Making things more expensive - for 'their own' good.

Hello George,

I'm sure we could all do more, and I don't see too many of us being willing to go back to caves etc. That includes me.

I'm in no strong position to moralise on these issues, a big chunk of my family lives in Canada and another big chunk here in the UK so I spend a bit of time flying between the two. I also teach people to fly including commercial flight training, so my carbon footprint must be sky-high.

Anyway, I take part in several transport related committees each year and keep promoting whole-life-cost activity along the lines indicated in my post above. It largely falls on deaf ears that are more interested in profits - with a passing nod to safety to avoid litigation.

But I don't worry about these things. Mankind's future ingenuity.............

Cheers

Don

Dear Don,

I think that we may take the view that we did not ask to be born, but we may consider what a good idea it is to bring children into this world. I have refrained. Some might say that this is a massive act of self denial, but as I noted to my parents who never expressed anything but disappointment with me, "Just look at the gene pool you were working with!"

Neither of them liked me before that, and it did not make relations easier! But the truth is that their gene pool is also mine, so my refraining is a very good thing!

I am certain that there is nothing we can do as individuals that even living in caves would change. After all you have to convince billions to share the view, and it is not going to happen.

What may amaze the humans of centuries to come is just how profligate our current generation actually is - far beyond what is needed even for seven billion humans to live well enough.

We are not husbanding our resources at all well, and as I said above the real question is not the environment, but how long we can continue to fail to husband resources in a sustainable way.

I happen to believe that with seven billion sustainable usage is not possible, because we need petro-chemicals to be used for fertilizers for food.

GM will not change this as plant nutrients are just that, and GM crops cannot grow with any less than the existing plant types. It is a question of conservation of energy. Energy may be augmented by photo-synthesis, but to sustain this you need nitrogen  phosphates and potash, which cannot be supplied without unsustainable industrial processes. 

Even the ants work on the principle that food cannot be sustainably consumed unless the energy put into obtaining it is less than it provides ... 

That is quite a thought, but please don't think that I am moralizing  I have no comment to make on anyone else's choices on this. No individual can make the slightest difference, and there is no chance that the poor Third World is going to refrain while the West carries on. That is the point in my view.

Human ingenuity cannot fix the looming energy crisis ... that is basic physics and chemistry. Nothing mystical.

ATB from George 

My observations in the work canteen show younger generation adults far more wasteful than older, although I don’t believe they’re the only ones at fault, besides, the darlings have been brought up to do this.

But it’s very common to see the twenty some-things [and thirty some-things] buying a meal and leaving most of it after a few bites, and very rare to see them eat it all and leave an empty plate, like it’s obligatory to leave at least half for the slop bin.

Older adults 40+ tend to be less wasteful but sometimes have a need to buy too much unhealthy food [pukka pie and chips] which they stuff completely leading to overweight and health problems. Older generation adults have often been brought up to eat everything off the plate, which is fine unless it’s the wrong kind of food that doesn’t suit their nutritional requirement.

However, simply taxing up the cost of food will not solve any problems for a few reasons,

The younger generations often display a lacking in value for money, and spend money regardless, even if they can’t afford it.

The extra revenue gains will fund an evil need to expand into the unhealthy junk food market to maximise profits in an uncaring cut-throat commercial world of profiteers.

The people who are sensible will get ripped off, and the poor, old age pensioners, the growing poverty masses of underpaid and under-employed ect.

The UK is lucky having very fertile rich soils, so what could be done is to conscript [by voluntarymeans] 

 the unemployed young into farming, it’s an industry in need of young blood, and who knows they may get to enjoy it.

But the real and unrelenting answer to this problem is very tricky because it needs to be worldly, stop the increasing rise in human over-population, and stopping corruption in western capitalism, would be a good start, ...a fat change but a good start.

Debs

I think (and of course this is subject to verification down the road) that GM food will turn out to be one of the biggest instances of the Law of Unintended Consequences that there ever was.  I may be wrong, but time will tell (if the truth be told.)

As for regulating food by regulation or taxation to enforce healthier choices, I am against that.  The first reason is that despite the argument of the cost to the health system, it is each person's life and they should live it as they see fit.  This from a person who never misses a chance to taunt the ever increasing obesity of his fellow countrymen.  I have been in the position of knowing how old people are because i see their pharmacy record, and I will ask my techs, "Do I look as old as him/her?" because the person in question is a waddling tub of goo who look closer to 70 than 50.

But the bigger reason is that those "in the know" can be wrong, and not infrequently are.  For example, for over 50 years we would have been regulated to eat margarine instead of butter because it's "better for us."  Now we find out that not only is it not healthy, it's worse than butter!  Second, and I am speaking for my own country on this because I don't know how things are across the ocean, but it seems the data is heavily twisted and politicians bought and paid for by those who will profit...and the public be damned.  We are fed lie after lie through the media about any number of things.  I have seen too much data on drugs that was BS - studies that were not published (e.g., Avandia, Vioxx, Bextra, and in my opinion the statins) because they didn't serve the benefit of Big Pharma, and much the same with food studies, as ADM, Monsanto, ConAgra, et al have WAY too much sway with our FDA over here.

So I would rather get to make my own choices - as someone above said, just give me honest labeling.  I will look out for my own well being,since I unwaveringly believe (nay, I KNOW) I can do a better job if it than some pencil pushing bureaucrat who is wittingly or unwittingly carrying out the agenda of a bought and paid for political body and regulatory agency.

And as for wasting food - I am too cheap to waste food, and in the rare instances when I do, I am upset that I wasted money, but more upset that a starving someone who would have treasured it and needed it didn't get to eat it when it was still good.

