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The one thing depleting faster than oil is the credibility of those measuring it
The challenge of feeding billions of people as fuel supplies fall is staggering. And yet leaders' heads remain stuck in the sand
George Monbiot
I don't know when global oil
supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has
already peaked and gone into free fall: the credibility of the body
that's meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency
alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world's
oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets. Three days later, a
paper published by researchers at Uppsala University
in Sweden showed that the IEA's forecasts must be wrong, because it
assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible.
The agency's assessment of the state of global oil supplies is
beginning to look as reliable as Alan Greenspan's blandishments about
the health of the financial markets.If the whistleblowers are
right, we should be stockpiling ammunition. If we are taken by
surprise, if we have failed to replace oil before the supply peaks then
crashes, the global economy is stuffed. But nothing the whistle-blowers
said has scared me as much as the conversation I had last week with a
Pembrokeshire farmer. Wyn Evans, who runs a mixed farm of 170
acres, has been trying to reduce his dependency on fossil fuels since
1977. He has installed an anaerobic digester,
a wind turbine, solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump. He has
sought wherever possible to replace diesel with his own electricity.
Instead of using his tractor to spread slurry, he pumps it from the
digester on to nearby fields. He's replaced his tractor-driven
irrigation system with an electric one, and set up a new system for
drying hay indoors, which means he has to turn it in the field only
once. Whatever else he does is likely to produce smaller savings. But
these innovations have reduced his use of diesel by only around 25%. According to farm scientists at Cornell University,
cultivating one hectare of maize in the United States requires 40
litres of petrol and 75 litres of diesel. The amazing productivity of
modern farm labour has been purchased at the cost of a dependency on
oil. Unless farmers can change the way it's grown, a permanent oil
shock would price food
out of the mouths of many of the world's people. Any responsible
government would be asking urgent questions about how long we have got. Instead, most of them delegate this job to the International Energy
Agency. I've been bellyaching about the British government's refusal to
make contingency plans for the possibility that oil might peak by 2020
for the past two years, and I'm beginning to feel like a madman with a
sandwich board. Perhaps I am, but how lucky do you feel? The new World Energy Outlook published
by the IEA last week expects the global demand for oil to rise from 85m
barrels a day in 2008 to 105m in 2030. Oil production will rise to 103m
barrels, it says, and biofuels will make up the shortfall. If we want
the oil, it will materialise. The
agency does caution that
conventional oil is likely to "approach a plateau" towards the end of
this period, but there's no hint of the graver warning that the
IEA's chief economist issued when I interviewed him last year:
"We still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau … I think
time is not on our side here." Almost every year the agency has
been
forced to downgrade its forecast for the daily supply of oil in 2030:
from 123m barrels in 2004, to 120m in 2005, 116m in 2007, 106m in 2008
and 103m this year. But according to one of the whistleblowers, "even
today's number is much higher than can be justified, and the
International Energy Agency knows this". The Uppsala report, published in the journal Energy Policy,
anticipates that maximum global production of all kinds of oil in 2030
will be 76m barrels per day. Analysing the IEA's figures, it finds that
to meet its forecasts for supply, the world's new and undiscovered
oilfields would have to be developed at a rate "never before seen in
history". As many of them are in politically or physically difficult
places, and as capital is short, this looks impossible. Assessing
existing fields, the likely rate of discovery and the use of new
techniques for extraction, the researchers find that "the peak of world
oil production is probably occurring now". Are they right? Who knows? Last month the UK Energy Research Centre
published a massive review of all the available evidence on global oil
supplies. It found that the date of peak oil will be determined not by
the total size of the global resource but by the rate at which it can
be exploited. New discoveries would have to be implausibly large to
make a significant difference: even if a field the size of all the oil
reserves ever struck in the US were miraculously discovered, it would
delay the date of peaking by only four years. As global discoveries
peaked in the 1960s, a find like this doesn't seem very likely. Regional
oil supplies have peaked when about one third of the total resource has
been extracted: this is because the rate of production falls as the
remaining oil becomes harder to shift when the fields are depleted. So
the assumption in the IEA's new report, that oil production will hold
steady when the global resource has fallen "to around one half by 2030"
looks unsafe. The UK Energy Research Centre's review finds that, just
to keep oil supply at present levels, "more than two thirds of current
crude oil production capacity may need to be replaced by 2030 …
At best, this is likely to prove extremely challenging." There is, it
says "a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production
before 2020". Unconventional oil won't save us: even a crash programme
to develop the Canadian tar sands could deliver only 5m barrels a day
by 2030. As a report commissioned by the US Department of Energy
shows, an emergency programme to replace current energy supplies or
equipment to anticipate peak oil would need about 20 years to take
effect. It seems unlikely that we have it. The world economy is
probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could
save farming.
