Brace yourselves, I’m about to lose it. The MSC have recently certified three major small fish fisheries in the North Sea as ‘sustainable operations.’ We are talking here about the harvest of small so-called “Low Value” species on industrial levels. The Science is sound. The thinking sadly, like in so many other areas within food and environment is fundamentally flawed, and frankly, smells a bit fishy. Before I go further, in mitigation of the sledging below, the MSC has worked closely with the Danish fleet to build a robust and fairly bullet proof sustainable future for the small species that they are landing – small in individual size, there is nothing small about the harvest – some 500,000 tonnes in total. That’s more than double the total annual UK white fish landings, to give you an idea of scale.

Fine, ok, so the fishery is clean, robust and above all sustainable. Now, lets look beyond the fishery. Once this 500,000 tonnes of fish is landed, it’s blast frozen and this tip top, hi grade, omega oil providing, precious life-giving amino-acid rich brain food protein supply is then shared around the world to people in need of a cheap source of high quality natural protein right? All over Europe, and the rest of the world, top restaurants are serving up bucket loads of this cheap and sustainably harvested super food… amazing! brilliant!…… But alas, it’s a fantasy. This “perfect example” of well-managed modern industrial fishing is feeding greed, environmental disaster, low animal welfare and generating millions in profits for the few. I’m sounding a bit anti capitalist hippy here I know, stay with me.

This precious resource is only subject to good management until it’s landed. After that, it becomes just another commodity and in this case highlights for me the very worst of food culture malpractice. The main use for these perfectly human-edible, tasty and above all sustainable and super nutritious catch is… fishmeal.

These small oily fish, this natural gold dust, is rendered into powder form and then used as additives. Some, tip top grade oils will be extracted along the way to go into dietary supplements – ironically – for human consumption but the vast majority of the tonnage will go into feed for animals for people to eat. Pigs are often (in intensive rearing units) fed a “tiny” percentage of this fishmeal in a pellet made of soya and cereals and plant oils at the very early stages of life so that the piglets can be weaned 14 days earlier than if they had been left suckling on the sow. The fishmeal replaces the essential amino acids in the mother’s milk. The pig industry – interestingly very much centred in Denmark – will tell you this is a good thing as it makes life easier for the mother sow. What they actually mean is that they can get her back into farrow sooner so she can get on with gestating the next batch of piglets. ASAP.

The biggest consumer though, of fishmeal, is aquaculture. We are talking fish farming here and yes, farming cold blooded creatures such as fish is FAR more efficient than farming warm blooded animals as they don’t waste precious energy keeping warm, they just get bigger. We are talking salmon here, mostly, and salmon farming is one of the worst culprits of environmental pollution within food production, although it has cleaned up its act quite rapidly of late.

Disease, and damage caused by the hi-intensity of fish ‘throughput’ in the majority of farms has partially been responsible for the decimation of wild stocks of salmon. It’s very well documented. Of course this is seen as acceptable because the world needs feeding, and fish farming is a good way to do that. Only it’s not is it? If we ate the fish that were harvested form the sea directly we could immediately do away with 500,000 tonnes of farmed Salmon right? But of course, salmon is valuable, salmon is plump, and it’s not full of bones. Global Atlantic salmon farming in 2010 was estimated at 2.4 million tonnes.

So, by my reckoning, just by eating the Danish fishmeal fish directly to human consumption we could cut environmentally dubious salmon aquaculture globally by 1/5^th. Actually, it’s probably better than that as there is a little thing called a food (or feed) conversion ratio. This is the amount of something required to create a similar amount of something else. If, we take the golden example of livestock farming as being a way of storing an overly abundant crop that cannot be used locally or transported easily elsewhere, then it’s a good thing; it prevents waste and efficiently stores some of the value for that food for later on. For example, a cow eats grass, and eventually you get beef. But of course you do not get 1kg of beef for every kilo of grass eaten. It’s the same with fish, exactly what the conversion ratio of wild fish to farmed fish is remains debatable – some say its 4 to 1, some as little as 1.5 to 1. The point is simply this: you get out less than you put it. It’s the same with all animal farming, to a greater or lesser extent we would be better off (environmentally) eating the feed resource that is being used to feed the animals.

We are told, of course, that people won’t eat the small fish. People want big, plump, boneless fish. I’m pretty sure that anyone who was hungry would happily eat a nice plate of crispy sprat, or sand eels – they are delicious after all. I’d like to blame industry here, I’d like to point the fiery finger of blame at the Danish fishing fleet, or the Scottish salmon farmers or the Intensive pig units. Anywhere. Anywhere would be better than admitting the hard truth: Once again, the problem here is willing complicity on behalf of the consumer. We do prefer the well-marketed salmon slabs to the small oily fish, or at least we think we do, but how many of us have actually tried the others? We are guilty, in the main, of wanting cheap pork, but would we really go without if the price were higher? Would anyone’s life simply not be worth living if they could only have bacon and salmon say, 10 times a year?

Yes, I applaud the MSC and Denmark for making their fishing industry so sustainable, scientific and efficient. But I don’t buy the bigger picture, the implied environmental soundness of fishmeal production and the systems it supports. Just because the fishmeal is sustainable doesn’t mean it’s not part of a broken system.

It’s the worst kind of green wash – the type that allows you to think it’s ok to spend your money on low welfare, environmentally damaging and highly unethical foods simply because you can afford to and someone has cleverly marketed it to you. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we shouldn’t be eating the small fish directly, maybe this long and convoluted system of passing that goodness from one animal to another for our eventual consumption further down the line is how things are meant to be. Maybe this wasp-waste part of oceanic eco web is the answer to our prayers – we can have cheap salmon and be sustainable. Spare me.

So, buy all means pop the cork for the MSC certification of the Danish fishmeal fleet, but make sure you are eating sand eels, sprats and pouting as the canapés, otherwise, you are not allowed to the party….

This Author

Tim is a private chef and food writer living in east Devon. After leaving River Cottage having held the reigns at the Rover Cottage Canteen in Axminster for four years he has continued to work within the sphere of sustainably produced, seasonal and tasty food. Ethos and Seasonality are at the core of his foodie musings, his fascination with environment and how our food production systems impact upon it are always central to the work he does, both in the kitchen and at the writing desk

Inspired by the Cook for Syria campaign – a collaboration of chefs and refugees – Claire Reid, head gardener at Hestercombe, Somerset, has launched Grow for Syria bringing together gardeners, producers and others moved to want to act to help Syrian refugees.

Although the new initiative is in its infancy, Claire is determined to make a difference hopes to see Grow for Syria really taking off over the next few months.

