Graphic: Global Water Stress in 2050
03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Orientation, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic CoherenceGraphic: Water Stress & Biodiversity Threat
03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Orientation, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic Coherence
Graphic: Water Stress After Technology
03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Orientation, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic Coherence
Understanding Rising Food Prices
01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 12 Water, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government
Bottom line: ignorant government policies, and particularly the mandating of corn's use to make ethanol, have driven the price of corn up for real people who want to each corn and products containing corn (which turns out to be just about everything).
It's Getting Harder to Bring Home the Bacon
By MARY KISSEL, April 30, 2011
Wall Street Journal
C. Larry Pope, CEO of the world's largest pork producer, explains why food prices are rising and why they are likely to stay high for a long time.
It's also a business under enormous strain. Some “60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains,” Mr. Pope explains. “The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal.” Over the last several years, “the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago.” Which means every product that uses corn has risen, too—including everything from “cereal to soft drinks” and more.
What triggered the upswing? In part: ethanol. President George W. Bush “came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels” by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is “a substantial part.” Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there's a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is “directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that's going into livestock food,” Mr. Pope calculates.
After the Earthquakes….Volcanos
03 Environmental Degradation
More Natural Disasters, Mother Earth has finally had enough……
300 flee as Ecuador volcano hurls out huge rocks
‘The smallest blocks are that size of an automobile while the biggest reach the size of a truck'
Associated Press, 29 April 2011
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano hurled truck-sized pyroclastic boulders more than a mile Friday in a powerful eruption that prompted at least 300 people to flee their homes, authorities said.
Schools were closed for a third straight day as ash showered down on a dozen towns in the sparsely populated area surrounding the 16,480-foot (5,023-meter) volcano.
Thundering explosions could be heard miles from Tungurahua, which is on the Andes cordillera 84 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Ecuador's capital, Quito.
A state Geophysics Institute scientist monitoring the volcano from a nearby observation post said by phone that incandescent boulders were landing up to 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) beneath crater level.
Phi Beta Iota: Meanwhile, in the USA an astonishing number of levees are at risk of breaking, interest is mounting on how earthquakes might change the landmass and flood large areas, and there still is no government actually doing holistic strategic analytics.
See Also:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Climate Change
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Environmental Degradation (Other than Emissions)
The Library of Utility
01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 08 Proliferation, 11 Society, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence, History, Threats, Uncategorized
“I imagine a library atop a remote mountain that collects the essential information needed to re-learn practical knowledge essential to civilization. This depot, open to anyone who journeys there, is the cultural equivalent of the Svalbard seed bank, a vault on the Arctic Circle that holds frozen seeds of crop plants from around the world. The utilitarian documents in this vault would be the seeds of culture, able to sprout again if needed. It would be the Library of Utility, and it would serve as civilization’s backup.”
Kevin Kelly – Author of What Technology Wants.
Read the article The Library of Utility on the Blog of the Long Now Foundation.
See Also:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Civilization-Building
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Conscious, Evolutionary, Integral Activism & Goodness
Reference: Five Major Trends Into the Future Include Severe Weather (More Severe, Frequent, & Costly)
01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Earth IntelligenceTrocaire reports severe weather as global trend
ThePost.IE 20 March 2011 By John Burke
An increase in severe weather incidents has been identified as one of the five major trends in global development aid.
The trends, which also include shifting geopolitical alliances, urban poverty, demand for natural resources and widening inequality, are contained in a new report by Irish aid organisation Trocaire.
The report, which was compiled using interviews with more than 100 global aid and development experts, will be published on Tuesday at the Leading Edge 2020 Conference in Dublin city centre.
Read balance of short article….
Biographies of Leading Edge 2020 Conference speakers
Phi Beta Iota: Severe weather trends are an act of man, not of God. Global warming is an important but by no means the sole or even the most important environmental degradation component.
See Also:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Climate Change
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Environmental Degradation (Other than Emissions)
