it does communicate beyond generations, right,
we do have people telling a larger story in every plate.
And we also know, because humans are literally a captive
audience for food that the global food industry is a
(07:33):
multi trillion dollar sector. Okay, folks, That means that it
is one of the largest, most crucial businesses in the
modern world. I think about this often, Nolan Max. The
fast food market alone generates over a trillion dollars every year,
(07:54):
and I've got to be honest, guys, I'm kind of
off the fast food. They kind of lost their value
position for me with raising prices.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I occasionally I'll get just a single cheeseburger from McDonald's
because there's one pretty close to me, or a snack wrap,
but in general I do try to avoid them as
well and cook for myself as much as possible. Access
to food is a big part of what we're talking
about today, and at multiple points it has changed throughout
the course of history. An abundance of crops grown on
(08:26):
fertile land can be the seat of empires. A drought,
on the other hand, as we've talked about, weather patterns
and weather events bringing down civilizations and empires can be
ruinous to citizens of that empire and the empire empires themselves.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yes, this is true regardless of where you are, who
you are, when you are listening. The ever present threat
of starvation has haunted humanity since before the dawn of
the written word. It haunts humanity still even in twenty
twenty six. I mean, let's talk a little bit about famine.
(09:07):
The concept of famine, widespread starvation is a danger so
historically prevalent and terrifying that it ended up being personified
in the Bible as one of the four horsemen of
the apocalypse.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
One of the great plagues, feast or famine. Indeed, famines
have occurred throughout history, and sometimes they're caused by arguably
preventable factors such as war or more acts of God
like natural disasters. Sometimes they're caused by human error, greed, malice,
(09:42):
poor government policies are some examples of that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Some notable events.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I know we love to make fun of the idea
of the great bad thing, but the Great Famine in
Europe from thirteen fifteen to thirteen seventeen, the Irish potato
famine another one of the hits there, and of course
the Great Chinese Famine. Those great things got to go
through the birds from nineteen fifty nine to nineteen sixty one,
collectively resulting in millions of fatalities and immeasurable impacts on
(10:11):
the societies that they affected that can still be felt
into the modern day in many cases.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, and I want to go back to that point, folks,
human error, malice, poor government policies. You don't necessarily need
a natural disaster and act of God to result in
widespread starvation. Soviet stalinistic policies absolutely resulted in millions of
(10:42):
preventable deaths, as did things like Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward.
The humans can be the problem now. Luckily, sometimes the
humans can be the solution. If you look back at
the history of starvation and food and secure and under
nourishment and famine, what you'll see is that the evolution
(11:05):
of technology in specific fields saved not just millions, but
billions of innocent people's lives. We're talking about breakthroughs in
agriculture and storage and processing and transportation. And I just
got a joke that I apparently wrote earlier breakthroughs in
(11:26):
technology in the fields of agriculture. Ben come on, man,
all right, anyway, this this wilds like you know, like yeah,
fields of grain, the fields history.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Oh boy, you know, even things that might not immediately
resonate as technology. Agricultural techniques like crop rotation for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah yeah, like the Three Sisters that be a famous
example here in the United States. We also have to
shout out our pal Norman Borlog, the father of the
Green Revolution, who provably saved billions of lives. To your point, no,
better farming techniques which our technology lead to better crop yields,
(12:10):
and then better storage technology guarantees fewer crops will spoil.
And then add to that better transportation right, better trade
networks and logistic chains. That this means that if people
are starving in one area, you, if you're a good person,
you have a better chance of getting food to them
(12:33):
from your area before a disaster occurs. Food insecurity has
always been a threat in certain areas of the world,
but international initiatives made huge leaps in assisting the needy
and the starving and saving them from the horrors of old.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Things like the USAID for example, Other outreach programs to
help country is experiencing food insecurity feed their citizens. It
seems kind of like a no brainer that this type
of thing is good for all.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I would think, yeah, one would think right, because one
would be a decent person thinking in that scenario. However,
this may not be the case for long. In recent decades, academics, activists, analysts, economist, politicians,
they've been raising a stark warning. The rules of the game,
(13:32):
the starvation game. Those rules are shifting right now as
we record, there's a little bit less than eight point
three billion human beings on the planet.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We often go to a thing.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Called world Ometer or world dometer, and if we go there,
the current population is eight billion, two hundred and eighty
one million, twenty nine thousand, and oh that last keeps ticket.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's gotta change going up.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah, And I think most folks can acknowledge, even
just from experiential data, that.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
There's something going on with the climate. Storms are getting worse,
oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Certain seasons are feeling a little different than they have
in the past. Colder winters, hotter summers, stuff like that.
And I don't think that's a political statement. It's something
that people can just go outside and feel the results
of themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
This idea of climate shock.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Weather patterns, temperatures, seasonal conditions that were once predictable are
now becoming much much less so, as you put up
in going a little bit haywire, and this is really
bad news for a lot of crops and hunting patterns
that really depend on this predictability.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
At least you know a certain amount of it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
One and you've probably seen it in your neck of
the global woods, folks. So this is for the perhaps
the older conspiracy realist in the crowd. We would love
to hear your personal anecdotal experience with large weather changes
in your neck of the woods. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
(15:22):
We cannot underestimate the impact of climate shock. We also
know there is a human impact. Political and economic chaos
is breaking the logistic chains of food supply and availability.
Check this out, folks. The UN's World Food Program recently
noted that three hundred and eighteen million people face not
(15:48):
just food insecurity, but crisis levels of hunger or full
on starvation next year. That is more than double the
number recorded just a few years ago in twenty nineteen,
and part of the reason the number is spiking globally
is due to two simultaneous famines occurring right now, one
(16:11):
in Gaza, one in Soudan. It is the first time
in this century that to acknowledge, real life famines have
been occurring simultaneously.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah, and sadly, that's just the beginning. Experts, many numerous
experts agree that things are likely going to get worse
before they get better, and that we may be looking
at a looming global hunger crisis right there on the horizon,
and it soon might reach you directly.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, it's on the horizon and it may be at
your doorstep sooner than we would like to acknowledge. We'll
be back after a word from our sponsors. We're going
to dive into this. Here's where it gets crazy, okay,
Noel Max. We could say the global hunger crisis has
(17:09):
already been around for a while. God knows, famine is historical,
but now we can say it's escalating because we have
a lot of statistics to back it up.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
One such statistic comes from the World Health Organization in
twenty twenty four, finding that one and eleven people faced
hunger across the globe.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Back in twenty twenty three. One out of.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Five of those people lived on the African continent. All
in all, that's nearly seven hundred and thirty three million
people affected.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, and this also means that the global effort to
address or even fix starvation has fallen backwards. The levels
of what we call under nourishment are now comparable to
what the world saw back in two thousand and eight
to two thousand and nine. If we fast forward to
(18:05):
just last year, November of twenty twenty five, we see
that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World
Food Program that's the FAO and the WFP for anybody who,
like us, loves acronyms, they found quote acute food insecurity
is set to worsen in sixteen countries and territories between
(18:28):
now November twenty twenty five and May twenty twenty six.
We are going downhill fast. And if you look at
their website you can find this excellent, disturbing infographic of
what we call early warning hunger hotspots. No, you and
(18:49):
I have gotten a chance to look at this, and
we see that a lot of it is in the
African continent. And could you maybe walk us through this infographic?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah, We've got three color codes here, hot spots of
highest concern darker blue, hot spots of very high concern
sort of a medium blue, and then hot spots just
regular old hotspots a light blue. And to your point earlier, Ben,
the Sudan and South Sudan would be considered hot spots
of highest concern. Malli also falls under that category as well,
(19:23):
as I believe that's Yemen.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Then in the hot spots a very high concern, we
see Afghanistan, Syrian Arab Republic, let's see mianmar and I
believe no, yeah, Democratic Republic of.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Congo as well.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
And then the just regular old hotspots we've got Chad Kenya.