There are two possible options: either the mass replacement of farm
machinery or the development of new farming systems that don't need
much labour or energy. There are no obvious barriers to the mass
production of electric tractors and combine harvesters: the weight of
the batteries and an electric vehicle's low-end torque are both
advantages for tractors. A switch to forest gardening and other forms
of permaculture is trickier, especially for producing grain; but such
is the scale of the creeping emergency that we can't afford to rule
anything out. The challenge of feeding seven or eight billion
people while oil supplies are falling is stupefying. It'll be even
greater if governments keep pretending that it isn't going to happen.
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No money? Then make your own
Can printing your own cash actually help revive a
struggling economy? That's just what traders in one London shopping
district are hoping for, as they begin accepting a new local currency.
Short on cash? Then why not make your own. There's no law against it, so long as you don't try to pass it off as sterling.
And you can use whatever you please to make your money, whether cigarettes, rabbit skins or paper notes.
That's what's happening in Brixton, a south London neighbourhood where
shoppers, from Thursday, will be able to hand over 10 Brixton Pounds
(B£s) in return for their groceries.
Proponents of local currencies say they boost the community's economy
by keeping money in the area, but critics dismiss them as fashionable
gimmicks, tantamount to protectionism.
They may sound experimental but have in fact been used since the Middle
Ages when local currencies were all there was - it was not until the
1700s that every European country had its own currency, says Tim
Leunig, an economist at the LSE.
Research suggests that when the wider economy slumps, communities turn
to barter systems. In other words, when there's little money around,
people think about making their own.
The Great Depression of the 1930s saw a wide take-up in the US and much
later, the Global Barter Club was born after the Argentine economy hit
rock-bottom in 2001. At its height, the system was supporting three
million people.
And today's straitened times may well renew interest in complementary
currencies but, as one unconvinced Brixton shopper, asks: "What's the
point?"
"A local economy is like a leaky bucket. Wealth is generated then spent
in chain stores and businesses. It disappears leaving an impoverished
local economy," explains Ben Brangwyn, part of the team behind the
Totnes Pound, launched in south Devon in 2007.
"Local money prevents that from happening and keeps the money bouncing around the bucket, building wealth and prosperity."
Currently, 6,000 Totnes pounds are in circulation from an estimated local economy of £60m.
It is, stresses Mr Brangwyn, a radical experiment, still in its very
early stages, but he can see a day when England has 2,000 local
currencies.
Other towns joining the experiment, started by environmental group
Transition Network, are Lewes in East Sussex and Stroud in
Gloucestershire which introduced the Stroud Pound this week.
Fake notes
Brixton, with its reputation for bustling streets, a lively nightlife
and a notoriety for street crime, is the first urban area to have its
own currency.
Volunteers behind the project say it has not been an easy sell.
Some shopkeepers are concerned about counterfeiting and the build-up of
Brixton pounds in their till. Others see it as a novel advertising tool
that could become gift vouchers, or even a collector's item.
So far, £10,000 has been pledged by businesses and local people to be
converted into B£s, but on the streets there is still some convincing
to be done.
Project manager Tim Nichols hopes people will be drawn by the notion of
a kind of "secret club" for holders of the special notes and expects
Brixton's antiestablishment spirit to work to its advantage.
"We are in London, the financial hub of the world, and are trying to do
something that goes against the grain of the big banking system that we
are living on the edge of."
He is also optimistic the recession can work in its favour.
