A dirty little secret of free markets is that you can have free trade or food security, not both. In a perfect world, food security might not be a concern. This world is far from perfect, and given recent scares about food supply in many countries, it is highly possible that fears over food security – or actual food shortages – will bring a very sudden end to so-called “free trade” agreements and globalisation. Nothing will bring a government down faster than hungry people, and even the most corrupt government will be very reluctant to honour a trade agreement that leaves its people starving – and rioting.¹

There has been much hullabaloo about the developed countries (especially the United States and Canada) losing manufacturing capability to developing countries like China, but this is nothing compared to the loss of food security. Free trade theory holds that it is more efficient for each nation to specialise in producing certain goods (including food) that it then trades with other nations, and all benefit. The idea is that specialisation produces a comparative advantage.

It may be true that comparative advantage is more efficient, but it is less secure. (I would even dispute the efficiency in some cases, because transportation costs must be included. How can it be more efficient to produce cheese in France and fly it to the United States, than for the U.S. to produce cheese locally? I smell a subsidy.) Less secure means that any disruptions can lead to shortages, and food shortages are never a good thing.

Food Shortages and Panic

And in recent years there have been some food shortage scares. The first link in this article is to a chilling summary of worldwide food production declines in 2009, many due to droughts likely exacerbated by global warming. Australia, China – even the United States is in trouble. Continue reading →

Yes, and none of the above. I am a Realist. That means any economic system must:

• Work within the ecology, meaning be sustainable. Attempting to operate the economy as if it were not part of nature results in pollution, drawdown of natural capital like topsoil and oil, and ultimately, collapse. The economy is part of the ecology, not the other way around.
• Humans are part of the ecology. There is no point designing idealistic systems that do not respect human nature; people will find ways around such rules.

I don’t know what such an economy is called, because it has some capitalist and some socialist aspects; I call it a green economy. Continue reading →

Will these schemes enrich a connected few and leave the planet worse off? Like many other things about climate change, yes, no, and it’s complicated.

These things have to be very transparent, or there is enormous potential for gaming the system or fraud. Given that enormous potential, you can bet that certain groups have been exerting pressure since the idea of carbon credits and offsets was first floated seriously. And they ain’t pushing for openness and fairness.

This is what set the European Union cap-and-trade system back years; the polluters wangled for so many carbon credits to be issued that their value plummeted. They then ceased to be much of an incentive to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Continue reading →

The government of Canada and many Canadians currently have a difference of opinion on climate change. Most of us think we should be doing our part and are embarrassed, even ashamed by the government of Canada’s obstruction at Copenhagen and elsewhere. That said, we’re clearly not sufficiently motivated to make our government do our bidding; we are, sadly, complacent.

And, unfortunately, not all Canadians are honourable; there are those who put profit and prestige before all else, and they oppose any changes to the status quo. They will fight, and have been fighting, dirty. These people have been funding climate denial – they have no problem with lying, with attacking scientist, and even blaming India. They operate from a Predator Morality, which has the foundational principle: Might Makes Right. They have fought to maintain their privileged, taxpayer-subsidised positions for years with lies and smear campaigns – they will not fight fair now.

We need to see millions of you in the streets – tens of millions – sending a personal message to Canadians of conscience, the types of Canadians who fought in WWII and who created the United Nations Peacekeeping Force to prevent such slaughter, such waste, ever again. You must be the medium and the message. You must make real to us where you stand on climate change, and why. The land you will lose. The millions displaced, bankrupted, bereft. Continue reading →