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Far Eastern growth seems unstoppable. Can we protect the planet from human development, advocate social justice, food for all, and equality at the same time?
All too often, economic progress seems synonymous with environmental degradation, exploitation of the poor and a bitter legacy. Giles Crosse balances some fairer scales.
“Reducing the massive over consumption by the world’s richest countries is critical for tackling climate change. These nations have a legal and moral responsibility to take a lead in slashing greenhouse gas emissions, G8 countries make up 13 per cent of the world’s population, yet they account for 45 per cent of emissions.” So thinks Friends of the Earth International Climate Campaigner Tom Picken.
“Tackling the global inequality in resource use would help slash global emissions and take pressure off the planet’s natural resources. We should be using less, wasting less, and recycling as much as possible.” he continues. But this is a tough ask from affluent Westerners, when billions elsewhere remain in poverty. Do the Chinese or Indian poor deserve to shoulder yesterday’s Western eco blunders?
Either way, action is needed. According to February 2009 figures in the “Statistical Bulletin of the People’s Republic of China”, at the end of 2008, China had a population of 132,802 million, a net increase of 6.73 million from 2007. That’s 16.08 million births in 2008. New lives must be fed and housed. To do so, many researchers suggest new science is the only answer.
Saved by science?
The point is, scientific processes can minimise the inputs required for wider yields. So less power, land, water and resources are required to provide for wider populations. Science helps. “Power transmission over distances of more than 2,000 kilometres is technically feasible,” says Siemens’ Eva-Maria Baumann.
“Countries like China already apply those bulk power highways in order to connect hydropower sources with their megacities and load centres.” Such solutions inherently minimise waste and use smart sustainable criteria to lessen their individual eco impacts too. And they can provide jobs.
“One of the most important things to think about in terms of the Far East, sustainability and global consumption is water,” says Michael Locascio, Senior Analyst at Lux Research. “We are increasingly not only withdrawing but consuming more water globally, and this tendency is exacerbated in the East.
“With existing population growth, increased dietary quality, wealth, calorific intake and water for livestock there’s massive demand, how do we meet this?” Locascio’s report suggests dropping water tables are already adversely affecting farmers from the U.S. prairies to India and China. The paper estimates with no alterations in current agricultural and biofuels practices, global agricultural water demand will increase by 75 per cent to 4,986 km3 by 2050, far outstripping available water resources.
“Overall we are on a tipping point in terms of the sustainable supply of water, so one of the most crucial things we will need to do in company with the East is to deploy more sustainable agriculture technologies,” says Locascio.
“We can go unsustainable for a bit but then you get into serious problems. We can use and sell drought resistant crops, advanced and smart irrigation technologies with sensors not timers, we can develop biochemical pathways to make crops more successful and increase yield for the same water usage.”
Water for Life?
“Water will be a huge issue in India and China,” he continues. “There’s been talk of rerouting the Yangtze, if these countries don’t get smart quickly and use technology to solve the problems we could be past the stopping point.”
It’s about global trade in scientific answers. “You can adopt water recycling in cities, you can be less energy intensive. You can combine economic growth and have constraints on resources but you have to go for this technology adoption to make it happen. Trade can help this, otherwise you are definitely looking at food export to the East. There’s historical defensiveness about self sufficiency in food but this just isn’t possible.”
Locascio says much touted Far East water pollution from industry is perhaps not as bad as from agriculture now. “But we can use less fertiliser, more GM, we have population growth and so governments cannot reduce land yield by refusing these measures. Unless we eliminate the wrong practices we will be tearing up the Amazon.”
“There’s so much more to be done with these technologies, you’re looking at 25 to 50 per cent increased yield. But governments always look to subsidy as opposed to inspiring new ways of doing things.”
Consensus for change
Friends of the Earth (FOE) also agrees water and food resources are among the greatest challenges posed by Eastern development and population growth. Their report ‘Eating the Planet’ forecasts options for feeding a predicted 2050 world population of nine billion by modelling future food production against different diets, ways of farming and using land.
FOE says it can take 10kg of animal feed and 15,500 litres of water to produce 1kg of meat in a factory farm. People in the west eat six times as much meat as people in poor countries. So redressing this balance would free up resources to make more, healthier food and realign global nourishment and nutrition more fairly.
Perhaps the key factor in the arguments is not population growth, but an imbalance in the ways raw resources are used to provide resource heavy foods to a minority of the population. But with the right deployment of technology the science is there to solve the equation.
The same might be true of less carbon heavy ways to make power, or more intelligent ways to safely reuse and recycle. But while cost remains the bottom dollar, the cheapest, environmentally poor technology will be bought in by Eastern governments seeking to make cash from their light environmental regulations, while the West ships its eco conscience abroad. And then points the finger of blame on carbon heavy Eastern expansion.
Such challenges involve the planet, its people and its resources, which belong equally to all. Hence all must be involved in moving beyond dated, blinkered mentalities towards shared science with multiple benefits.
What are your views? Not sure? Read the resources below for more information. Add your comment below. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Not a Planetary Citizen? Sign up
Resources:
Ecological footprint by country
Cost of pollution in China: Economic estimates of physical damages
Asia's future: Critical thinking for a changing environment
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