The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "This story isn't under-reported, it's under-appreciated."

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Brian Stewart on the potential of a global famine because of the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Plus, everything from high gasoline prices to the width of airline seats.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Brian Stewart with his regular weekly commentary is coming up in a moment. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario on this day. Drizzly day. We've had, you know, great weather here in southern Ontario for the last few days, but still warm. But looks like we're in for a day of rain, and I'm sure in some cases the farmers are going to appreciate that. Unlike out west where there's been, especially in Manitoba, too much rain in the last little while. All right, let's get on with today's program. Before we get to Brian Stewart and his regular commentary on basically on the war in Ukraine, but today a special commentary about the impact that is going to have worldwide. It's already having on a number of situations, but we'll get to that in a second because I want to update two things.

First of all, you may recall, and I've mentioned this a number of times during the life of this broadcast, how the media kind of parachutes in on a big story and is there for the initial days and then kind of disappears. And that is part of the process, part of life in the 24-7 news world. And I get that. I understand how that happens. It's, you know, it can sometimes seem unfair that stories are abandoned very quickly after they were making the headlines. But that's kind of the way things have gone.

They move on to the next big story. Now, I mentioned this at the time, two weeks ago today, of the Texas school shooting in Uvalde. I said the saddest thing about this story, as terrible as it is, is that in a week or ten days, the media tents will be taken down, the reporters will disappear, and the town will be left grieving for a generation at least over the lost children of Uvalde. Well, it looks like I was at least partially wrong on that. And I'm happy to report this morning, or this afternoon, depending on where you are, that

in a couple of circumstances, not surprisingly, Texas, the San Antonio Express News, is currently looking for a house to rent in Uvalde. They're committing to be there for the long term to watch how this community responds to the tragedy that occurred for it, the internal divisions that have resulted, especially as it relates to the way the police force reacted, but just how the town tries to recover. But it's not just local. ABC News announced yesterday that it will have a continuing presence in Uvalde for the next year. ABC is calling the initiative Uvalde 365,

providing ongoing coverage as the investigation continues and the community tries to heal. Yesterday there were three different correspondents from CNN in Uvalde reporting two weeks after the massacre. Showing it clearly plans to stay there for a while.

So in this case, on that story, a continuing presence is not only going to happen, it's clearly the decision of news organizations to say, we have to stay here. It's important that we keep reporting this story, especially as things seem to be happening on the gun issue. Perhaps nowhere near as tough in terms of change that many people want,

but something seems to be happening. We'll see how long that lasts. We'll see how long that remains on the front burner of the politicians who are supposedly negotiating some kind of new arrangement on gun control in the United States. We're not there yet. But this week is a critical week on that front. So that's one issue. The other issue is something that affects all of us. It's inflation and directly the issue of gas prices. Now I had to do some driving

this past weekend. Back and forth from Toronto to London, Ontario to Stratford. It's kind of a triangle in southern Ontario, that route. Anyway,

so I'm still driving a gasoline-fired car, vehicle. So I'd been warned the prices were going up this weekend, but I foolishly didn't go to the pump when I was warned and didn't go until the next day. So I drive into the gas fill-up location. And what does the sign say for regular gas?

$2.17.4 a liter. I've never seen it that high in Canada ever anywhere even close to that now I'm sure there are parts of the country where it's higher than that right now but two dollars and 17 cents point four my tank was almost empty somewhere there in that is sort of that gray zone between, you know, around where the E shows on your gauge, but the light isn't blinking yet. Anyway, it cost $137 to fill the tank up.

That's the first time I'd even been in triple digits filling a gas tank up. So I thought, well, the warnings are surely going to have an impact on what it's like out there on the highway. The main highway, the 401. Surely there won't be many people out there. It was packed. It was packed. So I'm sure people are hurting on these gas prices.

But this past weekend, a glorious weekend in southern Ontario, if they were hurting, they were borrowing because they were out there in their cars and trucks and SUVs and motorcycles, you name it, they were out there on the highway. So Sunday afternoon, I was driving along the 401 heading back to Toronto. Between London and Toronto, I was a little more than halfway

when it was clear that traffic was slowing down. Something had happened. It must have been an accident or some construction or something. And eventually it came to a standstill. So I, you know, checked my app, my traffic app, to see whether there was some indication of what the problem was. And it said vehicle fire.

