Climate Food and Agriculture

An unbiased, factual report on biofuels: How rare is that?

The Worldwatch Institute has produced an interesting summary of what's happening in the world of grain supplies.

They also just published a book called Biofuels for Transport. Along with all of the positive potential for biofuels, I'm sure it also discusses the "potential" problems with "first generation" biofuels.

These are some of the latest buzzwords being used to support industrial agrofuels. The word "potential" suggests that there are not yet any actual problems. The words "first generation" suggest that all of these "potential" problems will fail to materialize thanks to the timely arrival of "second generation" fuels.

The reality, of course, is that these fuels (i.e., industrially grown food monocrops) are already wreaking all kinds of havoc and are likely to remain the only commercially viable biofuels for the foreseeable future (i.e., forever).

Wild salmon and coral both in trouble, say studies

Infestations of sea lice (ew) in salmon farms off the west coast of Canada are threatening local wild salmon populations — to the extent that the wild fish could be extinct within four years, says a new study published in Science. While the researchers focused on fish populations off the coast of British Columbia, they […]

Cruelty to hogs, and wretched meatpacking conditions

As the Senate debates the farm bill, which contains an entire title that would limit the power of the industrial-meat giants, you might think the industry would be on its best behavior, trying to act mellow while its lobbyists sort things out on the Hill. And yet the industry is currently churning out outrages as […]

And other revelations from the latest big-media expose of local food

About a year ago, The Economist ran a big article purporting to show that eating locally is actually worse for the environment than typical supermarket fare. I debunked the article here. About six months later, the NYT op-ed page ran a piece making similar arguments. And I responded again. In both of these pieces, the […]

More on feedlots and distillers grains

Last week, I wrote about how feeding cows waste from the ethanol process, known as distillers grains, seems to increase incidence of the deadly pathogen E. coli 0157:H7. I added that — coincidentally or not — a recent spike in recalls of E. coli 0157:H7-tainted hamburger meat has coincided with a surge in distillers grains […]

U.S. government wants to boost fish-farming industry

Eighty percent of American fish dishes are imported, and the federal government is eager to get the U.S. seafood market on equal footing (finning?) by kicking off industrial-scale fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico. Under regulations to be considered next month, fish born in laboratories would be transported to gigantic underwater cages capable of […]

NYT on the surge in E. coli outbreaks

"There’s shit in the meat," declared a harried fast-food exec in the Richard Linklater / Eric Schlosser film Fast Food Nation. Well, yes, there is — and more this year than in past years, judging from the number of recalls of beef tainted with the deadly E. coli strain 0157. In an article in yesterday’s […]

What a fossil-fuel free agriculture might look like

At some point in the future, humanity will have to produce its food without the help of fossil fuels and without destroying the soil. In a well-researched and succinct new essay, "What will we eat as the oil runs out?", Richard Heinberg analyzes the main problems with the global agricultural system, and proposes a solution: a global organic food system.

Heinberg lays out four major dilemmas of the current system:

The direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs ... the increased demand for biofuels ... the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions...[and] the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy.

He then goes into more detail concerning these four horsemen of the agricultural apocalypse, and shows how, even now, these crises are leading to a decrease in global food production.

Later in this post I will propose a thought experiment solution, based on Heinberg's solution of a fossil fuel-free agriculture:

An EPA-approved pesticide is worse than the one it’s replacing

“The soil is, as a matter of fact, full of live organisms. It is essential to conceive of it as something pulsating with life, not as a dead or inert mass.” — Albert Howard, The Soil and Health, 1947 Strawberry fields poisoned forever? Photo: iStockphoto In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted temporary approval […]

The neverending debate on corn ethanol continues

This is my response to Brooke Coleman's response to, uh, this response ...

Welcome back, Brooke.

I do think ethanol is better than oil ...

Hundreds of millions of Americans do not "think" that the theory of evolution is valid. What you or I want to believe is largely irrelevant. The arguments we bring to the table to back up what we "think" is what matters. The following graphic is an attempt to explain a concept called leakage -- the fatal flaw in any attempt to divert food crops to gas tanks:

Pop in to visit Biofuel Bob while you're at it.