Archive for the 'Environment' Category

FAO Lists Countries threatened by Food Crisis

Published
by
Jennifer
on May 30, 2008
in Agriculture, Environment and NAFTA
. 0 Comments

A new study by the Food and Agriculture Organization lists 22 countries as the most vulnerable to the global food crisis and examines the level of hunger in various countries.

You can read more about it in the following articles:
This one from ReliefWeb focuses on Haiti.
China View speaks briefly about the countries named.
FAO’s Food Security Statistics are available on their website. Also refer to their Agricultural Outlook (2008-2017). You can read here about FAO’s study and their own suggestions for improving markets for farmers. I must say, however, that I do not agree with the article’s support for more free markets. The loss of protective organizations that once guaranteed prices for farmers are partially to blame for the insecurity of surviving on profits from farming (specifically small-scale farming).

Environmental labels on our products

Published
by
Jennifer
on May 9, 2008
in Environment
. 0 Comments

What if we designed an environmental label or report that could be placed on the products that we purchase? Much like the nutrition labels already on our food packaging, we could have an environmental label that details what is in the product–or rather, what natural resources are used to produce what we buy. We already have environmental labels regarding whether the product is recyclable, organic, or tested on animals, but I’m calling for a detailed report. I want to know how much pollution resulted from the production of a particular item. I want to know how much energy was used to produce it, too. How much water did it take to produce that item? I think it would push companies to regulate their resource use because of consumer demand for more environmentally friendly products. We would be able to visibly see the difference between brands and products. This should also take into consideration packaging and the distance an item travels to get to our local market.

One potential reading of the future…

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 24, 2008
in Agriculture and Environment
. 0 Comments

In this interview with Tewolde Berhan Egziabher, he speaks of a future with a weakened WTO and an emergent new world order. He also explains nicely some of the problems with TRIPs, patents, and genetic modification.

”Plan by TNCs to Control Seeds Bound to Fail”

Interview with Tewolde Berhan Egziabher

NEW DELHI, Mar 3 (IPS) - An attempt by a handful of developed countries and trans-national corporations (TNCs) to monopolise and control the world’s seeds is doomed to failure, says Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, director-general of Ethiopia’s Environment Protection Agency, and a formidable negotiator at biodiversity-related fora.

Tewolde, who won the Right Livelihood Award in 2000 for ”exemplary work to safeguard biodiversity and the traditional rights of farmers and communities to their genetic resources’’, explained to IPS correspondent Ranjit Devraj why ”the attempt to reduce the world’s farmers to serfs of a different kind” is doomed.

IPS: What gives you grounds for such optimism? After all in major agricultural countries like India we have been seeing steady inroads made into the farming sector by such TNCs as Monsanto.

Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher: First of all the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which made the control over seeds by TNCs possible through its Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) mechanism is slowly getting paralysed — especially after Doha. As WTO weakens, the controls that have been creeping in will automatically disappear.

IPS: What about the bilateral agreements outside the WTO?

TBGE: These bilateral agreements favoured by the United States and the European Union, and also other countries, have only served to create greater uncertainty. They have certainly undermined the hope that the MNCs once harboured, that the WTO would become an instrument with which to subjugate the world.

IPS: What do you foresee?

TBGE: Well, we seem to be heading back, briefly, to the chaotic world that existed before World War II when a handful of colonial powers were able to exert their influence on the world. But, this will be a temporary stage because the Western world did not earlier have to contend with the emergence on the world stage of such countries as India, China and Brazil.

IPS: How exactly will the emergence of such countries as India, China, Brazil and South Africa help?

TBGE: To start with there will be greater room for manoeuvring. This can lead to a better global system than the one that exists in which countries that emerged victorious at the end of World War II have for too long continued to dictate the agenda. If you look at China’s investments and involvement in Africa you will see that they steer clear away from interfering in what is not their business. So the tone is already being set for a new world order.

IPS: What are the worst results of TRIPS impinging on agriculture?

