Peters’ main example was, rightfully so, China, and the mixed responsibilities in ensuring that their export and trade industry does not single-handedly doom the planet to a carbon ridden future.

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Exponential increases in food prices in recent times have created enormous challenges to governments, national and international organizations, and aid agencies everywhere in the world. The World Bank has estimated that the rising food prices could push an additional 100 million people into poverty, thereby undermining the current efforts geared towards poverty reduction.

Increasing demand, decreasing supply, and the rising oil prices, which are in turn affected by numerous other factors, have been some reasons for the rise in food prices. Demand for cereal grains has been rising not only as a result of population growth, but also because of the growing middle class population in countries like China and India. Growing incomes have resulted in more demand for cereal grains directly and also more meat and dairy, which in turn has raised the demand for more grains as feed for the livestock. Another more important reason for the rise in demand for food crops is the development of bio-fuels, which have attracted a great deal of attention in recent times.

On the supply front, according to a publication by the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), droughts in Australia and Turkey and bad weather in Ukraine and parts of North America have resulted in less agricultural production which has caused food prices to rise. A more important, but often overlooked reason for the decrease in the supply of farm commodities against rising demand is that the subsidies that the developed countries have been providing to their agriculture sector have dampened world prices of those products and made the products of developing countries uncompetitive. This has had a tremendous impact in agricultural production in developing countries. In the absence of competitiveness and any other gains to be derived from agriculture, the developing countries have had less incentive to invest in agricultural infrastructure, agricultural research and development, and the like. As a result, agriculture production in these countries continually declined disrupting supply.

Then, who should take the blame of rising food prices? If we look at the demand side, we see that the demand has been rising in one part because of rising incomes in few developing countries, and on the other, because of the development of bio-fuels by the developed countries. On the supply side, drought and bad weather conditions are not something which are under human control, but less supply resulting from less production in developing countries owing to the agricultural policies of the developed countries definitely deserves attention.

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Does energy independence for America mean that we have to extinguish all trade and global relationships? Or can energy independence for America consist of developing our technologies and resources to the point that we have the ability to sustain ourselves while still choosing to participate in the global market?

Ron Bengston, in his essay The Cost of American Energy Independence states:

How much will energy independence cost the American people? Before the answer can be given and understood, the definition of energy independence needs to be clarified. It is important to first understand that independence does not mean closed borders or isolation. The dictionary definition of independence is: “freedom from outside interference and the right to self-government.” Energy Independence means energy sovereignty; a concept that should be thought of much like we think of national independence. For example, the USA has interdependent relationships with other countries, both economically and militarily — however, if America’s economic or military “interdependence” becomes “dependence” to the point of undermining national sovereignty, there will be a public outcry… much like we see today regarding America’s oil dependence.

Clearly defining energy independence is a critical step in this process. As we hear politicians speaking and media outlets reporting on this topic, we need to understand how they define energy independence. What we learn here is that John Stossel views an energy independent America as extreme isolation from global markets with untold negative results. Ron Bengston views an energy independent America as a strong sovereign nation with a place in the global market. How do you define energy independence?

It is imperative that we stay informed and active in this process. “Energy Independence” has become a buzz word, a common phrase we hear from politicians, commercials, and news reports. To be informed citizens and voters we must define the issues for ourselves and then understand the perspective of those to whom we are listening.

As we approach November this year it is vital to understand Barack Obama and John McCain both have plans to pursue and energy independent America. Which plan fits what you see as the best pursuit for our country?

Related Posts:

• Consumer-First Energy Act 2008 Lacks Support
• First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?
• BLM Applying NEPA to Large Scale Solar Energy on Public Lands

Photo Credit: Riah’s Photography via Flickr with permission

Many thanks to our friends at ZapRoot for featuring Sam Aola Ooko’s post on Chinese importation of African ivory on their latest show (above). We’re big fans… no one does indepth coverage with a healthy dose of humor better. Keep an eye out for more from ZapRoot on Thursdays: we’re going to start featuring them regularly on the GO Media blog network.

