Driving on food
If there's one thing that has affected my attitude most since peering into the world of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), it is not the case for climate change, it's the realisation of just how dependent on the huge forces we unleash at the mere flick of a switch.
Forces which allow us to shift a one ton vehicle carrying 5 people 60 miles in just an hour. A force which, if replaced by manpower alone, would require a small army of people to transact in a time-span measuring days... not including the days it would take to plan and organise.
A force which delivers food to our shops from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away, in a day. A force we use to transport that food home, refrigerate, and cook at phenomenal speeds using more instantly available forces.
Interesting stats
Approximately 90% of the energy in crop production is oil and natural gas.
About one-third of the energy is to reduce the labour input from 500 hours per acre to 4 hours per acre in grain production.
About two-thirds of the energy is for production, of which about one-third of this is for fertilizers alone.
Pimentel and associates (1998)
Without those forces to command - essentially oil-derived - our whole day would revolve around producing (or finding) food, sourcing water, and cooking/boiling it.
Around 5-6 weeks ago, I heard a spokesperson from the World Food Program (WPF) on the BEEB's World Service (don't ask - Actually, it's quite an interesting station) warning that worldwide stockpiles of wheat stood at just 9 weeks.
The shortages are a result of crops ruined by drought and floods in some of the world's major food producing countries, plus the additional 73 million mouths to feed each year (and accelerating).
The "wheat squeeze" is not just a one year blip either: Wheat production has been declining since 2004-05.
On top of that, we have escalating record oil prices ($112/barrel) adding to fertiliser and freight costs.
Sell property - Buy caves
All the more reason why I've sat quietly bemused at the relatively low radar signal. So low, in fact, I felt like a preaching nutter a few weeks ago when I was chatting to a property manager about the EPC and possible ramifications of an oil and grain squeeze - She thought I was unduly carrying the world on my shoulders as I urged her to diversify into cave-renting.
Only because of the riots during the last few days has the situation finally stirred mass-media attention. So, when I spoke with her yesterday, she confessed to now feeling 'slightly nervous'.
She should. We should.
Biofuels vs biofood
From today (Tuesday 15th April 2008), the competing demands on land and food production has increased: 2.5% of the diesel or petrol you pour into your car will now come from ethanol; a so-called biofuel derived from food crops.
What's more, the ratio of biofuel in your tank is set to increase up to 5.75% by 2010, under EU regulations.
That is, unless farming ministers make food an "absolute priority" when they meet later this week, according to Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Food riots
This, amidst a worldwide shortage of wheat, rice and corn which has sparked riots in Niger, Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Haiti, where the government fell during the weekend leaving five people dead (at least).
Elsewhere, protests and general unrest on the streets of Egypt, the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, where people form huge queues to buy rice from government stocks.
The price of wheat and rice has soared 130%, and 74% respectively in the last year alone, triggering a food crisis across 36 countries, according to the FAO.
If you think it's just affecting poor countries, be aware: France and Australia have launched national inquiries into their own exposures and are pressing food makers and supermarkets to bear the brunt of rising prices. Even Italy has suffered a one-day strike because of rising pasta and bread prices.
The food crisis appears to be bubbling up through the world economies, exacerbated by export restrictions imposed by governments in some of the world's major food-producing countries (to feed their own populations), and compounded further by countries such as America, which is diverting 18% of its grain output to ethanol production this year, in a bid to become less oil dependent.
The irony, however, is that we are likely to import their biofuel because we - in the UK - still don't have sufficient biofuel refining capacity to meet demand - A lot of shipping miles!
Struggling with climate change?
If you have a hard time convincing someone of the merits of an EPC using the climate change argument, switch tact; instead, talk about something far easier to appreciate: Energy, and its inextricable link to food production and supply.
Or, as DEA John Semens was kind enough to write after listening to the DEA podcast with David Strahan:
Excellent podcast by the way, I now use it as part of my 'pacifying' blurb when met with a particularly hostile home owner.
'OK so you don't give a toss about saving the planet, that's fine, your choice, but how would you feel if you couldn't put fuel in your car. Or you had to pay a fiver a litre?'
They generally take a bit more interest then.
Recent news coverage and info:
- BBC NEWS | Business | World Bank tackles food emergency
- Global warming rage lets global hunger grow - Telegraph
- Brits ignorant of biofuel law - 14 Apr 2008 - BusinessGreen
- AFP: EU defends biofuel goals amid food crises
- The other global crisis: rush to biofuels is driving up price of food - World Politics, World - The Independent
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