And I did the calculations. It was about maybe three or four kilometers ahead of where I was. I thought, okay, so that's going to take a vehicle fire, must be at the side of the road. People are stopping to look and it's going to take a little while, but I should be through all this in 20, 25 minutes. An hour and a half later later I got to the spot where the vehicle had been on fire now the way it had been described on the app made it sound to me like it was

you know a car overheating or what have you it wasn't a car it wasn't an SUV it was a semi and there clearly had been a fire. It was a partial rollover. So the 401 was kind of cramped down to one lane. But this is what made it really bad in terms of the difficulties that it caused.

The semi had been filled with avocados. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of avocados. And when it rolled over, the vehicle had caught on fire. So it was like roasted avocado time on the 401. It was like a barbecue. And it smelled, I got to say, wonderful. I've never had barbecued avocados, but I might try it in the future.

But they were all over the road. And that's what had caused the problem. So you had the double whammy. Clearly, gas prices are high. And now avocado prices are going to be high because that was one big truck full of avocados. All right. We're going to change our pace now because Brian's ready to go. And what he's got for us is not encouraging in any way at all. It's important for all of us.

This is a story as a result of the Ukraine war, but it's not only because of Ukraine, and it certainly impacts the rest of the world at least as much as it impacts Ukraine, maybe more. And we're going to get to that right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks. Or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, To The Bridge.

Now, if you've been with us the last three months, you know Brian Stewart has been a regular contributor with the commentary commentary usually on Tuesdays like today. And it's been a result of two things. One, his vast experience as a foreign correspondent and as a war correspondent over many decades. And his fascination and study of the war between Russia and Ukraine that has involved much of the rest of the world on one level or another as well. And he's updated on all things military during that period. Well, today's a little different. Brian talked to me on the weekend, said, I want to talk about the impact this is having on the global food supply and what that could mean.

So let's get right to it. Here's this week's conversation with Brian Stewart. Well, Brian, we've talked a lot about the conflict in Ukraine, obviously, over these last three months. We've hinted occasionally that there was the potential there for a food shortage. I mean, Ukraine being, you know, the breadbasket really of the world. But we haven't, you know, focused a lot on that issue. Sadly, part of our journalistic history, and especially yours, is that we've covered famine. We know what famine is. We know what famine looks like.

You do especially, back to 84 and the famine in Ethiopia. You were there. You brought that news to the world. There is a growing feeling now that we could be on the edge of something truly horrific in terms of a world food shortage and a famine. Give us your sense from what you're seeing and hearing of what the broad scope of that could be. Yes, Peter, you know, ever since we were shaken by the images of Ethiopia in 84, 85, we've kind of been careful not to overplay this term famine, because a famine

is not just a hunger. It's like anything you can even think of in terms of catastrophe and its effects. And in many years, I've tried to go in with new services and that say, let's go easy on this famine word, because I don't think it's going to happen. Frankly, there's too many emergency measures in place but right now I think the world is truly facing something that is making me and a lot of people extremely nervous this is not just another cry wolf situation that it might be a famine this is already a global food crisis because of the war we turned already a global food crisis. Because of the war, it turned into a global catastrophe of massive measures. You know, Ethiopia was, what, 25 to 30 million people affected, which is just sort of a terrible number, a horrific situation. situation but this one some of the numbers that are being tossed around about the numbers of

people who could be impacted this time are considerably higher yes you know in africa in 84 85 you had 25 millions in the danger of starving to death basically now we have figures like 1.6 billion people can no longer be sure day to day of being able to feed themselves. 250 billion, according to the UN and its agencies, are now on the very brink of famine. 250 million people. It's almost impossible to imagine that. And food prices in the world have shot up like 60 percent in just five months in the poorer parts of the world people are already spending like 40 to 50 percent of

their income on food they cannot pay price increases like this and their governments are very poor they cannot subsidize their food so when we send when the world agencies say if this continues without some kind of rollback or our solution we're going to see perhaps over a billion people on the very brink of famine and that will be tens of millions will be in famine and the death toll is going to rise and soar to just unimaginable areas. You know, it's hard to think of anything other than those kind of numbers. But, you know, back up a bit and give us a sense of what the core issue is here. What's the core of the problem that's led us to this?

