Food and permaculture | Brussels Blog

Food and permaculture

David Blume (http://www.permaculture.com) has kindly agreed that his article could be published here. This was originally written some 20 years ago.

I wrote this in response to post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like “Of course you couldn’t feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture.” Well that got me a little steamed so this is what I wrote.

Dear Folks,

Real World Experience in Permaculture

I would like to inject some real world experience into this otherwise abstract discussion of food and permaculture.

In addition to being an ecological biologist, a permaculture production food farmer for 9 years, and an expert on biomass fuels, I have also been teaching permaculture since 1997 and have worked in many countries on food/energy production design issues. I have certified more than 400 people in permaculture design since 1997. For more info on this see my site at www.permaculture.com

So in light of my experience I have a couple of things to say. Let us dispense, for the moment only, with the talk of hunter-gatherer models since, to return to that state or to imitate it with design would meet limited acceptance. This is not the core design goal of permaculture although some of our small scale subsistence agriculture designs vaguely look like a hunter-gatherer paradise (i.e. it never existed like this in nature.) The issue of private property as we now define it also complicates that model. We are living in an agricultural age and permaculture offers huge benefits to both production and subsistence agriculture.

Two acres produced enough food for 300 people

As far as I know I was one of the only farmers fully utilizing permaculture to produce surplus food for sale in the US as a full time occupation. On approximately two acres— half of which was on a terraced 35 degree slope—I produced enough food to feed more than 300 people (with a peak of 450 people at one point), 49 weeks a year in my fully organic CSA on the edge of Silicon Valley . If I could do it there you can do it anywhere.

IPCC carbon budget: Missing feedbacks ignored.

Missing and underestimated feedbacks in the CMIP5 climate models used for the IPCC carbon budget (25th November 2013)

This is a note for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology listing papers on missing or underestimated feedbacks in the CMIP5 climate models used to calculate the carbon budget in the recent IPCC report (AR5).

Papers on missing/underestimated feedbacks.

December 2011

High risk of permafrost thaw: Climate change: High risk of permafrost thaw

September 2012

Permafrost feedback: Significant contribution to climate warming from the permafrost carbon feedback

continue reading…

Not a 50% chance. A 50% conditional probability.

Below is a reply to Lord Deben, the chair of the Committee on Climate Change.

The Committee has focused on “an approximately 50% chance of a global average near surface temperature increase of 2ºC above pre-industrial levels” (see below).

Their reasonong is flawed.

To get their “50% chance”, the Committee had to exclude the effects of feedbacks missing from climate models. See Missing Climate Feedbacks in my previous post.

This means the Committee really considered a “50% conditional probability“. It is conditional because this probability depends on the assumption that the missing feedbacks would have no net effect on global warming. This 50% conditional probability is not the same as a 50% chance.

I think scientific judgements (even at that time) predicted the net effect of the “missing feedbacks” would increase global warming. This means that taking these missing feedbacks into account, the chance of exceeding a 2ºC limit would be greater than 50%.

I don’t remember Lord Turner (then chair of the Committee on Climate Change) making the conditionality clear when he spoke at the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change on 2nd July 2008.

The reply to Lord Deben

Lord Deben
Chair
The Committee on Climate Change

19th October 2013

Dear Lord Deben,

A “50% chance”?

Thank you for your reply. I am pleased to hear that the CCC is in the process of considering the effect of permafrost melt and other feedbacks on future global warming. May I draw your attention again to the work of Kevin Schafer. There is an accessible report of his concerns in Science Daily, Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not Yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions.

Nov. 27, 2012 — Permafrost covering almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice that currently in the atmosphere, and could significantly amplify global warming should thawing accelerate as expected, according to a new report released November 27 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

and

Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost seeks to highlight the potential hazards of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost, which have not thus far been included in climate-prediction modelling. The science on the potential impacts of warming permafrost has only begun to enter the mainstream in the last few years, and as a truly xanax “emerging issue” could not have been included in climate change modelling to date.

I read the title of this article as meaning the same as “There is a substantial probability that thawing of permafrost will cause significant additional global warming”. Do you read it differently?

The Committee on Climate Change: Letters and response

Lord Deben
The Committee on Climate Change

15th October 2013

Dear Lord Deben,

DECC and the Committee on Climate Change

Thank you for agreeing to read this letter. I hope you remember our conversation after the PRASEG Annual Conference. You may find some passages tangential but I hope you will see why I include them. The first tangent is about the classical theory of the optical properties of matter.

The classical theory of the optical properties of matter

When I was reading Physics at Hull, I attended a series of lectures on the optical properties of matter. This used classical physics i.e. the physics developed before Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and quantum theory.

At the beginning of the series I wondered why we were being asked to learn a theory, which was based on concepts that had been overtaken by relativity and quantum theory. I assumed that the lecturer was lazy and just used some old notes of lectures he attended years before.

To my great surprise the theory, based on outdated concepts, seemed to work – and work reasonably well. Here was a theory about matter that had hard solid little things called atoms, nuclei and electrons whizzing round inside solid matter affecting the light that passed though it. We then knew such things were a nonsense and that the ‘reality’ was much more complicated, but the theory worked. Amazing!