Listening to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni at any forum has never been boring. He can make his audiences jeer and laugh at the same time but not without drama at times. Museveni is both loved and hated by many because of his straight talking. But that is not to say he does so all the time.

One such time was at a recent Commonwealth leaders meeting in London where he happily laughed off the current global food crisis.

What seems good riddance for his small landlocked nation in east Africa has been boggling minds elsewhere and governments from Argentina to Senegal, from Egypt to South Africa, have grappled with riots of sorts over high prices of food. In Haiti, it cost the political life of a prime minister who had to vacate office for failing to soften the hunger pangs of his people.

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The New Face of Hunger is not a stark picture of battered and malnourished children in Ethiopia. It is the rise of commodity prices and super inflation now biting all across the globe.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation predicted in October 2007: “If prices continue to rise, it would not be surprising if we began to see food riots.” World food prices have risen 45 percent in the last nine months and there are serious shortages of rice, wheat and maize, according to FAO.

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Think as far back as two weeks ago. I know you can do it. Remember, Britney’s dad started taking control of her life… everyone you know bugged the hell out of you by constantly saying: “I drink your milkshake…”

Anyway, back then, Hillary and Obama were campaigning among blue-collar crowds in Ohio when news broke out that someone from the Obama camp called the Canadian government and reassured them that the tough talk on NAFTA was all just an act. Later, it was revealed that Hillary probably made a similar call.

All of which begged the question: Why would they care so much about Canada if this was about NAFTA? Hasn’t Uncle Lou told us time and time again that NAFTA is all about Mexico: its cheap labor, and its non-existent regulations, which entice American factories to relocate south of the border?

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The North American Free Trade Agreement, has been under scrutiny since its inception.

Thankfully we have Republican Candidate John McCain to defend this groundbreaking trade agreement.

NAFTA isn’t perfect. It was the first time a free trade agreement existed among such economically disparate countries. It was definitely a great experiment, and a lot has been learned from the results. There is no denying that there have been significant advances in a globally sustainable market that was enabled by NAFTA.

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Kids outgrow toys and clothes faster than the weeds in my garden (well, maybe not that fast). Beyond hosting your own kiddie swap, there are several sites now that make exchanging kids’ gear easier for families, who may not have local connections for such trades. Reusing and reducing the amount of your children’s paraphernalia will not only lessen your carbon footprint, but it will de-clutter your home!

• Zwaggle: Kristen Chase of Cool Mom Picks calls Zwaggle, “basically a more organized Freecycle“. Organization is good, especially since Zwaggle focuses on socially responsible parents. It is a simple concept: “You receive Zwaggle points (or Zoints) by giving your gently used things to other families, then use those Zoints to obtain “new” things for your family.” You can obtain Zoints just by signing up through Parent Bloggers Network.

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Adana is the nation’s fourth largest city and the centre for the Turkish cotton and textile industries. In this case the American cotton is sent to a factory where it is spun and used to make towels. Great attention is paid to ensure high quality, oh-so-soft and fluffy towels to attract the Turkish shopper… or rather, the American shopper. The towels are packaged and sent to the United States on another container ship. This is crazy!

There are of course the energy and CO2 emissions involved in this to and from tango across the ocean. But even if we put aside such issues in the name of international trade, it cannot be denied that the system is absurd, especially given the fact that Turkey is one of the top ten cotton producers in the world.

The story of the roving Georgian cotton was recently told on national French television, forming one chapter in the larger chronicle of one container ship’s circumnavigation of the globe. It reminded me of another story, that of the traveling tomatoes told in We Feed the World (2005), a film by Austrian director Erwin Wagenhofer. Spanish tomatoes, ripened under the warm southern sun, have long supplied northern European markets. I was an occasional consumer, preferring the Spanish variety to the other widely available option, the tasteless variety grown in rainy Holland. Note: I was, for as it turns out, those tomatoes are not at all sun-ripened.

