(Rome, 18 November 2009) The blatant absence of the heads of states of the

G8 countries in the World Food Summit, held in Rome from 16 to 18th of

November was one of the key causes of the total failure of this summit.

There were no concrete measures taken to eradicate hunger, to stop food

speculation or to stop the expansion of agrofuels. There were no measures

to stop the devastating effects of corporate agriculture or to support

domestic peasant based food production. Continue Reading »

An Amazon Culture Withers as Food Dries Up

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

XINGU NATIONAL PARK, Brazil – As the naked, painted young men of the Kamayurá tribe prepare for the ritualized war games of a festival, they end their haunting fireside chant with a blowing sound – “whoosh, whoosh” – a symbolic attempt to eliminate the scent of fish so they will not be detected by enemies. For centuries, fish from jungle lakes and rivers have been a staple of the Kamayurá diet, the tribe’s primary source of protein. Continue Reading »

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“Quite a lot is known, and very little is reassuring.”

“The remedies are not hard to grasp. Politicians, however, are supine.” “Yet the mass extinction, however remote, that should be concentrating minds is that of mankind. It is not wise to dismiss it where CO2 emissions, the other great curse of the oceans, are concerned.”
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The Economist Dec 30th 2008

The oceans

A sea of troubles

Man is assaulting the oceans. They will smite him if he does not take care

NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like perpetual yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is reassuring.

Continue Reading »

American Geophysical Union 2008 Fall Meeting

#1
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“… motivations for advancing corn-based ethanol production
in the USA, such as reduced reliance on foreign oil and increased
prosperity for farming communities, must be considered separately,
but the greenhouse-gas-mitigation rationale is clearly unsupportable.”
——————–

Greenhouse-Gas Consequences of US Corn-based Ethanol in a Flat
World.

Davidson, E A., et al     edavidson@whrc.org
The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth,
MA 02540- 1644, United States.

Continue Reading »

Cattle, Chemicals, Climate, and Oxygen in Gulf of Mexico

American Geophysical Union 2008 Fall Meeting

The GHG and Land Demand Consequences of the US Animal-Based Food
Consumption

Martin, P A Dept. of Geophysics, 5734 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago,
IL 60637, United States.

Eshel, G  Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale, NY 12504-5000,
United States.

Abstract: While the environmental burdens exerted by food production
are addressed by several recent publications, the contributions
of animal-based food production, and in particular red meat-by
far the most environmentally exacting of all large-scale animal-based
foods-are less well quantified. We present several simple calculations
that quantify some environmental costs of animal-and cattle-based
food production. First, we show that American red meat
is, on average, 350% more GHG (greenhouse gas)-intensive per
edible calorie than the national food system’s mean. Second,
we show that the per calorie land-use efficiencies of fruit and
beans are 5 and 3 times that of animal-based foods. That is,
an animal-based edible calorie requires the same amounts of land
as 5 fruit calories or 3 bean calories. We conclude with highlighting
the importance of these results to policy makers by calculating
the mass flux into the environment of fertilizer and herbicide
that will be averted by reducing or eliminating animal-based
foods from the mean US diet. This also enables us to make preliminary
quantitative statements about expected changes to the size and probability
of Gulf of Mexico anoxic events of a certain O2 depletion levels that are
likely to accompany specific dietary shifts.

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The report, “The Climate Crisis and the Adaptation Myth,” is
published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and
is available at
www.environment.yale.edu/publication-series/climate_change/.

Public release date: 2-Dec-2008
Yale University

Contact: David DeFusco
david.defusco@yale.edu
203-436-4842

Most US organizations not adapting to climate change

New Haven, Conn.-Organizations in the United States that are at the
highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not
adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures,
according to a Yale report.

“Despite a half century of climate change that has already
significantly affected temperature and precipitation patterns and has
already had widespread ecological and hydrological impacts, and
despite a near certainty that the United States will experience at
least as much climate change in the coming decades just as a result
of current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, little
adaptation has occurred,” says Robert Repetto, author of “The Climate
Crisis and the Adaptation Myth” and a senior fellow of the United
Nations Foundation.

Continue Reading »

Access to water must be high on climate agenda: group

Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:02am EST

By Svetlana Kovalyova

MILAN (Reuters) – Access to water is a basic human right and should be high on the agenda of climate change talks in Poland next week, the head of an Italian advocacy group said on Friday.

