Deforestation in the next five years will release more CO2 than all aircraft since the Wright Brothers until at least 2025, but unlike almost all other sources of CO2, there are no market based incentives for efforts to reduce deforestation. Considering that forests have many other values on top of carbon storage - conserving biodiversity, generating rainfall, protecting watersheds, and cycling minerals to name a few - while there is little extra value to carbon stored underground by Carbon Capture and Storage for instance.
The Forests NOW declaration calls for new market based mechanisms to protect tropical forests, and end this illogical market failure. Sign it here and keep up to date with all their latest news on their new blog which will be continually updated from Bali.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
GM Crops
I have been meaning to write about GM crops for a while now, but kept putting it off, as I was unsure that I wanted to tackle what has become such a central policy of many environmental groups I know and love. However, a story that tied together so many environmental and health issues, which could all benefit from a new GM technology. The story was about a new strain of GM crop that has been engineered to contain higher levels of omega three fatty acids. Omega 3 is found in large quantities in fish, and is very good for the brain, memory and heart, so demand for fish oils is driving over-fishing. This new crop will provide an alternative sustainable source for omega three, meaning that everyone will be able to get the recommended allowance cheaply and without causing enormous damage to the oceans. Presumably many environmental groups will oppose trials of this crop, on the grounds that it could cause ill health, or that it could contaminate the environment.
Fortunately, an enormous experiment has been going on for the past twelve years on over 100million hectares of farmland in 22 countries and involving most of the food consumed in many of those countries, so we test whether their fears are founded. A review of the environmental impacts of GM technology concluded that it had caused reductions of GHG emissions equivalent to taking 4m cars of the road, 20% reduction in pesticide use, and 15% reduction in herbicide use. The review was published in a agricultural biotech journal, so may have been inclined to favour GM, but their methods seem sound. In terms of costs, there have been 160 reports of GM crops escaping into the environment, according to the Independent, but these were easily contained, and in terms of large scale environmental problems, I know of none.
On the scale of the environmental problems that exist around the world, GM crops have great potential for good, not only for protecting the Oceans, but also for protecting forests. Their potential for protecting forests is quite simple - GM crops can provide higher yield meaning that we can feed the world with less land. They can also make crops cheaper to grow, which may sound like the talk of a corporate whore, but it is also crucial for world hunger, and for deforestation. George Monbiot makes the first connection very clearly in this excellent article arguing for a moratorium on use of biofuels, in which he explains how each "increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline". The second connection is similar; with each increment in the price of crops, the economic incentive for cutting forests to bring more land into cultivation increases, and the rainforests fall. A single hectare of rainforest generally contain ten times more species of tree than in the entire UK (300 vs 33). All British tree species can be found elsewhere.
Therefore, the kind of visceral opposition to GM technologies that has dominated the debate in the UK for the past ten years, and led to incidents such as this, as well as smoothie companies and supermarkets falling over each other to declare how free they are of GM foods, is completely at odds with the evidence for the environmental impacts of this new technology in the world. The time has come to think about the actual impacts and the possibilities of this not so new technology. Does anyone know of any environmental groups that support the principle of GM technology (even if they oppose the way it has been used by certain large multinational companies)? If not, then who on the OUSU environment committee likes the idea of becoming the first?
FURTHER READING
Dick Traverne's very pro-GM article in Prospect Magazine
Jonathon Porritt's reply
Fortunately, an enormous experiment has been going on for the past twelve years on over 100million hectares of farmland in 22 countries and involving most of the food consumed in many of those countries, so we test whether their fears are founded. A review of the environmental impacts of GM technology concluded that it had caused reductions of GHG emissions equivalent to taking 4m cars of the road, 20% reduction in pesticide use, and 15% reduction in herbicide use. The review was published in a agricultural biotech journal, so may have been inclined to favour GM, but their methods seem sound. In terms of costs, there have been 160 reports of GM crops escaping into the environment, according to the Independent, but these were easily contained, and in terms of large scale environmental problems, I know of none.
On the scale of the environmental problems that exist around the world, GM crops have great potential for good, not only for protecting the Oceans, but also for protecting forests. Their potential for protecting forests is quite simple - GM crops can provide higher yield meaning that we can feed the world with less land. They can also make crops cheaper to grow, which may sound like the talk of a corporate whore, but it is also crucial for world hunger, and for deforestation. George Monbiot makes the first connection very clearly in this excellent article arguing for a moratorium on use of biofuels, in which he explains how each "increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline". The second connection is similar; with each increment in the price of crops, the economic incentive for cutting forests to bring more land into cultivation increases, and the rainforests fall. A single hectare of rainforest generally contain ten times more species of tree than in the entire UK (300 vs 33). All British tree species can be found elsewhere.
Therefore, the kind of visceral opposition to GM technologies that has dominated the debate in the UK for the past ten years, and led to incidents such as this, as well as smoothie companies and supermarkets falling over each other to declare how free they are of GM foods, is completely at odds with the evidence for the environmental impacts of this new technology in the world. The time has come to think about the actual impacts and the possibilities of this not so new technology. Does anyone know of any environmental groups that support the principle of GM technology (even if they oppose the way it has been used by certain large multinational companies)? If not, then who on the OUSU environment committee likes the idea of becoming the first?
FURTHER READING
Dick Traverne's very pro-GM article in Prospect Magazine
Jonathon Porritt's reply
An Update on Fish
Things are moving pretty fast in the campaign to stop unsustainably caught fish from being served in Oxford, but here is an excellent article (the economist again) about the economic benefits of marine reserves. As mentioned below, Britain has only one marine reserve (Lundy Island), which makes up about 0.002% of our waters. The government has been discussing a Marine Bill for some time now, but it did not make it onto the draft legislative programme that Gordon Brown outlined in July, nor onto the Queen's speech this month, despite thousands of letters of support for the bill, and strong pressure from environmental groups. The interests of the fishing industry have consistently been focused on short term benefits (Hurry while stocks last), and the government doesn't appear to be taking any action to preserve biodiversity for the future, which shows why consumer led action to dry up demand for unsustainably caught fish is so important.
Friday, 26 October 2007
Photos prove damage caused by trawlers
This striking photo shows Chinese trawlers scraping the sea bed and dredging up clouds of mud. If you eat deep sea fish, then this is probably how they were caught.
This is the factsheet and motion that we sent out to all college reps last week.:
When the shores of Newfoundland were first discovered by European explorers, it is said that if they were to dip a basket into the water it would come back up filled with Atlantic cod. An enormous industry was built on the back of this seemingly inexhaustible natural resource, and bigger boats with bigger nets scraped the sea floor for every fish they could get. By 1992, after years of ignoring scientific advice on how unsustainable these methods were, the cod stocks collapsed, and 40,000 people lots their jobs in a single year. Fifteen years later, the ban on fishing has been partially lifted, but catches are at less than 1% of their 1977 levels, as the ecology of the region has shifted, and fish have been unable to recover. The story of the decline of the Atlantic cod and its subsequent affects on Newfoundland is but one of a series of “fishy” horror stories around the world. In fact, fishery records from 1950 to 2000 show the collapse of 366 out of the world’s 1519 fisheries. The collapse of these fisheries has shifted the pressure onto those remaining, so that the journal Science has suggested that, if current trends continue, there will be a total marine collapse (defined as loss of 90% of stocks of each species) by 2050.
• Up to 25% of all sea creatures caught in fisheries are discarded (thrown back into the sea dead or dying) because they are not the fishermen’s intended target. In bottom trawling the proportion of bycatch rises to 50%.
• Protected areas can be enormously beneficial economically because they serve as “nurseries” where young fish grow to a large enough size.
• Scientists recommend that 20-30% of Britain’s seas should be protected. The figure is currently 0.002%.