I think the core of the problem was that the world was already in a bit of a food crisis before the invasion of Ukraine. And that has just multiplied everything by factors of two, three, ten. I mean, because of COVID, labor was down on farms. Fuel has been rising, as we know, over the years. There's been big shipping and supply problems right across the globe. So it is becoming a global problem that inflation everywhere, but certainly in food, has been putting more and more people, tens of millions of people, hundreds of millions of people, more at risk of famine. Now along comes a war that hits the two probably most important food exporting countries on earth, Ukraine and Russia. They're enormous. Ukraine alone produces some incredible figure, like 25% of the world's export of wheat and maize. Enormous part of the poor world depends on

Ukraine, which for hundreds of years has been known as the great breadbasket of Europe. And the Black Sea exports through ports like Odessa and that have fed vast areas of the world. Well, as we know with the war beginning, the Black Sea is basically in terms of food supply out of service. The Ukrainians have had to mine their waters offshore to prevent land invasion from Russia. And the port of Odessa, which is the biggest, most important food exporting port in probably all of Europe, is completely blockaded with dozens of food ships held up.

And Ukraine has been unable to export this vast treasure of food to the world. So in silos and food harvest depots all over the country, food is starting to rot. They have nowhere to put a new harvest when it comes. And this is just spreading all over the world a kind of panic and as the panic spreads and i should mention in there weather has had an enormous effect we've also seen food reduced in india because of enormous heat in america because of drought conditions in canada because of rains uh it's just many many other problems at once but this is the ultimate storm because the food crisis is really turning into catastrophe countries that do export

food like wheat like india are stopping to export because they're holding back everything they can for their own poor farmers and there's a kind of panic where 23 countries in the world are no longer exporting the food they used to export because they're saying, my God, with prices going up like this, how are we sure our own people will be able to afford them?

And also, you know, we can make more money if the prices go up further. There's also lots of reports of the Russians stealing the wheat from ships in the black sea but that's a minor part the real reality is the world was in no shape to take a major war on when it was in a food crisis it has taken a major war on which shows no signs of

stopping the next great harvest uh i should mention the Ukraine now, the winter weed which was sown last year is now supposed to be harvesting, but the fields are mined, there's shelling, there's a labor shortage as well. So the next harvest from Ukraine may be only 20% of what it normally was, and then how do you get it out of the country? There are some plans to get it by rail but you have to change the rail as you leave Ukraine because it's a wider

rail gauge out than the rest of Europe. So slowdowns are happening all along the way and there needs to be here a massive world response because just local response, regional response, institutional response is not going to be able to handle what we're really facing now, I think.

Well, you know, that's a good question, because how can the world respond when you when you talk about the problems of exporting anything from some of the key areas as a result of the blockades of the ports, et cetera, et cetera, and the lack of harvest in some areas of Ukraine and in Russia. And the weather problems that kind of plague farmers in both the United States and Canada, the assumption usually is on these things, well, the u.s and canada will be able to bail the the situation out because they're bread baskets as well but minor players i guess when you consider the need with the loss of what's happening in ukraine yes the need and also the time frame because even if we start planning massive new fields of wheat which farmers are reluctant to do and the weather is so uncertain and the price is so uncertain maybe they could shift to

soybeans or something else uh it all takes time six months from now is going to be too late yes canada can certainly increase its exports of food but if if it's coming six, nine months after the world plunges into a mega famine like this again, it will be too late to really save not only millions and millions of people, but perhaps a lot of countries going down to disaster. One emergency act that could be taken would be to open up the Odessa port. And this would require an international armada of ships going in to push it. Basically say to the Russians, we're taking the grain out of Ukraine. Do not interfere.

