by Norman Church
April 2nd, 2005

출처 : http://www.321energy.com/editorials/church/church040205.html

“Concentrate on what cannot lie. The evidence…” — Gil Grissom

INTRODUCTION

Eating Oil?was the title of a book which was published in 1978 following the first oil crisis in 1973 (1). The aim of the book was to investigate the extent to which food supply in industrialised countries relied on fossil fuels. In the summer of 2000 the degree of dependence on oil in the UK food system was demonstrated once again when protestors blockaded oil refineries and fuel distribution depots. The fuel crises disrupted the distribution of food and industry leaders warned that their stores would be out of food within days. The lessons of 1973 have not been heeded.

Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase.

Moreover, at a time when we should be making massive cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to reduce the threat posed by climate change, the food system is lengthening its supply chains and increasing emissions to the point where it is a significant contributor to global warming.

The organic sector could be leading the development of a sustainable food system. Direct environmental and ecological impacts of agriculture 몂n the farm?are certainly reduced in organic systems. However, global trade and distribution of organic products fritter away those benefits and undermine its leadership role.

Not only is the contemporary food system inherently unsustainable, increasingly, it is damaging the environment.

The systems that produce the world’s food supply are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Vast amounts of oil and gas are used as raw materials and energy in the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides, and as cheap and readily available energy at all stages of food production: from planting, irrigation, feeding and harvesting, through to processing, distribution and packaging. In addition, fossil fuels are essential in the construction and the repair of equipment and infrastructure needed to facilitate this industry, including farm machinery, processing facilities, storage, ships, trucks and roads. The industrial food supply system is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and one of the greatest producers of greenhouse gases.

Ironically, the food industry is at serious risk from global warming caused by these greenhouse gases, through the disruption of the predictable climactic cycles on which agriculture depends. But global warming can have the more pronounced and immediate effect of exacerbating existing environmental threats to agriculture, many of which are caused by industrial agriculture itself. Environmental degradation, water shortages, salination, soil erosion, pests, disease and desertification all pose serious threats to our food supply, and are made worse by climate change. But many of the conventional ways used to overcome these environmental problems further increase the consumption of finite oil and gas reserves. Thus the cycle of oil dependence and environmental degradation continues.

Industrial agriculture and the systems of food supply are also responsible for the erosion of communities throughout the world. This social degradation is compounded by trade rules and policies, by the profit driven mindset of the industry, and by the lack of knowledge of the faults of the current systems and the possibilities of alternatives. But the globalisation and corporate control that seriously threaten society and the stability of our environment are only possible because cheap energy is used to replace labour and allows the distance between producer and consumer to be extended.

However, this is set to change. Oil output is expected to peak in the next few years and steadily decline thereafter. We have a very poor understanding of how the extreme fluctuations in the availability and cost of both oil and natural gas will affect the global food supply systems, and how they will be able to adapt to the decreasing availability of energy. In the near future, environmental threats will combine with energy scarcity to cause significant food shortages and sharp increases in prices – at the very least. We are about to enter an era where we will have to once again feed the world with limited use of fossil fuels. But do we have enough time, knowledge, money, energy and political power to make this massive transformation to our food systems when they are already threatened by significant environmental stresses and increasing corporate control?

The modern, commercial agricultural miracle that feeds all of us, and much of the rest of the world, is completely dependent on the flow, processing and distribution of oil, and technology is critical to maintaining that flow.

Oil refined for gasoline and diesel is critical to run the tractors, combines and other farm vehicles and equipment that plant, spray the herbicides and pesticides, and harvest/transport food and seed Food processors rely on the just-in-time (gasoline-based) delivery of fresh or refrigerated food Food processors rely on the production and delivery of food additives, including vitamins and minerals, emulsifiers, preservatives, colouring agents, etc. Many are oil-based. Delivery is oil-based Food processors rely on the production and delivery of boxes, metal cans, printed paper labels, plastic trays, cellophane for microwave/convenience foods, glass jars, plastic and metal lids with sealing compounds. Many of these are essentially oil-based Delivery of finished food products to distribution centres in refrigerated trucks. Oil-based, daily, just-in-time shipment of food to grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, etc., all oil-based; customer drives to grocery store to shop for supplies, often several times a week

ENERGY, TRANSPORT AND THE FOOD SYSTEM

Our food system is energy inefficient…

One indicator of the unsustainability of the contemporary food system is the ratio of energy outputs – the energy content of a food product (calories) – to the energy inputs.

The latter is all the energy consumed in producing, processing, packaging and distributing that product. The energy ratio (energy out/energy in) in agriculture has decreased from being close to 100 for traditional pre-industrial societies to less than 1 in most cases in the present food system, as energy inputs, mainly in the form of fossil fuels, have gradually increased.

However, transport energy consumption is also significant, and if included in these ratios would mean that the ratio would decrease further. For example, when iceberg lettuce is imported to the UK from the USA by plane, the energy ratio is only 0.00786. In other words 127 calories of energy (aviation fuel) are needed to transport 1 calorie of lettuce across the Atlantic. If the energy consumed during lettuce cultivation, packaging, refrigeration, distribution in the UK and shopping by car was included, the energy needed would be even higher. Similarly, 97 calories of transport energy are needed to import 1 calorie of asparagus by plane from Chile, and 66 units of energy are consumed when flying 1 unit of carrot energy from South Africa.

Just how energy inefficient the food system is can be seen in the crazy case of the Swedish tomato ketchup. Researchers at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology analysed the production of tomato ketchup (2). The study considered the production of inputs to agriculture, tomato cultivation and conversion to tomato paste (in Italy), the processing and packaging of the paste and other ingredients into tomato ketchup in Sweden and the retail and storage of the final product. All this involved more than 52 transport and process stages.

