Because of Cornwall Council’s dysfunctional approach to waste collection and disposal over the last ten years, which was further confused by the move to a Unitary Authority, this subject is still a source of heated debate and dissatisfaction. Residents who live in houses where it would be appropriate often say that they would like wheelie bins. On the other hand, people who live in terraced houses, for example, which front directly onto a narrow pavement, say quite rightly that wheelie bins would not work for them, because they would have to bring them through the house and have them blocking the pavement on collection day.
But from a cost aspect, it makes sense to operate a single system throughout the area, particularly in view of the Chancellors recent decisions around local government.
Some years ago, Carrick District Council wanted to start a separate food waste collection. The idea was that with a separate food waste collection, residual waste (black bag waste) would be significantly reduced, and would no longer attract vermin. This would allow a considerable saving by collecting residual waste fortnightly instead of weekly. That move in itself would encourage a better uptake of the recycling collection. There would be an overall saving, with money being made from both recycling, and composting of the food waste. Additionally, when a resident saw how much food waste he produced, he would adjust his shopping habits to waste less and save himself money on his shopping.
The research which underpinned this proposal showed that in other areas, schemes designed along these lines had been highly successful, achieving all the benefits listed above. However, the then Cornwall County Council were quick to stop the proposal, for the simple and misguided reason that it would deprive the proposed St Dennis incinerator of feedstock.
Since that time Cornwall has moved from being one of the leading recycling counties to being very near the bottom of the recycling league table.
A relatively small food waste container being collected weekly would be cheaper and easier to manage than the standard wheelie bin and would not need specialised vehicles (depending on the design). The residual waste would be cleaner and odour free, eliminating the very prevalent vermin problem. Once the system was bedded in, residual waste, significanty reduced by the removal of food waste, could be collected fortnightly, with a consequential massive saving. Recycling, collected weekly, would increase, providing additional income to offset some of the waste collection costs.
The likelihood of any of this happening in Cornwall is minimal, for political reasons rather than practical ones. The last administration have already shown that political expediency was more important than financial, and so far this administration appears to row the same boat in the same direction!
Showing posts with label conserving resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conserving resources. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Saturday, 9 March 2013
My Tortuous Route to the OU
About ten years ago I realised that climate change was a real and looming problem. I started reading, and occasionally writing, on the subject, linking global warming with peak oil as two sides of the same problematic coin. Our dependence on fossil fuels was and is clearly the overarching problem, and that dependence stems from our addiction to an unsustainable way of life. The unsustainability arises from our love of all things material and luxurious and our complete disregard for either seasonality or geography when it comes to shopping for food.
And it is an unfortunate fact that despite the continuing decline in oil production worldwide, it will be possible to continue to find and use fossil fuel for a long time to come, albeit at incalculable cost both environmentally and financially – until we finally poison our planet with a surfeit of CO2.
No matter how we address these issues, no solution to the greenhouse gas problem can work unless our consumption of fossil fuel is very substantially reduced. We can produce bio fuels and burn wood in our power stations, but we are still adding to the CO2 in our atmosphere, even while persuading ourselves that it is in a more sustainable way. We can invest in true renewable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal power, but without an unswerving determination to dramatically reduce our energy consumption, we will not stop the rise in our global temperature with many resultant disasters.
One of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions is the fossil-fuel-intense way in which our food is produced and distributed. We could be talking about developing countries where vast tracts of land are rendered unproductive by unsophisticated subsistence farming methods, leading to the burning of forest or the draining of precious wetlands to liberate new land for agriculture. Equally we could be talking about major agribusinesses which destroy the soil (releasing CO2) by using heavily mechanised monoculture methods with the over-use of carbon-based fertilisers and pesticides, and the inherent fuel use associated with both farm machinery and crop transport and distribution.
Over the years I have continued to read and learn, and have come to understand that globally our means of food production and distribution are in a very bad way indeed. Recently the fact that horsemeat has been found in cheap ready meals where it was not supposed to be, has only served to reinforce my concerns regarding food production.
The more I learned, the greater was the effect on my own life. I dispensed with prepared meals some years ago. I started to make my own bread (having read about the ‘baking aids’ which are added to factory bread in the interests of a quick bake), I dramatically reduced my consumption of meat and am still edging towards vegetarianism! I started to incorporate different types of beans and pulses into my cooking. And recently, in the interests of saving CO2 emissions, I discovered a source of UK produced dried peas and beans, which should enable me to stop buying imported produce altogether.
A few years ago I stripped my garden of ornamental plants, bought a greenhouse and started to pay serious attention to growing my own food. I watched on-line video clips on all aspects of domestic food production, forest gardens, no-dig gardening, organic food and so on. In the course of conversations with like-minded friends, I discovered the concept of aquaponics as an efficient means of food production. I had finally arrived at a point in my life when I decided to rethink my entire future.
I proceeded to use up my limited savings to renovate my cottage before putting it on the market. I anticipate a time, not many years hence, when food becomes very much more expensive than it is now, through escalating production and transport costs, and I intend to use some of the released equity from the sale of my house to set up an aquaponics greenhouse, with the hope that I can keep my family supplied with the majority of their vegetable requirements, as well as some home-grown fish.
As yet my house has not sold, and I am getting frustrated with the wait! But it has occurred to me that there is a lack of balance in my search for answers. For all my reading about food production and distribution, I have realised that my knowledge on food consumption is pretty sparse. What should we eat? What shouldn’t we eat? How do vegetarians and vegans give themselves a rich, varied and tasty diet? And can they do it without relying on imported staples like soya (which is almost all genetically modified)? I know someone who remains very fit and healthy despite not only being vegan, but not eating any cooked food at all!
I decided I should try to correct these gaps in my knowledge, and so trawled through the Open University website for an appropriate course. Thus I discovered a short 21 week course on nutrition which is about to be conducted for the very last time, due to funding cuts! I spent some weeks thinking about it, taking into account my age at over 70; considering whether I was still up to the studying; whether my noticeably deteriorating memory is an insurmountable problem; whether my two-finger keyboard skills are equal to the task; wondering what happens if I have to move house part way through the course; and wondering if I could justify the expenditure.
