Had my dad lived, he would have been 100 today. He married very late in life and I was at the tail end of a large Irish family. The reason I mention him - apart from it being a very significant anniversary for me - is that he was the eldest son of a youngest son born during the Great Irish Famine.
Starter signposts to background on the Famine - or Great Hunger as it was often described - are, at random, here, here and here, but the short version of that shameful tragedy is that a potato disease, ruthless landlords, social injustice, bad politics and bad governance led to the deaths of more than one million people on the doorstep of what was, at the time, the most powerful nation on earth. My grandfather was born in a place called Skibbereen, one of the worst affected places and, quite honestly, I never cease to be amazed that he survived.
So what's the link here? Not as tenuous as it might seem. For some time I have grown more and more concerned and angry at the way 'biofuels' are being touted as the answer to all the environmental problems of our age. Biofuels are made from feedstocks and food crops and, I am sorry to say, the language around this rapidly developing industry is being changed and altered so that the practices involved become acceptable to the global public. I noticed for example that in the last few months, as the whole issue of biofuels has (thankfully) grown more contentious, those in favour of the industry have been trying to disassociate production with food, instead using terms such as 'energy crops' as opposed to the real word - food.
The UN, aid organisations and others have repeatedly warned that biofuel development around the world has already caused food shortages for the poorest people and, before long will impact on the rich. As in Ireland in the mid 1800s, people - generally the extremely poor -
are being driven from their land by large companies seeking to maximise
profits as well as geting in early before the inevitable agreement is reached by all
that biofuels are, in truth, 'fool's gold'.
Yesterday, a landmark report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world, authored by Michael Renner, Sean Sweeney and Jill Kubit, produced research findings centred around the emerging 'green economy' and how it could create tens of millions of jobs.
It is a very detailed study and I would urge you to read it as it provides considerable insight into the development of alternative employment as well as alternative energy sources. As a great believer (over several decades now) that we must use alternative energy sources, I think it is great stuff, merits wide exposure and, thankfully, the doubts over the validity of biofuels and their development is clearly expressed. Here are a couple of quotes:
A report for the OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development cautions that,"the rush to energy crops threatens to cause food shortages and damage to biodiversity". The 2007/2008 edition of the UN Development Programme's Human Development Report concludes that,"The expansion of plantation production has come at a high social and environmental price. Large areas of forest land traditionally used by indigenous people have been expropriated and logging companies have often used oil palm plantations as a justification for harvesting timber'......
Backers of biofuels projects tend to argue that pitfalls can be minimized or avoided if the right kinds of technical and policy decisions are made. While this is undoubtedly true, there is considerable danger that prudence will be set aside, for at least two reasons: panic and profit. One, as the world faces a rising threat of potentially catastrophic climate change, there may well be overwhelming pressure to pursue biofuels (and other alternatives - suitable or not) at a grand scale, even if the interests of local communities have to be sacrificed in the process. Two, as the gold rush-like atmosphere of recent years' biofuels development suggests, the human needs, especially of the poor and marginalized, all too easily lose out to profit interests."
The media release announcing the report says:
"Though the report is generally optimistic about the creation of new
jobs to address climate change, it also warns that many of these new
jobs can be "dirty, dangerous and difficult". Sectors of concern,
especially but not exclusively in developing economies, include
agriculture and recycling where all too often low pay, insecure
employment contracts and exposure to health hazardous materials needs
to change fast.
What's more, it says too few green jobs
are being created for the most vulnerable: the 1.3 billion working poor
(43 per cent of the global workforce) in the world with earnings too
low to lift them and their dependants above the poverty threshold of
US$2 per person, per day, or for the estimated 500 million youth who
will be seeking work over the next 10 years."
Not surprisingly, when you read the report, the jobs that cause the most problems tend to be those connected with biofuels. When you start counting the billions of dollars involved and projected growth of the alternatives, biofuel markets are expected to grow to more than $80 billion by 2016, whereas the 'poor' old solar, wind, ocean and geothermal industries come in at mere snips - $60, $35 and $10 billion. So obviously, the big players are all rushing like lemmings into the one with the largest predicted growth.
What's wrong with that?
Well I thought that the whole purpose was to save the world with these alternative fuels, not milk it for every last drop of palm oil profit it possesses.
So as this is a blog that touches on public relations from time to time, what role does public relations have to play in all this? Simple.
- Practitioners who work for the corporations need to advocate within their organisations on behalf of the publics and communities who will be harmed by such profit driven actions.
- Those who don't should advocate elsewhere for other fuel/energy alternatives that don't drive people from their land, reduce available food and push up prices of existing stocks to the point where the working poor cannot feed their families.
- Within the large corporations involved in this gold rush, educate and advise management teams on what corporate social responsibility really means and how to implement meaningful programmes rather than pay lip service to the concept.
In the long term, we have to change the way we do things, but, as I think Einstein is quoted as saying, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".
The rush to biofuels smacks of the same sort of thinking that went on during the time of the Irish Famine and it is thinking that will not solve the problems we currently face, instead it will exacerbate them.
After 100 years, you would have thought that at least the thinking might have changed.
Happy Birthday Dad.
Boosting Energy with creative thinking
Stumbled over this video from Altaeros Energies today. It's a few months old and I can't track the company down via its website (which is only returning cached results at the moment, so it could be a start-up still starting-up) but I thought the innovation was exciting. I also thought it would have enormous potential to help in certain types of disaster situations, given its transportability. There were lots of hyper-critical comments on the channel and while I'm sure it's not a perfect solution this type of thinking needs to be done. Exploring different ways to harness natural forms of energy can only be a good thing for the future.
We live in a switched-on world with an insatiable appetite for power and the poor old planet can't go on forever suffering the things we do to it for energy's sake. I hope we see more of this thinking along with a greater understanding of geothermal, photovoltaic and tidal energy generation.