Drive Aid??!!

See hapless pro-biofuel campaigners promote 'Drive Aid' on the streets of London. Please sign the petition to make the UK government and EU to stop supporting biofuel production - http://www.actionaid.org.uk/driveaid

Motorists subsidising biofuels

New research commissioned by ActionAid and Friends of the Earth shows that motorists, the environment and poor people will be hit hard by biofuels in petrol - their new research shows car drivers in the UK will pay up to £2 billion more on the forecourt in 2020 if the government decides to increase the proportion of biofuels in petrol. A typical UK lorry driver will be spending as much as £1,400 extra per year on diesel by 2020.

The policy could also create an extra 13 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year in the UK, and more people in developing countries will go hungry and be pushed off their land as biofuel crops are grown instead of food.

Where on earth is the sense - this blog has covered this issue before and it is great that the campaign is still running to stop this madness. The EU target that the government aims to meet is based on the thought that biofuels are a greener alternative to fossil fuels. The reality is the opposite; biofuels increase greenhouse gases. The money planned to subsidise biofuels would be better spent on improving public transport and cycling.

Take action

Meanwhile on another biofuel matter E.On have submitted a planning application which, if approved, would allow them to generate 270 MW of electricity from burning imported virgin wood every year. At full capacity, they would burn pellets made from more than 2 million tonnes of wood annually. They want to partly convert Ironbridge coal power station to biomass. This large new demand for wood will translate into more aggressive logging abroad and, directly or indirectly, more forests and farmlands being turned into monoculture tree plantations. Take an action email at: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2012/ironbridgealert/

Stop UK funding damaging biofuels

The government believes it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing finance to renewable energy technologies through subsidies called Renewable Obligation Certificates  (ROCs).  As well as providing support for clean technologies like wind farms,  ROCs also finance electricity from biomass and bioliquids, which have been shown to increase greenhouse gas emissions, cause deforestation, and worsen air quality locally. It is astonishing this is still going on - when are they going to wake up?

Email the UK Dept of Energy and Climate Change and your MP in the action below.

Here's what the campaign write: "The sourcing of biofuels and biomass from overseas has been widely implicated (directly and indirectly) in human rights abuses – including the forced eviction of people from their land and inhumane treatment of workers. The Renewables Obligation also subsidises the incineration of waste, which can be derived from fossil fuels,  thus worsening air quality and discouraging recycling. The Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently consulting on the level of support to be given from April 2013 to all types of electricity classed as renewable, including from biomass and bioliquids. They propose to continue to support biomass on an unlimited scale – even more than at present as far as co-firing of biomass with coal is concerned. They also propose to support the burning of up to 400,000 tonnes of bioliquids per year (on top of the large-scale use of biofuels for transport). If all this bioliquid were palm oil – a realistic prospect given that this is by far the cheapest vegetable oil – then 110,000 hectares of new oil palm plantations would be needed.

"The Renewable Obligation Scheme is financed through money taken from our fuel bills, so it is OUR MONEY that is being spent. If things stay as they are, it will cost us up to £3 billion every year by 2020 to fund this dirty, false solution at the expense of people and the planet."

Please take action here: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/rocs-alerts/

Sun Biofuels in Tanzania: deep concerns

Biofuels is an issue I've not covered for a while - and wasn't going to - but a particularly persuasive email from ActionAid with a shocking story and the expose in the Observer yesterday have prompted a quick mention here.  Basically it seems the biofuels company Sun Biofuels took land from the people of Kisarawe, a small village in Tanzania, to grow crops for biofuels - you can read it here http://bit.ly/tO1I20

ActionAid have a series of videos that show different members of the community in Kisarawe talking about what Sun Biofuels has done and how it has affected them - see YouTube channel here. ActionAid are also directing people to sign their petition to try and end British government support for biofuels - see http://www.actionaid.org.uk/biofuels


Click Read more to see ActionAid's press release.

Put food into mouths not cars

Today is the launch of a biofuels campaign by Actionaid -  it is timely as with oil prices rising there is even more interest in biofuels - Actionaid estimate that biofuel production could push a further 600 million people into hunger by 2020. As their campaign says 'put food into mouths not cars'. Greens have long opposed this biofuel production - but have often been lone voices - however the evidence is now clear and action must be taken.

Photo: local artist Russ

There is a Department of Transport consultation out at the moment - see here. See more about this issue plus a short video and action to email the Government: http://www.actionaid.org.uk/biofuels

Food prices caused by speculation: Tories stopping safer system

Friday a week or so ago I went to the Coffee House Discussion on Food Security - sponsored by the Green party but also for the first time in conjunction with WDM. Martin Whiteside, the Green Party parliamentary spokesperson who works with development agencies introduced the topic then Christine Haigh, the WDM spokesperson spoke before the floor was opened up to questions and comments.

This blog covers a new report by nef and the shocking revelations about Barclays - scroll down and click on 'read more'. Basically the international trading prices of major grains are 70% higher than they were this time last year, and near or above the levels during the price hikes of 2008. We have seen demos in Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria and India but it isn't just about the weather - the financial markets are playing a massive role.

UN officials referred to the effects as, 'a silent mass murder', and the desperation and violence appearing as, 'the new face of hunger'. So how is it that hedge funds and investment banks can have such an influence on the food? 

Stop the palm-oil power station

A planning application was lodged last year with Bristol City Council for a 50mW, palm oil powered, electricity generating station (See here my previous blog). As noted this would result in the destruction of tropical forest six times the area of Bristol, with appalling environmental, social, and greenhouse-gas consequences.

Photo: Randwick Woods

The planning application was rejected, 6 votes to 2, by the Bristol NW Planning Committee, citing grave doubts about the sustainability of the fuel source and the greenhouse gases associated with its production, distribution, and use.

There is now a campaign to fight the appeal by W4B against the decision. The papers have just been sent to the Secretary of State for local government Eric Pickles, but political opinion is shifting against this scheme and others like it, and we need to keep up the pressure, so please do your bit to help! For further information see the ACSEB web-site www.acseb.co.uk

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Local Government, will (with his staff) decide on whether to allow the appeal, by 22 December. Many of us fear that the Inspector will recommend the appeal be allowed (meaning that the power-station can be built and will earn £36 million in subsidies for the shareholders). There is still an opportunity to lobby against this decision.

Here is my email based on a campaign email to Eric Pickles and our local MP Neil Carmichael: eric.pickles(at)communities.gsi.gov.uk

Dear Secretary of State,

Planning Appeal APP/Z0166/A/10/2126342/NWF

Town and Country Planning Act 1990 - Appeal by W4B Bristol Ltd
Site at Sevalco Ltd, Severn Road, Chittening, Bristol, BS11 0YU

I wish to draw your attention to the above planning appeal. The planning application was rejected, 6 votes to 2, by the Bristol NW Planning Committee, citing grave doubts about the sustainability of the fuel source and the greenhouse gases associated with its production, distribution, and use.

I urge you to reject the appeal for the following reasons:


1. This proposal for a 50mW, palm oil powered, electricity-generating station, with the palm oil being shipped from SE Asia, would result in the destruction of tropical forest six times the area of Bristol, with devastating environmental, social, and greenhouse-gas consequences.

2. The Inspector, Trevor Cookson, ruled at the pre-appeal hearing that the origin and sustainability of the fuel was not a ‘Material Consideration’ under planning law. He based this on one sentence from Planning Policy Statement PPS22. This same document contains a caveat that it is ‘not policy’ and is a technical guidance document and thus is not law. Cookson’s interpretation means that for planning it would be illegal to ‘think globally and act locally’. This is contrary to common sense and to the government’s policies of devolving more decision making to the local level and their policy of being “the greenest government ever”. I believe that the Inspector’s ruling was a breach of due process.

