By James Donahue

As if the masses in this world aren't facing enough trouble, with millions left dead and homeless from quakes in China, the deadly typhoon in Burma, drought in Central Africa and a a major volcano eruption in Chile, now we hear of a plague of rats ravaging the crops in Bangladesh.

The United Nation's World Food Program began distributing emergency food to ward off potential starvation by an estimated 120,000 people after an invasion of rats brought widespread destruction of crops.

Reports told how people in southeastern Bangladesh were eating wild roots from the jungle after the area was overrun by millions of rats and crops were being destroyed.

What would cause an overpopulation of rats like that? Natives say it happens about every 50 years when the bamboo forests flower along the 300-kilometer border with India. The rodents evidently multiply as the feed on the blossoms. While they are at it, they also eat the rice stalks and vegetables grown by the natives.

Even if it is a natural event, there is something frighteningly eerie about the timing of this rodent invasion just as millions of people all around the world also are experiencing great suffering that includes starvation for lack of food and water. Notice too that crop failures are threatened because of climate changes and extreme storms sweeping the landscape across the United States.

The growing demand for oil is forcing the price of this important commodity to fantastic heights at a time when farmers across the Northern Hemisphere are trying to get crops planted for another season. It takes fuel to run the machinery used by modern farms. And if the cost of fuel is too high, we can expect the price of the food the farmers produce to be costly as well.

Even if the weather, or some other disaster like a rat flood doesn't destroy our crops, the prospects for inexpensive food are very poor throughout the world. There is a strong chance that world relief organizations may soon be unable to help starving masses during times of extreme disaster such as we are now experiencing.

The principle issue in all of this is overpopulation. This has been an issue debated among theologians and scientists for years. The bean counters will tell us that there are too many people already squeezed on a planet that is incapable of providing for everybody, while the Roman Catholic Church continues to encourage its followers to breed like rabbits.

That religious dogma, which still influences people throughout much of the world, is helping to bring about our own self-destruction. It is time for the Vatican to be stripped of its powers, and for the world too act in one accord. We must force extreme birth control measures on ourselves, lay down our guns, and join forces collectively to share the natural resources still remaining if we expect to survive the disasters about to befall us.

The Mother Earth is, indeed, a living sentient being. She has provided well for all of us for a very long time. But her patience has grown thin. She is issuing most dire warnings that we must change our ways or possibly face mass extinction.