KEY POINTS:
So now it seems that while we sit on the heights and watch the seas rise inexorably, and mop our brows in the unaccustomed heat, we're going to be hungry as well.
As this millennium got into gear, first it was international terrorism and the Iraq war that
scared half the world witless for years.
When that began to pall as a frightener, along came climate change and global warming to keep us in a state of anxiety.
And now that that has become a bit ho-hum, along comes the global food crisis.
I remained untouched by the fear of terrorism, for I ventured only once beyond these shores, and in any case I have long understood that when my number is up then it's up.
I remain unconcerned about global warming, convinced that carbon dioxide emissions, man-made or otherwise, have nothing to do with it and, in fact, are beneficial rather than damaging.
I am unconcerned at this stage about the food crisis, although I consider it is far more dangerous, and with the potential to do far more damage to mankind, than the other two combined.
All three are linked, of course. When it became bogged down in Iraq and failed in every effort to bring peace to the Middle East, the United States embarked on a programme to make that nation less dependent on oil - Middle East oil in particular.
At the same time a coterie of climate scientists with their shonky computer predictions persuaded far too many politicians that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming, and the pollies were stupid enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
Thus biofuel became the catchword of the day, and has now been revealed to have significantly contributed to the sudden food shortage by diverting millions of tonnes of grains and dairy products to its manufacture.
Why this was not foreseen by the world's scientific community with their high-powered computers and other 21st-century wizardry is a question still to be answered, for it seems that the world food crisis has caught everybody unawares.
The Herald's superb coverage of the subject last Saturday was a journalistic masterpiece and a credit to all concerned. I read every word of it but, as I said, I remain unconcerned.
I see this crisis - and I don't for a moment deny its reality - as a timely wake-up call to the world at large, a signal that we should, perhaps, pause in our headlong pursuit of material progress and prosperity and take an objective look at where we're at and where we're going.
While I have no faith in human nature, which is inherently evil unless it has been redeemed, I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity and mankind's ability to adapt himself and his environment to the ever-changing demands of nature.
I have no doubt that before, for instance, the world's oil runs out, an even better alternative will have been discovered and developed, if it hasn't been already.
I have no doubt, either, that before parts of the world face starvation, new methods of food production will have been developed to increase nutritional outputs.
They exist already, of course, in genetically modified crops which have much higher yields than conventional plantings.
But, once again, we need to pause to consider whether the free use of genetically modified crops might quickly have the same sort of downside as the headlong rush into biofuels.
One of the early benefits of the food crisis is that it has caused a number of countries - including, I hope, this one - to reconsider plans for biofuel production and the financial and taxation structures being rapidly built around them by politicians with an eye for a quick buck.
This could well be a time, too, for us Kiwis to count our blessings and thank God that we live in a land of plenty, well away from the madding crowds of the rest of the world.
We might have to pay an outrageous price for a block of cheese, a leg of lamb, a litre of milk or a bag of spuds, but at least those things are and will be on the supermarket shelves if we can afford them.
Imagine living in a country where the supermarket shelves are empty, where you have to queue for hours in the hope of buying a loaf of bread or a turnip, no matter how much money you have in your pocket.
So while the food crisis works itself out, as it surely will, I go along with Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in a time of deep world financial crisis, entitled his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".
