Archive for September, 2009

Australian Dust Warns of Declining Water

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

By David L. Brown

duststorm1According to Wired magazine’s web site, the dust storm that engulfed Sydney, Australia three days ago was “apocalyptic.” In this image taken from space, that description doesn’t  seem over-the-top. You can see this and another NASA image here. According to the Wired article, the source of at least some of the dust was farmland that has been dried out during several years of severe drought.

Australia has long had a reputation as a desert continent, but more so in recent years. The Murray-Darling river system that provides irrigation water for the nation’s major agricultural region has virtually dried up after three years of dry weather. And  according to environmental journalist Fred Pearce, writing a few months ago in the UK newspaper The Guardian, “the drought has cut the country’s exports of thirsty crops such as rice, sugar and wheat by more than half. And the talk down under is that the drought is a near-permanent consequence of global warming.”

According to Pearce, Australia is the world’s largest exporter of “virtual water,” water that has been converted into food crops for sale abroad. He warns that “as the Murray and dozens of others rivers run dry across the planet, water is becoming the key constraint on food production. More than land, the availability of water now defines how full the world’s granaries are – and what price we pay for our daily bread.” You can read the rest of Pearce’s article, which originally appeared on April 17, at this link.

Water is one of the key elements in agricultural production, and like many other resources it is becoming scarce. The Colorado River, before it reaches the Gulf of California in Mexico, runs dry most of the time. The water is sucked out far upstream to supply  growing cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix, and to irrigate crops on land that would otherwise be unable to produce a crop.

The Colorado is not alone in this, for rivers around the world are running dry. One factor is the diminishing snow pack and glaciers on high mountain ranges, the Alps in Europe, Himalayas in Asia and  Andes in South America. Without a steady flow of meltwater through the summer growing seasons, the rivers flood early and dry up later, creating  havoc among farmers and threatening the world’s food supply.

And as the rivers disappear, the dust rises to fill the  air. Few of us have been around long enough to remember the Dust Bowl days on the 1930s, but we have heard stories of air so thick with dirt that some farmers had to stretch ropes between their houses and barns to keep from becoming lost. On Wednesday the residents of  Sydney had a taste of what that must have been like, with pictures such as this to provide evidence of Mother Nature in a nasty mood. This is a composite of several shots showing the Sydney Harbor Bridge in a very wide-angle view, shrouded in almost-Martian red dust.

94ns-smallFor  anyone who doubts that climate change is taking place, and that it poses a real threat to human civilization, events such as this provide a sharp reminder. In his article in The Guardian, Pearce wrote that as our planet grows dryer, it “is turning a series of local water shortages into a global food crunch.” He continued:

Britain is not immune. By my estimate, Britain imports each year about 40 cubic kilometres of virtual water in the form of food (sorry about the unit, but it is more than half the annual flow of the Nile). We like to think we have few water problems, but that’s because we can rely on other peoples’ water. For now.

As the world’s demand for water continues to grow, and as more and more rivers run dry, that doesn’t look so clever. Thanks to rising global demand and the increasing uncertainly of supply due to climate change, water is destined to be a growing food security issue in the 21st century. It is not hard to imagine a future world where countries that still have water will not export it as willingly as they do now. If that happens, importers like Britain could find themselves in trouble.

Food is the bottom-line requirement for human existence. We have heard that it shares that distinction with shelter and clothing, but it takes only a crude hut and a few scraps of cloth to provide those other needs. Without adequate food, no human can long survive. And without adequate water, there will not be enough food to provide for the 6.7 billion human beings now present on Planet Earth.

For more on the dangers to our environment, you may want to read my review of Pearce’s book, “With Speed and Violence — Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change,” posted here on May 12, 2007. Use the search field at the upper right to find that and other related articles.

Posted in Climate Change, Desertification and Soil Loss | Comments Off

The Power of Economic Incentives

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

By David L. Brown

How do  we go about reducing carbon emissions to prevent climate change from spiraling into a global catastrophe? One obvious answer is to slow down the go-go industrial economies that pour CO2 into the atmosphere. Not so easy? Well, actually we’re already doing it, according to this article in today’s New York Times. The story leads off with this:

Global carbon emissions are expected to post their biggest drop in more than 40 years this year as the global recession froze economic activity and slashed energy use around the world.

The decline comes as political leaders are struggling to come up with a common approach to dealing with climate change.

The main factor behind this year’s drop in emissions is the slowdown in industrial activity and trade around the world, according to a study due to be released in November by the International Energy Agency.

But the energy agency, which provides policy advice and research to industrialized nations, found that government actions had also contributed to the drop in emissions. The agency said it expected to see global carbon emissions fall 2.6 percent this year.

So, see, we can do it … all it takes is the economic incentive to decrease the use of fossil fuels. There is no doubt that last year’s spike in oil prices has a lot to do with this.

The Times gives credit to the economic bust and “government actions,” but there is another important aspect to this, perhaps the most important one of all. Millions of individuals have learned to think twice about driving unnecessary miles, leaving the thermostat at extreme settings, or letting the lights burn all over the house 24/7. They’ve made personal decisions to reduce energy use.

That’s called conservation, and without a doubt conservation is the easiest and most effective way to deal with CO2 emissions in the short term. The more people become conscious of their contributions to carbon pollution and take steps to reduce their “footprint,” the better for all of us.

And what is the secret behind all of this? It’s easy. Think Bill Clinton’s campaign theme: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Yes, the high price of oil and its economic effects — from international trade right down to individual household budgets — is the reason why carbon emissions have dropped.

Your ordinary Joe may not understand global warming or even give a hoot about the environment, but he does react when he sees his wallet taking a hit. Like most of us, he’s on a limited budget, so when the cost of profligate energy use starts to hurt, he does what he can to save money. In this case, he stops using as much energy.