TBGE: Without doubt the idea that the patenting of mechanical inventions — that began in the city-state of Venice — can be transferred to plants, animals and microorganisms is misconceived. Most farmers are illiterate and living in countries that are not developed but are vulnerable to pressure with WTO members creating conditions ideal for TNCs to patent seeds. This is an unbelievable distortion of justice. And it becomes truly absurd when the onus falls on farmers to prove that they have not been using seeds without a license from the TNC that claims to own them. What can farmers do in the event of natural pollination? Call in the birds and the wind as witnesses?

IPS: What about genetically modified organisms and genetically engineered crops — especially those that are claimed to help increase the production of biofuels?

TBGE: Firstly the deployment of genetically engineered organisms or crops must be resorted to only after they have been rigorously tested for safety. Many developed countries, especially those in the EU, are already wary of genetic engineering products. As for production of biofuels they can be useful in reclaiming land that is unsuitable for agriculture, but if they are dependent on fertilisers that go back to fossil fuels what is the benefit to the environment? What I say is that there should be no hasty action when it comes to adopting genetically engineered crops.

Color, Race, and Our Furry Friends

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 21, 2008
in Activism, Environment, Race and Racism and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 1 Comment

Thank you “La Chola” for this post that deals with the use of comparing people of color to animals—we see this in the testimonies at Winter Soldier and from PETA activists. As someone who also tries to be vegan, but wants to critically engage with the problem she addresses, I agree that it serves no purpose to rank oppressions. Unjust killings of people and animals is done to reinforce the power of a few. At the same time, I do not appreciate campaigns that compare the treatment of people of color to the treatment of animals or the use of women’s bodies to inspire veganism.

For me, personally, my veganism is the result of many things; I justify it for many reasons. I do not believe in a Vegan Utopia and therefore do not believe we should all become vegan. I understand that I am privileged because this diet works for me, for my lifestyle, and for my budget. I am lucky enough to live in a city that has many vegan resources (although I wish we had a veggie restaurant), and I can find support groups very easily. It makes me feel healthy, which only came after educating myself through books such as Becoming Vegan and speaking to nutritionists. I believe that our abundant use of cheap meat is involved in polluting our ground water, using up nature’s resources, the mistreatment of animals, and unfair labor practices against those working in slaughterhouses (which is predominantly an immigrant labor force).

people of color, animals

A long time ago, I began collecting the testimony of soldiers who had participated in genocides. I had been studying the My Lai massacre, and noticed some similarities between the testimony of one of the soldiers there and the testimony of one of the soldiers who had participated in Abu Ghraib violence. The soldier at the My Lai massacre had said killing Vietnamese people was like shooting dogs. The soldier at Abu Ghraib said being in Iraq was like going on a turkey hunt.

The comparison of brown people to animals–the justification of the murder and torture of brown people because they were considered animal like was a disturbing idea that I have continued to explore for almost two years now. It’s brought me to some really dark places, places I’m not really all that sure I wanted to be.

I admit, it is really hard for me to talk/listen to the many white vegans who insist on defending PETA’s comparison of human slavery to the violent treatment of animals in today’s society. I’m very empathetic to the cause of veganism–but the defense of the PETA campaign is often not a defense of veganism so much as it is a defense of seeing nothing wrong with comparing black people to animals. Many white folks are perfectly happy to insist that *they* have no problems at *all* being compared to animals–but it is not white folks that are being killed on genocidal turkey shoots either.

For me, those people who are interested in animal liberation (as I am), must realize, this comparison of brown human beings to animals/insects, is not something in the past that is occasionally drawn on to make a point. The comparison of brown human beings to animals is something that exists in the very fabric of our current society and as such, carries very real repercussions for the people of color that are compared to animals.

The first mission that we had when we got to Iraq was at this place called Al Assad, and our job there was basically to run a prisoner of war camp. And at this prisoner of war camp, our job was basically to keep prisoners who had been deemed enemy combatants sleep-deprived for periods of up to seventy-two hours in order to, quote-unquote, “soften them up for interrogation.” And the way we did that was by yelling at them.

