Urban pressure on food production

Following on from my last post regarding the waste generated by urban populations, I've found a discussion paper by Professor Julian Cribb (Julian Cribb & Associates and well known science communicator), titled The Coming Famine (published in January 2008). My reason for investigating Julian Cribb's position on water use and the impact our water-hungry ways will have on future generations was prompted by an ABC Radio rural report interview this morning (30/6/09).

Professor Cribb was speaking at the launch of the Water4Food initiative in Canberra. He maintains that the world is headed for major famine and wars if we don't urgently address our attitude towards water. A podcast of the interview with Professor Cribb is available from the ABC Western Plains Rural Report page.

In the discussion paper, Professor Cribb outlines the downward trend of key indicators affecting global food security. He also makes the comment that the thing that stands out is that the scale of impact of climate change is somewhat uncertain, but the other trends are "real, well-documented and predictable."

He says the challenge over the next two generations is to raise food production by 110% from a more degraded natural resource and reduce world populations from 9 billion to 2-3 billion by 2100. Food for thought...or action?

Throw away society's legacy

In the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 June, Ainslie MacGibbon wrote about the waste disposal systems of a consumer hungry society. For those who missed the Animal in Art Lecture at Western Plains Cultural Centre on 18 June and my reference to her line about "birds are near the end of a long list of victims of over-consumption", then here is the link to the article.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/here-lie-remnants-of-throwaway-lives-20090616-cghh.html

If birds are an indicator of the health of our environment, then drunken parrots and overfed, disheveled cockatoos are a sad reminder that all is not right. Given that it is estimated that 60% of the world's population will be living in urban environments by 2030 we have to find a more sustainable, earth-friendly way of dealing with high tech, material cast offs. The coming broadscale introduction of digital television (and radio) and rapid developments in computer and mobile technologies are making the race to find solutions to our waste problems critical.

Observe or engage

It's easy to observe. It is much more challenging to engage.