Inflation alimentaire: ca se précise

[Guardian]

Only a radical change of diet can halt looming food crises

Costs are high now, but rising oil prices will bring enormous problems for a world with appetites that it simply can’t sustain

• Rosie Boycott
• The Guardian,
• Friday March 28 2008
• Article history

This time last year it cost me about £7.50 a month to feed a pig on my small farm in Somerset; today it’s nearer £15. In a year, wheat prices have doubled, leading not only to increased bread prices, but also to demonstrations by pig farmers, who are going out of business as fast as you can fry bacon.

Almost all the food we eat – 95% – is oil-dependent, so as oil prices rise, the cost of food does too. Oil is central to fertilisers, mechanised production, transportation and packaging. However, between 1950 – when mechanisation and fertilisers transformed farming into agribusiness – and 1984, world grain production increased by 250%. The consequent cheapness of food kept inflation down and allowed for the postwar consumer boom.

[GlobeandMail] Biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia by driving up crop prices, they are also failing to help farmers who have not been able to adapt their production to cash in on the boom, a UN report said this week.

The UN report noted that the sector has the potential to lower oil prices as well as provide higher demand for farmers, but urged governments to “carefully consider the impact on the poor.”

The report calls for a “revolution” in the agriculture sector, saying that it could lift 218 million people living across the Asia-Pacific region out of poverty.

Urging attention on the sector that employs 60 per cent of the region’s workers, the report says that raising average agricultural labour productivity is needed. AFP

[ArabianBusiness] Rice prices across the Gulf could skyrocket after major rice exporters Vietnam and India indicated they plan to slash exports to combat domestic inflation.

[Guardian]

Farmers fall prey to rice rustlers as price of staple crop rockets

Asian countries curb exports to avoid shortfalls as ‘perfect storm’ nearly doubles price in three months

Mike Ruppert: merci et adieu!

Voici le message d’adieu de Mike Ruppert

extrait:

I have evolved too and I can’t help but remember something I said in maybe my last twenty-five lectures and in too many private conversations in twelve countries. “I believe that the Universe is saying to the human race – as Peak Oil and Global Warming threaten all life on the planet – you must either evolve or perish. Grow up or die.”

…

Don’t ask me to speak, to lecture, or to investigate. I will not. Don’t send me your questions. I will not come. I will not answer.

I left you a map. Read it. FromTheWilderness

[Modernitudes]

Immobilier en chute libre en Californie

[LATimes] According to the CAR, “The median sales price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during February 2008 was $409,240, a 26.2 percent decrease from the revised $554,280 median for February 2007.“

Santé: le modèle américain

C’est la mode ici de se plaindre du système de santé… Voici le modèle américain…

[NYTimes] IF there is one issue that divides the self-employed from all other employees, it is their preoccupation with the subject of health insurance.

I was reminded of this on Feb. 14, when I wrote a post on the Shifting Careers blog asking small-business owners and would-be entrepreneurs what they were doing about health insurance. Within hours, scores of people posted comments about their own experiences and, if they had managed to find good resources, shared those. I have been reading e-mail messages and trying to make sense of the subject ever since. In short, it is not pretty out there.

Le 7ièmme continent

[CourierInternational]