3. Local MPs from all three leading parties oppose the scheme including: Charlotte Leslie (Con.) Dr. Liam Fox (Con.) Stephen Williams (Lib Dem), Jack Lopresti (Lab.) and Kerry McCarthy (Lab.)

4. You have received a petition from the villagers of Hallam, near the site, signed by 260 people from only 140 households. They can witness that there was no local consultation about the proposal – contrary to the Arhus convention.

5. Barbara Janke, Leader of Bristol City Council, has written to you to oppose the scheme. If it goes ahead it would in one step destroy Bristol Council’s unanimous resolution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020. It is thus against Bristol’s local plan.

6. An examination of the file will show that large numbers of residents wrote to oppose the scheme. The on-line petition to the Council shows 424 objections were local, out of a total of 514 valid entries. The statements in favour were in single figures.

Cllr Philip Booth, Stroud District councillor for Randwick, Whiteshill and Ruscombe ward

Nestle blunder on with wholly unacceptable policies

Greenpeace launched a controversial Kit Kat advert on Wednesday and demanded that Nestlé stop using palm oil from companies destroying Indonesia's rainforests - and threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orang-utans towards extinction. As they report in their latest email events have unfolded rapidly Here is their quick recap:

• Nestlé told Youtube to pull our video due to copyright infringement. It was later reinstated, but not before we'd uploaded it elsewhere and asked supporters to do the same. Current number of views: 585,000 and counting.
• Facebook users went to Nestlé's fan page to ask what the company was doing about their palm oil suppliers, where they were met with rude and arrogant responses from the company. Word of this spread like wildfire around the internet, and has been the talk of many high-profile blogs and news websites.
• Thousands of people around the world sent Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke emails, but we've discovered that Nestlé blocked many of these. Now, emails are going to André Kudelski, a member of the board of directors, and we're working out what to do with the ones which didn't get through.

Nestlé have issued a statement saying that they'll stop buying directly from the worst supplier, Sinar Mas, but this doesn't go far enough as much of their palm oil comes through third parties, like Cargill, who continue to buy palm oil from Sinar Mas.

It seems our actions are having a big impact at Nestlé HQ. If you haven't already, please consider emailing Nestlé to ask that they stop using palm oil.

"We all deserve to have a break - but having one shouldn't involve taking a bite out of Indonesia's precious rainforests. We're asking Nestlé to give rainforests and orang-utans a break and stop buying palm oil from destroyed forests." Greenpeace

See the video and more about the campaign here- plus you can email Nestle from that website. Lastly you can use the biofuel 'label' below to link to previous blogs on palm oil. And long ago I was involved in the campaign to try and stop Nestle selling it's powdered baby milk - see here and to try and get them to improve their labeling - see here.

Tesco must come clean on their biofuels

Tesco have previously admitted using Palm oil in their biofuels - as this blog has noted before this is associated with a number of serious problems including large scale deforestation, adding to climate change and human rights abuses in Indonesia.

Tesco have said they ask their suppliers to provide a sustainability statement however apparently despite requests for a copy of this it has never been forthcoming.

Kevin Lister, a Nailsworth campaigner has been seeking answers - can Tesco now demonstrate responsibly sourced biofuels? Will it remove it from other products? See his latest letter to Tesco here, a letter to The Times here and a link the recent documentary on the Community Channel, 'Lost in Palm Oil'.

We've got 10:10 now we have 50:50

OK so we've got 10:10 in Stroud - one of the first ten Councils to sign up - and Green councillors are also all signed up to make efforts to reduce their carbon footprints by 10% during the year 2010. Now we have a 50:50 campaign from Ecotricity.

Ecotricity say they are kicking off the energy debate in the Stroud District by pushing for 50% of our energy needs to come from clean, green energy from wind turbines right here in Stroud. They are seeking our help to see more turbines locally.

Of course to some extent this is a marketing gimmick as we all know Ecotricity have plans for 8 turbines near Stincombe - see questions and answers and links to Green comment on that here. But the reality is we must start developing renewables - not the nonsense of biofuels that I covered on Wednesdays blog, but a serious approach to meeting our energy needs. Amazingly the 8 turbines proposed would meet 25% of domestic needs in the whole of the Stroud District.

I've voted yes and would urge others to support this move - good on this local company for trying a different approach to get this issue more coverage. Talking to them it is good to hear they are so passionate about tackling climate change and meeting our energy needs of the future. You can vote and find out more at: http://www.stroud5050.org

Help stop biofuel power station in Bristol

Local Green Party groups in Newham, Ealing, Newport and Portland have helped stop 3 out of 3 biofuel power stations being granted planning permission. Since the power stations would very likely use palm oil, this has saved 30,000 hectares of rainforest being destroyed or if it was EU land to provide feedstock, the land saved can feed over a 100,000 people. Now the threat of a station has come to Avonmouth. Biofuelwatch have written asking me to help publicise this latest threat: the info below is mostly from them.

Photo: from Russ

The plans in Portland by W4B Renewable Energy for a biofuel power station were rejected by Weymouth and Portland Council, amidst concerns about the impact of biofuels in general and palm oil in particular on the climate, on forests and other ecosystems and on communities in the global South. There were also concerns over air pollution and public health in nearby areas.

Now W4B has submitted plans for a biofuel power station more than twice the size of the largest one applied for before. They want to build a 50 MW power station at Avonmouth Docks in Bristol, which would burn 90,000 tonnes of vegetable oil, most likely palm oil, every year. More than 22,000 hectares of oil palm plantations would be required to feed this one power station, and even more land if other feedstock was used.

W4B have mentioned jatropha as well as palm oil, yet jatropha is not yet commercially available, many plantings are failing, yet thousands of people have already lost their land and livelihood for jatropha plantations to feed Europe’s biofuel market. Peat expert Professor Siegert of Munich University has said about palm oil power stations in Germany: “We were able to prove that the making of these plantations and the burning of the rainforests and peat areas emits many thousands of times as much CO2 as we then are able to prevent by using palm oil. And that is a disastrous balance for the climate.” Ever more communities in countries like Colombia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Ecuador are losing their land to palm oil companies, with plantation expansion to a large extent driven by Europe’s biofuel policies.

Biofuelwatch also suggest local residents will be affected by increased levels of nitrogen oxide and small particulates which are linked to respiratory and cardiac disease. Avonmouth in particular already has high levels of pollution. I am not sure if this is likely to cut much ice with the regulators. Ground level NOx and particulates from this plant will be unlikely to breach accepted limits.

Anyhow there is plenty wrong with this plant so please go and object to this application at:
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/w4bsep2009.php

If you live in Bristol I am sure they could do with help campaigning on this - and if you live in or near London go along to the demonstration outside the Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on 12th October at 6.30 pm against the subsidies for biofuels. For
more information, see www.campaigncc.org/biofuels

Without 'green energy' subsidies, biofuel power stations like the one planned in Bristol would not be viable.

Sunday Times on looming food shortages and Stroud plans

Yesterdays Sunday Times mentions the work of a couple of Green party councillors in putting together the report re food in Stroud District -this is worth a read - we hope to hear more about this over coming months as this is an issue that needs to be heard.

Photo: Grapes in my garden last year

Why we forgot how to grow food

As a food shortage looms, people are digging for Britain — and their dinner table. John-Paul Flintoff gets back to our roots

Not long before Christmas, a man walked into the care home next door to his house and asked the manager if it would be possible for a group of neighbours to grow food in the vast gardens. The manager said he would be delighted. In the days that followed, the man casually asked various neighbours whether they would like to get involved. They all said yes. So he popped over to the care home with them, and each remarked how large the garden was, and what a lot of food could be grown there.

