Pest, I can vouch for VK3AUU, he is not a skeptic or denialist.

This is another example of people refusing to accept the situation, over population is the cause of African problems, not climate - the climate changes it always has and always will. When times are good, people breed up, when they go bad, well stuff happens.

To blame it on AGW is just too simplistic and opportunistic, I also realize that's the role of a marketeer, to take advantage of current fears and to use them to drum up business.

We're getting fatigued by climate drama, hysteria call it what you will and now we're at the beginning of what looks like a very big taxing regime coming into our lives.

We're being asked to suffer taxes on everything, and see government waste grow, yet still have some left over to send to Africa Just when ex-PM Rudd has got double the Foreign Aid budget, $9.6B, to spray around and waste around the world .. go bother him, he's got our money, and doesn't even need to ask or tell us what he will do with it.

PEST

Well, I am a sceptic, and the world has far beyond the simplistic thinking of this article.

Take this paragraph.
"Experts agree that supporting women farmers in the developing world is a proven way to end hunger. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, supporting women farmers to the same level as their male counterparts would reduce the number of hungry in the world by between 100-150 million people."

You will note that source is a general one (report?) but in any case the writer would seem to have confused farmers with agricultural workers. I doubt very much whether large numbers of women actually own the farms or the leasehold, or that they would be regarded as seperate from extended families that farm the land. For that matter how would you support them seperately from their husbands?

There is some research indicating the women-run microbusinesses (doubt if that includes farms) in third world are a better bet than those run by men, and that led to the microcredit experiment which has since bogged down disastrously.

Giving aid so that it makes a difference is far more complicated and difficult than anyone every suspected.

Hay PEST, you make it sound like Lena does quite well out of the "aid " business.

Not for profit does not mean not for income. It simply means that at the end of the day all the money is spent on their employees and goals and not their shareholders.

In fact in some nonprofit organisations the employees have a very large amount of money to spend on themselves.

The author is highly likely to be paid well and jetting all over Europe. In fact I'd put money on it.

Greenpeace's income in 200 million Euros per year. Some of the Greenpeace's main contributors: Rockerfeller family and Ted Turner cable news mogul. Both are Club of Rome members.

"May I remind them that Lena is the Head of Campaigns at ActionAid Australia and is also the Director and Founder of StrategyforChange, a consultancy that works with the not-for-profit sector on strategy development, campaign design, training and capacity building. Lena has extensive experience of working with NGOs both in Australia and internationally."

And is paid how much for her work? Enough to feed how many? Could she live comfortably on half that? Get by on a quarter?

Please, let nature take it's course. the Horn of Africa cannot sustain that amount of people. There is an old saying, "Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind." Guildoff famine relief 20 years ago caused this many people to be effected now by saving them from starving. These people are the ones that were saved. In another 20 years there will be four times as many. The situation breads Terrorists & Ship Hijackers. The very people that were saved last time. we save them & they grow up to become Terrorists They then breed more & then we have more starving people who become Terrorists who then bomb the West again. I think we are our own worst enemy.
The UAE has contributed hardly anything to help these people. The Aid the West gives is considered to be the jizyah tax & they consider it to be the Wests obligation to Muslims.