Why Climate Change Intervention is WAY Easier than We Think
For those of you that follow me on other platforms, you’ll have seen, heard or read some of my thoughts on the lab grown proteins from firms like #ImpossibleFoods or #BeyondMeat.
I’m a fan of those lab grown protein concepts arriving at that position whilst undertaking a Master of Science in 2004 in which my main thesis focused on global water issues. In that piece of work it became clear that the level of water consumed to produce say 1kg of beef was untenable in a world where starvation persisted and lack of fresh water impacted around 40% of the planet. Even with improvements, that 1kg requires (depending on location and farming methods) between 30,000 litres and up to 150,000 litres of fresh, potable water. For each and every kilogram.
And I’ve worked with both Beef and Dairy producers and with Government agencies looking at biosecurity issues for both crop and animals. I’ve worked with mid cap VC investors and discussed the challenge of Australia permitting cotton to be grown when food producers don’t get access to water. I coined the phrase #FitForPurposeWater (borrowed by a large consultancy a few years later) in which you allocate water to what is the best fit for the quality of that water and best need for that water. And no, ‘highest price on the market’ is NOT a ‘best need’ when determining usage.
I discussed the #EatOrExtract problem about what you can do with your land – you can choose to Eat from it OR Extract out of it but you cannot do both. And once you’ve extracted from it you can never go back to eating from it.
And now there’s another compelling reason why a change in diet is warranted. If we are going to talk about addressing climate change then yes, we need to lower fossil fuel use. We also need to work out how to solve the methane leakage problem.
Solutions are getting a lot clearer and more stark than we think. Recent reports that just 5% of coal fired power plants produce 73% of all CO2 emissions is an obvious ‘no brainer’ intervention. Simply shut them down today. https://lnkd.in/gdZKAZsm
And now we look at the food we eat and the report today that JUST 20 meat and dairy firms produce more CO2 pollution than the entire populations of France, UK and Germany. This is ‘decision time’ that is more glaring. We change our diets away from meat and dairy to ones that are less carbon and water intensive, and we make instant, long ranging and highly impactful decisions for retaining a sustainable platform for human life on this planet. I’m not telling you what to eat. Just don’t say you find climate change too difficult to solve. https://lnkd.in/gQxWaHMC
On the eve of ANZAC day here in Australia ABC Radio Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber on the future of war – what the future triggers of war might be and how war will be fought Increasing technology or less technology? Haves versus the have nots? On a pretty serious topic…
Read More >In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin, we chat about workplace design and the need to create functional workplaces – something the ‘open-plan’ model fails utterly at delivering. Click on the link below Futurist Marcus Barber on ABC Radio Darwin discussing the future of workplace design and the challenges of dysfunctional workplaces…
Read More >Columbia University’s Earth Institute have just made publicly available their World Happiness Report, joining the expanding list of happiness reports emerging ultimately from Bhutan’s Happiness Index. There’s some interesting results in this one and some that you might expect were more obvious, like the idea that at a certain point, more money won’t make you…
Read More >Whilst the main thrust of Australian economic activity is said to be in the hands of the Federal Government, we should not overlook the significant role that Local Council Government’s can have. As the Federal Government wrestles with falling taxation revenues and an apparent inability to get the message across about distributing the income of…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber chats with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin about the challenges facing the Northern Territory, the farming and mining sectors. In summing up the emerging signs of a clash between agricultural uses of land and land use for resource and mining needs, Marcus uses the phrase ‘Eat or Extract’ as the…
Read More >As most of you know I nominated this year as the 2012 International Year of Resilience because frankly, that’s what I reckon large chunks of the world need right now. The twitter feed is #2012YearofResilience. I sent a few of these tips out at the start of the year and have seen a few of…
Read More >A new city is due to emerge in Darwin over the coming couple of years and the key question is – what sort of attention is being paid to weather related disasters in the design phase? Paul Dale on ABC Radio Darwin chats with futurist Marcus Barber about planning and weather. You can download the…
Read More >Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ is best known for its second verse – “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains”. As vast tracts of Australia again face the prospect of massive floods I wonder if our Urban Planners ever consider the significance of…
Read More >Potentially the biggest area of untapped competitive advantage (and arguably one of the biggest areas where costs could be reduced) is within supply chains. Most approaches to Supply Chain Management are linear and isolated with one player trying to squeeze the other with no regard to the overall effect of the full supply chain. It’s…
Read More >There’s a shift underway in the mining industry that will likely catch Australian airlines out if they aren’t paying attention – the shift toward ‘remote’ mining. Remote mining is being pushed by the automation ability across all aspects of current mining technology, which at the basic level, means that fewer humans are needed on site…
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