From “Ecocide: making environmental destruction a criminal offence” by David Hawkins:

Lawyer Polly Higgins is spearheading a campaign to have ‘ecocide’ recognised by the UN as an international crime against peace. But how will this work in practice?

Ecocide has always been a moral crime, but British lawyer Polly Higgins sees it differently: ‘until it is legally a crime it’s not going to be thought of as wrong. Banks are willing to put our money – public money – into some of the most destructive practices on the planet because they see nothing wrong with it.’  Higgins is leading a new campaign to have ecocide recognised by the United Nations as an international crime against peace. She defines ecocide as ‘the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.’  With population growth and climate change, ecocide is increasingly likely to lead to resource wars. Hence, Higgins argues, it is a potential crime against peace and requires international action because of its capacity to be, in legalese, ‘trans-boundary and multi-jurisdictional’.

Among current examples of ecocide are the Alberta tar sands, Amazonian logging, oceanic plastic pollution, damage from oil extraction in the Niger Delta, the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah and so on, along with more dispersed problems such as polluted waters, which Higgins claims ‘account for the death of more people than all forms of violence including war’. Ecocide is now going on all over the world on an unprecedented scale.  Luckily, she says, many of the tools needed to prosecute such cases are already in existence. ‘The International Criminal Court (ICC) was formed in 2002 to prosecute individuals for breaches of four Crimes Against Peace. They are: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression.’ A case can begin from something as small as a letter from a community or individual.

If ecocide laws are passed by the UN there will be many ramifications. The complementarity principle means that ‘once something is put in as an international law, then each member state should put in their own national law to comply with it’. The ICC will step in if there is an inability or failure (individual countries may not want to challenge their extractive industries) to implement legislation on a national level. ‘This sends a strong message that you can’t lobby your way out of the situation,’ says Higgins.  As well as the legal machinery, Higgins points to existing information-gathering networks in the form of NGOs, many of which are specialised to study and campaign on specific ecosystems. Working together they will be able to present comprehensive damage reports.

[...]

On the journey to becoming law, one of the biggest obstacles an ecocide declaration will face is the corporate lobby. Everything possible will be done to persuade world leaders that criminalising ecocide will be seriously bad for business. But Higgins maintains that there is more positive opportunity ahead than anything else. She cites the abolition of slavery as a scenario where – despite vehement opposition – radical change was enforced and most businesses did not in fact collapse but began trading in less brutal commodities or became ‘the police of the seas’. She observes that destructive corporations tend to reinvent themselves as ‘restoration corporations’.

This idea of ‘restorative justice’ is key to her plan of how we can move forward into a more mature relationship with the earth, recognising our interdependence with our planet. The inadequacy of financial penalties as a deterrent against megapolluters like BP has already been reported. As with carbon credits, monetary reparations serve to abstract the problem and distract from what actually needs to be done. Restorative justice means that the perpetrators of environmental crimes would have to make amends for those crimes directly themselves.  For example, oil companies would have to reconstruct the Niger delta piece by piece after decades of abuse. Soil, vegetation, watercourses, air quality, fauna – all aspects of the depleted ecosystem would have to be addressed. What we would have is a sort of global community service.

‘This is really about shifting the emphasis away from corporate interests to the community realm. If you think you can just get away with it by paying a fine then that’s what you do – you don’t take responsibility for it; but if in fact you’re going to have to spend an awful lot of time and effort and energy in putting things right then that becomes a major headache’.  So fundamental is this shift to restorative justice that Higgins suggests that anything that attracts a fine for damage to the environment should have restorative justice measures attached to it too, not just ecocide.

Ecocide has an advantage over human rights abuse claims in that it’s often easier to prove. If a soil or water sample is contaminated then it’s an immediate victory for planetary rights. With ecocide the ‘burden of proof’ would be on corporations to show that they haven’t damaged a given ecosystem.

So how would the new ecocide laws be applied? First, we would have a transition period for a shift to new methods. This should be as short as possible (Higgins thinks two years would be sufficient). Subsidies propping up damaging practices would be pulled, and new subsidies encouraging good practice and innovation would be offered. (Slavery was similarly heavily subsidised – the subsidies were removed and businesses were given new subsidies to do new things.)

After the transition period, businesses that have failed to modernise will be shut down. States may allow a certain amount to remain in operation through necessity (for example, a few old-fashioned power plants if not enough clean energy is yet available to match demand). It would then be legally untenable for corporations to continue business-as-once-usual. The approach offers the stick of criminality and carrot of opportunity.