“I’ve found it really difficult watching the plight of refugees fleeing their homes to escape such awful conditions in Syria,” she says. “After talking with friends, we all agreed that we wanted to actually do something that wasn’t just making a payment to charity where we couldn’t see what good we were doing.

“Those conversations inspired me to set up Grow for Syria and to use my own skills to try and help vulnerable refugees who are living unimaginable hardships.

“The project aims to raise money and awareness for Help Refugees and support the amazing work that that organization carries out. We looked at our skill base (mainly all gardeners) and our friendship groups to see what we could achieve and how we could raise funds.

“A project called Cook for Syria had already really inspired me. They had collaborated with chefs and refugees to create a cook book of Syrian-based recipes. I loved the fact that the book was producing something positive and sharing cultures.

“The book has been a sell-out. I think that reaching out through food and gardening, basic everyday pleasures that bring people together, to build communities really works. And so Grow for Syria was born.”

It is estimated that 11 million Syrians have had to flee their homes since the civil war began in March 2011. Further to that there are around 13.5 million who are in desperate need of humanitarian aid within their own country. Many have faced atrocious conditions, extreme temperatures, walked across inhospitable terrain or braved crossing the ocean to find safety for themselves and their families. With little or no belongings left, let alone money to buy food, these refugees rely solely on the help of others and the generosity of people like Claire and those who make donations.

Acting as a garden adviser for individuals and offering consultation, Claire’s fee goes directly to charity. She’s also been busy contacting seed companies for donations: “Several companies where happy to give me their seeds. These packets have been handed on to various individuals and groups with the idea that they will sow and grow the seeds and then either arrange their own plant sales to sell on the plants, or pass the plants back to me to sell on,” she explains.

Local gardening clubs across the South West have also been involved by supplying leftover packets of seeds and extra pots of seedlings that they don’t need, and plants that are being divided, dug out, or propagated can all be sold in a plant sale for Help Refugees UK.

Claire adds: “It’s exciting. I’ve met some amazing people through the project, many of which feel the same as me. We have already had a seed swap and sale in Wiveliscombe in Somerset and we have a number events coming up across the South West over the next few months.”

On Sunday, 28^th May 2017, Grow for Syria will be attending the Stoke St Mary Soap Box Derby, and selling plants. Also Claire will be answering gardening questions for a donation.

On Sunday, 18^th June 2017 Jan Waters of JW Blooms and Claire representing Grow for Syria will be hosting a special Gardeners’ Question Time event with a panel of experts on hand to answer your questions. The panel includes Claire, head gardener at Hestercombe, Damien Mitchell, head gardener at the National Trust’s Lytes Cary, Sarah Venn, of Edible Bristol, Ashley Wheeler, vegetable grower at Trill Farm, and Danny Burlingham, head gardener at Forde Abbey.

For more info visit www.jwblooms.co.uk

You can follow Grow for Syria on Instagram @growforsyria

Otherwise if you want to help please get in touch by emailing Claire on clairereid1@gmail.com

This Author

Laura Briggs is the UK reporter for The Ecologist, you can follow her on Twitter @WordsbyBriggs

Brace yourselves, I’m about to lose it. The MSC have recently certified three major small fish fisheries in the North Sea as ‘sustainable operations.’ We are talking here about the harvest of small so-called “Low Value” species on industrial levels. The Science is sound. The thinking sadly, like in so many other areas within food and environment is fundamentally flawed, and frankly, smells a bit fishy. Before I go further, in mitigation of the sledging below, the MSC has worked closely with the Danish fleet to build a robust and fairly bullet proof sustainable future for the small species that they are landing – small in individual size, there is nothing small about the harvest – some 500,000 tonnes in total. That’s more than double the total annual UK white fish landings, to give you an idea of scale.

Fine, ok, so the fishery is clean, robust and above all sustainable. Now, lets look beyond the fishery. Once this 500,000 tonnes of fish is landed, it’s blast frozen and this tip top, hi grade, omega oil providing, precious life-giving amino-acid rich brain food protein supply is then shared around the world to people in need of a cheap source of high quality natural protein right? All over Europe, and the rest of the world, top restaurants are serving up bucket loads of this cheap and sustainably harvested super food… amazing! brilliant!…… But alas, it’s a fantasy. This “perfect example” of well-managed modern industrial fishing is feeding greed, environmental disaster, low animal welfare and generating millions in profits for the few. I’m sounding a bit anti capitalist hippy here I know, stay with me.

This precious resource is only subject to good management until it’s landed. After that, it becomes just another commodity and in this case highlights for me the very worst of food culture malpractice. The main use for these perfectly human-edible, tasty and above all sustainable and super nutritious catch is… fishmeal.

These small oily fish, this natural gold dust, is rendered into powder form and then used as additives. Some, tip top grade oils will be extracted along the way to go into dietary supplements – ironically – for human consumption but the vast majority of the tonnage will go into feed for animals for people to eat. Pigs are often (in intensive rearing units) fed a “tiny” percentage of this fishmeal in a pellet made of soya and cereals and plant oils at the very early stages of life so that the piglets can be weaned 14 days earlier than if they had been left suckling on the sow. The fishmeal replaces the essential amino acids in the mother’s milk. The pig industry – interestingly very much centred in Denmark – will tell you this is a good thing as it makes life easier for the mother sow. What they actually mean is that they can get her back into farrow sooner so she can get on with gestating the next batch of piglets. ASAP.

The biggest consumer though, of fishmeal, is aquaculture. We are talking fish farming here and yes, farming cold blooded creatures such as fish is FAR more efficient than farming warm blooded animals as they don’t waste precious energy keeping warm, they just get bigger. We are talking salmon here, mostly, and salmon farming is one of the worst culprits of environmental pollution within food production, although it has cleaned up its act quite rapidly of late.

Disease, and damage caused by the hi-intensity of fish ‘throughput’ in the majority of farms has partially been responsible for the decimation of wild stocks of salmon. It’s very well documented. Of course this is seen as acceptable because the world needs feeding, and fish farming is a good way to do that. Only it’s not is it? If we ate the fish that were harvested form the sea directly we could immediately do away with 500,000 tonnes of farmed Salmon right? But of course, salmon is valuable, salmon is plump, and it’s not full of bones. Global Atlantic salmon farming in 2010 was estimated at 2.4 million tonnes.