The aseptic bags used to package the tomato paste were produced in the Netherlands and transported to Italy to be filled, placed in steel barrels, and then moved to Sweden. The five layered, red bottles were either produced in the UK or Sweden with materials form Japan, Italy, Belgium, the USA and Denmark. The polypropylene (PP) screw-cap of the bottle and plug, made from low density polyethylene (LDPE), was produced in Denmark and transported to Sweden. Additionally, LDPE shrink-film and corrugated cardboard were used to distribute the final product. Labels, glue and ink were not included in the analysis.

This example demonstrates the extent to which the food system is now dependent on national and international freight transport. However, there are many other steps involved in the production of this everyday product. These include the transportation associated with: the production and supply of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilisers; pesticides; processing equipment; and farm machinery. It is likely that other ingredients such as sugar, vinegar, spices and salt were also imported. Most of the processes listed above will also depend on derivatives of fossil fuels. This product is also likely to be purchased in a shopping trip by car.

One study has estimated that UK imports of food products and animal feed involved transportation by sea, air and road amounting to over 83 billion tonne-kilometres (3). This required 1.6 billion litres of fuel and, based on a conservative figure of 50 grams of carbon dioxide per tonne-kilometre resulted in 4.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions (4). Within the UK, the amount of food transported increased by 16% and the distances travelled by 50% between 1978 and 1999.

It has been estimated that the CO2 emissions attributable to producing, processing, packaging and distributing the food consumed by a family of four is about 8 tonnes a year (5)

It is not that this transportation is critical or necessary. In many cases countries import and export similar quantities of the same food products (6). A recent report has highlighted the instances in which countries import and export large quantities of particular foodstuffs (6). For example, in 1997, 126 million litres of liquid milk was imported into the UK and, at the same time, 270 million litres of milk was exported from the UK. 23,000 tonnes of milk powder was imported into the UK and 153,000 tonnes exported (7). UK milk imports have doubled over the last 20 years, but there has been a four-fold increase in UK milk exports over the last 30 years (8).

Britain imports 61,400 tonnes of poultry meat a year from the Netherlands and exports 33,100 tonnes to the Netherlands. We import 240,000 tonnes of pork and 125,000 tonnes of lamb while exporting 195,000 tonnes of pork and 102,000 tonnes of lamb (6).

This system is unsustainable, illogical, and bizarre and can only exist as long as inexpensive fossil fuels are available and we do not take significant action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

GLOBAL WARMING AND FINITE OIL

Discovery of oil and gas peaked in the 1960s. Production is set to peak too, with five Middle Eastern countries regaining control of world supply (9). Almost two-thirds of the world’s total reserves of crude oil are located in the Middle East, notably in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq (10). An assessment of future world oil supply and its depletion pattern shows that between 1980 and 1998 there was an 11.2 per cent increase in world crude oil production, from 59.6 to 66.9 million barrels of oil per day (10). Current world production rates are about 25 Gb (billion barrels) per year. A simple calculation shows that if consumption levels remain constant, world crude oil reserves, at approximately 1 trillion barrels, could be exhausted around 2040 (11).

The oil crises of the 1970s when the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) states reined in their production have passed into folk memory. However, they were accompanied by massive disruption and global economic recession. The same happened in 1980 and 1991 (12).

Colin J. Campbell, a pre-eminent oil industry analyst, believes that future crises will be much worse. 밫he oil shocks of the 1970s were short-lived because there were then plenty of new oil and gas finds to bring on stream. This time there are virtually no new prolific basins to yield a crop of giant fields sufficient to have a global impact. The growing Middle East control of the market is likely to lead to a radical and permanent increase in the price of oil, before physical shortages begin to appear within the first decade of the 21st century. The world’s economy has been driven by an abundant supply of cheap oil-based energy for the best part of this century. The coming oil crisis will accordingly be an economic and political discontinuity of historic proportions, as the world adjusts to a new energy environment?(9).

The three main purposes for which oil is used worldwide are food, transport and heating. In the near future the competition for oil for these three activities will be raw and real. An energy famine is likely to affect poorer countries first, when increases in the cost of paraffin, used for cooking, place it beyond their reach. Following the peak in production, food supplies all over the world will begin to be disrupted, not only because of price increases but because the oil will no longer be there.

IS ORGANIC ANY DIFFERENT?

One of the benefits of organic production is that energy consumption and, therefore, fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, are less than that in conventional systems.

The energy used in food production is separated into direct and indirect inputs. Indirect inputs include the manufacture and supply of pesticides, feedstuffs and fertilisers while direct energy inputs are those on the farm, such as machinery. One measure of the energy efficiency of food production that allows a comparison between different farming practices is the energy consumed per unit output, often expressed as the energy consumed per tonne of food produced (MJ/tonne) or the energy consumed per kilogram of food (MJ/kg).

A study comparing organic and conventional livestock, dairy, vegetable and arable systems in the UK found that, with average yields, the energy saving with organic production ranged from 0.14 MJ/kg to 1.79 MJ/kg, with the average being 0.68 MJ/kg or 42 per cent (13). The improved energy efficiency in organic systems is largely due to lower (or zero) fertiliser and pesticide inputs, which account for half of the energy input in conventional potato and winter wheat production and up to 80 per cent of the energy consumed in some vegetable crops.

In conventional upland livestock production, the largest energy input is again indirect in the form of concentrated and cereal feeds. When reared organically, a greater proportion of the feed for dairy cattle, beef and hill sheep is derived from grass. In the case of milk production, it has been found that organic systems are almost five times more energy efficient on a per animal basis and three and a half times more energy efficient in terms of unit output (the energy required to produce a litre of milk) (13).