So will all mining and deforestation wind down and ultimately stop with the criminalisation of ecocide? It needn’t necessarily, says Higgins – it all depends on your approach. ‘For example, if you’re mining, but at the same time restoring the land that you’re mining out of, it will push for new processes to be invented that are less destructive,’ she says. ‘The question is: “how do we create an extractive industry that isn’t damaging or destructive or that causes loss of ecosystems?” I bet you it can be done.’

The text for ecocide will be presented to the UN next January. It needs a two-thirds majority vote to be passed. Send a letter to your political representative requesting that ecocide be made a crime.

Read the full article by David Hawkins.

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Image: thewritingzone via flickr CC

From UK’s largest coal-fired power plant could switch to biomass within 10 years by Tim Webb:

Drax, Britain’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, could stop burning coal by the end of the decade. Finance director Tony Quinlan said the company was looking to convert all six units of the coal-fired power station so they only burn biomass, such as wood chip, within the next 10 years. “Drax is a viable business today as a coal plant,” he told the Guardian. “But the opportunity to turn it into a renewable power company is an exciting one and makes sense for the UK’s carbon targets and for our shareholders.”

The company will only go ahead if the government agrees to grant renewable subsidies to such converted coal plants. Currently only purpose-built biomass plants receive extra payouts to cover their higher costs. Drax hopes to convert the first unit – capable of generating 660MW of electricity – next year. It is thought that no coal plant of this size has been converted anywhere in the world. “It has not been done before because there hasn’t been the need,” Quinlan said.

[...]

Some environmentalists question how sustainable biomass can be – because growing energy crops can result in rainforests being destroyed or can compete for land with food production. Greenpeace energy campaigner Joss Garman said: “There’s a serious question about whether it’s sensible to use biomass in this way. While sustainable biomass is possible, the precious supplies available should be used in much smarter ways.”

Drax has biomass supply contracts in place but refuses to divulge where the material will come from, citing commercial confidentiality. Material such as wood chip pellets will be imported from North America and Africa, while UK-sourced biomass like tree stumps and corn stubble will also be used. Drax insists that all of it will be sustainably sourced.

Read the full article by Tim Webb.

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From the Drucker Institute:

Wegmans, a regional (US) grocery chain with just 75 stores in five states, earlier this year beat out its much bigger rivals—Kroger, Publix and Safeway—to be named tops in its industry in a major consumer survey. The recognition caused one marketing expert to note that “you don’t have to be the biggest to be the best.”

In a world in which high-growth companies such as Google tend to grab the headlines, it’s an easy lesson to forget. But it’s one that Peter Drucker promoted. In a 1979 essay, Drucker advised that “nothing can grow forever” and that “today every business needs . . . ways to distinguish healthy growth from fat and cancer.”

British author and social philosopher Charles Handy also echoed these ideas in a 2009 Drucker Centennial lecture. In this short cartoon (under 3 mins), the Drucker Institute has brought Handy’s words to life, illustrating the distinction between healthy growth and unchecked “growth for growth’s sake.”

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Green Cross CEO Mara Bun interviewed Beth Galante, Director of Global Green, to discuss the prospects for a sustainable recovery in America’s climate change impact hot spot – find out more about why community-grounded optimism persists through the nightmare of mega environmental disasters.

MB – How does the oil spill feel on the ground?

It’s been a punch in the gut – earth shattering at the community and personal level.  Not a single person was untouched by Katrina. But after a few months, it was clear where the damage was done and people started to move back. Recovery began, first in discrete areas. There has been no shortage of setbacks over the past five years. But the community was truly inspired to put this magical place back together. And it’s come together so much better! With heart, with passion. There is so much to celebrate.  But then came the spill.

MB – Let’s get back to the oil spill – but first can you share your reasons for celebrating the recovery?

Sure – some great things come to mind.  New Orleans is becoming a model coastal city – resilient, designed to adjust to climate change. The community has embraced sustainability at every level. All levels of government encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy. Awareness about the need to withstand wind and water stresses is massive. We are building to prepare for future hurricanes, so sustainability goes hand in hand with resilience at the neighbourhood and policy level.

The next real accomplishment has been in the public education system. New Orleans had a very poorly performing education system when compared to other parts of the US or other developed nations. Our schools were rock bottom before Katrina. The storm destroyed the school system overnight. The rebirth has been awesome. We now have a decentralized, entrepreneurial school system with all kinds of new models emerging (some private, some traditional public, some supported by Universities). Student test scores have improved every year after Katrina.

Sustainability has been a big factor in this equation. Global Green has led a green school infrastructure project – funded by the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund – that has delivered six new LEED accredited schools [LEED accreditation is similar to Australia's Green Star Ratings]. One of these is Louisiana’s first LEED Gold school. We are really proud of that – and now green schools are embedded in the system. By legislation, all new schools and school renovations in New Orleans must reach at least “LEED Silver” standard. That’s a nation-leading accomplishment.  And it’s no surprise that test scores have improved because worldwide studies show that students have better results if they study in places with better light, better air, and lower toxic and other environmental impacts.

The other cause for optimism is governance. Before Katrina, New Orleans and the State as a whole experienced a never-ending stream of corruption enquiries. Our new Mayor has an overwhelming mandate – from black, white, rich and poor residents. We are in a new era of transparent, good local government that has not been seen for generations.  Much of this has been citizen-driven. New Orleans has some of the best local community groups in America, and now finally the government is following the community’s lead. For example, a task force including community and local business groups has out forward thirty recommendations for sustainability, and many of these wonderful citizen projects are being supported.  But the best cause for optimism – for sure – was when the Saints won the Superbowl!

MB – So bearing all of that good news in mind – lets go back to the oil spill. How is the community responding?

This is a different kind of disaster. One that does not end. You can’t respond by rebuilding a house – there’s a feeling of impotence. What do you do as a citizen, as a human being?  New Orleans is not experiencing the brunt of this – but we are connected to coastal neighbourhoods experiencing existential crisis.  The conversation is shifting towards oil independence. How can renewable energy and energy efficiency wean us off America’s oil addiction? But the conversation is very challenging, because Louisiana has limited economic diversity. Elected officials are influenced by the oil industry which is hostile towards energy alternatives. There has been limited meaningful exploration of alternatives at the State level – there’s a lot of “O-Bashing” (Obama bashing) especially in challenging the moratorium on offshore drilling.

A partisan cloud is descending – just like with the Katrina response. The Bush-bashing back then was not helpful either.  And then on the ground where families confront the oil at the coalface, there’s a lot of confusion about what’s happening with the clean up, and what the future looks like.  New leaders such as Kindra Arnesen are emerging. Kindra is the Erin Brockovich of the Gulf. She fears a cover up is underway, and that apparent clean up actions are not real. The community is worried about healthy breathing and healthy ecosystems – not to mention the clamp down on tourism and fishing.

MB – How is Global Green – a national environment group with the largest office in New Orleans (and the only one dedicated to green building/climate change) responding?

On the fourth of July 2010, our Independence Day, Global Green and 65 local business, academic and community groups forming a “Green Collaborative” launched a Declaration of Energy Independence. This addresses the need to transition America’s energy mix, shaping clean energy as a viable economic model as opposed to hand-outs to renewable industries.  In addition to playing our part in the clean energy conversation and rebuilding a sustainable and resilient New Orleans, Global Green is taking on four challenges that we think can deliver the most value on the ground right now, working with local community networks:

1. Providing humanitarian aid on the ground – using our fundraising to fill gaps such as funding dental care for coastal residents who are severely stressed and are experiencing high levels of broken teeth, and helping families to buy school uniforms.

2. Documenting impacts – bringing Hollywood celebrities to document interviews with residents that bring out personal stories – human and wildlife impacts – that can be shared over social media.

3. Community empowerment responses – including support for enacting the “Citizen’s Advisory Council” provisions of the Offshore Petroleum Act (or OPA). The OPA came into effect after the Exxon Valdez Spill after it became clear that community organizations needed funding support to empower effective community responses. Global Green is supporting a call for $2.5 billion in funding to nurture and empower Gulf community organisations which will to bolster long term responses to the spill. We see this as a moral imperative that will enable the community to shape its future.

4. Focus on wildlife destruction – The biodiversity outlook is scary for the Gulf. The sea turtle situation is especially horrific, with people across the world watching incinerated animals as BP burned the oil. It costs $10,000 to rescue, clean and release a sea turtle, and the Kemps Ridley sea turtle is particularly endangered . This is an ancient, magnificent creature, and America’s oil addiction could destroy them. Global Green is exploring the potential to partner with high quality educational tourism operators to foster a values shift towards protecting the nesting ground and ocean ecosystems where the sea turtles thrive.