So, by my reckoning, just by eating the Danish fishmeal fish directly to human consumption we could cut environmentally dubious salmon aquaculture globally by 1/5^th. Actually, it’s probably better than that as there is a little thing called a food (or feed) conversion ratio. This is the amount of something required to create a similar amount of something else. If, we take the golden example of livestock farming as being a way of storing an overly abundant crop that cannot be used locally or transported easily elsewhere, then it’s a good thing; it prevents waste and efficiently stores some of the value for that food for later on. For example, a cow eats grass, and eventually you get beef. But of course you do not get 1kg of beef for every kilo of grass eaten. It’s the same with fish, exactly what the conversion ratio of wild fish to farmed fish is remains debatable – some say its 4 to 1, some as little as 1.5 to 1. The point is simply this: you get out less than you put it. It’s the same with all animal farming, to a greater or lesser extent we would be better off (environmentally) eating the feed resource that is being used to feed the animals.

We are told, of course, that people won’t eat the small fish. People want big, plump, boneless fish. I’m pretty sure that anyone who was hungry would happily eat a nice plate of crispy sprat, or sand eels – they are delicious after all. I’d like to blame industry here, I’d like to point the fiery finger of blame at the Danish fishing fleet, or the Scottish salmon farmers or the Intensive pig units. Anywhere. Anywhere would be better than admitting the hard truth: Once again, the problem here is willing complicity on behalf of the consumer. We do prefer the well-marketed salmon slabs to the small oily fish, or at least we think we do, but how many of us have actually tried the others? We are guilty, in the main, of wanting cheap pork, but would we really go without if the price were higher? Would anyone’s life simply not be worth living if they could only have bacon and salmon say, 10 times a year?

Yes, I applaud the MSC and Denmark for making their fishing industry so sustainable, scientific and efficient. But I don’t buy the bigger picture, the implied environmental soundness of fishmeal production and the systems it supports. Just because the fishmeal is sustainable doesn’t mean it’s not part of a broken system.

It’s the worst kind of green wash – the type that allows you to think it’s ok to spend your money on low welfare, environmentally damaging and highly unethical foods simply because you can afford to and someone has cleverly marketed it to you. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we shouldn’t be eating the small fish directly, maybe this long and convoluted system of passing that goodness from one animal to another for our eventual consumption further down the line is how things are meant to be. Maybe this wasp-waste part of oceanic eco web is the answer to our prayers – we can have cheap salmon and be sustainable. Spare me.

So, buy all means pop the cork for the MSC certification of the Danish fishmeal fleet, but make sure you are eating sand eels, sprats and pouting as the canapés, otherwise, you are not allowed to the party….

This Author

Tim is a private chef and food writer living in east Devon. After leaving River Cottage having held the reigns at the Rover Cottage Canteen in Axminster for four years he has continued to work within the sphere of sustainably produced, seasonal and tasty food. Ethos and Seasonality are at the core of his foodie musings, his fascination with environment and how our food production systems impact upon it are always central to the work he does, both in the kitchen and at the writing desk

Inspired by the Cook for Syria campaign – a collaboration of chefs and refugees – Claire Reid, head gardener at Hestercombe, Somerset, has launched Grow for Syria bringing together gardeners, producers and others moved to want to act to help Syrian refugees.

Although the new initiative is in its infancy, Claire is determined to make a difference hopes to see Grow for Syria really taking off over the next few months.

“I’ve found it really difficult watching the plight of refugees fleeing their homes to escape such awful conditions in Syria,” she says. “After talking with friends, we all agreed that we wanted to actually do something that wasn’t just making a payment to charity where we couldn’t see what good we were doing.

“Those conversations inspired me to set up Grow for Syria and to use my own skills to try and help vulnerable refugees who are living unimaginable hardships.

“The project aims to raise money and awareness for Help Refugees and support the amazing work that that organization carries out. We looked at our skill base (mainly all gardeners) and our friendship groups to see what we could achieve and how we could raise funds.

“A project called Cook for Syria had already really inspired me. They had collaborated with chefs and refugees to create a cook book of Syrian-based recipes. I loved the fact that the book was producing something positive and sharing cultures.

“The book has been a sell-out. I think that reaching out through food and gardening, basic everyday pleasures that bring people together, to build communities really works. And so Grow for Syria was born.”

It is estimated that 11 million Syrians have had to flee their homes since the civil war began in March 2011. Further to that there are around 13.5 million who are in desperate need of humanitarian aid within their own country. Many have faced atrocious conditions, extreme temperatures, walked across inhospitable terrain or braved crossing the ocean to find safety for themselves and their families. With little or no belongings left, let alone money to buy food, these refugees rely solely on the help of others and the generosity of people like Claire and those who make donations.

Acting as a garden adviser for individuals and offering consultation, Claire’s fee goes directly to charity. She’s also been busy contacting seed companies for donations: “Several companies where happy to give me their seeds. These packets have been handed on to various individuals and groups with the idea that they will sow and grow the seeds and then either arrange their own plant sales to sell on the plants, or pass the plants back to me to sell on,” she explains.

Local gardening clubs across the South West have also been involved by supplying leftover packets of seeds and extra pots of seedlings that they don’t need, and plants that are being divided, dug out, or propagated can all be sold in a plant sale for Help Refugees UK.

Claire adds: “It’s exciting. I’ve met some amazing people through the project, many of which feel the same as me. We have already had a seed swap and sale in Wiveliscombe in Somerset and we have a number events coming up across the South West over the next few months.”

On Sunday, 28^th May 2017, Grow for Syria will be attending the Stoke St Mary Soap Box Derby, and selling plants. Also Claire will be answering gardening questions for a donation.

On Sunday, 18^th June 2017 Jan Waters of JW Blooms and Claire representing Grow for Syria will be hosting a special Gardeners’ Question Time event with a panel of experts on hand to answer your questions. The panel includes Claire, head gardener at Hestercombe, Damien Mitchell, head gardener at the National Trust’s Lytes Cary, Sarah Venn, of Edible Bristol, Ashley Wheeler, vegetable grower at Trill Farm, and Danny Burlingham, head gardener at Forde Abbey.

For more info visit www.jwblooms.co.uk

You can follow Grow for Syria on Instagram @growforsyria

Otherwise if you want to help please get in touch by emailing Claire on clairereid1@gmail.com

This Author

Laura Briggs is the UK reporter for The Ecologist, you can follow her on Twitter @WordsbyBriggs

Fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing) is a particular method of oil and gas extraction. It uses intense water, air or chemical pressure to fracture rock formations and release trapped fossil fuels. Studies however have found that the practice can trigger medium-sized earthquakes, can affect the quality of surface and groundwater, and can lead to elevated emissions of methane – a potent greenhouse gas.