So my first question to the people who were training us on how to do this was, you know, “How do they understand? I mean, they don’t speak English.” And he said, “Well, they’re just like animals. They’re just like dogs. If you keep yelling at them, it doesn’t matter what language you’re yelling at them in, they’re going to get the point. If you yell at them, ‘Get up!’ enough times, you know, just like a dog gets up, they’ll get up. If you tell them to move left, eventually they’ll get it and they’ll move left. And they said, “But that’s not going to always work, because they’re so tired.” By the way, they were hooded with sandbags, and they were tied with plastic restraints, barefoot, and circled around with concertina wire. So they were not only being deprived of sleep, but also of light and sense of space.

I support animal liberation wholeheartedly. And I think that for now, I will continue to approach animal liberation in a way that does not center veganism/vegitarianism. Not only do I have my own issues with eating meat, but I also have to continue to work through this idea that seems to dominate animal liberation movements like PETA that what we *eat* is more important than societal and cultural norms that justify the murders of brown people, women, and animals alike.

In other words, I almost think that veganism/vegitarianism should be the *last* step to animal liberation or something that happens *after* you lead community workshops on the connecting histories of violence against animals and human beings or other structural/cultural shifting of opinions through dialogue. Not eating meat is an important thing to me, and I continue to work towards that goal every day. But I think that creating a world where the abuse of animals is not used to justify the abuse of the brown human beings requires that different tactics, strategies and priorities than what currently exists.

Thanks to the Vegans of Color for your site, it’s helped me work through a lot of my thoughts.

“Mouths to FEED”

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 14, 2008
in Agriculture, Environment, Maí­z (Corn) and NAFTA
. 0 Comments

From Matt Davies:
If you don’t understand it, please see my post below, or the many other posts I have on corn, and read a newspaper!
mattdaviescorn.jpg

McDonalds or Your Hummer?

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 12, 2008
in Agriculture, Environment, Maí­z (Corn) and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 1 Comment

I’m busy “dissertating,” but I have to share this article and the fact that it has my favorite quote of the month: “The US will face a choice between using corn to fuel animals, and using corn to fuel cars.” Simply put: engineered corn used to produce ethanol requires more pesticides and fertilizer, fertilizer has chemicals that kill the environment, our drive for corn to feed the meat industry and our cars is destroying the land, raising prices, and causing a whole set of problems for corn farmers in North America. I knew I would find a way to bring my dissertation research back around to my vegetarianism. ;)

From Environmental Research Web:

Sustainable Futures

Mar 11, 2008
Biofuels threaten sealife in Gulf of Mexico

Nitrogen from fertilizer applied to corn (maize) fields in the US midwest enters the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers and flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been implicated in causing the “dead zone” that appears in the gulf each summer – an area of low oxygen that kills organisms living on the seafloor. Now, scientists in North America say that the increase in corn cultivation needed to meet targets for renewable fuels in the US Energy Bill could increase the annual flux of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to the gulf by as much as one-third.

“We found that meeting the ethanol production targets set for the year 2022 in the Energy Policy will increase nitrogen levels in the Mississippi by 10-34%,” Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia told environmentalresearchweb. “This will make the already difficult challenge of reducing the ‘dead zone’ practically impossible.”

Corn

The US Energy Bill sets a target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022; 15 billion gallons of this can be produced from corn starch. More than 80% of total US corn and soybean acreage is grown in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya river basin, which covers 3.2 million km2.

When nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers enters the ocean via this river system it boosts the growth of phytoplankton. As these organisms die, they accumulate at the bottom of the ocean, where their decomposition can lower the oxygen concentration to dangerous levels. This hypoxia creates a “dead zone”, killing marine organisms such as crabs, fish, anemones and sea stars. The result has serious implications not only for ecosystems but also for the fishing industry.

Nitrogen levels

In recent years the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has been more than 20,000 km2 in size. The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Task Force hopes to reduce the zone to less than 5000 km2 but recent research indicates this could need a reduction in nitrogen export of up to 55%.