And then finally we have the re Rehinga refugees in Bangladesh,
just specifically isolated referring to displaced population there.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, this is when you look at it all in.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
One place, I mean, and the hotspots are all kind
of clustered together. There's a few outliers, but mainly it's
kind of right there in the you know, a little
bit north and central part of the African continent.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Right. We also see to the point about outliers, we
see that Haiti is struggling with food insecurity, it's a
hot spot of highest concern. We also see that one
of the world's fastest growing economies, Nigeria, is a hot
spot of high concerns. So politics diatribes aside. We're seeing
(20:36):
libraries worth of statistics pointing to and beat me here, Max,
beat me here, Netflix pointing to bad ahead. So we
have to ask what is causing this. The boffins tell
us there are four primary factors, conflict, climate, economy, and displacement.
(20:57):
So maybe we go in reverse, or since we just
alluded to the concept of displacement, what is displacement, Well.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That would be folks that are forced to flee due
to war, economic instability, and ecosystems that are failing. Massive
groups of people are moving, are migrating in some places
at levels that we haven't seen since World War Two.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, and to be clear, fellow conspiracy realist, these folks
being displaced, these folks migrating, they are not a foreign army.
They're not being paid to move. They're not out for
some kind of shenanigans. They're not even relocating for a
nice job offered. They're often already vulnerable, impoverished. They were
(21:44):
probably just making it before the weather went wild where
the bombs started dropping. The people who can escape do
their best to escape, and sometimes often it's for their
own survival, but more often than not, these folks are
escaping to guarantee the survival of their children and their
(22:06):
loved ones.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You know, a single guy might just sit around and
die in a monsoon plane or join the army. But
if that single guy has you know, a spouse, a partner,
three kids who depend on them, then they're going to
try to find a safe place for their children. People
are literally drowning right now, and at the same time,
(22:31):
people are literally dying for lack of water. There's sometimes
called climate migrants or climate refugees. We discussed this in
a previous episode this I think it was our brain
Drain episode.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Well, sure, because the origin countries lose out on their
workforce and their tax base, so they're suffering. And then
the destination countries often are not set up for this
mass influx of humans and that in terms of infrastructure, overrun,
emergency preparedness, things like that, and they are forced to
(23:07):
kind of go into kind of overdrive because they simply
haven't built out the infrastructure to sustain this new flux,
of a new influx rather of hungry people who often
need medical attention as well, not to mention other human
needs like employment, educational services, and things like.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
That exactly, And this can create a feedback loop.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Hunger.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
We're saying here is hunger can become contagious because folks
in the destination country may end up saying things are
going wrong here, so I have to find somewhere else for.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Me to move right.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And now we have a new iteration of what we
could call climate migrants or climate refugees. And a lot
of this goes back to our next cause, a second
cause of the four causes of famine, the four horsemen
of famine economy. Okay, the economy is a man made thing,
but it can have wonderful and disastrous effects on the
(24:12):
natural world. So sluggish global growth economic stressors we call them.
This can be linked to things like pandemic recovery, the
fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine. This affects low
and middle income countries way more than it affects the
more high falluting countries. So when the midterm of the future,
(24:36):
this encourages displacement and perhaps more importantly, it leads to
cuts in social protection programs and international aid. And we've
all seen this. I imagine in times of crisis, countries
will often sort of circle their wagons, They'll draw in inward,
(24:58):
they'll go way from the problems the wider world. They'll
say things like America first, a little too on the nose.
But this creates another feedback loop because when you cut
those programs domestically and abroad, that worsens the economy of
the countries that used to receive that assistance, which triggers
(25:20):
more displacement, which triggers more economic chaos, which triggers more hunger.
How do we like, what if there is a world
where everybody has to fill out a survey and they say, hey,
the survey says, hey, you have to move in the
next six months or the next year and a half
(25:42):
where you're going to go to avoid starvation? That answer
gets a lot trickier every year due to our third factor,
our third horseman here, the climate.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
That's right, and you know, we.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Feels like it shouldn't be aal issue again for the
aforementioned you know, just kind of observable examples of this
stuff happening. But We certainly know that it has been
weaponized in terms of political rhetoric, this idea of climate
change being a hoax of some sort perpetrated by our enemies,
(26:19):
various lines of thinking like that that seemed to be
pretty easily debunked. However, it does seem to be relatively
effective for some folks. So I think we can all
agree that in some way, shape or form, there's something
going on with the climate, and it ain't good by
any credible measurement. The climate is changing and it is
(26:41):
not changing for the better. We can also see this
over time, you know, like if we look at ancient
history and we look at things like ice ages and
various global shifts in climate. This is not the first
time something like this has happened. So while the silver
lining of something like the pandemic lockdown was something everyone
was talking about with kind of rose colored glasses, Oh,
(27:04):
the dolphins have returned to the canals and various things
like that, and the earth, Mother Earth is repairing herself
because no one's going outside. There was some of that,
but it doesn't take long to walk some of that
stuff back once people get back to peopling, right, it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Was a short time out when the world was in lockdown,
and that short timeout was far from enough to set
civilization back on the right course. Like folks here as well,
it doesn't really matter how great your economy is on
paper if no one can grow food. The historical bread
(27:42):
baskets of human agriculture are under intense threat, and there's
often not a lot of political will to save them, honestly,
because primarily I see it as two reasons.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
First off, it's hard to get political will to save
your food because it can mean a temporary loss and
profit for businesses that run most governments. And then also,
the results of a large scale conservation program are often
(28:16):
not immediate. These are deferred benefits, right, It takes years
or decades to see the results, and deferred benefit is
largely an alien concept to Western politicians and the public.
I mean, most Americans right now do not live on
a farm. They do depend upon the products a farm creates,
(28:40):
and so there's a disconnect here. But that disconnect doesn't
exist in the same way in the rest of the world.
If you go to rural areas across the planet, you
see a lot of people have to farm for survival
rather than for profit. So one bad season can mean
the end of your world as you know it.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Yeah no, no, yeah, And we don't feel that great
about it, certainly not fine.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
It's one of those things too, that feels like.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
In this country in any case, a product of the
commercialization of everything, you know, just like the profits over everything, think,
putting things outside of the category of human rights and necessities.
It just doesn't seem like that attitude exists here like
it does in other parts of the world. That food
(29:34):
is a human right, that food stability is a human right,
that healthcare is a human right, et cetera. Not to
be soap oxy at all, but it just you look
elsewhere like you're saying, and it just feels like these
systems are treated much more as necessities rather than something
that is intended to make money for the you know,
the select few.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Right the upper crust, back when people could still easily
make so you know, if you are most people on
the planet, statistically you are one bad season away from
true disaster, and you could easily find yourself due to
circumstances outside of your control and everyone else in your
(30:18):
community starving. This is all these three factors can all
occur without our fourth horsemen of starvation, which is conflict.
Nearly seventy percent of acutely food insecure people live in
conflict affected areas as of twenty twenty five. The wars
(30:41):
don't help nobody. No big population is getting well fed
off of human violence. The instability brought on by conflicts
in the Middle East, East, Central West Africa, the Caribbean,
Southern Asia, Eastern Europe, they all play a role in
the looming hunger crisis because you know, it is when
(31:04):
you're in a war, food production is disrupted, people are
forced from their homes, they lose their jobs, or they
can't go to work because their buildings are getting bombed.
This also means that international aid programs are not able
to reach the people who need their help, if those
programs even still exist, or you know, sometimes countries draw
(31:29):
inward and they cut off the aid they used to provide.
This is perhaps the biggest twist of our story here, folks.
Right now, we've up to now we've been talking about
a looming hunger crisis in the globe overall. But if
you are in the United States, the Americas, you need
(31:50):
to realize that this crisis is coming to your doorstep.
