Here’s a more recent one made with processing.

RIP, Benoît Mandelbrot who studied them, and thanks.

Update: The NY Times has an obituary.

What hope do we have?

There are more hungry people in the world than ever before. More than one billion people, almost a sixth of humanity, are now undernourished, according to the latest estimates from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

From: The United Nations World Food Program.

That’s shocking. But combine it with the following…

Thus, taking the energy value of the meat produced into consideration, the loss of calories by feeding the cereals to animals instead of using the cereals directly as human food represents the annual calorie need for more than 3.5 billion people.

From: The United Nations Environment Program.

Why is this important? Because according to a 2006 report from the United Nations called ‘Livestock’s long shadow‘, the livestock industry accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all of transport combined. I’ve blogged about this before.

The full text of his speech is here: John Key’s statement to the Opening of the 64th General Assembly.

Here’s a quote, but read the whole speech to get the context. I don’t want to misrepresent the full intended meaning.

New Zealand is acutely conscious that most of our greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock methane emissions, which so far no technology can reduce.

At the same time we are proud of our role as a food producer to the world and the contribution we can make to assuring food-security for the world’s people.

Our challenge is to find a way to balance growth in agricultural production with the need to reduce emissions and reach climate change targets.

This is not just a challenge for New Zealand, but one for the world.

Agricultural emissions make up 14% of all emissions worldwide. As demand for food rises, so will those emissions. Yet so far the only known way to achieve emission reductions from agriculture is through reductions in output.

That is not an acceptable response. Not for New Zealand. And not for a growing world that seeks freedom from hunger.

I’m embarrassed I ever ate fish actually. Having done some diving and snorkelling and seen how amazing coral and undersea life is, I’m disgusted that I may have contributed to the type of destruction shown in this video:

It’s scary what’s happening out there. The Guardian recently had a story about EU countries blocking a ban on Bluefin tuna fishing.

A fortnight ago the European commission agreed, after weeks of argument, to back a proposal from Monaco to ban trade in bluefin tuna. If the EU had voted for the ban at an international forum next March, fishing for bluefin tuna would have been effectively outlawed, at least temporarily.

Despite optimism that the ban, supported by 21 EU governments, would go ahead, the move was blocked at a Brussels meeting late yesterday by Malta, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, and Greece.

“Deplorable,” said Xavier Pastor, head of the Oceana fisheries conservation lobby group in Europe. “They are pushing tuna to the point of no return.”

“Enough is enough,” said Aaron McLoughlin, head of the WWF European marine programme. “It is once again large-scale Mediterranean fishing interests trying to gang up against the long-term survival of Atlantic bluefin tuna.”

Why do I care? Because I’ve read about Bluefin tuna and I think they, like all other sea life, are worth keeping around.

The doctor
I went to a presentation given by Dr Aryan Tivokkoli about the effects of animal farming on the environment (Update: The presentation is now available online here: Our diet – leading to a sustainable future or killing our planet?). I came away from it with a whole range of new ideas, things I’d never even thought about before. Here are some of the facts that have stuck with me:

• The livestock sector is responsible for more green house gas emissions than than the transport sector.
• Over one quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land is used up for animal grazing.
• One third of the Earth’s arable land is used up growing food for animals.

Those facts seem compelling, but I wanted to check them.

The UN report
If you search for information on this stuff you find a racket of opinion. I ended up deciding I needed to pick a source I could trust. Random New Scientist articles? No. Wikipedia? No. Ultimately I arrived at ‘Livestock’s long shadow’ It’s a 2006 report from The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. I decided this was a trustworthy source. I haven’t read all of the report, but I’m working on it. You can read the executive summary and get a flavour. Here are some quotes.

With rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting icecaps and glaciers, shifting ocean currents and weather patterns, climate change is the most serious challenge facing the human race.

The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.

The livestock sector is by far the single largest anthropogenic user of land. The total area occupied by grazing is equivalent to 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet. In addition, the total area dedicated to feedcrop production amounts to 33 percent of total arable land. In all, livestock production accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.

Expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America where the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring – 70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder. About 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands, with 73 percent of rangelands in dry areas, have been degraded to some extent, mostly through overgrazing, compaction and erosion created by livestock action. The dry lands in particular are affected by these trends, as livestock are often the only source of livelihoods for the people living in these areas.

The world is moving towards increasing problems of freshwater shortage, scarcity and depletion, with 64 percent of the world’s population expected to live in water-stressed basins by 2025.

The livestock sector is a key player in increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human water use, mostly for the irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others. The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures. Global figures are not available but in the United States, with the world’s fourth largest land area, livestock are responsible for an estimated 55 percent of erosion and sediment, 37 percent of pesticide use, 50 percent of antibiotic use, and a third of the loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources.

I would be misrepresenting the report if I didn't mention that it offers possible solutions to the problems of animal agriculture. But I think you can see where I'm going with this.

The chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri
He’s vegetarian.

He succinctly makes the case for eating less meat here: Lifestyle Changes for A Healthy Planet. Here’s a quote:

An interesting comparison between a vegetarian meal and a beef steak, for instance, was provided by The New York Times in its issue of 27 January 2008 which is revealing. A meal consisting of 1 cup of broccoli, 1 cup of eggplant, 4 ounces cauliflower and 8 ounces of rice results in 0.4 pounds of emissions of CO2 equivalent. On the other hand a 6 ounce beef steak results in 10 pounds of CO2 equivalent emissions, which amount to 25 times that of the vegetarian meal with which the comparison was made.

Yeah, but why have I become vegetarian?
Based on this information I can’t justify eating meat any more than I could justify driving an SUV. From my reading on the subject becoming a vegetarian seems to be one of the most profound things I can do to reduce my ‘carbon footprint’ and do my part in the fight against human-induced climate change.

The Dublin event details are here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_rsvp/?id=132856

The Wellington event details are here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_rsvp/?id=133069

A list of all events worldwide is here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tcktcktck_map/

What is it?

On September 21, we’re getting together in public places all round the world for “wake-up call” flashmob events pressing our leaders to take action on climate.

The Global Wake-Up Call is a joint effort of the TckTckTck Campaign — an alliance, named for a “tck”ing clock, of organizations and individuals around the world working for an ambitious, fair, and binding global climate treaty. Avaaz’s partners at TckTckTck include 350.org, Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, the Age of Stupid and many others.

http://tcktcktck.org/

Anyway, statistics are always a crowd puller, so here’s some.

Statistic: I ignored approximately 7 Facebook group invitations today (no offense to those that sent them to me). Here’s some of the fallout:

• You ignored an invitation to join the group The Magnificent 7′s.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group SAVE OUR SPICE BURGERS.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group The Bad Dad’s Survival Guide.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group VIRTU Studios, Ireland.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group “ICE”: In Case Of Emergency.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group Earth Hour UK.
• You ignored an invitation to join the group Leave Conor Casby Alone!

Another statistic: When I was born there was between 3 and 4 billion people on earth. When I die there will be between 9 and 10 billion. That’s about increase of about 6 or 7 billion. There are between 6 and 7 billion people on earth now. To put that another way: in my lifetime the world’s population will have nearly tripled.

Another statistic: I have 17 draft blog posts. Here’s the titles:

• The first 10 links on Digg and why I didn’t visit them
• Robot Torture
• The Blog Post Graveyard
• Darwin
• Meshuggah – Corridor of Chameleons
• image drafts
• Stuff I’d like to see invented before I die
• OLD Friday dedication #1 – That old debate: Objective quality
• Earthquakes
• (no title)
• Bleakonomics and the Down Hill Peril
• Atheism
• Chair Entity at Te Papa
• (no title)
• (no title)
• (no title)
• Opinions
• Thailand: The Optimised Version

Another statistic: I have experienced 7 earthquakes. Here they are:

• Earthquake 1
• Earthquake 2
• Earthquake 3
• Earthquake 4
• Earthquake 5
• Earthquake 6
• Earthquake 7

These might not actually be statistics. Maybe just facts. I dunno.

I have some blogger friends out there that have gone quiet over the past few months. You know who you are. My message to them: start posting again!