The food crisis
I've recently become engaged in a conversation over at Andy Extance's "Simple Climate" blog on the subject of "IPCC: Millions of words on climate change are not enough", which is rather clogging up the conversation over there. Here are some edited highlights (with the odd typo fixed, and the odd link added):
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On November 26th 2012 Teignbridge District Council planning committee voted to refuse planning permission for Inazin Solar's application to construct a 13.5 Ha solar photovoltaic "farm" on land owned by the Fulford Estate near Gold's Cross Hill, between Tedburn St. Mary and Cheriton Bishop. I presume the fact that I objected to that application, at the second time of asking, explains why I have just received a letter from Teignbridge DC which says (amongst other things) that:
More on Inazin Appeal Tedburn St Mary Solar Farm Planning Decision. Again!
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It was a nice sunny day today in South Devon, for the first time in a very long time. Here's some proof:
Blue skies and still waters at The Turf Locks on April 6th 2013
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BBC Devon report today that:
A countryside group has raised concerns about Devon farmland being taken out of food production for solar farms.
The "countryside group" the BBC is referring to is in fact The Campaign to Protect Rural England. According to the BBC, Penny Mills from the CPRE has said that:
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The minutes of the meeting of the Teignbridge District Council planning committee held on November 26th have now been published. For some strange reason their coverage of my own contribution to those events is rather brief. It reads as follows:
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At the end of last month the "Summer Olympics Special" edition of Time magazine carried a picture of Jessica Ennis on the cover. Just inside, however, was a double page photograph of "A bulldozed field in Geff, Illinois", together with the information that "A drought devastating stretches of the U.S. has forced many farmers to destroy their failed crops". That was accompanied on the Time web site by a series of photographs and an article entitled "The Great Drying Strikes Again". Time pointed out that:
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Fresh from blogging about the undesirability of producing energy rather than cereals on local arable land I've just noticed courtesy of my Twitter feed that Professor Charles Godfray, a population biologist from Oxford University, gave a presentation at the Houses of Parliament earlier this week on the closely related topic of food security. Here it is:
More on Food Security and Choice – Can We Have Our Cake and Eat It?
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Just over a week ago I found myself once again on EasyJet flight EZY6167 heading from Bristol to Amsterdam. I asked the head of the cabin crew if he knew Dawn, who operated the camera on one of our previous internet videos. He said he did. I showed him one of our "Water Connects Us" leaflets, and I asked him if it would be OK if I handed some out to his passengers. He said that would be fine as long as I didn't get in the way of the cabin crew as they went about their duties.
More on An Irony of the Financial Crisis – Action on Poverty Looks Utterly Achievable
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In a report on the UNFCCC climate change conference in Bali last December, David B. Sandalow of the Brookings Institution, the influential Washington based think tank, pointed out that:
The most important outcomes of the Bali climate change conference didn’t make the headlines… yet Bali produced three important outcomes. First, developing countries stepped up to the table… Second, a new consensus on deforestation emerged… Finally, “adaptation” moved toward center stage. Today the world faces a sobering reality: even the most aggressive plans will not prevent some amount of global warming in the decades ahead. The consequences for poor developing countries are predicted to be most severe.
Mr. Sandalow quoted Nobel peace prize-winner Al Gore as saying in Bali:
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Barack Obama gave a speech on Monday in Lansing Michigan, an area very familiar with the decline in the US automobile industry. He took the opportunity to outline his current energy policy, and he started out by laying his cards on the table:
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