Burning Bridges
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by Marc Roberts November 10, 2010
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Courtesy: Marc Roberts
This could be the new paradigm for gated industrial communities – imagine the hungry clamouring at the fences. Lots of uncertainty here, considering the problems of food supply for a growing population.
Meanwhile…the military pitch in, as do scientists, to tell a more convincing tale.
Comments (0)Feedback Loops – Thawing Permafrost
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 5, 2010
As fascinating as it might be to see a scientist potentially holding a pile of mammoth poo in his hands, this is not a good sign for the planet.
Over 10% of the earth’s surface is covered in tundra, a thin layer of slow-growing plant matter (dwarf shrubs, grasses, mosses, lichens, etc.), which covers a frozen bog of organic matter called permafrost.
Due to very short growing seasons and very low temperatures, the expansive areas of tundra in the frigid north of Russia, Alaska, Canada, etc., can only support an incredibly slow breakdown of organic material. Essentially, permafrost stores thousands of years of plant and animal organic matter. It is a vast carbon sink. Or, at least, it was….
If you’ve ever heard the terms ‘runaway effects’ or ‘feedback loops’ in connection with climate change — thawing permafrost is arguably the most significant amongst them.
Comments (0)When The Water Ends: Africa’s Climate Conflicts
Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 4, 2010
Nomadic herdsmen in Kenya and Ethiopia struggle, and fight, over water resources as the climate changes and the land dries out.
Meanwhile, making a bad situation a lot worse, Ethiopia is building what will be the largest hydro-electric dam in Africa, the Gibe III, which will seriously exacerbate problems for these same subsistence tribes.
Comments (3)"Gibe III is the most destructive dam under construction in Africa. The project will condemn half a million of the region’s most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict," said Terri Hathaway, director of International Rivers’ Africa programme. — BBC
Problems arose around financial difficulties, lack of transparency, and the environmental and social impact assessment, which was not published until two years after construction began. The assessment suggested that the project would cause minimal problems environmentally and socially, however there are a large number of critics who consider it to be flawed both in terms of thoroughness and objectivity. Among these critics is the African Resources Working Group who released statements saying that "The quantitative [and qualitative] data included in virtually all major sections of the report were clearly selected for their consistence with the predetermined objective of validating the completion of the Gibe III hydro-dam" and that despite claims made by the government to the contrary, the dam would "produce a broad range of negative effects, some of which would be catastrophic." — Wikipedia
Bio-Agriculture – a Solution to Climate Change
Global Warming/Climate Change, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 30, 2010
Carbon deficient soil at left, carbon rich soil at right.
It’s not difficult, but it could make all the difference.
If I were to compare industrial, monocrop agriculture with permaculture or organic biological agricultural methodologies, and then boil my observations down to their base differences, I would describe them thus:
- Industrial agriculture focusses on feeding the plant
- Permaculture and organic biological agriculture focus on feeding the soil
Three Major Reports
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Oyvind Holmstad October 28, 2010
A Viable Food Future
 Download here |
What kind of food production can:
- drastically reduce poverty
- reduce climate change and cool the planet
- restore biodiversity, soil fertility and water resources
- improve livelihoods and provide employment for billions of people
- produce enough, good, and nutritious food for 9 billion people or more?
From the report:
Regulation and transformation of unsustainable large-scale industrialised agriculture, livestock raising and fisheries towards smaller-scale ecological production systems is urgently required if hunger is to be eradicated, an equitable food system established and the environment restored. Small-scale farmers should be recognized for their ability to feed the world, reduce climate change, preserve the natural wealth of agricultural and grazing lands, soil, biodiversity, water and aquatic resources that they use in production. Local food production and small-scale agricultural industries in rural areas have the potential to provide decent jobs, which are of utmost importance especially for rural youth and women, and to revitalise agrarian, pastoral and fisheries-based economies, thereby preventing distress or involuntary migration to cities. It is time to move in the direction of a viable food future.
Download the full report, available in English, Spanish and French.
Comments (2)A Planet in Square Brackets
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot October 20, 2010
The draft global plan for saving biodiversity contains no firm proposals at all.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
As the summit begins, I’ve finally got round to reading the draft declaration on biodiversity* the governments meeting at Nagoya in Japan will discuss. It’s 195 pages long. If it were a thesis about the causes and consequences of the decline of the world’s wild species, I would give it a fairly high mark. As an action plan for doing something about this decline, it’s a dead loss.
It begins by reminding us of the comprehensive failure of the last big declaration, in 2002. Then the governments agreed to “achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss”. The new declaration begins by saying this hasn’t been met “in full”. Later, it concedes that it hasn’t been met at all:
Comments (14)“The diversity of genes, species and ecosystems continues to decline, as the pressures on biodiversity remain constant or increase in intensity mainly as a result of human actions.”
10:10 Till We Do It Again
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts October 5, 2010
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Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Oh dear. If you think I misjudge it…. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. With the resources at their disposal I’d expect a lot better than this.
