Two Latin American leaders have issued warnings about the effects of biofuel production on food supplies. Speaking at the UN in New York, Bolivian President Evo Morales said the development of biofuels harmed the world’s most impoverished people. And President Alan Garcia of Peru said using land for biofuels was putting food out of reach for the poor. Meanwhile UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is hosting a meeting to discuss European policy encouraging biofuels. Ahead of the meeting, Mr Brown said that the UK should be ‘more selective in our support’ for biofuels. Campaigners say providing an renewable alternative for conventional fuels can help stop global warming. But as food prices climb worldwide, there is a fear that development of biofuels could reduce the production of badly-needed basic foodstuffs. The EU has come under criticism for its target of getting 10% of road transport fuel from crops by 2020. The head of the UN World Food Programme and the chief of the African Development Bank chief are among those attending the London meeting. Bio-ethanol project Opening a UN forum on the global impact of climate change on indigenous peoples, Mr […]
TOKYO — Mariko Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare. ‘I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn’t believe it - this is the first time in my life I’ve wanted to try baking cakes and I can’t get any butter,’ said the frustrated cook. Japan’s acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis. A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand. While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term - perhaps permanent - reduction […]
Ethical shopping just got harder – but the latest attempt to help conscientious consumers calculate their impact on the environment could do more to preserve scarce resources than all its predecessors. The concept of water footprints – or ‘virtual water’ – will tell consumers the amount of precious H2O that has been used in the manufacture of products they buy. As with carbon footprints, a ‘virtual water’ figure will indicate the extent to which a particular product has cost the earth. And, as with carbon footprints, the message is clear: less is better. A new website run by the University of Twente in the Netherlands, waterfootprint.org, gives ethically minded consumers a chance to work out the hidden implications of their shopping habits. Common commodities including groceries, clothes, stationery and electrical goods are evaluated according to a water footprint calculator. In each case, the water footprint covers both the manufacture and transport of the goods. The results are striking. An apple weighing 100g has a water footprint of 70 litres, while a 125ml cup of coffee has a water footprint twice that size, 140 litres. But the water used in producing wheat or meat is much greater. A […]
I was talking the other day to a prominent Republican who asked me what I thought John McCain’s strongest issues would be in the general election. Lower taxes and the argument he will be better able to protect America from its enemies, I said. Republicans have a pretty good track record with those two. The Republican shook his head. ‘You’re missing the most important one,’ he said. ‘Race. McCain runs against Barack Obama and the race vote is worth maybe 15 percent to McCain.’ The man I was talking to is not a racist; he was just stating what he believes to be a fact: There is a percentage of the American electorate who will simply not vote for a black person no matter what his qualities or qualifications. How big is that percentage? An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that ‘about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.’ I don’t know if 8 percent sounds high or low to you, but I was amazed that 8 percent of respondents were willing to admit this to a pollster. And I figure that the true figure is much […]
LONDON — The ranks of the world’s rich swelled to 8 million during 2007 as the wealthy proved immune to the strains across global economies in the latter half of the year. There was a 4.5 per cent increase last year in so-called ‘high net worth individuals’, those with investable assets of more than $1m excluding primary residence, according to the 2008 wealth report compiled by Citi Private Bank and Knight Frank, published on Monday. There was particularly strong growth of wealthy populations in the emerging economies of China and India, as well as those countries that have access to Ânatural resources such as Kazakhstan. Countries such as Brazil, Canada, Australia and ÂRussia also each added more than 8,500 wealthy residents in 2007 on the back of the commodity boom. The report says that the rate of growth of high net worth individuals has outpaced growth in both gross domestic product, and GDP per head, which it believes indicates that the rich are getting richer relative to their respective countries. ‘This is not a perfect measure of relative wealth growth across income levels,’ it says, ‘but there is an indication here that the Âplutonomy model […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
