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Brazil has capacity to turn more land into farmland, but at the cost of some of the incredible diversity found there. Brown asks how many other species will we sacrifice and what natural services will we lose when we turn vast forests and marsh into tilled acreage.
The complexity of this problem is much different than it was in the 1970s.
"Today food security--once the exclusive province of agricultural ministers--is a far more complex issue. It is perhaps a commentary on the complexity of our time that decisions made in ministries of energy can have a greater effect on future food security than those made in ministries of agriculture. Policies formulated by ministers of water resources can also directly affect food production and food prices. And with irrigation water availability per person shrinking for the world as a whole, ministries of health and family planning may also have a greater effect on future food security than ministries of agriculture."
He believes that it is urgent to address this problem and says that the world will need to act on three fronts:
1. Raise water productivity
2. Cut carbon emissions
3. Stabilize population
And as he says, we have the technology to address these issues. For example, if we accelerate the rollout of hybrid technology in our cars, we could cut our use of oil by 50%. Furthermore, there are a number of renewable energy sources that are ready to go online. Europe is actively expanding their use of wind power to deliver energy for their economies.
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has been working on technologies that help as well. They are a non-profit think tank that have been working since the 70s on how to move our country to a more sustainable model mixing both free-market ideas with governmental incentives that has attracted both conservative and liberal backing.
Last year RMI worked with industry and the Pentagon to publish a report called Winning the Oil Endgame. This report has a number of suggestions of what could be done to wean the U.S. economy off oil by 2025 including using hybrid technology combined with ultralight composites that reduce the weight of cars, trucks and airplanes.
Today, the threat of global warming, shrinking water supplies and food scarcity creates an ominous picture of the future. Yet the future of our world can be a made a great deal brighter by changing the economy to reward efficiency and innovation. Much of the technology needed to reduce our dependence on carbon and improve our ability to use both energy and water more efficiently is already available. What we need now is the will to step up to the challenge.
For more information, see www.earth-policy.org and www.rmi.org. You can learn more about Winning the Oil Endgame by visiting www.oilendgame.org
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