As well as beds for vegetables, there could be fruit trees trained to grow up the south-facing walls, a bed of herbs for the kitchens, and flowers to take inside. The group could perhaps even keep chickens, once the fruit and veg were up and running.

The man went home after each trip feeling tremendously pleased with himself. I know this, because the man was me. Now, it’s not as if I did anything special: I didn’t lift a spade. Many people have done considerably more, as part of a grass-roots movement spreading rapidly across the nation, to grow our own food. And fast. Because for the first time in decades, Britain faces the real prospect of severe food shortages.

About 40% of the food we eat is imported. That includes an astounding 95% of our fruit and most of the wheat in our bread. This reliance on goods from abroad is perilous. During the 2000 fuel strike, Sainsbury’s chief executive wrote to the prime minister to warn that food supplies would run out “in days rather than weeks”. Supermarkets rationed bread, sugar and milk. The situation is now arguably worse: world food reserves are at historically low levels, and last year several countries stopped exporting staples because their own populations were going hungry.

If the problems were only temporary, it would be bad enough. But they’re not. We have become dependent on fossil fuels that are starting to run out. Taking account of all the oil- and gas-derived fertilisers, pesticides, distribution and retail practices, our modern farming uses an incredibly wasteful 10 calories of energy to put a single calorie of food on your plate.

Reverting to old-fashioned farming will be hard because our soil is in poor shape. Fertility has come to rely on annual, chemical top-ups instead of the traditional long-term build-up using animal manure and crop rotation. Suddenly taking away all the artificial fertilisers will result in drastically lower yields. And if we’re to feed ourselves, we can’t afford lower yields — because the UK is more densely populated than China, Pakistan or any African country except Rwanda.

Meanwhile, levels of minerals such as phosphate, which plants need for healthy growth, are falling fast. Global supplies have peaked, and last year phosphate prices rose by 700%. Britain imports 80% of its phosphates. The only alter-native is to return all food waste and animal and human manure to the land, instead of flushing it to sea. And let’s not forget the extremes of weather that will result from global warming. Rising sea levels spell doom for the 57% of grade-1 arable land in east England already below sea level. In 2000, during the unprecedented heat wave, crop yields in Italy and France fell by a third.

Perhaps most importantly, we lack know-how. Most of us today have little experience of food- growing. The farmers we do have are mostly approaching retirement, and there are few of them: agricultural employment has fallen from 40% in 1900 to 2% today, and much of the work is done by casual workers brought in from abroad.

Modern governments have not regarded self-sufficiency in food as a desirable aim, according to Professor Tim Lang of City University in London; but last year that changed. A report from the Cabinet Office concluded that “existing patterns of food production are not fit for a low-carbon, more resource-constrained future”. In response, Colin Tudge, the author of the book Feeding People is Easy, called for “a global renaissance in agriculture”. This more or less agreed with the insights of a less well-known environmentalist, Jeremy Clarkson: “We are heading towards The End of Days, and you’d better get yourself an allotment.”

That’s what I did last year, just in time, because now dozens of others are on the waiting list.

All over the country, people are starting to think about producing food. Some because they fancy a bit of the River Cottage lifestyle, but many — including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall — have been inspired by the growing Transition Town movement. Transition Towns were started by an Englishman, Rob Hopkins, after a stint working as a teacher in Kinsale, Ireland. At the time, he never imagined that oil might one day run out. “But then I showed students a film, The End of Suburbia. I have to say it was as traumatic and shocking for me as it was for the students.” The film made it clear that no aspect of life will be the same after cheap oil runs out — which it suggested will happen very soon. “When we got over the shock, we set about looking at Kinsale,” says Hopkins. “We examined how the town might look in 20 years if it adapted instead of pretending it wasn’t happening. We came up with a vision, then backcast it to see how to get there, year by year.”

Unlike other environmental initiatives, this deliberately involved finding the “upside” rather than dwelling on doom. “I like to use the analogy of inviting a reluctant friend to join you on holiday,” Hopkins explains. “If you paint a picture of the beach, the pool and the candlelit taverna by the sea, they’re more likely to come.”

Returning to England, Hopkins helped to create a similar “energy descent” plan in Totnes, Devon — the first Transition Town. Others soon followed. Lewes, Glastonbury and Stroud are full of middle-class hippie types, but in Bristol it’s the poorer districts that have been most dynamic, and across Wales the impetus has largely come from the agricultural community. Today, there are more than 150 “official” groups (who have formally asked to join the network) and hundreds of others still preparing or mulling it over. There are TTs in New Zealand, the US, and on The Archers.

After first talking to Hopkins, two years ago, I registered my own corner of northwest London on the Transition Town website and hoped that someone would join me. Nothing happened. So I cycled to south London to meet Duncan Law, an actor and director who parked the day job many, many months ago to devote himself full time to launching Transition Town Brixton.

The cafe where we met, Honest Foods, had a policy of sourcing food locally. Law asked for a word with the chef, said he knew someone with a vast crop of pears in their garden, and asked if the chef would be interested in buying them? Without hesitation, the chef said yes. I was impressed.

Law took me on a tour of Brixton: him on his recumbent bike and me on my foldaway with tiny wheels. If we looked odd together, the effect was increased by Law stopping every so often to collect apples that had fallen from trees. He told me about an entrepreneur who made £4,000 in the early 1950s — more than Law’s headmaster father earned in a year — by commissioning children to gather blackberries for him. TT Brixton, he said, was about to start mapping fruit trees across south London. (They’ve since done that.)

Near Balham, we visited Sue Sheehan, a Transition Town supporter who recently started growing fruit and veg in boxes in the tiny space in front of her terraced house. I still hadn’t got the hang of how to be upbeat about peak oil and climate change and ungraciously told her that the crop, though plentiful, would not be enough to keep her alive when the trouble starts. But every lettuce you grow yourself, Law said, saves growing another one miles away and shipping it to you, and all the emissions associated with that.

A few days later, I watched The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil, a documentary film about what happened to Cuba after Soviet oil supplies dried up. It shows how Cubans gradually turned away from a heavy reliance on carbon-intensive agriculture: in rural areas, they learnt to plough with oxen; in cities, all kinds of spaces were turned to horticulture, from window boxes to wasteland. The transition took more than two years, and Cubans had to forgo the equivalent of a meal a day — but by the end, even people in cities were producing half their annual fruit and vegetable needs.

I finally found like-minded people nearer my home, willing to launch a Transition Town. In Belsize library, we hosted a week of film screenings culminating with The Power of Community. It was clear from the question-and-answer session afterwards that the audience was gagging to start growing food. Strangely, they just seemed to want some kind of permission to get started. I improvised: “Just go for it! What can you lose?”

Transition Belsize was born and I found myself co-ordinating the 40-strong food group. The first thing the group did was visit my allotment. My new friends weeded, built a new raised bed, and took home some of my surplus apples. Since then, we have gathered names of people on the waiting list for allotments and put them in touch with householders who possess gardens but insufficient time, expertise, or ability to grow food themselves. We’ve set up a section in the local library with books and magazines devoted to food-growing, co-ordinated bulk purchasing of otherwise costly organic food so a wider portion of the population can access it, and got agreement from the local franchise of Budgens to sell produce grown by local people in gardens and allotments.