We're going to take a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we'll get to some specific flashpoints.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
So by now, we're certainly unfamiliar with how the kinds
of factors that we've been talking about can lead to
widespread hunger.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
In places often that seem very.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Far removed from our lives everyday lives here as American citizens,
places like Gaza, Sudan, the Middle East in general, but
Americans in the audience may well be surprised to learn
that a version of this hunger crisis could well be
on the way here in the States. We've certainly talked
about things like food deserts in the past, and just
(32:39):
lack of access for folks that maybe are on a
lower economic and a lower economic bracket living in certain
parts of the country or certain parts of states that
just don't have the same access to fresh foods that
other places might. This is only a small part of
(32:59):
the problem that we're talking about today.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You're right, and it may be difficult to figure out
a solution before it is too late. I'd like to
shout out an earlier episode we did called oh DOGE
the Department of Government Efficiency, which despite its name is
neither an actual government department nor that efficient in practice.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
And if I, just if I may have been recently,
there have been some depositions released this isn't to do
with today's topic by some.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Of the very young men.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Like big balls, like big balls that were involved in
slashing a lot of these programs. Specifically, the clips that
I've seen have to do with DEI grants or grants
that are identified as having to do with DEI, whatever
that means in their parlance. But these, some of these
same folks are the types that we're responsible for slashing
the programs that we're talking about today. And just to
(33:56):
get a look at them, look them right in the
eye and see the way they respond to some of
the questions that are being posed to them, really calls
into question the kind of judgment that these young twenty
somethings are exercising.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Right. We also see a struggle defining what they mean
by DEI, and we also see a clear lack of
bona fides in many of these people. Most troubling to
me on that one, folks is the Russian connection story
for another day. Cough cough. Here let's look at why
(34:32):
there is going to be a looming hunger crisis right now,
fellow United Staters. Oh which side note? Did you know
that's the phrase we used to use, not Americans, We
used to call ourselves United Staters. No way, yes, wait
to I dig that because we're like stating a united thing.
(34:52):
I thought it was a good I thought I was.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Well, kid, I'm away with that's good branding.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
So all right, fellow United Statures, my fellow Americans. The
US Department of Agriculture, for more than thirty years, they
would publish a pretty in depth report on hunger and
food insecurity in the US. Very recently they canceled this
(35:19):
annual report again took place once a year like clockwork
for decades. They had a press release announcing the cancelation,
and they said it is they're canceling the report on
hunger because it is politicized, It is quote subjective liberal fodder,
and it does nothing more than fearmonger.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Well, that's the argument you see about a lot of
this stuff. Climate change is one of them, right, that
it's this Chinese hoax, that it's nothing but a bunch
of smoke that's designed to freak people out.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
But yeah, we see data backing that up.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And we certainly see data backing this stuff up as well,
So I think that assessment is short sighted at the
very least, intentionally misleading at the very worst.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yeah, it's very oversized. Floorsheim shoes writing.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Have we talked about this on the podcast we did?
I saw a picture the other day. Yeah, wearing those
big shoes too much? Man, it's too much.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Check out our weekly Strange News segment for more on that,
available wherever you find your favorite shows. We know that
this announcement from the USDA is part of the administration's
larger move to suppress data on the impact of recent
economic policies. But hiding the data does not hide the consequences.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
You can hide the status, you can hide the numbers,
but you can't hide the damage. This is where we
go to a journalist named Anne Kim writing for the
Washington Monthly.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
That's right, and she says this Millions of Americans could
soon face going hungry due to ballooning costs, a weakening
labor market, and catastrophic cuts to food assistance programs. Ben,
We've been hearing a lot of talk about affordability, things
like that the cost of groceries, etc. Groceries this fancy
new word that we're all hearing for the very first time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
How much could a banana cost? Michael Right.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I mean, it's one of those things where you can
have someone tell you that prices are going down and
throw around some stats that are admittedly self serving and misleading,
but you're the one who knows how much you're paying
for stuff. I heard a caller on a radio show
(37:45):
a couple of weeks ago talking about how she's a
retiree on Social Security, talking about how she's having to
ration can goods and a banana because the food assistance
that she used to receive, which already was pretty meager,
has been slashed just horrifically.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And this woman was in tears.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
And I feel like that is not liberal heard hunt
sleeve kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It is a observable.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Consequence of some of these kinds of things that we're
talking about in these programs being slashed. You'll also recall
that during the government shutdown, extending these subsidies for things
like food assistants was weaponized and used as a bargaining chip.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
An apolitical point, even though the problem is exacerbated by
political headwinds. This is an issue that has been brewing
for some time. And Folks, there are countless anecdotes you
can read right now, people in the US who are
by no means bad people. They depend upon, They depend
(38:58):
upon the programs that will allow them to reach economic prosperity,
will ensure the success of their family and their children.
But these problems have been on the horizon for a
long time. And here's why I say it's a political
because well before the current US administration, hunger in America
(39:20):
had already been on the rise. Fellow conspiracy realists, millions
of Americans. Four years, increasing numbers of Americans have been
reporting difficulties in affording food. They've been cutting the size
of the meals they would have, they've been skipping meals
altogether so their children could eat. The federal government deems
(39:43):
a person food insecure if there I think the quote goes,
if their ability to acquire adequate food is limited by
a lack of money or other resources. And it turns
out a growing more than ten percent of people in
the United States are food and secure right now by
(40:04):
the government's own definition.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Right The USDA put out a report in twenty twenty
three before I believe further instances of this report got canceled,
finding that thirteen point five percent of US households were
indeed food and secure, and that's up from ten point
five percent back in twenty twenty. So we're talking about
more than fifty million Americans who visited food banks in
twenty twenty three, with that demand only growing. This is
(40:30):
a pattern that is only going to be worsened by
the kinds of program and budget slashings that we have
seen in recent times.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Yeah, and I want to take a moment here. I
think we can all agree with this. Something to soapbox
just a bit. I don't know if we have a
sound qu for that yet, but the soapbox just a bit.
And to be crystal clear, there is nothing wrong with
taking government assistance. Your government exists to serve you. That
(41:04):
is how a democracy is supposed to work. So these
people who are reliant upon these programs, they are innocent people.
They're not jerks, they're not villains, they're not rifters. But
if these programs fall, there will be widespread, wide, rife
(41:25):
consequences for the experiment, the American experiment overall. Like you
can't cut five hundred million dollars from the local food
purchase assistance Cooperative Agreement program and expect nothing to go
wrong as a result.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
When I was in my early twenties and was a
young dad, my partner and I were absolutely on food assistance.
I was still kind of an intern. I was only
just out of college. I hadn't really have my career established,
and it was incredibly important to be able to do
that and to be able to rely on state funds
(42:04):
to provide food for our child, for our baby. And
also there were programs that allowed you to trade in
these food assistance dollars at local farmers' markets in order
to get fresh food, and that was also huge, and
I'm grateful that we had access to that, and I'm
also grateful that we got to a place where we
(42:25):
didn't need that anymore. But it is incredibly important for
that to be available for folks who are going through
difficult times.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
One hundred percent. One of the best lyrics that I
ever remember directly referencing what a democracy should be is
the following You get by with a little help from
your friends. That's what democracy is, you know, on multiple levels.
But if you are cutting hundreds of millions of dollars
(42:57):
from programs like this. Are you not cutting down the
foundations that support your country, like five hundred million bucks
cut from the USDA's emergency food assistance program that is
so apolitical, the idea that people should not have to
go hungry. Don't get us started on USAID, USAID, whatever
(43:18):
you want to call it. Our pals over the writers
for last week tonight, they did an excellent piece on that.
We were talking with our pal Matt a little bit
off off air about this. Please check out our episode
on doge for how for a snapshot of how the
US decision to no longer fund its international assistance program
(43:43):
is already affecting countries around the world and possibly, i'll
say it, possibly creating new generations of terrorist whatever the
list of cuts goes on. In an ideal situation, if
everything was cool, these cuts would occur because we were
doing great as a civilization. The programs themselves are no
(44:07):
longer needed. Everybody is fed, everybody's employed, looking to the future.
