http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists; "... according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation: "The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent."
By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.
These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."...
Showing posts with label Guardian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guardian. Show all posts
Friday, March 14, 2014
Monbiot: Biodiesl incentives created "ecological disasters" and the same for biogas?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/mar/14/uk-ban-maize-biogas
"It was also a brilliant idea to turn waste chip fat into biodiesel. But the incentives to produce biodiesel, often justified by the claim that they would make use of waste, have created multiple ecological disasters. They have encouraged farmers to feed cars rather than people and financed the conversion of rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia and West Africa into oil palm plantations, driving orangutans and many other species to the brink of extinction. In most cases, biodiesel, as a result of the changes in land use, has much higher greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuel it replaces.....
Biogas is now going the same way. Provide the money to do the right thing and if you're not careful it will be used to do the wrong thing....Economic modelling commissioned by the government tested eight different mixes with which farmers could feed an anaerobic digester, to try to work out which were profitable. All of them included grass, wheat, maize or potatoes, and in some cases the models specified a higher tonnage of these specially grown crops than the waste the digesters are supposed to process. As maize has both a high yield per hectare and a high yield of biogas per tonne, it has become what the farming press calls the biogas "core crop". There could scarcely be a better formula for subverting everything biogas is supposed to achieve....The first and most obvious problem is that it means taking land out of food production. According to Farmers' Guardian, a biogas plant with a capacity of one megawatt, "requires 20,000-25,000 tonnes [of maize] a year, accounting for 450-500 hectares of land"....It reports that the area of maize being grown for biogas in the UK has trebled to 15,000 hectares in the past two years alone, and is likely to rise to 25,000 hectares next year. This is an astonishing rate of growth. If, as the National Farmers Union (NFU) advocates, 1,000 medium-sized biogas plants are built by 2020, and maize supplements the slurry and manure they process, that will mean the use of between 100,000 and 125,000 hectares...."
"It was also a brilliant idea to turn waste chip fat into biodiesel. But the incentives to produce biodiesel, often justified by the claim that they would make use of waste, have created multiple ecological disasters. They have encouraged farmers to feed cars rather than people and financed the conversion of rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia and West Africa into oil palm plantations, driving orangutans and many other species to the brink of extinction. In most cases, biodiesel, as a result of the changes in land use, has much higher greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuel it replaces.....
Biogas is now going the same way. Provide the money to do the right thing and if you're not careful it will be used to do the wrong thing....Economic modelling commissioned by the government tested eight different mixes with which farmers could feed an anaerobic digester, to try to work out which were profitable. All of them included grass, wheat, maize or potatoes, and in some cases the models specified a higher tonnage of these specially grown crops than the waste the digesters are supposed to process. As maize has both a high yield per hectare and a high yield of biogas per tonne, it has become what the farming press calls the biogas "core crop". There could scarcely be a better formula for subverting everything biogas is supposed to achieve....The first and most obvious problem is that it means taking land out of food production. According to Farmers' Guardian, a biogas plant with a capacity of one megawatt, "requires 20,000-25,000 tonnes [of maize] a year, accounting for 450-500 hectares of land"....It reports that the area of maize being grown for biogas in the UK has trebled to 15,000 hectares in the past two years alone, and is likely to rise to 25,000 hectares next year. This is an astonishing rate of growth. If, as the National Farmers Union (NFU) advocates, 1,000 medium-sized biogas plants are built by 2020, and maize supplements the slurry and manure they process, that will mean the use of between 100,000 and 125,000 hectares...."
Panasonic to pay expat workers in China pollution compensation
An interesting precedent on extra premium for expats working in China due to air pollution problem; "Japanese electronics company describes payments as 'premium for expatriates to compensate for different living environment..." http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/13/panasonic-pay-pollution-expatriate-workers-china
US-EU TTIP deal and environmental standards
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/14/free-trade-deal-eu-us-environment-ngos-sustainability; "Both the EU and US are adamant TTIP will not affect both regions’ environmental protection standards. But green groups, forewarned by past experiences of free trade agreements, are incredulous.... Any attempt to fully align the two regions would precipitate a disaster for environmental standards, particularly in the EU where the bar tends to be higher. But the aim of the negotiations is not ‘harmonisation’, as some green groups have suggested. Rather the language is of ‘mutual recognition’ or ‘equivalence’. This decreases the danger of standards being directly eroded.... This debate is essentially pragmatic. It’s not really about deregulation and liberalism but about diverging priorities. Corporations are in favour of regulations that are in favour of corporations. Hence their support of the creation of additional legal frameworks that will allow them to enhance their economic interests through ISDSs. Environment groups want to use state frameworks to protect the environment...."
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