Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
China to plough extra 20% into agricultural production amid fears that climate change will spark food crisis
Jonathan Watts, Guardian
Wen Jiabao announces extra money to boost farm yields, raise rural incomes and invest in renewable energy
—
… The government’s spending pledge also included extra money for renewable energy and improved power efficiency, but these environmental benefits were outweighed by moves to boost overall domestic consumption and a likely emphasis on intensive agriculture.
The short-term aim is to ease the impact of the economic crisis on rural dwellers, who account for more than half of the 1.3bn population. This group is considered a potential source of social instability because the average rural income is just a third that of the city.
(5 March 2009)
Should hunters switch to ‘green’ bullets?
John D. Sutter, CNN
… Lead, a toxic metal that can lower the IQs of children, is the essential element in most ammunition on the market today.
But greener alternatives are gaining visibility — and stirring controversy — as some hunters, scientists, environmentalists and public health officials worry about lead ammunition’s threat to the environment and public health.
Hunting groups oppose limits on lead ammunition, saying there’s no risk and alternatives are too expensive.
(4 March 2009)
Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008
Paul Roberts, Mother Jones
Our industrial food system is rotten to the core. Heirloom arugula won’t save us. Here’s what will.
—
… That a recovering industrial farmer can’t get respect from the alternative food crowd may seem trivial, but Fleming’s experience cuts to the very heart of the debate over how to fix our food system. Nearly everyone agrees that we need new methods that produce more higher-quality calories using fewer resources, such as water or energy, and accruing fewer “externals,” such as pollution or unfair labor practices. Where the consensus fails is over what should replace the bad old industrial system. It’s not that we lack enthusiasm—activist foodies represent one of the most potent market forces on the planet. Unfortunately, a lot of that conscientious buying power is directed toward conceptions of sustainable food that may be out of date.
Think about it. When most of us imagine what a sustainable food economy might look like, chances are we picture a variation on something that already exists—such as organic farming, or a network of local farms and farmers markets, or urban pea patches—only on a much larger scale. The future of food, in other words, will be built from ideas and models that are familiar, relatively simple, and easily distilled into a buying decision: Look for the right label, and you’re done.
But that’s not the reality. Many of the familiar models don’t work well on the scale required to feed billions of people. Or they focus too narrowly on one issue (salad greens that are organic but picked by exploited workers). Or they work only in limited circumstances. (A $4 heirloom tomato is hardly going to save the world.)
(March/APril 2009)
Long article that’s hard to categorize.
Many good points, but Paul Roberts doesn’t seem to realize he is standing on the shoulders of the food innovators who have been doing the hard work over the last 40 years. -BA
