The Resilient World

reposting from my old blog, www.green-hand.net, which I'm phasing out.

Lester Brown thinks so.  And will it burst?  Interviewed in New Scientist on February 10 he describes a food bubble as inflated food production through unsustainable uses of water and land.  Let’s set aside unsustainable uses of water and land for a moment.  In my February 15 post on The Resilient World I discussed how invasive species, including noxious weeds, could thrive in an atmosphere with elevated CO2 levels, substantially reducing agricultural productivity.  This is on top of the probability of stresses to crops from higher temperatures and changing weather patterns.  Throw in growing demand through a growing population and competing uses for land and water, and well, let’s just say that we have some work to do.

Zeroing in on unsustainable water use, Brown calls our attention to the fact that 130 million people in China and 175 million people in India depend upon fossil water, from aquifers that will not be replenished, to grow the grain they eat.  Some call the phenomenon “peak water.”  (We can add this to the list of things to keep us up at night along with peak oil and peak phosphorus).

Is Brown a prophet of doom and gloom?  Well, he certainly does pull back the curtain and what he shows isn’t pretty. But like the ghost of Christmas pass, his message is one of choices, some of which lead to redemption.  Our job must be to build resilience into our systems.  “Civilisation as we know it”,  Brown cautions “can't withstand the stresses of continuing with business as usual.”

Brown stays on point:  We've got to move, almost on a war footing, to cut carbon emissions, eradicate poverty, stabilise population. We must also restore the economy's natural support systems: forests and aquifers and soils. No civilisation ever survived that kind of destruction; nor will ours. We haven't gone over the edge, but we're much closer than most people think. If the heatwave that hit Moscow in 2010 had been centred on Chicago instead, we would be in deep trouble. The Russians lost 40 per cent of their 100-million-tonne grain crop, but we would have lost 40 per cent of our 400-million-tonne crop - a massive global setback.” (New Scientist Feb 10 2011).

So how do we build resilience? That’s the harder question.  A smaller footprint. Maintaining fallback options when systems fail.  Removal of perverse incentives. Better and more informed choices.    One strategy involves harnessing the marketplace through product labeling.  Most of us have seen plenty of product labels. Underwriter Laboratories (in the USA). Organic and Fair Trade certifications.  Forest Stewardship Council wood products and Marine Stewardship fish products.  The Alliance for Water Stewardship is creating a labeling scheme for sustainable water management.  I don’t want to claim that certifying water supplies is actually going to solve the peak water challenge worldwide.  What it can do, and should do, is provide the nucleus for resilient communities and regions using the principle of sustainable water management as an organizing theme.  This is how you build the future - a brick at a time, at least until episodes of rapid change occur. Read more at www.green-hand.net