To Fly or Not to FlyUKWatch.net - 14 Apr 2008The plane is over the English Channel when the pilot?s voice crackles over the loudspeakers. ?Just to warn you that there?s been a bit of trouble at Heathrow with people protesting about the impact of air travel on climate change. Nothing to worry about, but when we land you may see a bigger police presence at the airport than you would normally expect.? The tone is jocular and clearly intended to draw us all together into a kind of community of ?sensible? travellers who might have to suffer the disruption of ?extremist? campaigners. So what exactly am I doing here, in August 2007, given that I feel a much greater sense of kinship with the Climate Camp protesters down below than with the pilot?s cosy set of assumptions? It?s a good question. I?m on my way back with my family from a holiday in Italy. Last time we went, a few years ago, we drove there and back, via Luxembourg and Switzerland, taking our time and making many stop-offs on the way to break the journey. This time when we booked, almost a year in advance, we knew our time would be squeezed between work commitments and being back for our daughter?s exam results. So, not without qualms, we took advantage of ludicrously cheap flights that would get us there within a couple of hours rather than a couple of days. I tell you this to indicate my starting-point when I began to research this magazine ? for all that I bike to work, compost like crazy and am vegetarian, I am far from being in the environmental vanguard, and certainly don?t feel able to lecture people about what they should or should not do. Given this, I was not exactly burning to pick up the topic of Ethical Travel. I had no problem considering the effects of tourism on the Majority World. But since most tourism depends on air travel I knew I was likely to find myself in the unenviable position of having to offer readers some guidance as to when flying is acceptable and when it isn?t. And the more I sounded people out, the more my suspicions were confirmed. People are concerned and looking for guidance on an issue which has leapt to public attention in recent years ? at least in Britain, where the debate about flying rages much hotter than it does in Australasia or North America. Mind-boggling statistics
My earliest research left me shocked by the statistics on aviation emissions. Put simply, jet aircraft not only emit carbon from vast quantities of kerosene fuel, they also do it at high altitudes, where it has a much greater warming effect than it would in the lower atmosphere. In addition, jets emit other greenhouse gases, including nitrous oxide and water vapour (?contrails?). The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates the net effect of all these emissions from jet aircraft at 2.7 times the carbon consumed in the fuel. The chart below shows that an individual?s share of carbon emitted on a return flight from London to New York exceeds the carbon used up by a full year?s modest driving of an average car. How such statistics are calculated is always a contentious issue. But the exact numbers are less interesting than the broad-brushstroke comparisons: you can easily dump more carbon into the atmosphere from one return flight than from the gas and electricity you use in your house for an entire year. This was, to be frank, a quite mind-boggling discovery for me, which couldn?t help but challenge my attitude to flying. Travel has played an enormous part in my life. I cannot easily conceive what kind of person I would be had I not been able to board an airplane. But I do recognize that the profound implications of climate change (and the fight to prevent it) are going to force us all to take stock of our lives, to challenge all our assumptions. Just how far, I wonder, are we prepared to go in challenging the flying culture? My tentative proposal to the NI editorial team was that we should oppose the expansion of aviation ? especially the development of new airports or runways ? and encourage readers to reduce the amount they flew. But we should stop well short of calling for an end to all holiday flights. A great deal of heat was generated in the discussion that ensued, but not a lot of light. It soon became plain that the issue of flying is a particularly thorny one, in which emotions are perhaps too readily engaged. And this was despite the fact that, perhaps surprisingly, there was no-one in the room arguing that the magazine should rule out flying for leisure or experience altogether. One or two people argued that it would be so impossible to pin down reliable estimates of the emissions of various forms of transport that we would be treading on dodgy ground even to enter the flying debate. Adam Ma?anit I DEFINITELY AGREE with the need to deal with aviation?s impact on climate change. My worry is about the focus on individual consumption, on individuals taking flights. I think the emphasis needs to go back towards political, economic and environmental policies. Too much of the flying debate is about individual one-upmanship and not about real substantive change. It?s natural for the environmental movement to go down that path because it?s easier to appeal to their base ? environmentally minded folk who will accept the wisdom of flying less and peer-pressure each other ? but the movement shouldn?t shy away from the difficult questions. Lifestyle politics may be a hit with the hairshirt crowd, but it?s small fry compared to the huge socio-political changes needed to avert the worst excesses of climate change. Just as telling people to eat better won?t solve the obesity crisis, so too will the ?you fly, we die? message fall on deaf ears. And let?s not forget the importance of building up the alternatives. Telling people to fly less and travel by train instead when the rail system in many countries is so mind-boggingly expensive, over-crowded and unreliable is hardly a convincing argument. Rather than solely appealing to people?s better consciences, let?s focus our energies on the big wins that can be made with modest political will. Aviation?s growth is very worrying and that does need to be curtailed. The big target is short-haul flights to destinations that could easily and comfortably be serviced by rail, bus or ferry. But those services need to run well, they