Comments (4)Loess Plateau Revisited, and Other Examples of Earth Healing
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Global Warming/Climate Change, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 1, 2010
Remember the A Call to Large Scale Earth Healing and Lessons from the Loess Plateau post? It was an uber-encouraging look into one of the world’s largest, fastest and most successful earth healing implementations I’ve ever seen. Via the video below (more watchable than the one shared in the previous article) you can take another look, and also learn about similar projects happening in Ethiopia and Rwanda.
To watch a lower-bandwidth version of the film, de-select the “HD” button on right-hand side of the playbar.
Comments (8)Looking for Trouble
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by George Monbiot September 28, 2010
Why are we still prospecting for oil when we can’t afford to use existing reserves?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Forget, for a moment, the fragility of the Arctic environment and the likely consequences of a spill there. Forget the dangers of deepwater drilling in a strait plagued by storms and icebergs, and the difficulties – greater than in the Gulf of Mexico – of capping a leaking well there. There’s an even bigger question raised by a British company’s discovery of oil off the coast of Greenland(1). It’s the same question that’s invoked by the decision the British government is expected to make today (Tuesday): to allow exploration wells to be drilled in deep waters to the west of the Shetland islands(2). Why the heck are we prospecting for new oil anyway?
It’s not a difficult issue to grasp. If we burn just 60% of current global reserves of fossil fuels, we produce two degrees of warming(3). We cannot afford to use what has already been discovered, let alone to find more. Yet no one in either the current or past governments has been prepared to engage with it. Before the election, I confronted the environment spokesmen of the three major parties with this question(4). Only Ed Miliband seemed fully to grasp the point, but even he brushed it aside. The other two blustered and stumbled, while failing to resolve a fundamental contradiction in their manifestos: they were seeking simultaneously to reduce demand for fossil fuels and increase supply.
Comments (2)Dirty Oil – the Tar Sands Documentary
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
This documentary is worth a watch. It’s not complete – the website that hosts it calls this their "customized episodic series".
If someone finds the rest at a future date, do tell.
Comments (5)
Adaptability
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts September 23, 2010
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The UK government’s adaptation report admits that we’ve done bugger all to prepare for what’s to come, offers no investment to do so now, and suggests that those who can profit where they can. Maybe they’re aiming for some Mafia investment.
Comments (0)Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – Video
Community Projects, Conservation, Deforestation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Global Warming/Climate Change, Livestock, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 21, 2010
Some of you will remember the excellent Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration article provided by Tony Rinaudo of World Vision. It shared a rapid and highly effective way to reforest degraded landscapes by simply letting the ‘underground forest’ (the seeds, roots and shoots already existing in the landscape) do what it already wants to do: that being to just grow! Instead of expensive projects with imported seed, nurseries, propagation, watering, etc., Niger has seen net afforestation on a massive scale (over 5 million hectares in Niger alone) by simply educating locals in protecting and pruning the plants already at their feet.
Comments (4)The Process is Dead
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Editor’s note: For those who find the article below intensely depressing, there are solutions. First we need to get a better grip on root problems – that climate change is not only about exhausts and smokestacks, but also intrinsically connected with our mass interference with the earth’s biological processes through deforestation and agricultural malpractice. When we recognise this, we can look at tangible solutions – to restore these biological processes – solutions which must occur as a matter of course as we head over the crest of the peak oil edifice. See solutions here, here and here for example. For those who still retain some faith in a carbon trading process, you might want to check this out….
It’s already clear that the climate talks in December will go nowhere – so what do we do?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December’s climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don’t want to be associated with failure, they don’t want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome.
A meeting in China at the beginning of October is supposed to clear the way for Cancun(1). The hosts have already made it clear that it’s going nowhere: there are, a top Chinese climate change official explains, still “huge differences between developed and developing countries”(2). Everyone blames everyone else for the failure at Copenhagen. Everyone insists that everyone else should move.
Comments (20)Fruit Flies in a Bottle
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Population, Society, peak oil — by Ernest Partridge September 20, 2010
Copyright 2010 by Ernest Partridge. Published here with permission of the author.
Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
I
Place a few fruit flies in a bottle with a layer of honey at the bottom, and they will quickly multiply to an enormous number, and then, just as quickly, die off to the very last, poisoned by their wastes. Similarly, add a few yeast cells to grape juice, seal the bottle, and the cells will consume the sugar and turn it into alcohol. When the alcohol rises to 12.5% it will kill off all the yeast, and the wine will be ready for the table.
Fruit flies and yeast in a bottle are embarked upon suicidal endeavors. They can’t help it. They don’t know any better, lacking the cognitive equipment to “know” anything at all.
Human beings, we are told, are different. Humans can utilize their accumulated knowledge, evaluate evidence and apply reason, and with these skills and accomplishments they can imagine alternative futures and choose among them to their advantage.
Comments (28)Low Lying
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts September 17, 2010
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Kiribati shows some leadership, as the tiger continues its journey into oblivion.
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