Another member, Councillor Alexis Rowell, rather brilliantly persuaded the council to allow residents on its estates to grow food there. Having done that, he went knocking on doors of one neighbouring estate to ask if people would like to grow food there. Over the course of a single weekend, members of the Transition group transformed the previously overgrown and unused gardens. Residents supplied hot soup and drinks, and joined in the work too. I travelled one cold January morning to Stroud, Gloucestershire, where members of another Transition group have done amazing things. Stroud has one of the country’s most successful farmers’ markets, and two Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes, through which householders fund a farmer to supply food to them directly. The first was started in 2001, by four individuals renting an acre of land and employing a vegetable grower. After two years they had formally established a co-operative and rented 23 acres. Today two full-time growers provide veg and meat to 189 households, with enough profit to pay a bonus.

Meat production runs at a loss, and has to be subsidised by the veg, but the farmers see stock as essential to good stewardship of the land, providing plentiful manure. There’s another benefit: marketing. Animals can be very attractive parts of any membership project. For that reason, the CSA houses its pigs in a prominent position, beside notices explaining how the scheme works.

One of the hardest things for the CSA is getting people involved. Most members are happy to pay to receive veg — after all, it’s cheaper than buying from most supermarkets — and will turn up to occasional events on the farm, such as wassailing parties and apple pruning in January, blossom celebrations in May, haymaking in August, a bonfire-night party, and singing to cows in the barn at Christmas.

But schemes like this need a critical mass of members willing to help out more routinely, and might lose energy or collapse altogether if a small minority of volunteers find themselves always responsible for making it work. Wandering over weed-infested fields with two such volunteers, Helen Pitel and Caroline Denny, I see for myself how hard the work is. “But we can’t let this fail,” says Pitel cheerfully.

Among other setbacks, the CSAs have had meat stolen from their packing shed, and had to deal with unsupportive neighbours, such as one who complained about the appearance of polytunnels on the hillside and forced the CSA to secure retrospective planning approval. Even members can be difficult. As part of recent efforts to get them to share trips to the farm to collect food for each other, a list of names and addresses were sent out. Some complained that this breached data security and risked ID theft, reveals one member of the core group: “It sometimes feels like there is a long way to go in building the ‘community’ bit of Community Supported Agriculture!”

I’m not surprised to find that setting up and running large-scale projects of this sort can be difficult, and no less impressed for that reason.

One of the most significant achievements of Stroud’s food group did not involve growing anything. It’s a comprehensive analysis, conducted by members who happen both to be local councillors, into whether or not the district could feed itself. The report by Fi Macmillan and Dave Cockcroft was inspired by an article in The Land magazine, Can Britain Feed Itself?, written by Simon Fairlie, a journalist and campaigner who has a sideline selling scythes (to, among others, me). Fairlie lives in Somerset and has some connection to a local Transition group, but he’s been doing this kind of work for years. His article was itself inspired by a book published in 1975.

Using the same model, Macmillan and Cockcroft investigated whether 110,000 people living in Stroud district could be fed if they relied on the 37,000 hectares of available farmland. The initial finding was encouraging: the district does have enough land to feed itself, though only if people reduce their meat intake to a quarter of the current UK average of 80 kilograms per person per year, and significantly reduce their sugar intake. There would be some surplus with which to trade for staples such as citrus, tea and coffee.

Alas, the analysis doesn’t stop there. Macmillan and Cockcroft go on to examine whether Stroud can feed itself without inputs from fossil fuels, and with land set aside to produce the biofuels needed to replace them. (An additional pressure on land, which they only mention in passing, is the need for land-based textiles, whether from sheep or fibres from hemp and other crops.)

The conclusion, this time, is distressing: “We have nowhere near enough land to produce a significant proportion of our current level of transport and heating fuels.” Crikey. If that’s the dismal outlook for the district of Stroud, set among all those rolling fields, what hope is there for London? Is it time to get out?

Rob Hopkins thinks not. He used to believe the most responsible thing to do was to move to rural areas, build a house and grow your own food. “But when I found out about peak oil I came to question that. We had built our own house, and were growing our own food, but this was only going to be sustainable if I am prepared to sit at the gate with a shotgun. What do I do with my carrots if the village up the road is cold and hungry?

“We have to move towards collective solutions,” he says. “Peak oil is a call to those of us who have been out in the highlands to come back and help, because the skills are very much in demand now.” According to Simon Fairlie, supplying our needs in the future will also need considerable movement in the other direction: dispersal of both livestock and humans around the country, not least so that all that human manure can be put back on the land.

For now, the best thing I can do is to make a go of food-growing in London, as they did in Havana. So on my return from Stroud I throw myself with renewed energy into the Belsize group.

Over dinner, the core group wrestles with strategies for growing the group ever larger. We agree to work hard in our own streets, as individuals, then the next street, and so on. One attractive idea is to deliberately grow “too many” seedlings, giving ourselves a perfectly amiable pretext for knocking on doors and inoffensively getting neighbours started on food-growing.

Back home, inspired by the Guerrilla Gardening movement to grow beans on a patch of scrubby land beyond the end of my garden, I stare across at the vast gardens of the neighbouring care home, and notice — not for the first time — just how big and bare they are. Then I look down the road and notice that one of my neighbours, five doors down, has likewise been cultivating the wasteland. I knock on his door, we get chatting, and in no time he’s touring the gardens of the care home with me. A few days later, I ask a family with girls about the same age as my own daughter. They visit the site too.

I set up a neighbourhood project on an online food-growing network and soon my neighbours sign up. I decide to ask them over for drinks. We’ll watch the first episode of The Good Life, then The Power of Community. In a few weeks time we will have achieved nearly as much here as Belsize, down the road, achieved all last year. After that, who knows, we might set up our own veg-box scheme…

But I shouldn’t get carried away. In The Transition Handbook, published last year and already reprinted several times, Rob Hopkins offers what he calls a “cheerful disclaimer”: “Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact. We truly don’t know if this will work.

“Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale. What we are convinced of is this: (a) if we wait for the government, it’ll be too little, too late; (b) if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but (c) if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.'

Fact file on GM crops

Just a quick blog to highlight this useful fact file on GM crops below but first a bit on the latest re UK Government then on some controvesy in the Catholic Church.

Photo: Russ cartoon kindly reproduced with permission

It was in the late 1990s, New Labour led by Prime Minister Blair, Biotech corporations and some scientists celebrated GM crops as the solution to world hunger and various diseases. The citizens said: 'No! We do not want GM food!' Instead of honouring that, both Blair and now Brown’s governments have continued to push GM - the latest move is to commission a new study which many believe is in the hope that it will give them the answer they want ie GM is safe and will solve hunger problems.

However already we have a plethora of good studies which have refuted claims by the Biotech companies that GM crops will play a significant role in alleviating global hunger. For example Columbian priest Seán McDonagh writes: "In April 2008, a report from the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was published. It was a very extensive report involving the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Health Organisation, agronomists from many government agencies, civic society groups and scientific bodies. More than 400 scientists were involved in the research which took four years to complete. It maintained that GM crops were controversial and that they will not play a substantial role in addressing the challenge of climate change, the loss of biodiversity, food security, poverty and hunger. It did not rule out a role for GM crops in the future, but highlighted the problems which the current regime of patenting crops has had for farmers and researchers. The report maintained that the most pressing agricultural need is to support small-scale farmers who operate in diverse ecosystems. These farmers need better access to education and more appropriate technology designed to improve farming in a particular location. Micro-credit schemes are needed to protect farmers from loan-sharks. Robert Watson, the director of IAASTD, and chief scientist at the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, responded to a question from a reporter with The Daily Mail: “Are GM crops the simple answer to hunger and poverty?” with the words, “I would argue, no.”"

In November 2008, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the UN Environment Programme produced a report that found that, contrary to claims that the only way to increase agricultural output is through modernising agriculture, organic farming holds the key to food security in Africa. In February 2009, Friends of the Earth International published a substantial report on Food Sovereignty; Who benefits from GM crops? It concluded that, “GM crops cannot, and are unlikely to ever contribute to poverty reduction, global food security or sustainable farming.” Firstly, hunger is chiefly attributed to poverty, not lack of food production. Secondly, the vast bulk of GM crops are fed to animals, not to the world’s poor. Thirdly, GM crops do not increase yield and they often lead to a greater use of pesticide. Fourthly, the real beneficiaries of GM crops are the biotech corporations who have make huge profits from selling expensive seeds and pesticides.

Catholic Church and GM

Pope Benedict XVI has given African bishops a draft document that specifically attacks producers of genetically modified foods, in the context of a more general condemnation of multinationals for "invading" Africa and damaging the environment by "defiling God's creation". See more here - and here an important Synod document also wants re GM. Yet a closed-door meeting is to be held at the Vatican in Rome in May to discuss a campaign backing GM crops. In spite of the concern over GM crops in Catholic circles, it is claimed that the meeting will give GM the "moral high ground of the Vatican" - see here. GMWatch note: The Pontifical Academy has regularly been hijacked to punt industry interests such as nuclear power, without it in any way reflecting official blessing. The news coming out of Africa, where the Pope has just released a working document highly critical of GMOs, clearly shows that not only do the aims of this meeting of GM lobbyists not have official blessing, they are actually immoral.

Facts in the File

1.ARE GM CROPS TAKING OVER GLOBAL AGRICULTURE?
2.ARE GM CROPS EXPANDING IN EUROPE?
3.WHAT GM CROPS ARE BEING GROWN?
4.DO GM CROPS MATCH THE HYPE?
5.ARE GM CROPS REDUCING PESTICIDE USE?
6.WHO BENEFITS FROM GM CROPS?
7.WHO'S MILKING THE FOOD CRISIS?
8.QUOTE: SELLING THE DREAM
9.FACT FILE SOURCES

1.ARE GM CROPS TAKING OVER GLOBAL AGRICULTURE?
*GM plantings make up a mere 2.4% of global agricultural crop land
*nearly 80% of the global area planted to GM crops was in just three countries - the US, Argentina and Brazil
*the US alone plants over 50% of the world's GM crops
*less than 3% of cropland in India and China is planted with GM crops, almost exclusively just 1 crop - GM cotton

2.ARE GM CROPS EXPANDING IN EUROPE?
*in the 27 countries of the European Union, GM crop cultivation represents a mere 0.21% of agricultural land
*the number of hectares of GM crops fell last year in Europe
*EuropaBio inflated the figures for GM crops grown in Europe by almost a quarter to mask the decline
*the area of GM crops being grown has actually fallen in Europe every year since 2005

3.WHAT GM CROPS ARE BEING GROWN?
*most investment has gone into a small number of crops and traits targeted toward large-scale commercial farming
*only four crops - soya, maize, cotton and canola (oilseed rape) - comprise virtually 100% of GM agriculture
*GM rice, wheat, tomatoes, sweetcorn, potatoes and popcorn have all been rejected as unacceptable in the global marketplace
*GM papaya cultivation in Hawaii has been declining over several years

4.DO GM CROPS MATCH THE HYPE?
*none of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential
*some studies show GM crops reduce yield
*disease-tolerant GM crops are practically non-existent
*the GM industry has not marketed a single GM crop with enhanced nutrition, drought-tolerance, salt-tolerance or any of the other 'beneficial' traits long-promised by the industry
*there are no commercially available GM crops designed for biofuels

5.ARE GM CROPS REDUCING PESTICIDE USE?
*almost all GM crops involve just 2 traits, mainly just one trait - herbicide tolerance
*herbicide tolerance is found in over 80% of all GM crops planted worldwide
*GM crops have contributed substantially to increased pesticide use
*most new GM crop varieties are also pesticide-promoting
*GM crops have caused an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds
*this is encouraging the use of more toxic petsicides, including ones banned in some European countries

6.WHO BENEFITS FROM GM CROPS?
*the real beneficiaries are the GM companies which profit from patents, expensive GM seeds, and increased pesticide sales
*Monsanto is the world's largest seed firm
*Monsanto holds a near monopoly in the biotech "traits" incorporated in GM seeds
*Monsanto is the world's fifth largest pesticide firm
*Monsanto markets Roundup, the world's biggest selling pesticide
*Monsanto controls roughly 60% of the market for glyphosate (the active ingredient of Roundup)
*Roundup is used in conjunction with Monsanto's 'Roundup Ready seeds'

7.WHO'S MILKING THE FOOD CRISIS?
*The World Bank attributes 75% of global food price inflation to "biofuels"
*Monsanto has been at the heart of the "biofuels" lobby, particularly the lobby for corn ethanol
*The price of Monsanto's GM triple-stack corn will reportedly increase by around 35% in 2009 - by $95-100 per bag, to top $300 per bag
*The average price for soybean seed, the largest GM crop in the US, has risen by more than 50% in just two years from 2006 to 2008 - from $32.30 to $49.23 per planted acre
*Retail prices for Roundup herbicide have increased from just $32 per gallon in December 2006 to $45 per gallon a year later, to $75 per gallon by June 2008 - a 134% price hike in less than two years

8.QUOTE: SELLING THE DREAM
"All those dreams... the blind will see, the lame will walk... has turned out to be science fiction. They are basically chemical companies selling more chemicals. They've been able to spread these herbicide-promoting plants around because it is more convenient for farmers who can just mass-spray their crops. But they've given absolutely nothing to the consumer while causing more chemical pollution and contamination."
-- Andrew Kimbrell, lawyer and executive director of the Center for Food Safety (USA)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8854

9.FACT FILE SOURCES
Almost all the facts in our fact file are taken from "Who Benefits from GM crops?: Feeding the biotech giants, not the world's poor", Friends of the Earth International (2009)
Full report:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/full_report_2009.pdf
Executive Summary:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/Exec_summary_2009.pdf
EU briefing:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/EU_briefing_2009.pdf

News on climate change and a walk in Standish woods

Going through my emails from while I was away I have come across a number that I wanted to share below. I am now nearly through all emails from when I was away - hopefully will tackle last few later today!

Photo: the photos in this blog entry are from a walk on Sunday in Standish woods - wonderful wood anenomes - we live in a very special place!!

Monbiot on why we can't afford to abandon efforts to cut emissions: "If we behave as if it's too late, then our prophecy is bound to come true....Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it's over." See article here. Indeed I read this week that even our business leaders are unhappy about action on climate change - they have delivered a surprise attack on the government's environmental policy, arguing that ministers are not doing enough to cut global warming emissions or make sure the UK does not run out of power. See Guardian 6th Apr 2009.

Photo; new beech leaves

Green energy crisis: the growing crisis of confidence in the green energy sector is exposed by a survey which revealed that more than three quarters of Britain's green energy companies were now facing enormous financial difficulties gaining vital access to loans and investment money. Indeed I was dismayed to read that BP has decided to lay off 620 people, more than a quarter of its workforce, at its solar business. Solar energy could soon become available for the mass market, but this move could significantly stall progress towards harnessing this abundant energy source. Similarly The Times report Royal Dutch Shell has announced plans to scale back its renewable energy business and focus purely on oil, gas and biofuels - this is very dire - see here. The UK Government, for all its pontificating about the need to invest in green technology, is failing to support and create incentives for investment in the UK renewables industry. We have a proud history of manufacturing in the UK and yet presented with opportunities to become a major player in 21st century technologies, we appear to be letting the chances slip by. Sadly one project that is moving ahead is a plant in Dorset to create power from imported virgin palm oil - see more here. It claims to be green but as this blog has covered the dangers of biofuels at length before so I wont repeat them here - go to here for further info.