However, the sea is a valuable natural resource that can provide some of our dietary requirements if it is harvested in an appropriate way using modern sustainable techniques. The over exploitation of our oceans by bottom trawling, high levels of bycatch and over-fishing of threatened species will mean that within our lifetimes the ecology of all seas will have shifted so dramatically that no edible fish species will survive to be of use to humans ever again. We have two options – we could “hurry while stocks last”, and eat all we can while there are any left, or choose the sustainable future, and demand that kitchens in Oxford are not driving demand for unsustainably caught fish, and send a clear message that we want sustainably harvested fish, or no fish at all.
Motion
This JCR notes that:
• Many species of commercially exploited fish are unsustainably caught and are in danger of being driven to extinction by overfishing, and that some of these fish are being served in college hall.
This JCR resolves to:
• Request that the college not serve unsustainably caught or endangered fish, and instead replace them with more sustainably caught species, ie those approved by the Marine Stewardship Council or those on the Marine Conservation Society ‘Fish To Eat’ list.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Popluation
One of the most painful things to read is someone arguing badly and wrongly for something you believe in. Ju
st as creationists like this are the best possible advert for militant atheism, this article from the economist blog on why population doesn't matter is enough to make you believe that radical population control measures are the only solution to the environmental problems of the planet. The economist runs a blog on its website that it calls ‘green.view’, but is usually used to explain why environmental issues don’t matter. In this case, the column was a response to the sackloads of mail they received from people objecting to their front cover about population shrinkage, who variously suggested shrinking populations "are a reason to cheer", and that cap-and-trade birth permits are the only way to ensure our future.
This is an issue which has often been called the 'elephant in the drawing room' of environmentalism, as few have dared to talk about it, and those that do are often quickly sidelined as their conclusions are so unpopular. I have thought about the issue a lot, and have a few reasons to believe that we do not need to take radical action to prevent people giving birth. The economist blogger clearly did not think about it much, and so came up with the following argument:
Carbon Emissions in poor countries only increased by 2% per year between 1990 and 2002, while in rich countries emissions increased from 11.8 tonnes per head to 12.8 tonnes per head, with population fairly stable. Now this comparison sounds like good evidence for their argument at first glance, but you can normally expect the Economist to give more than just a glance to an argument, and any economist (small e) should be able to see that 2% a year over 12 years is almost 27%, while an increase from 11.8 to 12.8 is just 8.5%. In other words, the percentage increase in carbon emissions was much greater in developing countries than in developed, and as tackling climate change is very much a long term game, it is these broad trends that make the difference. Their major point 'lighten the footprint, but keep the feet', leaves you thinking, 'but surely it would be better to lighten the footprint AND lose some feet', because though they throw about some statistics to show that there is little correlation between population growth and emissions, their view is still that each person is essentially negative for the world, rather that each person can add something. Without this idea, it is impossible not to agree with the doom-mongerers and population fascists, but I think that each human can add more than he takes. Here's why:
The key to the future are the human qualities of Innovation, Invention and Imagination, the qualities that Julian Simon calls the Ultimate Resource. Without considering these factors, than Malthus's logic stands up, and our future can only be Malthusian, with shortages causing war, famine, disease and environmental destruction. However, it is easy to forget the most important fact of the past two hundred years - MALTHUS WAS WRONG. Two hundred years after he predicted widespread destruction, there are more people, living with more health, wealth and education than ever before (watch this amazing video to see the trends of development of the last fifty years). This must be the most important trend of human history, and understanding it is crucial for our future. A more recent example of the shortcomings of malthusian logic illustrates why he was wrong:
In the 1960s, a chap called Ehrlich wrote a book called "the population bomb" which stated "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now". He was taken up on his predictions by Julian Simon in 1980, who asked him to put his money where his mouth was and offered him a wager - Erlich was to choose five metals whose price they would bet on over ten years. If the prices went up, then Simon would pay the difference to Erlich, if they went down, then vice versa. Erlich gleefully accepted, and chose his metals - copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The logic seemed clear - demand for copper was increasing as more and more electrics were being used, while the supply was fast running out. How could he possibly lose?
When the bet ended, in 1990, after the decade with the biggest population rise in all history, the prices of every single metal had fallen in real terms, and Erlich owed $575. He had failed to predict the new technologies that would change the way all the metals were used. For copper, fiber optics replaced many of the electrical uses, while better extraction technologies made supply more plentiful.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrlich-Simon_bet).
The message of this story is clear to me - human ingenuity and innovation will change our future immeasurably, and though we cannot for a moment be complacent about our own abilities, it is this factor that means that each human can add more than he takes away from the planet, and pave the way for a sustainable future. Encouraging and realising this potential for innovation must be the aim of every person everywhere if we are to address the challenges that lie ahead.
st as creationists like this are the best possible advert for militant atheism, this article from the economist blog on why population doesn't matter is enough to make you believe that radical population control measures are the only solution to the environmental problems of the planet. The economist runs a blog on its website that it calls ‘green.view’, but is usually used to explain why environmental issues don’t matter. In this case, the column was a response to the sackloads of mail they received from people objecting to their front cover about population shrinkage, who variously suggested shrinking populations "are a reason to cheer", and that cap-and-trade birth permits are the only way to ensure our future.This is an issue which has often been called the 'elephant in the drawing room' of environmentalism, as few have dared to talk about it, and those that do are often quickly sidelined as their conclusions are so unpopular. I have thought about the issue a lot, and have a few reasons to believe that we do not need to take radical action to prevent people giving birth. The economist blogger clearly did not think about it much, and so came up with the following argument:
Carbon Emissions in poor countries only increased by 2% per year between 1990 and 2002, while in rich countries emissions increased from 11.8 tonnes per head to 12.8 tonnes per head, with population fairly stable. Now this comparison sounds like good evidence for their argument at first glance, but you can normally expect the Economist to give more than just a glance to an argument, and any economist (small e) should be able to see that 2% a year over 12 years is almost 27%, while an increase from 11.8 to 12.8 is just 8.5%. In other words, the percentage increase in carbon emissions was much greater in developing countries than in developed, and as tackling climate change is very much a long term game, it is these broad trends that make the difference. Their major point 'lighten the footprint, but keep the feet', leaves you thinking, 'but surely it would be better to lighten the footprint AND lose some feet', because though they throw about some statistics to show that there is little correlation between population growth and emissions, their view is still that each person is essentially negative for the world, rather that each person can add something. Without this idea, it is impossible not to agree with the doom-mongerers and population fascists, but I think that each human can add more than he takes. Here's why:
The key to the future are the human qualities of Innovation, Invention and Imagination, the qualities that Julian Simon calls the Ultimate Resource. Without considering these factors, than Malthus's logic stands up, and our future can only be Malthusian, with shortages causing war, famine, disease and environmental destruction. However, it is easy to forget the most important fact of the past two hundred years - MALTHUS WAS WRONG. Two hundred years after he predicted widespread destruction, there are more people, living with more health, wealth and education than ever before (watch this amazing video to see the trends of development of the last fifty years). This must be the most important trend of human history, and understanding it is crucial for our future. A more recent example of the shortcomings of malthusian logic illustrates why he was wrong:
In the 1960s, a chap called Ehrlich wrote a book called "the population bomb" which stated "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now". He was taken up on his predictions by Julian Simon in 1980, who asked him to put his money where his mouth was and offered him a wager - Erlich was to choose five metals whose price they would bet on over ten years. If the prices went up, then Simon would pay the difference to Erlich, if they went down, then vice versa. Erlich gleefully accepted, and chose his metals - copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The logic seemed clear - demand for copper was increasing as more and more electrics were being used, while the supply was fast running out. How could he possibly lose?
When the bet ended, in 1990, after the decade with the biggest population rise in all history, the prices of every single metal had fallen in real terms, and Erlich owed $575. He had failed to predict the new technologies that would change the way all the metals were used. For copper, fiber optics replaced many of the electrical uses, while better extraction technologies made supply more plentiful.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrlich-Simon_bet).
