Signing the wrong pact

The Guardian's coverage of post-Copehagen fallout included this telling quote from Lumumba Di-Aping, Chairman of the G77 grouo of over 100 of the world's poorest countries:

"[This] is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries. It's a solution based on values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces."

This is strong stuff, and although it may feel over the top to some, it does seem to cature some of the impotent rage that developing countries must be feeling right now..

The Ecologist is getting simplistic

In an increasingly crowded marketplace of information, ideas and media channnels, it's been difficult for The Ecologist, one of the longest established voices for environmental justice, to get heard. Their decision to publish solely online must have been a tough one, but is understandable from a footprint perspective.

Their quality of thei voice seems to have diminished at the same time, and this is a shame. This little piece was in today's online content

"But some experts are now starting to ask: what if we used the carbon as a resource instead of disposing of it? As far-fetched as it may sound there are already a number of experimental technologies that are making use of carbon either by absorbing it from the air or taking it in concentrated form from industry or power plants."

Maybe I'm affected by some kind of seasonal thinking disorder, but I thought this what plants and algae had been doing for some 3.5bn years.

Going green on the BBC

It's been a hard journey getting the right messages on air with the BBC, and progress is starting to arrive. A few weeks back I had the pleasure of working with broadcast colleague Sarah Dickins to record part of a half hour programme on "Going Green - what's the point".

Watch it for yourself here

Feeding for the future

There's another useful article on the relationship between food and climate change here in an interesting and useful paper from the UK's Sustainable Development Commission.

Anyone who has studied the back of a weetabix packet over breakfast will be aware of the basics of healthy eating - rubbish in, rubbish results etc, but the links between the type of food we eat and its ecological and carbon footprint may not be clear to many.

The SDC's report, following on from comments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and many others, signposts us to a set of dietary changes that our good news for our bodies, the UK health budget, and our prospects of reducing the effects of climate change. Their research finds that:

"consuming only fish from sustainable stocks, eating more seasonal food, cutting out bottled water, shopping on foot or over the internet and consuming more wildlife-friendly, organic foods would also contribute towards a more sustainable diet. However, the most significant health and environmental benefits were from reducing meat and dairy, cutting food and drink of low nutritional value – including fatty and sugary foods – and reducing food waste"

Little Do: cook one meal with a radically improved set of ingredients, and producing no waste other than compost, then take time to notice its taste and how the meal experience changed.

Big Do: commit to going vegetarian or vegan for six months or more.

Feast or famine

That we're facing an uncertain future of food supply has been talked about and pondered over for a decade or more, underpinned by high quality research from Tim Laing, The Soil Association and many others. Today's article in the Observer by the UK government's chief scientist, John Beddinington makes yet another call for action on food security and the need to increase resilience of supplies.

The article quotes Beddington's comments from earlier this year:

"It was an ecological disaster that occurred on the other side of the planet. Yet the drought that devastated the Australian wheat harvest last year had consequences that shook the world. It sent food prices soaring in every nation. Wheat prices across the globe soared by 130%, while shopping bills in Britain leapt by 15%.

A year later and the cost of food today has still to fall to previous levels. More alarmingly, scientists are warning that far worse lies ahead. A "perfect storm" of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.

In Britain, a global food shortage would drive up import costs and make food more expensive, just as the nation's farmers start to feel the impact of disrupted rainfall and rising temperatures caused by climate change. "If we don't address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move to avoid food and water shortages".

As with many similar issues, I sense that it will be a combintation of in-built intertia to anything other than short term threats, lack of information and a lack of ability in systems thinking that will make things far more difficult for us, our children, and more importantly, the billions of people in the global south who cannot buy their way out of trouble.

Here's what you can do:

Little Do: write to the Chair of your local council asking what strategic plans are in place to prevent food security causing major problems in your area, and ask if there's anything that you and your colleagues can do to help.

Big Do 1: learn, or re-learn how to grow your own food in your garden or on a local allotment, and talk to members of your community to find out what they are doing too.

Big Do 2: Get involved with a joint collaboration between the Earth Open Source organisation and Ecosapiens to create a draft national food security response for Wales.