Given a very positive level of encouragement from my family, I decided to register for the course and now eagerly await the arrival of the material. And, to occupy my mind in the interim, I have just taken delivery of Andrew Simms’ new book ‘Cancel the Apocalypse’, so that I can continue to search for reasons for optimism about the future of our planet!
And it is an unfortunate fact that despite the continuing decline in oil production worldwide, it will be possible to continue to find and use fossil fuel for a long time to come, albeit at incalculable cost both environmentally and financially – until we finally poison our planet with a surfeit of CO2.
No matter how we address these issues, no solution to the greenhouse gas problem can work unless our consumption of fossil fuel is very substantially reduced. We can produce bio fuels and burn wood in our power stations, but we are still adding to the CO2 in our atmosphere, even while persuading ourselves that it is in a more sustainable way. We can invest in true renewable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal power, but without an unswerving determination to dramatically reduce our energy consumption, we will not stop the rise in our global temperature with many resultant disasters.
One of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions is the fossil-fuel-intense way in which our food is produced and distributed. We could be talking about developing countries where vast tracts of land are rendered unproductive by unsophisticated subsistence farming methods, leading to the burning of forest or the draining of precious wetlands to liberate new land for agriculture. Equally we could be talking about major agribusinesses which destroy the soil (releasing CO2) by using heavily mechanised monoculture methods with the over-use of carbon-based fertilisers and pesticides, and the inherent fuel use associated with both farm machinery and crop transport and distribution.
Over the years I have continued to read and learn, and have come to understand that globally our means of food production and distribution are in a very bad way indeed. Recently the fact that horsemeat has been found in cheap ready meals where it was not supposed to be, has only served to reinforce my concerns regarding food production.
The more I learned, the greater was the effect on my own life. I dispensed with prepared meals some years ago. I started to make my own bread (having read about the ‘baking aids’ which are added to factory bread in the interests of a quick bake), I dramatically reduced my consumption of meat and am still edging towards vegetarianism! I started to incorporate different types of beans and pulses into my cooking. And recently, in the interests of saving CO2 emissions, I discovered a source of UK produced dried peas and beans, which should enable me to stop buying imported produce altogether.
A few years ago I stripped my garden of ornamental plants, bought a greenhouse and started to pay serious attention to growing my own food. I watched on-line video clips on all aspects of domestic food production, forest gardens, no-dig gardening, organic food and so on. In the course of conversations with like-minded friends, I discovered the concept of aquaponics as an efficient means of food production. I had finally arrived at a point in my life when I decided to rethink my entire future.
I proceeded to use up my limited savings to renovate my cottage before putting it on the market. I anticipate a time, not many years hence, when food becomes very much more expensive than it is now, through escalating production and transport costs, and I intend to use some of the released equity from the sale of my house to set up an aquaponics greenhouse, with the hope that I can keep my family supplied with the majority of their vegetable requirements, as well as some home-grown fish.
As yet my house has not sold, and I am getting frustrated with the wait! But it has occurred to me that there is a lack of balance in my search for answers. For all my reading about food production and distribution, I have realised that my knowledge on food consumption is pretty sparse. What should we eat? What shouldn’t we eat? How do vegetarians and vegans give themselves a rich, varied and tasty diet? And can they do it without relying on imported staples like soya (which is almost all genetically modified)? I know someone who remains very fit and healthy despite not only being vegan, but not eating any cooked food at all!
I decided I should try to correct these gaps in my knowledge, and so trawled through the Open University website for an appropriate course. Thus I discovered a short 21 week course on nutrition which is about to be conducted for the very last time, due to funding cuts! I spent some weeks thinking about it, taking into account my age at over 70; considering whether I was still up to the studying; whether my noticeably deteriorating memory is an insurmountable problem; whether my two-finger keyboard skills are equal to the task; wondering what happens if I have to move house part way through the course; and wondering if I could justify the expenditure.
Given a very positive level of encouragement from my family, I decided to register for the course and now eagerly await the arrival of the material. And, to occupy my mind in the interim, I have just taken delivery of Andrew Simms’ new book ‘Cancel the Apocalypse’, so that I can continue to search for reasons for optimism about the future of our planet!
Friday, 22 February 2013
The Grand US Energy Bubble
How did the human race progress from cave dwelling to space station in such a relatively short time? Is it through our ability to learn, to build on what we have learned and then to learn from what we have built? But in this modern world, many of us have allowed that ability to become dormant, in favour of a desire for power, wealth and acquisition. And so we perhaps should not be surprised that many wealthy bankers seem to have lost the ability to learn from previous experience. Back to this later!
There has been some publicity over the last couple of years on the immense gas and oil reserves discovered in the USA, to be accessed by miraculous modern technology such as ‘fracking’ and horizontal drilling. It is proposed that the tar sands being mined in Canada will further supplement the USA’s insatiable need for fuel via the Keystone XL pipeline. We are told (by bankers?) that the USA has become self sufficient in fossil fuel for the foreseeable future. Yeah right!
The Americans (by which, of course, I mean the North Americans!) are desperate. They do not want to remain dependent on external supplies of fossil fuel. So they (including President Obama) are pulling out all the stops to avoid that dependency, with the willing help of the banks, naturally.
Let us consider the tar sands in Canada; this is actually a fascinating subject on its own. The Canadians say to the Americans, ‘if you want the crude from tar sands you have to build a pipeline (the Keystone XL pipeline) to take the crude to your refineries, otherwise we can find plenty of other customers for the crude!’ The pipeline is going to cost around $7 billion, which in the scheme of things is small change.
But to process the tar sands to produce the crude, they need copious quantities of natural gas (about a fifth of Canada’s entire production). They also need a lot of water, and a lot of diluent. Diluent? OK – to allow the stuff to flow through a pipeline it has to be diluted with some kind of light oil, which at present they are importing at a rate of up to 200,000 barrels a day. They could produce it themselves, from the bitumen they are digging up, but that is very expensive too. And by the way, there is a limit to the amount of gas they can use, because they have domestic users, as well as a binding agreement to export a proportion of the gas they produce to America! So we can deduce that production of crude from these tar sands is incredibly expensive, hardly cost effective, and about as efficient as you can get at producing greenhouse gases! Unsurprising therefore, that Canada pulled out of the Kyoto protocol!