The message of this story is clear to me - human ingenuity and innovation will change our future immeasurably, and though we cannot for a moment be complacent about our own abilities, it is this factor that means that each human can add more than he takes away from the planet, and pave the way for a sustainable future. Encouraging and realising this potential for innovation must be the aim of every person everywhere if we are to address the challenges that lie ahead.
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Windmills and Birds
There's an article in nature today about the true cost of wind-turbines to the lives of birds. The conclusion - 3% of a bird per turbine per year, or one dead bird for every thirty or so turbines. They put the avian death toll from wind turbines at no more than 40,000 per year for the USA (the largest wind power producer in the world), compared to hundreds of millions of birds killed by cats. However, there are important limitations to this - mainly that the birds killed by turbines are often bigger, and bigger birds have smaller populations, so the death on an individual is more important.
The UN on biofuels
This week the UN has published a report on biofuels, warning that though biofuels have great potential in providing clean energy as well as employment and income to the poorer areas of the world, the impacts so far have been limited to increasing the rate of forest clearance in south east asia, and driving up the price of food around the world. This is a stark warning, and backs many of George Monbiot's outspoken views on biofuels, which i commented on last month.
The EU has recently mandated a 5.75% blend of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel into all pump fuels by 2012, but this come with no safeguard to ensure that it doesn't speed up deforestation, and escalate food prices. There is clearly an enormous and incredibly important debate to be had here, but it seems that if there are incentives offered to promote biofuels then they need to come with caveats to prevent the worst environmental and social problems that could follow. The government is currently proposing to make all fuel companies increase the amount of biofuel they supply as part of its Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, and we are currently in the consultation period. Greenpeace have organised a petition to make sure that "biofuels really are green fuels". Click here to visit the Greenpeace petition or here for the consultation on the Department for Transport website.
The EU has recently mandated a 5.75% blend of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel into all pump fuels by 2012, but this come with no safeguard to ensure that it doesn't speed up deforestation, and escalate food prices. There is clearly an enormous and incredibly important debate to be had here, but it seems that if there are incentives offered to promote biofuels then they need to come with caveats to prevent the worst environmental and social problems that could follow. The government is currently proposing to make all fuel companies increase the amount of biofuel they supply as part of its Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, and we are currently in the consultation period. Greenpeace have organised a petition to make sure that "biofuels really are green fuels". Click here to visit the Greenpeace petition or here for the consultation on the Department for Transport website.
Wednesday, 28 March 2007
Interesting Review
Here is an interesting review of all the most important books on climate of the last year or so....
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n06/lanc01_.html
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n06/lanc01_.html
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
Monbiot on Biofuels
George Monbiot argues in the Guardian today (here) that we need a massive campaign against all targets and inventives for biofuels....
Two facts in the article particularly struck me:
- A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces.
- The UN has just reassessed the assertion it made in 2002 that said that 98% of Indonesian rain forest will have disappeared by 2032, now saying this will be reached by 2022.
Therefore, in short, our biofuel incentives are not only leading to increased emissions but also causing the type of land use change that is causing the greatest losses of biodiversity. My comments here are very relevant to this.
The problems of the current biofuel "boom" stem largely from the fact that most biofuels are made from crops that are grown for people to eat rather than from the waste plant matter. Wheat, for example, has been selected over the last 10,000 years to have palatable and nutritious seeds, which we harvest leaving most of the plant behind. The logic of using these few seeds to make fuel, while burning, or rotting the waste seems to be absurd.
We desperately need the new wave of biofuel technology to make energy from cellulose, and other waste plant materials. This article discusses how to resolve the food/fuel debate, but it requires massive new processing plants and technologies, as well as enormous changes in the way we farm. These changes will take time, but without them incentives to biofuel production and use will do little but speed up the degradation of some of the world's most biologically important habitats, and add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Two facts in the article particularly struck me:
- A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces.
- The UN has just reassessed the assertion it made in 2002 that said that 98% of Indonesian rain forest will have disappeared by 2032, now saying this will be reached by 2022.
Therefore, in short, our biofuel incentives are not only leading to increased emissions but also causing the type of land use change that is causing the greatest losses of biodiversity. My comments here are very relevant to this.
The problems of the current biofuel "boom" stem largely from the fact that most biofuels are made from crops that are grown for people to eat rather than from the waste plant matter. Wheat, for example, has been selected over the last 10,000 years to have palatable and nutritious seeds, which we harvest leaving most of the plant behind. The logic of using these few seeds to make fuel, while burning, or rotting the waste seems to be absurd.
We desperately need the new wave of biofuel technology to make energy from cellulose, and other waste plant materials. This article discusses how to resolve the food/fuel debate, but it requires massive new processing plants and technologies, as well as enormous changes in the way we farm. These changes will take time, but without them incentives to biofuel production and use will do little but speed up the degradation of some of the world's most biologically important habitats, and add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Sunday, 11 March 2007
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Channel 4 aired a program on Thursday 8th March called "The Great Climate Change Swindle", which claimed amoung other things that global warming is a enormous consipiracy. You can watch most of it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-LPN9PkLK4
It is sharp, slick, looks very scientific, and features some people who seem to know their stuff, but there are a few facts about the director of the film, Martin Durkin, that should makes us pretty suspicious.
Channel 4 had to issue a prime time apology for airing one of his last films - 'Against Nature?', as he had "misrepresented and distorted their views by editing the interview footage in a misleading way.". Perhaps he had learned his lesson, you might be thinking....sadly not. One of the scientists has already complained, saying his comments were taken out of context, and that the film was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since world war two".
The wikipedia article for the Great Global Warming Swindle has a detailed rebuttal of every one of the scientific claims made in the film, which is very much worth reading if you want a clearer idea of the science, and have to face people who suggest that scientific uncertainty is still a reason for failing to act on climate change......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-LPN9PkLK4
It is sharp, slick, looks very scientific, and features some people who seem to know their stuff, but there are a few facts about the director of the film, Martin Durkin, that should makes us pretty suspicious.
Channel 4 had to issue a prime time apology for airing one of his last films - 'Against Nature?', as he had "misrepresented and distorted their views by editing the interview footage in a misleading way.". Perhaps he had learned his lesson, you might be thinking....sadly not. One of the scientists has already complained, saying his comments were taken out of context, and that the film was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since world war two".
The wikipedia article for the Great Global Warming Swindle has a detailed rebuttal of every one of the scientific claims made in the film, which is very much worth reading if you want a clearer idea of the science, and have to face people who suggest that scientific uncertainty is still a reason for failing to act on climate change......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Tourism Begins at Home
As we discussed in the meeting, we are working towards a new campaign on short haul flights. Here we can discuss what form it will take.
In the meeting, we talked about
- promoting local tourism as an alternative
- promoting using trains rather than short haul flights
- compiling all the information to make a persuasive and informative guide to the impacts of short haul flights
I managed to get a carbon offset option on the varsity ski trip, which led to the travel agents adding that option to all the flights they sell. should we be doing this for other university trips - see debate below? the implication from rising tide etc, is that rather than offsetting, we should not produce the carbon in the first place, so if we are not persuading university trip to go carbon neutral, should we be persuading them to stay at home? i'm not really up for telling the blues not to go on tour...
Add your thoughts below for what form the flying campaign should take....
In the meeting, we talked about
- promoting local tourism as an alternative
- promoting using trains rather than short haul flights
- compiling all the information to make a persuasive and informative guide to the impacts of short haul flights
I managed to get a carbon offset option on the varsity ski trip, which led to the travel agents adding that option to all the flights they sell. should we be doing this for other university trips - see debate below? the implication from rising tide etc, is that rather than offsetting, we should not produce the carbon in the first place, so if we are not persuading university trip to go carbon neutral, should we be persuading them to stay at home? i'm not really up for telling the blues not to go on tour...
