Review: Diet for a Hot Planet

"Diet for a Hot Planet:  The climate crisis at the end of your fork and what you can do about it," by Anna Lappe, is a shot across the bow of the industrial farming interests that currently control, not only almost all of today's food production but, all of the dialogue we hear regarding food production.  In this highly researched book Ms. Lappe pits the large industrial farms against todays emerging organic farming community and comes up with some surprising conclusions that go against the prevailing ideas we hold about our present first world farming system.

According to Ms. Lappe the organic farmers can match crop yields for most crops and do so sustainably and in a climate friendly way.  Along the way she suggests many ways we can make changes to our lifestyle to minimize the climate threat.  For instance, she strongly suggests that we need to get rid of our need for meat as it is a primary source of methane, one of the worst chemicals in the climate change battle, and a very inefficient use of our arable land.  I was looking for a bit of a warning about the need for organic farming in a world of reduced availability of hydrocarbons.  There wasn't that kind of a message but it was clear that organic farming is a much lower consumer of hydrocarbons and therefore should be better positioned to weather the peak-oil storm.

Ms. Lappe is clearly a strong advocate for the organic farming revolution.  I hope that she is successful in her quest.  I am pessimistic, however, as I think there are far too many corporate, big money interests in play for this kind of effort to take place peacefully.  Eventually, all farming will be organic, there is no other long term option.  But until we have run up against the wall of hydrocarbon scarcity, we will be stuck with the system that is preferred by the power brokers.

Bubble Isn't Price Driver, Poll Says

WSJ.com: "The global surge in food and energy prices is being driven primarily by fundamental market conditions, rather than an investment bubble, say the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey."

If you spend a little time trying to understand the dynamics of our population and the mechanics of our consumer culture you will have no trouble accepting this conclusion. We are beginning to test the limits of our ability to extract increasing quantities of raw materials from our planet. These limits relate to the primary capability of extraction, the secondary ability to convert the raw materials to usable forms (including provision of infrastructure) and the tertiary ability to deal with the negative ramifications of the raw material's use (global warming). These limits can only be avoided by reducing population or reducing the individual consumption of a vast majority of the population. As far as I know, there are no known political means to accomplish either of these effects. That leaves the natural method. It will probably start with rising prices for raw materials and products that critically depend on their use. I would guess that would be oil and food.

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

New York Times: "The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels."

Even though we are seeing a lot of these kind of stories in the news lately, it is really just the beginning. Until we find a way to reduce our consumption to a sustainable level we will be playing this zero-sum game.

Rising prices threaten millions with starvation, despite bumper crops - Green Living, Environment

"All the familiar signs of impending disaster are here, and in spades. Across the developing world already hungry people are now having to eat even less. Food stocks have plunged to record lows. Food prices have scaled new heights. Food riots are spreading around the globe. Yet the world is still harvesting record amounts of grain."

[Link: Independent.co.uk]

This is exactly what over-population should look like. The pressure is from the number of consumers not the supply. When we have no way to limit the numbers of people (or even the growth rate of the population) or the amount they consume, we will eventually reach the point where we cannot produce fast enough to keep up. Many have said this all along. More have scoffed.

Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America

The author looks ahead to post-petroleum living with considered conclusions: "Biofuels have yet to be proven viable, and mechanization may not be a great strategy in a world of declining energy." And, "…only a small amount of biomass (is) unspoken for" by today’s essential economic and ecological activities. To top it off, she points out, "Crop production is reduced when residues are removed from the soil. Why would farmers want to sell their residues?" Here’s an Oh- god-she-nailed-it zinger: "As prices of fertilizer inexorably rise due to natural gas depletion, it will be cheaper to return residues to the soil than to buy fertilizer." Looking further along than most of us, Alice has among her conclusions: "It’s time to start increasing horse and oxen numbers, which will leave even less biomass for biorefineries."

[Link: Culture Change]

You should read this article if you believe that Peak Oil is real but that we will come up with a technical fix that will allow us to continue living our lives of consumption, but in a different way. The only technical fix that will be viable will be high speed down-scaling combined with massive population reduction. There is no way to suck enough energy out of the world to support even a fraction of our present global population at a level of existance remotely approaching today's western culture without access to the billions of barrels of oil we have been using up to now.

A battle over biofuels

"To see where corn production can go, it is helpful to see how far it has come. In 1945, U.S. farmers harvested about 40 bushels of grain per acre. Today, thanks to elite hybrids, new technologies and growers' management practices, the U.S. average is 160 bushels per acre. Many growers consistently produce 250 bushels, up to a record of 400-plus bushels."

[Link: DesMoinesRegister.com]

It is interesting that nowhere in this article did the author discuss net-energy or try to estimate how much of the increased yields that he does mention are derived from the application of petroleum derived (natural gas) nitrogen fertilizers. I am not an expert on crop yields, I probably couldn't even be considered a knowledgeable layman, but I am pretty sure that a lot of the reason we are continually pulling really high yields from the same land is because we are able to artificially ignore soil replenishment and pest resistance by using hydrocarbon based fertilizers and insecticides. I suspect, as misleading as it is, that these dependencies are hidden in his phrase "management practices." We are going to have to do much more than add technology to our farming practices to increase yields. We are also going to have to find a way to replace the petrochemical fertilizers and insecticides that we rely on now. It would be very interesting to hear about the yields without any petrochemical help.

Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare

Link: New York Times

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there.

Worse still, the scientists said, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

As we desperately try to replace oil as a primary fuel for our civilization's transportation needs, this is going to be an ongoing story I'm afraid. Most high capacity agricultural projects are high impact operations. We have developed agricultural methods that are efficient and energy intensive. That is the way things are done today. But that is for food. The fuel industry is going to be added on top of the food industry. There will be no place safe from the gasoline farmers. Of course it will be an eco-nightmare. How could it not be.

Grain Drain: Get Ready for Peak Grain

This is not a surprising development. As we continue to expand our population, the resources that we depend on just don't seem to keep pace. We have not found a way to create resources yet. All we have mastered is the consumption of them. They are finite and it seems there is no way we can avoid using them up. Indubitably, when one is gone we will start using up the next one. The trouble with growing food for fuel is that it depends, to a huge degree, on the fuel that we are trying to replace with bio-fuels. That is a double whammy. As the fuel runs out it will also become harder to produce bio-products to replace them because there isn't enough fuel....ad infinitum. Someday we will have to face the facts. There isn't going to be enough to go around. We will have to adjust our numbers or adjust our consumption or have it done to us. There are no other "long term" options. [Link: Grain Drain: Get Ready for Peak Grain]