“However, the new US Energy Policy calls for a huge increase in the production of ethanol from corn,” said Donner. “If the US pursues this biofuels strategy, there is little hope for reducing the dead zone. The only way to meet the corn ethanol goals and shrink the dead zone to an acceptable size will be to dramatically reduce the non-ethanol uses of corn. That means less animal feed: the US will face a choice between using corn to fuel animals, and using corn to fuel cars.”

Nitrogen sources

Donner and Chris Kucharik from the University of Wisconsin, US, used an agricultural version of the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) – a process-based dynamic ecosystem model – and the Terrestrial Hydrology Model with Biogeochemistry (THMB) to simulate the effects of increased corn production on nitrogen export to the Gulf of Mexico. Nitrogen export depends not only on land use and land cover but also on annual variability in rainfall and river discharge.

“Even with reductions in other uses of corn, the construction of efficient riparian [river-side] wetlands adjacent to fertilized croplands and the implementation of on-farm nitrogen management practices will be necessary to achieve the large reduction in nitrogen loading required,” write the researchers in a paper in PNAS. “A massive national wetland restoration project, on the order of 22,000 km2 of wetlands and/or widespread adoptions of efficient nitrogen management practices, like a change in diet and meat production, would not be trivial to implement.”

Now Donner is looking at what the conflict between demand for meat and demand for biofuels means for nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The Words of Corn

Published
by
Jennifer
on February 25, 2008
in Environment, Maí­z (Corn), Mexico, NAFTA, Oaxaca, Mexico and Sin Maiz No Hay Pais
. 1 Comment

I just came across this video filmed in the high Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Corn farmers speak of the problems they face–lack of government support, the low quality of imported corn, and the impact of using fertilizers and chemicals. The video is in Spanish and well worth watching. I really miss Oaxaca!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-OXOaOMSUk

You should also check out this recent video from the Washington Post that highlights interviews with Mexican corn farmers and their opinions of NAFTA. It is in Spanish with English subtitles.

I found the above video attached to an interesting article, Don’t Know Much about NAFTA, by Amar Bakshi at the Washington Post. The article is below.

Don’t Know Much About NAFTA

PACHUCA - Few of the tiny cornfields surrounding Pachuca, the capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, are larger than five square acres. Most lack irrigation systems and are worked by hand — often by the farmer’s many children — resulting in a harvest of mini-sized maize that pulls in under US$1000 per year. The farming families here find themselves no better off, harvest after harvest. The years go by and the competition stiffens.

So the farmers make bricks, work construction jobs, and collect money from migrant relatives who move to the U.S. to keep afloat. They say they don’t know much about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but remain certain it hasn’t done them any good. Yet they blame the Mexican government, not America, for their suffering.

A dozen farmers who’ve spent their lives working their small plots of soil, given to their forbearers after the revolutionary Mexican government redistributed the land in the late 1930s, now spend their Sundays chatting in front of their local farming cooperative in the city center. This decaying concrete building was built over a decade ago to help small farmers claim the assistance their government had promised and then largely failed to deliver.

The men, all wearing jeans and sombreros, assume that NAFTA primarily benefits the United States and its big commercial farms, advanced technology, well-educated workforce, and heavy state subsidies. Oxfam claims these subsidies, which help lower corn prices below production costs, are decimating Mexican corn farmers. But these men do not insist the U.S. stop supporting its farmers. They just want the same assistance from their own government.

It would be easy for locals, especially politicians, to blame the corn farmers’ continued woes here on the United States and NAFTA, but so far that hasn’t happened in Hidalgo, (though it has elsewhere in Mexico). Farmers here say the primary causes of their suffering are big Mexican companies and corrupt local politicians. The Mexican elite, they say, is conspiring against ordinary people for personal gain.

They accuse large, well-known tortilla and bread firms of buying corn cheap in Mexico and hoarding it to inflate the price, though they offer no proof of this. They also accuse national union leaders and local politicians of diverting funds meant to help farmers for personal pleasures, and taking kickbacks from international firms in exchange for bargain business deals in Mexico.

