#CabotNext10 Spotlight on Food Security

 

Dr Taro Takahashi and Dr Vicky Jones

In conversation with Dr Taro Takahashi, Theme Leader, and Dr Vicky Jones, Development Associate at the Cabot Institute

Why did you choose to become a theme leader at Cabot Institute?

T.T: While working for Cabot in my previous role (Director for the Cabot Master’s programme), I saw first-hand the breadth of food-related research across the university. This made me wonder — wouldn’t it be rewarding to work more with these talented colleagues and help develop a research community that can transform the agri-food landscape in Bristol and beyond?

In your opinion, what is one of the biggest global challenges associated with your theme?

V.J: The biggest and very broad challenge is how to feed a growing population sustainably. We know that the food system is a major driver of climate change through changes in land use and production of greenhouse gases – as well as the depletion of freshwater resources and pollution of ecosystems. To meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement it is simply not possible to continue as we are. Yet our population is growing, with some estimates that we will need to produce more food in the next 35 years that we have ever produced in human history.

In addition, environmental degradation such as soil degradation, freshwater availability and biodiversity loss seriously threaten our ability to produce the food we require. And increased levels of CO2 reduce the nutritional content of some food products. Whilst extreme weather conditions, worsened by climate change, such as heatwaves and floods can significantly impact food availability.

And finally, there are extreme inequalities in the food system, both within the UK and globally. One in three people across the world currently suffer from malnutrition of some form whilst more than half the population are either overweight or obese.

T.T: 100% agree with Vicky. We need to identify the best way to make this transition happen while impacting on people’s livelihood and happiness as little as possible.

As we are looking into the future, what longer term projects are there in your theme?

T.T: We would like to make a better use of the University of Bristol campus — a community of 30,000 people — as a testbed for interventions. We cover both the most upstream points (Fenswood and Wyndhurst Farms) and the most downstream points (Source Cafes, Source Bars and residence canteens) of agri-food supply on campus so there are hundreds of strategies we can try to make the system more sustainable. As an additional bonus, quantifying these improvements may also make us prouder to be part of the University of Bristol family, including those who don’t directly work in this area. To realise these goals, we are now trying to work much more closely with the operational departments in the university, and in particular Catering, Sustainability and Estates. And the level of commitment they show to agri-food sustainability has just been amazing.

V.J: Here are long-term activities and projects that might be of interest: Living LaboratoryHigh Yield FarmingWorking for ‘five a day’, and CONNECTED.

Across the portfolio of projects in your theme, what type of institutions are you working with?

T.T: Upstream we mainly work with local farmers, National Farmers’ Union, Defra as well as seed and agrochemical companies. Downstream we primarily work with retailers and consumer groups, both directly and through the Bristol Food Network. In addition, the Bristol City Council is an extremely important partner whose advice on our theme has been invaluable.

What disciplines are currently represented within your theme?

V.J: There are 135 people that are currently members of the Food theme from the following disciplines:

Geography, Civil Engineering, Policy Studies, Chemistry, Sociology, politics and international studies, Earth sciences, History, Biological sciences, English, Vet School, Physics, Management, Psychology, Anthropology, Law… but this number is always growing!

In your opinion, why is it important to highlight interdisciplinary research both in general and here at Bristol?

T.T: In the context of food research, my top answer would be because otherwise ‘solutions’ to agri-food sustainability are often infeasible. For example, I often speak with livestock producers, who as you know are associated with a large amount of greenhouse emissions, and one of the remarks I most frequently hear from them is that they don’t know what to do with the definition of ‘new sustainable diets’ that are reported in the media. I mean, you are a grassland farmer in a high rainfall area who is now told that lentils are better — but it’s not like you can strip off the grass and grow lentils profitably overnight. So any new proposal made downstream must be accompanied by technologies upstream, including both the farm and food processors. Equally, any new proposal made upstream must be accompanied by consumer demand; otherwise, the market price would not support the transition. This cannot be done unless you have an interdisciplinary team that is committed to real-world solutions.

Are there any projects which are currently underway in your theme which are interdisciplinary that you believe should be highlighted in this campaign?