The President long ago expressed his support for the pipeline – the only reason for a delay has been the choice of route. But the Americans are grasping at straws – the product will barely supply 10% of their daily needs, and at a massive production cost and a very small net energy gain. Globally Canadian tar sands are a drop in the ocean at massive environmental costs, and because of the restrictions on production in terms of energy, water and transport, it is hard to see a long term future for the process.
But don’t worry, the USA has its own stock of tar sands (not much), shale oil and shale gas.
It seems that this ‘revitalisation’ of the American energy industry attracted the attention of the investment bankers. I don’t pretend to have the slightest idea how investment finance works; but evidently money was poured in to the extent that production amounted to four times demand – resulting in a catastrophic drop in price, and a desperate drive to export to where prices were higher. The result has been that production costs have exceeded prices by a significant amount, resulting in a phenomenal amount of business in the mergers and acquisitions market, and thus huge profits for the banks.
Let us switch for a moment to considering the traditional and diminishing oil industry. You may remember that a gentleman called M King Hubbert produced the famous Hubberts curve in 1956, a graph which he used to predict that American oil production would peak somewhere about the late sixties or early seventies. There was much criticism and disbelief, but he was proven correct in his thinking as American oil production peaked in 1970. Hubbert was able to apply his mathematics to individual oil fields, oil producing countries and by extension to the planet, predicting that world oil production would peak in the early 21st century. Nothing yet, not even this latest alleged US bonanza, has shown him to be wrong.
You can apply Hubbert’s curve to almost any non-renewable resource; but it seems that the curve, which indicates a rise, a peak and then a decline in a roughly symmetrical format, doesn’t readily lend itself to these modern production methods. And the reason is this: the depletion rate of these wells is extremely fast, so instead of a gentle decline after the peak we have a cliff. To maintain production levels new wells need to be brought on stream all the time, at a cost of many billions of dollars. Required input annually to maintain current shale gas production in the States is around $42 billion. (Lucky we have those bankers!) Value of shale gas produced in 2012 was $32.5 billion! Shale oil is also horrendously expensive to produce and a well’s production rate will decline by in excess of 80% in the first 24 months. Tar sands produce oil at a cost of about $100 dollars per barrel, which leaves little room for profit! Many of the production sites of all these fossil fuel elements are already in decline. It seems unlikely that this 'foreseeable future' could last more than another five years or so!
The reason that Hubbert’s prognosis has proven so accurate time and time again is because, self evidently, the oil companies go for the easiest first. Thus the oil becomes progressively more difficult and more expensive to access, until you get to a point where it is no longer viable. Tar sands are not that far from that point of diminishing returns, and the great oil and gas bonanza so enthusiastically promoted by the bankers cannot possibly be other than a great big bubble!
The good news? Although carbon emissions from the USA continue to cause immense damage to our atmosphere in the short term, in the longer term that cannot continue because the bubble has to burst, and carbon emissions from the USA is certain to decrease!
And the bad news? Well… remember all that sub-prime nonsense when the house mortgage market collapsed? It is going to happen all over again with American oil reserves! I said we would come back to the bankers!
So what about our own UK shale gas reserves? I would steer clear of investment there if I were you! It will be better for us all if we just reduce our energy needs.
Data has been lifted from reports by Deborah Rogers of the Energy Policy Forum and J David Hughes of the Post Carbon Institute
There has been some publicity over the last couple of years on the immense gas and oil reserves discovered in the USA, to be accessed by miraculous modern technology such as ‘fracking’ and horizontal drilling. It is proposed that the tar sands being mined in Canada will further supplement the USA’s insatiable need for fuel via the Keystone XL pipeline. We are told (by bankers?) that the USA has become self sufficient in fossil fuel for the foreseeable future. Yeah right!
The Americans (by which, of course, I mean the North Americans!) are desperate. They do not want to remain dependent on external supplies of fossil fuel. So they (including President Obama) are pulling out all the stops to avoid that dependency, with the willing help of the banks, naturally.
Let us consider the tar sands in Canada; this is actually a fascinating subject on its own. The Canadians say to the Americans, ‘if you want the crude from tar sands you have to build a pipeline (the Keystone XL pipeline) to take the crude to your refineries, otherwise we can find plenty of other customers for the crude!’ The pipeline is going to cost around $7 billion, which in the scheme of things is small change.
But to process the tar sands to produce the crude, they need copious quantities of natural gas (about a fifth of Canada’s entire production). They also need a lot of water, and a lot of diluent. Diluent? OK – to allow the stuff to flow through a pipeline it has to be diluted with some kind of light oil, which at present they are importing at a rate of up to 200,000 barrels a day. They could produce it themselves, from the bitumen they are digging up, but that is very expensive too. And by the way, there is a limit to the amount of gas they can use, because they have domestic users, as well as a binding agreement to export a proportion of the gas they produce to America! So we can deduce that production of crude from these tar sands is incredibly expensive, hardly cost effective, and about as efficient as you can get at producing greenhouse gases! Unsurprising therefore, that Canada pulled out of the Kyoto protocol!
The President long ago expressed his support for the pipeline – the only reason for a delay has been the choice of route. But the Americans are grasping at straws – the product will barely supply 10% of their daily needs, and at a massive production cost and a very small net energy gain. Globally Canadian tar sands are a drop in the ocean at massive environmental costs, and because of the restrictions on production in terms of energy, water and transport, it is hard to see a long term future for the process.
But don’t worry, the USA has its own stock of tar sands (not much), shale oil and shale gas.
It seems that this ‘revitalisation’ of the American energy industry attracted the attention of the investment bankers. I don’t pretend to have the slightest idea how investment finance works; but evidently money was poured in to the extent that production amounted to four times demand – resulting in a catastrophic drop in price, and a desperate drive to export to where prices were higher. The result has been that production costs have exceeded prices by a significant amount, resulting in a phenomenal amount of business in the mergers and acquisitions market, and thus huge profits for the banks.
Let us switch for a moment to considering the traditional and diminishing oil industry. You may remember that a gentleman called M King Hubbert produced the famous Hubberts curve in 1956, a graph which he used to predict that American oil production would peak somewhere about the late sixties or early seventies. There was much criticism and disbelief, but he was proven correct in his thinking as American oil production peaked in 1970. Hubbert was able to apply his mathematics to individual oil fields, oil producing countries and by extension to the planet, predicting that world oil production would peak in the early 21st century. Nothing yet, not even this latest alleged US bonanza, has shown him to be wrong.
You can apply Hubbert’s curve to almost any non-renewable resource; but it seems that the curve, which indicates a rise, a peak and then a decline in a roughly symmetrical format, doesn’t readily lend itself to these modern production methods. And the reason is this: the depletion rate of these wells is extremely fast, so instead of a gentle decline after the peak we have a cliff. To maintain production levels new wells need to be brought on stream all the time, at a cost of many billions of dollars. Required input annually to maintain current shale gas production in the States is around $42 billion. (Lucky we have those bankers!) Value of shale gas produced in 2012 was $32.5 billion! Shale oil is also horrendously expensive to produce and a well’s production rate will decline by in excess of 80% in the first 24 months. Tar sands produce oil at a cost of about $100 dollars per barrel, which leaves little room for profit! Many of the production sites of all these fossil fuel elements are already in decline. It seems unlikely that this 'foreseeable future' could last more than another five years or so!
The reason that Hubbert’s prognosis has proven so accurate time and time again is because, self evidently, the oil companies go for the easiest first. Thus the oil becomes progressively more difficult and more expensive to access, until you get to a point where it is no longer viable. Tar sands are not that far from that point of diminishing returns, and the great oil and gas bonanza so enthusiastically promoted by the bankers cannot possibly be other than a great big bubble!
The good news? Although carbon emissions from the USA continue to cause immense damage to our atmosphere in the short term, in the longer term that cannot continue because the bubble has to burst, and carbon emissions from the USA is certain to decrease!
And the bad news? Well… remember all that sub-prime nonsense when the house mortgage market collapsed? It is going to happen all over again with American oil reserves! I said we would come back to the bankers!
So what about our own UK shale gas reserves? I would steer clear of investment there if I were you! It will be better for us all if we just reduce our energy needs.
Data has been lifted from reports by Deborah Rogers of the Energy Policy Forum and J David Hughes of the Post Carbon Institute
Friday, 31 December 2010
Irish Water Supply Crisis (and thoughts arising!)
The weather hasn’t been great these past couple of weeks. Travel has been disrupted, on the roads, the railways and in the air. Northern Ireland has had significant problems with water supplies, with many people being without supply for several days. Urgent calls for blood donors went out to anticipate increased demand. Petrol stations ran out of fuel.
The priority amongst those who administer these facilities has been to get back to normal as soon as possible. The priority amongst everyone else seems to have been to find someone to blame, and to scapegoat them. The result of all this blame is to take the attention of the top managers and officials away from problem solving, in order to provide a public apology, a resignation or a decision not to take a bonus.
Heads must roll!
Small consideration is given to the fact that this level of snow and freezing temperatures at this time of the year is (or has been up until now) a freak occurrence. No manager, administrator or minister worth his salt is going to spend a fortune preparing for freak conditions, thereby risking the wrath of the budget keepers, the accountants and the voters. If those conditions can be shown, later, to fall outside the definition of ‘freak’, and nearer to the definition of ‘normal’, that is the time to spend the money.
What we have heard, and will hear again, is that well worn phrase, ‘Lessons will be learned.’ My question would be, ‘Which lessons?’
We can safely assume that in Northern Ireland, decades of troubled times, under all shades of Westminster government, has resulted in a considerable under-spend on water infrastructure. It’s pretty pointless then, to look for a token scapegoat.
The problems at our airports arise from the assumption that freak conditions are just that, and are unlikely to occur. To compare the situation at Heathrow with that at better equipped continental airports is invidious – they have always had more snow and lower temperatures than we have, and are more used to it; furthermore, they have not been without their weather related problems. Recent freak conditions in the US have caused similar disruptions, and they, too, are more used to severe winter conditions than we are.
The complaints regarding road travel seem to relate to a lack of communication, and the habit of distressed drivers of blocking the hard shoulder.
Much of our difficulties, and all our complaints, arise from an expectation that someone else should be looking after us. The workings of State and Big Business have contrived, over the years, to deprive us of the ability to fend for ourselves, to prepare for extreme conditions as a matter of course, and to ‘get on with it’ at times of stress.
The people in Ireland who are without water are certainly in a very difficult situation, and don’t need reminding of the circumstances in third world countries which require women and young children to walk 10 or 15 km a day to collect the water supply for the whole family, including the sick and elderly within their communities. The distressed road users, many of whom, despite the forecasts, set out on their journeys completely unprepared, won’t give a thought to the millions of people who aren’t able to afford a bicycle, never mind a car. The stranded Christmas holidaymakers feeling miserable in airport terminals are unlikely to work out what percentage of the world’s population have never left their village (or refugee camp), let alone their country.
No, I fear that the important lessons won’t be learned.
In this country we’re lucky – we are not generally short of water, as long as we are sensible. Irrigation of crops is not as prevalent as it is, for example, in North America: there, without irrigation, food production would decline to an unsustainable level, and yet constant irrigation degrades the soil, necessitating increased use of fossil-gas based fertilisers. At the same time, a growing city-based population is taking an increasing proportion of the available water supply: availability of clean water per capita is decreasing as water tables drop and replenishment can’t keep up with demand. Many parts of the world depend on grain exports from the US; and yet, as it takes 1000 tons of water to produce a ton of grain, there will come a time not too many years hence, when the US will no longer be able to export grain – and the irony is that a proportion of their crop will go to the production of bio fuel.
The most water-hungry grain crop is rice. In North Korea, where a majority of the population is undernourished, there is no longer sufficient fuel to power the irrigation systems upon which their staple crop, rice, depends. To make matters worse, in winter they can no longer heat their hospitals, let alone their homes. They don’t have fuel for their farm machinery, so farmers have to do the work manually – but being seriously undernourished, and living in cold accommodation, the labour is very much less than efficient, leading to increasing food shortage and malnutrition. Ultimately, complete societal breakdown is inevitable without huge help from outside.
