Showing posts with label biofuels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biofuels. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Food and clothes prices: much more than narrow economics

No comments:
For me there has never been any such thing as cheap food and clothes because someone or something, somewhere is paying the costs or suffering the consequences of 'low' prices such as in our supermarkets...joined up, systems, thinking shows this. However, even those who have formerly had other perspectives are increasingly saying that the era of 'cheap' food and clothes is over (see the link to the Daily Express article and Primark comments below).

Fascinating interview on Radio 4 today about this (see link below). World demand for meat is up and so is demand for wheat and other grains to feed the animals, land that could or did grow food is being taken for energy crops or other purposes, human population is rising, climate change is cutting yields in key locations - factors like these are increasing demand whilst also lowering supply and that means the dominant overall trend in food prices over time is definitely upwards. Adopting greener lifestyles would over time moderate the upward prices trend.

BBC News - Today - 'Upward long-term food cost trend'

The rising cotton and food prices are driving fears that our weekly shopping could soon become more expensive.

Natalie Berg from the research group Planet Retail examines whether consumers would have to bear the brunt or whether companies would be able to absorb any price rise.

See also:

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Bristol biofuel station: appeal for letters/emails to government and planning inspectorate

No comments:
Guest blog post from Zenith Milner: In Bristol,last year, a biofuels power station was planned and many of us have been working to campaign on it. We have worked hard and got petitions ,press, BBC... have lobbied councillors,and MPs and had demos and more.

Now the application has gone to a public inquiry. The decision now is going to be in the hands of Eric Pickles,secretary of state for communities and local government [email address bottom of this blog entry]. Maybe you have been involved, maybe not.

But even at this stage there is something you can do which could make a difference.

The biofuels company,W4B said in the public inquiry that there was very little opposition.So,please,dont let them get away with it. Please write in and say you dont want the power station in Bristol or anywhere else.

Issues include:


Lack of consultation with the public at every stage of the application for planning permission

Biofuels are not the green alternative they were first thought to be,they are the opposite.


Palm oil is often used and it causes widespread rainforest destruction -a holocaust where orang utans are shot their,babies are orphaned and injured; animals are burnt alive in their thousands as forest is cleaered by burning.Orangutans and,sumatran tigers face extinction as do many more species.


The Indigenous forest peoples are violently displaced from their land with homes and livelihoods ripped away from them.


Farmers are deceived into growing plants for biofuels and left with now way to feed themselves.

Shockingly,biofuels plunge millions more into hunger-an extra ten million in 2008.
No wonder Zeigler in the UN called them a " crime against humanity. "

Insanely the goverment massively subsidizes these power staions in a faulty opinion that they lower climate gas emmisssions, but the opposite is true.In fact along the whole life span of the biofuels, there are more emmissions than even fossil fuels.

The power stations would cause pollution in the locations in Britain they are planned for causing respiratory and heart disease ezcema and even infant mortality.THey are often planned for relatively deprived areas where people cant fight back so easily.

Truly green alternatives do exist;solar, wind,wave and tidal. Good insulation schemes would provide jobs as well as reducing consumption and carbon footprint.

For all these reasons and more,


Please write even a paragraph of an email [or letter, to the email/postal addresses below] to show that you do care, and prove the biofuels company wrong. And please encourage your friends etc to write too.

Many thanks
Zenith Milner


Ps I am intending to got to the Animals Rights Summer Gathering this weekend and give a workshop.about this issue. Do come along to find out more. Hope to see you there.

*Emails to
leanne.palmer@pins.gsi.gov.uk


*Letters to:
The Planning Inspectorate
Room 4/02
Temple Quay House
2 The Square
Bristol
BSI 6PN

*Appeal no. APP/Z0116/A/10/2126342/NWF

*Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
  
chris@chrishuhne.org.uk


*Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Govt