Where does the farmers’ suspicion toward business and political elites come from? They say it’s fueled by years of inept local government, caused by decades of single party rule. They can’t prove vast conspiracies. But they each have a story of a corrupt official — like having to bribe a local authority to get into the bracero program to work in the U.S. The men here don’t read newspapers and rarely watch TV news. They don’t know about America’s presidential elections, and aren’t sure if George Bush or Bill Clinton is currently president. They certainly aren’t aware of the fierce NAFTA debate raging now among the democratic presidential candidates up north.

When I mention U.S. opposition to NAFTA, they tip their hats up to see me clearly and insist, “But there is so much money up there! It’s nothing like here.” They say this from experience, having worked agriculture up north too.

The Price of Ethanol

Published
by
Jennifer
on January 3, 2008
in Agriculture, Environment, Maí­z (Corn), Mexico, NAFTA and Sin Maiz No Hay Pais
. 1 Comment

We said “no” to the electric car and ignore other alternative fuel options (such as biodiesel, compressed natural gas, flexible fuel, hydrogen, solar, and something called an air vehicle that I just discovered on Wikipedia). I am a proponent of alternative fuel sources, but I have major problems with the development of ethanol from plants (most commonly maize, soybean, rapeseed, and palm). It has already led to rising corn prices and the tortilla wars of last year. Land once used to produce crops for consumption now are used to produce plant-derived fuel. The article below outlines many of
the consequences to our rapid production of ethanol fuel. Interestingly, the article states:

If one counts only the immediate carbon costs of planting and processing bio-fuels, they appear to reduce GHGs. But, when you look at the total impact, one would realise that the bio-fuels cause more warming than petroleum. Ethanol from maize causes between 0.9 and 1.5 times more warming as petrol does, while rapeseed oil, the source of more than 80 per cent of world’s bio-diesel, generates 1 to 1.7 times the impact of ordinary diesel.

I’ve never heard this surprising statistic before. I’m not sure where the author got this statistic. I will look into it. In any case, I agree with the author’s central argument: we must analyze the overall impact of plant-based ethanol fuel. This analysis must be global and recognize the problems faced by poor and rural farmers in developing countries.

Biofuelling the World’s Hunger
by K. P. Prabhakaran Nair
Business Line, Jan 4, 2008

The soaring Sensex is as adrenalin to India Inc. Not many, however, seem to be unduly concerned about the galloping food prices. Almost everyone, from the Prime Minister downwards, is making pious noises on this score, without any tangible efforts to rein in the soaring prices.

A new dimension is being added to the galloping food prices. And that is the clamour for “green fuel”, which has to come from soyabean, rapeseed, sugarcane, sorghum, oil palm or corn, in the main, and also from jatropha, now added to the list.

In 2007, as wheat prices rose record levels, corn and soybean — both increasingly used for green fuel manufacture — climbed to multi-year highs. As the US is heading into recession, commodities are outperforming stocks and bonds. Palm oil, used to extract bio-diesel at $800 plus a tonne, is outpacing crude oil.

Bio-fuels are being touted as the new panacea for global warming. But, because this fuel from plants is being introduced without much thought about wider implications; it is becoming a good idea practised badly. Let us look at some scientific facts about bio-fuels.

Clamour for “green fuel”

With the announcement of the Peace Nobel, which has brought global warming to centre-stage, the attention of the developed world has shifted to “green fuels.”

The recent meet on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, where 10,000 delegates discussed the problem for a fortnight, and in the process emitted enormous amounts of GHGs such as carbon di-oxide, lends a note of urgency to the entire question.

Ethanol-blended petrol from cassava, corn and sugarcane, bio-diesel from rapeseed, jatropha, palm-oil, etc., are being touted as the fuels that will in the future drive cars in the US and Europe. Europe has mandated that 5 per cent of transport fuel must originate in crops by 2010, just two years away. As usual, developing countries are being targeted as the regions where crops for green fuels are to be grown. Look at the unfolding scenario.

Poor pay the price

Swaziland, a tiny nation in the African continent, is already in the grip of a terrible famine, where 40 per cent of its people face acute food shortages. The reason? The government there has allocated thousands of hectares of farmland in the district of Lavumisa, worst hit by drought and famine, for ethanol production from the Swazi people’s staple food crop, cassava.