Add your thoughts below for what form the flying campaign should take....
Carbon Offsetting vs Rising Tide
Activists from the campaign group Rising Tide occupied the offices of the CarbonNeutral Company last week, saying they were "working away from solutions to climate change", by putting up the smokescrean of carbon offsetting. A CarbonNeutral spokewoman responded by saying "Rising Tide have never asked to meet us, so we don't know what they do, and I don't think they know what we do. What we do is help companies measure and reduce their emissions; and where they can't reduce their emissions, we help them offset. So we're a carbon management company, not a carbon offsetting company."
However, though there seems to have been some confusion here, there is certainly some debate carbon offsetting. At first consideration, there seems to be a clear and sound economic argument that goes on these lines: as i reduce my emissions, the first ten percent is the easiest to reduce, the next ten is harder, the next even harder, and so on, until i get to the situation where i have reduced all possible emissions, except the final 1% - breathing. Thus, if i have a limited amount of time and resources that i am prepared to put into reducing my carbon footprint, it makes most sense to reduce my emissions as much as possible, and then pay other people to reduce theirs.
Why then are climate change activists so against this type of solution? A new website has been launched called www.cheatneutral.com, which allows people to offset every time they want to cheat on their partner by paying someone else to remain faithful, so keeping the amount of fidelity in the world neutral.
So, are carbon offsets really just a modern day indulgence that allows us to continue polluting, or are they a useful way to tackle climate change?
However, though there seems to have been some confusion here, there is certainly some debate carbon offsetting. At first consideration, there seems to be a clear and sound economic argument that goes on these lines: as i reduce my emissions, the first ten percent is the easiest to reduce, the next ten is harder, the next even harder, and so on, until i get to the situation where i have reduced all possible emissions, except the final 1% - breathing. Thus, if i have a limited amount of time and resources that i am prepared to put into reducing my carbon footprint, it makes most sense to reduce my emissions as much as possible, and then pay other people to reduce theirs.
Why then are climate change activists so against this type of solution? A new website has been launched called www.cheatneutral.com, which allows people to offset every time they want to cheat on their partner by paying someone else to remain faithful, so keeping the amount of fidelity in the world neutral.
So, are carbon offsets really just a modern day indulgence that allows us to continue polluting, or are they a useful way to tackle climate change?
Saturday, 27 January 2007
Ethical Campaigns and Mission Statement
Since the Environment & Ethics Committee acquired its ethical remit, we've been a bit short of ethical campaigns. Our environmental campaigning at a college, university and national level is going really well, but it's had a monopoly on our time, and there are plenty of ethical campaigns being run in the University that could really benefit from our resources. Before we start thinking about spending more time on ethical campaigns, however, we really need to get two questions sorted: 1) What is an 'ethical' campaign, and 2) What kinds of ethical campaigns are suitable for us to run?
Strictly speaking, an ethical campaign is any campaign that sets out to change things in line with a specific view of what is right and what is wrong, often within the context of a specific issue. There are very few universally held ethical principles, but there are lots that have widespread agreement, such as that human rights should be respected, and that future generations deserve to inhabit a planet with the suitable climate and rich biodiversity that we have enjoyed, within the boundaries of natural change. The reason ethical campaigns can be controversial is that they take a single stance on issues that are often populated by a wide variety of beliefs. If everyone who is part of the campaign agrees with the line that has been taken on the relevant underlying ethical principles, things are ok. Anyone who disagrees can form an opposing group, and the process is open and democratic.
The reason a group like OUSU Environment & Ethics Committee needs to be so careful in choosing its campaigns is that we are more than just the people who come to our meetings. We officially represent several thousands of students, and our fundamental role is to represent the views of those students and to act in their interest. This makes consensus crucial, but sometimes difficult, when we're choosing our campaigns.
We've run a number of environmental campaigns over the last year, many of which have used JCR and MCR motions to acquire a valid mandate because they have controversial elements. There are plenty of environmental campaigns that are just as controversial as 'ethical' campaigns. In fact, to distinguish between the two in this way is pretty arbitrary, as the first falls within the set of the second, and so assumes the same general properties. Much of the science of climate change remains vague, and the action that needs to be taken, in terms of its effect on economic development and lifestyles, is hugely controversial. Nonetheless, we have reached the decision, as a committee and in line with the view of increasing numbers of governments, that action on climate change is necessary despite these controversial side effects. This is an ethical decision, placing one thing at the expense of another in line with an underlying view of what is right.
We need to choose a campaign to work on that is not specifically to do with the effects of our behaviour on the natural environment. In making this choice, we need to bear in mind that an OUSU campaign is meant to represent the views of the students, and is also meant to be relevant to addressing their needs. This doesn't mean we can't pick a traditionally 'controversial' campaign; if we go to our JCRs and find that people are in agreement, we have a mandate to run the campaign. However, it is also important that any campaigns we do run can be directly targetted at the actions of the University, its staff and its students. Our campaigns on climate change address an international issue, but by changing the way the University operates. Likewise, the SRI campaign took the global issue of the arms trade, but dealt with it within the confines of the University's investments and the students' attitudes.
So, to pick a new campaign to work on, I reckon it should 1) have the support of the students, 2) have a strong moral case for action and 3) be relevant to the actions of the University. This would at least be a start, and these are just my views. It'd be really great to have discussion on this, so we can refine our definition of what it is that we do, and then maybe summarise this in a mission statement. Really looking forward to hearing people's views.
Sam
Strictly speaking, an ethical campaign is any campaign that sets out to change things in line with a specific view of what is right and what is wrong, often within the context of a specific issue. There are very few universally held ethical principles, but there are lots that have widespread agreement, such as that human rights should be respected, and that future generations deserve to inhabit a planet with the suitable climate and rich biodiversity that we have enjoyed, within the boundaries of natural change. The reason ethical campaigns can be controversial is that they take a single stance on issues that are often populated by a wide variety of beliefs. If everyone who is part of the campaign agrees with the line that has been taken on the relevant underlying ethical principles, things are ok. Anyone who disagrees can form an opposing group, and the process is open and democratic.
The reason a group like OUSU Environment & Ethics Committee needs to be so careful in choosing its campaigns is that we are more than just the people who come to our meetings. We officially represent several thousands of students, and our fundamental role is to represent the views of those students and to act in their interest. This makes consensus crucial, but sometimes difficult, when we're choosing our campaigns.
We've run a number of environmental campaigns over the last year, many of which have used JCR and MCR motions to acquire a valid mandate because they have controversial elements. There are plenty of environmental campaigns that are just as controversial as 'ethical' campaigns. In fact, to distinguish between the two in this way is pretty arbitrary, as the first falls within the set of the second, and so assumes the same general properties. Much of the science of climate change remains vague, and the action that needs to be taken, in terms of its effect on economic development and lifestyles, is hugely controversial. Nonetheless, we have reached the decision, as a committee and in line with the view of increasing numbers of governments, that action on climate change is necessary despite these controversial side effects. This is an ethical decision, placing one thing at the expense of another in line with an underlying view of what is right.
We need to choose a campaign to work on that is not specifically to do with the effects of our behaviour on the natural environment. In making this choice, we need to bear in mind that an OUSU campaign is meant to represent the views of the students, and is also meant to be relevant to addressing their needs. This doesn't mean we can't pick a traditionally 'controversial' campaign; if we go to our JCRs and find that people are in agreement, we have a mandate to run the campaign. However, it is also important that any campaigns we do run can be directly targetted at the actions of the University, its staff and its students. Our campaigns on climate change address an international issue, but by changing the way the University operates. Likewise, the SRI campaign took the global issue of the arms trade, but dealt with it within the confines of the University's investments and the students' attitudes.
