Another Dubai record

After the tallest tower in the world, the most expensive hotel, the tackiest houses, the longest indoor ski slope and now the largest ice lounge in the world, Dubai can be proud of its new record: the largest ecological footprint. This one will be felt by the whole world.

"The average person in the Emirates puts more demand on the global ecosystem than any other in the world, according to the World Wildlife Fund. In a report issued in October, the WWF said the Emirates' ecological footprint measured 11.9 global hectares per person, compared to 9.6 hectares per person for the United States and a global average of 2.2 hectares a person. The scale measures the amount of land needed to generate resources for one person" (thanks D.)

The poor pay the price...again

"Global warming will likely hit food production in developing nations the hardest, increasing the risks of drought and famine in the countries that already struggle to feed their populations, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday.

However, a rise in global temperatures would increase food production in most industrialized countries, which mostly have colder climates, said Jacques Diouf the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

''Crop yield potential is likely to increase at higher latitudes for global average temperature increases of up to 1 to 3 degrees Celsius (2 to 6 Fahrenheit), depending on the crop, and then decrease beyond that,'' Diouf said, speaking at a conference in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

''At lower latitudes, especially in the seasonally dry tropics, crop yield potential is likely to decline for even small global temperature rises, which would increase the risk of hunger,'' he said.

He estimated that a country like India could lose 18 percent of its annual cereal production.

Developing genetically modified crops that produce higher yields could offset the impact of climate change, Diouf said, while noting that crops designed to be resistant to drought and flourish in extreme conditions are not yet a reality.

Scientists have warned that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions are causing global temperatures to rise, leading to drought, floods and searing heat."

(thanks Deborah. It's official: today's posts are all courtesy of my friend Deborah)

revisiting local

"Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit." (thanks anna)

or how local eating does not hold all the solutions...to the global warming crisis, so, the author says, lets unearth the good old "comparative advantage" concept. Sure, I say, but remove farming subsidies from the north first.

The times they are a-changin'

"It's all part of the global pattern some scientists have been forecasting for decades, and which many in positions of influence have chosen to ignore, scorn, or lie about. The climate is indeed changing. We will never see "normal" times again - or at least not for many centuries - and agriculture, our food supply, is in the firing line. Sometimes the weather will be too dry, sometimes too wet, and although it will generally be warmer it is likely in some places to be colder than ever remembered. The "good" and "normal" years will be the aberrations.

But never mind - shortage is good for business. Wheat prices now are 40% higher than the average of the past decade, the price of US maize last year was up by 30%, and, I suspect, we ain't seen nothing yet. This does wonders for GDP and the economic growth by which governments measure their success.

The world could feed itself - well and forever. But if we are serious about this then we have to design agriculture specifically to feed people. The principles are simple: grow crops where they grow best and fit the livestock in where we can. This way we would provide lots of plants, not much meat, and maximum variety, which is just what nutritionists recommend and is the basis of all the world's great cuisines. Sound farming and great cooking go together.

Why don't we move towards self-reliance? Because in the short term it's more profitable to import food, feed grain to livestock and churn out the biofuel. SUVs first, then beef, then human beings."

Read the full article by Colin Tudge. (thanks Rania)

carbon footprint out of step

"The carbon footprint of our food is under closer scrutiny than ever. Last week the government unveiled a plan to introduce labels on all products, showing the greenhouse gas emissions created by their production, transport and eventual disposal, similar to the calorie count figures already seen on food packaging. The message was that food miles, which consumers are increasingly taking notice of, are not an accurate way of judging the total environmental impact. For example, fruit and vegetables trucked in from Spain could actually have a lower carbon footprint than those grown in UK greenhouses which use up lots of energy for heating.

"When the concept of food miles was originally launched it was about so much more than carbon emissions," says Vicky Hird, senior food campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "It was about fairness in the supply chain and about reconnecting with your food. Now it seems to have been simplified to be just about climate change and it's not always the best way of working out a product's true effect on the environment.""

Read this excellent article. Remember, it is not only about the carbon footprint: in our drylands, the water footprint should be factored in, as farming is the greatest water user. But remember also, simplistic economics (oportunity cost) require you to answer the question: What do you do with the water if you dont irrigate with it? I cringe at the thought that many people are going to say: "sell it". That's one of the reasons why I oppose water privatization.