In a large proportion of irrigated land in Northern China, the water tables are dropping by a meter a year – rivers and rainfall just can’t keep up with demand. In India, two thirds of the Punjab is losing its water tables at the rate of 20 centimetres a year.
Although there was some controversy over a misguided claim by the IPCC regarding how soon the Himalayan glaciers would disappear, that should not blind us to the established fact that these glaciers are receding at a significant rate (as they are in other parts of the world including Europe). Another fact is that a third of the world’s population is dependent on those glaciers for clean water. Already some of the world’s great rivers are reduced to a trickle, or dry up completely, when the demands of agriculture are at peak – and the periods when this happens are getting longer each year.
So what lessons should our politicians, managers and administrators be learning?
First, it is now clear that current agricultural practices are unsustainable (even without the threat of peak oil). This will become increasingly obvious as fossil-based fuel and fertiliser, and thence food, become more and more expensive. A partial solution to this is for agriculture to become more community based, and organic, with a loosening or abolition of the regulatory constraints which are placed on such things as community composting. This solution might involve some incentive to larger land-owners to allow some of their land to be put to community use (without charge). Small organic community based schemes have been shown elsewhere (Cuba for example) to be several times more productive than standard agricultural practice. As the size of a farmed area increases, the productivity per square meter reduces – so small community based units are the optimum for yield, as well as providing local employment, helping communities to enhance self reliance and resilience.
Second, all farming must become less dependent on oil and oil based products very quickly. Instead of cutting budgets on research, more funds should be provided to research and revitalise new farming methods. There are ways of growing crops which take up far less space than current systems, for example, and these should be investigated and perfected as quickly as possible. Lack of oil is not synonymous with ‘back to the stone age’. Properly researched modern organic methods have the ability to increase not only production, but more importantly, nutritional value.
Thirdly, the present rather tired efforts to enhance the value of ‘community’ should be doubled or trebled. This Government is making a few of the right noises in this direction but their actions are working against their sentiments. The more that a local community is stimulated, the more local work becomes available, the more money is generated locally. There was a time when light industry could be found in village high streets, whereas now it is shunted out to industrial ‘parks’, drawing people away from their communities, and engendering a mindset which embraces the long commute, the supermarket, the ‘dormitory town’ and the school with 1500 pupils which produces students who are outside their own communities right from the start.
Fourthly, politicians should be helping to educate the electorate to the fact that life cannot continue as it is. Our lifestyles are going to change whether we like it or not, but at present the Government is doing absolutely nothing to educate us for this. Major changes will occur and our leaders and most people in the ‘developed’ world are walking towards those changes with our eyes shut! The later we leave our preparations the harder it will be to live with those changes and the more chaotic and destructive will be the outcome.
The water crisis in Ireland leads me to wonder, with all the rigorous, so-called environmentally friendly building regulations, why new buildings are not required to capture rainwater for use, at least, in toilets and kitchen sinks. There is no reason why we should feel entitled to use good drinking water for anything other than drinking and cooking.
While we are whining at the Government because they aren’t keeping our roads clear or our trains running, some small island nations are already suffering deeply as a result of rising sea levels. Some African countries are suffering prolonged drought and loss of crops. Others devote their agricultural resources to producing crops for export instead of feeding themselves, mostly through the ‘good’ offices of the IMF and the WTO.
Unless real action is taken to change the way we live, we will soon be whining about failure of road, rail and air travel through lack of economically viable fuel supplies, and while our main sources of groceries (the supermarkets) only keep sufficient stocks to last less than a week without replenishment, we should certainly start to learn how to keep a sensibly stocked store cupboard. Globally we are heading towards shortage of oil, shortage of water and a spiralling global temperature.
The lesson which should be learned by the politicians is not when or how to apologise. It is that there are a number of potential crises up ahead. If these materialise and find us unprepared, it won’t be the odd minister who will have to resign! Meanwhile, those of us who can should incorporate our preparation for the future into our everyday lives, a bit at a time, until it becomes second nature.
The priority amongst those who administer these facilities has been to get back to normal as soon as possible. The priority amongst everyone else seems to have been to find someone to blame, and to scapegoat them. The result of all this blame is to take the attention of the top managers and officials away from problem solving, in order to provide a public apology, a resignation or a decision not to take a bonus.
Heads must roll!
Small consideration is given to the fact that this level of snow and freezing temperatures at this time of the year is (or has been up until now) a freak occurrence. No manager, administrator or minister worth his salt is going to spend a fortune preparing for freak conditions, thereby risking the wrath of the budget keepers, the accountants and the voters. If those conditions can be shown, later, to fall outside the definition of ‘freak’, and nearer to the definition of ‘normal’, that is the time to spend the money.
What we have heard, and will hear again, is that well worn phrase, ‘Lessons will be learned.’ My question would be, ‘Which lessons?’
We can safely assume that in Northern Ireland, decades of troubled times, under all shades of Westminster government, has resulted in a considerable under-spend on water infrastructure. It’s pretty pointless then, to look for a token scapegoat.
The problems at our airports arise from the assumption that freak conditions are just that, and are unlikely to occur. To compare the situation at Heathrow with that at better equipped continental airports is invidious – they have always had more snow and lower temperatures than we have, and are more used to it; furthermore, they have not been without their weather related problems. Recent freak conditions in the US have caused similar disruptions, and they, too, are more used to severe winter conditions than we are.
The complaints regarding road travel seem to relate to a lack of communication, and the habit of distressed drivers of blocking the hard shoulder.
Much of our difficulties, and all our complaints, arise from an expectation that someone else should be looking after us. The workings of State and Big Business have contrived, over the years, to deprive us of the ability to fend for ourselves, to prepare for extreme conditions as a matter of course, and to ‘get on with it’ at times of stress.