V.J: An interesting project that is currently running is titled “Could disappearing glaciers threaten regional food security?”. This is combining history with glaciology and social science. Another is a partnership with Bristol based start-up LettUs Grow which is focused on vertical farming.

For more information, visit our theme web page – Food Security.

Toward an age of low tech for a more resilient and sustainable society

The various restrictions that have been imposed to tackle the COVID-19 crisis have led many of us to reflect on what might be our response to other pressing issues that we face, especially inequalities in our societies and the major ecological issues of climate change, biodiversity collapse and resource depletion. What has the crisis told us about the state of our planet and societies, and are there wider lessons that can be learned from our response?

Even before the pandemic, we had begun to talk in public debate in ways that would have been unimaginable ten years ago: about the climate crisis and resilience to ecological disruption, questioning the dogma of growth at all costs. The pandemic has reinforced concerns about globalisation and challenged beliefs about the role of the state and the possibility of printing money in a real emergency, while showing that we could do very well without certain things, such as shopping trips to Dubai or cruise ships. Many of us have learned to value nature more, to seek conviviality and escape from the incessant pressures of modern life, while seeking to build societies that are more resilient to disturbances.

The crisis has further also exposed our societal inequalities in the contrasts between those who were confined in pleasant conditions and others in less fortunate circumstances, between those who could work from home and those who had to stay in their workplaces in order to keep healthcare, food supplies and other essential services operating, and between those who kept getting paid no matter what and those whose earnings dried up.

It is also clear that in many ways the response to the pandemic was rather ‘low tech’, based largely on modifying behaviour rather than on technology. We were treated to a few articles on surveillance drones and robots disinfecting the streets in China, but in the end we addressed the crisis through regulation and behavioural changes: staying at home, wearing masks, washing our hands, keeping a distance. This low-tech remedy is one that could be applied to the environmental challenges that we face.

Using a detailed analysis of humankind’s relationship with resources through history, I suggest, in The Age of Low Tech: Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization, an alternative perspective on how we should be marshalling our resources to preserve the planet and secure our future. I believe ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and propose a different ‘low tech’ approach to building a more resilient, equitable and sustainable society.

How might this be done? We must reinvent our modes of production. In questioning the race for productivity and economies of scale in mega-factories, we should review the place of people in our economies, the degree of mechanization and robotization, and our way of choosing between manpower and resources. It is not about returning to the spinning wheel and draught animals, but about relocating workshops and businesses on a human scale to manufacture durable goods. Equipping these with a few simple and robust machines, we should be able to maintain a good part of current productivity, while reducing energy demand. Such manufacturing units, less productive but more labour-intensive and closer to locations of consumption, would be coupled with arrangements for the recovery, repair, resale and sharing of everyday objects.

With a few priorities – to eat well, take care of ourselves, to find proper accommodation – our ambition should be to produce locally, to be able to manufacture and repair tools, clothes, shoes, everyday objects, to value meaningful work. We will achieve resilience through a variety of actions and behaviours at different scales by individuals through their lifestyle choices, by businesses and public authorities through their purchases at all levels, setting an example and supporting initiatives to develop and support local economies.

In many areas we can drastically reduce our resource and energy needs, for example, in transportation, smaller, lighter and slower cars would have significantly reduced impact, public transport and bicycles even more so. We could reduce the environmental impact of digital systems by over 90% by avoiding duplicated networks and redundant systems; by favouring wired access, which consumes much less energy; by properly designing data centre software and architecture; by giving up the race for speed, real time and immediacy, which consumes a lot of equipment and generates additional traffic; reducing unnecessary functionality and performance; by working on the service life of the equipment, through modularity, ‘repairability’, compatibility and interoperability.

I believe that an alternative exists to our society hell-bent on extraction, production and consumption. What might make people want to contribute to a general movement with conviviality as a priority, with DIY, zero waste, repair shops, local agriculture and regenerated nature? It will be necessary to give the population some immediate compensations, as well as meaning and hope, not just ’blood, sweat and tears‘ or ’belt tightening for future generations’. One avenue is to move towards a post-growth system (economic, industrial, commercial, etc.) of full employment, or full activity, which is perfectly achievable. Power will come from people with convictions that want to make the change, but we also need to convince the public authorities, and businesses at every level, of the urgency of the situation. But it will take a profound rethinking of existing practices, economic models, regulatory approaches, cultural patterns and educational methods to reflect on our real needs and successfully implement intelligent sobriety. We are very far from it.

