quotes of the day

Modern technology owes ecology an apology.  -Alan M. Eddison

I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?  -Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985


We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.  -Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
 
For 200 years we've been conquering Nature. Now we're beating it to death.  -Tom McMillan, quoted in Francesca Lyman, The Greenhouse Trap, 1990


Everyday that I read about the future we (the people) are creating, I am slapped in the face with the bitter truth that the Earth is dying and we are the murderers. I read today about food storage and no I'm not talking about Ziploc baggies, I'm talking about the need to have at least one years worth of food stored in your house. Robert Waldrop gives a few reasons why in his blog Bobaganda:

• In eight of the last ten years, the world has consumed more grain that it produced. The giant grain stockpiles of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s are gone.
  
• We had a major food crisis world wide in 2007-2008, which saw many Asian countries banning the export of rice, and there were riots throughout the third world. This coincided with an energy crisis and the beginning of our present financial crisis.
  
• The world's big financial players have discovered food. Hedge funds, insurance companies, and big banks are speculating in food and driving the price up for consumers, while the farmers often get little if any of the price gains.
  
• The world's climate is seriously impacting food production. Australia had a ten year drought that ravaged their food production capacities. Russia banned the export of grain through the end of next year and they were the world's third largest grain exporter.
  
• Sovereign wealth funds and wealthy corporations are buying millions of acres of farmland in poor countries to produce food for export. They aren't doing this because they think food will be plentiful and cheap in coming years.
  
• The evidence seems to be that conventional agriculture has about reached its maximum food production capacity on the land presently under cultivation. And the land area of world food production is declining, due to urban sprawl, desertification, drought, and other grim happenings.
  
• Besides these bullet points, I continue to be increasingly alarmed by the on-going devolution of our financial and economic systems.
  
• And then there's peak oil and climate instability.

Bob goes on to write:
"Any one of these issues would be a big deal by itself, but coming on us all at once, the situation could get terrifying very rapidly -- much quicker than most people think would be possible. The reason there's been so much doom and gloom over the past two years is because "something wicked this way comes" -- there is a lot to be doomed and gloomed about. The one economic site where I read every post is The Automatic Earth, and they recently posted an interview with one of their principles -- http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-4-2010-jim-puplava-interviews.html . The folks at Automatic Earth are considering the interaction of peak oil, climate instability, and economic irrationality. I sent the link to my runningonempty2@yahoogroups.com group, which has 7400 or so members and has been discussing peak oil since 2001, as a "special notice" with the note -- if you don't read anything else this week, read this.
And I recently read an excerpt from an interesting book, The Coming Famine, that was published in the NY Times. The author does a good job of pulling together many of these threads.

In the 20th century, most famines were caused by politics and finance, not by absolute shortages of food. Going forward, we still have the potential problem of famine caused by politics and finance, but we are also increasingly at risk of famine due to absolute shortages of food.

Like the energy and the financial crises, a food security crisis would come upon us quickly and without much warning. There won't be time to rush out and buy a large amount of food, because it might not be available and if available, would you have the money? In the best of times, few households could afford to go and buy a year's worth of food in one big shopping excursion. Sure, mobbing a Wal-Mart in the throes of a major food panic might be an interesting if dangerous adrenaline rush, but I suggest safer methods of getting your excitement fix if that's what you crave."

Time to stock up on beans and plant an even bigger garden!
P.S. If you haven't already read about peak oil, I suggest you do so.