Like you were saying, Nola, thank you for the assistance.
Now I've reached a point where I don't need it,
and I am going to go and help other people.
But this is not the case, right. Unemployment is rising. Man.
We have in our various friend groups and contact groups,
(44:32):
we have people who have been looking for jobs for months,
you know.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Well, and it gets it becomes really hard to stomach,
no pun intended, when you start to see how much
it costs to wage these conflicts abroad, how much money
is being spent by the military on things like lobster
and rabbi stakes and what is it fruit basket stands.
(44:59):
And again I understand that you got to spend your
budget so you don't get it slashed, but boil boy,
is it a bad look when people are struggling to
eat and feed their families in this country and have
food stability and you see this amount of I would
argue fraud and abuse, waste, fraud and abuse, you know,
happening in front of our very eyes, not to mention
(45:20):
talk about building ballrooms and things like that that I
just don't see, you know, And especially when you have
an administration that campaigned on well, we don't want to
do foreign wars. We need to fix our roads, we
need to make sure that our citizens are fed. It
just really feels like a slap in the face.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
It also reminds me again of something I keep going
back to. Yeah, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. History,
more importantly, I believe, is never original. We see lead ups,
We see clear economic indicators of things like a Gilded
Age or the lead up to the French Revolution. Every
(45:57):
dollar is spent on these extremely expensive conflicts abroad could
in theory, feed, clothe house and educate Americans. The breakdown
of this old global order also brings with it increased
danger to shipping routes, which means that in the near future,
acquiring food from imports could also become increasingly difficult. What's next,
(46:22):
you know? It's the grocery stores raise prices until the
products are unavailable, and now the shelves are empty. If
you've traveled different parts of the world, folks, you may
have seen those empty shelves for yourself. And I hope
that never happens to any of us.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Listening now, are we talking about the straight of horror moves?
Ben By the way.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
Straight of horm moves will impact will impact fossil fuel shipping,
which will impact global trade networks, which will of course.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Because that is what fuels the vehicles that ship this
stuff and allow us to receive shipments of fresh food
to our grocery store. So it's a trickle down effect,
or it's a domino effect rather, right, yeah, and colso effect.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Manufacturing may also trigger a food crisis in the nation
of Iran, which doesn't need it because it's already amid
a water crisis before the recent conflict escalated, or I
shouldn't even say recent conflict, the ongoing conflict escalated.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, it's also got a bit of a we're on
fire problem going on.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
It's wild seeing the foot is coming out of there, right,
But don't worry.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
No, your boy just unilaterally removed sanctions on Russian oil,
So now I guess your vote counts.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
I know, I know that we get danged sometimes for
making our political opinions known.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
But sometimes this stuff is just so.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
It is conspiracy writ large, there's nothing there's no other
way around it, and there's no way to talk about
the conspiracy and be a show that the dissexis kind
of stuff and not talk about what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And that last scenario may seem a bit alarmist. The
idea of your local grocery store, your teeters and Sons,
or your Trader Joe's, or your yeah whatever, y right,
whatever your local market is. It may right, it may
(48:19):
seem hyperbolic to paint a picture for you in which
those stores have nothing to sell, but that is not alarmist.
That has happened before. This is forever war doctrine. The
things that you see happening abroad can very quickly be
replicated on your doorstep. The truth is that right now
(48:41):
things are not looking great. These are sub ideal indicators
of a conspiracy at play, and that you know what
keeps getting me here, guys, is the most tragic part
about this whole saga is that there is enough for everyone.
We had a previous episode, in a burst of creativity,
(49:02):
is there enough for everyone? We did the math down
to caloric consumption, and it is true right now. We
don't know how long this will be the case, but
right now, the only thing stopping everybody on the planet
from getting full bellies and healthy nutrition is other people.
That's the only thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
And I've been struggling a little bit to figure out
how to feel a bit less helpless given some of
the things that we talk about on the show and
some of the things you'll be seeing in the news
and crisises like this looming or otherwise or already here
And to your point here in the outline, Ben, volunteering
(49:43):
locally at a place like a food bank. That's a
great way to have a little bit of agency and
feel like you can do something directly to impact your
community in a positive way. And that's something that I
very much am going to become involved in personally, because
I've just been really struggling, Ben, because it just it
feels like so much of the change that we might
want just feel so out of reach, and that is
(50:05):
one way that you can at least feel like you're
doing something that directly affects people positively.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Well said, No, I'm so glad to hear that. I
think global act local. That's always been sort of a
mission statement of mine and the folks who taught me. Yeah,
you can volunteer at a local food bank. You can
vote in every local election while you're able to. We
want to hear your thoughts on the looming hunger crisis
(50:32):
it is on the way. Do you participate in programs
that have been cut? Do you volunteer and if so,
what are your recommendations what are some outfits you like?
What do you think this human world can do to
stave off this growing catastrophe? Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Folks.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Will be back again with more strange stuff they don't
want you to know. For now, we would love to
hear your thoughts. You can find us online, You can
call us on the phone. You can send us an email.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
You can't find us all over the lines at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your
social media platform of choice. Or you can give us
a telephone call at one eight three three STDWYTK, leave
a message the sound of Ben's dulcet tones and give
us permission to use your voice on one of our
future listener mail episodes.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Or don't, but we'd like it if you didn't, and
if you would prefer not to sip the social meds,
or you hate being stuck on a telephone, no worries.
You can always reach us at our email address. We
are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Our brother Matthew is on Adventures today but will be
returning soon.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
We're joined with our guest super producer Max the Free
Trade williams chu Chu. Most importantly, you argue you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
So everyone, first off, thank you for tuning in, whether
on Netflix or on an available podcast platform of your choice.
(00:58):
Thank you very much for joining us, and folks, fellow
conspiracy realist friends and neighbors. Please make sure you grab
a snack for this one. I know sometimes I'll warn
people not to eat when they're hearing a specific episode,
but this is what you're gonna want to Noch to well.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Ben, as you say in the outline here, you do
have to eat.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yes, yes, we are quote you don't know checkers don't
necessarily have to eat. Checkers from there two thousand and
one ad campaign you Gotta Eat. We've talked about it
in previous episodes on multiple shows. It's just a brilliant,
very honest pitch.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
It's the good quote Checkers barrier to entry, you know,
for sustenance.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, yeah, you gotta eat, it's sure. Are you a snacker?
I am a snacker?
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm a snacker too. I actually have these
little bens in my pantry labeled snacks, and I just
try to rotate out fun stuff. A big fan of
the like meat sticks and granola bars and rice crispy
treats are fine, the kids like those.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah. My snacking habits are partially due to my regular
sleeping habits. And I also, as you know, Noel, I
travel pretty often, so I end up when you when
you travel often, you end up aggregating little snacks. Right.
(02:25):
You always got this little, what fun size bag of
peanuts or almonds and you put them in your backpack. Yeah.
Also shout out to good friend of the show, Diana Brown,
who years ago comedy writing partner of mine. Years ago,
she asked me, how can something be called fun size
(02:46):
if there's less of it? This was her objecting to
small Halloween candies.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
And then the question becomes is that what's the opposite
of fun size trauma size.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And is it large sure or is it smaller? I
don't know. These are very important questions to keep us
up at night.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And we have a series of very important questions coming
to us live tonight while we record on Friday, March thirteenth.