About Beth Galante

Beth Galante is a leading voice for Gulf Coast sustainability in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and now the BP oil spill. Beth has lived in New Orleans for most of her life. She is Director of the Global Green (Green Cross’ US affiliate) New Orleans Office, and she is overseeing Global Green’s various projects to rebuild New Orleans as a sustainable model including a Green Resource Centre, the exemplar Holy Cross Project, the Built It Back Green program which gives technical advice and workshops for residents trying to green their homes, and other green rebuilding initiatives including green affordable homes, schools, and neighbourhoods.

Beth was formerly an Assistant D.A. in New Orleans and she taught at Tulane Law School, as the former Deputy Director of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. She has been National Law Journal’s Runner Up Lawyer of the Year, for groundbreaking work in the field of Environmental Justice. Beth has a Masters of Environmental & Energy Law and J.D. from Tulane Law School. She is currently an Aspen Institute Fellow in its Henry Crown leadership program.

Read the full interview by Mara Bun.

Forum Founder Director Sara Parkin’s new book, The Positive Deviant: Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World, is the first to bring together sustainability knowledge with the leadership skills and tools for leaders in the low-carbon economy of the future. It contains all you need to get started, and to continue growing your effectiveness, even in a world that remains perversely intent on the opposite.  Whether you are new to the whole idea of sustainability, or reasonably well informed but not entirely confident about what to do for the best, this guide will help you ‘do’ sustainability.  Free of checklists and policy recommendations, the focus is on you, and on developing your capacity to identify the right thing to do wherever you are and whatever your circumstances.

Download the introduction from Earthscan.

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From “Leapfrogging into a Carbon-Light Future: The End of High-Carbon Prosperity and How Low-Income Nations Are Becoming Climate Resilient” by Martin Wright:

The idea that Africa could somehow leap to a boom economy will strike some as hopelessly wishful thinking. But the seeds of this possible future already exist.  The combination of solar power, mobile phones and IT, for example, is already transforming the economic prospects for villagers across the continent. A simple piece of software enabling the transfer of small amounts of money instantly and cheaply by mobile is plugging remote rural backwaters into the global economy as never before. Millions are saving money, time and their health by switching to clean, efficient sources of energy – from solar to biogas, biomass to hydro. Agricultural innovations, too, are mushrooming, from water harvesting and hydroponics to the precise application of fertilizer and irrigation via GPS.

All such breakthroughs have one common characteristic: they are low-carbon technologies. The phrase has a rather worthy feel – especially when applied to developing countries. But it masks an intriguing possibility: that low-income nations could outflank the industrialized world, skipping the heavyweight, fossil fuel-dependent economic model and leapfrogging into a carbon-light future.

Nothing epitomizes that potential better than the mobile phone revolution. “In India in the 1990s,” observes Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, “it took four years to get a land line. In come the private phone companies, and now the poorest Indians use mobiles to their fullest advantage – not just calls, but cash transactions and new business models. Rural India has genuinely leapfrogged the world in optimizing the benefits of this technology.”

As surprising as the extent and speed of the shift is the way it’s been delivered. Once upon a time, late last century, a massive infrastructural achievement like this could only have been conceived as a huge aid project – and one that would probably never have got off the drawing board. If the World Bank had been asked to fund a functioning telephone network for every Bangladeshi back in the 80s, its bean-counters would have thrown up their hands in horror. Instead, it’s happened virtually without any subsidy, delivered by private companies at a profit to people near the very bottom of the pyramid. It’s been repeated right across the developing world – and it’s only just beginning: as IT migrates to mobiles, expect a surge of apps specially designed for Indian farmers, say, or African school kids.

It couldn’t have happened without a parallel surge in solar. Still seen as an expensive luxury in the rich world, it has spread rapidly among off-grid communities in developing countries; sometimes subsidized, increasingly not. A typical solar home system, providing lights, mobile charging and power for TVs, radios and DVDs, costs around $500. Not cheap, but thanks to the widespread availability of micro-credit, increasingly affordable. The benefits in terms of education, health and income-generation are nothing short of revolutionary. Millions of solar installations have been sold over the last decade; the market is growing exponentially, and specialist companies like India’s SELCO, and the Indian-American D.light, are becoming serious players. [...]

The real excitement is the way technologies such as these can combine to create a new economy. Mike Harrison of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Kenya sees signs of this happening already: “There’s a huge number of individual initiatives, and we will continue to see lots of these being successful. Microgeneration, mobiles, IT breakthroughs, water harvesting, community jatropha plantations…could these spark some kind of momentum and change the game completely?”

It’s a question explored in a major new study by Forum for the Future, funded by DFID. The future climate for development: scenarios for low-income countries in a climate-changing world sets out a range of possible scenarios for the coming decades. They are not all exactly rosy – one scenario foresees a world in which oil shortages play havoc with the global economy. But they share a common conclusion: that the days of high-carbon prosperity are over. As lead author Jemima Jewell says: “Low-income countries cannot and should not have to make a false choice between addressing climate change and development. The report clearly demonstrates how the two are fundamentally, inextricably linked, with future scenarios to provide a practical means of exploring how low-income countries can best capitalize on the synergies.”

[...]

So how might a low-carbon future for low-income countries take shape? In energy, expect networks of smart micro- and mini-grids, using everything from solar and wind to mini-hydro and biomass. These could prove a far more effective way of delivering electricity to rural and even urban areas than attempting to roll out an inefficient, centralized system which in many countries is already stretched to breaking point. It’s a possibility explored in The future climate for development, and one which is already taking shape, as governments begin to recognize the potential. Nepal is planning mini-grids for its remote mountain valleys; China is rolling them out in sparsely populated western provinces; and the Indian Government has finally unveiled its much vaunted ‘Solar Mission’, with a target of installing a hefty 20GW of solar by 2022 – and bringing its price down to a par with coal generation.

[...]

Cities which have yet to collapse in gridlock or spend billions on old-style metro schemes, says Chris West of the Shell Foundation, could leapfrog to next generation urban transport systems, like bus rapid transit (BRT) of the sort pioneered in Curitiba (see, ‘Exclusive interview with the man behind Curitiba’s master plan’). He sees a future for “small, efficient bus fleets, structured like an underground but running on the surface…Undergrounds are so expensive, no city ever recovers the cost,” he says. By contrast, land values around BRT networks go up, and so rising rents swell the city coffers. Adair Turner sounds a cautionary note: “Status fascination remains a problem… High-income people in London will use the tube. High-income people in Nairobi will not use the bus. We will not have emerging economy middle classes immediately jump to the attitudes of the green middle class in high-income countries.”

[...]

As the ‘leapfrogs’ multiply, so developing countries will start to be attractive places to do business. Some companies could relocate their HQs there, drawn by cheap, low-carbon electricity and a vibrant workforce. Western countries could find themselves scrambling to keep up, says Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development. Unless we meet tough carbon reduction targets, she argues, we will be increasingly left out of the new economy. She cites a cautionary tale from the last century: “The US auto industry fought tooth and nail against government regulation on emissions. The net result was a complete inability to compete with the Japanese and Europeans for the 21st century car market. It shows how it’s a real mistake for government to listen to industry lobbies too much!”

[...]

It’s easy, of course, to get carried away on a rush of optimism. Toulmin sounds a note of caution. “[The low carbon transition] is not going to happen by itself… you need a mixture of measures, some economic such as subsidies, some institutional – like establishing and safeguarding land rights. And you need a proper price for carbon.” Other experts emphasize the need for vast improvements in fiscal and regulatory control, and in governance – with trust and transparency still lacking.

But virtually all agree that a simple functioning carbon market would be the single most effective intervention. “The minute you charge a proper price for carbon,” says Alan Winters, Chief Economist at DFID, “many other sorts of decisions – on food miles, on energy sources, and so on – become perfectly obvious. So many policies would be simpler if we could have a basic global carbon tax, involving every significant player. Yes, it’s politically difficult, but [it] is also the easiest solution in the long run.”

Instead, argues Hande, the Government should think: “‘What are the best interventions we can make to meet the needs of those 100 million households?’ And once you start looking at that, everything changes. A lot of people’s basic needs – like cooking, lighting, education, ways of earning income – can best be met with a combination of low-carbon interventions – solar, biomass, biogas, micro-hydro, and so on. These are site specific, highly efficient ways of meeting those needs; they’re not dependent on help from outside. So there’s a huge potential for developing countries to grab this with both hands, rather than just complain about the rich world.”

Perhaps the most crucial shift of all, then, is not one of technology, politics or money, but of attitude. It’s early days, but from India to Africa to Latin America, there are signs of a break from the post-war consensus that development necessarily involves ‘catching up’ with the industrialized West. Catching up, that is, through a distinctly 20th century mix of fossil fuels, heavy industry, intensive chemical-fueled agriculture and mass urbanization. “We might just be looking at a ‘values leapfrog’,” says Jewell, “where because low carbon living carries so many benefits in its wake, people see it not just as a necessity, but as an aspiration.”

Such a leap could give a whole new slant on that hackneyed term, ‘development’. In years to come, perhaps, ‘developing country’ will mean just that: unfolding and evolving, rather than striving to emulate the fossilized model of the 20th century West.

Read the full article by Martin Wright on WorldChanging.

How do population, water, energy, food, and climate issues impact one another? What can we do to address one problem without making the others worse? The Post Carbon Reader features essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. This insightful collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary and presents some of the most promising responses.

In 2009, Post Carbon Institute recruited 29 of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers to answer one fundamental question: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world?

Like us, our Fellows see five key truths:

* We have hit the “limits to growth.” This is not a moral question (or not only one); nor is it merely a question about the fate of our children and grandchildren. The truth is that we have no choice but to adapt to a world of resource constraints, economic contraction, and climate upheaval. And thus the only question that remains is this: How will we manage that transition?

* No issue can be addressed in isolation. Thankfully, recognition of these crises has grown in recent years. However, all too often they are viewed in isolation. We must connect the dots in order to get to their source — not just their symptoms — and to maximize what little time and resources we have to address the enormous challenges they pose.

* We must focus on responses, not just solutions. As John Michael Greer says, we face a predicament, not a problem. “The difference is that a problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether a solution can be found and made to work and, once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses.”

* We must prepare for uncertainty. While the general trends are clear, it’s simply impossible to predict, specifically, how world events will unfold. Therefore, it’s critically important that we aim to build resilience on the individual and community scales. Resilient people and resilient communities are characterised by their ability to manage unforeseen shocks while maintaining their essential identity.

* We can do something. The bad news is that we simply cannot avoid hardship or suffering in the journey from a fossil fuel- and growth-dependent world to communities that live within ecological bounds. The good news is that we can prepare and make positive changes in almost any area of our lives and the lives of our communities. How much and how successful those efforts are all depends upon the thought and effort we invest.

The first step, as we saw it, was to aggregate the most current, systems-oriented thinking about these interconnected threats, as well as the most promising responses. The outcome of this effort — The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises — will hit bookstores and classrooms in October 2010.

The Reader includes 35 essays by 28 Post Carbon Institute Fellows, including Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, Stephanie Mills, David Orr, Sandra Postel, Michael Shuman, Wes Jackson, Erika Allen, Bill Ryerson, Gloria Flora, and many other leading sustainability thinkers.

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From Out of the Demographic Trap: Hope for Feeding the World, by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360

In Africa and elsewhere, burgeoning population growth threatens to overwhelm already over-stretched food supply systems. But the next agricultural revolution needs to get local — and must start to see rising populations as potentially part of the solution.

“I bring good news from Machakos, a rural district of Kenya, a couple of hours drive from Nairobi. Seventy years ago, British colonial scientists dismissed the treeless eroding hillsides of Machakos as “an appalling example” of environmental degradation that they blamed on the “multiplication” of the “natives.” The Akamba had exceeded the carrying capacity of their land and were “rapidly drifting to a state of hopeless and miserable poverty and their land to a parched desert of rocks, stones and sand.”

Since independence in 1963, the Akamba’s population has more than doubled. Meanwhile, farm output has risen tenfold. Yet there are also more trees, and soil erosion is much reduced. The Akamba still use simple farming techniques on their small family plots. But today they are producing so much food that when I visited, they were selling vegetables and milk in Nairobi, mangoes and oranges to the Middle East, avocados to France, and green beans to Britain.

What made the difference? People. They made this transformation by utilizing their growing population to dig terraces, capture rainwater, plant trees, raise animals that provide manure, and introduce more labor-intensive but higher-value crops like vegetables. For them, “multiplication” of their numbers has been the solution rather than the problem. They have sprung the demographic trap.

The story of Machakos convinces me that humanity is not done yet — our ingenuity may still save us from succumbing to planetary limits, and we can feed a growing world population.