With more than 1 billion people having no access to safe water, the World Water Contract group for years has sought to make availability of water a basic right and add it to the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Given that water is threatened by climate change, it is time to include the human right to water in (the new climate) protocol,” Emilio Molinari, chairman of the group’s Italian branch, told Reuters on the margins of a water conference.

Continue Reading »

Glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau feed water into the Mekong River Basin. Global warming is and will continue to endanger the glaciers. Although this climate-driven threat to the water supply of the hugely populated Mekong River Basin is still in its early stages, tensions in the Basin are
already moving toward conflict.

This article all but ignores the severity of our new climate’s threat. It doesn’t say, for example, that the increased temps already endangering glaciers will continue for at least a few more centuries, even if the world quits consuming fossil fuels and forests. But it’s a pretty good analysis of water conflict moving in the general direction of war.
Lance

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“Almost all the major rivers of Asia originate there. Tibet’s status thus is unique: No other area in the world is a water repository of such size, serving as a lifeline for much of an entire continent.”
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Times of India  24 Nov 2008

Continue Reading »

Sydney Morning Herald
November 25, 2008

National safeguards for native plants
Stephanie Peatling

A NATIONAL seed bank of native plants will be
developed by botanic gardens as a way of saving
vulnerable species from climate change.

About 7 per cent of native plants are considered
at risk from rising temperatures, prompting the
eight botanic gardens in capital cities to launch
the conservation strategy.

Continue Reading »

It’s all going to ultimately revolve around water…because Water IS Life.

ASW

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” … the United States will have much less influence around the world
as the growing climate conditions, water and energy stress the planet.”

“Climate change, we concluded, is not by itself going to bring down any
governments. It is not going to lead to wars,” he added. But in the case
of “already stressed and strained and failing and flailing governments
and states … this well could be the straw that breaks the camel´s back.”
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American Chronicle
November 21, 2008

Water worth more than gold
by Michael Webster, Investigative Reporter

The new U.S. intelligence report issued by the
National Intelligence Council, the “Global Trends
2025″ report includes warnings tied to climate
change. Including water and food shortages
worldwide.

Thomas Fingar, chairman of the NIC and deputy
director of national intelligence says of the
report that may effect the U.S. most is that the
United States will have much less influence
around the world as the growing climate
conditions, water and energy stress the planet.

Continue Reading »

Experts: Half World Faces Water Shortage by 2080

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/18-0

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Nature-Published online 14 November 2008

News

Marine dead zones set to expand rapidly

Rising carbon dioxide levels will make oceans
more hostile to life.

Quirin Schiermeier

Rising levels of carbon dioxide could increase
the volume of oxygen-depleted ‘dead zones’ in
tropical oceans by as much as 50% before the end
of the century – with dire consequences for the
health of ecosystems in some of the world’s most
productive fishing grounds.

Continue Reading »

Published: 11.14.2008

Brown clouds threaten health, crops across the globe
By Tini Tran and John Heilprin  THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING — A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the United Nations reported Thursday.

The huge, smoglike plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as “atmospheric brown clouds.”

Continue Reading »

Vandana Shiva New and Hopeful Perspective on Climate Change

EXCERPT:

Vandana Shiva Rocks the House. By Tom Phillfpot, Grist, October 26, 2008. “I’ve just
come out of the most hopeful and interesting discussions of climate change I’ve ever
witnessed. Anchored by Indian food-sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva [founder of
Navdanya], the panel discussion at Terra Madre’s [2008 biannual international
conference, convening in Turin] unveiled a new Manifesto on Climate Change and the
Future of Food Safety [PDF, 56 pp], drawn up by the International Commission on the
Future of Food and Agriculture. The room was packed beyond capacity with at least
400 people, and the discussion was translated through headsets into eight languages.
The document under discussion is brisk, lucid, and to the point… To me, Shiva and
her multinational crew of colleagues (other commission members include Wendell
Berry, Jose Bové of Via Campesina, Frances Moore Lappé, and Alice Waters) have
articulated a powerful new vision for confronting climate change — one more potent
even than Al Gore’s famed slides and push for trade-based solutions. Where Gore
dreams of a ‘low-carbon’ or even ‘carbon-free’ world, Shiva pines for a
‘carbon-rich’ future — one in which agriculture systematically builds organic
matter into the soil, capturing it from the atmosphere.”

LINKS:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/25/904/94558

http://www.arsia.toscana.it/petizione/documents/clima/CLIMA_ING.pdf

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———————– Key Quotes —————

“A lack of rainfall could have contributed to
social upheaval and the fall of dynasties.

“The researchers discovered that periods of weak
summer monsoons coincided with the last years of
the Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which are
known to have been times of popular unrest.

“Conversely, the scientists found that a strong
summer monsoon prevailed during one of China’s
“golden ages,” the Northern Song Dynasty.”

” …  the study showed that the dry period at
the end of the Tang Dynasty coincided with a
previously identified drought halfway around the
world, in Meso-America, which has been linked to
the fall of the Mayan civilization.

“The study also showed that the ample summer
rains of the Northern Song Dynasty coincided with
the beginning of the well-known Medieval Warm
Period in Europe and Greenland.”
—————–

National Science Foundation
Ñews Release: 6-Nov-2008

Dry spells spelled trouble in ancient China
Weakening of summer monsoons to blame

Continue Reading »

FALSE SOLUTION: The True Costs of AgroFuels
The Impacts on Forests, Climate, People, & Food

This report, co-produced by the Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest
Coalition and written by Dr. Rachel Smolker, details the ecological and social
impacts of both first-generation food-based agrofuels as well as so-called second
generation cellulose-based agrofuels.

This report can be downloaded at:

http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/img/userpics/File/publications/Truecostagrofuels.pdf

En Espanol:

http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/img/userpics/File/Spanish/Elverdadocostodelosagrocombustibles.pdf

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www/globalforesatcoalition.org

www.globaljusticeecology.org

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2008  10:10 AM

CONTACT: The Cornucopia Institute
Mark Kastel, 608.625.2042

Collateral Damage: Organic Farmers Being Squeezed Out
Corporate Takeover Threatens Farmers, Mission

CORNUCOPIA, Wis. – October 13 – Groups representing organic farmers and their
customers are calling on consumers to help save the organic industry by exclusively
patronizing dairies, and other brands, that uphold the spirit and letter of the
federal organic law.  They claim the acquisition of major brands by corporate
agribusiness, and their dependence on factory farms, threatens to force families off
the land and deprive consumers of the superior nutritional food they think they are
paying for.

Continue Reading »

Published on Friday, October 10, 2008 by One World.net

Americans Increasingly Worried About Hunger
by Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK- People with low income in the United States are feeling increasingly insecure about their ability to buy food, according to a new study released by an independent research group.

“As the economy continues its downward trend, concerns about hunger will only intensify,” said Jim Weill, president of the Washington, DC-based Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which published the study Thursday.

The research indicates that a substantial majority of working families have lost their trust in the federal government’s ability to address the issue of growing levels of hunger and that the next administration must pay close attention to it.

Continue Reading »

FLOW: A Documentary Review

WATER IS LIFE!

http://www.alternet.org/water/100506/flow%3A_the_film_that_will_change_the_way_you_think_about_water/?page=entire

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The cities are finding out about composting…about time.

ASW

Los Angeles Asks Residents To Recycle Food Scraps:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94509325

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Read this closely. The comments about the necessity for livestock in the so-called “developing” world are very valid: these people depend upon their relatively small flocks and herds (whether this be the Masai People of East Africa or the Dine’ People in the Four Corners Region of the U.S. It’s the privileged people-us-that really need to re-evaluate our relationship w/ meat & dairy. I get a sense that the cattle & hog industries are feeling the heat-so to speak-& are worming their perspectives into entities such as Ecologist magazine and the National Farmers Union of the UK. Here in America-we need this critical angle to get the livestock industry off public lands and out of the grain stocks. Healthier intact ecosystems, increased biodiversity, greater food security, more water, and fewer corporate subsidies…make NO mistake!

ASW

Published on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Meat Must Be Rationed to Four Portions A Week, says Report on Climate Change
Study looks at food impact on greenhouse gases • Return to old-fashioned cooking habits urged

by Juliette Jowit

People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.
Continue Reading »

Brazil government ‘worst logger’

High food and commodity prices are increasing the pressure on the Amazon

Brazil’s government has been named as the worst illegal logger of Amazon forests by one of its own departments.
Continue Reading »

Published on Monday, September 29, 2008 by The Washington Post
Bottled Water at Issue in Great Lakes; Conservation and Commerce Clash

by Kari Lydersen

CHICAGO – Even as a 10-year campaign to block wholesale export of Great Lakes water came to a successful conclusion in Congress last week, some legislators and environmentalists vowed to continue their fight to close a “bottled-water loophole,” a campaign that taps into a national debate over sales of H2O in disposable containers.

[Water from aquifers that feed Huron and the other Great Lakes is exempted from export regulations when it's in containers of less than 5.7 gallons. (By John L. Russell -- Associated Press)]Water from aquifers that feed Huron and the other Great Lakes is exempted from export regulations when it’s in containers of less than 5.7 gallons. (By John L. Russell — Associated Press)
A provision of the Great Lakes Compact allows water to be diverted from the basin if it is in containers holding less than 5.7 gallons. The question is whether bottling water from the aquifers that feed the lakes, the largest repository of fresh water on Earth, should be seen as ordinary human consumption, commercial production, or export of a treasured natural resource.
Continue Reading »

WATCH THIS CRAP! Water is Life-& the Great Lakes are probably the largest fresh-water reserve on Earth. Monied interests have been licking their lips over the Great Lakes Ecosystems for years now-from bottled-water outfits to utilities in arid climates.

ASW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2008 6:01 PM

CONTACT: Food and Water Watch
Jon Keesecker or Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch (202) 683-2500
Great Lakes Compact Passes the U.S. House, International Coalition of Water Advocates Calls for Additional Protections for Great Lakes

WASHINGTON – September 24 – On Tuesday, the U.S. House passed the Great Lakes Compact, which aims to ban diversion of Great Lakes water. Hailed as a landmark conservation bill by many, the Compact will ultimately fail to stop corporations from withdrawing and selling water as a commodity. Despite efforts launched by an international coalition lead by Food & Water Watch and the Council of Canadians to ensure a more comprehensive agreement, the Great Lakes Compact passed the U.S. House yesterday by a vote of 390 to 25.
Continue Reading »

Organic Farm Blossoms in Kenya’s Largest Slum

Published on Saturday, September 20, 2008 by Guardian/UK
Organic Farm Blossoms in Kenya’s Largest Slum

by Xan Rice in Nairobi

Victor Matioli’s organic pumpkins are plump, his coriander aromatic and his spinach
“very soft, sweet, and tasty”. His half-acre farm is a former rubbish dump in the
heart of east Africa’s biggest slum.

So arresting is the sight of tall sunflowers growing amid the rust-coloured shacks
and dirt paths of Kibera that Matioli and his fellow growers have had to put up a
“No photographing” sign to allow them to work in peace. Their reputations – the
farmers are all reformed criminals – mean the warning is seldom ignored.

Continue Reading »

Hunger levels soar in East Africa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7626562.stm

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Study: Quota Systems Help Keep Fisheries Afloat

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94756887

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Published on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 by Inter Press Service

Transgenic Crops’ Days May Be Numbered In Europe
European Farmers and Civil Society Lead Resistance to GM Model Pushed by Industry
by Mario de Queiroz

LISBON – Pressure from the president of the European Commission has not succeeded in
advancing the cause of transgenic crops. In spite of the power wielded by the
executive organ of the European Union, the bloc’s member countries are gradually
discontinuing the use of genetically modified seeds.

This is due in large measure to the difficulty of convincing European farmers
to adopt the transgenic crop production model, which is being promoted by biotech
giants, but also to increasingly vociferous protests from civil society, which is
demanding that governments take an active role, according to an expert interviewed
by IPS.

Continue Reading »

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“Sir Ian Andrews, second permanent
under-secretary at the UK’s Ministry of Defence,
says: ‘Climate change is potentially the greatest
challenge to security that we face, in terms of
the impact that it could have globally.’”

“Anthony Zinni, a former commander of US forces
in the Middle East, warned: ‘We will pay for this
one way or another. We will pay to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to
take an economic hit of some kind. Or, we will
pay the price later in military terms. And that
will involve human lives. There will be a human
toll.’”
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Financial Times
September 15 2008

At boiling point
By Fiona Harvey

Widespread food shortages in the developing world
resulting from changing weather patterns; disease
outbreaks; mass migration as people abandon farms
because of failing crops; populations fleeing
coastal areas because of sea level rises. Each of
these is a potential byproduct of climate change.

Continue Reading »