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.

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 

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 »

A wonderful piece of positive news:

IHT article: Trees and crops reclaim desert in Niger

“GUIDAN BAKOYE, Niger: In this dust-choked region, long seen as an increasingly barren wasteland decaying into desert, millions of trees are flourishing, thanks in part to poor farmers whose simple methods cost little or nothing at all.”

“It really requires the effort of the whole community,” said Larwanou. “If farmers don’t take action themselves and the community doesn’t support it, farmer-managed regeneration cannot work.”

The UK government have officially acknowledged that the production of meat and milk is more harmful to the environment and climate change than other foods because of the way they are produced, packaged, transported or cooked. Continue Reading »

The Soil Associations conference a few days ago was called “One Planet Agriculture - Preparing for a post-peak oil food and farming future”

The conference focused on the urgent need to develop new models of localised food and farming systems. This is in anticipation of the central role that farmers and growers will play in averting climate change and delivering food security in an era of scarce and expensive energy.You can download ‘PodCasts’ (also known as MP3 audio files) of some of the key speakers who between them put forward the case that we have reached ‘peak oil’ and then look at ways some communities are preparing themselves (Transition towns) etc.

If you don’t have the time to listen to all of the speeches, the most notable ones are:

• Energy Shortages: How soon and how serious? - Dr Colin Campbell
• Climate change and peak oil: The two great oversights of our time - Dr Jeremy Leggett
• Energy descent plans: The Kinsale and Totnes projects - Rob Hopkins

The last one by Rob Hopkins is particularly inspiring!

Download & listen to them here: http://soilassociation.org/conference
Rob Hopkins website can be found at: http://www.transitiontowns.org/Totnes/

With the recent bad press that the UK government got over ‘loosing’ foreign national prisioners that should have been deported after serving their sentence, it may therefore come as little surprise that they seem to know very little about the activities of some agri businesses and cloned animals.

Today, the Daily Mail (whilst using pretty scare-mongering language) reported on the birth of a ’super cow’. Whilst not a clone herself, the calf called ‘Dundee Paradise’ is the daughter of a clone, her mother was created in the U.S. using cells from the ear of a champion dairy Holstein.

Dundee Paradise herself began life in an IVF lab. She was flown to the UK in a batch of five frozen embryos, implanted in a surrogate mother and successfully delivered at a Midlands farm on December 2. Continue Reading »

“Spiralseed and OrganicLea cordially invite you to the launch of ‘EARTH WRITINGS’ by Graham Burnett,

Sat 13 Jan 2007
4pm onwards

The Hornbeam Centre, 458 Hoe Street, Walthamstow London E17
(near the Bakers Arms - 5 minutes walk from Walthamstow Central BR)

This event will be preceded at 2pm by a talk ‘Introduction to Permaculture’ by Mark Warner of ‘Naturewise’ All welcome! Please feel free to pass this message onto anybody who might be interested.

www.spiralseed.co.uk/earthwritings

–
Graham Burnett: Integrated Design for Local Environmental Resources”