need to be just as heavily scrutinized for their environmental impacts and they should be reasonably affordable and safe. At the moment, they?re often not, so it?s no wonder people take to the skies. But not flying has become an iconic badge of environmental commitment and I think that?s misguided. If there were the political will to do something about climate change so much could be done in so little time and aviation would play a relatively small role in reducing the global footprint. For example, if government said tomorrow we?re going to ban all electronic devices with standby mode it would reduce electricity consumption by a huge amount at a stroke. How many people factor the standby mode into their purchasing decisions? Not many. But if you deal with it at a macro level you actually take it out of the equation. Same with government-sponsored housing insulation, combined heat and power units for residential blocks, support for micro-renewables. Stopping the war would deliver massive carbon savings and free up resources that could be used to steer us away from climate disaster. There are lots of things that simply can?t be done at an individual level and have to be done by society as a whole ? reining in corporate power and wasteful energy transmission, decentralizing energy grids and promoting renewables, stopping subsidies of fossil fuels, ending aviation?s tax-free fuel ride. And that?s just for starters… There is so much we can do now. So let?s stop the incessant navel-gazing and agonizing over our personal carbon ?footprints? and build the momentum for real change. Mark Lynas It?s worth looking at work travel as well as holidays because that?s probably the largest component of most people?s carbon footprint. When people fly for their work, are the ethical considerations their own responsibility or their employer?s? None of these things are completely black and white and it?s finding a way through the greys that has become an ethical minefield. There?s a cultural value shift going on and things haven?t quite settled yet when it comes to what?s moral and what isn?t. But in the mean time there are a lot of accusations and counter-accusations. Is there a danger that focusing individuals on their own carbon footprint is a distraction? You need to know where you stand in terms of what your contribution is to the collective problem. Of course, simply doing things at an individual level is not going to be enough ? it?s got to be a collective approach to a collective problem and that comes down to politics, to building a movement. That?s more important than what you do at home but you?ve got to do both ? they?re complementary. When a right-wing group in the US got hold of Al Gore?s [massive] electricity bill it played well for them because it sowed cynicism and that in turn has an effect in paralyzing social action. I wrote defending Gore because it does strike me that this ?green hypocrisy? argument about individual behaviour has gone too far. Some people?s aggregated impact on the climate should be seen as positive despite their air miles. I make the calculation ? we all do. And it?s not just flying, though that has become symbolic because of the big numbers attached to it; it?s everything ? every time you turn on the heating in your house it?s worth a certain amount of CO2. But flying consumes much more carbon even than heating… It does, but only when you look at it from an individual point of view. When you look at it from an aggregate point of view, the flight component of a national carbon budget is still very small because most people don?t take trips to New York. The biggest source of carbon is still space heating, which is a lot less interesting but is much more important than flying. On the other hand, flying is a relatively easy thing not to do. Here in Wolvercote [his village] we?re going low carbon and we?ve found that most behaviour hasn?t really changed except that people have been taking fewer holiday flights. Don?t you find it problematic, saying people shouldn?t fly when you?ve travelled so much yourself? I can?t imagine how I would have been had I not spent a lot of my life in the South. I?m happy to rule out future holiday travel for myself ? I?d felt yucky about being in places as a tourist for a long time, so that?s easily done. But it?s such a big sacrifice for other people to make and that?s why I think aviation is the one thing for which we need a ?technofix?. We?ve got a totally globalized world with families all over the place and you just can?t unpick all the threads. The low-hanging fruit is insulating your loft [attic]; stopping aviation is the highest-hanging fruit there is in terms of the bang people get for their carbon buck. Say to the industry: ?Look, you?ve got 15 years to do this or you go out of business? and I think they?d come up with something. There has to be a role for technological innovation and Manhattan Project-type approaches to this. George Monbiot It?s possible to have a technological effect on almost every other area of climate change apart from aviation. You could run almost the entire energy system on renewable power if you did it in the right way. Aviation is the one area for which there is no available technological solution in the foreseeable future. We?re not likely to see battery-powered jetliners. It?s not just a question of blocking future airport expansion; we have to reduce what?s already there. We have to cut aviation emissions by 95 per cent if we?re going to keep overall emissions to the level we need to. That means people can fly only 5 per cent of the amount they are now ? and that?s a maximum. People shouldn?t be flying for leisure or tourism purposes at all. They also shouldn?t be flying for business. If you?ve got a pressing family obligation, a relative who?s sick or dying, then fair enough. And if you?re doing something important with human rights or raising awareness of the environmental threat and there?s no other way of getting there, you might be able to justify it. But even then you have to think very carefully because it?s going to be rare that the importance of the work will outweigh the damage done by the flight. What about damage done to communities in the Majority World that are currently dependent on tourism? I do accept that some communities are going to