That's the view of Susan Witts who co-founded the BerkShare, a local currency launched in 2006 in Berkshire, Massachusetts.
She puts the growth of BerkShares (from 1 million to 2.5 million in
three years) down, in part, to the recession and a lot of hard work.
"Introducing a new currency means more work. You have to train staff to
use it, adapt accounting processes. When things are going well, it
seems an unnecessary extra step.
"But in difficult times, businesses are looking at ways to make their
business work. It relies on people's sense of wanting to shape their
own economic future."
But David Boyle, of the New Economics Foundation think-tank and a
supporter of alternative currencies, believes efforts in Britain are
hampered by its banking system.
Whereas the US has a major network of local banks willing to handle
other kinds of money, banks in the UK are less willing to do that. He
suggests the answer could lie with local authorities playing a more
controlling role.
The vital factor though, says Mr Boyle, is belief.
"If you can maintain that belief in the community, it can work," he says.
Tax dodge
Other economists dismiss the whole concept as a gimmick.
"It might make people feel good, but it's not achieving anything meaningful," says Tim Leunig, of LSE.
"You're saying you can't buy goods from Hackney, Southwark or China,
even if they are cheaper. It's giving Brixton shops monopoly power and
in the long-run destroys incentives. Almost all collapse because they
don't achieve anything."
The only use he can see for it is as a tax dodge, but the taxman says this is a red herring.
All businesses have to report all turnover and as every local currency
is tacked to sterling, every sale, whether paid for in cream cakes,
polar bears or carrots must be reported to its sterling value, the HM
Revenue and Customs says.
And if you are not running a business, the HMRC has no interest because
where there's no profit motive, there's no taxation consequence. The
Treasury, meanwhile, views them as little more than gift vouchers.
So, with the government unperturbed, perhaps we could yet see Mr
Brangwyn's vision of 2,000 separate local currencies realised. But
would that be a brave leap into the future or a return to the Middle
Ages?
By Marie Jackson
BBC News
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The promised LAND!
The Permaculture Association is excited to announce that the LAND project is now open for applications.
LAND is funded by the Big Lottery's Local Food Scheme to enhance the
food growing, land design skills and knowledge of permaculture
practitioners and the general public throughout England.
We are looking for 80 demonstration sites to be part of the network by
2012. Projects can be big or small, at home or in the community. The
most important thing is that you are willing to engage with volunteers
and visitors and be an accessible demonstration of permaculture
principles and methods.
We are hoping that members will want to get involved in making LAND a
great success, and right now we need your help to update our list of
designers, projects and aspiring teachers.
So if you offer design services, want to run local presentations or
introductory courses, or have a project but haven't publicised it much
yet, do let us know.
LAND events lined up for this year include:
LAND launch - September 11th - 12th 2009 (find out more)
National Conference with Diploma presentations, workshops, networking and the Association's AGM - October 17th 2009
Regional networking and skill-sharing events and a diverse training programme will begin in November 2009.
Please contact Louise at network@permaculture.org.uk or call her on 0845 458 1092.
Submitting an application to the LAND Project:
Please read the supporting information in the files below and then complete the application form and email it to Louise.
About the LAND project
About LAND demonstration projects
About LAND criteria for demonstration projects
About the Application Process
LAND Application Form
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Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the Biggest Ever
Environmental Disaster
By Jeff Randall
The mass development of genetically modified crops risks
causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has
warned.
In his most
outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that
multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had
gone "seriously wrong".
The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also
expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked
on the earth's soil by scientists' research.
He accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment with
nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".
"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and
everything?”
Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would
result in "absolute disaster".
"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the
classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said.
"What we should be talking about is food security not food production
- that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.
"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to
have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me
out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster
environmentally of all time."
Small farmers, in particular, would be the victims of "gigantic
corporations" taking over the mass production of food.
"I think it's heading for real disaster," he said.
"If they think this is the way to go....we [will] end up with millions
of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into
unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of
unmentionable awfulness."
The Prince of Wales's forthright comments will reopen the whole debate
about GM food.
They will put him on a collision course with the international scientific
community and Downing Street - which has allowed 54 GM crop trials in Britain
since 2000.
