Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Jahn]

Jahn, do people in Sweden have this fear that the government is out to get them?

Heh, No!

In fact today the government is throwing back tax money to us in many different ways just to keep up "the consumption". They have the idea that if we middle class citizens have more money we will consume more and then unemployment will not rise and all will benefit of that, which is true to some extent.

As i have said in many other posts, to pay Taxes to the State or authorities is about confidence.
We use tax money to transfer resources from the rich to the poor. If that does not work, because of system failure (corruption, too heavy weight on dollar to dollar etc.) there is no incentive for the citizen to pay. If you have confidence to your system you will feel alright to pay. As an example we do have people here that are willing to pay more taxes just to ensure that the health care system have enough, a local debate that is.

Well I must say that I can understand if the US citizens do not have confidence to their system and therefore a majority rejects new fundamental welfare constructions. The situation in the US is kind of delicate and shall not be compared to the welfare system within the EU countries. The US have another history and a different context and is a "new country". Some states in the US are closer and some states are more far from the standard that we know here.

Welfare reforms are best made in rich times while the US is in debt now and has actually no room for welfare reforms. In Sweden we made the most welfare reforms in the 1950-60’s  when we we were accelerating sky high on an export market to a war-torn Europe.

[Michael]

This confidence is a big thing. I'd say in Australia, we are about half way between US and Sweden. People are still quite suspicious of the Government, and this has increased since the ninties. I feel our previous Government - John Howard - did a huge damage to that confidence.

Once it has been damaged it is so difficult to repair. The community become highly suspicious of the politicians and the Government in general. It is not good, because as I have said before, the Government is the citizens only tool against the large companies and the inequalities. Once they distrust that tool, they have very little protection left, to say nothing of well-being and general health.

There is a new book out, which I have just ordered for a friend:
The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett,  Penguin, March 2009

[daphne]

"if you can't afford it", is all relative. Here we are going through a similar process re National Health. Still in its 'undercover stage', but much has been leaked. After having destroyed the Public Health system, the government now is out to destroy the private health system. The concensus amongst the ruling party is that private health will be done away with and what I pay to private health I will now pay to the government public health fund. And they will take care of my health needs. Rather frightening it is! That my private health payments are an after-tax choice of mine seems to not matter. I am not in principle amaginst National Health, God knows we certainly need something in this country. Problem is that they do have huge funds and facilities. They've just ruined and mismanaged the lot. We had the best Public Health hospitals not only in Africa, but also of a world standard. Now, there is barley any staff, and the facilities have been ruined. Recently our Public Health staff went out on strike because the conditions they work in is deplorable. There is so much theft, mismanagement and corruption. So now the government is looking to the lucrative private health system to line their coffers. How they expect to manage the new Health Fund when they can't manage what's in existence is what's getting eveyone (that pays for private health care) upset. They still have to meet with "all parties" to discuss the issue, but the leaks are frightening enough. Those that pay privately will have it diverted to public, and those that earn but do not have private health care will be forced to have it deducted from their earnings (all deductions done by employer - like taxes are) Those that currently don't pay usually do so because although they are earning (and not many earners here) private medical health is too expensive for them. Now they will be forced to pay, even though they already 'pay' in their taxes.

[Jahn]

There is a new book out, which I have just ordered for a friend:
The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett,  Penguin, March 2009

Richard Wilkinsson is the right guy. I have met him a couple of times. He was visiting our Department to talk at a conference and he held a seminar. He study the world countries and another guy had a lot of figures about the differences between the states in the US.

Equity in household economics, less span between rich and poor, is an indicator of lower criminality, better health  etc. compared to societies with a large span in income.

[Michael]

Daphne, what you are talking about is a different issue. There has been a lot of studies on the efficient running of Public Vs Private Utilities, Health and Education included.

The point is whether the country can run a Public service efficiently and effectively. In a book review on the subject I heard, the authors found that the factors which caused good efficiency and effectiveness were not related to Private or Public. Meaning that as many Private service utilities were run badly as were Public. The point of running them well is a separate issue - being Public instead of Private is not the casual factor.

If you feel that your Government is not up to running a Public Health service well, then naturally that's the last thing you want. But that is because of the way it is set up -  mechanisms put in place - and the quality of the Government. If you don't trust them to do it well, then you are right to be concerned.