Nearer home, farmers in Nagaland are being prodded to swap paddy in the traditional Jhum lands for jatropha cultivation. The International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat), in Hyderabad, an arm of the Washington lobby, has got a $1.5-million project on ethanol production from sweet sorghum and cassava. The UK-based D1 Oils is piloting a jatropha project.

Globally, D1 Oils plans to cultivate one million hectares of jatropha, spread across mainly India, Southern Africa, South-East Asia, China and Australia by 2011 to cater to the growing green fuel demand of the US and Europe. In India, it plans to have 3.5 lakh hectares. And in this onslaught, some of the country’s best farmland will simply switch from food crops to fuel crops.

Tortilla wars

In late 2006, Mexico experienced the tortilla wars, as people found the price of their staple, corn, had doubled. The reason? The price hike was triggered by the newfound use of the crop as a green fuel and the corporate control over it. Archer Daniels Midlands, the largest ethanol processor in the region with financial stakes in a Mexican oil company that makes tortillas and refines wheat, was the entity behind this.

So, Midlands benefits when tortilla prices increase and consumers switch from corn to wheat, more pertinently, when there is a switch from food to fuel.

India sucked in

India, unwittingly, is entering into this quagmire. Even in the tiny State of Kerala, in the “rice bowl” district of Palakkad, loud noises are being heard about the desirability of jatropha in preference to paddy. The bio-fuel policy of the US and Europe is sweet music to Africa, already reeling under food shortages, because, the governments there think that they can make a fast buck. What it does to food production seems nobody’s concern. India is not far behind. Or else, why the new-found enthusiasm to propagate bio-fuel crops at the expense of arable farm land?

The warnings

In short, the North’s bio-fuel appetite will pave the way for the South’s starvation. Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor at the altar of commerce, now warns that using food to produce bio-fuel “might further strain the already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has announced the lowest global food reserves in 25 years threatening what it calls a “very serious crisis”. Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people worldwide and more than 220 million in India went hungry because they could not afford to buy it.

With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several more millions of poor will be pushed below the breadline. Look at the cost of staple grains. The price of rice has risen by 20 per cent over the past year, maize by 50 per cent and wheat by 100 per cent.

Effectiveness of green fuel

The demands of the motoring lobby and business groups clamouring for new infrastructure have to be metEven while the people being pushed off their lands remain voiceless. Even Tamil Nadu, where there is an entrenched automobile lobby, is fast catching up the green fuel bandwagon, with all kinds of subsidies and incentives. Poor farmers will find the lure too tempting to pass up, and food production will be the first casualty.

I am not saying India should say “no” to green fuel. But before we jump onto the green fuel bandwagon, we must do our math well. In principle, burning bio-fuels merely releases the carbon which the crops accumulated while growing.

If one counts only the immediate carbon costs of planting and processing bio-fuels, they appear to reduce GHGs. But, when you look at the total impact, one would realise that the bio-fuels cause more warming than petroleum.

Ethanol from maize causes between 0.9 and 1.5 times more warming as petrol does, while rapeseed oil, the source of more than 80 per cent of world’s bio-diesel, generates 1 to 1.7 times the impact of ordinary diesel.

These figures are brushed under the carpet by the automobile lobby, which wants its works to stay afloat. The answer to global warming is not a simple switch from fossil fuel to green fuel. It must address the road congestion India is creating due to a mindless automobile manufacturing policy.

In any case, green fuels are here to stay and food production, be it grains or oilseeds, will be the first casualty and the poor will be hit hard because of galloping food prices.

Jatropha’s viability

It would be naïve to think that jatropha will mitigate India’s soaring oil bills. Jatropha is not a small-scale farmer’s crop. It will be economically viable only on a large scale. India does not have much wasteland. Where it exists, the investments in infrastructure, in terms of easy transport and other machinery installation to make the unit economically viable, will be enormous The wastelands along railway tracks cannot be used, because they are in long, non-contiguous strips.