POLLUTION • Un septième continent composé de déchets

Si Christophe Colomb prenait aujourd’hui la mer avec ses trois caravelles depuis Palos de la Frontera [sur la côte atlantique de l’Andalousie] et traversait l’Atlantique, il ne s’arrêterait pas sur les côtes du continent américain, puisqu’il les a déjà découvertes il y a cinq cent seize ans. Il franchirait le canal de Panamá à la recherche des Indes, sa destination initiale. Mais ce n’est pas pour autant qu’il y parviendrait car, à mi-chemin, il tomberait sur un nouveau continent. Il s’agit de la “Grande Plaque de déchets du Pacifique”, le “septième continent”, qui se forme actuellement entre les côtes de Hawaii et de l’Amérique du Nord, à partir de millions de tonnes de détritus plastiques charriées par les courants océaniques. Dans cette région du globe, les courants, tournant dans le sens des aiguilles d’une montre, créent une spirale interminable, un puissant vortex qui fait tourbillonner les déchets en plastique tout comme le vent le fait avec des papiers gras dans un recoin d’une place. Le tourbillon, ou gyre subtropical du Pacifique Nord, accumule depuis des années des déchets plastiques venus des côtes ou issus de la navigation, les entraînant dans sa rotation et, par la force centripète, les ramenant progressivement vers son centre, une zone de faible énergie cinétique de 3,43 millions de kilomètres carrés (soit un tiers de l’Europe et plus de six fois la France). On compte déjà dans cette partie de l’océan six tonnes de plastique pour une tonne de plancton. Ce quotient entre plastique et plancton est effrayant, et ce d’autant plus qu’il ne s’agit pas seulement de déchets de surface : sur l’essentiel de sa superficie, la couche de plastique de ce tourbillon d’ordures atteint une épaisseur pouvant aller ­jusqu’à 30 mètres.

Nucléaire ou pas?

Un des grands débats au sein du mouvement environnemental est celui du nucléaire… Devons nous y retourner ? La théorie étant que la génération d’électricité par le nucléaire ne génère pas de CO2… Enfin c’est la théorie… La réalité est probablement différente: l’extraction d’uranium, la construction de la centrale et le transport de tout cà génèrent surement des quatité colossales de CO2… mais enfin… La France produit 80% de son électricité par le nucléaire alors que l’Italie est à 0%… Voici une comparaison des 2 pays.

[OilDrum] One of the main arguments of the present debate on energy is whether a nuclear energy program should be restarted or not. We can use the cases of Italy and France as a way for evaluating whether it is a good idea for a non nuclear country to get nuclear plants.

Italy is probably the only country in the world that has dismantled by law the existing nuclear plants. It was the result of a referendum against nuclear power that was held twenty years ago and that led to the stopping of all nuclear energy activities in the country. The only nuclear plant that was under construction at the time, Montalto di Castro on the Tyrrenian coast, was converted to natural gas. In the following years, the Italian government shut down the remaining nuclear plants even though it this was not required by the results of the referendum, probably due to economic and security considerations.

Usage de l’eau: agro, industries et humains

[MondeDiplomatique] Un spécial fascinant du Monde Diplomatique sur la cartographie de l’eau [eau potable, 2]

Club de Rome

Les plus vieux se souviendront du papier écrit par le Club de Rome dans les années 70: “The Limits to Growth.”

Finalement il semble que ces gens avaient raison sauf pour une petite erreur de 8-9 ans! WSJ n’est pas un papier de gauche mais c’est à peu de choses près le message livré!

[WallStreetJournal] Now and then across the centuries, powerful voices have warned that human activity would overwhelm the earth’s resources. The Cassandras always proved wrong. Each time, there were new resources to discover, new technologies to propel growth.

Today the old fears are back.

Although a Malthusian catastrophe is not at hand, the resource constraints foreseen by the Club of Rome are more evident today than at any time since the 1972 publication of the think tank’s famous book, “The Limits of Growth.” Steady increases in the prices for oil, wheat, copper and other commodities — some of which have set record highs this month — are signs of a lasting shift in demand as yet unmatched by rising supply.

Sub prime et finances mondiales: pourquoi?

[RawStory] Au bas de cette page vous pouvez voir un clip expliquant l’impact des sub primes sur l’économie mondiale.

When we hear of turmoil in world financial markets, it can be difficult to understand how so much chaos can result from a relatively small number of defaults on individual home mortgages. Paul Solman, the business and economics correspondent for PBS’s NewsHour, undertook to explain how those modest defaults could escalate to the point where they “now threaten the entire world financial system.”

Taxes sur le pétrole

Voici les taxes payées en Euro par litre dans différents pays: