by Michael Harvey | Aug 25, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development, Middle East and North Africa, North America, UK
– With the news that President Obama has nominated Ben Bernanke for a second term, over at the New Republic Noam Scheiber assesses the merits of continuity at the Fed. Stephen Roach, meanwhile, examines the case against the incumbent chairman, arguing that Obama’s decision should open a “broader debate over the conduct and role of US monetary policy”.
– Taking us back to the depths of last September’s financial meltdown, Faisal Islam has some interesting insights into the collapse of Lehman Brothers as viewed from British shores.
– Elsewhere, debate continues apace about the rights and wrongs of releasing the Lockerbie bomber. Suggesting that “cock-up offers as convincing an explanation as conspiracy for the handling of Mr Megrahi’s release”, Philip Stephens argues that the decision highlights the “price of realism” in foreign policy.
– Speaking of which, in the latest edition of FP Magazine none other than Paul Wolfowitz assesses the realist credentials of President Obama; providing at once a telling insight into the mindset of a man at the heart of foreign policy making during the Bush years.
– Mark Easton’s BBC blog, meanwhile, takes a look at how the British government is looking to influence public behaviour in light of the Chief Scientist’s warning of a “perfect storm” of energy, food and water scarcity by 2030.
– Finally, as President Obama holidays on Martha’s Vineyard, the White House announces what he’ll be reading on the beach. Slate offers its take here.
by Michael Harvey | Jul 15, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, North America, UK
– Over at Politico, Ben Smith has more news about the Secretary of State’s big foreign policy speech, to be delivered today at the Council on Foreign Relations. Placing the last six months of US diplomacy into perspective, it will also offer Hillary the chance to begin putting her own distinctive stamp on policy. As Smith comments:
Clinton appears increasingly comfortable expressing her views. State Department officials have suggested that she’s been a hawkish internal voice, pushing Obama toward more confrontational stances toward adversaries from Iran to Cuba.
– The NYT has an interesting article highlighting the importance of water, as well as land, to Middle East peace. “[W]hen it comes to water”, Stanley Weiss suggests, “every nation is in the same boat”.
– Elsewhere, the FT’s Brussels blog identifies five priorities for the next European Commission – defending the single market; reforming financial regulation; clarifying climate change and energy security policy; unifying a foreign policy voice; and finally the small matter of appointing a new President. Deutsche Welle, meanwhile, has an interview with Hans-Gert Pöttering, the outgoing President of the European Parliament.
– Finally, a veritable slew of polls – well ok, two – on British defence spending. A PoliticsHome poll suggests 66% of voters feel defence should be protected from inevitable cuts in public spending (79% among Conservative supporters, 64% for Labour supporters, and 49% among Lib Dems). Details here. The Guardian, meanwhile has an interesting ICM poll (pdf) indicating that 54% of British voters now support nuclear disarmament, with only 42% in favour of replacing Trident.
by Alex Evans | May 16, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity
Food historian Tristram Stuart has a piece in the Guardian this morning asking the question: what’s one person’s fair share of meat consumption?
After all, meat (especially red meat) and dairy products have a disproportionate impact on climate change – the livestock industry is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions – as well as on land use, grain consumption, water consumption and other issues besides. So if by now we’re all used to the idea that we can quantify our carbon footprint and compare it to what our personal share would be if we had a safe global emissions budget that was shared out equitably between the world’s people, then what would the meat equivalent – the sustainable ‘Big Mac footprint’, if you like – work out at?
As Tristram acknowledges, it’s not as straightforward as ‘meat bad, vegetables good’, given that
no two pieces of meat are the same. A hunk of beef raised on Scottish moorland has a very different ecological footprint from one created in an intensive feedlot using concentrated cereal feed, and a wild venison or rabbit casserole is arguably greener than a vegetable curry. Likewise, countries have very different animal husbandry methods. For example, in the US, for each calorie of meat or dairy food produced, farm animals consume on average more than 5 calories of feed. In India the rate is a less than 1.5 calories. In Kenya, where there isn’t the luxury of feeding grains to animals, livestock yield more calories than they consume because they are fattened on grass and agricultural by-products inedible to humans.
Nonetheless, encouraged by the declaration of a meat-free day a week in Ghent, Tristram’s got his calculator out and made a guesstimate of the kind of consumption changes we might be talking about. Here’s the deal:
Global average consumption of meat and dairy products including milk was 152kg a person in 2003. Average EU and US consumption, by contrast, was over 400kg, while Uganda’s was 45kg. In order to reach the equitable fair share of global production, rich western countries would have to cut their consumption by 2.7 times – and this doesn’t include the fact that the butter will have to be spread even more thinly if the global population really does increase by another 2.3 billion by 2050.
However, still further reductions would be necessary because global meat production is already at unsustainable levels. The IPCC among other bodies, has called for an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Since high levels of meat and dairy consumption are luxuries, it seems reasonable to expect livestock production to take its share of the hit. For rich western countries this would mean decreasing meat and dairy consumption to significantly less than one tenth of current levels, the sooner the better.
by Alex Evans | May 7, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Cooperation and coherence
More evidence of increasing awareness of scarcity issues (and the consequent need for integrated policy approaches to managing them) over in the US: this presentation on ‘environmental challenges and global security’ from a colonel on the joint chiefs’ staff, given at a Department of Agriculture meeting on the food crisis held last week.
Intriguingly, it includes a recommendation for a new National Security Council inter-agency policy committee on environmental security – which would develop a strategy to “utilize all elements of national power (diplomatic, information, military and economic)” so as to prevent conflict and promote regional stability.
The Department of Defense isn’t the only part of the US government where there’s innovative thinking happening on this area. As I noted here last November, the National Intelligence Council’s report on global trends to 2025 placed a good deal of emphasis on scarcity issues,which was thanks to NIC’s Director of Analysis Mat Burrows.
Another key player in all of this is Carol Dumaine – like Mat, a career CIA analyst (where the Washington Post called her one of “the CIA’s dissidents”) – who’s now over at the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence as their Deputy Director for Energy and Environmental Security. Carol describes herself as an “intelligence ecologist” and argues that current global challenges require “generalists who are specialists of the whole” – see this excellent presentation that she gave at an Institute for Environmental Security conference in DC in March.
The signs are also positive that National Security Adviser James Jones recognises the importance of scarcity issues and the need for changes to machinery of government in pursuit of more effective approaches to them. As a Washington Post profile of Jones published this morning observes,
Although the administration is barely more than 100 days old, Jones has launched an ambitious restructuring of the White House national security apparatus so it can focus on modern issues such as energy and climate change.