That's right, Friday the thirteenth. We got the ads coming,
We've got the IDEs on the way in about forty
eight hours as we record.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Now, double whammy of portentiousness, not pretentiousness. I think I
got it right the first.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You nailed it, man, So tonight, going back to that
series of questions, we are exploring a series of conspiracies
that will, by hook or by crook, for cook, impact
you directly. It does not matter how you vote, It
does not matter what religion you hold, who your parents are,
(03:52):
how you personally identify yourself. If you are a human being,
at any point in civilization, you have to eat on
a semi regular basis or you will die. And I know, right,
it's a bummer. It's a great unifier. Though it's true.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I mean death is the ultimate great unifier. I think
it's the one thing that none of us know anything
about but that we will all one day experience.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Right at least for a brief moment. We're still waiting
as we record now. We're still waiting on a conversation
we had about the spiritualism movement over on our sister
show of Ridiculous History. If you are dead and you
are hearing this now, tell us about the afterlife.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Drop us a review on your podcast platform of choice,
the Afterlife.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yes, yeah, give us a heavenly five stars or a
hellish five stars. As we'll see in tonight's episode, it
may be the case for a lot of people right
now that they will die due to starvation, and sooner
than you would like to think. This is the story
of the looming hunger crisis. We're going to pause for
(05:06):
a word from our sponsors, and then let's get into food. No,
you're relatively pro food, right.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Very pro food. You can almost call me a foodie.
But at the very least I do enjoy consuming it
for sustenance and survival. Let's take quick break here, a
word from our sponsors, and then we'll jump right in.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
H moment of silence for the brethetarians in the crowd.
Here are the facts. Food is one of the biggest
businesses in all of human history.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
As a general category, at the heart of culture and commerce,
eating is, you know, in addition to death, one of
the great human unifiers. It has so much potential to
define one's personality, one's connection to their ancestors, to culture,
(06:03):
as you said, Ben, and it's just a great way
of kind of creating community honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, some of the best television
produced out of the United States involves folks like Anthony
Ordained traveling around in programs like No Reservations where it's
kind of a food show, but really it's an anthropological
exploration of how food unites people. So regardless of your
(06:34):
differences with anyone you have ever met, read about, or
heard about, there is a very high likelihood that you
could bond with those strangers over a good dish of
something tasty, especially if you're both trying it for the
first time.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And not to mention too, it's a great way of
carrying on the traditions of your family members, your parents,
your grandparents before them, being able to kind of recreate
history by sharing a dish that was very important to you,
perhaps as a child and making it the way your
mom or your grandma used to make it.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I love that point, yeah, because it does communicate beyond generations, right,
we do have people telling a larger story in every plate.
And we also know, because humans are literally a captive
audience for food that the global food industry is a
(07:33):
multi trillion dollar sector. Okay, folks, That means that it
is one of the largest, most crucial businesses in the
modern world. I think about this often, Nolan Max. The
fast food market alone generates over a trillion dollars every year,
(07:54):
and I've got to be honest, guys, I'm kind of
off the fast food. They kind of lost their value
position for me with raising prices.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I occasionally I'll get just a single cheeseburger from McDonald's
because there's one pretty close to me, or a snack wrap,
but in general I do try to avoid them as
well and cook for myself as much as possible. Access
to food is a big part of what we're talking
about today, and at multiple points it has changed throughout
the course of history. An abundance of crops grown on
(08:26):
fertile land can be the seat of empires. A drought,
on the other hand, as we've talked about, weather patterns
and weather events bringing down civilizations and empires can be
ruinous to citizens of that empire and the empire empires themselves.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yes, this is true regardless of where you are, who
you are, when you are listening. The ever present threat
of starvation has haunted humanity since before the dawn of
the written word. It haunts humanity still even in twenty
twenty six. I mean, let's talk a little bit about famine.
(09:07):
The concept of famine, widespread starvation is a danger so
historically prevalent and terrifying that it ended up being personified
in the Bible as one of the four horsemen of
the apocalypse.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
One of the great plagues, feast or famine. Indeed, famines
have occurred throughout history, and sometimes they're caused by arguably
preventable factors such as war or more acts of God
like natural disasters. Sometimes they're caused by human error, greed, malice,
(09:42):
poor government policies are some examples of that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Some notable events.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I know we love to make fun of the idea
of the great bad thing, but the Great Famine in
Europe from thirteen fifteen to thirteen seventeen, the Irish potato
famine another one of the hits there, and of course
the Great Chinese Famine. Those great things got to go
through the birds from nineteen fifty nine to nineteen sixty one,
collectively resulting in millions of fatalities and immeasurable impacts on
(10:11):
the societies that they affected that can still be felt
into the modern day in many cases.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, and I want to go back to that point, folks,
human error, malice, poor government policies. You don't necessarily need
a natural disaster and act of God to result in
widespread starvation. Soviet stalinistic policies absolutely resulted in millions of
(10:42):
preventable deaths, as did things like Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward.
The humans can be the problem now. Luckily, sometimes the
humans can be the solution. If you look back at
the history of starvation and food and secure and under
nourishment and famine, what you'll see is that the evolution
(11:05):
of technology in specific fields saved not just millions, but
billions of innocent people's lives. We're talking about breakthroughs in
agriculture and storage and processing and transportation. And I just
got a joke that I apparently wrote earlier breakthroughs in
(11:26):
technology in the fields of agriculture. Ben come on, man,
all right, anyway, this this wilds like you know, like yeah,
fields of grain, the fields history.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Oh boy, you know, even things that might not immediately
resonate as technology. Agricultural techniques like crop rotation for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah yeah, like the Three Sisters that be a famous
example here in the United States. We also have to
shout out our pal Norman Borlog, the father of the
Green Revolution, who provably saved billions of lives. To your point, no,
better farming techniques which our technology lead to better crop yields,
(12:10):
and then better storage technology guarantees fewer crops will spoil.
And then add to that better transportation right, better trade
networks and logistic chains. That this means that if people
are starving in one area, you, if you're a good person,
you have a better chance of getting food to them
(12:33):
from your area before a disaster occurs. Food insecurity has
always been a threat in certain areas of the world,
but international initiatives made huge leaps in assisting the needy
and the starving and saving them from the horrors of old.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Things like the USAID for example, Other outreach programs to
help country is experiencing food insecurity feed their citizens. It
seems kind of like a no brainer that this type
of thing is good for all.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I would think, yeah, one would think right, because one
would be a decent person thinking in that scenario. However,
this may not be the case for long. In recent decades, academics, activists, analysts, economist, politicians,
they've been raising a stark warning. The rules of the game,
(13:32):
the starvation game. Those rules are shifting right now as
we record, there's a little bit less than eight point
three billion human beings on the planet.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We often go to a thing.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Called world Ometer or world dometer, and if we go there,
the current population is eight billion, two hundred and eighty
one million, twenty nine thousand, and oh that last keeps ticket.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's gotta change going up.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah, And I think most folks can acknowledge, even
just from experiential data, that.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
There's something going on with the climate. Storms are getting worse,
oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Certain seasons are feeling a little different than they have
in the past. Colder winters, hotter summers, stuff like that.
And I don't think that's a political statement. It's something
that people can just go outside and feel the results
of themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
This idea of climate shock.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Weather patterns, temperatures, seasonal conditions that were once predictable are
now becoming much much less so, as you put up
in going a little bit haywire, and this is really
bad news for a lot of crops and hunting patterns
that really depend on this predictability.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
At least you know a certain amount of it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
One and you've probably seen it in your neck of
the global woods, folks. So this is for the perhaps
the older conspiracy realist in the crowd. We would love
to hear your personal anecdotal experience with large weather changes
in your neck of the woods. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
(15:22):
We cannot underestimate the impact of climate shock. We also
know there is a human impact. Political and economic chaos
is breaking the logistic chains of food supply and availability.
Check this out, folks. The UN's World Food Program recently
noted that three hundred and eighteen million people face not
(15:48):
just food insecurity, but crisis levels of hunger or full
on starvation next year. That is more than double the
number recorded just a few years ago in twenty nineteen,
and part of the reason the number is spiking globally
is due to two simultaneous famines occurring right now, one
(16:11):
in Gaza, one in Soudan. It is the first time
in this century that to acknowledge, real life famines have
been occurring simultaneously.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah, and sadly, that's just the beginning. Experts, many numerous
experts agree that things are likely going to get worse
before they get better, and that we may be looking
at a looming global hunger crisis right there on the horizon,
and it soon might reach you directly.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, it's on the horizon and it may be at
your doorstep sooner than we would like to acknowledge. We'll
be back after a word from our sponsors. We're going
to dive into this. Here's where it gets crazy, okay,
Noel Max. We could say the global hunger crisis has
(17:09):
already been around for a while. God knows, famine is historical,
but now we can say it's escalating because we have
a lot of statistics to back it up.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
One such statistic comes from the World Health Organization in
twenty twenty four, finding that one and eleven people faced
hunger across the globe.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Back in twenty twenty three. One out of.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Five of those people lived on the African continent. All
in all, that's nearly seven hundred and thirty three million
people affected.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, and this also means that the global effort to
address or even fix starvation has fallen backwards. The levels
of what we call under nourishment are now comparable to
what the world saw back in two thousand and eight
to two thousand and nine. If we fast forward to
(18:05):
just last year, November of twenty twenty five, we see
that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World
Food Program that's the FAO and the WFP for anybody who,
like us, loves acronyms, they found quote acute food insecurity
is set to worsen in sixteen countries and territories between
(18:28):
now November twenty twenty five and May twenty twenty six.
We are going downhill fast. And if you look at
their website you can find this excellent, disturbing infographic of
what we call early warning hunger hotspots. No, you and
(18:49):
I have gotten a chance to look at this, and
we see that a lot of it is in the
African continent. And could you maybe walk us through this infographic?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah, We've got three color codes here, hot spots of
highest concern darker blue, hot spots of very high concern
sort of a medium blue, and then hot spots just
regular old hotspots a light blue. And to your point earlier, Ben,
the Sudan and South Sudan would be considered hot spots
of highest concern. Malli also falls under that category as well,
(19:23):
as I believe that's Yemen.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Then in the hot spots a very high concern, we
see Afghanistan, Syrian Arab Republic, let's see mianmar and I
believe no, yeah, Democratic Republic of.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Congo as well.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
And then the just regular old hotspots we've got Chad Kenya.
And then finally we have the re Rehinga refugees in Bangladesh,
just specifically isolated referring to displaced population there.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, this is when you look at it all in.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
One place, I mean, and the hotspots are all kind
of clustered together. There's a few outliers, but mainly it's
kind of right there in the you know, a little
bit north and central part of the African continent.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Right. We also see to the point about outliers, we
see that Haiti is struggling with food insecurity, it's a
hot spot of highest concern. We also see that one
of the world's fastest growing economies, Nigeria, is a hot
spot of high concerns. So politics diatribes aside. We're seeing
(20:36):
libraries worth of statistics pointing to and beat me here, Max,
beat me here, Netflix pointing to bad ahead. So we
have to ask what is causing this. The boffins tell
us there are four primary factors, conflict, climate, economy, and displacement.
(20:57):
So maybe we go in reverse, or since we just
alluded to the concept of displacement, what is displacement, Well.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That would be folks that are forced to flee due
to war, economic instability, and ecosystems that are failing. Massive
groups of people are moving, are migrating in some places
at levels that we haven't seen since World War Two.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, and to be clear, fellow conspiracy realist, these folks
being displaced, these folks migrating, they are not a foreign army.
They're not being paid to move. They're not out for
some kind of shenanigans. They're not even relocating for a
nice job offered. They're often already vulnerable, impoverished. They were
(21:44):
probably just making it before the weather went wild where
the bombs started dropping. The people who can escape do
their best to escape, and sometimes often it's for their
own survival, but more often than not, these folks are
escaping to guarantee the survival of their children and their
(22:06):
loved ones.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You know, a single guy might just sit around and
die in a monsoon plane or join the army. But
if that single guy has you know, a spouse, a partner,
three kids who depend on them, then they're going to
try to find a safe place for their children. People
are literally drowning right now, and at the same time,
(22:31):
people are literally dying for lack of water. There's sometimes
called climate migrants or climate refugees. We discussed this in
a previous episode this I think it was our brain
Drain episode.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Well, sure, because the origin countries lose out on their
workforce and their tax base, so they're suffering. And then
the destination countries often are not set up for this
mass influx of humans and that in terms of infrastructure, overrun,
emergency preparedness, things like that, and they are forced to
(23:07):
kind of go into kind of overdrive because they simply
haven't built out the infrastructure to sustain this new flux,
of a new influx rather of hungry people who often
need medical attention as well, not to mention other human
needs like employment, educational services, and things like.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
That exactly, And this can create a feedback loop.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Hunger.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
We're saying here is hunger can become contagious because folks
in the destination country may end up saying things are
going wrong here, so I have to find somewhere else for.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Me to move right.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And now we have a new iteration of what we
could call climate migrants or climate refugees. And a lot
of this goes back to our next cause, a second
cause of the four causes of famine, the four horsemen
of famine economy. Okay, the economy is a man made thing,
but it can have wonderful and disastrous effects on the
(24:12):
natural world. So sluggish global growth economic stressors we call them.
This can be linked to things like pandemic recovery, the
fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine. This affects low
and middle income countries way more than it affects the
more high falluting countries. So when the midterm of the future,
(24:36):
this encourages displacement and perhaps more importantly, it leads to
cuts in social protection programs and international aid. And we've
all seen this. I imagine in times of crisis, countries
will often sort of circle their wagons, They'll draw in inward,
(24:58):
they'll go way from the problems the wider world. They'll
say things like America first, a little too on the nose.
But this creates another feedback loop because when you cut
those programs domestically and abroad, that worsens the economy of
the countries that used to receive that assistance, which triggers
(25:20):
more displacement, which triggers more economic chaos, which triggers more hunger.
How do we like, what if there is a world
where everybody has to fill out a survey and they say, hey,
the survey says, hey, you have to move in the
next six months or the next year and a half
(25:42):
where you're going to go to avoid starvation? That answer
gets a lot trickier every year due to our third factor,
our third horseman here, the climate.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
That's right, and you know, we.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Feels like it shouldn't be aal issue again for the
aforementioned you know, just kind of observable examples of this
stuff happening. But We certainly know that it has been
weaponized in terms of political rhetoric, this idea of climate
change being a hoax of some sort perpetrated by our enemies,
(26:19):
various lines of thinking like that that seemed to be
pretty easily debunked. However, it does seem to be relatively
effective for some folks. So I think we can all
agree that in some way, shape or form, there's something
going on with the climate, and it ain't good by
any credible measurement. The climate is changing and it is
(26:41):
not changing for the better. We can also see this
over time, you know, like if we look at ancient
history and we look at things like ice ages and
various global shifts in climate. This is not the first
time something like this has happened. So while the silver
lining of something like the pandemic lockdown was something everyone
was talking about with kind of rose colored glasses, Oh,
(27:04):
the dolphins have returned to the canals and various things
like that, and the earth, Mother Earth is repairing herself
because no one's going outside. There was some of that,
but it doesn't take long to walk some of that
stuff back once people get back to peopling, right, it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Was a short time out when the world was in lockdown,
and that short timeout was far from enough to set
civilization back on the right course. Like folks here as well,
it doesn't really matter how great your economy is on
paper if no one can grow food. The historical bread
(27:42):
baskets of human agriculture are under intense threat, and there's
often not a lot of political will to save them, honestly,
because primarily I see it as two reasons.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
First off, it's hard to get political will to save
your food because it can mean a temporary loss and
profit for businesses that run most governments. And then also,
the results of a large scale conservation program are often
(28:16):
not immediate. These are deferred benefits, right, It takes years
or decades to see the results, and deferred benefit is
largely an alien concept to Western politicians and the public.
I mean, most Americans right now do not live on
a farm. They do depend upon the products a farm creates,
(28:40):
and so there's a disconnect here. But that disconnect doesn't
exist in the same way in the rest of the world.
If you go to rural areas across the planet, you
see a lot of people have to farm for survival
rather than for profit. So one bad season can mean
the end of your world as you know it.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Yeah no, no, yeah, And we don't feel that great
about it, certainly not fine.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
It's one of those things too, that feels like.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
In this country in any case, a product of the
commercialization of everything, you know, just like the profits over everything, think,
putting things outside of the category of human rights and necessities.
It just doesn't seem like that attitude exists here like
it does in other parts of the world. That food
(29:34):
is a human right, that food stability is a human right,
that healthcare is a human right, et cetera. Not to
be soap oxy at all, but it just you look
elsewhere like you're saying, and it just feels like these
systems are treated much more as necessities rather than something
that is intended to make money for the you know,
the select few.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Right the upper crust, back when people could still easily
make so you know, if you are most people on
the planet, statistically you are one bad season away from
true disaster, and you could easily find yourself due to
circumstances outside of your control and everyone else in your
(30:18):
community starving. This is all these three factors can all
occur without our fourth horsemen of starvation, which is conflict.
Nearly seventy percent of acutely food insecure people live in
conflict affected areas as of twenty twenty five. The wars
(30:41):
don't help nobody. No big population is getting well fed
off of human violence. The instability brought on by conflicts
in the Middle East, East, Central West Africa, the Caribbean,
Southern Asia, Eastern Europe, they all play a role in
the looming hunger crisis because you know, it is when
(31:04):
you're in a war, food production is disrupted, people are
forced from their homes, they lose their jobs, or they
can't go to work because their buildings are getting bombed.
This also means that international aid programs are not able
to reach the people who need their help, if those
programs even still exist, or you know, sometimes countries draw
(31:29):
inward and they cut off the aid they used to provide.
This is perhaps the biggest twist of our story here, folks.
Right now, we've up to now we've been talking about
a looming hunger crisis in the globe overall. But if
you are in the United States, the Americas, you need
(31:50):
to realize that this crisis is coming to your doorstep.
We're going to take a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we'll get to some specific flashpoints.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
So by now, we're certainly unfamiliar with how the kinds
of factors that we've been talking about can lead to
widespread hunger.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
In places often that seem very.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Far removed from our lives everyday lives here as American citizens,
places like Gaza, Sudan, the Middle East in general, but
Americans in the audience may well be surprised to learn
that a version of this hunger crisis could well be
on the way here in the States. We've certainly talked
about things like food deserts in the past, and just
(32:39):
lack of access for folks that maybe are on a
lower economic and a lower economic bracket living in certain
parts of the country or certain parts of states that
just don't have the same access to fresh foods that
other places might. This is only a small part of
(32:59):
the problem that we're talking about today.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You're right, and it may be difficult to figure out
a solution before it is too late. I'd like to
shout out an earlier episode we did called oh DOGE
the Department of Government Efficiency, which despite its name is
neither an actual government department nor that efficient in practice.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
And if I, just if I may have been recently,
there have been some depositions released this isn't to do
with today's topic by some.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Of the very young men.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Like big balls, like big balls that were involved in
slashing a lot of these programs. Specifically, the clips that
I've seen have to do with DEI grants or grants
that are identified as having to do with DEI, whatever
that means in their parlance. But these, some of these
same folks are the types that we're responsible for slashing
the programs that we're talking about today. And just to
(33:56):
get a look at them, look them right in the
eye and see the way they respond to some of
the questions that are being posed to them, really calls
into question the kind of judgment that these young twenty
somethings are exercising.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Right. We also see a struggle defining what they mean
by DEI, and we also see a clear lack of
bona fides in many of these people. Most troubling to
me on that one, folks is the Russian connection story
for another day. Cough cough. Here let's look at why
(34:32):
there is going to be a looming hunger crisis right now,
fellow United Staters. Oh which side note? Did you know
that's the phrase we used to use, not Americans, We
used to call ourselves United Staters. No way, yes, wait
to I dig that because we're like stating a united thing.
(34:52):
I thought it was a good I thought I was.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Well, kid, I'm away with that's good branding.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
So all right, fellow United Statures, my fellow Americans. The
US Department of Agriculture, for more than thirty years, they
would publish a pretty in depth report on hunger and
food insecurity in the US. Very recently they canceled this
(35:19):
annual report again took place once a year like clockwork
for decades. They had a press release announcing the cancelation,
and they said it is they're canceling the report on
hunger because it is politicized, It is quote subjective liberal fodder,
and it does nothing more than fearmonger.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Well, that's the argument you see about a lot of
this stuff. Climate change is one of them, right, that
it's this Chinese hoax, that it's nothing but a bunch
of smoke that's designed to freak people out.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
But yeah, we see data backing that up.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And we certainly see data backing this stuff up as well,
So I think that assessment is short sighted at the
very least, intentionally misleading at the very worst.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yeah, it's very oversized. Floorsheim shoes writing.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Have we talked about this on the podcast we did?
I saw a picture the other day. Yeah, wearing those
big shoes too much? Man, it's too much.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Check out our weekly Strange News segment for more on that,
available wherever you find your favorite shows. We know that
this announcement from the USDA is part of the administration's
larger move to suppress data on the impact of recent
economic policies. But hiding the data does not hide the consequences.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
You can hide the status, you can hide the numbers,
but you can't hide the damage. This is where we
go to a journalist named Anne Kim writing for the
Washington Monthly.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
That's right, and she says this Millions of Americans could
soon face going hungry due to ballooning costs, a weakening
labor market, and catastrophic cuts to food assistance programs. Ben,
We've been hearing a lot of talk about affordability, things
like that the cost of groceries, etc. Groceries this fancy
new word that we're all hearing for the very first time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
How much could a banana cost? Michael Right.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I mean, it's one of those things where you can
have someone tell you that prices are going down and
throw around some stats that are admittedly self serving and misleading,
but you're the one who knows how much you're paying
for stuff. I heard a caller on a radio show
(37:45):
a couple of weeks ago talking about how she's a
retiree on Social Security, talking about how she's having to
ration can goods and a banana because the food assistance
that she used to receive, which already was pretty meager,
has been slashed just horrifically.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And this woman was in tears.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
And I feel like that is not liberal heard hunt
sleeve kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It is a observable.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Consequence of some of these kinds of things that we're
talking about in these programs being slashed. You'll also recall
that during the government shutdown, extending these subsidies for things
like food assistants was weaponized and used as a bargaining chip.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
An apolitical point, even though the problem is exacerbated by
political headwinds. This is an issue that has been brewing
for some time. And Folks, there are countless anecdotes you
can read right now, people in the US who are
by no means bad people. They depend upon, They depend
(38:58):
upon the programs that will allow them to reach economic prosperity,
will ensure the success of their family and their children.
But these problems have been on the horizon for a
long time. And here's why I say it's a political
because well before the current US administration, hunger in America
(39:20):
had already been on the rise. Fellow conspiracy realists, millions
of Americans. Four years, increasing numbers of Americans have been
reporting difficulties in affording food. They've been cutting the size
of the meals they would have, they've been skipping meals
altogether so their children could eat. The federal government deems
(39:43):
a person food insecure if there I think the quote goes,
if their ability to acquire adequate food is limited by
a lack of money or other resources. And it turns
out a growing more than ten percent of people in
the United States are food and secure right now by
(40:04):
the government's own definition.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Right The USDA put out a report in twenty twenty
three before I believe further instances of this report got canceled,
finding that thirteen point five percent of US households were
indeed food and secure, and that's up from ten point
five percent back in twenty twenty. So we're talking about
more than fifty million Americans who visited food banks in
twenty twenty three, with that demand only growing. This is
(40:30):
a pattern that is only going to be worsened by
the kinds of program and budget slashings that we have
seen in recent times.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Yeah, and I want to take a moment here. I
think we can all agree with this. Something to soapbox
just a bit. I don't know if we have a
sound qu for that yet, but the soapbox just a bit.