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This blog is written by Philippe Bihouix, an independent author and engineer, and Cabot Institute member Professor Chris McMahon.

If you enjoyed this blog, you can also read the book The Age of Low Tech https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-age-of-low-tech

 

Guest blog: Let’s reach the Size of England

The Size of England is an amazing new charity working to raise £13 million to safeguard 13 million hectares of rainforest, which is the size of England, and coincidentally the area of rainforest that is cut down every year globally.

To us, safeguarding is not about owning land – it’s about encouraging those who need the land to use it sustainably and to empower local people and indigenous communities. It’s about establishing local rights to the land and providing alternatives for fuel and initiating tree planting programs to restore habitats.

We know that Size of England can be successful. Last year, the Size of Wales team reached their target of raising £2 million to safeguard 2 million hectares of rainforest. But as you know, we want to raise the game. However in order to do this we need help.

At the moment we are raising money for a start-up fund via a crowdfunding webpage. This is so we can register as a charity and start doing amazing things for the rainforest and the local community. We already have support from brilliant organisations such as Cool Earth, the Prince’s Rainforest Project, WWF and the Crees Foundation, but we can never have enough! We hope, through communication that we can raise the sum whilst also spreading the word of what we want to do, and getting people to ‘like’, ‘follow’ and ‘friend’ the project as it develops.

There are currently three of us, all volunteers with big ideas and ambitions. What we’re asking is can you help the Size of England campaign in other ways? Are you a great fundraiser? Could you improve our website? Have you got legal experience? We’d love to crowd-source skills as well as cash.

Check out our Facebook and Twitter pages. Also take a look at our crowdfunding site if you fancy and pass it on to anyone else who may find it interesting!

Feel free to message me if you have any questions or email me at olivia@sizeofengland.org.uk

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This guest blog is written by Olivia Reddy of Size of England.
Olivia Reddy

Sharing the world’s natural resources

In discussions about climate justice, one particular question that receives a lot of attention is that of how to share the global emissions budget (that is, the limited amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that can be released into the atmosphere if we are to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change). A popular proposal here is ‘equal shares’. As suggested by the name, if this solution were adopted the emissions budget would be shared between countries on the basis of population size – resulting in a distribution of emission quotas that is equal per capita. Equal shares is favoured not only by many philosophers, but also a wide range of international organisations (it is the second essential component, for example, of the prominent Contraction and Convergence approach).  
 
I became interested in the equal shares view because it is often put forward with very little argument. Some people seem to think it obvious that this is the best way for parties to the UNFCCC to honour their commitment to deal with climate change on the basis of ‘equity’. But can things really be so simple when this budget must be shared across countries and individuals that differ greatly in terms of their needs, wealth and – arguably – contribution to climate change?
 
When you look more closely at the arguments that are actually given for equal shares, it turns out that many people claim this to be a fair solution to a global commons problem (for a quick introduction to commons problems, listen here). They argue that distributing emission quotas equates to distributing rights to the atmosphere. The atmosphere, however, is alleged to be a global commons – or shared resource – that no individual has a better claim to than any other. Therefore, rights to this resource – in the form of emission quotas – should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis.
 
The major problem underlying this argument is its restricted focus on fairly sharing the atmosphere. What many defenders of equal shares neglect to realise is that the atmosphere does not actually act as a sink for carbon dioxide (CO2) – thought to be the most important anthropogenic GHG – which is instead assimilated by the ocean, soils and vegetation. Whilst the argument for equal shares might seem plausible in the case of the ocean – a resource that is also often described as a global commons – it is much harder to carry it over to terrestrial sinks (soils and vegetation), which lie for the most part within state borders. This leaves the equal shares view open to objections from countries like Brazil, which could argue that they should be allocated a higher per capita CO2 allowance on the basis of their possession of a large terrestrial sink (in the form of the Amazon rainforest). Furthermore it seems that Brazil would have backing in international law for such a claim.
 
