Social Implications

Forbes Quotes me on Social Media’s Future considering Safety & Identity

Ali · January 7, 2023 ·

I was cited in an article that was published in Forbes. The article was part of a series that was assessing the activities of 2022 on Twitter, the crazy policies of a new CEO, and the ramifications on the future of social media.

The article’s central emphasis was on the question of whether or not, in the near future of social media, users can feel secure while maintaining their individual identities.

I was quoted in the following lines as part of a discussion on the pros and cons of maintaining anonymity and pseudonymity online:

“Kaliya Young, Identity Woman, recalls an incident with Kathy Sierra, a female blogger and game developer, who in 2007, experienced death threats online and finally gave up her tech career, withdrew from the blogosphere and from online life. Following that incident there were calls to create blogger codes of conduct to stop this online violence against women.”

“’Look, if the first bad instances of online violence against women were treated seriously and the perpetrators that were not known were held to account then we would be in a different place [today]. They were not.’ Weeve, the pseudonym, of the hacker and self-described neo-Nazi and white supremacist responsible for posting false information about Sierra, had gone unpunished. As per Young, ‘He should have gone to prison for that. I was at the conference when they got up and said Kathy isn’t here because of death threats! It affected my life as a woman working in technology. Instead, he was left alone and went on to commit more acts of terrorism.’”

About the other side, you may find me in the following lines, where I’m contributing to a discussion regarding the importance of transparency and verification:

“Young stresses that it will take ‘time, rigour, investment and a proportionate approach’ to see the payoff. She points out that there is also a middle ground and it’s possible to implement speed bumps to make it less appealing for bad actors to exploit a poorly designed platform. ‘Designing a social media platform with possible consequences including, but not limited to privacy and security risks in mind (like One Dot Everyone, a consequence scanning tool), can improve the design while exploring alternatives to identity verification. Privacy Impact Assessments and Human Rights Impact Assessments will also go a long way to mitigate risks.’”

“Young questions the process for verification. Who will decide a person is who they say they are? Given her work in the Identity space, development of a trust framework should be leveraged to deal with the complexities of identity verification. But it continues to call into question what individuals or groups are responsible for defining the rules for verification?”

“Young professes that Identity has its place online but argues that the systems including the governance layers need to be in sync. ‘So men like Galloway and Haidt can go on about this ‘real name’ stuff all they want. Until the systems they built actually work as claimed and that men who use their real names and are known will be held to account, then what business do they have suggesting that?’”

Now, the purpose of this section is to provide a response to the following question: will technology save us? In the passage that follows, I am referenced as follows:

“Social media accounts have been around for a long time and Young makes clear they are, for the most part, run and managed by real people, attached to other real identities online that have more credibility: I think that analog is the new digital – meaning people will seek out and connect and value time with each other in person.”

Lastly, I am cited in the following lines on the remark that identity verification on social networks does not compute or make sense:

“As per Young, identity needs careful and thoughtful consideration:

There is a difference between the platform knowing who someone is and the whole world knowing the same. Who is enforcing what type of ID? Like Doctor, Young signals the marginalized, and those who have been suffering the abuse on the platform for over a decade. The rules for verification need to incorporate the varying definitions of identity that include cultural, general and local perspectives.”

You can read the full article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hessiejones/2023/01/04/will-the-future-of-social-media-mean-the-coexistence-of-safety-and-identity/?sh=5851ac587fba

Talk at TEDx Brussels

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

I was invited to give a talk at TEDx Brussels.
I explain Identity in the context of the Future. Enjoy!

Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders

Kaliya Young · July 31, 2011 · 2 Comments

This is the “punchline section” (in my response it is after what is below…the history of collaboration in the identity community):

Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders

In 2004-5 the Identity Gang (user-centric identity community) was 1/10 the size of the current NSTIC stakeholder community. It took us a year of active grassroots effort to develop enough common language and shared understanding to collaborate. NSTIC doesn’t have 5-10 years to coalesce a community that can collaborate to build the Identity Ecosystem Framework. To succeed, the National Program Office must use processes to bring value and insight while also developing shared language and understanding amongst stakeholders participating.
[Read more…] about Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders

No Plancast you can't have all my Dataz

Kaliya Young · February 23, 2011 · 1 Comment

You know I like social media tools and enjoy using them to share information.
I am also very conscious of the implications of doing so and how public things are when I do. I manage my public persona – the parts of myself that I share publicly on the web associated with my professional work and personal passion – User-Centric Digital Identity.
Today I saw a friend share via Facebook that they were attending a cool panel at SXSW – Demystifying Online Privacy and Empowering the Digital Self
I went over to Plancast where it was listed and also signaled that I would be attending THEN it asked me if I would like to share via Facebook. “sure” I think that makes sense – I learned about it there why not, it is part of my professional public life online.
So then the Terms of Use show up…and you know they are just too extensive. Why to post that I AM going to one event must I give all this information away. It is also a go-no-go proposition. I can’t “Uncheck” things I don’t want to let plancast do. THIS IS really broken. It needs to be fixed. I need to be able to use applications AND have control over how much they can do with my data and how much freedom they have to post.
I ONLY want to give them permission to post this one item…maybe in time I might trust them enough to have full access but that will come in time as I grow to know their service and trust their business practices.
Plancast is requesting permission to do the following:
Access my basic information
Includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I’ve shared with everyone.
Send me email
Plancast may email me directly at kaliya@mac.com ·
Post to my Wall
Plancast may post status messages, notes, photos, and videos to my Wall

Access my data any time

Plancast may access my data when I’m not using the application
Access my profile information
About Me, Events, Current City and Website

On Identity and Centralization

Kaliya Young · April 22, 2010 · 4 Comments

I was asked for a quote today to comment on F8 developments and the continuing apparent “centralization” of identity on that platform. It is not new for me to say these things but perhaps more crystallized…..
The turning point of the web becoming more social was mentioned several times today.
The issue at hand is fundamentally about FREEDOM: the freedom to choose who hosts your identity online (with the freedom to set up and host your own), the freedom to choose your persona – how you present yourself, what your gender is, your age, your race, your sex, where you are in the world. A prime example of WHY these freedoms are vital is the story of James Chartrand – you can read for yourself her story of being a “him” online as a single mother seeking work as a copy editor. Having a male identity was the way she succeeded.
We did a whole session at She’s Geeky the women’s technology unconference about women, identity and privacy online. ALL the women in that session had between 3-5 personas for different aspects of life and purposes. Many of those personas were ‘ungendered’ or male. I have not talked to many people of color about their online lives and persona management but should. I imagine that like women they choose for some of their persona not to identify racially.
Your “friends” shouldn’t be locked into a particular commercial context. This is where the work on client-side applications for identity management and social coordination for individuals are key. The browser was never designed to do these kinds of functions and I don’t think trying to make it do them is wise.
We need open “friend” standards where people are autonomous, without their identity tied to a commercial silo – like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, or any company. This is a vision of a web where I can “peer friend” my friends, and then no entity has power over our relationship. This requires people to be first-class objects on the web. Not easy to do, but essential for us to figure out.

Legal Haze for Social networks. Identity and Freedom of Expression.

Kaliya Young · July 9, 2009 · 2 Comments

The picture pretty much sums the conundrum up.

Is it ok for individuals to promote pot on these social networking services?

Should social networks allow marijuana dispensaries to have organizational presences?

(from an e-mail from Fast Company promoting this article)

The question is, whose laws do social networks have to follow? The Web may seem borderless, but as companies like Google and Yahoo have found in China and, more recently, Twitter and Facebook found in Iran, virtual boundaries do exist. So what’s a company like Facebook or Twitter to do? It will be interesting to see how Silicon Valley finesses this one, particularly because the companies are based in California where the dispensaries are considered legitimate enterprises (at least in the eyes of the law).

I poked around on twitter and found a whole Marijuana movement
along with the Stoner Nation Facebook page and Stoner Nation Twitter and on Blogger and their own site.
Interestingly I searched in Facebook to find the stoner nation page and it was not listed when typed as two words but was when I typed it the way their name is listed as one word – StonerNation .
It is not a surprise to see seems there are many fans of Stoner Nation who are using Facebook accounts without their real names. Like Oregon Slacker , Stoner Stuff, and Drink Moxie.
I think this liminal space between the legal and illegal (at least this is factually the case in california) is quiet interesting. The freedom to express oneself and organize around change is something that is important to maintain on the web – clearly these three people have chosen to weave a line – expressing their opinion and support and involvement around marijuana online and not releasing their “real names” on facebook or twitter where they are expressing support and involvement in movement organizing but making the choice that saying who they are may negatively affect them in their ‘daily life’ – whether it be a small town where they live that would be unaccepting or a profession they hold that would not be understanding. I think these rights and issues go beyond “just” drug use but also extend to sexual and other minorities. The marijuana community is activating right now because there is a ballot initiative here in 2010 to legalize pot and tax it (potentially generating 1.2 billion dollars in revenue annually for the state).
I think a question we all have in building the evolving open and social web is how do we support citizens having the freedom to express themselves online and in social contexts. What are the particulars of online identity that enable this as a possibility and don’t rule the fundamental right of freedom of expression out? I am specifically thinking about the equivalent to anonymously joining a social movement march in the physical world.

SSN's can be guessed

Kaliya Young · July 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

This just in from slashdot:

“The nation’s Social Security numbering scheme has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual’s date and location of birth. The researchers used the information they gleaned to predict, in one try, the first five digits of a person’s Social Security number 44 percent of the time for 160,000 people born between 1989 and 2003.

This is from the Wired coverage:

By analyzing a public data set called the “Death Master File,” which contains SSNs and birth information for people who have died, computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University discovered distinct patterns in how the numbers are assigned. In many cases, knowing the date and state of an individual’s birth was enough to predict a person’s SSN.

“We didn’t break any secret code or hack into an undisclosed data set,” said privacy expert Alessandro Acquisti, co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We used only publicly available information, and that’s why our result is of value. It shows that you can take personal information that’s not sensitive, like birth date, and combine it with other publicly available data to come up with something very sensitive and confidential.”

Basically it means we shouldn’t be honest about our date of birth and home town on Facebook (or any other social network) or we are making ourselves vulnerable to discernment of our SSN’s. I wonder if they can figure out mine? I received my as an adult when I was attending college in California.

I decided to poke around and see what Facebook had up about Identity Theft. I did find a link to this study that created a profile by “Freddi Stauer,” an anagram for “ID Fraudster,”.

Out of the 200 friend requests, Sophos received 82 responses, with 72 percent of those respondents divulging one or more e-mail address; 84 percent listing their full date of birth; 87 percent providing details about education or work; 78 percent listing their current address or location; 23 percent giving their phone number; and 26 percent providing their instant messaging screen name.

Sophos says in most cases, Freddi also got access to respondents’ photos of friends and family, plus a lot of information about personal likes and dislikes, and even details about employers.

Facebook users were all too willing to disclose the names of spouses and partners, with some even sending complete resumes. One facebook user divulging his mother’s maiden name—the old standard used by many financial and other Web sites to get access to account information.

Most people wouldn’t give this kind of information out to people on the street but their guard sometimes seems to drop in the context of a friend request on the Facebook site, O’Brien says.

According to Sophos, the results of what it calls its Facebook ID Probe has significance for the workplace as well as personal life because businesses need to be aware that this type of social-networking site may pose a threat to corporate security.

I have tried to search the Facebook blog to see what they have to say about identity theft and apparently they haven’t mentioned it.

Web Mobs and Proposition 8

Kaliya Young · November 20, 2008 · 14 Comments

I am Canadian so you can probably guess how I would have voted if I could have on Proposition 8 (the California constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman).
My views are not the point of this post. I am very concerned about what is playing out – online and in real life between the two sides of this issues following the passage of the amendment.
First of all we live in a democracy – the people of California voted for it – albeit by a small percentage but that was the will of the people.
When I look at this I think well the way the NO side wins is by doing all the work the YES side did last time – only better. They go and put an amendment to the constitution on the ballot and then build support for it.
The NO campaign assumed it couldn’t loose, was badly organized, didn’t have a comprehensive strategy for building support for its side across diverse communities throughout California. (The YES campaign was on the ground engaging with the black church community for example – they never saw anyone from the NO side come to their communities to engage them on the issue).
As the vote approach the NO side in a final very flawed move started attacking in television adds those who funded the YES side of the proposition and in particular the Mormon Church.
It was this turn of events that has lead into quite disturbing actions and behaviors by the NO campaign post election.
The blacklisting and subsequent public harassment and targeting of specific people and specific religious groups for their beliefs and support of YES on prop 8 is wrong.

I take this personally, I have and do work with people who are Mormon – (When I played water polo in university and in the Identity field). I respect the LDS church and the people in it – they have good values. Their religion is a very American one too (like Christian Science its origins are on this continent). Watch the Frontline/American Experience 4 hour documentary on the history of the church and their experience as a people/religious group.
A close personal family member I know also voted YES and for all I know could have donated.
When mobs start appearing at places of residence of YES contributors and their businesses. It makes me worried.
I thought about this issue earlier in the campaign when I wrote this post There are a lot of donkey’s in my neighborhood (and I know who they are)
From The Hive:

because she did about 60 gay ‘activists’ went to her restaurant and strong armed her in a scene reminiscent to Nazi Germany. They went down a list of people who gave as little as 100 dollars to boycott, harrass and attack them. They went there to ‘confront’ her for giving a measley hundred bucks based on her personal faith that she has had since childhood. They argued with her and it was reported by local news reporters was a “heated” confrontation.
So is this the America we want? Where if a private citizen wants to participate in the governmental process that they be harrassed and acosted. Their freedom of speech chilled by thugs.

From the NY Times:

The artistic director, Scott Eckern, came under fire recently after it became known that he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8…
In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, Mr. Eckern said that his donation stemmed from his religious beliefs — he is a Mormon — and that he was “deeply saddened that my personal beliefs and convictions have offended others.”

From the SF Chronicle:

Phillip Fletcher, a Palo Alto dentist who donated $1,000 to the campaign, is featured prominently on a Web site listing donors targeted for boycott. He said two of his patients already have left over the donation.

This is the site of the Anti Gay Blacklist Then there is a blog called Stop the Mormons.
The night Obama won and there was a party in the main street 6 blocks from my house – I had a moment of insight into the future. This was a happy celebratory Mob – it was basically safe. People were texting their friends and telling them where it was inviting them to join. I Tweeted about it so 900 people knew about it and where it was. I also knew that this new technology of texting and presence based real time information creates an increased capacity for mob formation. It made me wonder about the cultural skills and capacities we need to develop to interrupt mob behavior turning bad.
I think what is going on with the blacklists – that are directly targeting people in their private life is wrong. I think targeting specific religious institutions for protest is wrong.
These people and these religious institutions are not propagating HATE they are just not agreeing that marriage can be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. This is a cultural difference of opinion.
I “get” where many of the gay activists are coming from – but it is not a place that will get them what they want. Many “fled” to the Bay Area to find a community and place where they could be who they were (gay, lesbian, queer, transgender etc). They were raised in conservative churches in other parts of the country that may have been explicitly anti-gay. They likely have strong feelings against these institutions and similar ones. It does not make it OK to the hate these people and act out against them. (If they want to proactively work on cultural change within these communities – Soul Force is doing a good job using nonviolence to work on change.)
We in the identity community need to understand what has unfolded here. The No on Prop 8 groups are using publicly available information. However this used to be information you could get if you went and asked for the paper versions from the court house. So it was public but with high friction to get the information. The web lowers the cost of getting this information (close) to zero – Daniel Solove writes about the change in publicly available information in the Digital Person.
I wonder about how we can balance the need to know who has contributed to political campaigns and propositions while at the same time prevent harassment and the emergence of negative physical and cyber mobs.

Is Zivity Porn or not?

Kaliya Young · August 29, 2008 · Leave a Comment

So, This summer there was some what of an controversy about the sponsorship of Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner by Zivity (a porn + social networking site where the men pay and get points to divvy up to women who’s “pin-up” photos are posted – and they can also “friend them”). I noticed this sponsorship when the organizer tweeted about it. I went to the site only to find out that on top of sponsoring they would be sending Photographers to the event to “shoot” us. I saw Zivity taking photos at the Crunchie Awards – (you can see the photos posted on Flickr with the Zivity tag.) This type of party photography just seemed totally inappropriate for a professional networking event.
I tweeted back “I find it ODD that you have a porn site sponsoring your next event and ‘shooting’ the women at the event. why sexualize us?”
Let me state the issue arising about BAGGD and Zivity sponsoring it:
The issue is about a porn company sponsoring a women in technology professional networking event AND having the porn company sponsor the photographers – who would be at the event taking pictures.

Those of us who were upset by the sponsorship and photographing objected to actually having this happen to us – to have our images be taken and tagged by a porn company and therefore implicitly endorsing them.
I had a lot going on this summer and didn’t have the energy to dive into the conversation on the blogs at the time. I did try to reach out to Angie Chang the organizer to meet with her face to face and talk before the dinner. She was unable to meet. Mary Hodder did a great job summarizing our attempted engagement with the organizers about the issue.
Recently Susan Mernitt attempted to write about the difference between, different generations of women and how the uproar about this event was an sample of the divide and a need for a bridge. Both Mary Hodder (comment 1,9) and I (comment 5,10) responded with a long comments about the nature of the issues that the BAGGD, Zivity sponsorship and her article raised for women in technology.
This is not about is porn good or bad? The issue is about where is its presence appropriate and where is it completely not appropriate. We have generally accepted social norms and now have legal regulation that it is not ok to have pornographic pictures posted in the workplace. I just don’t get how the BAGGD organizers thought it was appropriate to have a porn company sponsor and take photos at an event for women who work in technology. (They get that the Spock snafoo at Web 2.0 expo 2 years ago was not ok.) I don’t care if one of the 5 people who founded the company is a woman. It is porn and I don’t want to have to deal with the company taking my photo in the context of my professional work life and making women feel that they have to “be ultra-beautiful” to attend a networking event for women related to their day jobs in tech.
Several women spoke with Mary Hodder (who blogged about the issue before the event) directly saying that they “didn’t feel/look good enough to go.”
So some argue that the Zivity site is not actually porn (including the company – the have a motto “It’s not Porn it’s Pinups”). So this question is it or is it not porn is another layer of the debate. So yesterday when Jonathan Eunice tweeted this –
So, Zivity? Attractive girls taking their clothes off? How’s that gonna wo… Oh… Wait… I see. Getting it now.
I just had to ask him what he “got” about it – because of this ongoing is or is it not porn question.
@jonathaneunice what are you getting about Zivity? that it is actually porn even thought it says that it isn’t?
The conversation continued with side comments from Kevin Marks and Sillicon Calley……

BTW for those of you wondering about “why twitter” this is one of the reasons I like it — interesting conversations happen. For those of you not familiar with norms of twitter conversation @person’sName is a way in the medium to indicate who you are talking to. This whole conversation is public on twitter – you could go search for it and stich it all together – I also asked Jonathan if I could blog it before posting this.

JonathanEunice: @IdentityWoman Zivity is clearly porn–tho’ of soft, “artfully photographed” variety. Of course, so are many photos in mainstream mags.
JonathanEunice: Porn = images intended to stimulate desire. So Zivity, yes, but also much of Travel & Leisure, Maxim, Vogue, Architectural Digest, etc.
IdentityWoman: @jonathaneunice – that frame “Porn = images intended to stimulate desire.” is a good one to consider. What about “beauty without context”
JonathanEunice: Food porn, furniture porn, travel porn, fashion porn–we are awash in it. It all screams: Buy this! Be that! Want that!
JonathanEunice: @IdentityWoman Is SuicideGirls or Zivity different from W, Vogue, or GQ? More nudity yes, but worse self-esteem? I’d wager better. YMMV.
SiliconCalley: @identitywoman i hate the word porn, its too subjective. some people think that paintings of nude women are porn, some think its art
SiliconCalley: @identitywoman i don’t think zivity is porn, if it was the business model wouldn’t work. who wants to pay to connect to a model in porn?
IdentityWoman: @siliconCalley – I would ask it the other way – who DOESN’T want to pay to connect to a model in porn? seems like an obvious evolution
kevinmarks: @IdentityWoman isn’t porn in the eye of the beholder, not the intent of publisher? Some people get excited by pictures of feet on Flickr
SiliconCalley: @kevinmarks re: zivity touché! you are so wise.
SiliconCalley: @identitywoman porn for most people is a very private thing, and i don’t think that people usually want to be “social” with porn.
SiliconCalley: speaking of zivity…would anyone like an invite?
JonathanEunice: @jonathaneunice so what is the issue? @siliconcalley thinks that Zivity isn’t porn cause it is “social” and porn is private.
JonathanEunice: Just with client in my “CTO on demand” capacity. So back to the porn discussion…
JonathanEunice: @IdentityWoman I don’t think beauty needs any further context. But beauty (or Beauty, if you’re a Platonist) isn’t the issue here.
JonathanEunice: @IdentityWoman The issue here: 1. images and 2. asymmetry.
IdentityWoman: @jonathaneunice issues being 1) the images are about sexual desire 2)the guys linking to women are not also posing with their cloths off?
JonathanEunice: Images add distance, objectify. Thus beauty without interaction. Leading to asymmetry.
JonathanEunice: She is publically naked, I am not. She is identifiable, I am anonymous. That imbalance, I think, gets to heart of porn-iness.
JonathanEunice: In the spirit of oversharing: I prefer au naturel beaches. But much more symmetric. I am equally naked, exposed. Also, present, not distant.
IdentityWoman: @jonathaneunice – thanks for that (over)sharing. It makes the point about presence and embodiment rather then distance and
JonathanEunice: There’s a vast difference between looking at pictures of selected, carefully made up, airbrushed women (= porn) and…
JonathanEunice: …being with genuine, come-as-you-are nude women when you’re also nude. Isn’t that the diff btwn ‘nude’ and ‘naked’ (or ‘nekkid’)?
JonathanEunice: Today’s irony: Despite the porn diacussion, yet again asked to have drinks “with the girls” after work.
JonathanEunice: A simple Zivity joke turned into serious discussion. Pity the poor jokster!
JonathanEunice: I did. Very classy high quality photography. But at root still pics of naked chicks. High end porn still porn IMO.