A major reason why alternative energy sources have been slow to arrive on the  scene is that petroleum remained relatively cheap for far too long. In their self-interested way, for decades OPEC and major oil companies did everything in their power to hold down costs and stifle alternatives. They did it by using the  power of supply-and-demand, turning up the pumps whenever there was a new spurt of interest in alternatives. They played that game for years, until it became no longer possible.

It is fairly well documented that the Oil Peak has been reached, or at least we are teetering on the top. Beyond lies the downside slope of the Hubbert Curve, leading to a time when demand for oil cannot be met by supply. That means sustained higher costs for petroleum, which will introduce new opportunities for alternatives. We are already seeing voluntary conservation in response to costs, and as time goes on, we’ll undoubtedly see more people embracing alternatives. After all, the human race has been labeled Homo Economicus, “economic man”. Create an economic incentive, and humankind will react accordingly.

There are limits to how much conservation can do to turn around carbon emissions. Of course, none of us want an endless depression to “solve” the threat of climate change. But there are lessons to be learned from the recent experience, and we need to act on them. In fact, the very forces of  economics will make  it almost automatic, because dwindling oil resources will make it difficult or impossible for the world economy to enter a new “bubble” of rising  expectations. Less oil means higher prices, and we have seen that higher prices will put a lid on demand.

We can hope the world economy will begin to edge back from the brink, but we can’t afford to return to the same-old, same-old process of driving economic growth through continued use of fossil fuels. We need to begin to move toward new-style economies that are based on sustainable and environmentally friendly models.

Can we do it? Who knows — but since there’s probably no alternative it would be best if we at least try.

Posted in Age of Oil, Climate Change, Economics, Fossil Fuels, Pollution | Comments Off

‘Green Revolution’ Pioneer Borlaug R.I.P.

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

By David L. Brown

borlaug-youngNorman Borlaug died yesterday in Dallas, Texas at 95. He was never a celebrity except among the environmentally conscious few, but to us he was a super star. Dr. Borlaug was credited with saving at least a billion and perhaps two billion lives during his lifelong efforts to improve food production through plant breeding and genetics.

Virtually single-handed he created the applied science behind the burst of food production called “The Green Revolution.” During his career he worked on wheat in Mexico and India, rice in China, and other crops in Africa, creating new hybrid varieties to produce significantly more food from the same acres. His work won the Nobel Prize in 1970.

No one  can fault Dr. Borlaug, and yet…

Well, not to be a Grinch, but the Green Revolution is like a lot of things — it has its dark side. Yes, millions and even billions of lives were “saved” from famine through its effects. But the world now has more than 6.6 billion people, more than three times as many as when Dr. Borlaug began his work in the 1940s. And the trouble is that the “Green Revolution” was never a solution to the food requirements of a growing population — it was merely a band-aid, a jury-rigged response that has allowed the world population to continue to climb until today our food production system is once again straining to keep up.

Over the last half century or so, thanks in large part to efforts such as those of Dr. Borlaug, modern industrial agriculture has done a wonderful job of keeping up with population growth. But that highly productive system is based on cheap and plentiful resources, and those very resources are beginning to become less plentiful and more costly. We saw what happened last year when oil prices soared to well over $100 per barrel. Food prices followed, doubling in some cases.

Food and oil are joined at the hip. Without cheap and abundant oil, there will be no cheap and abundant food. According to many reliable sources, we have reached the peak of oil production, and thus, we have reached the peak of food  production. There may be a few years of ups and downs before this fact settles in, but there seems little doubt that the world has exceeded its capacity to feed its people, and the problem will continue to become worse.

There are many ways in which oil plays such a key role in industrial agriculture. Not only does it power the machines, but it is also the means of mining, extracting, pumping, manufacturing, and transporting materials and equipment to the farm, then carrying food to markets around the world. Oil is the feed stock for chemical processes that produce herbicides, insecticides, and other substances critical for top yields. Higher oil prices create more demand for natural gas, which is the source of nitrogen fertilizer.

Here in the U.S. we cannot easily see how serious this problem really is. To the average American, food costs are a relatively small part of our budgets, around 10-15 percent. But consider the situation in the poorest parts of the world, where many survive on one dollar per day or less. For these unfortunates, the “beneficiaries” of the Green Revolution, most of  their scant incomes goes in one way or another to provide them with something to eat. Nearly a billion are undernourished, eating no more than one meal a day if they’re lucky. They’re living on the desperate edge of famine.

And what does it mean for those billion or two billion people at the bottom of this different kind of “food pyramid” when prices go up? Their incomes certainly do not rise accordingly, and if food that once could be obtained on one dollar a day rises to a dollar-fifty, what will become of those who still earn only one dollar? The answer is not an easy one, for their main choices are to sink further into malnutrition, become criminals and steal from others, attempt to immigrate to a place where conditions are better — or to succumb to famine.

There is a well-known principle called the Law of Unintended Consequences, and while some foresaw the bitter end game now beginning to be played out in the world as a result of the burst of agricultural production and resulting explosion of population that it made possible, few actions were taken to prevent the final calamity that was to  follow, the calamity that is even now beginning to occur.

For more about this subject, use the search field at upper right to find other essays on food security. You might particularly wish to read “Money Won’t Solve Looming Famine,” posted on June 2, in which I examined the harsh fact that the world simply can no longer afford to feed its billions.

So  let us pause for a moment in respect for the memory of Dr. Norman Borlaug. He was a good man, he did great things. One might say that he kept a candle burning against the approaching night. But darkness still gathers, and the candle is sputtering out.

Posted in Age of Oil, Agriculture Issues, Bio-Engineering, Famine, GM Crops | Comments Off