Halophytes to the rescue

"While the seashore mallow might be handy for a quick snack, the sturdy plant has provided Gallagher food for thought in addressing a smorgasbord of environmental problems, from global warming to the disappearance of coastal farmland.
Gallagher, a marine biosciences professor, says the seeds are a promising source of biodiesel, with an oil composition similar to that of soybeans and cottonseed.
Unlike soybeans and corn, which require annual plantings to feed the growing appetite for biofuels, the pink-flowered seashore mallow is both a perennial and a halophyte, or salt-tolerant plant, that grows in areas where other crops can't. "

About time halophytes made a come back, now cooked with global warming sauce. I worked on salicornia and inula between the eighties and the early nineties, and so did plenty of big research labs in the US and Israel. It was thought then that salicornia would offer an alternative to just about everything, except, perhaps to solar eclipses. US labs like that of the University of Arizona created halophyte technology centers and sold them to the Gulf countries for tens of millions of $. I still get a newsletter from one of the centers in Abu Dhabi, and there is another one I think in Koweit. But the mega breakthrough never came and sea water agriculture is still insignificant. That was because it was and is still meant to remedy problems of food availability by creating more sourecs of food. Lets remind them: the problem of food in the world is not one of production (yet), it is a problem of distribution.

Venting off

"Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain's soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends." (Thanks Rania)

Beyond Darfur

"While the tensions and conflicts in Darfur are currently in the headlines, the report warns that other parts of the Sudan could see resumptions of historical clashes driven in part by declines in environmental services.
This is particularly the case in some north-south border zones. In the Nuba mountains region in Southern Kordofan, for example, the indigenous Nuba tribe expressed concern over the damaging of trees and other vegetation due to the recent presence of the camel-herding Shanabla tribe. Like many pastoralist communities, the Shanabla have been forced to migrate south in search of adequate grazing land lost in the north to agricultural expansion and drought. Some Nuba warned of 'restarting the war' if this damage did not cease."

Read this UNEP press release of their recent Darfur assessment report.

Ozzie wisdom

"The Mad Max films demonstrated how anarchy emerges when people compete for scarce resources, but we don’t need fiction to understand how such devastation wreaks havoc—we need only consider the situation in Darfur where decades of drought helped trigger Darfur's violence as rival groups fought over scarce water and arable land.

Even steps designed to reduce human suffering are causing environmental problems in this fragile environment. International relief organisations are trying to care for about 2.5 million people in massive refugee camps. Their only sources of water are wells, but the water table is dropping and the wells are drying up. "

Still bandits

""Companies that are polluting in China are owned by American, European, Japanese and others. They are benefiting from the cheap labor, from the resources and at the same time accusing China of pollution," the Malaysian official said.
"Let's take the hypocrisy out of the equation," he said.

Chen Feng, the chairman of China Hainan Airlines, said now was not the time to assign blame but to create an international solution, saying developed nations were the original polluters.

"So the way I see it is, you were bandits before you became right-minded people," he said. "

They're still bandits, Chen, and of the worst kind.

Deserting China

"The shifting sands have swallowed thousands of Chinese villages along the fabled Silk Road and sparked a sharp increase in sandstorms; dust from China clouds the skies of South Korea and has been linked to respiratory problems in California.

Since 2001, China has spent nearly $9 billion planting billions of trees, converting marginal farmland to forest and grasslands and enforcing logging and grazing bans.

The policy is driven in part by concerns over food, as farmland yields not only to the deserts but also to pollution and economic development. China has less than 7 percent of the world's arable land with which to feed 1.3 billion people -- more than 20 percent of the world's population. By comparison, the United States has 20 percent of the world's arable land to feed 5 percent of the population."

Darfur: the climate did it!

"Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change." (Thanks Anna)

As much as I hate to quote Ban Ki on anything...

Islamists' new ally: global warming

"Jewish groups have briefed Congress on a new threat to stability in the Middle East: Global warming.

The idea that changes wrought by global warming — flooded coastlines, intense droughts and increased competition for water, strong storms — could destabilize volatile parts of the world is not new. Retired American generals, task forces within the Defense Department and even the CIA have warned of global warming’s geopolitical stakes.

A team of Israeli experts brought the message to Congress, with a warning that moderate Arab regimes — already under fire in many cases from Islamic extremist factions in their own countries — could be among the most stressed by climate changes. And that, in turn, could threaten America’s longtime ally in the region."