Photo: beached beech tree leaves

London success and failures: The London Development Agency has proposed to offer free energy saving measures to every London home. The announcement follows a major investigation by the London Assembly's Environment Committee, which chaired by Darren Johnson, which flagged up the success of a free insulation scheme in Huddersfield which was put together by Green party councillors and is already delivering lower bills, reduced CO2 emissions and new jobs. The new London scheme represents a major u-turn by the LDA who were previously planning to abandon home insulation work altogether - see more re the 2,200 jobs and average annual savings of £230 per household it will create here. As Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP said at the party conference a nationwide programme along these lines would generate almost 140,000 UK jobs. However the bad news is that Boris is slashing London's environment/climate change programme in half - will they still be able to deliver. We knew Boris was not going to be good for London compared to Ken Livingstone but this is seriously gloomy news and will mean London cannot hope to lead on this issue. See more here.

Photo: beech leaves out already

Paul Mobb's new website: Paul Mobbs who was in Stroud last year has done lots to his website - well worth an exploration of peak Oil issues - in particular is The Great Outdoors initiative which is about "communicating the most basic of skills that are essential to life – cooking, making fire, heating water and finding shelter – so that we can rediscover our potential as 'human animals'; functional beings who can look after their own needs irrespective of what's happening around them. What fifty years of consumerism has done for Britain is de-skill its citizens; if we look at the practical skills possessed by their grandparents, many people today have only the vaguest idea of how to manage without mains services and ready-prepared food." See it at: http://www.fraw.org.uk/outdoors/index.shtml

Photo: wood anenomes like the first photo in this series carpeting the woods - and the very first couple of bluebells out already along with violets and more

Lower Shaw Farm events: talking of reskilling - Lower Shaw Farm near Swindon has lots of events - some may remember this blog joined the campaign to help save this exciting place which is now v much more secure - anyhow see their website: http://www.lowershawfarm.co.uk/

Photo: Dog Mercury lush green in woods

Archbish's lecture: The Gloucestershire Churches Environmental Justice Network at which I have spoken forwarded the Archbishop's recent lecture in York: Environment is 'an issue of justice'. The Archbish spelt out why respect for the environment is not an optional extra, particularly for Christians. Getting our relationship with the rest of the created order into proper perspective is both a responsibility and a necessity. Failure could have disastrous consequences especially for some of the poorest and most vulnerable. “There is no way of manipulating our environment that is without cost or consequence … we are inextricably bound up with the destiny of our world.” Dr Williams suggests that “we are capable of changing our situation”; in “Christian terms, this needs a radical change of heart, a conversion.” He said: "The ‘redemption’ of people and material life in general is not a matter of resigning from the business of labour and of transformation – as if we could – but the search for a form of action that will preserve and nourish an interconnected development of humanity and its environment." He concluded with a quotation from the contemporary Greek theologian, Christos Yannaras who speaks in his Variations on the Song of Songs, “of how love compels you to see things differently – to love ‘the landscapes we have looked at together.’” “We love” says Dr Williams “what we see together with God.” See more and hear speech at: www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2351

Vision 21 news: the March edition is out now of Gloucestershire green news..."21 Today is a regular electronic newsletter which focuses on a variety of sustainable issues in Gloucestershire. In the newsletter you can find out about local news, views, events, top environmental tips and useful contacts." See here.

Photo: a patch in leaves where a deer must have slept

Lib Dems hypocrisy: LibDem leader Nick Clegg helped launch a new Greenpeace report on energy-efficiency and jobs, but the LibDems have a rather "rather spotty record on energy, not least in Clegg's own Sheffield power-base." See here.

UN Condemns Monsanto

The President of the United Nations General Assembly condemned Monsanto for profiteering in his opening remarks last week.

Photo: Car king of the food chain? A cartoon from local scribbler Russ used here with his kind permission - infact have been looking for an excuse to use it and this speech is perfect.

President H. E. M. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is to be applauded for highlighting that the global food crisis is worse than ever. In his remarks at the UN in New York City, he cited World Bank figures, which now blame 75% of the food crisis on the current mass transfer of food crop production towards biofuels.

According to Brockmann, the world's food supply: "has been subordinated to the economic aims of a handful of multinational corporations that monopolize all aspects of food production, from seeds to major distribution chains, and they have been the prime beneficiaries of the world crisis. A look at the figures for 2007, when the world food crisis began, shows that corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill, which control the cereals market, saw their profits increase by 45 and 60 per cent, respectively."

Other related stuff: See also an open letter from Vietnamese victims of Monsanto's Agent Orange just published here - and if you haven't seen the video re Round-Up watch it here - and why GM wont feed the world here - and last Zombie GM here. Plus see previous blog here on rising food prices and here related to peak oil and famine.

World food crisis: take action

I just got this message below on a Transition Stroud email list. It is full of passion about the need for action - and certainly the message further below from Avaaz should make us all think - a world food crisis is hitting - do please follow the link and sign the petition.

Grangemouth has shown us we are also enormously vulnerable to oil prices and availability - see my letter to local press copied on this blog on Saturday 26th April and the comment re £10 a gallon on my blog on 5th April and the 13th Feb about why the price of peak oil is famine - indeed it is an issue I've returned to regularly - and an issue our Government has completely failed to grasp. Let us hope all this tragedy will awake them...

as you can see from the message below, everything we have talked about is becoming more and more our daily reality. a world wide food crisis is happening out there and is imminent everywhere else. still there are so many folk that brush it off thinking anything they could do would make little difference anyway, that one more shopper in the local supermarket is but a drop in the ocean, that eating out of season veg is normal, that a quick trip to the video store in the car won't hurt much, that government will someday do something... it is this apathy that stifles movements for change. we need to take action and to believe that every act builds the collective act. here in Stroud we have huge potential to create a sustainable local economy. there are so many ideas and projects being developed but we must support them in every way to make them a reality. this is really a plea (and a rant) to get out there whenever you can to join all the positive efforts and events, workshops and talks, and most importantly to bring these messages back into your own home where you can make the most difference... eat seasonal veg (join a CSA)!! (your kids will learn to love it and your bellies and wallets will feel better for it!); dig up part of your lawn; change where your electricity comes from; switch off things you don't need; share your bath water or take a shower!; make your own conserves, preserves and booze; buy local; walk and cycle more; join the car club; rediscover charity shops and swap stuff with friends; carry cloth shopping bags and refuse plastic; get an allotment... and please get yourselves out there to any proactive event you have time for!! xx

Avaaz write: "We're plunging headlong into a world food crisis. Rocketing prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots from Bangladesh to South Africa. Aid agencies say 100 million more people are at risk of starvation right now. In Sierra Leone alone the price of a bag of rice has doubled, becoming unaffordable for 90% of citizens. Fears of inflation stalk the whole world, and the worst could be yet to come. We need to act now - before it's too late. As Ban Ki-Moon holds a high-level UN meeting on the crisis, we're launching an urgent campaign with African foreign minister and human rights campaigner Zainab Bangura. Click below to see Zainab's video message and add your name to the food crisis petition - we need to raise 200,000 signatures by the end of this week to deliver a massive global outcry to leaders at the UN, G8 and EU. The prices of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice have almost doubled, and the crisis is slipping out of control - so we're calling for immediate action on emergency food aid, speculation and biofuels policy, while asking forthcoming summits to tackle deeper problems of investment and trade."