Olympic Athletes have 'right to blog' (with restrictions)

Kaliya Young · February 16, 2008 · 1 Comment

I have a posts in the wings about my experience of ‘security’ at Olympic like events – I participated in ‘the system’ for a few years of my life while on the Canadian National Water Polo Team.
I just found on slashdot. The restrictions they are putting on athletes freedom of speech. I was forced to sign a big legal agreement about what I would and wouldn’t do before i could attend the Pan American Games as an Athlete.
Is it the tone of things to come? Will people who attend certain kinds of events be forced to sign away their right to write about them to attend?

The IOC has given athletes the right to blog at the Beijing Games this summer, a first for the Olympics. They’re allowed, as long as they follow the many rules it set to protect copyright agreements, confidential information and security. The IOC said blogs by athletes ‘should take the form of a diary or journal’ and should not contain any interviews with other competitors at the games. They also should not write about other athletes. Still pictures are allowed as long as they do not show Olympic events. Athletes must obtain the consent of their competitors if they wish to photograph them. Also, athletes cannot use their blogs for commercial gain.”

That part at the end is just insulting to athletes too. If they made any money it wouldn’t be ‘that much’ and after a life time of sweat and training for the love of their sport. It would be a small gift. The whole system is set up to make money off athletes – they (the IOC) sells their performance to corporations to used to promote their products and services (worse still junk food (McDonalds) and sugar water (Coke) to the worlds children). Then some of that money goes to the National Olympic Committees. It bearly makes it back to the athletic programs that need money to train and prepare for the games. The budget of my National team was lower then that of my college varsity team. Mean while as an athlete – you make below what you would in a minimum wage job with the stipend they give you. I trained in Montreal and so couldn’t really supplement that with ‘work’ as I didn’t speak French and besides training takes up your life.

Outside Digital Realm: Food Shortages Expected this year

Kaliya Young · December 26, 2007 · Leave a Comment

A friend of mine sent me this article. Granted it is from a website with a left leaning perspective – it draws on information from UN, US and other government agencies from around the globe. I am posting it because sometimes I think we forget we live on a planet, with weather, that grows food.

Severe Food Shortages, Price Spikes Threaten World Population
Worldwide food prices have risen sharply and supplies have dropped this year, according to the latest food outlook of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The agency warned December 17 that the changes represent an ³unforeseen and unprecedented² shift in the global food system, threatening billions with hunger and decreased access to food.
The FAO¹s food price index rose by 40 percent this year, on top of the already high 9 percent increase the year before, and the poorest countries spent 25 percent more this year on imported food. The prices for staple crops, including wheat, rice, corn and soybeans, all rose drastically in 2007, pushing up prices for grain-fed meat, eggs and dairy products and spurring inflation throughout the consumer food market.
Driving these increases are a complex range of developments, including rapid urbanization of populations and growing demand for food stuffs in key developing countries such as China and India, speculation in the commodities markets, increased diversion of feedstock crops into the production of biofuels, and extreme weather conditions and other natural disasters associated with climate change.
Because of the long-term and compounding nature of all of these factors, the problems of rising prices and decreasing supplies in the food system are not temporary or one-time occurrences, and cannot be understood as cyclical fluctuations in supply and demand.
The world reserves of cereals are dwindling. In the past year, wheat stores declined 11 percent. The FAO notes that this is the lowest level since the UN began keeping records in 1980, while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that world wheat stocks may have fallen to 47-year lows. By FAO figures, the falloff in wheat stores equals about 12 weeks worth of global consumption.

It continues….