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Global warming is about the way we live

Iqbal Latif - 5/20/2008

As the world's poor suffer from severe food shortages, we 'waste' and cry about 'CO2 footprint' in the same breath at the same time. If we cut waste, we can help cut global warming, if there is one.

6.7 million tonnes of food is unnecessarily wasted in the UK every year. Stopping the waste of good food could avoid 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from being emitted each year – the same as taking 1 in 5 cars off of UK roads.

New research published by WRAP shows the cost of needlessly wasted food to UK households as £10 billion a year, £2 billion higher than previously estimated. The research gives detailed new insights into the nature and amount of food waste thrown away in the UK and is believed to be the most comprehensive study of its kind ever carried out. It reveals that the average household throws out £420 of good food a year, while for the average family with children, it’s higher at £610.

Researchers found that more than half the good food thrown out, worth £6 billion a year, is bought and simply left unused or untouched. For example, each day 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots, 5,500 whole chickens and 440,000 ready meals are thrown away in the UK. The study revealed that £1 billion worth of wasted food is still “in date”. It costs local authorities £1 billion a year to dispose of food waste.

Profligacy of humans sees no human bounds. Look at the pulpits from which the likes of Gore look down and tell the world how we are sinking ourselves into a deserted planet. But hold on! It is our own carbon print that needs to matter - we need to make the first sacrifice. The rising oil prices can be arrested if we drive intelligently, if we drop gas guzzlers, if we car pool and if we share and, instead of living in a nuclear individual self, look for new collaborations if our own portion of CO2 emissions and print is 500 times that of a poor man in 'sub Saharan Africa or Gobi.'

Let's not bark at the world and go back to the drawing board to cut our own waste; the 'warming' we have created is in our heads. Similar waste pattern can be observed in the USA and within EU countries. It is this waste that needs to be tackled if inequalities on global scale are to be addressed. Asking Indians to stop procreation is too much interference in personal freedoms; it is well advised that in tomorrow's world of inequities the same Indians will have the right to ask an equitable distribution of world resources and environment on the basis of per capita CO2 emissions. We are moving towards an age where, if we care about shared environment, we will need to address the concerns of the commons in our shared habitat.

WSJ reports: "According to the Department of Energy's most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.

Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data, it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that the population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.

It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia."

It is always nice to tell the Chinese and Indians to stop multiplying and use better harder contraceptives but population growth will only be arrested if we have universal education and universal prosperity and that can only come through the steady rise of new mankind that has better access to basic needs of life. A new India and a new China, with a strong middle class, will also become a lesser ballooning India and China. The most important step for us to recognise is our understanding of per capita CO2 emission. If we become equitable, waste will automatically be cut.

WSJ reports that ‘At the present time, American households emit 1.2 billion tons of CO2 – 20% higher than the entire nation's emissions must be in 2050. If households are to emit no more than their present share of CO2, emissions will have to be reduced to 204 million tons by 2050. But in 2050, there will be another 40 million residential households in the U.S.

Today, the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year (much more if you are Al Gore or John Edwards and live in a mansion). To stay within the magic number, average household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year. This is not enough juice to run the average hot water heater.

You can forget refrigerators, microwaves, clothes dryers and flat screen TVs. Even a house tricked out with all the latest high-efficiency EnergyStar appliances and compact fluorescent lights won't come close. The same daunting energy math applies to the industrial, commercial and transportation sectors as well. The clear implication is that we shall have to replace virtually the entire fossil fuel electricity infrastructure over the next four decades with CO2-free sources – a multi-trillion dollar proposition, if it can be done at all.’

The answer is not to reinvent the wheel but cut waste on all fronts. No one will be able to lower their standards of living; all this talk is hot air. What we need to do is to gradually lower our footprint by sharing and cutting waste, if we have a bed to sleep, a roof over our heads and can send our children to school, enjoy even the lowest standard of living with a calorie intake of 1500/day, we should be grateful. We are only amongst the 25% blessed ones on earth. If we have a bank account, we are amongst the 30% of the richest, and if we have the internet, we are amongst the 8% elite amongst the 'lesser' 6.4 billion people. Let the charity begin from our own doorstep. The idea of a nuclear family and extreme individualism is alien to mankind at large; let’s revisit our roots and start living and loving together. All this talk of green environment will only lead to our own doorstep; we need to accept responsibility and that is what the world needs now. Shortages and "warming" threats only help us stare at the possibility of a new social contract and new amenable style of living together.