Please sign: www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/9.php

The impacts of climate change are clearly going to make the situation worse. Today Green MEP Jean Lambert was speaking at a major event investigating the impact of climate change on mass migration will bring together key environment and population experts tomorrow to discuss how climate change will affect migration patterns and how policy-makers should respond. The conference organised by the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) was at The British Librar and included Secretary of State for the Environment, Hilary Benn, the Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Kim Howells, and Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank.

As the conference I am sure showed, one of the greatest impacts of climate change that we are going to see in the near future will be widespread human displacement as changing weather patterns cause crops to fail and create food and water shortages. What is unknown is when and where these human crises will unfold and how best to cope with the resulting migration. There are already an estimated 25 million environmental refugees in the world, but they are not recognised as such by the international community and thus have no legal protection. Closing borders is not a long-term solution. Countries that have the greatest responsibility for creating climate change also have a responsibility to deal with the casualties.

See useful analysis here and Paul Rogers good article on the subject here:
www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/global_security/the_worlds_food_problem

Oil strike: Government failure on energy security

It is increasingly looking like we will go from oil strike to oil shock to oil famine before Green solutions are adopted - and they must - see below my letter to the press last night - and also below an answer to a query on a new oil find.

Photo: Bakken oil field (see discussion below)

Before all that I must mention the fascinating and at times heated Coffee House Discussion at Star Anise last night on biofuels - Colin Hygate from Green Fuels (Europes largest biodiesel equipment supplier) in Stonehouse, Dave Cockcroft, a Green party Town councillor who has been researching energy and John Meadley all talked. Plus there was input from Biofuelwatch and many others - there seemed to be general agreement about the damage that palm oil is doing - and indeed a majority of the people there also were totally against the corn being used in the states - and against the Government's recent targets - See my recent comment on that here. However the role biofuels played should not be underestimated - a third of the world uses biofuels of one sort or another (incl wood etc) - and new technologies are looking at algae or crops that could only be grown in certain arid conditions.

But could we feed ourselves and drive cars (see my recent posts on this by clicking on label below)? Dave Cockcroft had calculated if all Stroud District was put down to rapeseed it would still only provide 25% of our current use - and there is clearly no way rapeseed could grow across the whole District - and of course that would leave nothing for food. Biofuels have a place - only a small place - extreme caution is needed before considering their use (except of course waste oils like chip fat etc). Anyhow to the letter....

The strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery, with it's possible month long fuel shortage in Scotland and the north of England, highlights our Governments inability to ensure energy provision. In 2006, Green MEPs failed to get sensible answers from Government ministries, when they asked what steps were being taken to prepare for a decrease in national fuel supplies. It seems clear now that the Government have no serious plans.

This week, oil reached its highest price ever. Some oil traders are betting on it doubling by the end of the year. Even if this doesn't occur, many recognise that oil production is probably nearing its peak. Some consider it has peaked. If so, we are in for a rough ride. If producers start keeping their fast-dwindling resources for their own economies then the forecast oil shock will become an energy famine.

The need to tackle our energy use has never been greater. Yet it is still only Greens that have the initiatives to protect us from the consequences of a sudden decrease in fuel supplies. Policies like free insulation and sustainable energy would mean that our homes would be increasingly off-grid and not dependent on fossil fuel supply. While locally sourced food production would ensure food security for communities is not dependent on long haul transport and the whims of the fuel market.

We must surely wake up to this issue and act. We can only do this together.

Cllr. Philip Booth,
Stroud District councillor for the Randwick, Ruscombe and Whiteshill ward

And what of the new oil find?

The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007 , which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World....I read with some interest that: "America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant."

Some gave the figures even higher and talked of a 25% increase in oil for the states...

A 25-fold increase? That's huge – or so it sounds. But then you start comparing numbers. Assuming all 4.3 billion barrels could be retrieved, it would represent nine months of oil consumption in the United States. Here is one report: "...let's consider the nature of the Bakken oil. It doesn't sit in big underground pools where you can just pop in a metal straw and suck it out. This oil is trapped in layers of shale – a sedimentary rock – up to 3,000 metres deep. Getting at it is expensive and difficult, and certainly damaging to the surrounding landscape and environment. You thought the oil sands were messy and energy-intensive? Bakken is tough oil. You have to drill down and then horizontally through rock, which has to be fractured to release the oil that is tucked away in small pores....Now, with oil at $110 (U.S.) a barrel, some of those Bakken reserves just might make it into our vehicles one day. What's perplexing, however, is the oil industry's determination to go after this expensive, dirty stuff when other, cleaner alternatives do exist."

Hermann Scheer, president of the World Council for Renewable Energy commented: "The reason is very simple. The oil companies have tied all of their investments to transportation, refineries and distribution. That means they're prisoners of their own energy supply chain."

So all in all while it maybe nice oil, but it is still difficult to extract and no serious delay to any peak oil...

GM will not feed the world - and stop GM Human Embryos

This post has a great open letter below to the Prime Minister copied here from Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru. He shows why GM will not feed the world - I also recommend The Ecologist who have compiled 10 reasons why GM won't feed the world - but before we get to that I wanted to cover our last chance to shut the door on GM human beings.

British MPs will soon decide whether to allow scientists to start research on the ultimate step in human genetics: the creation of GM ‘designer’ human beings. In the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, now going through Parliament, the Government wants to allow the creation of GM human embryos. Most governments view the creation of GM babies in the same way as human cloning, and many have banned it – Britain would be the first to break this consensus. Because of this strong opposition to human genetic modification (HGM), the EU has banned any funding for the type of research Britain wants to allow, in its last two Framework research funding programmes.

There is no medical need for HGM, but once it is used for medical purposes, it will soon be used for cosmetic and 'enhancement' purposes, just as drugs and surgery are being used today. Is this a path to designing children to compete better where the rich will be able to purchase genetic advantages for their children over those of the rest of us? Human beings will become just another commodity, subject to market forces. I urge folk to read more and take actions at:
www.hgalert.org/Stop_GM_Embryos.html

OPEN LETTER from GM Free Cymru to Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA. 16th April 2008

Dear Prime Minister

GM CROPS WILL NOT FEED THE WORLD
We have been intrigued to see recent press coverage of your remarks relating to GM crops and foods. It is reported that you believe that GM crops have a considerable role to play in the alleviation of global food shortages in the future. Possibly you have succumbed to the deluge of recent pro-GM propaganda from the biotechnology multinationals and trade organizations (1). But we also fear that you have been given partisan, unscientific and out-dated information by your advisors, and we ask you urgently to reconsider your position on this.

GM lobbyists have been promising the miracles of GM technology for over 2 decades. These people are in possession of a solution in search of a problem. To date they have seriously failed to deliver on all of their promises relating to enhanced farm incomes, improved nutrition, increased yields, better pest control etc. Billions of euros have been invested across Europe, and millions of pounds in the UK, and still this technology is rejected by consumers, farmers, and policy makers all over the world. That is because there are NO consumer benefits: food made from GM crops is not cheaper, healthier, tastier or more attractive to look at, and neither does it extend shelf life (2). So why should anybody bother with it? Has anybody ever asked for GM food in preference to non-GM food?

It is true that the era of cheap food is over - on account of rising production and fuel costs, and the diversion of huge quantities of food crops into the biofuels market. However, this also shows that we should be moving away from oil and chemical based food production such as GM and embracing sustainable methods like organic and low- input farming - based on renewable energy use and carbon reduction strategies.