be hit hard by this. But you have to set that against the enormous and much greater damage that will be done to other communities all over the world by climate change. We have to make it a priority to help those communities and countries to develop better ways of surviving and thriving that do not depend upon transporting 150 pounds of human halfway across the planet and back. What would the world be like without the intercultural exchanges that derive from air travel? Cross-cultural international connections don?t depend entirely on flying. You can travel by boat or by train almost anywhere ? it just takes a lot more time. So travelling without flying is still possible. And in terms of bringing about change, it isn?t really necessary to travel to become an internationalist. At the time of the Make Poverty History campaign most of the people in the West who became deeply concerned about Africa had never visited there but had been moved by what they had seen on television. You don?t become an internationalist by travelling ? just as travelling in itself doesn?t make you an internationalist. You started as a travel writer, though ? you?ve benefited in all kinds of ways from international travel that have helped make you the person you are. How can you deny those benefits to young people now? I do feel bad that I?m having to say to young people now that they cannot have the opportunities I had for guilt-free experience of other lands and cultures. But there?s no alternative. That experience of travel is simply not available to people now. It?s another example of how the sins of one generation have been handed to the next generation who have to pay the price. There was also an argument that for the New Internationalist to concentrate its attention on individual behaviour ? when and whether people should be travelling by plane ? would be a mistake. There are much more important battles to be fought than this in the war on climate change, ran this strand of thought, than encouraging people to think about their ?carbon footprint?. I invited one of my editorial colleagues, Adam Ma?anit, to lay out this position (see box, above). There is no doubt that the primary need is for governments, rather than individuals, to take action. Climate change is the greatest issue of our time, yet politicians the world over continue to funk it, fearing that if they derail the globalized consumer bandwagon it will cost them their jobs. Given how huge is the task in front of us, the primary requirement has to be to campaign, to do all we can to change the political landscape so that it reflects the real (planet-)burning issues rather than the pre-eminent concern with the dollar in our pocket. But I still felt it was important to include in the magazine some recognition of the dilemma faced by individual readers concerned about the ethics of flying in an overheating world. Those of us who try to reduce or constrain our carbon footprint are not likely to be distracted from campaigning for the big-picture political changes. One can reinforce the other. Don?t we all feel much more comfortable campaigning for a cause if we are doing our bit? That way at least we can?t be charged with hypocrisy. And our own individual actions may have a ripple effect, whether by inspiring others or by contributing to a statistical trend. Changing our lifestyle could reinforce pressure on politicians to pull us out of this tailspin. After all, we know more clearly than ever that every kilogram of carbon we propel into the atmosphere is doing some very dirty work. Consulting the oracles One of the main proponents of the ?carbon footprint? way of looking at this problem is Mark Lynas, author of High Tide, Six Degrees and Carbon Calculator: Easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint. When I met Mark, he was just back from a mammoth journey by boat to Norway. ?It took 10 days ? it was a disaster,? he said ruefully. ?If I?d done it in a plane trip in a day it would have been a hell of a lot easier than dragging the whole family out there for 10 days. You can go a bit too far in terms of being puritan on this. Mind you, it always plays well because people always ask how you got there. And it?s nice to be able to say: ?Well, train and boat!? It even makes headlines in the papers because people don?t expect it.? While he has ruled out holiday flights for himself, he readily acknowledges the moral complexity of the issue ? as well as stressing that he too sees individual effort as secondary to the vital job of building a movement that will shift governments. And he hankers after a technofix (see box, below), even though, he added: ?George will kill me for saying so.? The George in question is Monbiot, the Guardian columnist and author of Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning. The chapter of Heat on aviation (?Love Miles?) lays out very starkly the damage done by air travel ? and the impossibility of meeting any meaningful emissions targets if we continue our love affair with it. ?A 90-per-cent cut in carbon emissions means the end of distant foreign holidays, unless you are prepared to take a long time getting there? It means that journeys around the world must be reserved for visiting the people you love, and that they will require both slow travel and the saving up of carbon rations? If you fly, you destroy other people?s lives.? Ulp. You can?t get much more categorical than that. Reading my interview with George (see box, overleaf), you might wonder why I didn?t ask him the most obvious follow-up question: how many times have you yourself flown somewhere in the last year? Actually I didn?t need to ask him ? he was so primed for that question that he misheard one of my others and answered that he has taken two flights in the last 18 months, both to climate-change events where he judged that he could make more of a difference by attending in person than by not flying. I was more concerned to probe how he, who began as a travel writer and has benefited in all kinds of ways from experiencing other countries and cultures, feels able to say that young people now should not avail themselves of the same opportunities. His answer is pretty much that, however bad he feels about it, the problem is so huge and so all-trumping that there is simply no alternative. I cannot bring myself to say the same. As I write, my daughter is experiencing her first day of teaching in a village in Malawi, having just spent a week of ?orientation? in the capital, Lilongwe. I am proud that she has chosen to spend her gap year before university working in Africa. What she learns about the world and its injustices and inequalities will reverberate through her entire life and will give her a connection with Malawi, and with Africa as a whole, that no amount of book reading or film watching could have achieved. Should I really have said to her, at a time when the rest of the world seems to be leaping on a plane at the drop of a hat to sun themselves on a beach or to go shopping, that she should forego the whole experience because we have just begun to understand the climate-changing contribution of aviation? I don?t think so. What would happen in a no-fly world?
What would happen at New Internationalist if we introduced a no-flying policy? The issue has already caused some soul-searching within the co-operative. People travelling to the Frankfurt Book Fair, for example, have had to weigh the environmental impact against the cost (since the advent of budget airlines, ridiculously enough, it is actually cheaper to fly from Britain to Germany than to go by train) and the significant extra time involved. Even if a company has a policy that supports (and is prepared to pay for) an employee wishing to go overland, there are often family or work reasons why that person is loath to be away longer than need be. Given that we have editors in Canada, Australia and Holland, and that we focus on the concerns of the Majority World, eschewing flying altogether would not look to be an option for us as an organization. Certainly the need for editors to be in touch with the realities of everyday life in Africa, Asia and Latin America ? on which the magazine?s reputation stands ? depends upon their being able to hear ordinary people?s testimonies first hand rather than just relying on printed reports or local journalists. And New Internationalist is, after all, only the tip of the ?One World community? iceberg, which has been founded upon international travel in both directions ? on people visiting and migrating to our own countries from far-flung locations, and on our learning from and adjusting to other peoples and cultures. What would happen to a world in which the only people who travelled by plane were those most committed to its rapacious exploitation? Would airways become the de facto province of the most unscrupulous corporations? Besides, where is the sense in rejecting one aspect of international aviation (tourism) while accepting other aspects (air-freighted goods and foodstuffs, air mail and so on)? No more new runways
But in the context of an ever-warming world, if we continue to fly for our pleasure and education, we need to ensure that such tourism is not itself damaging, and that it genuinely benefits the host communities at the other end. In the articles that follow I?ll look at what is wrong with most tourism now and whether more sustainable forms of travel that benefit local communities are actually possible. It also means we have to increase pressure on policy-makers to contain and reduce air travel. Governments all too readily point the finger at individuals rather than demonstrating leadership on the issue. I encountered an example of this recently when, at a Christmas party, I got talking to a civil servant working on transport issues. I was explaining why I thought the British Government?s intention to build a third runway at Heathrow to meet anticipated demand was the purest folly. ?It?s not up to the Government to take a lead on this issue,? he said, ?it?s up to individuals to stop taking advantage of cheap flights.? As an evasion of responsibility, this takes some beating. Yet it mirrors the approach of most Western governments, which simply put a blind eye to the telescope and continue to chase economic growth whatever the environmental cost. Pointing to booming demand, they plan for new runways and new airports that will soon fill to capacity just like the extra lane for cars on an expressway. As a result, air travel is growing at a rate of some five per cent a year, meaning that air passenger kilometres are set to triple by 2030.1 Air travel urgently needs to be contained ? and physical limits (not enough runways to meet demand) are actually a very practical, sensible method of containment. It also doesn?t take an expert to see that the current convenient practice of excluding international air travel from all national emissions targets is absurdly ostrich-like. Besides, the boom in air travel cannot be accounted for by ?ordinary hard-working people taking their one holiday a year?, which is the routine claim of the media and the travel industry. British Government statistics show that 62 per cent of adults did not make even one return flight in 2006. Among the richest 20 per cent of the population, 61 per cent took one or more return flights. Only four per cent of people took four or more flights.2 So even in the rich world we are talking about a tiny minority of people who may be flying an insane amount. The spread that follows this article suggests ?Ten steps to reduce flying? ? and some of these will affect only that tiny minority. But others will apply to you and me as well, because even if the primary focus has to be on forcing governments into action, we still need to do our individual bit. In a way, putting this issue together has been a gesture in this direction since, three trips to London by train and bus aside, I have made a point of avoiding travelling (always, depressingly, the most ethical course of action of all). On the home front, my family has already decided to holiday this year in Cornwall, on the English coast, rather than further afield. But, on the other hand, the following year we have long planned to revisit friends and familiar places in Canada ? we lived in Toronto for a year in the mid-1990s. And now my brother?s family is on the verge of emigrating to Australia ? without one or other of us flying we would never see each other again. It?s a tangled web, as this article ? if it has done nothing else ? has made plain. Good luck to all of you as you try to sort out what you think about it.