For most of human existence, the land appeared limitless. Whenever populations grew too large for comfort, societies occupied new land. But by the 1960s, most of the best land was taken and the frontiers were being pushed up inhospitable mountainsides onto poorer soils, and into the last tropical rainforests.

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” Paul Ehrlich famously declared in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, in which he predicted widespread famine because of overpopulation.

But human ingenuity stepped in. In the past half century, thanks to the “green revolution,” the world has added just 10 percent to farmland but more than doubled food production.

What next? The world was brought up short in 2008 by soaring food prices on international markets. Politicians were unnerved as food riots broke out in more than a dozen countries. Prospect magazine headlined “The Return of Malthus.” We may now be able to feed nearly 7 billion people. But world population is expected to reach 9 or 10 billion later this century. Can we feed them all?

Pessimists have a point. We are undermining agriculture by damaging water and soils. We use more than half of the world’s river flows each year, mostly to irrigate crops. We are recklessly mining irreplaceable underground water reserves. By some estimates, a third of the world’s fields are losing soil faster than natural processes can create it. And now comes the threat of climate change.

But bleak though the figures are, they are no worse than those in the 1960s. Just as then, they reveal not natural limits but the current limits of our competence, both political and technical. Feeding the world in the 21st century requires doing things dramatically better.

The “green revolution” is still keeping pace with population. The trouble is that consumption of grain is growing faster, driven by the world’s growing appetite for biofuels and for meat and dairy products. Of the two billion tons of grain grown around the world, less than half is eaten directly by people.

Paradoxically, this is good news, says U.S. demographer Joel Cohen. “We know we can feed 10 billion people, because we are already growing enough — if they have a vegetarian diet.” The real threat is consumption patterns, not “overpopulation.” But at least we know the world can be fed.”

Read the full article by Fred Pearce on Worldchanging.

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Image: borya via flickr CC

FiT for purpose? by Dave Elliott:

The debate on the UK’s new Feed-In Tariff (FiT) has been quite lively, with the Guardian’s George Monbiot arguing that, with solar PV being still very expensive, the way the FiT provided the support needed was economically regressive.

It does look that way at first glance – those that could afford to invest say £10,000 in PV might get £1000 p.a. back for the electricity they generated and used, paid for by all the other consumers, who would be charged extra via their electricity bills. It’s been suggested that this would lead to a £11 p.a. surcharge on bills by 2020.  However, in a rebuttal to Monbiot’s analysis, Jeremy Leggett from Solar Century said “the average household levy in 2013, when tariff rates are all up for review, is likely to be less than £3” and he added “this is far less than the average saving from the government’s various domestic energy efficiency measures over the same period. So there is no net subsidy. The levy is not ‘regressive’ at all”.

The extra cost is certainly small, since the expected size of the FiT scheme is small, only maybe leading to 2% of UK electricity by 2020, so maybe this is not a major issue. But it is good to see that the government has now announced a “green-energy loan” scheme (part of its new “Warm Homes, Green Homes” strategy) under which energy-supply companies and others (e.g. the Co-op) may offer consumers zero or low interest loans for installing new energy systems, to be paid back out of the resultant energy savings. Details have yet to be agreed, but up to £7 bn may be made available over the next decade in this way – although it seems it will start off slowly, from 2012 onwards.

This scheme could help the less well-off to invest in new energy technologies like PV, and join in the FiT. Providing up-front loans via a “pay-and-you-save” system certainly seems likely to be more effective at ensuring wide uptake than just using revenue over time from a FiT. And there would be no extra charges on the taxpayer or the other consumers. So it could be popular.  There does seem to be a lot of support for self-generation. A YouGov survey for Friends of the Earth, the Renewable Energy Association and the Cooperative Group found that 71% of homeowners who were asked said that they would consider installing green-energy systems if they were paid enough cash. So perhaps, one way or another, uptake will be significant.

However, there are still some uncertainties. I argued in an earlier blog, before the UK FiT details emerged, that, while it worked very well for wind in Germany, using a FiT to push PV down its learning curve, to lower prices, might not be the most effective approach for PV.  Now we have the details of the tariff, which has set the price for PV so that those who install it get the same rate of return as those using other cheaper options. This may be fine if you are desperate to get PV accelerated. That’s a matter of judgment. For electricity, in the UK context, large-scale on-land and off-shore wind is clearly a better bet for the moment in terms of price, and also the scale of the resource. But PV prices are falling, and it could well be next in line for expansion, helped by the FiT, plus the loan scheme. Certainly there are benefits: localized generation using micro-power units like PV do avoid long-distance transmission losses, which can amount to up to 10% across the whole UK, and that is important.

However, domestic micro-generation has it limits – it’s arguably the wrong scale. PV is one of the better ones – there are no real technical economies of scale, except via bulk buying and sharing installation costs for larger projects. But micro wind is only relevant in a very few urban UK locations – larger grid-linked machines in windy places are so much more efficient and cost effective. Solar heating (to be supported under the forthcoming Renewable Heat Incentive) maybe be the best domestic option, but even then there are economies of scale (e.g. for grouped-solar schemes sharing a large heat store or even solar-fed district heating). Micro Combined Heat and Power (CHP) similarly: larger-scale mini or macro CHP, linked to district heating networks, are arguably more sensible.

Fortunately the 5 MW UK FiT ceiling, though low, gives us a chance to operate at slightly larger community scale, which may redeem the whole thing. See the excellent Energy Saving Trust report Power in Numbers, which states that “the economics of all distributed energy technologies improve with increasing scale, leading to lower cost energy and lower cost carbon savings and justifying efforts for community energy projects”. And for some smaller-scale renewables, it adds that “it is only when action occurs at scales above 50 households, and ideally at or above the 500 household level, that significant carbon savings become available”.

FiT for purpose? by Dave Elliott

^{Image: metro centric via flickr CC}

From “It takes a community to sustain a small farm” by Steph Larsen

These days it seems the most popular person to be in the food system is the “local farmer.” Farmers markets are popping up everywhere, and their size and popularity grow all the time. Local food is trendy—even the First Family is in on it.  But as anyone who has ever raised grain or livestock can tell you, the farmer is not the only person in the chain of players from her farm to your fork. In addition to producers, your food chain includes processors, distributors or transporters, and retailers.  In other words, to have a truly local food system, we also need local butchers, bakers and millers, local truck drivers, local grocers, and a community that supports them in all their efforts.

In the world of farm and food policy, we’ve paid a lot of attention to production end of the food system…  …But most products aren’t made to eat directly out of the field. Even salad greens or apples, things we typically eat raw and straight from the field, must be washed and sorted before your local farmer will sell them.

As Tom Philpott pointed out in early November, the infrastructure for small-scale processing is woefully inadequate, having suffered decades of atrophy and consolidation—to the point where an otherwise profitable farmer can be driven out of business because she has no where to take her pigs for slaughter, her grain to be milled, or her tomatoes to be “sauced.”

Small-scale, certified community kitchens are beginning to fill some of this need. There are a few mobile slaughter facilities gaining traction, but not enough to meet demand and too new to measure their long term viability. Not many community colleges offer classes on how to humanely kill and butcher an animal anymore… …How will we supply the food system with local meat or local flour if there the nearest facility is too far away or doesn’t exist at all?

I believe the answer lies in the example we have set for ourselves with beginning farmers. Society is beginning to see farming as a dignified and profitable profession again, and with that comes market demand for good farmers, respect for the profession, government programs to encourage new farmers, and training and educational opportunities. We need similar opportunities for small-scale butchers, millers, bakers, and other types of processors.

Local food distribution has received even less attention than processing, and it is a complex piece of the food chain we’ll have to get creative about if local food will be available in grocery stores. In Nebraska, where I live, the distributor serving most of the rural grocery stores has a weekly buying minimum. A grocer won’t even consider buying produce from a local farmer if it will put them below their minimum because the distributor levies a fine…

We all need a grocery store nearby, unless you are one of the few that produce all your own food. Without a grocery store, people will not want to live in our communities and neighborhoods, which makes them less vibrant and more vulnerable to failure. Grocery stores are more than food retail, however—they are often the focal point of a town or neighborhood where people go to see friends, swap recipes, and catch up on local gossip.

I used to think there were four distinct pieces to a local food system: production, processing, distribution, and retail. Now I realize there is a fifth: community. Without an involved community of customers who believe in what the local farmer, miller, distributor, and grocer is doing, none of them will last very long.

If growing a local food system is our goal, it must begin with vibrant communities, then follow with genuine opportunities for careers everywhere in the food chain. Expanding our policy solutions beyond producers will help the idea of local food move forward from a trend to a permanent fixture of our food system.

Read the full article by Steph Larsen on Grist.