So far so good – but once passed the farm-gate, things begin to go wrong. Britain imports over three-quarters of its organic produce, and despite consumer demand, only two per cent of its land is organically farmed (14). As the market has grown it has been met by imports.

A study looking at the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions when importing organic food products to the UK by plane (15) found that carbon dioxide emissions range from 1.6 kilograms to 10.7 kilograms. Air transport of food is the worst environmental option but road transport, especially unnecessary journeys, is also bad. For example 5kg of Sicilian potatoes travelling 2448 miles emits 771 grams of carbon dioxide.

The problem is that, overall, human beings have developed a tendency to deal with problems on an ad hoc basis – i.e., to deal with ‘problems of the moment’. This does not foster an attitude of seeing a problem embedded in the context of another problem.

Globalisation makes it impossible for modern societies to collapse in isolation. Any society in turmoil today, no matter how remote, can cause problems for prosperous societies on other continents, and is also subject to their influence (whether helpful or destabilising).

For the first time in history, we face the risk of a global decline.

Shocks to the system

As already stated, the three main purposes for which oil is used worldwide are food, transport and heating. Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on reliable supplies of oil for cultivation and for pumping water, and on gas for its fertilisers; in addition, for every calorie of energy used by agriculture itself, five more are used for processing, storage and distribution.

Since farming and the food industry are not famous for spending money unnecessarily, there must be a presumption that there is very little short-term ‘slack’ which would allow its demand for energy to be reduced at short notice without disruptions in food prices. In the case of transport and heating fuel, there is more scope for saving energy at short notice; cutting leisure journeys, for instance, wearing extra pullovers and, in the slightly longer term, driving smaller cars have a role to play while, in the longer term, there is a totally different low-energy paradigm waiting to be developed. But it is the short term that has to be survived first and, in that short term, the competition for oil for food, transport and heating will be real and raw.

Through its dependence on oil, contemporary farming is exposed to the whole question of the sustainability of our use of fossil fuels. It took 500 million years to produce these hydrocarbon deposits and we are using them at a rate in excess of 1 million times their natural rate of production. On the time scale of centuries, we certainly cannot expect to continue using oil as freely and ubiquitously as we do today. Something is going to have to change.

The same applies more widely to every natural resource on which industrial civilisation relies. Furthermore, one might think that there is a compounded problem. Not only are there more people consuming these resources, but their per capita consumption also increases in line with the elaboration of technology. We seem to be facing a problem of diminishing returns, indeed of running out of the vital raw materials needed to support our economic growth.

Almost every current human endeavour from transportation, to manufacturing, to electricity to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies.

We are now at a point where the demand for food/oil continues to rise, while our ability to produce it in an affordable fashion is about to drop.

Within a few years of Peak Oil occurring, the price of food will skyrocket because the cost of fertiliser will soar. The cost of storing (electricity) and transporting (gasoline) the food that is produced will also soar.

Oil is required for a lot more than just food, medicine, and transportation. It is also required for nearly every consumer item, water supply pumping, sewage disposal, garbage disposal, street/park maintenance, hospitals and health systems, police, fire services and national defence.

Additionally, as you are probably already aware, wars are often fought over oil.

Bottom line?

If we think we are food secure here in the UK and other industrialised countries simply because we have gas in the car, frankly, we are delusional. Despite the appearance of an endless bounty of food, it is a fragile bounty, dependent upon the integrity of the global oil production, refining and delivery system. That system is entirely dependent on the thread of technology. Modern, technology-based agriculture produces both food, and seeds for next year뭩 food, on a just-in-time basis. There are precious little reserves of either food or seeds to sustain any protracted interruption.

Technology and the incredibly rich tapestry it has made possible has created a false sense of security for so many of us. The thread is flawed; the tapestry is now fragile; famines are possible. We must take that seriously. . .

Our food supply, and our economic survival as a whole, depends on the steady availability of reasonably priced oil. Is oil our Achilles heel?

The oil supplies that fuel the food system could be exhausted by 2040 (19). In many regions oil production has peaked and most reserves lie in the Middle East. Food security is also threatened: for example, even if all UK fruit production was consumed in the UK, of every 100 fruit products purchased, only 5 will now have been grown in the UK.

For every calorie of carrot, flown in from South Africa, we use 66 calories of fuel. The huge fuel use in the food system means more carbon dioxide emissions, which means climate change, which means more damage to food supplies, as well as other major health and social problems.

Even organic supplies are becoming hugely damaging as imports fill our shelves (17). One shopping basket of 26 imported organic products could have travelled 241,000 kilometres and released as much CO2 into the atmosphere as an average four bedroom household does through cooking meals over eight months (18).

Other problems highlighted include loss of nutrients in food, increased incidence and spread of diseases such as Foot & Mouth and other major animal welfare problems. Poor countries producing food for distant markets are not necessarily seeing benefits through increased and often intensive production for export. The report reveals how such trends could be reversed through industry, government and public action.

In other words, we won뭪 have to run completely out of oil to be rudely awakened. The panic starts once the world needs more oil than it gets.

To understand why, you뭭e got to fathom how totally addicted to oil we have become. We know that petroleum is drawn from deep wells and distilled into gasoline, jet fuel, and countless other products that form the lifeblood of industry and the adrenaline of military might. It뭩 less well known that the world뭩 food is now nourished by oil; petroleum and natural gas are crucial at every step of modern agriculture, from forming fertiliser to shipping crops. The implications are grim. For millions, the difference between an energy famine and a biblical famine could well be academic.

