[NYTr] Apocalyptic vision of a post-fossil fuel world

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Mark Graffis - activ-l

The Telegraph (UK) - Nov 22, 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/22/eaoil122.xml

Apocalyptic vision of a post-fossil fuel world

An apocalyptic vision of how the world will look after the oil
runs out has been given by a top scientist.

By Paul Eccleston

      Richard Heinberg, one of the world's leading experts on oil
reserves, warned that the lives of billions of people were threatened
by a food crisis caused by our dependence on dwindling supplies of
fossil fuels.

      Higher oil prices, the loss of farmland to biofuel crops, climate
change and the loss of natural resources would combine with population
growth to create an unprecedented food shortage, he claimed.

      The only way to avoid a world food crisis was a planned and rapid
reduction of fossil fuel use - oil, coal and gas - and a switch to more
organic methods in the growing and delivery of food. It would mean a
return to living off the land not seen for 150 years.

      The stark predictions were made by Heinberg in a lecture to the
Soil Association in London.

      Heinberg, an author and former advisor to the National Petroleum
Council, specialises in 'Peak Oil' - the point where oil production
reaches its maximum and begins to decline - and the implications it has
for climate change and food security.

      He said for thousands of years, until the 19th century and the
onset of the Industrial Revolution, all food production had been local.
In good years there was enough to eat and to store and in bad years
there was starvation.

      The invention of the petrol engine increased the amount of arable
land available to grow food, the size and efficiency of farm machinery
improved, and better pesticides were developed - all of which
contributed to a better food supply.

      As food became more plentiful and cheap, the threat of famine
disappeared and obesity became more widespread than hunger. Food,
grain, meat and vegetables began to be exported around the world and
the world population increased six-fold.

      By the 1960s industrial-chemical practices had been exported to
the third world and in the next half century food production tripled -
but at an unrecognised cost of water and soil pollution and enormous
environmental damage.

      Heinberg said that, unfortunately, it was all unsustainable and
the abundance of food depended on depleting, non-renewable fossil fuels
whose burning produced climate-altering carbon dioxide.

      The depletion of oil stocks, the demand for biofuels as an
alternative, environmental degradation and extreme weather caused by
climate change, were coming together to pose massive problems for world
food production.

      The situation would be made worse by a shortage of fresh drinking
water. According to UN estimates, one third of the world's population
lived in areas with water shortages and 1.1 billion people lack access
to safe drinking water. The situation was expected to worsen
dramatically over the next few decades.

      While the human population had tripled in the 20th century, the
use of renewable water resources had grown six-fold.

      The UN Environment Program had concluded that the planet's water,
land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks were all in "inexorable
decline" much of it due to agriculture, which constituted the greatest
single source of human impact on the biosphere.

      Heinberg said that to get to the heart of the crisis a
comprehensive transformation of world agriculture was needed - greater
than anything seen in many decades - which would produce a system that
was not reliant on fossil fuels.

      He cited Cuba as an example of what could be achieved. In the
1980s it had become reliant on cheap fuel supplied by Russia and was
using more agrochemicals per acre than even the US. But after the fall
of communism, supplies dried up. The average Cuban lost 20lbs in
weight, living standards collapsed and malnutrition became widespread.

      Cuban authorities responded by redesigning the food supply
system. Large state-owned farms were broken up and given to families
and they were encouraged to form co-operatives, biological methods were
used for pest control, oxen replaced tractors, urban vegetable gardens
flourished and people began to keep chickens and rabbits for food.
Twenty years later food production was 90 per cent of its former levels.

      Heinberg said what was needed was a return to ecological organic
farming methods which would require the transformation of societies.

      And with oil supplies rapidly running out the full resources of
national governments would be needed to achieve it.

      The amount of food transportation would have to be reduced, food
would need to be grown in and around cities, and producers and
consumers would need to live closer together.

      The use of pesticides would have to be reduced in packaging and
processing, draft animals would be reintroduced and governments would
have to provide incentives for people to return to an agricultural
life. Land reform would be needed to enable smallholders and farming
co-ops to work their own plots and population growth would have to be
curbed.

      "All of this constitutes a gargantuan task, but the alternatives
- doing nothing or attempting to solve our food-production problems
simply by applying mere techno-fixes - will almost certainly lead to
dire consequences," he said.

      " All of the worrisome trends mentioned earlier would intensify
to the point that the human carrying capacity of Earth would be degraded
significantly, and perhaps to a large degree permanently."

      Heinberg added: "The transition to a fossil-fuel-free food system
does not constitute a distant utopian proposal. It is an unavoidable,
immediate, and immense challenge that will call for unprecedented
levels of creativity at all levels of society.

      "A hundred years from now, everyone will be eating what we today
would define as organic food, whether or not we act.

      "But what we do now will determine how many will be eating, what
state of health will be enjoyed by those future generations, and
whether they will live in a ruined cinder of a world, or one that is in
the process of being renewed and replenished."