Famine will get us first
Food security and the rapid rise in food prices are the urgent issue that politicians must face up to quickly.
Global grain stores are currently at the lowest levels ever, just 40 days from running out.
Famine will get us before climate change.
Professor John Beddington is the government’s new chief scientific adviser. He said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was “profoundly stupid”. [more]
Jonathon Porritt CBE, Founder of the Sustainable Development Commission, spelled out the problems to the National Farmers Union Conference recently.
“Population growth, the rise of China and India, an end to the era of cheap oil, climate change, water shortages, continuing soil degradation at an astonishing level all around the world, diminishing response to fertiliser use, competition for land all over the world”.
don’t panic!
He then said “We should absolutely not panic. There are four things we have to do.”
- We have to read these signals for what they tell us. Do not go on ignoring them, do not go on underestimating them; see them for what they are.
- Avoid the evangelists.
- Re-centre food production at the heart of all land use strategies.
- Get very good at climate change.
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