Independent policy analyst David Fleming writes in the British magazine Prospect (Nov. 2000),

With a global oil crisis looming like the Doomsday Rock, why do so few political leaders seem to care? Many experts refuse to take the problem seriously because it “falls outside the mind-set of market economics.” Thanks to the triumph of global capitalism, the free-market model now reigns almost everywhere. The trouble is, its principles “tend to break down when applied to natural resources like oil.” The result is both potentially catastrophic and all too human. Our high priests뾲he market economists뾞re blind to a reality that in their cosmology cannot exist.

Fleming offers several examples of this broken logic at work. Many cling to a belief that higher oil prices will spur more oil discoveries, but they ignore what earth scientists have been saying for years: there aren뭪 any more big discoveries to make. Most of the oil reserves we tap today were actually identified by the mid-1960s. There뭩 a lot of oil left in the ground ?perhaps more than half of the total recoverable supply. Fleming says that that is not the issue. The real concern is the point beyond which demand cannot be met. And with demand destined to grow by as much as 3 percent a year, the missing barrels will add up quickly. Once the pain becomes real, the Darwinian impulse kicks in and the orderly market gives way to chaos.

Some insist that industrial societies are growing less dependent on oil. Fleming says they뭨e kidding themselves. They뭨e talking about oil use as a percentage of total energy use, not the actual amount of oil burned. Measured by the barrel, we뭨e burning more and more. In Britain, for instance, transportation needs have doubled in volume since 1973 and still rely almost entirely on oil. Transportation is the weak link in any modern economy; choke off the oil and a country quickly seizes.

This wouldn뭪 matter much, Fleming laments, “If the world had spent the last 25 years urgently preparing alternative energies, conservation technologies, and patterns of land use with a much lower dependence on transport.” (He figures 25 years to be the time it will take a country like Britain to break its habit.) Instead, “the long-expected shock finds us unprepared.”

SOME UK FOOD STATISTICS

UK food supply chain

UK food retailing market was worth ?03,800 million in 2001

Food manufacturing is the single-largest manufacturing industry in the UK

Food supply chain employs 12.5% of the entire workforce in the UK

Food supply chain contributes 8% to the UK economy

Food and drink accounts for 21% of weekly household expenditure

Food supply chain and unsustainability

Food supply chain is the largest energy user in the UK

Food production and distribution contributes up to 22% of the UK뭩 total greenhouse emissions

Food travels further than any other product – 129 km compared to the average product travel of 94 km

Wages in the food industry are notoriously low compared to other sectors

Nearly 30% of household waste is food waste

CONCLUSIONS

Indicators of social, environmental and economic performance, such as food security, greenhouse gas emissions, food miles, farm income and biodiversity highlight this fact. This process could be reversed by re-establishing local and regional food supply systems and substituting 몁ear for far?in production and distribution systems. This would reduce both the demand for, and the environmental burdens associated with, transportation.

The proximity principle is a straightforward concept in Eating Oil, where production processes are located as near to the consumer as possible. When applied to food supply, local food systems in the form of home-delivery box schemes, farmers?markets and shops selling local produce would replace imported and centrally distributed foodstuffs.

Taking UK food supply and trade at present, there is great potential to apply the proximity principle, in the form of import substitution. Apart from products such as bananas, coffee and tea, many of the foodstuffs that are imported at present could be produced in Britain. Many meat products, cereals, dairy products and cooking oils are – or could be – available here throughout the year. So could fruit and vegetables, perhaps the most seasonal of food groups, through a combination of cultivating different varieties and traditional and modern storage and preservation techniques.

There is growing evidence of environmental benefits of local sourcing of food in terms of reduced transport-related environmental impact. In the case of organic produce, a survey of retailers compared local and global sourcing of produce marketed in different outlets between June and August 2001. Products were chosen that were available in the UK during these months but are at present imported by the multiple retailers. These included spring onions imported by plane from Mexico, potatoes imported by road from Sicily, onions imported by ship from New Zealand. It was found that local sourcing through a farmers market, for example, would therefore reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with distribution by a factor of 650 in the case of a farmers?market and more for box schemes and farm shop sales (16).

The value of UK food, feed and drink imports in 1999 was over ?7 billion. It is clear that a reduction in food imports through import substitution would not only be of benefit to the UK economy as a whole but could also be a major driver in rural regeneration as farm incomes would increase substantially. Local food systems also have great potential to reduce the damaging environmental effects of the current food supply system.

A sustainable food system cannot rely, almost completely, on one finite energy source; an energy source which causes enormous levels of pollution during its production, distribution and use. Although food supplies in wealthy countries such as the UK appear to be secure and choice, in terms of thousands of food products being available at supermarkets, seems limitless, this is an illusion.

The vulnerability of our food system to sudden changes was demonstrated during the fuel crisis in 2001. A sharp increase in the price of oil or a reduction in oil supplies could present a far more serious threat to food security and is likely to as oil enters its depletion phase. Food production and distribution, as they are organised today, would not be able to function. Moreover, the alternatives, in the form of sustainable agriculture and local food supplies, which minimise the use of crude oil, are currently unable to respond to increased demand due to low investment and capacity.

The food system is now a significant contributor to climate change. Reducing the carbon dioxide emissions from food production, processing and distribution by minimising the distance between producer and consumer should be a critical part of any strategy to mitigate global warming.

There are many benefits to organic farming, including reduced fossil fuel energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However, these are often overshadowed by the environmental damage of long distance transport. Organic products that are transported long distances, particularly when distribution is by plane, are almost as damaging as their conventional air freighted counterparts. Highly processed and packaged organic foodstuffs have an added adverse environmental impact.

The priority must be the development of local and regional food systems, preferably organically based, in which a large percentage of demand is met within the locality or region. This approach, combined with fair trade, will ensure secure food supplies, minimise fossil fuel consumption and reduce the vulnerability associated with a dependency on food exports (as well as imports). Localising the food system will require significant diversification, research, investment and support that have, so far, not been forthcoming. But it is achievable and we have little choice.