There's a lot of suggestions of Turkey, which Russia is very anxious not to be on too much of the bad side of, could send an armada of ships to cover the old world war ii convoy picture all these supply ships to load up with grain and get it out of at least ukraine or could be moved by rail but it will take just over around the clock activity there's a lot of suggestions let's cut back on the feeding of vital foodstuffs to animals. They consume an enormous amount of maize and wheat. But of course, do that and you drive up the price of meats and poultry around the world. is a lot of help from the richer world to those poorer countries that are going to face mega famine so that they can bring in food subsidies, airlift food where it's desperately needed, help peasantry buying foodstuffs that they simply can't afford. Those things have to be started immediately,

and that's going to take an enormous economic action by the world supply wherever they can work it out to perhaps move some food supply lines from those countries that are OK for the next six months to those that are desperate need over the next coming weeks and months. There has to be an international conference to sit down and set up a kind of massive global war room, if you will, to handle this before it gets out of hand. When it gets out of hand, as you well know, it just multiplies the ways you stunt a generation of young kids who grow up amid starvation. Kids who have to drop out of schools all across the world. You have deaths of the labor force that get no longer farmed because they're too weak. Farmers have to sell off their lands. There are very few livestock to pay for seeds. So we have no livestock when the famine ends in a few years.

So they're saying, and this is a threat I find it hard even to mentally get myself to deal with, that if a famine breaks now, it'll probably last years because it'll be so long to affect all the various outbreaks and bring things back from the disaster that famine's caused, that it could be three, four years of tremendous food turmoil in the world. Do you think the world is sleepwalking through this? In a way, yes. And I understand it to some extent. I mean, this is not a story that's underreported.

It's a story that's underappreciated yeah what i mean by that is that too often in the past we've had many food calamity stories and the rest of it and people have become kind of endured to the threat it becomes oh well another famine coming up and uh it takes something like the economist magazine coming uh just a week ago so saying, how is the world going to deal with food catastrophe, global food catastrophe, to really start shaking minds around the world and say, wait a minute, this is not just an annual warning signal. This is something that we worry about the use of tactical nuclear weapons, say, in Ukraine, killing millions. This is something that would kill far, far more than that in a world that devastates vast sections of the poorer countries, sub-Saharan Africa, for instance. So I think it's just beginning really now to be fully appreciated.

And in fairness, when the world does appreciate a threat like this, as we saw finally in 1984 or 85, it does start to act in big ways and remarkable things can be achieved. But it has to get moving really fast on this. All right. The last point for the discussion this week on this topic is that famine is bad enough. And the picture you've painted is one that none of us

want to see happen. But if we don't do something, as you say, it's going to happen. Famine can often lead to political instability. And that must have intelligence experts and others pretty worried. Yes.

One thing I learned dealing with a lot of intelligence agencies and reporting to that, you can be sure of one thing. In major world intelligence services right now now there are a lot of officers sitting around big big screens and what they're looking at with sweaty palms and increasingly nervous faces is the price of food and marketplaces around the world they check that daily sometimes several times a day they want to know what the price of bread is in the marketplaces of Egypt and Libya and Lebanon. They need to know because they are very clear about the history of these things that famine can completely,

food shortages even before famine, can almost invariably lead to major political unrest and upset. People start fighting each other, and within societies, different countries start fighting each other. Ukraine, in many ways, was a war brought about by famines going back to the 1970s, and it's still persisting. Shortages of vital things like this in the world are sure to rock the stability of the world and

every major intelligence service is looking at this right now and i think they're starting to predict that if we don't get control of this we're going to see an uptick more than an uptick a soaring a world in stabilities the like of which perhaps we haven't seen really since the Second World War. Well, as I said, you're painting a picture that none of us want to see happen, but if things don't happen and happen quickly, we very well may see it. Brian, thanks again for this. We'll talk in a week. Okay, Peter. Thank you. Brian Stewart joining us. Brian's in Toronto.

We're going to have to upgrade his Wi-Fi, his Internet service, and his home. I think you could tell that we were getting a few hits there on occasion. But the story and the picture that he describes is one that we cannot ignore and should not ignore, or this is what this year could be remembered for, a famine of epic proportions in different parts of the world. So as always with Brian, he leaves us with things to think about. A couple of other stories worth mentioning on this day. I don't know how closely you followed the Ontario election last week.

I know it was of interest in different parts of the country, perhaps even more so than in Ontario, just that pathetic turnout rate of, what was it, around 42%? I mean, that's just terrible. That'll be among the discussion points tomorrow when Bruce Anderson joins us for Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth,

how we could get to that low a turnout rate. I know turnouts have not been great in municipal elections in many parts of the country, in provincial elections in some parts of the country, but 42%. That's terrible. But I mentioned the Ontario election at this point simply because if you were watching any or part of it last week, you saw writing by writing the results coming out. And in the average writing, there are, I guess,

four or five people running for election. Sometimes a couple more, sometimes less. But it's sort of in that range, right? Four or five. And that's fairly typical in different parts of the country. Well, listen to this story. I don't know whether you've ever heard about a politician in the United States called Don Young. He's a Republican.