From a farming/food standpoint, international experience of GM cultivation has demonstrated the following:

1. Yields have not increased as promised (3). In fact, since the hybrids used for GM breeding programmes are not necessarily the highest-yielding varieties, GM crops often perform worse than their non-GM counterparts. Many studies from around the world have shown that apparent yield increases are short-lived and are based upon carefully selected comparisons with less effective non-GM lines.

2. Reliance on pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers has increased - not decreased as promised (4). This is now confirmed by abundant studies, in spite of a constant stream of lies from the GM industry. The great majority of GM crops in the market place are designed for herbicide tolerance and for "chemical management" scenarios; it is through sales of complete seed / herbicide packages that the GM corporations make their money.

3. Weeds and pests have developed resistance to GM crops and pesticides resulting in 'superweeds' and 'superbugs' that need even larger amounts (and an increased range) of herbicides and pesticides for their control (5). The "toxic chemical farming" scenario is thus reinforced, with unforseen ecological consequences.
4. There have been problems with cross contamination and cross fertilisation between GM and non-GM crops. These have led to sometimes lengthy law suits and are a potentially explosive problem if more GM crops are planted (6). It is now recognized that the coexistence of non-GM and GM crops is impossible. GM canola, which has many wild relatives, is impossible to contain (7).

5. This technology is expensive and costly for farmers and makes them more dependent on the agribusiness giants in order to sustain a livelihood. They are "tied in" to corporate dependence by strict patent laws and "technology use agreements." They cannot save seed, and they cannot dispose of their harvests except through approved channels. Monsanto and other corporations employ quite brutal patent enforcement methods in all neighbourhoods where their GM crops are grown (8).

6. There are proven health risks associated with GM technology (9). There are many instances of domestic animal deaths following consumption of GM crops. Many independent studies have found damage to the internal organs of animals fed on GM components, and they demonstrate that the public is rightly very seriously concerned about GM food safety. Advisory bodies such as ACRE, FSA and EFSA still refuse to acknowledge the serious nature of these findings, and stand widely accused of gross negligence.

7. GM technology has not reduced levels of world hunger as promised. In fact, it has made poor farmers more indebted and less self sufficient, and consequently more vulnerable than ever before. Bankruptcies associated with BT cotton in India have caused many thousands of suicides (10).

8. Consumers throughout Europe have consistently voted against growing GM crops. There are now thousands of "GM Free regions" across Europe, and a growing GM resistance movement (11). Consumers are aware of the failure of the GM industry to deliver on its promises, and they know that GM crops and foods bring them no benefits whatsoever. For many years the UK government has been telling people that GM crops and foods are safe and essential; now it is time for the government to start listening instead.

9. It is seldom acknowledged that one part of the "global food control" strategy employed by the GM multinationals is the purchasing of seed companies and their catalogues and the phasing out of locally adapted varieties (12). This means that biodiversity is irreparably damaged, and that vast swathes of countryside are planted with GM crop monocultures and with GM varieties that are ill-suited to local environmental conditions. This endangers food security and increases the risk of future famine (13).

10. The GM corporations and the trade associations seeking to extol the virtues of GM crops are adept at spreading disinformation, practicing corrupt science in the approvals process, and vilifying scientists who seek to undertake independent research into GM crop safety and environmental impacts (14). They have shown over and again that they cannot be trusted, and yet governments unaccountably continue to accord them respect, and seek to "enable" their corporate global ambitions.

11. It is not just hydrocarbon prices that are rocketing upwards in the "peak oil" scenario. Petrochemical and feedstock prices are also rising inexorably, and Roundup (the weedkiller for which most GM crops are engineered) has doubled in price in the last twelve months (15). GM farming will soon be seen as an expensive luxury, if not an absurd aberration, caught up in an inexorable inflationary spiral.

12. The GM industry, aided and abetted by the Government, has been partly responsible for a decline in scientific ethics and a disastrous decline in the public acceptance of science. Sir David King claims that Britain has "lost" inward investment worth £2-3 billion because of our failure to adopt GM technology (16); on the contrary, because of the GM industry's strategy of "contamination by stealth" the UK taxpayer has already had to pay a substantial bill for the monitoring and remediation of contamination incidents involving failed and unauthorised GM varieties found in the food chain.

13. Those who own GM crop and agrochemical patents refuse absolutely to accept liability for damage that might be caused to farming neighbours and members of the public, arising out of genetic trespass and contamination. Such risks are also uninsurable, as no insurance companies will provide cover (17). It must be concluded that in their view the risks of damage and litigation far outweigh any possible benefits that might come from GM crop plantings. In that context, it would be an act of sheer madness for any government to permit any commercial GM planting in the UK to go ahead.

In short, there is not the slightest chance that GM crops and foods will do anything to alleviate future problems associated with water shortages, famine and unrest and instability in the Developing Nations. If GM crops are forced on unwilling or reluctant recipients, there will be strongly negative consequences for public health, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. Corporate feudalism will be extended, and there will be dramatic social, political and economic consequences for all of us.

We urge you to accept the points made in the recent IAASTD report and to endorse a pattern of agriculture which is sustainable, independent of high chemical and energy inputs, and responsive to local needs and aspirations. This means that GM technology will have to be consigned to the scrap heap, where it properly belongs, even if Monsanto and the other biotechnology corporations squeal about their global ambitions being thwarted and even if a few GM technologists are forced to do something more worthwhile with their time.

Yours sincerely, Dr Brian John, GM Free Cymru

NOTES
(1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
in_article_id=559965&in_page_id=1770
(2) www.foodethicscouncil.org/files/SUcostsandbenefit02-03.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3057431.stm
www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/briefings/html/20021107114407.html
http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/eapr006/mcdonagh.htm
(3) www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/
gm_crops_increase_pesticid_13022008.html
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmlemmings.htm
http://www.soilassociation.org/Web/SA/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/3cacfd251aab6d318025742700407f02!OpenDocument
(4) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCIPU.php
http://wwww.biotech-info.net/technicalpaper6.html
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ EIB11/
(5) www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/aug/18/food.gm
www.btinternet.com/~nlpWESSEX/Documents/Monsantosuperweeds.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20030629/ai_n12741503
(6) www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/22/pollution.gmcrops
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews11-15.php
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
(7) www.i-sis.org.uk/STGMfree.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jul/18/gm.food1
http://www.gmfreecymru.org/documents.htm
(8) http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ecology-foodwithoutfrontiers/article_1817.jsp
(9) www.seedsofdeception.com/
www.geneticroulette.com/
www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Free_Europe.php
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gmFailuresContinue.php
(10) http://www.cathnews.com/news/409/doc/15colgm3.doc
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6594
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gmFailuresContinue.php
(11) http://genet.iskra.net/en/node
(12) http://www.seedalliance.org/index.php?page=SeminisMonsanto
http://www.combat-monsanto.org/spip.php?article64
(13) www.i-sis.org.uk/AGMW.php
www.twnside.org.sg/title/service78.htm
(14) http://www.gmfreecymru.org/news/Press_Notice14March2007.htm
http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/company.htm
http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/exposed.htm
http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/syngenta.htm
(15) http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/mar/30/farmers-feeling-roundup-spike/
(16) Sir David's figure, widely reported in the media, has no foundation in fact, and it has not been backed up by his office in spite of frequent requests. In any case, it is dishonest to use such a figure in the absence of a proper cost-benefit analysis.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=496681&in_page_id=1770
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8750
(17) www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/liability_gm_crops.pdf
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/CSMgmo.htm
http://www.rics.org.uk/csm/