So, to pick a new campaign to work on, I reckon it should 1) have the support of the students, 2) have a strong moral case for action and 3) be relevant to the actions of the University. This would at least be a start, and these are just my views. It'd be really great to have discussion on this, so we can refine our definition of what it is that we do, and then maybe summarise this in a mission statement. Really looking forward to hearing people's views.
Sam
Monday, 22 January 2007
Recycling
That anyone should question the revered act of eco-penance that is recycling may almost seem absurd, but in the spirit of this blog, here goes....
The logic behind recycling is impeccable - it simply must be better for the environment to reuse a can than bury it and make a new one. The facts from the 'International Aluminium Institute' (now that is a club I want to join) are quite clear - recycling a kilo of aluminium saves 8 kilograms of bauxite, four kilograms of chemical products and 14 kilowatt hours of electricity. For glass, there are similar savings in raw materials, carbon emissions and energy use.
These figures sound amazing, but there is one fact that still troubles me - if recycling saves so much energy and resources, why are we not paid to do it? Why is it left to the conscience rather than self interest of the people?
The answer to this is unclear, but i think it lies with the difference between the cost of labour and the cost of materials in the UK. It is so much more expensive to employ people than it is to buy stuff in Britain, that it is cheaper for councils to mix up all waste and bury it, rather than organise sorting and selling. This means that it really is up to the conscientious consumer to take the tiny effort of dividing up their waste so that it is easy and cheap for the councils to deal with it separately.
However, the more important problem that people often have is a (well placed) worry after the effort of sorting out the rubbish, it will only be mixed together again later on. This could be at the bins, in front of your very eyes by scouts or cleaners. This has been reported in a number of colleges, but i want to investigate how widespread it is, and try to work out a way to make it stop. So if you have ever seen a scout mixing up your recycling, then write below, and we can try to stop it.
Further down the line is the worry that the council is mixing the recycling. Economically, this would be a pretty stupid thing to do, as paper, glass and aluminium all have considerable market value, while waste sent to landfill is taxed (£24 per tonne from April). However, it would be easy to imagine the dustbin men making their lives easier by mixing them, especially if the recycling was all mixed together.
Toby Pitts-Tucker told me of a Panorama/Horizon on recycling which "focussed on a recycling unit in Northern Ireland, which as the hidden camera's showed, would sift out recyclable waste from household waste (at vast expense) only to then load it onto a truck with the rest of the junk and dump it in landfill sites. What's even worse, is that because getting rid of waste in recycling plants is subsidised by the government, companies in southern ireland (cork, limerick etc) were sending THEIR junk by lorry all the way up to northern ireland to dispose of it, using even more time, money and energy than if the whole recycling pretence was dropped and everything was put in landfill sites."
All this is very interesting, and such arguments are often used by people as reasons not to recycle, so we must tackle them. It seems that scouts and dustbinmen would be more likely to mix rubbish if they have to do more work to sort it, so if these problems are real and widespread, then we should be aiming to implement recycling schemes that lead to large amounts of well sorted waste in one place rather than a lot of bins full of mixed recycling.
The logic behind recycling is impeccable - it simply must be better for the environment to reuse a can than bury it and make a new one. The facts from the 'International Aluminium Institute' (now that is a club I want to join) are quite clear - recycling a kilo of aluminium saves 8 kilograms of bauxite, four kilograms of chemical products and 14 kilowatt hours of electricity. For glass, there are similar savings in raw materials, carbon emissions and energy use.
These figures sound amazing, but there is one fact that still troubles me - if recycling saves so much energy and resources, why are we not paid to do it? Why is it left to the conscience rather than self interest of the people?
The answer to this is unclear, but i think it lies with the difference between the cost of labour and the cost of materials in the UK. It is so much more expensive to employ people than it is to buy stuff in Britain, that it is cheaper for councils to mix up all waste and bury it, rather than organise sorting and selling. This means that it really is up to the conscientious consumer to take the tiny effort of dividing up their waste so that it is easy and cheap for the councils to deal with it separately.
However, the more important problem that people often have is a (well placed) worry after the effort of sorting out the rubbish, it will only be mixed together again later on. This could be at the bins, in front of your very eyes by scouts or cleaners. This has been reported in a number of colleges, but i want to investigate how widespread it is, and try to work out a way to make it stop. So if you have ever seen a scout mixing up your recycling, then write below, and we can try to stop it.
Further down the line is the worry that the council is mixing the recycling. Economically, this would be a pretty stupid thing to do, as paper, glass and aluminium all have considerable market value, while waste sent to landfill is taxed (£24 per tonne from April). However, it would be easy to imagine the dustbin men making their lives easier by mixing them, especially if the recycling was all mixed together.
Toby Pitts-Tucker told me of a Panorama/Horizon on recycling which "focussed on a recycling unit in Northern Ireland, which as the hidden camera's showed, would sift out recyclable waste from household waste (at vast expense) only to then load it onto a truck with the rest of the junk and dump it in landfill sites. What's even worse, is that because getting rid of waste in recycling plants is subsidised by the government, companies in southern ireland (cork, limerick etc) were sending THEIR junk by lorry all the way up to northern ireland to dispose of it, using even more time, money and energy than if the whole recycling pretence was dropped and everything was put in landfill sites."
All this is very interesting, and such arguments are often used by people as reasons not to recycle, so we must tackle them. It seems that scouts and dustbinmen would be more likely to mix rubbish if they have to do more work to sort it, so if these problems are real and widespread, then we should be aiming to implement recycling schemes that lead to large amounts of well sorted waste in one place rather than a lot of bins full of mixed recycling.
Saturday, 20 January 2007
Climate Change - Britain Under Threat
8pm Sunday 21st January - David Attenborough will be presenting the results of climateprediction.net, the online modelling program co-ordinated by the ECI in Oxford, but run on 250,000 idle computers in 171 countries. Each computer spent about 3 months of computing time running a very complex model, with slightly different parameters each time. The thousands of potential outcomes were then analysed, and the results will be shown on the program tomorrow, or can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/.
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
The Organic Debate
This week David Milliband spoke out at the Oxford Farming Conference saying that there was no real evidence that Organic food is better for your health. Though there are a few examples where the health benefits have been shown (higher Omega-3 in organic milk, lower fat content of organic farmed salmon), it is true that the evidence for health benefits is generally non-existent. These comments come in the month after the Economist wrote an article questioning the Environmental benefits of organic food, and though the article itself was quite shallow on detail, it raised important questions. A study by Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) found that a Organic Farms do support more biodiversity (85% more plant species, 17% more spiders, 5% more birds and 33% more bat species), the yield is much lower (c20%), and the energy inputs are higher (more ploughing etc needed), so more land and energy is needed, leaving less for rainforests or nature reserves. In addition, many of the benefits of organic agriculture come from the traditional wildlife friendly way that the land has been managed, but as the Organic label has grown ( doubled in the last 6 yrs to £1.6bn this year), some of the organic agriculture has become increasingly commercial and businesslike, which means the wildlife suffers.
I'm sure I'm really stirring up some trouble here by speaking out against the Ecologist, but I think we need to seriously consider why we do things like buy organic - is it a lifestyle choice, do we like the packaging, or are we really convinced by the environmental benefits? If anyone has any thing to add or say on this, then email me, and we can get a debate going on the website.
Here is the bit from the Economist article i referred to..
How green is your organic lettuce?
Yet even an apparently obvious claim—that organic food is better for the environment than the conventionally farmed kind—turns out to be controversial. There are many different definitions of the term "organic", but it generally involves severe restrictions on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and a ban on genetically modified organisms. Peter Melchett of the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic lobby group, says that environmental concerns, rather than health benefits, are now cited by British consumers as their main justification for buying organic food. (There is no clear evidence that conventional food is harmful or that organic food is nutritionally superior.)