There are many countries in which the Public Health system is run well. Personally I think the best systems are where they have both - get basic Health service from Public system, and improved service if you pay extra and can afford it, from the Private sector.

But the big issue across the globe now, is the cost. Both Private and Public exert huge pressure to bring down costs, and not all of that is directed to the Pharmo companies - often it is directed to the doctors, which lowers the service quality for patients.

What Public Health systems can do, is to subsidise (as well as forcing lower costs on doctors and pharmos). That is a good goal, however from what I hear, even countries who are handling that well are now in for trouble, because the costs are going up way beyond any country to subsidise.

There seems little way out, but opting for Private is going to be reduced to smaller and smaller numbers of extremely wealthy people. There is going to have to be some Public system, and unfortunately the service will be minimal. But minimal is better than nothing.

If in SA they are actually wanting to wipe out the Private Health, then that is definitely a worry. The US plan looks quite different to that. It will be very interesting to see how it ends up, because all countries are worried and watching for models which will offer better outcomes.

[daphne]

In principle I am not against a Public Health system. We had a good one here that over the years has been destroyed. Our doctors and technical and nursing staff were amongst the best in the world, and were sought after by other countries. The problem here is different from the USA in that our private health is only accessable to a small minority. However, it is that small minority that currently foots the tax bill too. We are in a situation where the socialists and communists (alliance partners of the ANC) want to enforce their ideologies. Unfortunately we have to small a tax base for welfare solutions. That is not good political admittance since everything has been promised to everyone and so far not delivered. Our private health care is expensive for the majority but not too expensive for earners who priotrise their after tax earnings. The hardest hit in this will be the "middle class", a truly colour-blind class - actually the only colour-blid class in South Africa, We have our ultra rich, which today has a growing population of the previously disadvantaged, who themselves have private health care (send their kids to private schools, everything private in fact) and a growing poverty class, with unemployment. The textile workers are now out on strike for better pay, but our raw material is sent to China and brought back as manufactured goods. It is cheaper to do so and the government encourages it with all their 'deals' with China. In the meanwhile, they are baling our the industry with tax money. We have private and public schools, and 'semi' schools, which are public but have additional funds from parents to supplement government limits. Those schools are all in 'middle class' areas. They governenment now is trying to stop that so that all public schools will be the same and all teachers earn the same irrespective of ability and experience. The current public schools are doing very badly, even the government admit that, What they are doing here is instead up uplifting the whole, they are trying to bring down to the lowest common denominator.
We have just introduced a BRT system with its very running. A briliant idea since we desperately need good safe public transport. The taxi unions went out on strike. They are 'private' owned - the owners called a strike - because it will affect their business. The ones affected have been brought into consultation with the BRT and solutions have been found and are being implemented. But a whole lot of others saw an opportunity and decided to jump on the gravy train.
Our previous Minister of Finance, now a minister in the Presidency called business cowards for not standing up to the unions. Caused an uproar it did! But he is quite right. Business here is as greedy as the government. They make good bedfellows and in the process, the majority suffer. The government alliance is beset with problems. It is not that easy for a Liberation party to become a political and ruling party without some adjustment. When the unions call a strike, the main employer is the government through its local provincial and national authorities. The unions are part of the government in its tripart alliance (ANC African National Congress, COSATU - Council of South African Trade Unions - and the SACP South African Communist Party) The government is made up of Nationalists, unionists and communists and the country can't afford that. Corruption is rife and is a form of "redistribution of wealth". They know there is no way they can fulfil their promises to the voters so they distract with more meetings, more commissions and more congresses. All thats really needed is to place competent peopl in delivery positions. Were that done, and we could see an improvement in the public health sector, I don't think many would be against its implementation. We live in a unique country that requires unique solutions, and we do need access for the majority to good free (because they are not earners) basic amenities of health housing and education. We have a population problem as well as a money problem, not to mention a historical problem.
Interesting times! And my controlled folly! 

[Michael]

Yes, each country is very different.

[Nichi]

"When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and - eventually - incapable of determining their own destinies."