The extraction method has already been banned in countries such as Scotland and Germany, and dozens of municipalities across South America have declared themselves to be “free of fracking”.

But despite the risks, the Colombian government has moved ahead with an extensive programme of licensing.

“Colombia cannot give itself the luxury of not doing fracking” explained Juan Carlos Echeverry, the President of state oil company Ecopetrol. With Colombia’s conventional oil stocks dwindling, the promise of replenished reserves obtained through non-conventional extraction has repeatedly been trumpeted by the country’s oil and gas sector.

Exploratory drilling for non-conventional extraction is already underway in San Martin (Cesar province) and Anapoima in the province of Cundinamarca. In San Martin, American fossil fuel giant ConocoPhillips has teamed up with Canacol on the VMM-2 project. For months, local communities in San Martin have organised non-violently to protest the project, led by the Association Defending Water, Land & Ecosystems (Cordatec in Spanish). In September, they blockaded the entrance to the exploration site, preventing the entry of company equipment. In October, riot police moved to repress the protest, injuring 10 demonstrators.

The opposition to fracking has also taken place on a national level. The Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking – a coalition of environmental organisations, trade unionists and land defenders – recently signed an open letter calling on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to declare a moratorium on fracking, citing its multiple environmental, seismic and public health impacts. The letter also declares fracking activities to be in violation of Colombian constitutional principles that guarantee citizens the right to life, the right to water, and the right to a healthy environment.

Although the Colombian government has adamantly defended the strength of its own regulatory framework, the country’s own Comptroller has warned of irregularities, and has ordered the National Hydrocarbons Agency to “to refrain from signing contracts for the exploitation of non-conventional oil deposits”. The country’s Ministry of Environment is also set to release a study showing that the country is not ready to monitor or regulate non-conventional fossil fuel extraction.

In a country with over one hundred active socio-environmental conflicts, the expansion of fracking risks aggravating tensions. Colombia is still in the process of implementing a landmark peace agreement brokered in late 2016 between the government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), which drew five decades of civil war to a close.

Last October, Cordatec wrote that the government’s actions to push through fracking “demonstrate the real way in which the national government is building “territorial peace”. While it sits in Havana, negotiates and comes to an agreement with the FARC to put an end to 50 years of war, in benefit of multinational companies and economic interests…it uses violence against communities who defend life, water, land and ecosystems.”  

Approved exploration contracts for fracking overlap with the territories of Indigenous communities such as the Yupka, Wiwa and Wayúu peoples. They also cross the “Black Line” – an established demarcation of territories in the Sierra Nevada region that hold sacred value for the Kogi, Wiwa, Kankuamo and Aruaco peoples.

In addition to contravening the land rights of Colombia’s Native peoples, the Colombian Government’s issuance of contracts for fracking has prompted fears of possible human rights violations, given the oil industry’s historic record in the country. Since oil companies first arrived in Colombia at the turn of the century, numerous local communities have experienced gross ecological and social impacts, ranging from water depletion to brutal intimidation. Drummond, an American company party to five new fracking-related contracts, has previously been linked to paramilitary payoffs and violence in the northeastern region of Cesar.

The new fracking concessions also threaten a range of páramo ecosystems, including the Chingaza páramo, a unique water ecosystem that provides the capital city of Bogotá with four-fifths of its water. The Sumapaz páramo, the largest in the world, is also under threat. In other parts of the country, unique wetland ecosystems could also be at risk.

While the scale of Colombia’s fracking concessions is unprecedented in the region, the extractive practice is no newcomer to Latin America, with fracking ventures active in at least seven countries. Argentina, home to the second largest shale reserve in the world, has seen a flurry of extraction projects in northern Patagonia, with Royal Dutch Shell recently announcing major investments. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Mexico have also seen the use of fracking.

These Authors

Sebastian Ordoñez Muñoz is senior international programmes officer (Latin America) at War on Want and Daniel MacMilllen Voskoboynik is coordinator at This Changes Everything UK

Frequently lost in the arguments over financial costs and benefits when it comes to pollution is the cost to human health.

Not only illness and respiratory problems but premature death. To put it bluntly: How many human lives should we exchange for corporate profit?

Two new studies by the World Health Organization should force us to confront these issues head on. This is no small matter – the two WHO studies estimate that polluted environments cause 1.7 million children age five or younger to die per year.

Indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene all contribute to these 1.7 million annual deaths, accounting for more than one-quarter of all deaths of children age five or younger globally. A summary notes:

“[W]hen infants and pre-schoolers are exposed to indoor and outdoor air pollution and second-hand smoke they have an increased risk of pneumonia in childhood, and a lifelong increased risk of chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Exposure to air pollution may also increase their lifelong risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer.”

One of the two reports, Don’t pollute my future! The impact of the environment on children’s health, notes that most of humanity lives in environmentally stressed areas:

“92% of the global population, including billions of children, live in areas with ambient air pollution levels that exceed WHO limits. Over three billion people are exposed to household air pollution from the use of solid fuels.

“Air pollution causes approximately 600,000 deaths in children under five years annually and increases the risk for respiratory infections, asthma, adverse neonatal conditions and congenital anomalies. Air pollution accounts for over 50% of the overall disease burden of pneumonia which is among the leading causes of global child mortality.

“Growing evidence suggests that air pollution adversely affects cognitive development in children and early exposures might induce development of chronic disease in adulthood.” [page 3]

These types of calculations on health and mortality are absent from debates on environmental regulations. And not only is the human toll missing from cost/benefit analyses, but this pollution is actually subsidized.

Trump administration’s assault on the environment

These World Health Organization reports were published in the same month that the Trump administration mounted a full-scale assault on the US environment. Not only has the Trump administration proposed draconian cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and signaled its intention to rescind air-pollution rules for motor vehicles scheduled to come into force between 2022 and 2025, it has issued an executive order requiring a

“review [of] existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources.”

One of the targets of this order is the Clean Power Plan, which requires a 32% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 2030, compared to 2005 emission rates. The standard, implemented by the Obama administration, was already seen as inadequate.

The increased danger raised by President Donald Trump’s order was succinctly summed up by this headline on a Weather Underground article written by Jeff Masters: ‘Trump’s Executive Order Threatens to Wreck Earth as a Livable Planet for Humans‘.

Threats don’t get much graver than that, do they?

Given the gigantic size of the United States economy and the pollution thrown into the atmosphere, this is of serious concern to the entire world. The World Resources Institute estimates that the US accounts for almost 15% of Earth’s current greenhouse gas emissions, second only to China’s 20%.