The question of whether countries with large terrestrial sinks should have full use rights in these resources – and should therefore be allocated a greater share of the emissions budget – leads us into an enquiry about rights to natural resource that has occupied philosophers for centuries. Roughly speaking, the main parties to this debate are statists – who often deny the existence of significant duties of international justice and attempt to defend full national ownership over natural resources – and cosmopolitans – who hold that justice requires us to treat all human beings equally regardless of their country of birth.
 
Cosmopolitans often argue that one’s country of birth is a ‘morally arbitrary’ characteristic: a feature like gender or race that shouldn’t be allowed to have a significant influence on your life prospects. They believe it is clearly unfair that a baby lucky enough to be born in Norway will on average have far better life prospects than a baby that happens to be born in Bangladesh. Because of this, cosmopolitans are often opposed to national ownership of natural resources, which they take to be a form of undeserved advantage. 
 
Cosmopolitanism can be used to defend equal per capita emission shares because according to this view, rights to natural resources – whether gold, oil, or carbon sinks – shouldn’t be allocated to whichever state they just happen to be found in.
 
This cosmopolitan interpretation of fairness has a certain intuitive plausibility – why should claims to valuable natural resources be based on accidents of geography? On the other hand, there are a number of arguments that can be given for taking some people to have a better claim than others to certain carbon sinks. It seems particularly important, for a start, to consider whether indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest should be taken to have a privileged position in decision-making about how this resource is used. We also need to acknowledge that preserving forests will often be costly in terms of missed development opportunities. Why should everybody be able to share equally in the benefits of forest sinks, if it is countries like Brazil or India that must forgo alternative ways of using that land when they choose to conserve? This question is particularly pertinent given that land devoted to rainforest protection cannot be used for alternative – renewable – forms of energy production such as solar or biofuel.
 
In addition, if cosmopolitans are correct that use rights to terrestrial sinks should not be allocated on the basis of their location, then we need to question national ownership of other natural resources as well. If countries are not entitled to full use of ‘their’ forest sinks, then can we consistently allow rights to fossil fuels – e.g. the shale gas below the British Isles – to be allocated on a territorial basis? This is how rights over natural resources – forests and fossil fuels included – have generally been allocated in the past, with many resource-rich countries reaping huge benefits as a result. If national ownership is a rotten principle, is rectification in order for its past application? And what should we then say about the natural resources that can be used in renewable energy production? Why should the UK alone be allowed to exploit its territorial seas for the production of tidal energy? Or Iceland claim rights over all of its easily accessible geothermal sources?
 
Commons arguments for equal per capita emission quotas go astray when they claim that the atmosphere is the sole natural resource that assimilates our GHG emissions. Once we recognise this, we should appreciate that the problem of the fair allocation of the global emissions budget cannot be dealt with in isolation, but is instead tied up with broader, difficult questions regarding how the natural world should be used and shared. The answers we give regarding each individual’s claim to use GHG sinks need to be rendered consistent with our judgments regarding the justice of the past and current allocation of rights over other natural resources – resources including fossil fuels and renewables – if we are really to deal with climate change on the basis of equity.
 
This post was written by Megan Blomfield, a PhD student in the University of Bristol philosophy department. It is based on her paper, published in the latest edition of The Journal of Political Philosophy, titled ‘Global Common Resources and the Just Distribution of Emissions Shares’.
 
Megan Blomfield, University of Bristol
 
 

Poverty, energy and social justice

On June 18th, as part of Big Green Week, the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute hosted an event entitled ‘Poverty, energy and Social Justice’, at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft.

‘Social justice’ relates to making sure that current and future generations can fulfil their needs, whatever they may be, to live life to an acceptable standard. The term is often linked to ensuring that human rights are maintained and that equality is promoted within society. ‘Energy poverty’ is “a lack of access to modern energy services, defined as access to electricity and clean cooking facilities” (International Energy Agency).  In the UK, a household is said to be in ‘fuel poverty’ “if more than 10% of its income is spent on fuel, to maintain a satisfactory heating regime” (Department of Energy & Climate Change, 2013).

Definitions covered, the first part of the event involved presentations from three speakers which provided an overview of poverty, energy and social justice at a variety of scales, introduced various interesting themes and shared some surprising statistics.

