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Feeding the Fire:
Food, energy & the spectre of scarcity
Food and energy: considered together, they offer a powerful lens for understanding the nature and magnitude of the environmental challenges we face. This issue of Briarpatch features contributions from some of the leading visionary thinkers in their fields, including Richard Heinberg, Helen Caldicott, Nettie Wiebe and others.
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By Lorne Brown
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
Selective co-operation among parties in several dozen constituencies could deny Stephen Harper control of the country in the next election.
Much of what I am about to say would be unnecessary if Canada had a system of proportional representation like most countries claiming to be democracies. A proportional representation system would ensure that the percentage of seats allocated to each party in Parliament actually reflects the percentage of Canadians who voted for that party. Canada, however, like the United States and Great Britain, still uses the old “winner take all” system, in which only voters who support the most popular candidate in their riding are represented in Ottawa. Given Canada’s geographical and cultural peculiarities, this virtually guarantees that even most so-called “majority” governments are elected by a minority of the population.
By Dave Oswald Mitchell
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
“When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.”
Rudolf Bahro
I’VE BEEN TRYING LATELY TO FIND A HEALTHY balance between optimism and pessimism, hope and despair. Surveying the accumulating evidence of out-of-control climate change, pending oil and gas production peaks, collapsing ecosystems, and the growing strains on our industrial food system, it would seem that even hope has become a scarce resource.
By Tyler McCreary
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
“Years ago, coal bed methane was known only to coal miners and their canaries.”
![[rally]](http://www.briarpatchmagazine.com/batches/feb07/cbmrally.jpg)
Photo by Pat Moss
THE PICTURESQUE BULKLEY VALLEY, nestled in northwestern British Columbia, presents an idyllic image of rural life. In these lands, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation maintain their livelihoods and governance on their traditional territory, while nearby, settlers have flourished in agriculture, forestry, mining and tourism over the past hundred years. Divergent interests have split these constituencies in the past, but now Aboriginal and settler communities have found common cause against a proposal promoted by the provincial government: coal bed methane development.
By Richard Heinberg
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
“The energy transition of the twenty-first century is probably the greatest challenge our species has ever faced.”
Energy and agriculture are intimately linked. A calorie, remember, is a measure of energy. Food itself is energy. To truly understand the trends that will shape the future of agriculture, we need to understand our relationship with energy. In particular, we need to look closely at industrial agriculture�s dependence on fossil fuels, and our own dependence on industrial agriculture.
By Darrin Qualman
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
![[campesino]](http://www.briarpatchmagazine.com/batches/feb07/campesino.jpg)
Illustration by Alain Goncalves
HUMANITY IS IN THE FASTEST, most sustained food supply drawdown in the 46-year period for which we have data. Moreover, excepting the World Wars, it is probable we�re seeing the fastest, most sustained drawdown in a century, maybe longer.
Worldwide, in six of the past seven years, we consumed more grain than farmers produced. We’ve cut supplies in half over that seven-year period, reducing our grain-on-hand from a 115-day supply to a 57-day supply.
An Interview with John Miller, Families Against Radiation Exposure
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
![[citizens' burden]](http://www.briarpatchmagazine.com/batches/feb07/burden.jpg)
Illustration by Aimee van Drimmelen
Port Hope, Ontario, has long been at the nucleus of uranium refining in Canada. In 2003, Cameco, the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company, proposed an expansion of its existing uranium refinery to begin producing enriched uranium—a process that increases both the risk of a criticality accident and the environmental risk.
Questions about these risks led citizens of Port Hope to form Families Against Radiation Exposure (FARE) in May, 2004. FARE launched a successful 16-month campaign against the plans of Cameco Corporation to introduce enriched uranium to Port Hope. Faced with unprecedented scrutiny and questions it could not or would not answer, Cameco withdrew its application.
Briarpatch’s Tyler McCreary and Ken Sailor caught up with FARE President John Miller to discuss the role that ordinary citizens played in the process.
“It shouldn’t be our job to prove that this is dangerous; it should be their job to prove that it is safe.”
Briarpatch: Can you tell us a little about FARE?
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2007
“Locked Dumpsters Full of Mangoes: Hungry people, wasted food, and the politics of dumpster diving”
Moira Peters
The Dominion
December 4, 2006
Unappeasable customers, bitter bosses and deserted lunch shifts; it is no secret that restaurant work can be soul-crushing. However, the most painful moments in the food industry — ask anyone who has worked in a cafe�, restaurant, bar or food store — are moments spent throwing away good food.