Russia and the US emit more than twice the global average on a per capita basis, as does Canada, which, due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuel extraction, has the world’s largest per-person greenhouse gas footprint.

When greenhouse gas emissions are calculated on a cumulative basis, then the responsibility of the global North comes into sharper focus: The United States has accounted for 27% of all greenhouse gases emitted since 1850, and the countries of the European Union contributed another 25%.

Carbon dioxide is the biggest single contributor to global warming – which is why the US Environmental Protection Agency had sought to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant – but methane is also a significant contributor.

The EPA in 2016 issued an order requiring that owners and operators of oil and gas facilities provide data needed to help it determine how to best reduce methane and other harmful emissions. But the Trump administration has withdrawn the order to provide data.

Not everything can be reversed at the stroke a pen, however. The larger attack on the Clean Power Plan will likely take years to carry out, Dr. Masters wrote:

“The Clean Power Plan will be difficult to undo quickly. The plan was finalized by EPA in 2015, and is currently being reviewed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Under the new executive order, the Department of Justice will ask the court to suspend the case until the EPA can review and write a new version of the rule. (Before that happens, the court may still rule on the Plan as written, which will influence how the EPA can rewrite the rule.)

“Once the case is removed from the court, the EPA will have to legally withdraw the existing rule and propose a new rule to take its place, a process that could take years, as the new rule will have to be justified in court, and would likely be challenged in court by environmental groups.”

Hundreds of thousands of lives in the balance

Nonetheless, a fightback is essential. Lives are literally at stake, in large numbers, if regulations safeguarding air quality are reversed.

The EPA estimates that 160,000 premature deaths were prevented in 2010 by the Clean Air Act, and estimates that 230,000 lives will be saved and 120,000 emergency-room visits saved in 2020 if the act is left intact. The EPA said the benefits of the act “exceeds costs by a factor of more than 30 to one.”

This study, at least for the moment, hasn’t been expunged from the Internet by the Trump administration.

A separate study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) estimates that air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the United States alone.

The two biggest contributors to that death toll, the MIT report found, are emissions from road transportation and power generation, which together account for just more than half the total. One of the study’s authors, MIT professor Steven Barrett, said a person who dies from an air pollution-related cause typically dies about a decade earlier than he or she otherwise might have.

The Canadian government estimates that a 10% reduction in particulate-matter and ozone levels would result in a net social welfare benefit for Canadians of more than $4 billion. A separate study estimates that the cost to Canadian health care from air pollution will total $250 billion by 2031 without significant reductions.

This exercise can be repeated around the world. A 2015 World Health Organization study estimates that indoor and outdoor air pollution costs European economies as much as €1.2 trillion annually in deaths and diseases. This includes £54 billion and 29,000 deaths per year in Britain. For Australia, the cost from air pollution was estimated at $5.8 billion in 2010, a doubling in only five years.

Globally, air pollution could lead to nine million premature deaths and US$2.6 trillion in economic damage from the costs of sick days, medical bills and reduced agricultural output by 2060, according to an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development study.

Only a drastic reduction in emissions can reverse these costs in human health and the mounting dangers of global warming.

We’ll have to go well beyond current plans

Cap-and-trade schemes, promoted by North American liberals and European social democrats, simply don’t work. The European Union system, for example, issued so many free certificates that the price of pollution is a small fraction of the target price, and attempts by environmentalists to reduce the number of certifications are consistently rebuffed.

Moreover, cap-and-trade plans often allow ‘offsets’, whereby companies can buy emission credits from outside the program to ‘offset’ emissions above the allowable level, allowing polluters to substitute unverifiable reductions elsewhere for real reductions locally.

Nor are renewable energy sources, as vital as they are to any rational future, a substitute for reducing energy usage. Renewable energy is not necessarily clean nor without contributions to global warming.

Wind power and biomass, for example, have their own problems. The primary source of bioenergy is wood, which portends an increase in logging, counter to winning a struggle against global warming. Denmark and Britain are among the biggest users of biomass but must import wood to sustain that.

The turbines used to produce electricity from wind increasingly are built with the ‘rare earth’ element neodymium, which requires a highly toxic process to produce. Production of rare earths are environmentally destructive; increasing their extraction means more pollution and toxic waste.

The argument here certainly isn’t that a switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy as quickly as practical isn’t necessary; of course such a switch needs to be made. But if reversing pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions is the goal, then renewables are at most a partial measure.

The Paris Climate Summit ended with a surprise decision by the world’s governments to limit the rise of the global average temperature to 1.5 C above the pre-industrial revolution average instead of the previously intended limit of 2C. The difficulty here, however, is that even if every national goal were met, the Earth’s temperature would rise 2.2C to 3.4C by 2100 with more to come, and the Paris summit contains no mechanism to enforce these goals.

Adding to the difficulty of reducing fossil fuel usage sufficiently to meet the Paris summit’s goals (and which would also reduce the damage to human health) is the astounding total of subsidies for them. A 2015 study that attempted to quantify the size of these subsidies on a global basis estimated them at US$5.6 trillion!

That includes not only direct government subsidies through tax breaks and other programs, but damage to the environment – these are not inconsequential as the costs of air pollution and global warming transferred to society account for nearly two-thirds of that total.

‘Fracking’ (hydraulic fracturing) of rock to blast out natural gas alone accounts for billions of dollars of damages through contaminated water, health problems from the chemicals used in the process, air pollution, methane that contributes to global warming, disruption to agriculture and damage to roads from trucks. That the cost of those is transferred to society is another mammoth subsidy to the energy industry.

Overshooting Earth’s carrying capacity

The most recent estimate of planetary consumption is that humanity is using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths per year. By 2030, at present rates of increase, we’ll be consuming two Earths – that is, twice the capacity of our planet to sustain.

Then there is the matter of global warming. Two scientific studies issued in 2015 suggest that so much carbon dioxide already has been thrown in the air that humanity may have already committed itself to a six-meter rise in sea level. A separate 2015 study, prepared by 18 scientists, found that the Earth is crossing several ‘planetary boundaries’ that together will render the planet much less hospitable.

What is the price of making Earth uninhabitable? No amount of strip-mining the Moon or the asteroid belt will reverse mass die-offs on Earth.

Illusions that ‘green capitalism‘ will save us really must be abandoned. Beyond that capitalism requires constant growth (infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet) and discourages corporate responsibility because enterprises can offload their responsibilities onto society, every incentive is for more production.

Adding to that, capitalist economics discounts the future so much that future life is seen as nearly worthless. Thus, in this type of accounting, there is no cost for future pollution.

Authors Richard York, Brett Clark and John Bellamy Foster put this plainly in a thoughtful May 2009 article in Monthly Review. They wrote:

“Where [orthodox economists] primarily differ is not on their views of the science behind climate change but on their value assumptions about the propriety of shifting burdens to future generations. This lays bare the ideology embedded in orthodox neoclassical economics, a field which regularly presents itself as using objective, even naturalistic, methods for modeling the economy.

“However, past all of the equations and technical jargon, the dominant economic paradigm is built on a value system that prizes capital accumulation in the short-term, while de-valuing everything else in the present and everything altogether in the future.”

As for the present day, capitalist enterprises aren’t going to guarantee jobs to workers displaced from energy-extraction industries, and if those workers don’t have any viable alternatives, it can’t be expected they will do anything other than join their bosses in fighting for their industry.

Thus any rational plan to drastically shrink fossil fuel extraction has to be able to provide alternative jobs. Nor do the costs in human lives discussed above factor into capitalist economic calculations.

The drastic changes that are necessary to reverse the human and environmental tolls of pollution will come with a hefty price tag. But the cost of continuing business as usual is much higher – a price our descendants will pay if we don’t move to an economic system that values life rather than only profits.

Pete Dolack is an activist, writer, poet and photographer, and writes on Systemic Disorder. His book ‘It’s Not Over: Lessons from the Socialist Experiment‘, a study of attempts to create societies on a basis other than capitalism, was recently published by Zero Books.

This article was originally published on Systemic Disorder.

Packed with headlines of despair and quasi-apocalyptic prophecies, 21st Century environmental media is in need of a psychological impact assessment.

In attempts to reel in the public with ‘clickbait’ and sensationalist headlines, most outlets opt for worldwide doom and gloom, leaving the more modest small-scale success stories to be ignored. Offered no solutions, the public become as stumped as the trees they couldn’t protect.

This month (April, 2017), an exciting conference is seeking to redress this imbalance.

The Conservation Optimism Summit, (taking place on April the 20-22), is gathering together some of the biggest names in conservation to share the oft-neglected triumphs. Stories of mass reforestation and renewable technologies might not get a look-in on the front pages, but they constitute a breath of fresh air.

Led by the University of Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science and the Zoological Society of London, in conjunction with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the conference will be hosting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural speakers from conservation, art, positive psychology, sustainable business, NGOs, and constructive journalism.

Featuring cutting edge case studies, the summit seeks to demonstrate the power of optimism not only to heal ecological systems, but also improve the human condition.

Following two days of workshops, talks, interactive sessions, and discussions at Dulwich College in London (pictured), the third and last day – coinciding with Earth Day 2017 – will take place at London Zoo and is free-of-charge for all to attend. The zoo will be hosting a festival of stalls, each showcasing and celebrating the impressive efforts across the world to conserve species, from partula snails to pandas.

Tickets for the event can be bought through the website. Registration closes on April 10^th, 2017.

The Conservation Optimism initiative is not attempting to hide the severity of our ecological crisis or promote wishful thinking. But rather, it is about a kind of grounded hope, steeped in pragmatism and sober understanding of the challenges ahead. As one conservationist, David Orr, put it: “It is hope with its sleeves rolled up.”

Distanciation

The conference comes amid a growing understanding of environmental psychology in recent years. When fears heighten, survival responses are triggered and one can suppress their concern for others in order to protect themselves.

The term distanciation has been used to define an issue that arises when people perceive a threat as highly important, and yet feel powerless to help. This mismatch between threats and solutions, where no commensurate response is proposed for the looming challenges, paralyses the public and lets despair run amok.

Professor David Halpin, author of the book Hope and Education, asserts: “Despair itself is the enemy of progress because in the final analysis it lacks a faith in the future.”

In the early nineties, a study by Columbia University compared the capability of three strategies to communicate ecological knowledge – scare tactics, informational and experiential. Scare tactics were least effective in imparting environmental knowledge, and furthermore, participants were less likely translate this information into pro-environmental behaviour.

The Power of Hope

Hope is increasingly being understood as more than just a lovey-dovey feeling, but rather a foundational element of motivation. The Swedish researcher, Maria Ojala, conducted experiments that show those who maintain grounded hope towards climate change express higher levels of pro-environmental behaviour, such as recycling.

Studies by Flinders University and the Northeastern University both found individuals espousing positive outlooks exhibit improved performances of real-world tasks.

Characterising the importance of optimism, the philosopher Albert Camus differentiated active fatalism and passive fatalism. In both cases, one recognises a harrowing threat, and yet while the latter retreats into inaction, the former asserts that: “One should start to move forward, in the dark, feeling one’s way and trying to do good… Active fatalism is a refusal to capitulate to hopeless odds.”

St Francis’ words encapsulated this form of hope: “Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant this tree.”

When speaking of the Conservation Optimism Summit, UK campaigner Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall said: “One thing I’ve learned is how important it is to present positive solutions and to keep hope alive.

“I’ve met so many people doing fantastic work to protect and restore our natural world. We should be sharing these inspiring stories far and wide, rather than always getting bogged down in doom and gloom. I’m therefore delighted to support the Conservation Optimism initiative and its partners in their mission to spread a new wave of positivity throughout the environmental community.”

It’s all too easy to forget that the world is teeming with people on the front lines of conservation, leading the developments, technologies, and battles against climate change. It is through learning the myriad ways in which environmental leaders invent, discover, and achieve, by which the public can be motivated into action.

We need more than just trees. We must plant hope too.

This Author

Marcus Nield is an environmental journalist and documentary filmmaker, having written for The Independent, Positive News, Sci-News, and the Oxford Student Magazine. Marcus is currently working on a documentary about water scarcity in Palestine.

The North Sea oil and gas sector became a net drain on the UK’s public finances for the first time in 2016, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

In total, the sector received £396m in 2016, net of tax payments. This is the first year that the North Sea industry has cost the exchequer more than it has contributed.

Carbon Brief analysis of a second set of figures, published last week, shows oil majors BP, ExxonMobil and Shell were the largest recipients of taxpayer funds during 2014 and 2015.

Each has received hundreds of millions of pounds to cover the costs of decommissioning old oil and gas fields.

North Sea legacy

Since the government passed the Continental Shelf Act in 1964, billions of barrels of oil and gas have been extracted from reserves under the North Sea.

Now, some of the largest fields are coming to the end of their life. The rigs, pipelines and other infrastructure built to exploit them must be safely decommissioned. Cleaning up this legacy will cost an estimated £47bn out to 2050, according to the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).

