Freeconomy Blog
Sun
13 Apr
Even I wasn’t expecting it this soon...
| 4 comments |
I don’t know how many of you have been reading the news this week – I don’t usually, I find that its focus on the negative tends to, surprisingly, have a depressing and paralysing effect on me. However one of the main stories this week really caught my eye – the food riots that are occurring all over the world, some of which have brought down the Haitian government.
In the article of the above link, a UN official says “the food price rises are a result of record oil prices, US farmers switching out of cereals to grow biofuel crops, extreme weather and growing demand from countries such as India and China”.
Three things arise here. Firstly, humanity has just experienced about 0.5% of the kickback from the oil crisis that is evolving as I type, and already one government has fallen. And it will be the poor countries, those billions of people on less than $2 a day, who will get hit first.
But secondly, it again shows that biofuels are not the answer. Using less energy IS the only answer. Getting a bike instead of driving IS an answer. Not taking that cheap flight for that break you deserve IS an answer. Deciding that it may be better to spend quality time with your kids instead of buying them the latest gismo out of China IS an answer. I hope I don’t sound critical of anyone, I really don’t mean to be – I still use oil myself, even on a UK plastic-free diet – but there is no easy way to say some things. Unless we reduce our energy use, people will starve (including us eventually) and countries will be attacked for the last drops of oil.
It really isn’t a negative thing to be fearful of though! If you see reducing energy as a fun challenge, it can be incredibly liberating, much easier on your pocket and you can learn so many different skills.
Thirdly, India and China just want all the things we have. We cannot criticize their desire for huge growth until we sort out our own house first. We must show example, right now, that unlimited economic and material progress does not equal happiness. If it did, then why are suicide and depression rates skyrocketing all over the western world.
So how is my UK bin-free diet going? On Monday evening I am off foraging in the woods with a great chef friend of mine. Afterwards, not only are we going to cook our harvest, Chris is going to show me how to make my own spelt pasta, sauerkraut from English cabbage, great sourdough bread (properly!) and leaf curd from nettles – still haven’t got around to that one, I’ve been waiting to get my hands on the cloth required for it!
Whilst reading up on foraging though I came across this amazing guy called Fergus Drennan, who, damn him, is making me look like a complete wimp. He is writing an account of his year eating only wild foods in the UK for
The Ecologist magazine, and like me is about 10 days in. However, he does eat meat and shows pictures of how to skin roadkill, so if you are vegan and get upset by such pictures, maybe give that article a miss. However, just remember that Fergus didn’t kill the badger, a car did, and it is probably better to be outraged at cars than at him. And that is the opinion of a vegan, though I obviously don’t like to see an animal skinned either.
Back to the subject though, I bought 25kg of English rye grain yesterday from the wonderful people of
Doves Farm, when I was about to ask a friend if he could pick it up in the van for me. Then I thought, if this is going to be truly oil free then how on earth can I do that!! So over the bar of the bike it went, and off I went thinking how I must get a trailer for my bike or it’ll get to be a real pain in the ass. Tomorrow I’m getting 25 kg of oats and the next day one of spelt flour. Not only is it half the price, there is no plastic packaging and a reduction in total materials used. And it means you don’t have to think about buying it again for 3 months! A win-win-win situation!
My body is finally adapting to the UK, plastic-free and bin-free diet though – was feeling a little energyless on the allotment the other day and was getting worried. Had a roast dinner last night and it was full of so many delicious flavours – potatoes, celeriac, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, mushrooms, Jerusalem artichokes, cabbage, turnip and swede, all topped off with a little kale. When you are eating like that I can assure you it is not a sacrifice.
Before I head off to the allotment to plant my seed potatoes, I would like to pay my respects to a pilgrim for peace who was murdered in Turkey a few days ago. She was hitching from Italy to the Middle east to prove her trust in humanity. I send my condolences to all who loved her and have the utmost respect for her - unlike me she went to the end. Let us all look into our own hearts and find what it is in there that has created a world in which such an open soul was not protected. Let us not focus on the fact she was killed though, but what she stood for.
May the spirit of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo live on.
PS: WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF CHANGING THE ‘COMMENT’ SYTEM (below) HERE DUE TO SOME PEOPLE TAKING ON A NUMBER OF PSEUDONYMS AND SOME EVEN PRETENDING TO BE ME! WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF IMPROVING IT BUT ARE ALL A BIT STRETCHED HERE AT THE MINUTE.
AS IT STANDS, TO ‘COMMENT’ YOU MUST SIGN IN FIRST, THEN GO TO ‘BLOG’ ON THE NAVIGATIONAL BAR AT THE TOP, CLICK ‘READ THIS STORY IN FULL’ AND THEN CLICK COMMENT, USING YOUR USERNAME IN THE NAME FIELD.
Lots of love keep your comments coming, even if it is slightly more difficult to do at the minute x
Comment on this Post:
Ofa comments ...
When I read and heard about the food riots last week, my mindset became very negative. It was only when I remembered something I read in book a little while ago about a crisis being dangerous but also being a time of opportunity to change for the better that my optimism started to return.
It seems that a lot of the time, it’s only when the alternative is too awful to bear or things become too painful, that steps are taken to try and change things for the better. I don’t know if growing through pain and difficulty is part of what it is to be human or whether there is a different way? I hope there is but there seems to be something magnetic about inertia.
Perhaps this current crisis will really motivate governments and individuals around the world to find real answers to the issues that have brought it about and to make the required large scale changes, in a way that other crises such as the decline and sometimes extinction of many plant and animal species hasn’t.
Jane comments ...
Nope. I wasn’t expecting it this soon either. It’s also ’interesting’ in a bizarre sort of way, to note that as from yesterday, all petrol sold on the forecourts here in the UK must be mixed with 2% biodiesel. Interesting because of what peak oil analysts tell us about the percentage drop each year in oil availability compared to the previous year from now on. Guess what the percentage drop is? Yep, 2%. Hmmmm....
For those of us who haven’t weaned ourselves off our cars completely, when we fill up, we are now more that ever doing so at the expense of food supplies to developing countries. Never has food for thought tasted so foul.
Professor comments ...
Saoirse
Hiya!
I read the link in today’s blog about ’food riots’ by John Vidal of the Guardian, which prompted me to send him the following email:
John Vidal
Hi!
I’ve belatedly come across your article published 3 Nov 07 about global food shortages. You mention that "if people move on to a path of eating less meat, more land can be freed up for human food rather than for animal feed".
Very true, but there is another way that land can be ’freed up’ that is never, ever, mentioned. I was raised on a farm in Canada where my father grew wheat/oats/barley on a rotation system. I remember asking my father the following question when I was about 10 years old: "I know that we use wheat for making bread, and oats is fed to the pigs and chickens, but what is barley used for?"
I didn’t understand the significance of his answer until much later (now, actually, with the talk about food shortages). His reply? "Barley? It’s mainly used for making booze - beer and whisky." Bearing in mind that perhaps 10% of my father’s land was used to grow barley, am I imagining things or is there some conspiracy of silence not to say that a huge acreage would be released for food if people stopped putting what is really just another drug into their bodies?
Or is it the case that we, New Agers and 4X4 drivers alike, won’t do without our booze any more than we are willing to give up our cars?
Regards
DF