   -- Richard M. Nixon, "Classification and Declassification of National
      Security Information and Material", March 8, 1972
      (quoted in David Wise, "The Politics of Lying")

[erik]

Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes

David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 28 September 2009

• Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060
• Increase could threaten water supply of half world population

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/met-office-study-global-warming

Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.

The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.

Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen.

"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations, but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise," said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who will announce the findings today at a conference at Oxford University. "People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."

According to scientists, a 4C rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world's population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.

A 4C average would mask more severe local impacts: the Arctic and western and southern Africa could experience warming up to 10C, the Met Office report warns.

The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said the world would probably warm by 4C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The IPCC also listed a more severe scenario, with emissions and temperatures rising further because of more intensive fossil fuel burning, but this was not considered realistic. "That scenario was downplayed because we were more conservative a few years ago. But the way we are going, the most severe scenario is looking more plausible," Betts said.

A report last week from the UN Environment Programme said emissions since 2000 have risen faster than even this IPCC worst-case scenario. "In the 1990s, these scenarios all assumed political will or other phenomena would have brought about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by this point. In fact, CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating."

The Met Office scientists used new versions of the computer models used to set the IPCC predictions, updated to include so-called carbon feedbacks or tipping points, which occur when warmer temperatures release more carbon, such as from soils.

When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.

A poll of 200 climate experts for the Guardian earlier this year found that most of them expected a temperature rise of 3C-4C by the end of the century.

The implications of a 4C rise on agriculture, water supplies and wildlife will be discussed at the Oxford conference, which organisers have billed as the first to properly consider such a dramatic scenario.

Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford who has organised the conference, said: "If we get a weak agreement at Copenhagen then there is not just a slight chance of a 4C rise, there is a really big chance. It's only in the last five years that scientists have started to realise that 4C is becoming increasingly likely and something we need to look at seriously." Limiting global warming to 2C could only be achieved with new technology to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "I think the policy makers know that. I think there is an implicit understanding that they are negotiating not about 2C but 3C or 5C."

[erik]

Arctic seas turn to acid, putting vital food chain at risk

Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/arctic-seas-turn-to-acid

Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.

"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.

This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.

His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.

The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral – unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.

"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.

"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase – and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."

This was backed by other speakers at the conference. Daniel Conley, of Lund University, Sweden, said that increasing acidity levels, sea-level rises and temperature changes now threatened to bring about irreversible loss of biodiversity in the sea. Christoph Heinze, of Bergen University, Norway, said his studies, part of the EU CarboOcean project, had found that carbon from the atmosphere was being transported into the oceans' deeper waters far more rapidly than expected and was already having a corrosive effect on life forms there.

The oceans' vulnerability to climate change and rising carbon-dioxide levels has also been a key factor in the launching of the EU's Tara Ocean project at Barcelona. The expedition, on the sailing ship Tara, will take three years to circumnavigate the globe, culminating in a voyage through the icy Northwest Passage in Canada, and will make continual and detailed samplings of seawater to study its life forms.

A litre of seawater contains between 1bn and 10bn single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, between 10bn and 100bn viruses and a vast number of more complex, microscopic creatures known as zooplankton, said Chris Bowler, a marine biologist on Tara.

"People think they are just swimming in water when they go for a dip in the sea," he said. "In fact, they are bathing in a plankton soup."

That plankton soup is of crucial importance to the planet, he added. "As much carbon dioxide is absorbed by plankton as is absorbed by tropical rainforests. Its health is therefore of crucial importance to us all."

However, only 1% of the life forms found in the sea have been properly identified and studied, said Bowler. "The aim of the Tara project is to correct some of that ignorance and identify many more of these organisms while we still have the chance. Issues like ocean acidification, rising sea levels and global warming will not be concerns at the back of our minds. They will be a key focus for the work that we do while we are on our expedition."

[erik]

US climate bill not likely this year, says Obama adviser

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 October 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/04/us-climate-change-bill-browner

The White House has said for the first time that it does not expect to see a climate change bill this year, removing one of the key elements for reaching an international agreement to avoid catastrophic global warming.

In a seminar in Washington, Barack Obama's main energy adviser, Carol Browner, gave the clearest indication to date that the administration did not expect the Senate to vote on a climate change bill before an international meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Browner spoke barely 48 hours after Senate Democrats staged a campaign-style rally in support of a climate change bill that seeks to cut US emissions by 20% on 2005 levels by 2020.

"Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Browner told a conference hosted by the Atlantic magazine on Friday. "I think we would all agree the likelihood that you'd have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go in December is not likely."

Browner's bleak assessment deepens concerns that negotiations, already deadlocked, will fail to produce a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen. It also threatens to further dampen the prospects for a bill that was struggling for support among conservative and rustbelt Democrats.

The UN has cast the Copenhagen meeting as a last chance for countries to reach an agreement to avoid the most disastrous effects of warming. Negotiators – including the state department's climate change envoy – admit it will be far harder to reach such a deal unless America, historically the world's biggest polluter, shows it is willing to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Browner's comments undercut a campaign by Democratic leaders in the Senate, corporations and environmental organisations to try to build momentum behind the bill. The day before Browner's comments, John Kerry, the former presidential candidate who is one of the sponsors of the cap-and-trade bill, told a conference he remained confident the bill would squeak through the Senate.

Her remarks also raise further doubts about how forcefully the Obama administration is willing to press the Senate for a climate bill in the midst of its struggles over healthcare.

In the last two weeks, diplomats have grown increasingly frustrated with the administration. Negotiators say they understand Obama would have to struggle to get this agenda through the Senate, but say the president has shied away from opportunities to make the case for climate change.

Obama came in for harsh criticism from environmental organisations for failing to urge the Senate to act during a speech to the United Nations summit on climate change late last month. Environmental groups called it a "missed opportunity".

"If there is no serious US legislation in place then we will have delegations arriving and getting increasingly frustrated with nothing happening," said John Bruton, the European Union's ambassador.

[erik]

Soot clouds pose threat to Himalayan glaciers

Randeep Ramesh and Suzanne Goldenberg 
The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/04/climate-change-melting-himalayan-glaciers

Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau that feed the river systems of almost half the world's people are melting faster because of the effects of clouds of soot from diesel fumes and wood fires, according to scientists in India and China.

The results, to be announced this month in Kashmir, show for the first time that clouds of soot – made up of tiny particles of "black carbon" emitted from old diesel engines and from cooking with wood, crop waste or cow dung – are "unequivocally having an impact on glacial melting" in the Himalayas.

Scientists say that, while the threat of carbon dioxide to global warming has been accepted, soot from developing countries is a largely unappreciated cause of rising temperatures. Once the black carbon lands on glaciers, it absorbs sunlight that would otherwise be reflected by the snow, leading to melting. "This is a huge problem which we are ignoring," said Professor Syed Hasnain of the Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) in Delhi. "We are finding concentrations of black carbon in the Himalayas in what are supposed to be pristine, untouched environments."

The institute has set up two sensors in the Himalayas, one on the Kholai glacier that sits on the mountain range's western flank in Kashmir and the other flowing through the eastern reaches in Sikkim. Glaciers in this region feed most of the major rivers in Asia. The short-term result of substantial melting is severe flooding downstream.

Hasnain says India and China produce about a third of the world's black carbon, and both countries have been slow to act. "India is the worst. At least in China the state has moved to measure the problem. In Delhi no government agency has put any sensors on the ground. [Teri] is doing it by ourselves."

In August this year Yao Tandong, director of China's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, projected "a 43% decrease in glacial area by 2070", adding that "more and more scientists have come to recognise the impact of black carbon in glacial melting".

Black carbon's role has only recently been recognised – it was not mentioned as a factor in the UN's major 2007 report on climate change –but this month the UN environment programme called for cuts in black carbon output. In November it will publish a report stating that 50% of the emissions causing global warming are from non-CO2 pollutants.

Decreasing black carbon emissions should be a relatively cheap way to significantly curb global warming. Black carbon falls from the atmosphere after just a couple of weeks, and replacing primitive cooking stoves with modern versions that emit far less soot could quickly end the problem. Controlling traffic in the Himalayan region should help ease the harm done by emissions from diesel engines.

Both New Delhi and Beijing, say experts, have been reluctant to come forward with plans on black carbon because they do not want attention diverted from richer nations' responsibility to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

At a high-level forum on energy in Washington on Thursday, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, rejected attempts to link black carbon to the efforts to reach an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Black carbon had no place in the Copenhagen negotiations towards a global pact on global warming, he said. "Black carbon is another issue. I know there is now a desire to bring the black carbon issue into the mainstream. I am simply not in favour of it."

[Michael]

It's all very serious shit.
And mark my words, in the face of this calamity, nothing will be done.

[erik]

It's all very serious shit.
And mark my words, in the face of this calamity, nothing will be done.

The thing that is of practical interest, though, is how much of that cataclysm will we actually see and experience in coming years.

[erik]

The more visible countless aspects of current world crisis become, the more apparent it is that the complexity of the crisis is beyond the management capability of rational human mind. Arthur C. Clarke said through the mouth of an alien having immeasurably higher development level: 'You, humans, could manage a solar system or two at best, but 87 million stars are not for you.' It seems that even one planet is beyond us. How to balance reasonably the drive to have unlimited sex and give birth to countless babies with the finiteness of our resources? How to manage an ecosystem so complex that the most powerful computer models are only painfully crude approximations of?

In University of Kiel, they carried out an experiment with students having IQs above 160. They designed a computer model simulating a failing state in Africa. That country was plagued by various natural disasters, failing industrial and agricultural infrastructure and rapturing social fabric. The students were given all of the most advanced tools and means available to our modern society and they were asked to improve the state of that society. The best result was extension of the ongoing agony by miserable 7 years... Other attempts lead to a much faster collapse. Way too complicated...

The other inconvenient truth: the crisis in global land use

As the international community focuses on climate change as the great challenge of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem - the global crisis in land use. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Jonathan Foley
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 October 2009 11.47 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/06/global-land-use

It's taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change. Collectively, we are beginning to acknowledge that our long addiction to fossil fuels — which has been harming our national security, our economy and our environment for decades — must end. The question today is no longer why, but how. The die is cast, and our relationship to energy will never be the same.

Unfortunately, this positive shift in the national zeitgeist has had an unintended downside. In the rush to portray the perils of climate change, many other serious issues have been largely ignored. Climate change has become the poster child of environmental crises, complete with its own celebrities and campaigners. But is it so serious that we can afford to overlook the rise of infectious disease, the collapse of fisheries, the ongoing loss of forests and biodiversity, and the depletion of global water supplies?

Although I'm a climate scientist by training, I worry about this collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems. Learning from the research my colleagues and I have done over the past decade, I fear we are neglecting another, equally inconvenient truth: that we now face a global crisis in land use and agriculture that could undermine the health, security, and sustainability of our civilization.

Our use of land, particularly for agriculture, is absolutely essential to the success of the human race. We depend on agriculture to supply us with food, feed, fiber, and, increasingly, biofuels. Without a highly efficient, productive, and resilient agricultural system, our society would collapse almost overnight.

But we are demanding more and more from our global agricultural systems, pushing them to their very limits. Continued population growth (adding more than 70 million people to the world every year), changing dietary preferences (including more meat and dairy consumption), rising energy prices, and increasing needs for bioenergy sources are putting tremendous pressure on the world's resources. And, if we want any hope of keeping up with these demands, we'll need to double, perhaps triple, the agricultural production of the planet in the next 30 to 40 years.

Meeting these huge new agricultural demands will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. At present, it is completely unclear how (and if) we can do it.

If this wasn't enough, we must also address the massive environmental impacts of our current agricultural practices, which new evidence indicates rival the impacts of climate change. Consider the following.

Already, we have cleared or converted more than 35 percent of the earth's ice-free land surface for agriculture, whether for croplands, pastures or rangelands. In fact, the area used for agriculture is nearly 60 times larger than the area of all of the world's cities and suburbs. Since the last ice age, nothing has been more disruptive to the planet's ecosystems than agriculture. What will happen to our remaining ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, if we need to double or triple world agricultural production, while simultaneously coping with climate change?

Freshwater decline. Across the globe, we already use a staggering 4,000 cubic kilometers of water per year, withdrawn from our streams, rivers, lakes and aquifers. Of this, 70 percent is used for irrigation, the single biggest use of water, by far, on the globe. As a result, many large rivers have greatly reduced flows and some routinely dry up. Just look at the Aral Sea, now turned to desert, or the mighty Colorado River, which no longer sends any water to the ocean, for living proof. And the extraction of water from deep groundwater reserves is almost universally unsustainable, and has resulted in rapidly declining water tables in many regions of the world. Future water demands from increasing population and agricultural consumption will likely climb between 4,500 and 6,200 cubic kilometers per year, hugely compounding the impacts of climate change, especially in arid regions.