Companies can reclaim tax paid in previous years, in order to cover this spending. Oil prices are still far below recent highs and the government has introduced generous tax breaks, worth £2.3bn, designed to encourage new investment in the North Sea.

Meanwhile, estimates of the total cost of decommissioning are highly uncertain, with the OGA giving a range of plus or minus 40% on its £47bn figure. One 2016 study said taxpayers could face a £75bn bill. Other studies have speculated that the costs could wipe out all future North Sea tax revenues, potentially damaging the economic case for Scottish independence.

As the Financial Times noted in January, the North Sea industry “risks becoming a net drain on UK resources as it enters its sunset years.”

But now it’s crunch time!

Having reached highs of £12bn revenue in some years, this moment has already arrived, with the North Sea for the first time becoming a net drain on the public finances and costing £0.4bn (£396m) in calendar year 2016. Future revenues are uncertain, see below. Either way, the sector is no longer the cash cow chancellors have come to expect over the past several decades.

It’s worth adding that, in total, the sector has contributed in the region of £190bn in tax revenues since the 1960s (see chart, above right). Note that this figure has not been adjusted for inflation. After accounting for inflation, estimated revenues are even larger; a Financial Times article puts them at £330bn.

North Sea firms received a net tax payment of £24m in the 2015/16 tax year. In the current tax year to date, they received £420m, suggesting the net tax position is getting worse.

Biggest winners

The largest recipients of taxpayer funds are revealed in separate government figures, published last week. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, now in its second year, details payments between government and the oil, gas and mining sectors in the UK.

The latest figures, covering calendar year 2015, show a broadly similar pattern to last year’s data. In total, across the two years, the top net recipients of public cash are BP, ExxonMobil and Shell (see chart, above right).

The top five recipients (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Talisman Sinopec and Hess) were paid a net total of more than £1.1bn across 2014 and 2015, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Tax forecast

In terms of future tax receipts, the outlook for the oil and gas sector appears as uncertain as next year’s oil price – or the total cost of decommissioning.

For a number of years, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) continually downgraded its forecasts for the North Sea tax take. This reflected a combination of new tax reliefs introduced by former chancellor George Osborne, and the falling oil price.

By March 2016, the OBR was forecasting that the oil and gas sector would be receiving a net payment of £1bn per year from UK taxpayers, for five years from 2016-17.

Later in 2016, the OBR started to revise upwards its forecasts for UK oil and gas revenues, as oil prices recovered from lows of $30 per barrel. The most recent March 2017 estimates show the sector contributing a net £4.5bn over five years, instead of the £5bn cost seen in March 2016 (see chart, above right).

Note that the latest OBR forecast is one third lower than its November 2016 estimate. This is because of a change in methodology regarding how much capital expenditure could be offset against future taxes, as well as the fall in the pound.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor at Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

Other articles on Carbon Brief by Simon Evans.

Stories of Indigenous communities protesting oil extraction on traditional tribal lands are not a new or even surprising occurrence within the spectrum of global ecological phenomena. It seems a dark joke on humanity that, so often, remote and isolated communities far removed from the global market and corporate mining enterprises are the first line of defence and the first casualties of oil pollution and mining contamination.

The North Peruvian province of Loreto is home to both the Peruvian Amazon and 27 Indigenous tribes that have coexisted with and relied on the rainforest for centuries. However in the 1970s, whilst the world was watching the Vietnam war, when a small company called Apple was founded, and an ambitious new Sci-Fi film series set in a galaxy far away was released, oil extraction moved into the Peruvian Amazon and grew to produce approximately 30% the Peruvian GDP. Since then, several oil corporations have been active in the region – companies such as OXY, Pluspetrol, China National Petroleum Corporation, and Petroperú, all participating in a relay race of dirty legacies.

So where was the Peruvian government during this ‘invasion’? The Peruvian Amazon is estimated to cover approximately 60% of Peru; of this forested land the Peruvian government has allocated, as of 2010, 49% to various corporations under oil and gas concessions. From this 49% more than half comprises land belonging to Indigenous communities and a further 17% is comprised of nature reserves. This systematic allocation of communal land to multinationals over the past decades has led to fierce opposition from Amazonian residents.

Indigenous Resistance

The impact of oil mining in the Peruvian Amazon has devastated generations of local inhabitants. The vast economic profits made by multinational oil companies and the Peruvian government have come at the price of the health of rainforest ecosystems and the people who live in it. Beginning in 1986, oil leaks have been contaminating waterways and land throughout the Peruvian Amazon, often being left untreated and unreported by the media thus incurring few if any repercussions for the perpetrating companies.

In more recent times, four declarations of environmental and sanitary emergency struck in the Loreto province between 2013 and 2014. In 2016, the North Peruvian Oil Pipeline (NPOPL), which has been in use for over 40 years, suffered over a dozen oil leaks due to poor maintenance. The Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAAP) declared all water from the Tigre River undrinkable due to oil pollution, and there were numerous accounts of children dying from toxic oil poisoning. Due to the high levels of toxicity, fish – a staple of the Amazonian diet – must now be imported from neighbouring Ecuador, with food prices peaking.

In response to the January 2016 oil spills, the largest protest movement thus far was organised by the Kichwa people at the base of the Tigre River – the most polluted river in the area. Hundreds gathered for four months to block and stop the boats of oil companies from accessing the river, and to affirm the seriousness of the demands of local communities.

Indigenous Demands to Government

 “This region has been extremely polluted, people have died because of it, and yet still nothing is being done to contain the problem,” said José Fachín, a community leader that has been instrumental in garnering support for the resistance movement. The protesters have set clear demands to the government, of which the primary requests are:

• Compensation by the State to Indigenous communities affected by oil pollution,
• The cleaning of oil spills by the North Peruvian pipeline in highly affected areas,
• Setting up a Communal Environmental Monitoring Act,
• The revision of plans for extending the federal contract with the current oil company Pluspetrol Norte,
• De-criminalisation of protests.

The demands presented are slowly gathering momentum and legitimacy through trials and legal procedures. Significantly, the criminalisation of protests has been one of the main methods of silencing the protests. Legal proceedings are being utilised, at present, to respond to and appeal events such as the 2008 imprisonment and torture of community leaders in response to peaceful protests. Nevertheless, affected communities continue to pursue government compensation, cooperation and recognition by insisting on consultation with an Indigenous collective before the allocation of new mining concessions, by organising dialogues and multi-sectoral commissions between all parties involved; by the judicialisation of protests, and by raising awareness through new interest from press and mass media.