And he represented Alaska's sole congressional district. They only have one. For nearly half a century. Now, Don Young, Representative Young, passed away in March, just a couple of months ago. And that has given way to a significant race to succeed him. So I was reading in the New York Times. And when I say a significant race to succeed him, I'm talking about the number of candidates. So far, there are 48, four dozen Alaskans, almost 50.

A mixture of political veterans, gadflies. They're running to succeed Mr. Young. In a district that has 734,000 people. Now, when you talk about that list of candidates, listen to this, It's quite something. Perhaps the most famous person among the 48 candidates is Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, ran as John McCain's running mate in 2008 against Barack Obama. Vice presidential candidate.

There's a fellow by the name of Nick Begich III, whose grandfather had held the seat before Mr. Young. Number of people who served in the Trump administration. A prolific local gardening columnist by the name of Jeff Lowenfels. He's also a retired lawyer. And this one, this is my favorite. There's a fella who's described by the New York Times as portly, bearded, a socialist. And get this, this is his name.

His name is Santa Claus. That's right. Santa Claus. Now, I'm cheering for him. Right? The bridge endorses Santa Claus for the Congressional District of Alaska. I know it's none of our business to interfere in another country's elections. Gosh, they'd never do that in ours. But I can't help seeing as the bridge is heard all across North America on Sirius XM and anywhere in the world on a podcast platform, maybe we can have an impact on those voters in the congressional district of Alaska.

Representative Santa Claus from Alaska has the floor. All right, here's the final piece of very much needed information on this Tuesday. I know I get some criticism. Not much, mind you. I get a lot of nice comments about my frequent mentions of airline stories. Apparently, all of us who fly are elitists. Actually, I got a great letter yesterday from Nunavut. Saying, I'm not elitist. from Nunavut, saying,

I'm not elitist. It's the only way I can get to a hospital, is to fly. Which is true. Anyway, here's my flying story for this day. Depending on your size, your physique, you've probably at times wondered, why don't they make these seats a little bit bigger?

Why do I feel so cramped? Well, finally, we have the answer. Thanks to a new CNN travel series. We've written this story. It starts off this way. You might not know that the standard for today's airline seat sizing goes back to 1954. Now, why is that important? Well, it's important because people have got bigger since 1954.

They're a little bit broader, the average person, in their shoulders. They're a little bit, certainly since 1954 in the post-war years, people were still pretty fit and trim. Today, we're not all quite so fit and trim as then. The basic seat size was based on the first prototype that Boeing had that would lead to the jet age's iconic 707. As Boeing developed its aircraft families, it reused core elements like the fuselage, even as it developed new wings and engines. For instance, the 727 was essentially a 707, but with the engines at the back. The 737, still manufactured today, was and is essentially a 707, but with two engines instead of four. I think some pilots might argue about that,

that it's essentially the same, but nevertheless, I'm reading from the article. The 707 seats, arranged with six in each row in tourist, or coach as economy used to be called, were pretty good for 1954, but that was nearly 70 years ago. The seats then were about 17 inches wide the boeing 737 which has a fuselage width of 148 inches just like the 707s still seats six people in every row. We're talking about the economy section. No wonder planes seem more cramped today. Even the slightly wider Airbus A320s, which tend to offer an 18-inch seat,

you know, get an extra inch on the Airbus. And which of the commercially popular aircraft has the widest seat? Here's where we wave the Canadian flag. Bombardier. Its C-series offers 19-inch wide seats. Aren't you impressed Canada at the forefront of airplane seat width I tell you we're right up there all right enough trivia for today to try and balance off that

very difficult to listen to story about that brian stewart brought to us today anyway that's it for this tuesday that covers a fair amount of territory we'll be back tomorrow as i mentioned earlier earlier, with Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce Anderson will join us to talk about a number of things, including that issue of turnout. Thursday is your turn. So a lot of mail came in last night and it's best if you try to get it in you know before midnight on Wednesday tomorrow that is for the Thursday edition the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com that That's where to write. And Friday, of course, is Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. That's it for this day.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.