Widespread pollution. Agriculture, particularly the use of industrial fertilizers and other chemicals, has fundamentally upset the chemistry of the entire planet. Already, the use of fertilizers has more than doubled the flows of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds in the environment, resulting in widespread water pollution and the massive degradation of lakes and rivers. Excess nutrient pollution is now so widespread, it is even contributing to the disruption of coastal oceans and fishing grounds by creating hypoxic "dead zones," including one in the Gulf of Mexico. Given our current practices, future increases in food demand will dramatically increase water pollution and ecosystem destruction through agricultural effluent. Ironically, the fertilizer runoff from farmlands compromises another crucial source of food: coastal fishing grounds.

Greenhouse gas emissions. Last, but certainly not least, land use is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Of the three most important man-made greenhouse gasses — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — land use and agricultural practices, including tropical deforestation, emit 30 percent of the total. That's more than the emissions from all the world's passenger cars, trucks, trains and planes, or the emissions from all electricity generation or manufacturing. Compared to any other human activity, land use and agriculture are the greatest emitters of greenhouse gasses. The vast majority comes from deforestation, methane emissions from animals and rice fields, and nitrous oxide emissions from heavily fertilized fields. Yet, for some reason, agriculture has been largely able to avoid the attention of emissions reductions policies.

The list of environmental impacts from agricultural land use goes on and on — and clearly threatens human well-being and the health of the biosphere as much as global warming. In fact, in a recent paper in Nature, a number of us documented "planetary boundaries" where large-scale environmental changes could result in catastrophic tipping points. Of those changes, an equal number were tied to climate change and CO2 emissions as were connected to land-use and agriculture.

From these newly revealed facts, it's clear that we must consider multiple inconvenient truths. The future of our civilization and our planet requires that we simultaneously address the grand challenges of climate change and land use, ultimately finding new ways to meet the needs of our economy, our security and the environment. Anything less will be a complete catastrophe.

So, what are the solutions to the global land crisis? Here are just a few to start with.

First, acknowledge the problem. Even in circles of well-informed scientists and agricultural experts, the notion that our land use and agricultural practices rival climate change as a global environmental threat comes as a big surprise. Clearly we need to have a larger international conversation about this issue, on par with the recent efforts of the climate change community and Al Gore, to give it the attention it deserves.

Invest in revolutionary agricultural solutions. The Obama administration has invested billions of dollars into new energy technology, research and infrastructure, and aggressive plans for new climate mitigation policies are being developed. These strategies are important, but I wonder where the stimulus funding for new "out of the box" agricultural research is? Where are we investing public dollars in revolutionary approaches to feeding the world, while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture? These might include the development of new hybrid crops, designed to use water and nitrogen more efficiently, or the invention of perennial crops that don't need to be planted every year. Don't such ideas count as national priorities, too? Can't we afford to launch a "Greener" Revolution?

Bridge the artificial divide between production agriculture and environmental conservation. We cannot solve these problems by boosting agricultural production at the expense of the environment, nor can we ignore the growing need for food in the name of preserving natural ecosystems. Instead, we must find ways to simultaneously increase production of our agricultural systems while greatly reducing their environmental impacts. This is not going to be easy. Yet, drawing on the lessons from recent research, including the successes and failures of local organic practice, combined with the efficiency and scalability of commercial agriculture, will be crucial. In recent years, for example, U.S. farmers — working with agricultural experts — have dramatically improved practices in the corn and soybean belt, cutting down on erosion, nutrient loss, and groundwater pollution, even as yields have continued to increase. As a first step, advocates of environmental conservation, organic farming and commercial agriculture all need to put down their guns and work toward solving the problems of food security and the environment — with everyone at the table.

Providing for the basic needs of 9 billion-plus people, without ruining the biosphere in the process, will be one of the greatest challenges our species has ever faced. It will require the imagination, determination and hard work of countless people from all over the world, embarked on one of the noblest causes in history.

But the first step is admitting we have more than one problem.