When biofuels were being proposed as a possible solution in the search for reductions in emissions no one could quite have imagined the impact which this policy would have on the poorest on our planet:
First, the feedstock for the biofuel production is being imported into the richest developed countries of the US and EU from some of the poorest countries to meet their self imposed and arbitrary biofuel targets.
Second, huge tracts of land in developing countries are being snapped up by major corporations in developing countries where the food grown is not consumed by local populations but exported to be converted into agrofuels to power cars and tractors in the developed world.
Third, because these large tracts of land are being snapped up by foreign corporations local communities are being denied access to the essential first rung on the development ladder namely land rights.
Fourth, taking land out of use for local food consumption in developing countries and cultivating it for export crops is forcing up the prices of food locally making it unaffordable and increasing malnutrition. Oxfam has estimated that the diversion of maize to ethanol production by the US alone has cast the poorest countries of the world an additional £5.5 billion in higher food bills.
Finally, in the UK we are witnessing an appalling level of food waste some 7.2 million tonnes year which is increasing year on year.
Surely the time has come to ban imports of food from the poorest developing countries to the richest developed countries and insist that rather biofuel production commitments are met entirely from the vast food waste of rich countries rather than from the vast food scarcity of the poorest.
“How Many People Can Live on Plant Earth” (factuality documentary 2012 by up-to-date science-teams, hosted/chaired/facilitated by Sir David Attenborough;
but possibly also ‘edited’ by the TV Channel screening it ? I don’t know for sure).
They show that in 2008 this Earth could support no more than 3 billion human-beings
[for a long enough timeframe to support our survival. thrival, and possible space-emigration to a ‘Second Earth’; and also report that by 2050 this population will have blown out to 11 billion and be ‘needing’ three(3)-Earthsworth of renewable and non-renewable resources – just to keep us ‘marking-time’ at the standard we were in 2009 when some of the the programme’s essential data was completed).
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I submit that not only this World’s expert-governors,
but all of the current 7 billion human-hearts-and-minds populating this Earth,
need to be kept informed, in such vital personal and collective Life-Planning Matters.
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As I have previously also submitted via Lords-of-the-Blog,
way back in the last century (the last millennium) Professor David Smith (internationally acclaimed author of “Continent In Crisis”) was allowed on-screen* to point out that
(“) since the Earth’s Lifesupports themselves are being over-consumed and destructively wasted by our Human ‘Armed’ Race, some-one has to get the message through to our Economists that they’ve got a fundamental equation wrong somewhere(“).
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* see Australian TV’s ‘Open University’ educational course “Environmental Studies”;
[wherein England’s academic Dr Ann Hamlyn also points out that the World’s Governance experts are getting the Maths wrong, too].
The food waste campaign is one run by the supermarkets, who add so much to the value of raw food products by preparing food for the customer. Wasting money on fast, prepared food and then chucking it away, would not make much sense to anybody.
Wasting money on beer ,which is mainly sugar, is something that most men like to do.That goes down the drain in a different way, and damages the guts of the drinker, not from alcohol but from too-much-sugar related diseases.
The peelings from carrots or potatoes or any other vegetable may go in the bin if you cannot use a compost heap.
The nobvle lord forgets , when discussing bio fuels, to mention the advent of the electric car, which will be the main mode of transport in 20 years time.
I gave up cars in 2003 when a war motivated solely by Oil greed casued the death and destruction of so many in Iraq.
I am considering the acquisition of an electric one, which is the way ahead. You may say that nuclear power electricity is no better than bio fuels or oil from exploited fields, especially since bad management of nuclear power could lead to vast devastation,
far greater than any bio fuel exploitation would do.
I don’t take that attitude to
nuclear power, and bio fuel is a daft way of doing it.
If you take my favourite African country and consider what their needs are, they will be hugely satisfied by the development of the substantial oil field under lake Albert. Warmth, for heating, and cooking, and even water purification for everybody!
I trust they will never have nuclear power in Africa. We in the Uk can at least go by pushbike and electric car to do our bit to prevent global warming.
Many people do not take global warming seriously, the “We are all in it together” attitude. We may be but we can also do something to minimize it ourselves.
By way of example, the depletion of the ozone layer is now no longer a problem. Scientists identified the problem and….. solved it. It is now once again replete.
The same may apply to the accelerated warming of the globe due to excessive human activity. Glaciers may no longer disappear at the rate of hundreds of metres per year,
if we can resolve the problems of Why?!