Letter to the director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies

28th September 2013

Dear Dr Johnston,

Thank you for speaking to me on Tuesday. I thought your presentation of the state of the tax system and government expenditure at Economic competence and ‘In the Black Labour’ was very informative and clear.

You may remember I asked the question on the topic of earmarked taxes; in particular whether earmarked tax rebates should be counted as government expenditure or a cut in taxes? You agreed that they were a cut in taxes.

The particular tax rebate I mentioned was the rebate on VAT for every worker employed [1]. This rebate is an earmarked tax rebate. You were doubtful of earmarked taxes for reasons you explained but what objections do you have to earmarked tax rebates?

After the session I suggested to you that we need a very high carbon price to combat climate change. You replied that this would put our industry at a disadvantage. When I suggested imports should be taxed on their embodied carbon, you raised the objection that this would start a trade war.

Appointments to the Committee on Climate Change

I had a conversation with Ed Davey at the PRASEG annual conference in July and also talked to Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change. I suggested he make an appointment to the Committee as it only had one climate scientist, Sir Brian Hoskins, who I believe to have rather conservative views that underestimate the impact of climate change.

Ed Davey seemed to be unaware he could appoint members of the CCC. I consulted the Climate Change Act 2008 to find out that he could, particularly as the legislation allows for eight committee members plus the chair. I emailed a letter to him explaining this on the 12th July 2013.

Wikipedia: Bring on the amateurs.

As you may see from other postings, I don’t defer to views that are based simply on credentials.

I watch and hear government officials, academics and scientists with a skeptical ear and eye. I think they duck or manipulate important questions because of unsound motives like political expediency and commercial advantage. These are usually people packed with credentials.

Wikipedia came to me as an antidote to this – open to everybody that had something sensible to add – not just the copper bottomed experts with commercial interests or reputations to protect. The knowledgeable interested amateurs, who care and have a thirst for knowledge could participate without reputations or commercial interests to advance.

OK, that was spoiled as Wikipedia became successful and a mention was worth something so various interests piled in with spin. I think this is why Wikipedia began to rely heavily on peer review. Perhaps peer review helped to combat biased entries and bogus claims but the comment by a moderator “I can see only one reason for citing a non-peer reviewed article: ego-spam.” (see below) shows to me this has gone too far.

Wikipedia should read its own criticisms of peer review where it quotes Drummond Rennie of the Journal of the American Medical Association

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.

Open Letter to James Hansen

Dear Dr Hansen

It is very exciting that you are coming to the London School of Economics to speak at the invitation of Professor Samuel Frankhauser of the Grantham institute for Climate Change. I am writing to you to mention an email exchange we had previously and raise a few other issues.

Briefly I agree with you that a high carbon price is essential. It is probably the most important policy option for combating climate change.

Your carbon fee and green cheque

You have taken the stance that the only politically viable way to distribute the very large revenues from a carbon tax is to send monthly cheques to every citizen. Governments spend none of the tax. This enables you to rename this carbon tax a carbon fee and green cheque.

Your scheme is an earmarked tax which many economists deprecate. I do not. Earmarked taxes are useful policy scenarios.

It would be wonderful if any nation implemented your scheme and I understand why you think your scheme has a better chance of success in the US than one that would involve more government expenditure. This may not be the same in Europe.

Carbon Taxes (Labour Policy Portal)

This was originally posted on the Labour Policy Portal in March 2013. The Labour Policy Portal no longer operates. Thanks to Martin Leah for his help in editing.

A recent poll by YouGov for the Fabian Society found that 73% of respondents believe the way we live now is damaging the planet. Only 14% thought we should leave future generations to fix the problems.

In the Climate Change Act, the UK has “a long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change”. The Act requires that emissions are reduced by at least 80% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The Committee on Climate Change say that emissions have fallen by 22% by 2012, which would appear to be on course to keep within the limits set by the Climate Change Act.

However, Sir Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser to Defra, has pointed out that if carbon emissions caused by the manufacture of imported goods and services are counted, then UK emissions have actually risen by 18%. Our consumption from imports is causing carbon emissions, largely in China.

Missing post on the sea ice blog

The following got lost when posted on Neven’s Sea Ice Blog.    It took too much effort to scrap.

Alex, Neven

it is not at all clear, how high carbon price can global economy endure – actually, the financial crash of 2008 was helped by high oil prices,

What do you mean by “global economy”? It’s perfectly possible to have full employment and a high carbon price. Job creation doesn’t need economic growth but carbon intensive goods and services must be made more expensive and labour intensive goods cheaper.

May I reiterate what I said earlier:

One big problem is that economic models do not disaggregate their labour sectors sensibly. They could then show that a carbon tax recycled into creating employment for the low paid (who are the ones out of work) could create full employment without economic growth.

Since 1968 I have been making similar points and eventually got funding from the European Commission to get a very good economist, Kim Swales, to show that subsidising the labour of the lower paid would create jobs. This was published in 1995 – I had a simpler version published in 1987.

In my proposals the subsidies were matched taxing capital and high paid labour. The modelling showed that the high paid didn’t lose out much because full employment raises GDP.