Portland Considered Most Bicycle-Friendly City in North AmericaDemocracy Now - 14 Apr 2008For many, Portland is a haven of green-friendly urban planning. It recently topped Popular Science’s list of the Greenest Cities in the United States. A big part of that is bikes. Portland is widely considered the most bicycle-friendly city in North America, so much so that bikes are on display throughout the Portland airport. Worldwide, it’s seen as only second to Amsterdam. We speak with two local Portland transportation activists. [includes rush transcript]
Lawmakers Hold Tax Day Press Conference on Cost of Iraq WarDemocracy Now - 14 Apr 2008On Capitol Hill, several Democratic lawmakers are holding a Tax Day press conference this morning on the cost of the Iraq war. They will present taxpayers with a bill that shows how much each American family owes for the Iraq War. We speak with Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky. [includes rush transcript]
War Tax Resistance: How a Portland Couple Have Refused to Pay Taxes for Over 30 Years to Protest Military FundingDemocracy Now - 14 Apr 2008Today is April 15th, Tax Day, a day when tens of millions of Americans scramble to file their income taxes on time. It’s also a day when people across the country are planning to protest the use of tax dollars to fund war. A recent study shows that more than 40 percent of every income tax dollar in 2007 went towards military spending. We speak with Pat and John Schwiebert, a Portland couple who have refused to pay their taxes for the past thirty years to protest military spending. [includes rush transcript]
Headlines for April 15, 2008Democracy Now - 14 Apr 2008Ban Ki-moon: Global Food Crisis Reaches Emergency Proportions, Food Protests Start in Bangladesh and South Africa, US Food Inflation at Highest Level in 17 Years, US Military to Release AP Photographer After Two Years, Kidnapped CBS Journalist Released in Iraq, Clinton & McCain Accuse Obama of Being “Elitist”, GOP Congressman Describes Obama as a “Boy”, Delta and Northwest Airlines to Merge, Israel Blocks Jimmy Carter from Entering Gaza, Berlusconi Wins Italian Election, Maoist Rebels Win Majority in Nepalese Assembly, Opposition in Zimbabwe Calls for General Strike, Pope Benedict XVI Begins US Trip, Four US Journalists Arrested in Niger Delta
The Pleasures of the FleshUKWatch.net - 14 Apr 2008Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession which is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch. You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%(1). There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices(2). But I bet you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, last year?s global grain harvest broke all records(3). It beat the previous year?s by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline? There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the UN?s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), will feed people(4). I am sorely tempted to write another column about biofuels. From this morning all sellers of transport fuel in the United Kingdom will be obliged to mix it with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. The World Bank points out that ?the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol ? could feed one person for a year?(5). Last year global stockpiles of cereals declined by around 53m tonnes(6); this gives you a rough idea of the size of the hunger gap. The production of biofuels this year will consume almost 100m tonnes(7), which suggests that they are directly responsible for the current crisis. In the Guardian yesterday the transport secretary Ruth Kelly promised that ?if we need to adjust policy in the light of new evidence, we will.?(8) What new evidence does she require? In the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, we have just become legally obliged to use food as fuel. It is a crime against humanity in which every driver in this country has been forced to participate. But I have been saying this for four years and I am boring myself. Of course we must demand that our governments scrap the rules which turn grain into the fastest food of all. But there is a bigger reason for global hunger, which is attracting less attention only because it has been there for longer. While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals(9). This could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat. While meat consumption is booming in Asia and Latin America, in the United Kingdom it has scarcely changed since the government started gathering data in 1974. At just over 1kg per person per week(10), it?s still about 40% above the global average(11), though less than half the amount consumed in the United States(12). We eat less beef and more chicken than we did 30 years ago, which means a smaller total impact. Beef cattle eat about 8kg of grain or meal for every kilogramme of flesh they produce; a kilogramme of chicken needs just 2kg of feed. Even so, our consumption rate is plainly unsustainable. In his magazine The Land, Simon Fairlie has updated the figures produced 30 years ago in Kenneth Mellanby?s book Can Britain Feed Itself? Fairlie found that a vegan diet grown by means of conventional agriculture would require only 3m hectares