Simon Roberts, CSE

Firstly, Simon Roberts, Chief Executive at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, provided a national perspective on poverty, energy and social justice. The presentation brought up some interesting comparisons between the highest and lowest income households in the UK. It turns out that households with the top 10% of income emit around 16 tonnes of carbon per person per year, with aviation being a major contributor to that, whilst households with the lowest 10% of incomes emit just 5 tonnes of carbon per person per year, almost entirely from fuel and energy for their homes. It was pointed out that the lower income households emit so little largely because they can’t afford the fuel rather than because they have chosen to live low carbon lifestyles.

Energy policies, such as ‘feed-in tariffs’, in which energy companies will pay you and reduce your bills if you produce renewable or ‘green’ energy in your home, do not consider social justice or energy poverty, in that it is only the reasonably well-off – those with investable capital, that can afford such schemes. This has lead to the lower income households emitting less carbon, contributing to the cost of energy policies (like feed-in tariffs) through their bills and benefiting from the policies the least.  In fact, it has been found that current energy policies have lead to the highest income households receiving reductions in their energy bill of around 12%, whilst the lowest income families are only receiving reductions of 7%. Considering how much more the lower income households could benefit from those reductions, it seems incredibly unfair that current energy policies end up benefitting those that need the reductions least. I didn’t get the impression that this outcome was aimed for by policy makers, but rather that energy policies really do need to be re-assessed so that they benefit those that need it most.

Next up was Mareike Schmidt, the Strategic Energy Programme Manager at Bristol City Council, who provided a more Bristol-centric view on matters. Mareike highlighted that, whilst there is no obligation for councils to engage with energy policy, Bristol City Council is very much eager to do so. Although funding is limited, BCC specifically would like to decrease energy bills in the city, increase jobs in the environment sector and keep energy-related money in Bristol – hopefully addressing both energy poverty and social justice in the process.

The final presentation of the evening was given by Dr Karen Bell, from the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, who provided us all with an international perspective. Dr Bell argued that energy prices cannot rise as this would not only make getting electricity even more unattainable for those that already don’t have access to it, but it would increase the number of people, globally, who live without energy by making it unaffordable to a greater proportion of the population. Some of the options left for dealing with energy poverty then appear to be the uptake of renewable energy, the reduction of energy consumption (by decreasing emissions from non-essential things, rather than making the poor reduce their consumption) or the redistribution of wealth amongst society – moving towards a more equal and ‘just’ society.

Dr Bell explained that inequality in society leads to greater consumption, as the people with the least want to have the same things are those in higher income households, leading to more consumption, more waste, and increases in behaviours such as the consumption of meat and flying around the world. By redistributing wealth within society, perhaps consumption would decrease as people may feel that they ‘need’ fewer material things when they compare themselves to others, more people would be able to afford adequate fuel to achieve a reasonable standard of living and it would even benefit the environment.

This idea of addressing inequality, rather than energy poverty directly, was one of the most memorable ideas of the evening for me; a number of other members of the audience commented on this as well.

Having gone in with very little knowledge of energy policy, poverty or social justice, I came out much more aware of all three and feeling quite enlightened, with a new perspective on problem solving in the context of society – sometimes the seemingly obvious solution (energy policy) is not the most appropriate way of going about dealing with an issue in society (e.g. energy poverty). Sometimes we need to go right back to the cause of a societal issue (inequality) to fix the symptoms.  Hopefully we will begin to see change in this direction over the next couple of decades.

This blog has been written by Sarah Jones, a Geography PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Sarah Jones, University of Bristol

The sinking Pacific – climate change and international aid in Tuvalu

Sarah Hemstock (University of the South Pacific) came to visit the Cabot Institute on 20 March 2013 and presented the case study “Impacts of international aid on climate change adaptation in Tuvalu”.  Here I sum up the main points raised by Sarah during her lecture.  Please note all figures mentioned below are from Sarah’s talk.

Tuvalu

Climate change

Tuvalu is a microcosm for what is going on with climate change globally.  There are issues with waste management, sea level rise, politics, energy, food production and others.

