My response to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jun/07/super-farms-environment-livestock-climate

The case for super farms ignores two things.

1. It is increasing the case that monoculture proves to be a bad thing, in farming like anything else. Moving to larger scales of monoculture merely increases the likelihood that diseases and pests will claim the entire huge crop. Mixed cultures are much better from that perspective.

2. A “super” farm is only possible with large amounts of cheap energy. The costs of energy are rising and will continue to do so.

I also heard on the radio this morning that super farms will create jobs because 1 man can now do what 10 used to. Not sure how that works?

What seems to be more useful is the opposite: small, human scale organic farms with mixed crops, probably designed using permaculture principles. This would seem to be a more productive way forward to produce more food, of different types, and more employment, while using less energy.

My response to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/06/climate-change-other-issues-goldsmith?commentpage=all#start-of-comments

I would blame the media, who only seem capable of focusing on one issue at a time. Politicians respond to that.

Most environmentalists (like myself) know that we need to change nearly everything we as a species do if we want to avoid a collapse of our civilization. Pick your scenario – economic collapse, 6 degree temperature rise (and counting), sea level rise, resource depletion, peak oil, soil sterility, antibiotic resistant disease, crop failure, pesticides in our foods poisoning us, the obesity epidemic, the fact that we eat fish today that were considered inedible when I was a kid, the lack of fresh water etc etc. There’s plenty more and they’re all very feasible right now.

It is our economic system that delivers all this, supposedly in the name of progress. If we were all happy, perhaps it would be worth it, but most of us aren’t. Why, exactly are we destroying our own habitat in order to make ourselves miserable?

Saying no-one votes for the environment misses the point. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology don’t negotiate. If we have to wait for our “politics is the art of the possible” to reluctantly see the need for action then we’re in deep trouble.

Unfortunately what we need are brave politicians. I don’t see any in the West, so I guess we’re going to have to collapse before we can start to build a sustainable future for humanity. At least that will be better, but it’s going to be interesting getting there.