But not everyone agrees that organic farming is better for the environment. Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution", winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is "ridiculous" because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.
What of the claim that organic farming is more energy-efficient? Lord Melchett points out for example that the artificial fertiliser used in conventional farming is made using natural gas, which is "completely unsustainable". But Anthony Trewavas, a biochemist at the University of Edinburgh, counters that organic farming actually requires more energy per tonne of food produced, because yields are lower and weeds are kept at bay by ploughing. And Mr Pollan notes that only one-fifth of the energy associated with food production across the whole food chain is consumed on the farm: the rest goes on transport and processing.
The most environmentally benign form of agriculture appears to be "no till" farming, which involves little or no ploughing and relies on cover crops and carefully applied herbicides to control weeds. This makes it hard to combine with organic methods (though some researchers are trying). Too rigid an insistence on organic farming's somewhat arbitrary rules, then—copper, a heavy metal, can be used as an organic fungicide because it is traditional—can actually hinder the adoption of greener agricultural techniques. Alas, shoppers look in vain for "no till" labels on their food—at least so far.
And here are some of the responses...
Rebecca White wrote
I agree with many of the questions you raise about organic agriculture, but I did want to highlight that organic agriculture actually uses less energy than conventional (off the top of my head this is between 30-60% less for dairy/arable). Even when yeild reductions of 20% are taken into consideration the balance of energy use is still in organic's favour. For livestock energy use is about 50% less. And as animal rearing is so energy intensive in the first place, this really makes a big difference.
Although there may be more ploughing/tilling on organic farms, it is fertiliser and pesticide/herbicide use and animal feed (a specified proportion of which needs to come from the farm itself in organic systems) that is the big energy use input to farming - this is why conventional farming is more energy intensive.
A big question that hangs over all this though, and about which we know little, is the balance of other greenhouse gases in conventional/organic farms - methane and nitrous oxides. Also - and as you probably know - so much organic food is currently imported into this country, so the gains on the farm are offset in the transport stage (although for meat this is not always the case - organic from abroad might outweigh conventional from the UK depending on transport mode etc). From a carbon point of view, if you are umming and aahing over organic or not I'd suggest seriously cutting meat consumption and when you do eat it, make it organic (dairy too). This will make a much bigger difference than buying organic veg/fruit.
Animal welfare depends hugely on the individual farm, but under organic a 'no grazing system' for dairy is prohibited. Therefore, if you buy conventional, there is the risk that the cow from which the milk came has never been outside to graze. Which sounds like a pretty dire life to me.
Some fodder for the debate!
Becky.
ps. On the point of rainforests and land etc. I'd again say why not less
meat rearing (cattle ranches in Brazil/Argentina etc) and more organic veg
production in its place. Perhaps offsetting the need to cut down rainforest.
Many ifs and buts here, but worth investigating.
Kate Aydin, the University's Sustainable Development Officer, wrote
For argument's sake: the reason I buy it is because it doesn't have pesticides in it.
My concern with pesticides is that they're bad for ground water contamination.
Did you know that 50% of all UK ground water is contaminated and can never be remediated? This is due to surface run off - which includes pesticide residue from agriculture.
But on the other hand....
Karen Mecz wrote
In terms of pesticides, organic farming uses 'traditional' methods, which often rely on heavy metals. for example, in apple orchards you'd have to spray all the branches and effectively cover the fruit bearing boughs with copper-solution. is that really better for the environment or for consumer health than adding a tiny, specifically measured dose of a modern chemical pesticide. in terms of quantity, the reduced amount of chemical pesticide compared to the 'organic' is much better for the environment.
Julian Cottee added these comments
I think it's essential that all of the issues within the 'green movement' are properly debated. Many of the things we campaign for - organic, fair-trade, localisation, micro-generation etc - are taken as articles of faith, whereas in reality the solutions to our problems may be less obvious. The green movement needs to have considerably more clarity in its aims and the ways in which they are achieved, especially when they are increasingly subject to the analysis of specialists, the press and public.
Spiked Online (www.spiked-online.com) is regularly sceptical about the justifications and methodologies of environmentalism. While I don't necessarily agree with their editorials, they are provokative enough to make me need to defend my own thinking, which is what everyone interested in this kind of stuff should be doing. There is a recent article on the David Miliband / Economist / Ecologist organic debate at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2691/. I think the first part of this on the health benefits or otherwise of organic is reasonably irrelevant to the environmental debate. While I don't like the idea of pesticide residues very much, I'm not worried enough about it to only buy organic food. As long as scientific research is still inconclusive on this (and the potential long-term effects of the build-up of residues in the body), it should be left to one side as an issue for personal consideration.
The more important debate is to be had on the effects of agriculture on local issues:
a) local ecosystems
b) local communities
c) land-use and deforestation
and at the level of the global ecosphere:
d) climate change
e) international trade / social equality
There are probably a few things I missed of that last, but that's all that I can think of now. These are all deeply interrelated in many many ways, but it helps to differentiate between them rather than lumping them together as 'environment', which in itself is a meaningless term used with the best of intentions but with so little focus as to be of little practical use. The
question of what is best has no simple answer, and will take a lot of thinking out from a viewpoint which is not occluded by the environmentalist blinkers described in the latter part of the Spiked article. What is of foremost importance is to set clear aims. Clear policy will never come from 'environmentalism'. I suggest that sustainability is the concept from which
we should start - sustainability looks at ways of creating a socially and physically healthy human society that has long-term stability. Any approach that does not place human well-being first is bound to failure. Even sustainability as a concept has inherent problems. Its over-use risks stripping it of meaning; we must define exactly what social sustainability
is; we must make convincing arguments as to why indeed we should be sustainable (economists argue that we have a moral responsibility to act for the current generation, with each subsequent generation of lesser importance)... and so forth.
And in all this, facts are thin on the ground - we are awash with speculation and generalisation. A few specific examples the came to mind from the current debate:
- Localisation and food transport:
The economist: '[A] shift towards a local food system, and away from a
supermarket-based food system with its central distribution depots, lean
supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of
food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around
in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.' This I
think was the main focus of the Economist's attack on localisation in their
extremely short and partisan editorial (which, although poorly researched
and depressingly simplistic, has had the excellent result of sparking
debate). Upon careful reading, what it actually says is that localisation
of the food system might increase the number of food-vehicle miles travelled
*locally*. This could potentially be true, although the difference is
unlikely to be great. It is just as much in the interests of local
producers to pack their distribution vehicles as efficiently as possible.
However, what is of interest to us with respect to greenhouse gas emissions
is the *total* number of food miles, not the local number. If we are 10%
more efficient locally by using supermarket distribution systems, but have
flown the produce from Thailand in the first place, the local option is
still giving out far less emissions. . Unfortunately, a surface reading of
the economist's article will cause many to doubt that localisation has any
advantage here. Also of note is that supermarkets require food to be
transported to centralised depots (sometimes abroad) for packing, from where
it is taken to individual retail units all over the country, which
themselves are energy inefficient. Supermarket buildings are vast heated
warehouses with glass frontages and rows of open refrigerators, to where
thousands of people must drive every day. I suspect that the car use
involved in customers getting to supermarkets would outweigh any advantage
to large-scale distribution networks, though that is pure speculation.
There is also no mention of the potential advantages of localisation for
building stable and meaningful local communities, promoting entrepreneurship
and creativity.
...
Maybe I have gone off-topic here - but that's partly my point. This stuff
on localisation appeared in an article on organic food. That is, the
possibility that food may more efficiently transported by supermarkets than
by local distributors is used as an argument against organic food, when it
is clearly an unrelated discussion (though equally important, perhaps). A
clear case of muddying the waters, something that we should try avoid (hard
though it is). One more point:
- Organic and land-use:
"...producing the world's current agricultural output organically would
require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There
wouldn't be much room left for the rainforest." Again from the economist of
Dec. 7th. The point made is I believe true, and one well worth considering.
But this is no argument against organic farming in the UK, for example,
where a great number of fields lie fallow every year. There is an debate to
be had over whether it is better to farm a few fields intensively and leave
a few fallow in rotation; or whether it is better to farm more fields
organically and less intensively. I don't know the answer to that one.
Neither, really, does the economist's point remain true with regard to
nations that are currently over-producing (there are quite a few of these).
India for example in 2001 had 42 million tonnes of foodgrain stored in
warehouses because there was no suitable export market, and the domestic
market was flooded with produce from abroad as a result of lifting import
restrictions as instructed by the WTO. If we are forced to create a free
market on unequal terms, then surely it would be better here for some
farmers to switch to producing higher-profit organic produce for export? Of
course, finally, as has been mentioned a couple of times in various
articles, central to the issue is the problem of the huge and expanding
world population. However, to invoke this with a shrug of the shoulders is
no solution. Whilst we try to ease the population pressure it is essential
that in the interim we conserve a biosphere suitable for future human
habitation. This requires not environmentalism but well-thought out human
ecology.
http://ousuenvironmentcommittee.googlepages.com
The debate goes on... please add your comments below.
I'm sure I'm really stirring up some trouble here by speaking out against the Ecologist, but I think we need to seriously consider why we do things like buy organic - is it a lifestyle choice, do we like the packaging, or are we really convinced by the environmental benefits? If anyone has any thing to add or say on this, then email me, and we can get a debate going on the website.
Here is the bit from the Economist article i referred to..
How green is your organic lettuce?
Yet even an apparently obvious claim—that organic food is better for the environment than the conventionally farmed kind—turns out to be controversial. There are many different definitions of the term "organic", but it generally involves severe restrictions on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and a ban on genetically modified organisms. Peter Melchett of the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic lobby group, says that environmental concerns, rather than health benefits, are now cited by British consumers as their main justification for buying organic food. (There is no clear evidence that conventional food is harmful or that organic food is nutritionally superior.)
But not everyone agrees that organic farming is better for the environment. Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution", winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is "ridiculous" because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.
What of the claim that organic farming is more energy-efficient? Lord Melchett points out for example that the artificial fertiliser used in conventional farming is made using natural gas, which is "completely unsustainable". But Anthony Trewavas, a biochemist at the University of Edinburgh, counters that organic farming actually requires more energy per tonne of food produced, because yields are lower and weeds are kept at bay by ploughing. And Mr Pollan notes that only one-fifth of the energy associated with food production across the whole food chain is consumed on the farm: the rest goes on transport and processing.
The most environmentally benign form of agriculture appears to be "no till" farming, which involves little or no ploughing and relies on cover crops and carefully applied herbicides to control weeds. This makes it hard to combine with organic methods (though some researchers are trying). Too rigid an insistence on organic farming's somewhat arbitrary rules, then—copper, a heavy metal, can be used as an organic fungicide because it is traditional—can actually hinder the adoption of greener agricultural techniques. Alas, shoppers look in vain for "no till" labels on their food—at least so far.
And here are some of the responses...
Rebecca White wrote
I agree with many of the questions you raise about organic agriculture, but I did want to highlight that organic agriculture actually uses less energy than conventional (off the top of my head this is between 30-60% less for dairy/arable). Even when yeild reductions of 20% are taken into consideration the balance of energy use is still in organic's favour. For livestock energy use is about 50% less. And as animal rearing is so energy intensive in the first place, this really makes a big difference.
Although there may be more ploughing/tilling on organic farms, it is fertiliser and pesticide/herbicide use and animal feed (a specified proportion of which needs to come from the farm itself in organic systems) that is the big energy use input to farming - this is why conventional farming is more energy intensive.
A big question that hangs over all this though, and about which we know little, is the balance of other greenhouse gases in conventional/organic farms - methane and nitrous oxides. Also - and as you probably know - so much organic food is currently imported into this country, so the gains on the farm are offset in the transport stage (although for meat this is not always the case - organic from abroad might outweigh conventional from the UK depending on transport mode etc). From a carbon point of view, if you are umming and aahing over organic or not I'd suggest seriously cutting meat consumption and when you do eat it, make it organic (dairy too). This will make a much bigger difference than buying organic veg/fruit.
Animal welfare depends hugely on the individual farm, but under organic a 'no grazing system' for dairy is prohibited. Therefore, if you buy conventional, there is the risk that the cow from which the milk came has never been outside to graze. Which sounds like a pretty dire life to me.
Some fodder for the debate!
Becky.
ps. On the point of rainforests and land etc. I'd again say why not less
meat rearing (cattle ranches in Brazil/Argentina etc) and more organic veg
production in its place. Perhaps offsetting the need to cut down rainforest.
Many ifs and buts here, but worth investigating.
Kate Aydin, the University's Sustainable Development Officer, wrote
For argument's sake: the reason I buy it is because it doesn't have pesticides in it.
My concern with pesticides is that they're bad for ground water contamination.
Did you know that 50% of all UK ground water is contaminated and can never be remediated? This is due to surface run off - which includes pesticide residue from agriculture.
But on the other hand....
Karen Mecz wrote
In terms of pesticides, organic farming uses 'traditional' methods, which often rely on heavy metals. for example, in apple orchards you'd have to spray all the branches and effectively cover the fruit bearing boughs with copper-solution. is that really better for the environment or for consumer health than adding a tiny, specifically measured dose of a modern chemical pesticide. in terms of quantity, the reduced amount of chemical pesticide compared to the 'organic' is much better for the environment.
Julian Cottee added these comments
I think it's essential that all of the issues within the 'green movement' are properly debated. Many of the things we campaign for - organic, fair-trade, localisation, micro-generation etc - are taken as articles of faith, whereas in reality the solutions to our problems may be less obvious. The green movement needs to have considerably more clarity in its aims and the ways in which they are achieved, especially when they are increasingly subject to the analysis of specialists, the press and public.
Spiked Online (www.spiked-online.com) is regularly sceptical about the justifications and methodologies of environmentalism. While I don't necessarily agree with their editorials, they are provokative enough to make me need to defend my own thinking, which is what everyone interested in this kind of stuff should be doing. There is a recent article on the David Miliband / Economist / Ecologist organic debate at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2691/. I think the first part of this on the health benefits or otherwise of organic is reasonably irrelevant to the environmental debate. While I don't like the idea of pesticide residues very much, I'm not worried enough about it to only buy organic food. As long as scientific research is still inconclusive on this (and the potential long-term effects of the build-up of residues in the body), it should be left to one side as an issue for personal consideration.
The more important debate is to be had on the effects of agriculture on local issues:
a) local ecosystems
b) local communities
c) land-use and deforestation
and at the level of the global ecosphere:
d) climate change
e) international trade / social equality
There are probably a few things I missed of that last, but that's all that I can think of now. These are all deeply interrelated in many many ways, but it helps to differentiate between them rather than lumping them together as 'environment', which in itself is a meaningless term used with the best of intentions but with so little focus as to be of little practical use. The
question of what is best has no simple answer, and will take a lot of thinking out from a viewpoint which is not occluded by the environmentalist blinkers described in the latter part of the Spiked article. What is of foremost importance is to set clear aims. Clear policy will never come from 'environmentalism'. I suggest that sustainability is the concept from which
we should start - sustainability looks at ways of creating a socially and physically healthy human society that has long-term stability. Any approach that does not place human well-being first is bound to failure. Even sustainability as a concept has inherent problems. Its over-use risks stripping it of meaning; we must define exactly what social sustainability
is; we must make convincing arguments as to why indeed we should be sustainable (economists argue that we have a moral responsibility to act for the current generation, with each subsequent generation of lesser importance)... and so forth.