Tuvalu grows taro, a staple carbohydrate which is sensitive to saltwater.  Due to rising sea levels, Tuvalu is affected by high tides called king tides.  These tides can contaminate agricultural land with saltwater and thus the staple crop will not grow.

Flood defences have been built by aid agencies to try to stop sea level rise.  Unfortunately they do not work as seawater bubbles up through the island at king tide, flooding the airport and villages.  There is now no fresh water and villages are completely dependent on collecting rainwater. 

International aid and the economy

Sarah began to explain why Tuvalu needs to move away from aid to become more self empowering.   She started to list the facts.  Globally, $140bn has been given to international aid between 1970 and 2010, it certainly is a lucrative business.  There are four agencies who accept international aid in the Pacific.  Three of these agencies have mandates for climate change, fisheries, GIS and mapping etc which prevents any market driven approach to getting aid.  Another problem with these agencies is their size.  For example, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)  has grown from 300 employees at its inception to 3000 today.  Large numbers of employees can see international aid going towards feeding these agencies rather than having a smaller administrative group and diverting the main bulk of funds to helping save the islands of the Pacific.  It could be argued that these large companies provide jobs for people in the Pacific, but in reality, these jobs are not very likely to go to people from the small island states such as Tuvalu (for which the aid is supposed to be for), which are isolated and poor.

Tuvalu has a weak economy. There is a lack of exports but a lot of imports to people who are not native to the island and want a little something from home.  83 % of Tuvalu’s energy comes from oil and a shocking 50% of Tuvalu’s annual GDP comes from aid.  People in Tuvalu are subsisting on less than $2 a day.  However, because Tuvalu receives a substantial amount of ‘aid’ they are recognised as a middle income country, but this aid does not filter down to the people and in fact Tuvalu should be considered as a low income country.

Tuvalu spends $6m on policy development, although these policies rarely do anything and could be considered a waste of money which could be better used in the community.  The amount of diesel used for electricity consumption has increased.  However, petrol usage has decreased, mainly due to people going back to using traditional canoes as they are cheaper to run. 

A desperate situation – a sinking community

Between 2004 and 2007, fossil fuel use increased by 21%.  Sarah felt that this was because funders ignore policy.  For example, a Japanese company gave Tuvalu three diesel energy generators.  Tuvalu asked for generators that could run on coconut oil in line with environmental policy but due to cost, the donators could not provide these.  Tuvalu couldn’t afford to run the diesel generators so Japan donates $2m of oil every year to run them making Tuvalu totally dependent on donations for its energy supply.

There is no market, no money and no tourist industry in Tuvalu so there is no way of generating money.  It is an isolated island and boats to Fiji run every 5-6 weeks.  When weather is bad, food, oil and supplies are not delivered.

Sarah explained how there is no joined up thinking with international aid and no long term plans after the aid has disappeared.  An example of this is where water tanks were given to each home in Tuvalu and they were also made in Tuvalu.  The problem with the design was that it has a sealed top which meant it could not be stacked.  This meant it would have taken 25 years to get everyone a tank, as only six tanks would fit on each ship.  The good news was that they managed to get a barge to ship them out, but it is this lack of foresight which hampers the success of aid activities.

Sarah also mentioned how 35% of aid goes straight back to the company who gave the money to pay for ‘technical assistance’ and admin fees.  There are other fees which come out of international aid. In fact if aid was taken away from Tuvalu, it wouldn’t affect the people much as the aid hardly reaches them anyway. 

Interestingly, the people of Tuvalu are extremely mentally resilient to the threat of climate change.  When asked if they would move off the island if climate change flooded their islands, they were determined to stay on the island no matter what.  When the question was framed in an economic sense, for example would they move off the island for work, they were more open to the idea of moving off the island.  This is a difficult ethical argument.  What right do we have to move the islanders to safety, to move them to a different country, culture and language when they do not want to go?

Climate change may be physically sinking the small low-lying islands of the Pacific, but it is the international aid agencies which are arguably sinking them beyond recovery.  A drastic change is needed in the management and distribution of international aid in order to save these dying islands from the rest of the world’s actions.

  

This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy (@Enviro_Mand), Cabot Institute

Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute