Lastly, the extinction of the human race by starvation or by thirst
may be considered. Sir William Crookes recently startled civilised
nations by affirming that in 1931 just thirty−one years from this
present year of grace 1900 there will not be enough wheat to supply
the needs of the bread eaters of the world. The failure of our food
supply is a calamity too awful to contemplate, and the prospect of
mankind slowly dying from starvation is calculated to plunge into the
depths of despair the cheeriest optimist that ever lived.
Pearson's Magazine (1900)
Famine tends not to get much play in Future Past; even the dystopian
ones. Maybe that's because famine isn't very dramatic.
It's just scary as hell; not to mention dull. Unlike, say war,
which has the prospect of all sorts or fire, explosions, yelling, and
general running about, famine is largely a matter of sitting about
watching each other getting thinner. Even conversation gets to
be a bit samey, what with the main topic being whether or not it's
going to be warmed over gravel for supper again.
  One
of the few works to put famine on the menu (Arf, arf, arf! Sorry...
Dignity, dignity) is John Christopher's (1922- ) Death of Grass
(AKA No Blade of Grass (1956)). In this, a virus that
destroys all species of grass, including rice, wheat, oats, barley,
and rye, breaks out in China and eventually spreads to the rest of the
world, which is threatened with universal starvation; except for those
on the Aitkens diet, who are rather smug about the whole thing.
Christopher is one of those chaps who regards
civilisation as a precious and exceedingly fragile thing with all the
resilience of a hot house orchid in an ice storm. Within two
days of the crisis hitting Britain the whole of society collapses and
feudalism is going full force before the week is out.
Seems a bit like resorting to cannibalism because
your train is late getting into Paddington and the buffet car is
closed. Last time that happened to me, the magistrate considered
it overreacting. |