And in all this, facts are thin on the ground - we are awash with speculation and generalisation. A few specific examples the came to mind from the current debate:
- Localisation and food transport:
The economist: '[A] shift towards a local food system, and away from a
supermarket-based food system with its central distribution depots, lean
supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of
food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around
in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.' This I
think was the main focus of the Economist's attack on localisation in their
extremely short and partisan editorial (which, although poorly researched
and depressingly simplistic, has had the excellent result of sparking
debate). Upon careful reading, what it actually says is that localisation
of the food system might increase the number of food-vehicle miles travelled
*locally*. This could potentially be true, although the difference is
unlikely to be great. It is just as much in the interests of local
producers to pack their distribution vehicles as efficiently as possible.
However, what is of interest to us with respect to greenhouse gas emissions
is the *total* number of food miles, not the local number. If we are 10%
more efficient locally by using supermarket distribution systems, but have
flown the produce from Thailand in the first place, the local option is
still giving out far less emissions. . Unfortunately, a surface reading of
the economist's article will cause many to doubt that localisation has any
advantage here. Also of note is that supermarkets require food to be
transported to centralised depots (sometimes abroad) for packing, from where
it is taken to individual retail units all over the country, which
themselves are energy inefficient. Supermarket buildings are vast heated
warehouses with glass frontages and rows of open refrigerators, to where
thousands of people must drive every day. I suspect that the car use
involved in customers getting to supermarkets would outweigh any advantage
to large-scale distribution networks, though that is pure speculation.
There is also no mention of the potential advantages of localisation for
building stable and meaningful local communities, promoting entrepreneurship
and creativity.
...
Maybe I have gone off-topic here - but that's partly my point. This stuff
on localisation appeared in an article on organic food. That is, the
possibility that food may more efficiently transported by supermarkets than
by local distributors is used as an argument against organic food, when it
is clearly an unrelated discussion (though equally important, perhaps). A
clear case of muddying the waters, something that we should try avoid (hard
though it is). One more point:
- Organic and land-use:
"...producing the world's current agricultural output organically would
require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There
wouldn't be much room left for the rainforest." Again from the economist of
Dec. 7th. The point made is I believe true, and one well worth considering.
But this is no argument against organic farming in the UK, for example,
where a great number of fields lie fallow every year. There is an debate to
be had over whether it is better to farm a few fields intensively and leave
a few fallow in rotation; or whether it is better to farm more fields
organically and less intensively. I don't know the answer to that one.
Neither, really, does the economist's point remain true with regard to
nations that are currently over-producing (there are quite a few of these).
India for example in 2001 had 42 million tonnes of foodgrain stored in
warehouses because there was no suitable export market, and the domestic
market was flooded with produce from abroad as a result of lifting import
restrictions as instructed by the WTO. If we are forced to create a free
market on unequal terms, then surely it would be better here for some
farmers to switch to producing higher-profit organic produce for export? Of
course, finally, as has been mentioned a couple of times in various
articles, central to the issue is the problem of the huge and expanding
world population. However, to invoke this with a shrug of the shoulders is
no solution. Whilst we try to ease the population pressure it is essential
that in the interim we conserve a biosphere suitable for future human
habitation. This requires not environmentalism but well-thought out human
ecology.
http://ousuenvironmentcommittee.googlepages.com
The debate goes on... please add your comments below.
Monday, 1 January 2007
Biodiversity
Here are some facts about biodiversity that might startle you:
Total number native woody plant species in the UK - 30
Number of woody plant species in a 52 hectare sample plot in the Rainforest in Borneo - 1175
Number of species in the world - we don't know somewhere between 5 and 100million. 30 million is often cited.
Number of species we have identified and described - 1.8million.
Number of species of Vertebrates - 50 000.
Therefore, most of life is small, is in the Tropics, and has never been identified by humans.
The trajedy of this is that the reason it is cheaper to produce food outside of the UK is mainly because it is cheaper to employ people elsewhere. Frustratingly many of these people live in countries that also happen to contain enormous boiological diversity, and employing them to create food for an export market (oil palm etc) is driving the great loss of biodiversisty that we are living through.
Our demand for food (and biofuels) is creating the market forces that directly lead to the destruction of the rainforests.
If we value biodiversity then we must ensure that countries with vast biological wealth but ecomnomic poverty can generate some economic value through maintaining biodiversity, or at least generate none through detroying it. The promise of future drugs derived from undescribed plants is not enough for this, nor are aesthetic or moral imperatives to act as Stewards, though of course these are important.
One option that arises from my very limited knowledge of economics seems to be a much more global labour market, so that we can make the food we need in the areas that can produce maximum food with minimum environmental damage (the UK, for example), and not where it is cheapest to employ people.
The other more readily available option that i know of is sustainable forestry certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (http://www.fsc.org/en/) . They have stringent guidelines for sustainable forest management, and track the wood through the supply chain so that the consumer can "vote with their wallet" to maintain biodiverisity.
These ideas about biodiversity also affect how we should view local food - promoting local food in the UK means that we are encouraging the production of food on land whose value to biodiversity is relatively small, and thereby slightly decreasing the economic incentive for producing food on land whose value to biodiversity is greater. This is all very indirect, but it seems that allowing Britain to be fallow because British labour is too expensive, in times when land shortages are leading to enormous loss of habitat and biodiversity in other countries would be foolish.
If we put a value on biodiversity then we need to see that it's current destruction - the Sixth Great Extinction - is a truly global problem, and act accordingly.
The complexity of the modern world means that every 'solution' will cause more problems, but the global inbalance in biological resources means that our environmental concerns must not only consider, but focus on the damage we are causing far away by global market forces.
Total number native woody plant species in the UK - 30
Number of woody plant species in a 52 hectare sample plot in the Rainforest in Borneo - 1175
Number of species in the world - we don't know somewhere between 5 and 100million. 30 million is often cited.
Number of species we have identified and described - 1.8million.
Number of species of Vertebrates - 50 000.
Therefore, most of life is small, is in the Tropics, and has never been identified by humans.
The trajedy of this is that the reason it is cheaper to produce food outside of the UK is mainly because it is cheaper to employ people elsewhere. Frustratingly many of these people live in countries that also happen to contain enormous boiological diversity, and employing them to create food for an export market (oil palm etc) is driving the great loss of biodiversisty that we are living through.
Our demand for food (and biofuels) is creating the market forces that directly lead to the destruction of the rainforests.
If we value biodiversity then we must ensure that countries with vast biological wealth but ecomnomic poverty can generate some economic value through maintaining biodiversity, or at least generate none through detroying it. The promise of future drugs derived from undescribed plants is not enough for this, nor are aesthetic or moral imperatives to act as Stewards, though of course these are important.
One option that arises from my very limited knowledge of economics seems to be a much more global labour market, so that we can make the food we need in the areas that can produce maximum food with minimum environmental damage (the UK, for example), and not where it is cheapest to employ people.
The other more readily available option that i know of is sustainable forestry certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (http://www.fsc.org/en/) . They have stringent guidelines for sustainable forest management, and track the wood through the supply chain so that the consumer can "vote with their wallet" to maintain biodiverisity.
These ideas about biodiversity also affect how we should view local food - promoting local food in the UK means that we are encouraging the production of food on land whose value to biodiversity is relatively small, and thereby slightly decreasing the economic incentive for producing food on land whose value to biodiversity is greater. This is all very indirect, but it seems that allowing Britain to be fallow because British labour is too expensive, in times when land shortages are leading to enormous loss of habitat and biodiversity in other countries would be foolish.
If we put a value on biodiversity then we need to see that it's current destruction - the Sixth Great Extinction - is a truly global problem, and act accordingly.
The complexity of the modern world means that every 'solution' will cause more problems, but the global inbalance in biological resources means that our environmental concerns must not only consider, but focus on the damage we are causing far away by global market forces.
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