Compiled by Norman Church

Norman@noidea.me.uk

Norman Church
April 2nd, 2005

REFERENCES

1 Green, B. M., 1978. Eating Oil – Energy Use in Food Production. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 1978.

2 Andersson, K. Ohlsson, P and Olsson, P. 1996, Life Cycle Assessment of Tomato Ketchup. The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, Gothenburg.

3 Cowell, S., and R. Clift., 1996. Farming for the future: an environmental perspective. Paper presented at the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth, July 1996,CES, University of Surrey.

4. Data for shipping and airfreight from Guidelines for company reporting on greenhouse gas emissions. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions: London, March 2001. Data for trucks is based on Whitelegg, J., 1993. Transport for a sustainable future: the case for Europe. Belhaven Press, London; and Gover, M. P., 1994. UK petrol and diesel demand: energy and emission effects of a switch to diesel. Report for the Department of Trade and Industry, HMSO, London.

5. BRE, 1998. Building a sustainable future. General information report 53, energy efficiency best practice programme, Building Research Establishment, Garston, UK.

6. Caroline Lucas, 2001. Stopping the Great Food Swap – Relocalising Europe뭩 food supply. Green Party, 2001.

7. 21 Lobstein, T, and Hoskins, R, The Perfect Pinta. Food Facts No. 2. The SAFE Alliance, 1998.

8. FAO, 2001. Food Balance Database. 2001. Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome at www.fao.org

9 Colin J. Campbell, 1997. The Coming Oil Crisis. Multi- Science Publishing Co. Ltd

10 Green Party USA, 2001. World crude oil reserves ?Statistical information. Based on data from the Oil and Gas Journal and the Energy Information Agency. At http://environment.about.com/library/weekly/aa092700.htm

11 Medea: European Agency for International Information, 2001. Oil Reserves. at – http://www.medea.be/en/ 11 David Fleming, 2001. The Great Oil Denial. Submission to the UK Energy Review. At

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/innovation/2001/energy/submissions/Fleming

12 EIA, 2001. World Oil Market and Oil Price Chronologies: 1970 ?2000. Department of Energy뭩 Office of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Analysis Division, Energy Information Administration, Department of the Environment, USA, at www.eia.doe.gov

13 Energy use in organic farming systems ADAS Consulting for MAFF, Project OF0182, DEFRA, London, 2001.

14 Natasha Walter, 2001. When will we get the revolution. The Independent 19th July 2001.

15 Based on data on sourcing from UKROFS and a survey of supermarket stores during June ?August 2001; distance tables for air miles at www.indo.com/cgi-bin/dist and the environmental impact of airfreight in Guidelines for company reporting on greenhouse gas emissions. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, London, March 2001.

16 Data for shipping and airfreight from Guidelines for company reporting on greenhouse gas emissions. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions: London, March 2001. Data for trucks is based on Whitelegg, J., 1993. Transport for a sustainable future: the case for Europe. Belhaven Press, London; and Gover, M. P., 1994. UK petrol and diesel demand: energy and emission effects of a switch to diesel. Report for the Department of Trade and Industry, HMSO, London. Data for cars from the Vehicle Certification Agency at www.vca.gov.uk; Whitelegg, J., 1993. Transport for a sustainable future: the case for Europe. Belhaven Press, London; and Gover, M. P., 1994. UK petrol and diesel demand: energy and emission effects of a switch to diesel. Report for the Department of Trade and Industry, HMSO, London.

17 RCEP, 2000. Energy ?The Changing Climate. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Twenty-second Report, June 2000, HMSO, London.

18 DETR, 2001. The draft UK climate change programme. DETR, 2001. HMSO, London.

19 USDOE, 2001.World Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels, 1980-1999. US Department of the Environment at http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1.xls

Eating Fossil Fuels 

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

출처 : http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

[Some months ago, concerned by a Paris statement made by Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton regarding his concern about the impact of Peak Oil and Gas on fertilizer production, I tasked FTW's Contributing Editor for Energy, Dale Allen Pfeiffer to start looking into what natural gas shortages would do to fertilizer production costs. His investigation led him to look at the totality of food production in the US. Because the US and Canada feed much of the world, the answers have global implications.

What follows is most certainly the single most frightening article I have ever read and certainly the most alarming piece that FTW has ever published. Even as we have seen CNN, Britain's Independent and Jane's Defence Weekly acknowledge the reality of Peak Oil and Gas within the last week, acknowledging that world oil and gas reserves are as much as 80% less than predicted, we are also seeing how little real thinking has been devoted to the host of crises certain to follow; at least in terms of publicly accessible thinking.

The following article is so serious in its implications that I have taken the unusual step of underlining some of its key findings. I did that with the intent that the reader treat each underlined passage as a separate and incredibly important fact. Each one of these facts should be read and digested separately to assimilate its importance. I found myself reading one fact and then getting up and walking away until I could come back and (un)comfortably read to the next.

All told, Dale Allen Pfeiffer's research and reporting confirms the worst of FTW's suspicions about the consequences of Peak Oil, and it poses serious questions about what to do next. Not the least of these is why, in a presidential election year, none of the candidates has even acknowledged the problem. Thus far, it is clear that solutions for these questions, perhaps the most important ones facing mankind, will by necessity be found by private individuals and communities, independently of outside or governmental help. Whether the real search for answers comes now, or as the crisis becomes unavoidable, depends solely on us. – MCR]

October 3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) – Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived from the sun.

It would have been absurd to think that we would one day run out of sunshine. No, sunshine was an abundant, renewable resource, and the process of photosynthesis fed all life on this planet. It also set a limit on the amount of food that could be generated at any one time, and therefore placed a limit upon population growth. Solar energy has a limited rate of flow into this planet. To increase your food production, you had to increase the acreage under cultivation, and displace your competitors. There was no other way to increase the amount of energy available for food production. Human population grew by displacing everything else and appropriating more and more of the available solar energy.

The need to expand agricultural production was one of the motive causes behind most of the wars in recorded history, along with expansion of the energy base (and agricultural production is truly an essential portion of the energy base). And when Europeans could no longer expand cultivation, they began the task of conquering the world. Explorers were followed by conquistadors and traders and settlers. The declared reasons for expansion may have been trade, avarice, empire or simply curiosity, but at its base, it was all about the expansion of agricultural productivity. Wherever explorers and conquistadors traveled, they may have carried off loot, but they left plantations. And settlers toiled to clear land and establish their own homestead. This conquest and expansion went on until there was no place left for further expansion. Certainly, to this day, landowners and farmers fight to claim still more land for agricultural productivity, but they are fighting over crumbs. Today, virtually all of the productive land on this planet is being exploited by agriculture. What remains unused is too steep, too wet, too dry or lacking in soil nutrients.¹

Just when agricultural output could expand no more by increasing acreage, new innovations made possible a more thorough exploitation of the acreage already available. The process of “pest” displacement and appropriation for agriculture accelerated with the industrial revolution as the mechanization of agriculture hastened the clearing and tilling of land and augmented the amount of farmland which could be tended by one person. With every increase in food production, the human population grew apace.

At present, nearly 40% of all land-based photosynthetic capability has been appropriated by human beings.² In the United States we divert more than half of the energy captured by photosynthesis.³ We have taken over all the prime real estate on this planet. The rest of nature is forced to make due with what is left. Plainly, this is one of the major factors in species extinctions and in ecosystem stress.

The Green Revolution

In the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation commonly referred to as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.⁴ That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.

The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.⁵ In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more.⁶

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).⁷ Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:

·        31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer

·        19% for the operation of field machinery

·        16% for transportation

·        13% for irrigation

·        08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)

·        05% for crop drying

·        05% for pesticide production

·        08% miscellaneous⁸

Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.⁹ According to The Fertilizer Institute (http://www.tfi.org), in the year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the United States used 12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.¹⁰ Using the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 96.2 million barrels.

 Of course, this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the energy requirements for modern agriculture.

In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.¹¹ Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt.

Fossil Fuel Costs

Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate. However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production.

Total fossil fuel use in the United States has increased 20-fold in the last 4 decades. In the US, we consume 20 to 30 times more fossil fuel energy per capita than people in developing nations. Agriculture directly accounts for 17% of all the energy used in this country.¹² As of 1990, we were using approximately 1,000 liters (6.41 barrels) of oil to produce food of one hectare of land.¹³

In 1994, David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro estimated the output/input ratio of agriculture to be around 1.4.¹⁴ For 0.7 Kilogram-Calories (kcal) of fossil energy consumed, U.S. agriculture produced 1 kcal of food. The input figure for this ratio was based on FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) statistics, which consider only fertilizers (without including fertilizer feedstock), irrigation, pesticides (without including pesticide feedstock), and machinery and fuel for field operations. Other agricultural energy inputs not considered were energy and machinery for drying crops, transportation for inputs and outputs to and from the farm, electricity, and construction and maintenance of farm buildings and infrastructures. Adding in estimates for these energy costs brought the input/output energy ratio down to 1.¹⁵ Yet this does not include the energy expense of packaging, delivery to retail outlets, refrigeration or household cooking.

In a subsequent study completed later that same year (1994), Giampietro and Pimentel managed to derive a more accurate ratio of the net fossil fuel energy ratio of agriculture.¹⁶ In this study, the authors defined two separate forms of energy input: Endosomatic energy and Exosomatic energy. Endosomatic energy is generated through the metabolic transformation of food energy into muscle energy in the human body. Exosomatic energy is generated by transforming energy outside of the human body, such as burning gasoline in a tractor. This assessment allowed the authors to look at fossil fuel input alone and in ratio to other inputs.

Prior to the industrial revolution, virtually 100% of both endosomatic and exosomatic energy was solar driven. Fossil fuels now represent 90% of the exosomatic energy used in the United States and other developed countries.¹⁷ The typical exo/endo ratio of pre-industrial, solar powered societies is about 4 to 1. The ratio has changed tenfold in developed countries, climbing to 40 to 1. And in the United States it is more than 90 to 1.¹⁸ The nature of the way we use endosomatic energy has changed as well.

The vast majority of endosomatic energy is no longer expended to deliver power for direct economic processes. Now the majority of endosomatic energy is utilized to generate the flow of information directing the flow of exosomatic energy driving machines. Considering the 90/1 exo/endo ratio in the United States, each endosomatic kcal of energy expended in the US induces the circulation of 90 kcal of exosomatic energy. As an example, a small gasoline engine can convert the 38,000 kcal in one gallon of gasoline into 8.8 KWh (Kilowatt hours), which equates to about 3 weeks of work for one human being.¹⁹

In their refined study, Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to the consumer in the U.S. food system. This includes packaging and all delivery expenses, but excludes household cooking).²⁰ The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy. This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable fossil fuel stocks.

Assuming a figure of 2,500 kcal per capita for the daily diet in the United States, the 10/1 ratio translates into a cost of 35,000 kcal of exosomatic energy per capita each day. However, considering that the average return on one hour of endosomatic labor in the U.S. is about 100,000 kcal of exosomatic energy, the flow of exosomatic energy required to supply the daily diet is achieved in only 20 minutes of labor in our current system. Unfortunately, if you remove fossil fuels from the equation, the daily diet will require 111 hours of endosomatic labor per capita; that is, the current U.S. daily diet would require nearly three weeks of labor per capita to produce.

Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food.

Soil, Cropland and Water

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water.

It takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil.²¹ In a natural environment, topsoil is built up by decaying plant matter and weathering rock, and it is protected from erosion by growing plants. In soil made susceptible by agriculture, erosion is reducing productivity up to 65% each year.²² Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about 100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate.²³ Food crops are much hungrier than the natural grasses that once covered the Great Plains. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly depleted of nutrients. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from U.S. agricultural soils every year.²⁴ Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to produce crops.

Every year in the U.S., more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging. On top of this, urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million acres annually from farmland.²⁴ Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry.²⁵ The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land availability. Incidentally, only a small portion of U.S. land area remains available for the solar energy technologies necessary to support a solar energy-based economy. The land area for harvesting biomass is likewise limited. For this reason, the development of solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of agriculture.

Modern agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. Agriculture consumes fully 85% of all U.S. freshwater resources.²⁶ Overdraft is occurring from many surface water resources, especially in the west and south. The typical example is the Colorado River, which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific. Yet surface water only supplies 60% of the water used in irrigation. The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. Ground water is recharged slowly by the percolation of rainwater through the earth’s crust. Less than 0.1% of the stored ground water mined annually is replaced by rainfall.²⁷ The great Ogallala aquifer that supplies agriculture, industry and home use in much of the southern and central plains states has an annual overdraft up to 160% above its recharge rate. The Ogallala aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.²⁸

We can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. A corn crop that produces 118 bushels/acre/year requires more than 500,000 gallons/acre of water during the growing season. The production of 1 pound of maize requires 1,400 pounds (or 175 gallons) of water.²⁹ Unless something is done to lower these consumption rates, modern agriculture will help to propel the United States into a water crisis.

In the last two decades, the use of hydrocarbon-based pesticides in the U.S. has increased 33-fold, yet each year we lose more crops to pests.³⁰ This is the result of the abandonment of traditional crop rotation practices. Nearly 50% of U.S. corn land is grown continuously as a monoculture.³¹ This results in an increase in corn pests, which in turn requires the use of more pesticides. Pesticide use on corn crops had increased 1,000-fold even before the introduction of genetically engineered, pesticide resistant corn. However, corn losses have still risen 4-fold.³²

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. It is damaging the land, draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant. Yet this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into declining fossil fuel production.

US Consumption

In the United States, each person consumes an average of 2,175 pounds of food per person per year. This provides the U.S. consumer with an average daily energy intake of 3,600 Calories. The world average is 2,700 Calories per day.³³ Fully 19% of the U.S. caloric intake comes from fast food. Fast food accounts for 34% of the total food consumption for the average U.S. citizen. The average citizen dines out for one meal out of four.³⁴

One third of the caloric intake of the average American comes from animal sources (including dairy products), totaling 800 pounds per person per year. This diet means that U.S. citizens derive 40% of their calories from fat-nearly half of their diet. ³⁵

Americans are also grand consumers of water. As of one decade ago, Americans were consuming 1,450 gallons/day/capita (g/d/c), with the largest amount expended on agriculture. Allowing for projected population increase, consumption by 2050 is projected at 700 g/d/c, which hydrologists consider to be minimal for human needs.³⁶ This is without taking into consideration declining fossil fuel production.

To provide all of this food requires the application of 0.6 million metric tons of pesticides in North America per year. This is over one fifth of the total annual world pesticide use, estimated at 2.5 million tons.³⁷ Worldwide, more nitrogen fertilizer is used per year than can be supplied through natural sources. Likewise, water is pumped out of underground aquifers at a much higher rate than it is recharged. And stocks of important minerals, such as phosphorus and potassium, are quickly approaching exhaustion.³⁸

Total U.S. energy consumption is more than three times the amount of solar energy harvested as crop and forest products. The United States consumes 40% more energy annually than the total amount of solar energy captured yearly by all U.S. plant biomass. Per capita use of fossil energy in North America is five times the world average.³⁹

Our prosperity is built on the principal of exhausting the world’s resources as quickly as possible, without any thought to our neighbors, all the other life on this planet, or our children.

Population & Sustainability

Considering a growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population is projected to double by 2050. As the population expands, an estimated one acre of land will be lost for every person added to the U.S. population. Currently, there are 1.8 acres of farmland available to grow food for each U.S. citizen. By 2050, this will decrease to 0.6 acres. 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current dietary standards.⁴⁰

Presently, only two nations on the planet are major exporters of grain: the United States and Canada.⁴¹ By 2025, it is expected that the U.S. will cease to be a food exporter due to domestic demand. The impact on the U.S. economy could be devastating, as food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually. More importantly, millions of people around the world could starve to death without U.S. food exports.⁴²

Domestically, 34.6 million people are living in poverty as of 2002 census data.⁴³ And this number is continuing to grow at an alarming rate. Too many of these people do not have a sufficient diet. As the situation worsens, this number will increase and the United States will witness growing numbers of starvation fatalities.

