There’s a new bottom-up force for tackling climate change and preparing for Peak Oil. It’s called, the Transition Towns initiative. Starting from the town of Totnes in Devon, over 100 towns, and villages, and even a Forest and a City, have already signed up. They all help one another through the Transition Network, but Transition is about communities on the ground bringing together their existing projects and skills to prepare for life after cheap oil.

World demand for oil is relentlessly climbing, driven by the booming new economies such as China. The people in these countries quite legitimately aspire to the same standard of living as people in the rich West enjoy. But world population is also rising, and will reach at least 9 billion before it possibly stabilises around 2050. Quite literally, the Earth is full. We have already used half the fossil fuel oil available - the planet is not going to be able to meet the growing demands for consumption from its human population.

Of course, burning all this oil is going to wreak havoc on our climate, and the poorest will suffer the most.

Transition is a hugely positive response to these crises. By re-building resiliant, vibrant local communities, we can greatly improve our quality of life without having to increase our consumption - our ’standard of living’ - to do so.

The first Transition City is Bristol. Now a diverse and loose coalition of people in Birmingham want to make a positive start on Transition for their city. If you want to find out more, please contact me - treaclemine [at] intranet [dot] org - Transition is about whole communities working together, and every single individual has something to offer, whether their memories of coping with rationing, their skills at setting up online communications, or their enthusiasm for bringing in future generations.

A draft flyer for this project is now available.

It sounds daft, but it may soon be a reality for some poorer people. In our poorly-thought out rush to be green, the demand on many cereal crops for use as a base in biofuel production means that demand is outstripping supply. This means that prices will rise further, taking some basic foods above levels that some people will be able to afford - you drive, they starve.

As global oil production has or is about to peak, the switch from fossil fuels is a good thing, but not enough has necessarily been done in developed countries to reduce energy consumption rather than just switching from fossil to biofuels. The availability of an alternative fuel source has meant most people have become complacent about the problem, without realising or understanding that there is not productive enough land in the world to grow crops for fuel and food.

Of course, with higher relative incomes and a better standard of living, it is not the people in developed countries that will feel the negative effect of biofuels first, it is those in the developing countries, who it is predicted will also suffer the early effects on global warming more than most.

Today, the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation)  stated that world cereal production in 2007 is on track to reach a record level of 2 095 million tonnes, a rise of 4.8 percent over 2006 levels. But with stocks at their lowest level in over two decades, total supplies would still be barely adequate to meet increased demand, boosted by the fast-growing biofuels industry.

International prices for most cereals have risen significantly in 2006/07 so far and are likely to remain high in 2007/08, according to FAO’s latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. As a result, the cereal import bill of the low-income food deficit countries (LIFDCs) is forecast to increase by about one-quarter in the current season.

Peter Harper has been a key figure in ‘alternative technology’ circles since the 1970s. He loves to examine all aspects of ’sustainability’, often reaching insights which contradict the ‘green concensus’. He says,

“‘Alternative technology’ suggests hardware ‘magic bullets’ which will solve environmental problems. But it rarely works out so neatly. Very often, the best answers are ‘alternative to technology’.

“Consider solar water-heating collectors.

Continue Reading »

From BBC News website…

A solution for the world’s energy crisis may come in the form of a pig.

American oil company ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods, the world’s biggest meat producer, have announced that they will produce diesel from pork fat.

Cows and chickens will also be transformed to power motor vehicles.

The companies say that this renewable source of energy will be cleaner than conventional diesel. It is hoped that it will be available at petrol stations by the end of the year.

“It is chemically equivalent to diesel itself,” said Geoff Webster, who is managing the scheme for Tyson Foods, in an interview with the BBC World Service.

“It has lower Carbon Dioxide, it is zero sulphur, so many positive benefits for the environment.”

Read the full article.

The poorest people in the world will be hardest hit by the effects of climate change, experts at a major conference on global warming have said.

The warning came ahead of the publication of a key report on climate change by hundreds of environmental experts from around the world.

Agreement on the report was reached after days of debate in Brussels.

The report concludes climate change is already having major impacts on the natural world.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes there is also a discernible, though less marked, impact on human societies.

Read the full story here

Scottish farmers are being warned that a climate change is already well under way in Scotland and they will have to change the way they operate.

Research from the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) shows the temperature has increased by 1C over the past 40 years. As a result, summers are expected to be warmer and drier and winters could also be warmer but wetter. The data was collected at the SCRI’s base in Invergowrie, Perthshire.

Professor Peter Gregory, director of the SCRI, said farmers would have to think about coping with floods in winter at the same time as coming up with methods of surviving periods of drought in the summer months.

He added: “Changes to temperature, rainfall and the length of growing seasons are projected to continue and gather pace.

“More extreme and variable weather, and changes in winter rain and snow fall, will mean big changes for the farming industry.

“Growers are going to have to use more resilient and adaptable crop genotypes with plenty of disease resistance.”

Another senior scientist, Dr Adrian Newton, said that some spin-offs from climate change could be beneficial for farmers.

“Warmer average temperatures mean that there is a potential for longer growing seasons for both winter and spring sown crops,” he said.

SCRI’s research was revealed on the day the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest report on the impact of global warming. The organisation is planning to undertake even more research on climate change in the months and years to come, backed by support from the Scottish Executive.

From The Independent…

New evidence has emerged showing that organic food does contain nutrients that deliver health benefits, contrary to the view put forward earlier this year by David Miliband, who said it was only a “lifestyle choice”.

Scientists in Britain, France and Poland examined organic carrots, apples, peaches and potatoes and discovered that they have greater concentrations of vitamin C and chemicals that protect against heart attacks and cancer than non-organic produce. The research could challenge official government guidelines which suggest there is no evidence of organic food being healthier than conventional produce. That led to the assertion by Mr Miliband, the Environment Secretary, which he later qualified by saying that he ate organic food both because of its taste and the environmental benefits.

The new studies found that organic tomatoes had more vitamin C, beta-carotene and flavonoids, which are known to help against cancer and heart disease, though they also had less lycopene, which is thought to help prevent skin ageing, diabetes and osteoporosis. Organic apple puree was found to contain more phenols, flavonoids and vitamin C than non-organic versions.

Full story here 

Describing themselves as “Europe’s leading eco-centre”, CAT aim to: “… offer solutions to some of the most serious challenges facing our planet and the human race, such as climate change, pollution and the waste of precious resources. … demonstrate practical ways of addressing these problems. … show that living more sustainably is not only easy to attain but can provide a better quality of life.”

They go on to say, “Averting a massive environmental disaster is not out of our reach, although if we continue to treat the early signs with apathy, it soon will be. We address every aspect of the average lifestyle - the key areas we work in are renewable energy, environmental building, energy efficiency, organic growing and alternative sewage systems.”

CAT has recently expanded their online presence. As well as their main Information Web site, and Green Shop they now have a Discussion Forum site, and are part of the new UK Earth Centre Network site. There are a huge range of ’solutions’ out there - what’s lacking is the will to put them into action across the country and the world. Read, learn and act?

From BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6516893.stm

In principle, biofuels sound great. You use a sugary or starchy plant and some chemistry and you have a fuel that can power cars, buses, trucks etc. The perfect solution to our dependency on the black stuff (oil that is, not Guiness!)

However, when you start using agricultural land to produce crops for fuel rather than crops for people, or you clear-cut old rainforest to plant palm (as is happening in some parts of the world), then alarm bells should start ringing.

Far from being the answer to our oil-prayers, biofuels may well contribute to hunger and starvation amongst the world’s most needy people, as well as wholesale species destruction in the tropical rainforests. The reason is that there isn’t enough land in the world to produce the food the world needs and biofuels too.

Now, even the oil companies are expressing concern that they cannot meet the UK target of 5% biofuel on the forecourt by 2010 whilst still protecting wildlife.

Food riots in Mexico

Already, President Bush’s highly subsidised drive to get fuel from the Prairies has triggered food riots in Mexico because it has pushed up the price of corn.

Governments face a real challenge - deep down, they know that they need to reduce car use, yet they have encouraged a society which revolves around the car - out-of-town shopping centres with poor or no public transport links, housing developments on green-belt land, again with poor or no public transport links. Batten down the hatches, I think we may be in for a rough ride.

Improving agricultural practices key

22 March 2007, Rome — As the number-one user of water worldwide, the agriculture sector must be in the lead in addressing the rising global demand for water and its potential drain on the earth’s natural resources, FAO said today on the occasion of World Water Day.

Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn from lakes, waterways and aquifers around the world. The figure is closer to 95 percent in several developing countries, where roughly three-quarters of the world’s irrigated farmlands are located.

However, food is water. It takes 1 000 to 2 000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of wheat and 13 000 to 15 000 litres to produce the same quantity of grain-fed beef. Without water, we cannot produce; and without it, we simply cannot eat. Continue Reading »