His intervention comes at a critical time. There is intense pressure for
more GM products, not fewer, because of soaring food costs and widespread
shortages.
Many scientists believe GM research is the only way to guarantee food for
the world's growing population as the planet is affected by climate change.
They will be dismayed by such a high profile and controversial contribution
from the Prince of Wales at such a sensitive time.
The Prince will be braced for the biggest outpouring of criticism from
scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into "realms
that belong to God and God alone" in an article in the Daily Telegraph in
1998.
In the interview the Prince, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove
estate, held out the hope of the British agricultural system encouraging more
and more family run co-operative farms.
When challenged over whether he was trying to turn back the clock, he said:
"I think not. I'm terribly sorry. It's not going backwards. It is actually
recognising that we are with nature,
not against it. We have been working against nature for too long."
The Prince of Wales cited the widespread environmental damage in India
caused by the rush to mass produce GM food.
"Look at India's
Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.
"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have
taken place as a result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid
seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.
"[The] water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water
level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to
roost.
"Look at Western Australia,
huge salinisation problems, I
have been there and seen it. These are some of the most excessive approaches to
modern forms of agriculture."
He said that the scientists were putting too much pressure on nature.
"If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold
problems. which become very expensive and very difficult to undo.
It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems
which become more difficult to sort out."
In a keynote speech last year the Prince of Wales warned that the world
faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless a £15 billion
action plan is agreed to save the world's rain forests.
He has set up his own rain forest project with 15 of the world's largest
companies, environmental and economic experts, to try to find ways to stop
their destruction.
Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops
to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across
the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.
They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM
trials to be approved in Britain
this year.
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Permaculture in Palestine
Bustan Quraqaa, a Permaculture farm in the West Bank town of Beit Sahour
Photograph: Alice Gray
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You might think that the lack of a decent composting system
was the least of the Palestinian people's troubles. But you'd be wrong. For
those involved in Bustan Quraaqa ("the Tortoise Garden"),
a You might think that the lack of a decent composting system was the least of
the Palestinian people’s troubles. But you’d be wrong. For those involved in
Bustan Quraaqa Permaculture farm set up last year in the West Bank town of Beit
Sahour, near Bethlehem, composting has become about dignity, self-reliance and
rescuing the environment.
The Palestinian environment is taking a battering. Sewage
flows into streams and the underground aquifer that is the sole source of
drinking water for the Palestinian population; solid waste is burned, creating
air pollution and contaminating the soil, making it useless for crops. The
farming economy, so successful in Israel, is being crushed through
prevention of access to farms by the separation wall, checkpoints and the off-limit
roads that lead to Israeli settlements. With all these obstacles farmers are
leaving their land, leading to neglect of terraces and so to soil erosion, which
leaves hillsides stripped of their soil and good for nothing.
So what can a few hippies with some good intentions possibly
do against such massive problems? Quite a lot. "You might think that the
lack of a decent composting system was the least of the Palestinian people’s
troubles. But you’d be wrong. For those involved in Bustan Quraaqa Permaculture
seeks to foster the skills, confidence and imagination to enable people to
become self-reliant, and to seek creative solutions to problems," says
Alice Gray of Bustan Quraaqa. Among the You might think that the lack of a
decent composting system was the least of the Palestinian people’s troubles. But
you’d be wrong. For those involved in Bustan Quraaqa Permaculture projects
under way at the farm are a community composting scheme, which will demonstrate
a more environmentally friendly way to deal with the huge solid waste problem; rainwater
harvesting; experiments in 'desert agriculture' for instance growing crops such
as olives, capers, almonds, carob and dates that thrive with very little water;
and a nursery to grow native trees to plant for animal fodder, food, fuel and
even medicines and detergents.
You might think that the lack of a decent composting system
was the least of the Palestinian people’s troubles. But you’d be wrong. For
those involved in Bustan Quraaqa Permaculture's aim is self-sufficiency, which
in the UK
might mean growing enough food to feed your own family. When you are dependent
on a state that may not have your best interests at heart, self-sufficiency
become a more urgent goal. The simple act of composting becomes an act of
resistance in these oppressive surroundings.