The people in Ireland who are without water are certainly in a very difficult situation, and don’t need reminding of the circumstances in third world countries which require women and young children to walk 10 or 15 km a day to collect the water supply for the whole family, including the sick and elderly within their communities. The distressed road users, many of whom, despite the forecasts, set out on their journeys completely unprepared, won’t give a thought to the millions of people who aren’t able to afford a bicycle, never mind a car. The stranded Christmas holidaymakers feeling miserable in airport terminals are unlikely to work out what percentage of the world’s population have never left their village (or refugee camp), let alone their country.
No, I fear that the important lessons won’t be learned.
In this country we’re lucky – we are not generally short of water, as long as we are sensible. Irrigation of crops is not as prevalent as it is, for example, in North America: there, without irrigation, food production would decline to an unsustainable level, and yet constant irrigation degrades the soil, necessitating increased use of fossil-gas based fertilisers. At the same time, a growing city-based population is taking an increasing proportion of the available water supply: availability of clean water per capita is decreasing as water tables drop and replenishment can’t keep up with demand. Many parts of the world depend on grain exports from the US; and yet, as it takes 1000 tons of water to produce a ton of grain, there will come a time not too many years hence, when the US will no longer be able to export grain – and the irony is that a proportion of their crop will go to the production of bio fuel.
The most water-hungry grain crop is rice. In North Korea, where a majority of the population is undernourished, there is no longer sufficient fuel to power the irrigation systems upon which their staple crop, rice, depends. To make matters worse, in winter they can no longer heat their hospitals, let alone their homes. They don’t have fuel for their farm machinery, so farmers have to do the work manually – but being seriously undernourished, and living in cold accommodation, the labour is very much less than efficient, leading to increasing food shortage and malnutrition. Ultimately, complete societal breakdown is inevitable without huge help from outside.
In a large proportion of irrigated land in Northern China, the water tables are dropping by a meter a year – rivers and rainfall just can’t keep up with demand. In India, two thirds of the Punjab is losing its water tables at the rate of 20 centimetres a year.
Although there was some controversy over a misguided claim by the IPCC regarding how soon the Himalayan glaciers would disappear, that should not blind us to the established fact that these glaciers are receding at a significant rate (as they are in other parts of the world including Europe). Another fact is that a third of the world’s population is dependent on those glaciers for clean water. Already some of the world’s great rivers are reduced to a trickle, or dry up completely, when the demands of agriculture are at peak – and the periods when this happens are getting longer each year.
So what lessons should our politicians, managers and administrators be learning?
First, it is now clear that current agricultural practices are unsustainable (even without the threat of peak oil). This will become increasingly obvious as fossil-based fuel and fertiliser, and thence food, become more and more expensive. A partial solution to this is for agriculture to become more community based, and organic, with a loosening or abolition of the regulatory constraints which are placed on such things as community composting. This solution might involve some incentive to larger land-owners to allow some of their land to be put to community use (without charge). Small organic community based schemes have been shown elsewhere (Cuba for example) to be several times more productive than standard agricultural practice. As the size of a farmed area increases, the productivity per square meter reduces – so small community based units are the optimum for yield, as well as providing local employment, helping communities to enhance self reliance and resilience.
Second, all farming must become less dependent on oil and oil based products very quickly. Instead of cutting budgets on research, more funds should be provided to research and revitalise new farming methods. There are ways of growing crops which take up far less space than current systems, for example, and these should be investigated and perfected as quickly as possible. Lack of oil is not synonymous with ‘back to the stone age’. Properly researched modern organic methods have the ability to increase not only production, but more importantly, nutritional value.
Thirdly, the present rather tired efforts to enhance the value of ‘community’ should be doubled or trebled. This Government is making a few of the right noises in this direction but their actions are working against their sentiments. The more that a local community is stimulated, the more local work becomes available, the more money is generated locally. There was a time when light industry could be found in village high streets, whereas now it is shunted out to industrial ‘parks’, drawing people away from their communities, and engendering a mindset which embraces the long commute, the supermarket, the ‘dormitory town’ and the school with 1500 pupils which produces students who are outside their own communities right from the start.
Fourthly, politicians should be helping to educate the electorate to the fact that life cannot continue as it is. Our lifestyles are going to change whether we like it or not, but at present the Government is doing absolutely nothing to educate us for this. Major changes will occur and our leaders and most people in the ‘developed’ world are walking towards those changes with our eyes shut! The later we leave our preparations the harder it will be to live with those changes and the more chaotic and destructive will be the outcome.
The water crisis in Ireland leads me to wonder, with all the rigorous, so-called environmentally friendly building regulations, why new buildings are not required to capture rainwater for use, at least, in toilets and kitchen sinks. There is no reason why we should feel entitled to use good drinking water for anything other than drinking and cooking.
While we are whining at the Government because they aren’t keeping our roads clear or our trains running, some small island nations are already suffering deeply as a result of rising sea levels. Some African countries are suffering prolonged drought and loss of crops. Others devote their agricultural resources to producing crops for export instead of feeding themselves, mostly through the ‘good’ offices of the IMF and the WTO.
Unless real action is taken to change the way we live, we will soon be whining about failure of road, rail and air travel through lack of economically viable fuel supplies, and while our main sources of groceries (the supermarkets) only keep sufficient stocks to last less than a week without replenishment, we should certainly start to learn how to keep a sensibly stocked store cupboard. Globally we are heading towards shortage of oil, shortage of water and a spiralling global temperature.
The lesson which should be learned by the politicians is not when or how to apologise. It is that there are a number of potential crises up ahead. If these materialise and find us unprepared, it won’t be the odd minister who will have to resign! Meanwhile, those of us who can should incorporate our preparation for the future into our everyday lives, a bit at a time, until it becomes second nature.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Our Unsustainable Lives - an exercise in pessimism!
I have become increasingly frustrated by the approach most people take towards the major problems faced by our ‘civilisation’ in this increasingly hazardous modern world. We have an economic crisis which, we are told, is the daddy of them all. We have climate change, about which almost everyone is in denial at least to some degree (in other words, although many people accept it is happening, few understand or consider the true depth of the looming problem). And we have Peak Oil – a phrase which is much more used than understood – which could pose a similar level of threat to our survival as does climate change if it is not addressed.
A significant chunk of the population is in the same position as I am – the real crisis will not be likely to hit me where it hurts in my lifetime. Should I therefore not care? I talk to people all the time who believe that they are off the hook because they believe it won’t affect them personally. I have two replies to them. One is this: Don’t be too damn sure that you won’t live to see climate and fuel related crises – their warning signs are already there! The other is this: Think of our grandchildren (or do you really not care?)
I am increasingly annoyed by the pundits and politicians, who talk about the pros and cons of nuclear power, coal fired power stations, hydrogen fuel cells, bio-diesel, ethanol, whether the carbon footprint of a kiwi fruit in a UK supermarket can be justified, and whether or not to buy a hybrid car.
They are all missing the point, because they are all looking for a politically acceptable way of cutting services, taxing consumption, encouraging recycling by imposing a higher landfill tax, and a host of other bits of tinkering, all without either upsetting the few people who actually vote, or significantly changing anybody’s comfortable lifestyle.
Oh how I wish they would start telling us the truth!
The future of human life on this planet depends upon us learning to reduce drastically our greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining what is left of our ecosystem so that it continues to sequestrate CO2 (which is what has kept our atmosphere human-friendly over the millennia), and accepting that our current level of consumerism is not just self indulgent, it is suicidal, regardless of the source of the energy. The fact is that we as a race are consuming more energy than the sun (the source of all our energy) gives us on a day to day basis; and so we raid the bank (fossil fuel), and look what happens to banks when they lend unsustainably!
Consuming less does not mean just making sure that some phoney organisation has sanctioned our hardwood patio furniture as coming from some mythical sustainable source, it means we don’t buy hardwood furniture! It does not mean hesitating over whether the third TV should have a 21” or a 28” screen – it means not having a third TV. And it doesn’t mean buying runner beans, or worse by far, flowers, out of season from the other side of the world (and yes I do feel sorry for the Kenyans, but they must grow food for themselves, not us!)
We hear the phrase, ‘Think outside the box,’ often enough, usually when related to Frank Field, or Alan Sugar. But we, the ubiquitous middle class (for there is no other class these days) do not, ever, think outside the box.
Many of us, commendably, compost and recycle what we can. But if enough of us took a stand in saying, for instance, ‘I won’t buy this item, because the packaging will have to go to landfill’, the packaging tide might start to turn – but of course not enough of us will, because to find an alternative to the supermarket or Happy Shopper for our meat supply is often just too much trouble.
When I asked my brother about the fuel consumption of his new hybrid car, it turns out that it is higher than my diesel van! That isn’t his fault – Government propaganda has encouraged this illusory ‘green option’ for years.
We really need a leader (and it isn’t going to be any of the current crowd) who will say something like, ‘ I’m here for five years, no more and no less, and this is what we are going to do: Stop all new road construction, stop the purchase of a new Trident, cap all salaries to 10 times the minimum wage, make all public transport free and increase the service, renationalise the railways and buses of course, subsidise local shops through the tax system, cap the speed limit at 50 m.p.h. and enforce it, make people pay for doctor’s appointments but make prescriptions free, tax air fuel, phase out oil-based fertiliser, encourage people to grow food on open spaces such as road verges and roundabouts,’ and I could go on....!’
I can hear middle class voices saying, ‘But that’s just socialism, isn’t it?' Well, I suppose it almost is, although these are only supposed to be examples of ‘thinking outside the box’!
But face it, the capitalist system is precisely what fetched us up in this situation in the first place.
Economies can’t just go on growing – it isn’t possible.
I am the last person to recommend isolationism as a solution – I would not suggest we stop all trade with other countries, but anyone should be able to see the funny side of sending recycled plastic to China to be turned into cheap plastic toys, to be sent straight back – it’s madness! We should tax cheap plastic imports to the limit, and allow people in this country the opportunity to make cheap plastic toys from recycled plastic! Thus, more jobs are created – and if the cheap plastic toys don’t sell because they are too expensive, then we could find another use for the recycled plastic – which, because of Peak Oil, will soon become a resource in considerable demand!
Many of us are fond of suggesting that the ‘green’ movement is a bottom-up movement, and at the moment it is. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that that is enough to solve our problems: that is what we elect politicians to do.
Unfortunately, none of our politicians (except, dare I say, Caroline Lucas) have the vision to understand what is happening to our world.
So we should all find our own way to explain it to them!
A significant chunk of the population is in the same position as I am – the real crisis will not be likely to hit me where it hurts in my lifetime. Should I therefore not care? I talk to people all the time who believe that they are off the hook because they believe it won’t affect them personally. I have two replies to them. One is this: Don’t be too damn sure that you won’t live to see climate and fuel related crises – their warning signs are already there! The other is this: Think of our grandchildren (or do you really not care?)
I am increasingly annoyed by the pundits and politicians, who talk about the pros and cons of nuclear power, coal fired power stations, hydrogen fuel cells, bio-diesel, ethanol, whether the carbon footprint of a kiwi fruit in a UK supermarket can be justified, and whether or not to buy a hybrid car.
They are all missing the point, because they are all looking for a politically acceptable way of cutting services, taxing consumption, encouraging recycling by imposing a higher landfill tax, and a host of other bits of tinkering, all without either upsetting the few people who actually vote, or significantly changing anybody’s comfortable lifestyle.
Oh how I wish they would start telling us the truth!
The future of human life on this planet depends upon us learning to reduce drastically our greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining what is left of our ecosystem so that it continues to sequestrate CO2 (which is what has kept our atmosphere human-friendly over the millennia), and accepting that our current level of consumerism is not just self indulgent, it is suicidal, regardless of the source of the energy. The fact is that we as a race are consuming more energy than the sun (the source of all our energy) gives us on a day to day basis; and so we raid the bank (fossil fuel), and look what happens to banks when they lend unsustainably!
Consuming less does not mean just making sure that some phoney organisation has sanctioned our hardwood patio furniture as coming from some mythical sustainable source, it means we don’t buy hardwood furniture! It does not mean hesitating over whether the third TV should have a 21” or a 28” screen – it means not having a third TV. And it doesn’t mean buying runner beans, or worse by far, flowers, out of season from the other side of the world (and yes I do feel sorry for the Kenyans, but they must grow food for themselves, not us!)
We hear the phrase, ‘Think outside the box,’ often enough, usually when related to Frank Field, or Alan Sugar. But we, the ubiquitous middle class (for there is no other class these days) do not, ever, think outside the box.
Many of us, commendably, compost and recycle what we can. But if enough of us took a stand in saying, for instance, ‘I won’t buy this item, because the packaging will have to go to landfill’, the packaging tide might start to turn – but of course not enough of us will, because to find an alternative to the supermarket or Happy Shopper for our meat supply is often just too much trouble.
When I asked my brother about the fuel consumption of his new hybrid car, it turns out that it is higher than my diesel van! That isn’t his fault – Government propaganda has encouraged this illusory ‘green option’ for years.
We really need a leader (and it isn’t going to be any of the current crowd) who will say something like, ‘ I’m here for five years, no more and no less, and this is what we are going to do: Stop all new road construction, stop the purchase of a new Trident, cap all salaries to 10 times the minimum wage, make all public transport free and increase the service, renationalise the railways and buses of course, subsidise local shops through the tax system, cap the speed limit at 50 m.p.h. and enforce it, make people pay for doctor’s appointments but make prescriptions free, tax air fuel, phase out oil-based fertiliser, encourage people to grow food on open spaces such as road verges and roundabouts,’ and I could go on....!’
I can hear middle class voices saying, ‘But that’s just socialism, isn’t it?' Well, I suppose it almost is, although these are only supposed to be examples of ‘thinking outside the box’!
But face it, the capitalist system is precisely what fetched us up in this situation in the first place.
Economies can’t just go on growing – it isn’t possible.
I am the last person to recommend isolationism as a solution – I would not suggest we stop all trade with other countries, but anyone should be able to see the funny side of sending recycled plastic to China to be turned into cheap plastic toys, to be sent straight back – it’s madness! We should tax cheap plastic imports to the limit, and allow people in this country the opportunity to make cheap plastic toys from recycled plastic! Thus, more jobs are created – and if the cheap plastic toys don’t sell because they are too expensive, then we could find another use for the recycled plastic – which, because of Peak Oil, will soon become a resource in considerable demand!
Many of us are fond of suggesting that the ‘green’ movement is a bottom-up movement, and at the moment it is. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that that is enough to solve our problems: that is what we elect politicians to do.
Unfortunately, none of our politicians (except, dare I say, Caroline Lucas) have the vision to understand what is happening to our world.
So we should all find our own way to explain it to them!
Friday, 11 June 2010
Compulsory Water Metering
A letter was published in our local paper, the West Briton, this week, expressing horror at the thought of compulsory water metering. This was my reply!
"I was really interested to read the letter from Miss Trewin regarding water metering, particularly the paragraph in which she states that ‘Any kind of compulsory action undermines democracy and is an invasion of the peoples’ democratic rights’. After all, the basis of democracy is the law and its creation and enforcement!
To follow that line of thought through to its logical conclusion, I guess Miss Trewin resents the fact that electricity and gas supplies also have to be metered! Perhaps we should instead be subjected to an inflated standing electricity or gas charge based on house size and location as is the case with unmetered water! The infrastructure associated with water supply is significant, and expensive to maintain (as with electricity and gas), and I cannot think of a reason to treat water as a special case!
More seriously, I am a supporter of Green policies and principles, specifically the principle of conserving our resources where possible. Having used an unmetered supply of water for many years, I came to realise that a more fair and honest approach would be to have a meter installed, so that I paid for what I used. The value from my point of view would be that I would be able to monitor my own water use, and avoid wasting this precious resource. As it turned out, the meter has had the effect of reducing my water bill by more than 50%.
Miss Trewin naively believes that ‘it is logical people will only use the amount of water needed...’ – I have to say that her faith in the human race’s ability to behave in a logical way is different from mine! The fact is that if volume of water used is reflected in the water bill, people will be more careful with its use, as they are with electricity. Additionally, it would enable anyone to judge whether they are being charged fairly or not.
We in Cornwall have probably the highest water charges in the country, but that is mainly due to the burden of catering for the tourists who visit, whether through beach cleaning or sewage treatment. Whether that is fair or not is a question for politicians, and I don’t think it is at the top of their current ‘to-do’ list!
In this economically challenged world, I take the view that we should all pay a fair rate for all our services, and compulsory water metering would allow us to do that. Miss Trewin wonders who would benefit – I would suggest that in the end, the whole population would.
"I was really interested to read the letter from Miss Trewin regarding water metering, particularly the paragraph in which she states that ‘Any kind of compulsory action undermines democracy and is an invasion of the peoples’ democratic rights’. After all, the basis of democracy is the law and its creation and enforcement!
To follow that line of thought through to its logical conclusion, I guess Miss Trewin resents the fact that electricity and gas supplies also have to be metered! Perhaps we should instead be subjected to an inflated standing electricity or gas charge based on house size and location as is the case with unmetered water! The infrastructure associated with water supply is significant, and expensive to maintain (as with electricity and gas), and I cannot think of a reason to treat water as a special case!
More seriously, I am a supporter of Green policies and principles, specifically the principle of conserving our resources where possible. Having used an unmetered supply of water for many years, I came to realise that a more fair and honest approach would be to have a meter installed, so that I paid for what I used. The value from my point of view would be that I would be able to monitor my own water use, and avoid wasting this precious resource. As it turned out, the meter has had the effect of reducing my water bill by more than 50%.
Miss Trewin naively believes that ‘it is logical people will only use the amount of water needed...’ – I have to say that her faith in the human race’s ability to behave in a logical way is different from mine! The fact is that if volume of water used is reflected in the water bill, people will be more careful with its use, as they are with electricity. Additionally, it would enable anyone to judge whether they are being charged fairly or not.
We in Cornwall have probably the highest water charges in the country, but that is mainly due to the burden of catering for the tourists who visit, whether through beach cleaning or sewage treatment. Whether that is fair or not is a question for politicians, and I don’t think it is at the top of their current ‘to-do’ list!
In this economically challenged world, I take the view that we should all pay a fair rate for all our services, and compulsory water metering would allow us to do that. Miss Trewin wonders who would benefit – I would suggest that in the end, the whole population would.
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