While Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination debate and compete over whose healthcare reform plan is best, and over whether or not it's okay to talk with "America's enemies," and while Democrats and Republicans lob attacks over whose foreign policy is more muscular, there is a lengthening list of global catastrophes all of which are simply being ignored.

Let's look at that list:


Famine: According to the United Nations, there is a global food shortage approaching quickly, egged on by the rising cost of fertilizer, the declining availability of water, the erosion and urbanization of cropland, and the substitution of ethanol-producing crops--primarily corn--for food crops. By next year at this time, we could start to see starvation in Asia and Africa on an unprecedented scale, with no stocks of grain in reserve to relieve the crisis.

The collapse of the US dollar:

The loss of the Arctic ice sheet:

An end to commercial fishing Fish stocks in most of the world's key fisheries

Climate disruptions

Mass extinctions

Resource wars and mass migrations