UK Council to build houses of straw
A Lincolnshire council is due
to announce details of its plans for the first social housing to be
built from
straw bales in Britain.
It may sound as if
the idea is taken from fairy tales, but
buildings made from straw bales have become increasingly popular in the
UK
during
recent years.
And unlike the
self-build property in The Three Little Pigs,
these homes have gained a faithful following in the UK.
This is because
they are viewed as being cheaper to build,
have a reputation for providing good insulation, are sustainable and
tend to be
built using locally-sourced materials.
Now North Kesteven
District Council has taken the trend a
bit further by commissioning the three-bedroom semi-detached houses.
It is part of its
bid to build affordable,
environmentally-friendly homes.
'No different'
Costing £120,000
each, the four properties will be made out
of 480 tightly-packed bales with lime-washed walls.
They will be
located in the village of Martin
and Waddington, with plans to begin construction later this year.
The council is the
first local authority to do this,
although a number of private homes and commercial buildings - including
a
trailer cabin and classrooms - have been built in the UK
using the
material.
Planning
applications for the homes have been deposited with
the council, and the developers are hoping to start building one pair
in the
late spring of this year.
They say the homes
will look no different to conventional
brick homes but will be three times more insulated.
The council hopes
other authorities will follow its stance
Council leader
Marion Brighton believes the homes will help
tackle the problem of providing affordable homes in the area.
"These straw houses
are not only innovative, but also
pioneering, as they are the first properties of this type to be built
by a
local authority to be used for social housing in the country. It's an
exciting
project and one that we are eagerly looking forward to completing," she
said.
"This is a scheme
that has not been matched by any
other local authority, and it is hoped these houses, built through this
new
type of technology, will set a leading example to developers, housing
associations and other councils throughout the country," she said.
The designers -
social enterprise company and straw bale
specialists Amazonails - say such buildings can save householders up to
80% a
year on heating bills.
It is a philosophy
backed by 43-year-old Rachel Shiamh - she
used 400 wheat and barley straw bales to create her award-winning
two-storey
home in Penwhilwr, St Dogmaels, west Wales.
Her house is built
out of straw bale bricks, without any
other supporting structure.
Q&A: Social housing
She lives there
with her dog and two cats and believes it
was the best decision she could make.
She says: "It is a
way of returning to nature - it's a
far more breathable, natural, healthier environment.
"The insulation is
fantastic and when you build a home
like this you have the opportunity to sculpt and play with the clay and
shape
the bales to suit your desires."
A spokesman for the
Department for Communities and Local
Government said the homes had to meet national building regulations but
the
government was not prescriptive about what materials had to be used for
social
housing buildings.
He said: "If the
council think it is a good and
effective idea - let them go for it."
The Department of
Trade and Industry is also looking at the
viability of materials such as straw bales by funding a study looking
at the
concept of creating construction materials from crops.
For Jon Aldenton,
the chief executive of charity The
Environment Trust, these are all positive steps.
He says: "The bales
are sustainable and renewable even
though this is old technology. They provide excellent insulation and
cut down
on energy bills - in the current climate this is extremely important."
Meanwhile, experts
from Nottingham
Trent
University,
the University
of Plymouth,
the University
of Bath
and the Cardiff School of Art and Design are investigating the
durability of
the buildings built with the bales.
They are also
looking at how effective various technologies
are at protecting the bales from decay and what the consequences are
for
homeowners who dare to be a little different.
Professor Steve
Goodhew from Nottingham Trent University
has been
monitoring the bales for 10 years and says he's extremely interested in
the
plans to create council houses with the material.
"Although studies
have been done in Canada
and the US,
we have a very different climate here in the UK
and so we need to see if the
material can stand up to the test of time.
"It's easy to see
why straw bale houses are so popular.
They can be produced at reasonable cost , have little embodied energy
as they
incorporate a waste product, and can provide superb insulation.
"We expect to see
more of these homes being built over
the next few years; the simple fact is that the price of food has risen
so more
wheat, oats and barley are being produced, resulting in more straw
being used
for building."
By Dhruti Shah
BBC News
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