There are some things that we can do to at least alleviate this tragedy. It is suggested that streamlining agriculture to get rid of losses, waste and mismanagement might cut the energy inputs for food production by up to one-half.³⁵ In place of fossil fuel-based fertilizers, we could utilize livestock manures that are now wasted. It is estimated that livestock manures contain 5 times the amount of fertilizer currently used each year.³⁶ Perhaps most effective would be to eliminate meat from our diet altogether.³⁷

Mario Giampietro and David Pimentel postulate that a sustainable food system is possible only if four conditions are met:

1.   Environmentally sound agricultural technologies must be implemented.

2.   Renewable energy technologies must be put into place.

3.   Major increases in energy efficiency must reduce exosomatic energy consumption per capita.

4.   Population size and consumption must be compatible with maintaining the stability of environmental processes.³⁸

Providing that the first three conditions are met, with a reduction to less than half of the exosomatic energy consumption per capita, the authors place the maximum population for a sustainable economy at 200 million.³⁹ Several other studies have produced figures within this ballpark (Energy and Population, Werbos, Paul J. http://www.dieoff.com/page63.htm; Impact of Population Growth on Food Supplies and Environment, Pimentel, David, et al. http://www.dieoff.com/page57.htm).

Given that the current U.S. population is in excess of 292 million, ⁴⁰ that would mean a reduction of 92 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14^th Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population (and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations), plunging the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two centuries to emerge.⁴¹

None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people⁴² to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race.

Three Choices

Considering the utter necessity of population reduction, there are three obvious choices awaiting us.

We can-as a society-become aware of our dilemma and consciously make the choice not to add more people to our population. This would be the most welcome of our three options, to choose consciously and with free will to responsibly lower our population. However, this flies in the face of our biological imperative to procreate. It is further complicated by the ability of modern medicine to extend our longevity, and by the refusal of the Religious Right to consider issues of population management. And then, there is a strong business lobby to maintain a high immigration rate in order to hold down the cost of labor. Though this is probably our best choice, it is the option least likely to be chosen.

Failing to responsibly lower our population, we can force population cuts through government regulations. Is there any need to mention how distasteful this option would be? How many of us would choose to live in a world of forced sterilization and population quotas enforced under penalty of law? How easily might this lead to a culling of the population utilizing principles of eugenics?

This leaves the third choice, which itself presents an unspeakable picture of suffering and death. Should we fail to acknowledge this coming crisis and determine to deal with it, we will be faced with a die-off from which civilization may very possibly never revive. We will very likely lose more than the numbers necessary for sustainability. Under a die-off scenario, conditions will deteriorate so badly that the surviving human population would be a negligible fraction of the present population. And those survivors would suffer from the trauma of living through the death of their civilization, their neighbors, their friends and their families. Those survivors will have seen their world crushed into nothing.

The questions we must ask ourselves now are, how can we allow this to happen, and what can we do to prevent it? Does our present lifestyle mean so much to us that we would subject ourselves and our children to this fast approaching tragedy simply for a few more years of conspicuous consumption?

Author’s Note

This is possibly the most important article I have written to date. It is certainly the most frightening, and the conclusion is the bleakest I have ever penned. This article is likely to greatly disturb the reader; it has certainly disturbed me. However, it is important for our future that this paper should be read, acknowledged and discussed.

I am by nature positive and optimistic. In spite of this article, I continue to believe that we can find a positive solution to the multiple crises bearing down upon us. Though this article may provoke a flood of hate mail, it is simply a factual report of data and the obvious conclusions that follow from it.

—–

ENDNOTES

¹ Availability of agricultural land for crop and livestock production, Buringh, P. Food and Natural Resources, Pimentel. D. and Hall. C.W. (eds), Academic Press, 1989.

² Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis, Vitousek, P.M. et al. Bioscience 36, 1986. http://www.science.duq.edu/esm/unit2-3

³ Land, Energy and Water: the constraints governing Ideal US Population Size, Pimental, David and Pimentel, Marcia. Focus, Spring 1991. NPG Forum, 1990. http://www.dieoff.com/page136.htm

⁴ Constraints on the Expansion of Global Food Supply, Kindell, Henry H. and Pimentel, David. Ambio Vol. 23 No. 3, May 1994. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. http://www.dieoff.com/page36htm

⁵ The Tightening Conflict: Population, Energy Use, and the Ecology of Agriculture, Giampietro, Mario and Pimentel, David, 1994. http://www.dieoff.com/page69.htm

⁶ Op. Cit. See note 4.

⁷ Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Pimentel, David and Giampietro, Mario. Carrying Capacity Network, 11/21/1994. http://www.dieoff.com/page55.htm

⁸ Comparison of energy inputs for inorganic fertilizer and manure based corn production, McLaughlin, N.B., et al. Canadian Agricultural Engineering, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2000.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ US Fertilizer Use Statistics. http://www.tfi.org/Statistics/USfertuse2.asp

¹¹ Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Executive Summary, Pimentel, David and Giampietro, Mario. Carrying Capacity Network, 11/21/1994. http://www.dieoff.com/page40.htm

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Op. Cit.  See note 3.

¹⁴ Op. Cit.  See note 7.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Op. Cit. See note 5.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Op. Cit. See note 11.

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Op Cit. See note 3.

²⁶ Op Cit. See note 11.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Op. Cit. See note 3.

³¹ Op. Cit. See note 5.

³² Op. Cit. See note 3.

³³ Op. Cit. See note 11.

³⁴ Food Consumption and Access, Lynn Brantley, et al. Capital Area Food Bank, 6/1/2001.  http://www.clagettfarm.org/purchasing.html

³⁵ Op. Cit. See note 11.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Op. Cit. See note 5.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Op. Cit. See note 11.

⁴¹ Op. Cit. See note 4.

⁴² Op. Cit. See note 11.

⁴³ Poverty 2002. The U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty02/pov02hi.html

³⁵ Op. Cit. See note 3.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Diet for a Small Planet, Lappé, Frances Moore. Ballantine Books, 1971-revised 1991. http://www.dietforasmallplanet.com/

³⁸ Op. Cit. See note 5.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ U.S. and World Population Clocks.  U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

⁴¹ A Distant Mirror, Tuckman Barbara. Ballantine Books, 1978.

⁴² Op. Cit. See note 40.