The situations faced by Indigenous communities pose poignant challenges for the coming years. However, as momentum increases for the implementation of sustainable energy against fossil fuels, and as water scarcity becomes a reality, the significance of the irreparable harm done to communities and ecosystems, as well as the precedent of violence and destruction the oil industry has left on resource acquisition, cannot be understated or ignored.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist who has previously worked in Australia, Costa Rica, Austria and Belgium. He’s currently studying the processes that drive biodiversity in the Black Forest in Germany, and writes articles on sustainable development, forest ecology, conservation biology and climate change. With a group of young biologists he founded LonelyCreatures  – an organisation that brings under attention the stories of endangered species across Europe

Producing healthy, sustainable food is a fashionable concept right now, with more consumers looking to become responsible for their own carbon footprint. Small-scale farmers, producers and allotment keepers are all trying to push forward a change in the way we think and eat. This aspiration however remains heavily at odds with the reality, born out of our collective desire for convenience.

The amount of food we waste is a global catastrophe. In cost alone food wastage adds up to around USD 1 trillion every year – not taking into account the human cost of some 795 million people who go hungry on any one given day.

And when it comes to issues of waste, it’s not just the food itself, but what it’s packaged in. When we throw away a half-eaten sandwich, it’s likely that the box or wrapper that encases it will end up in the bin as well – an environmental disaster.

Take this example – a wax paper wrapper on a burger from fast-food giant McDonald’s cannot be recycled. It can be composted, but it’s unlikely that the many people consuming these burgers would ever know that – less likely still that they would put the wrapper in a composting bin.Packaging from this one global chain alone makes up 50% of their total waste, with food waste making up 20%.

The energy it takes to produce the packaging and the product; the water used, transportation and the gases from rotting waste food, all have a detrimental impact on the environment. McDonald’s does now follow a number of sustainable sourcing policies and according to a spokesperson “works closely with suppliers to develop standards based on continuous improvements”, but as much as a powerful multi-billion-dollar company does to stay sustainable, it is the consumer mindset that needs to change to bring about both sustainable and regenerative systems of food production.

At present another fast-food outlet, hamburger chain Burger King, is facing criticism for buying soya bean animal feed produced by destructive methods. Grown in the tropical rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, thousands of hectares of these forests have been burned out to produce animal feed.

It’s easy to blame the big players, but these actions are borne from our excessive shopping and eating habits.

Destroying natural habitats to grow food for animals, which are then killed for food, makes no sense. But what is the answer to this paradoxical problem? We want choice, we want food in minutes, and we want lots of it. Perhaps we should be looking harder at how much we really need?

Growing food that we can eat directly, rather than producing crops to feed animals, or producing livestock on a smaller scale would go some way to limiting our environmental impact.

Small-scale producers offering food security and using regenerative methods are key to providing food for communities without destroying the environment. 

And it’s fair to say many consumers are already trying to do their bit, despite the challenges. There are currently over two million allotment holders across Europe who share an ethos that organic, home-grown produce is best for health and best for the environment – limiting food and energy wastage.

Bizarrely, most of us don’t think we are wasteful. According to the UK charity WRAP, 60% of householders don’t believe they waste food. (The truth, however, is we waste around two-and-a-half main meals each week, the equivalent of  around £9 in monetary value.)

The reasons for this waste are manifold. Buying packets of fruit and veg rather than individual pieces, throwing food out early because we rely so stringently on “use-by dates” and buying from unsustainable sources or unethical producers are all factors that contribute to this enormous level of waste.

A huge bonus to small-scale food production is the benefit to human health. Without the need for pesticides, naturally reared food contains higher nutrient levels thanks to biodiverse soils, without the worry of chemicals passing into our bodies. Lush, natural pastures produce healthy animals which then converts into healthier meat.

By mass-producing food globally, we have been backed into a corner of pesticide use, which contributes further to the decimation of land. Pesticides not only destroy pests but end up killing off harmless insects and pollinators, depleting soils until eventually the ground becomes useless for growing.

A recent report by the United Nations condemned the use of pesticides as ‘going against our basic human rights.’ Big corporations pushing for chemical use claim that pesticides are needed to produce enough crops to “feed the world” but actually individuals shouldn’t have to feed the world. Focusing on feeding our own families and communities should be the priority.

According to figures from the FAO, global food production needs to increase 60% by 2050 to meet the demands of a growing population. Here’s what I think, rather than growing on a bigger scale, more people should be growing and eating on a smaller scale.

In America, the community garden (equivalent to the UK’s community allotment) addresses a food security issue. Tens of millions of Americans receive assistance from more than 33,500 food pantries across the country – relying on a network of more than 200 regional food banks. This does not include perishable, healthy options such as fresh fruit and vegetables. However, a local solution is found through community gardeners who can provide these vital foods to those who otherwise could not access them. Rather than throwing their excess vegetables, fruits or herbs on the compost, community gardeners share them with a local pantry to be received by hungry families.

In the UK, the number of allotment-keepers is growing, allowing the growers to provide food for their families and removing the need to buy intensively grown supermarket produce. Diane Appleyard of the UK-based National Allotment Society says growing your own food is the antithesis of convenience, but that the benefits outweigh the negatives: “Growing your own food on an allotment is not convenient – it’s time consuming, sometimes frustrating and disappointing but at the same time it’s life affirming and addictive.

“Having a plot is about much more than growing food and some allotment growers say that the food is not the main reason they have a plot. I know would still do it even if I failed to get a harvest every year.”

Encouragingly the humble allotment is in high demand in the UK with a 40-year waiting list in some parts of London, and  four-year waiting list in Bristol. Councils have been creating new sites and many have halved plot sizes, which has enabled them to reduce waiting lists. Some sites have community composting facilities, and often a glut of produce is shared among others.

It’s unrealistic to think that everyone will ‘grow their own’, but an awareness of how food is produced and how much we waste is crucial to bring about change.

Many global chains are making small changes. The McDonald’s 2016 Beef Carbon Report stated that between 2008 and 2014 the fast-food company had reduced its carbon footprint by 23% on the core farms that were monitored. It is also currently undergoing a refurbishment programme to allow customers to order through digital kiosks before paying so food orders are prepared individually and food waste is further reduced.

There are now more vegans than ever, showing that people are thinking more about what they eat, how much they eat, and how it’s produced. With more people than ever wanting to wage war on food waste, the big companies are responding. If you want to reduce food waste, use your head – and think before you eat.

This Author

Laura Briggs is the UK news reporter for the Ecologist

Follow her on Twitter @WordsbyBriggs