Debs,

You made some excellent observations especially regarding how wasteful, and oblivious, the young seem to be. Totally agree.

ATB

Steve

For once I agree with much of what you say ! especially as noted above.

I'm sure George will comment on the UK's rich soil and oil-derived fertilisers and oil-driven farm tools, but we do need to make better use of our soil which mustn't be over-worked if it is to provide a sustainable food supply.

cheers

Don

Mark,

I suspect its the same over here both in the UK and the EU.

Cheers

Don

In response to Don:

There are parts of the world with a great agricultural climate, great soil [once forest of course], and great resources, both material and ingenious  Europe [including the UK], New Zealand, parts of the USA and Canada for some examples. Places where agriculture could provide for a large population, the growing of massive quantities of food. It is no wonder that Europe was once the most densely populated part of the world, before the Industrial Revolution. 

Come the Industrialisation of agriculture another leap forward in production confounded Thomas Malthus, who did not see that industrial chemical industry could provide artificial manure for the land. But Malthus was right in one respect. Production of food must be sustainable, and as soon as the Industrial Revolution unlocked the power of fossil fuels, then several million years' worth of naturally stored carbon based energy could be accessed in only a two century period.

But without this, then no agriculture can sustain the current population. In fact the last time non-industrial agriculture could sustainably feed the world was as long ago as 1950, when the world population was between one and two billion. That was sustainable. 

Yes, Britain has rich and fertile soil, and a good temperate climate, but the UK population is not the problem. 60 million! The problem is seven billion!

When the Oil runs dry five and a half billion of these will starve ...

ATB from George

Young people leaving food - they were brought up by those that were children of the war and immediately afterwards - 1940s and early 50s. In those days it was classed as a mortal sin to leave any food on the plate. The next generation did not want to or were not incentivised to not waste food and wanted a calmer life re the discipline of their kids.

Also

The consumer has been de skilled by the removal of basic domestic science from the school syllabus. Causing a loss of knowledge as to how to cook from basic ingredients, recycle leftovers to minimise waste.

Domestic Science should have been made a non sexist subject. Women did not want to be typecast into the sole home maker role so they did not protest renaming DomSci into Food Technology - the study of food packaging (slight joke here).     

Hello George,

Yes, Britain has rich and fertile soil, and a good temperate climate, but the UK population is not the problem. 60 million! The problem is seven billion!

Just to clarify (not to question) are you saying that the UK could feed itself and do so without the use of oil and chemical fertilisers ? - even if the diet might be rather bland.

Cheers

Don

Just a thought but industrial-scale food production preparing pre-packaged meals may well be more efficient from both an energy-use and food-wastage standpoint. How much energy do you waste heating up the stove and oven for each pot/dish? On a per-meal basis the wastage in preparing pre-packaged must be tiny. The food comes on bulk and used at a commercially optimum turnover. Batch size Vs shelf life Vs usage rate Vs storage costs and energy use are all optimised professionally to minimise costs. The strategy in the home kitchen is likely less sophisticated.

The packaging would add inefficiency, however.

good points winky but is the content of pre-packaged food up to scratch or does it provide too much salt (say) too much fat (perhaps) too much sugar (for example) in other words, is it good for us>

I'm sure the answer varies from product to product, but the point is that waste and production energy are only part of the ingredients under consideration.

Cheers

Don

Packages can contain too much food and relative to buying the ingredients can be more expensive.

Dr Mark - if I may say so, I'm sure that you have the education, intelligence and inclination to be able to make such choices very effectively.  The difficulty that governments face is that a significant proportion of populations are lacking in one, two or all of these attributes. So the question is how do you influence the choices and behaviour of such people? Price does not seem to be a very effective measure.

MDS  

I hear what you are saying, and of course there is no perfect solution.  But does anyone really think the Mayor of New York's (a hypocritical putz if ever one existed) ban on super-sized soft drinks is really going to effect any meaningful change?  I, for one, don't even drink soda, but I would be against such a "rule" - while it seems safe in that anyone knows soda is unhealthy, where does one draw the line?

Plus, the governmental decisions are oft (most) times politically and monetarily driven.  The corruption of public office is rampant at least here, and as I already pointed out our politicians are more than willing to do the bidding of Big Food & Big Pharma.  (Hence the absence of open labeling about GM food...amongst many, many other things.)

Dear Don,

I put a nice reply for you a few above.

I reckon that the pre-industrial-revolution agriculture feeding 11 M in the UK would be exceeded today, but one must remember that at least one year in four leads to a poor harvest in any territory, and sometimes the disaster lasts longer. Think of the potato famine in Ireland. One needs a decent margin if World transportation is no longer viable.

ATB from George

Hello George,

Yes, thank you very much George.

Busy day today - one of my days off !!

Mrs D was ill today and I had a dental appointment, plus grandson to pick up from school and i've been editing the raw text of a book a friend is writing. So apologies for not responding sooner.

Ditto to Hook for the carelessly put together response to his post above.

Whilst waiting at the dentist I browsed through part of the The Times. I don't get to read papers much these days. There was a short piece by David Attenborough in which he made it clear that in his opinion (well he made it read as if it were an absolute fact) there are too many people in the world and we should start to manage a substancial reduction before famine and war do it for us.

Cheers

Don

Dear Don,

Best wishes that Mrs D is soon better.

We do terrible things and discuss the future, but it is not going to be a genial as most think.

In the Old World in including Europe and the UK, the transitional may be none-too-disastrous. 

If we can manage inward migration then the birthrate should ensure a significant fall in the population over the next fifty years, and we can get back to feeding ourselves again. but for the rest of the World, with its ballooning population ...  the experience will lead to Warfare on an unprecedented scale - albeit that this will be primitive.

ATB from George