Palmed Off

Or can I have my chocolate cake and coffee and consume them to?

The figure below was compiled from FAO statistics and shows the area planted to four everyday food commodity crops. Food crop here means only that these crops are ingested by humans as two of them have no calorific value whatsoever. And while cocoa oil can act as a “food” it is a non essential entertainment food (i.e. luxury) consumed mainly in rich countries – with much of the calories being made up from sugar and other sources of fat (animal) or palm oil.

The point of posting this graph is to demonstrate firstly, the rapid growth in area planted to palm oil. But that is a frequent topic on energy blogs anyway.

What also interested me was the fact that the area planted to palm oil only exceeded that planted to coffee in 2000: something I have never heard reported or discussed. It surpassed cocoa in about 1985.  In fact in all the talk of the environmental destruction of oil palms there is never any mention of the historical (often colonial era) destruction as a result of coffee, chocolate and tea. Using area as our statistic the environmental destruction due to coffee and cocoa still exceeds that of oil palms.

Who wants to be anti intellectual?

A short break from the PIA series to explore the climate of change espoused by Mr Eddie “can we fix it” McGuire¹.  Eddie must have some smarts to get where he is but his article (below) has the sharp critical thinking of a football. Eddie makes a good symbol for the anti intellectual “nice guy” reactionary of the Nike “just do it” consumer age. 

Forget the climate-change theory, let's get on with the job

Eddie McGuire, Sunday Herald Sun, January 23, 2011

VICTORIA'S highest- ranking public official, Governor David de Kretser, believes in the effects of climate change.

Victoria's highest elected official, Premier Ted Baillieu, doesn't.

Opinion writer Andrew Bolt flat-out says that climate change is nonsense.

Greens leader Senator Bob Brown believes the coal industry should pay for the damage caused by the floods, so obvious is its impact on our weather.

What they all have in common is that they are intelligent, community-minded people.

Unfortunately, climate change is heading the way of religion and football barracking.

It doesn't matter what the evidence or how persuasive you might be, if I believe in my God and that Collingwood is the one true footballing faith, then that's it.

Climate change is either blatantly obvious or a load of rubbish.

So there. Lets just forget ever attempting reasonable or rational approaches. Everything is just un-provable opinion of equal validity.

Now given this unquestionably solid foundation to the start of an argument, its hard to see how sage Eddie can have any idea what, exactly, is “the job” that we should all be getting on with?

Nearest Neighbor News

In Indonesia fuels (petrol, diesel, gas) are subsidized. The logic behind some of these subsidies is understandable; to assist the poor.

Subsidized LPG
As part of the Indonesian drive to phase out kerosene stoves, promoted as a safety measure to prevent fires¹, 3 and 12 kg bottles of gas were subsidized. The Government anticipated that restaurants would not choose to use large numbers of these smaller bottles. However, most warung (restaurants)  opted to use the 12 kg bottles. The Government then removed the subsidy from these bottles so that only the small 3 kg bottles were subsidized for the poor. The result was nearly inevitable.

Unlike in Australia (and I suspect New Zealand) the fitting used in Indonesia is a quick-fit and release arrangement, not your ‘standard’ brass gas fitting. Moving large numbers of these small bottles in a “swap and go” system to satisfy the demand increased wear and tear, and lowered inspection standards (if they existed). Now instead of moving a lesser number of the more heavy duty bottles, truck loads of small bottles stacked 10 high became a common sight. Even so, I estimate that to carry the same amount of fuel around, nearly twice as much metal (by weight) is needed – thus the overall “efficiency” is probably decreased. The fires caused from damaged bottles and bad fittings injured hundreds around the country.

Suspected LPG gas explosion injures three

Study reveals more than 200 LPG explosions in three years

Pertamina needs Rp 1.7t to replace uncertified LPG canisters

Govt blames market for exploding canisters

Letter: LPG explosions

There were also some suggestions that resellers were refilling the larger 12 kg bottles with the smaller bottles to take advantage of the price disparity due to the subsidy!

Subsidized Petrol
While the same logic (i.e. helping the poor) is the rationale behind this subsidy it is more a populist measure the country can no longer afford.  The supporters of these subsidies claim that it enables poor people to access transport, the ubiquitous motor (scooter).  However, as the Indonesian economy has grown, scooters have given way to (frequently large) cars that are consuming Indonesia's dwindled supplies ever rapidly.  Government officials are aware that this situation can not last long, but the Yudhoyono Government can not move quickly on this out of fear of the electorate. Critics of the subsidies point out that those rich enough to afford large cars benefit most from this scheme.

How green is your pet?

The Age recently  ran an article titled Pooch pie on the menu if we don't cut ecological pawprint (November 25, 2010). The source for this article appears to be an article from New Scientist published last year How green is your pet? (23 October 2009 - subscription required) which was drawn from the book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.  The main thrust of the argument is that owning a large dog is in many ways as damaging to the environment as owning a large 4WD - due to the amount of meat consumed by the pet.

From The Age article:

If the entire country went vegetarian, it would in all likelihood have a noticeable effect on our ecological footprint. At the present rate, though, it's going to come down to sacrifices - and your weekly recycling isn't going to cut it.

Serving up Fido as an entree might be a bit extreme, but one of the most effective ways you can make an impact on your ecological footprint is by not owning a dog. It's not that it never turns the lights off, or leaves the television on all night - its sole crime is the amount it eats in its lifetime (about 164 kilograms of meat and 96 kilograms of cereal a year for a medium-sized dog).

When it comes to an ecological footprint, a dog is the equivalent of two Toyota Land Cruisers, and this includes both the manufacture and use of the car.

From the New Scientist article:
Alternatively, consider the cumulative environmental impact of our furry friends. The US, which tops the list for both cat and dog ownership in absolute terms, is home to over 76 million felines and 61 million canines. Taking the estimated cat population for the top 10 cat-owning countries, the Vales calculate that the land required just to feed these cats is over 400,000 square kilometres. That’s equivalent to one-and-a-half times the area of New Zealand. A further five New Zealands are required to feed the pooches living in the top 10 dog-owning countries...

Two important points:

1. that's a lot of New Zealands! 
2. that's more than some estimates of the area required to provide global electricity using solar power!

[Note: I am not a vegetarian, but I do not consume large quantities of meat. ]