And to be crystal clear, there is nothing wrong with
taking government assistance. Your government exists to serve you. That
(41:04):
is how a democracy is supposed to work. So these
people who are reliant upon these programs, they are innocent people.
They're not jerks, they're not villains, they're not rifters. But
if these programs fall, there will be widespread, wide, rife
(41:25):
consequences for the experiment, the American experiment overall. Like you
can't cut five hundred million dollars from the local food
purchase assistance Cooperative Agreement program and expect nothing to go
wrong as a result.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
When I was in my early twenties and was a
young dad, my partner and I were absolutely on food assistance.
I was still kind of an intern. I was only
just out of college. I hadn't really have my career established,
and it was incredibly important to be able to do
that and to be able to rely on state funds
(42:04):
to provide food for our child, for our baby. And
also there were programs that allowed you to trade in
these food assistance dollars at local farmers' markets in order
to get fresh food, and that was also huge, and
I'm grateful that we had access to that, and I'm
also grateful that we got to a place where we
(42:25):
didn't need that anymore. But it is incredibly important for
that to be available for folks who are going through
difficult times.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
One hundred percent. One of the best lyrics that I
ever remember directly referencing what a democracy should be is
the following You get by with a little help from
your friends. That's what democracy is, you know, on multiple levels.
But if you are cutting hundreds of millions of dollars
(42:57):
from programs like this. Are you not cutting down the
foundations that support your country, like five hundred million bucks
cut from the USDA's emergency food assistance program that is
so apolitical, the idea that people should not have to
go hungry. Don't get us started on USAID, USAID, whatever
(43:18):
you want to call it. Our pals over the writers
for last week tonight, they did an excellent piece on that.
We were talking with our pal Matt a little bit
off off air about this. Please check out our episode
on doge for how for a snapshot of how the
US decision to no longer fund its international assistance program
(43:43):
is already affecting countries around the world and possibly, i'll
say it, possibly creating new generations of terrorist whatever the
list of cuts goes on. In an ideal situation, if
everything was cool, these cuts would occur because we were
doing great as a civilization. The programs themselves are no
(44:07):
longer needed. Everybody is fed, everybody's employed, looking to the future.
Like you were saying, Nola, thank you for the assistance.
Now I've reached a point where I don't need it,
and I am going to go and help other people.
But this is not the case, right. Unemployment is rising. Man.
We have in our various friend groups and contact groups,
(44:32):
we have people who have been looking for jobs for months,
you know.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Well, and it gets it becomes really hard to stomach,
no pun intended, when you start to see how much
it costs to wage these conflicts abroad, how much money
is being spent by the military on things like lobster
and rabbi stakes and what is it fruit basket stands.
(44:59):
And again I understand that you got to spend your
budget so you don't get it slashed, but boil boy,
is it a bad look when people are struggling to
eat and feed their families in this country and have
food stability and you see this amount of I would
argue fraud and abuse, waste, fraud and abuse, you know,
happening in front of our very eyes, not to mention
(45:20):
talk about building ballrooms and things like that that I
just don't see, you know, And especially when you have
an administration that campaigned on well, we don't want to
do foreign wars. We need to fix our roads, we
need to make sure that our citizens are fed. It
just really feels like a slap in the face.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
It also reminds me again of something I keep going
back to. Yeah, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. History,
more importantly, I believe, is never original. We see lead ups,
We see clear economic indicators of things like a Gilded
Age or the lead up to the French Revolution. Every
(45:57):
dollar is spent on these extremely expensive conflicts abroad could
in theory, feed, clothe house and educate Americans. The breakdown
of this old global order also brings with it increased
danger to shipping routes, which means that in the near future,
acquiring food from imports could also become increasingly difficult. What's next,
(46:22):
you know? It's the grocery stores raise prices until the
products are unavailable, and now the shelves are empty. If
you've traveled different parts of the world, folks, you may
have seen those empty shelves for yourself. And I hope
that never happens to any of us.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Listening now, are we talking about the straight of horror moves?
Ben By the way.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
Straight of horm moves will impact will impact fossil fuel shipping,
which will impact global trade networks, which will of course.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Because that is what fuels the vehicles that ship this
stuff and allow us to receive shipments of fresh food
to our grocery store. So it's a trickle down effect,
or it's a domino effect rather, right, yeah, and colso effect.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Manufacturing may also trigger a food crisis in the nation
of Iran, which doesn't need it because it's already amid
a water crisis before the recent conflict escalated, or I
shouldn't even say recent conflict, the ongoing conflict escalated.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, it's also got a bit of a we're on
fire problem going on.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
It's wild seeing the foot is coming out of there, right,
But don't worry.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
No, your boy just unilaterally removed sanctions on Russian oil,
So now I guess your vote counts.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
I know, I know that we get danged sometimes for
making our political opinions known.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
But sometimes this stuff is just so.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
It is conspiracy writ large, there's nothing there's no other
way around it, and there's no way to talk about
the conspiracy and be a show that the dissexis kind
of stuff and not talk about what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And that last scenario may seem a bit alarmist. The
idea of your local grocery store, your teeters and Sons,
or your Trader Joe's, or your yeah whatever, y right,
whatever your local market is. It may right, it may
(48:19):
seem hyperbolic to paint a picture for you in which
those stores have nothing to sell, but that is not alarmist.
That has happened before. This is forever war doctrine. The
things that you see happening abroad can very quickly be
replicated on your doorstep. The truth is that right now
(48:41):
things are not looking great. These are sub ideal indicators
of a conspiracy at play, and that you know what
keeps getting me here, guys, is the most tragic part
about this whole saga is that there is enough for everyone.
We had a previous episode, in a burst of creativity,
(49:02):
is there enough for everyone? We did the math down
to caloric consumption, and it is true right now. We
don't know how long this will be the case, but
right now, the only thing stopping everybody on the planet
from getting full bellies and healthy nutrition is other people.
That's the only thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
And I've been struggling a little bit to figure out
how to feel a bit less helpless given some of
the things that we talk about on the show and
some of the things you'll be seeing in the news
and crisises like this looming or otherwise or already here
And to your point here in the outline, Ben, volunteering
(49:43):
locally at a place like a food bank. That's a
great way to have a little bit of agency and
feel like you can do something directly to impact your
community in a positive way. And that's something that I
very much am going to become involved in personally, because
I've just been really struggling, Ben, because it just it
feels like so much of the change that we might
want just feel so out of reach, and that is
(50:05):
one way that you can at least feel like you're
doing something that directly affects people positively.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Well said, No, I'm so glad to hear that. I
think global act local. That's always been sort of a
mission statement of mine and the folks who taught me. Yeah,
you can volunteer at a local food bank. You can
vote in every local election while you're able to. We
want to hear your thoughts on the looming hunger crisis
(50:32):
it is on the way. Do you participate in programs
that have been cut? Do you volunteer and if so,
what are your recommendations what are some outfits you like?
What do you think this human world can do to
stave off this growing catastrophe? Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Folks.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Will be back again with more strange stuff they don't
want you to know. For now, we would love to
hear your thoughts. You can find us online, You can
call us on the phone. You can send us an email.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
You can't find us all over the lines at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your
social media platform of choice. Or you can give us
a telephone call at one eight three three STDWYTK, leave
a message the sound of Ben's dulcet tones and give
us permission to use your voice on one of our
future listener mail episodes.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Or don't, but we'd like it if you didn't, and
if you would prefer not to sip the social meds,
or you hate being stuck on a telephone, no worries.
You can always reach us at our email address. We
are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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