People and planners in New Delhi talk about several things without truly understanding the practical difficulties. The important by-product in jatropha oil extraction is glycerine. Where in India do we have the necessary infrastructure to use glycerine production on such a huge scale? Also, one must remember that the maximum oil extracted from jatropha seeds will not exceed 35 per cent.

The net result in large-scale jatropha cultivation is that India will lose a lot of fertile land to jatropha cultivation where the monetary returns could be better, but grain producing lands will slowly stop being arable.

The mandarins in New Delhi seem lost for a clear-cut answer to this grave and vexing question. Ultimately India’s food security will be threatened. The ambitious (at least on paper) National Food Security Mission of the UPA government will be severely dented by such ill-thought out projects. It is the foreign companies that will gain by getting into jatropha cultivation, like the UK-based D1 Oils, and make a lot of money at the cost of the country’s food security.

Sensible policy

The opportunity for a bio-fuel revolution is not in the rich world’s cities to run their vehicles, but in the grid unconnected villages in India and Africa, where electricity is scarce, with no generators to run pumps or vehicles. It is here that fossil fuels will grow because there is no alternative. Instead of bringing fossil fuel long distances to feed urban markets, this part of the world can leapfrog to a new energy future, if bio-fuel can come from non-edible crops, jatropha, for example.

This also means that the fuel market will need to be redesigned. In today’s business model, the company will grow the crops, extract the oil, transport it first to refineries and then back to consumers.

The new model needs distributed growth in which India will have millions of villagers growing the bio-fuel crops, and millions of distributors and users in the villages. Can the somnolent Indian planners think up such a strategy? The alternative is to simply cater to the whims of the corporate world.

The Future of California

Published
by
Jennifer
on December 30, 2007
in Agriculture, Environment and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 0 Comments

With all the talk on global warming, it is becoming difficult to make sense of the horrifying projections of our environment’s future. The article below from AP argues that within the next century California will look drastically different. In a nut shell, rising temperatures will decrease snowfall levels and subsequently our water supply. It only briefly mentions the potential fighting between cities and counties over water supply–I see this as being the issue of the century. Well, of course, there is oil, but without water we can’t live and it only worsens the problems we will face with a shortage of oil. Water feeds California’s agricultural and cattle industry. I’m not pushing for a vegan utopia (see the Omnivore’s Dilemma for a good analysis of this), but I do believe that our push for the mass production of beef is wasteful. It takes 2.6 pounds of grains and 435 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. This doesn’t include how much water is required to produce the 2.6 pounds of grain.

I read the AP article for clues on where I should move to avoid my house falling into the ocean (hint–don’t live in Malibu), but I’ve decided that I need a good plot of land where I can grow my own food and have a well for my own water. However, I now have the problem of affording that land and maintaining a career as a professor. Any ideas? Maybe those hippie communes weren’t such a bad idea…

Global Warming to Alter Calif. Landscape

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, The Associated Press
2007-12-29 20:04:07.0
LOS ANGELES -

California is defined by its scenery, from the mountains that enchanted John Muir to the wine country and beaches that define its culture around the world.

But as scientists try to forecast how global warming might affect the nation’s most geographically diverse state, they envision a landscape that could look quite different by the end of this century, if not sooner.

Where celebrities, surfers and wannabes mingle on Malibu’s world-famous beaches, there may be only sea walls defending fading mansions from the encroaching Pacific. In Northern California, tourists could have to drive farther north or to the cool edge of the Pacific to find what is left of the region’s signature wine country.

Abandoned ski lifts might dangle above snowless trails more suitable for mountain biking even during much of the winter. In the deserts, Joshua trees that once extended their tangled, shaggy arms into the sky by the thousands may have all but disappeared.

“We need to be attentive to the fact that changes are going to occur, whether it’s sea level rising or increased temperatures, droughts and potentially increased fires,” said Lisa Sloan, a scientist who directs the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “These things are going to be happening.”

Among the earliest and most noticeable casualties is expected to be California’s ski season.

Snow is expected to fall for a shorter period and melt more quickly. That could shorten the ski season by a month even in wetter areas and perhaps end it in others.

Whether from short-term drought or long-term changes, the ski season already has begun to shrivel in Southern California, ringed by mountain ranges that cradle several winter resorts.

“There’s always plenty of snow, but you may just have to go out of state for it,” said Rinda Wohlwend, 62, who belongs to two ski clubs in Southern California. “I’m a very avid tennis player, so I’d probably play more tennis.”

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Because California has myriad microclimates, covering an area a third larger than Italy, predicting what will happen by the end of the century is a challenge.

But through a series of interviews with scientists who are studying the phenomenon, a general description of the state’s future emerges.

By the end of the century, temperatures are predicted to increase by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit statewide. That could translate into even less rainfall across the southern half of the state, already under pressure from the increased frequency of wildfires and relentless population growth.

Small mammals, reptiles and colonies of wildflowers in the deserts east of Los Angeles are accustomed to periodic three-year dry spells. But they might not be able to withstand the 10-year drought cycles that could become commonplace as the planet warms.

Scientists already are considering relocating Joshua tree seedlings to areas where the plants, a hallmark of the high desert and namesake of a national park, might survive climate change.

“They could be wiped out of California depending on how quickly the change happens,” said Cameron Barrows, who studies the effects of climate change for the Center for Conservation Biology in Riverside.

Farther north, where wet, cold winters are crucial for the water supply of the entire state, warmer temperatures will lead to more rain than snow in the Sierra Nevada and faster melting in the spring.

Because 35 percent of the state’s water supply is stored annually in the Sierra snowpack, changes to that hydrologic system will lead to far-reaching consequences for California and its ever-growing population.

Some transformations already are apparent, from the Sierra high country to the great valleys that have made California the nation’s top agricultural state.

The snow line is receding, as it is in many other alpine regions around the world. Throughout the 400-mile-long Sierra, trees are under stress, leading scientists to speculate that the mix of flora could change significantly as the climate warms. The death rate of fir and pine trees has accelerated over the past two decades.

In the central and southern Sierra, the giant sequoias that are among the biggest living things on Earth might be imperiled.

“I suspect as things get warmer, we’ll start seeing sequoias just die on their feet where their foliage turns brown,” said Nate Stephenson, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who is studying the effects of climate change in the Sierra Nevada. “Even if they don’t die of drought stress, just think of the wildfires. If you dry out that vegetation, they’re going to be so much more flammable.”

Changes in the mountain snowpack could lead to expensive water disputes between cities and farmers. Without consistent water from rivers draining the melting snow, farmers in the Central and Salinas valleys could lose as much as a quarter of their water supply.

Any drastic changes to the state’s $30 billion agriculture industry would have national implications, since California’s fertile valleys provide half the country’s fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ study.

“Obviously, it’s going to mean that choices are going to be made about who’s going to get the water,” said Brian Nowicki, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.

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Among the biggest unknowns is what will happen along California’s coast as the world’s ice sheets and glaciers melt. One scenario suggests the sea level could rise by more than 20 feet.

Will the rising sea swamp the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest harbor complex, turning them into a series of saltwater lakes? Will funky Ocean Beach, an island of liberalism in conservative San Diego County, become, literally, its own island?

Among the more sobering projections is what is in store for marine life.

The upwelling season, the time when nutrient-rich water is brought from the ocean’s depths to the surface, nourishes one of the world’s richest marine environments.

That period, from late spring until early fall, is expected to become weaker earlier in the season and more intense later. Upwelling along the Southern California coast will become weaker overall.

As a result, sea lions, blue whales and other marine mammals that follow these systems up and down the coast are expected to decline.

The changing sea will present trouble for much of the state’s land-dwelling population, too. A sea level rise of 3 to 6 feet would inundate the airports in San Francisco and Oakland. Many of the state’s beaches would shrink.

“If you raise sea level by a foot, you push a cliff back 100 feet,” said Jeff Severinghaus, professor of geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. “There will be a lot of houses that will fall into the ocean.”