of arable land (around half the current total)(13). Even if we reduced our consumption of meat by half, a mixed farming system would need 4.4m hectares of arable fields and 6.4 million hectares of pasture. A vegan Britain could make a massive contribution to global food stocks. But I cannot advocate a diet I am incapable of following. I tried it for about 18 months, lost two stone, went as white as bone and felt that I was losing my mind. I know a few healthy-looking vegans and I admire them immensely. But after almost every talk I give, I am pestered by swarms of vegans demanding that I adopt their lifestyle. I cannot help noticing that in most cases their skin has turned a fascinating pearl grey. What level of meat-eating would be sustainable? One approach is to work out how great a cut would be needed to accommodate the growth in human numbers. The UN expects the population to rise to 9bn by 2050. These extra people will require another 325m tonnes of grain(14). Let us assume, perhaps generously, that politicians like Ms Kelly are able to ?adjust policy in the light of new evidence? and stop turning food into fuel. Let us pretend that improvements in plant breeding can keep pace with the deficits caused by climate change. We would need to find an extra 225m tonnes of grain. This leaves 531m tonnes for livestock production, which suggests a sustainable consumption level for meat and milk some 30% below the current world rate. This means 420g of meat per person per week, or about 40% of the UK?s average consumption. This estimate is complicated by several factors. If we eat less meat we must eat more plant protein, which means taking more land away from animals. On the other hand, some livestock is raised on pasture, so it doesn?t contribute to the grain deficit. Simon Fairlie estimates that if animals were kept only on land that?s unsuitable for arable farming, and given scraps and waste from food processing, the world could produce between a third and two thirds of its current milk and meat supply(15). But this system then runs into a different problem. The FAO calculates that animal keeping is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental impacts are especially grave in places where livestock graze freely(16). The only reasonable answer to the question of how much meat we should eat is as little as possible. Let?s reserve it – as most societies have done until recently – for special occasions. For both environmental and humanitarian reasons, beef is out. Pigs and chickens feed more efficiently, but unless they are free range you encounter another ethical issue: the monstrous conditions in which they are kept. I would like to encourage people to start eating tilapia instead of meat. It?s a freshwater fish which can be raised entirely on vegetable matter and has the best conversion efficiency – about 1.6kg of feed for 1kg of meat – of any farmed animal(17). Until meat can be grown in flasks, this is about as close as we are likely to come to sustainable flesh-eating. Re-reading this article, I see that there is something surreal about it. While half the world wonders whether it will eat at all, I am pondering which of our endless choices we should take. Here the price of food barely registers. Our shops are better stocked than ever before. We perceive the global food crisis dimly, if at all. It is hard to understand how two such different food economies could occupy the same planet, until you realise that they feed off each other. References: 1. Eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7284196.stm 2. World Bank, 14th April 2008. Food Price Crisis Imperils 100 Million in Poor Countries, Zoellick Says. Press release. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21729143~men… 3. Food and Agriculture Organisation, April 2008. Crop Prospects and Food Situation.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai465e/ai465e01.htm 4. ibid. 5. World Bank, 2008. Biofuels: The Promise and the Risks. http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/EXT... 6. Gerrit Buntrock, 6th December 2007. Cheap no more. The Economist. 7. Food and Agriculture Organisation, April 2008, ibid. 8. Ruth Kelly, 14th April 2008. Biofuels: a blueprint for the future? The Guardian. 9. Food and Agriculture Organisation, April 2008, ibid. 10. The British government gives a total meat purchase figure of 1042g/person/week for 2006.
http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/efs/datasets/UKHHcons.xl… 11. There?s a discussion of global average figures here: http://envirostats.info/2007/09/18/0406/ 12. See Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2006. Livestock?s Long Shadow. Figure 1.4, p9.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a0701e.pdf 13. Simon Fairlie, Winter 2007-8. Can Britain Feed Itself? The Land. 14. Based on the current population of 6.8bn consuming 1006mt of grain. 15. Simon Fairlie, forthcoming. Default livestock farming. The Land, Summer 2008. 16. Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2006. Livestock?s Long Shadow.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a0701e.pdf 17. The FAO (ibid) gives 1.6-1.8. On April 12th, I spoke to Francis Murray of the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, who suggested 1.5.
Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungryUKWatch.net - 14 Apr 2008Last week?s meetings in Washington of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Group of Seven were convened in the shadow of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While Wall Street?s turmoil and the deepening credit crunch dominated discussions, leaders of the global financial institutions were forced to take note of the growing global food emergency, warning of the threat of widespread hunger and already emerging political instability. The seven major capitalist powers in the G-7?the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada?made virtually no mention of the global food crisis, referring in only one brief reference to the risk of ?high oil and commodity prices.? Instead, they focused on the stability of the financial markets, promising measures to shore up investor confidence. The IMF and World Bank, however, felt compelled to acknowledge the emerging worldwide catastrophe, in part because while these agencies are instruments of the main imperialist powers, they must posture as responsive to the needs of all countries. It would be too revealing for them to focus exclusively on the fate of major finance houses, while ignoring the fact that hundreds of millions across the planet are being threatened with starvation. More decisive, however, is the realization that this crisis confronting the most impoverished countries and poorest sections of the world?s population is threatening to unleash a revolution of the hungry that could topple governments across large parts of the world. Even as the IMF and World Bank were meeting, the government of Haiti was forced out in a no-confidence vote passed in response to several days of demonstrations and protests against rising food prices and hunger that swept all the country?s major cities. Clashes between protesters and United Nations occupation troops left at least five people dead and scores wounded and saw crowds attempt to storm the presidential palace. Food prices in Haiti had risen on average by 40 percent in less than a year, with the cost of staples such as rice doubling. The same essential story has been repeated in country after country, from Africa to the Middle East, south Asia and Latin America. In Bangladesh, on Saturday, some 20,000 textile workers took to the streets to denounce soaring food prices and demand higher wages. The price of rice in the country has doubled over the past year, threatening the workers, who earn a monthly salary of just $25, with hunger. Scores were injured in clashes with police, who used gunfire in an attempt to disperse the crowds. In Egypt, protests by workers over food prices rocked the textile center of Mahalla al-Kobra, north of Cairo, for two days last week, with two people shot dead by security forces. Hundreds were arrested, and the government sent plainclothes police into the factories to force workers to work. Food prices in Egypt have risen by 40 percent in the past year. Unions and shopkeepers staged a two-day general strike in the West African nation of Burkina Faso last week to protest high prices. The strikers demanded a ?significant and effective? cut in the price of rice and other stables. Several hundred demonstrators marched on parliament in Phnom Penh, Cambodia April 6 to protest food price hikes. The cost of a kilogram of rice has risen to $1 in a country where the average income is barely 50 cents a day. Police armed with cattle prods broke up the protest. Earlier this month, in the Ivory Coast, thousands marched on the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, chanting ?we are hungry? and ?life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.? The country has seen food prices soar by between 30 percent and 60 percent from one week to the next. Police broke up the protest with tear gas and batons, injuring over a dozen people. Similar demonstrations, strikes and clashes have taken place in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Yemen, Ethiopia, and throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. With terrifying rapidity, hundreds of millions of people all over the planet have been confronted with the inability to obtain the basic necessities of life. The global capitalist market is dictating intolerable conditions for masses of people on every continent, provoking a worldwide eruption of class struggle. It is the concern that this struggle will spin out of control that found expression in the statements of concern issued by the IMF and World Bank leaders together with finance ministers and central bank chiefs gathered in Washington. ?If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries, including Africa, but not only Africa, will be terrible. Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will suffer from malnutrition, with consequences all of their lives,? Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund managing director, told an April 12 press conference in Washington. He warned that governments ?will see what they have done totally destroyed and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also.? Strauss-Kahn added: ?So it?s not only a humanitarian question. It is not only an economic question. It is also a democratic question. Those kind of questions sometimes end into war.? ?In just two months,? World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an opening speech to the meeting of finance ministers, ?rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. ?In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice,? he said, holding up such a bag, ?now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family.? He added that wheat prices had increased by 120 percent, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread. ?If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries … will be terrible,? said Zoellick. The ?international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avoid the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis,? United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told international finance and trade officials at a UN meeting following the weekend talks in Washington. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler offered among the bleakest prognoses for the continuing crisis. ?We are heading for a very long period of rioting, conflicts (and) waves of uncontrollable regional instability marked by the despair of the most vulnerable populations,? he told the French daily Liberation Monday. He pointed out that, even before the present crisis, hunger claimed the life of a child under the age of 10 every 5 seconds, and 854 million people in the world were seriously undernourished. What was now posed, Ziegler warned, is ?an imminent massacre.? While finance ministers from the US and Europe indicated agreement that the crisis was severe, there was no indication that the major capitalist powers have any plan to mount the kind of effort needed to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe. The White House announced Monday that it is releasing $200 million in emergency food aid in response to a World Bank appeal for funding to make up for the shortfall in food assistance caused by soaring prices. The amount?roughly what the US spends in half a day on its war to conquer Iraq?is less than a drop in the bucket in the face of the looming global catastrophe. In the end, the crisis is a product of the capitalist market itself. It is not a matter of too many mouths to feed or too little food to supply human needs. Food is available, but the market has driven prices to a level out of reach for a growing portion of humanity in the most oppressed countries, and at the same effectively slashing the living standards of workers in the more advanced capitalist world. This process is driven by a number of factors, including climatic ones, such as the impact of a draught in Australia on wheat production and a flood in Bangladesh on rice. There is also the rise in demand, particularly from growing middle class layers in India and China. But more fundamental is the effect of speculation in food as a commodity?like oil and precious metals. It has become a haven for financial investors fleeing from paper assets tainted by subprime mortgages and other toxic credit products. The influx of buyers drives prices and makes food unaffordable for the world?s poor. ?Fund money flowing into agriculture has boosted prices,? Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon told the media. ?It?s fashionable. This is the year of agricultural commodities.? Speculation in food as a commodity has been sharply accelerated by the decline in the value of the dollar, soaring oil prices and the promotion of biofuel production in the US and elsewhere. This attempt to generate a new investment ?bubble,? based on the fraud that somehow turning corn into ethanol represents a ?green? alternative to fossil fuels, has driven up the price not only of corn, but other grains, while diverting a major share of food production into a more profitable venture. Subsidized by the US government, American farmers have diverted fully 30 percent of corn production into the ethanol scheme, driving up the cost of other, more expensive, grains that are being bought as substitutes for animal feed. ?When a biofuel policy is launched in the United States, thanks to subsidies of $6 billion, of bio-fuels that drains 138 million tons of corn from the market, the foundation is laid for a crime against humanity to satisfy one?s own thirst for fuel,? the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Liberation. This assessment was repeated by India?s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who declared, ?When millions of people are going hungry, it?s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels.? US officials dismissed the charges, insisting that biofuel production was only one factor among many and indicating that there is no plan to change Washington?s policy. Country after country has been left vulnerable to the global commodity price surge by ?free market? policies implemented at the demands of Washington and the international financial agencies such as the IMF and World Bank over the past quarter century. The closer integration of the economies of the oppressed countries into the world market has been accompanied by their increasing concentration on specialized export crops, while tariff barriers have been demolished, opening the way to subsidized agricultural staples from the more advanced countries capturing local markets. Now, attempts by individual national governments to remedy the problem within their own borders?often taking the form of commodity producers erecting barriers on exports?have served to exacerbate the crisis internationally, driving food prices even higher, while triggering protests by farmers in countries stretching from India to Argentina. According to a recent World Bank survey, at least 58 countries have implemented at least some form of food-trade protectionism. What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit and the nation state. The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time noted: ?The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War… And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world.?
How Palestinian children really learnElectronic Intifada - 14 Apr 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rOn 22 March, The Miami Herald published an article entitled “Dreaming of a peaceful Mideast.” The initial reaction to such a headline is naturally one of pleased interest. Reporter Frida Ghitis praises the Israel/Palestine Centre for Research and Information for “working to create” a “culture of peace” in order to “put a stop to incitement and hatred.” Carol Scheller comments for EI.
Poll: Israel, US greatest threats to Middle EastElectronic Intifada - 14 Apr 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rWASHINGTON, 14 April (IPS) – Despite renewed US efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement this year, popular views of the United States in the Arab world have actually worsened since 2006, according to a major new survey of public opinion in six Arab states.
American Hegemony Is Not GuaranteedCampaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 Apr 2008Summary: RobertsExactly as the British press predicted, last week’s congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Green Zone administrator Ryan Crocker set the propaganda stage for a Bush regime attack on Iran. On April 10 Robert H. Reid of AP News reported: “The top U.S. commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaeda to Iranian-backed ‘special groups’ as the main threat. ? The shift was articulated by Gen. Petraeus who told Congress that ‘unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of source: antiwar.comread more