As shown in Wagenhofer’s film, in southern Spain tomatoes and other vegetables are grown in greenhouses, greenhouses as far as the eye can see and beyond. And not a tree to be found. They are grown using an artificial (read inefficient), irrigation system manned by workers from North and West Africa. The men work long hours and live in makeshift shacks in between the greenhouses. A large percentage of the produce from southern Spain is transported by truck to northern Europe, and a certain percentage is sent to different countries in Africa. Even with the higher production costs in Europe plus the transportation costs, the Spanish tomatoes are sold in Africa at cheaper prices than locally grown tomatoes. Absurd.

Why such absurdities in world trade? Much of the answer lies in subsidies. The devastating effects of first-world subsidized agriculture on markets in the developing world are well known. Subsidized produce is artificially competitive, encourages an increase in production and pushes international market prices down. Local farmers in developing countries cannot compete, and are forced out of business and into poverty. Yet the developed world continues to subsidize its agriculture. Disagreements over reducing subsidies in general and export subsidies in particular, have threatened to jeopardize several rounds of international trade talks over the past years. Both the European Union and the United States remain reluctant to renounce their protectionist measures.

Of course not all subsidies should be abolished. As said a few months ago during a discussion here on Green Options about the US Farm Bill, subsidies should not be paid to the barons of unfair unsustainable trade, the mega agribusinesses, but should fund local organic outfits, thereby encouraging the shift to green sustainable agriculture.

We Feed the World

World Trade Organization

Oxfam on Cotton Subsidies

UN Food and Agriculture Organization

This is the resolution to a row that Starbucks began last year when the Ethiopian government filed applications to trademark its most famous coffee names. Securing the rights to these names would enable Ethiopia to capture more value from trade, by controlling their use in the market and thereby enabling farmers to receive a greater share of the retail price. Ethiopia’s coffee industry and farmers could earn an estimated $88 million USD extra per year, no small pittance when you consider that millions of Ethiopian coffee farmers bring home less than $300 USD per year for their crops.

In response, Starbucks successfully blocked Ethiopia's trademark applications in the US through some crafty maneuvering. According to Oxfam, the global coffee giant enlisted the support of the National Coffee Association to assist in blocking Ethiopia's bid. And it worked. In refusing Ethiopia its trademark, the US Patent and Trademark Office cited a position directly from the Starbucks' sponsored NCA letter of protest: The names Ethiopia wanted to trademark were "generic."

This move was good for Starbucks, which had been using the names of Ethiopia's famous coffee regions to sell roasted Ethiopian coffee for up to $26 per pound while farmers in Yirgacheffe were receiving as little as $0.60 to $1.40 per pound for their coffee. This angered international activist groups, including UK-based OxFam, which started a campaign to embarrass Starbucks for its blatant attempt to get richer off the backs of the poor and disadvantaged farmers who have lived for thousands of years in the regions that bear the profitable names in question. I participated in the campaign last November by handing out information to Starbucks employees in my hometown about the shameless profit-seeking, and having them and passers-by sign a petition. The campaign, which created consumer and even employee pressure, worked, and Starbucks announced a mutual agreement on Wednesday.

The agreement gives Ethiopia the marketing rights to the names of its coffee-producing regions while agreeing to contract out those rights to Starbucks for an undisclosed amount. Starbucks has also agreed to build a cupping laboratory in Ethiopia to help farmers improve the taste and quality of their coffee, which should help increase the value of Ethiopia's vital export. The company has also pledged to double purchases of coffee from East Africa by 2008. Starbucks currently buys 2% of Ethiopia’s $400 million coffee crop.

Sources: A Hot Cup of Money, Starbucks in Ethiopia coffee row, Starbucks in accord with Ethiopia

U.S. trade policy can have huge impacts on the environment and on the general sustainability of the global and local economies. This congressional session has seen a lot of behind-the-scenes debate about trade policy. In early May some Democratic leaders including Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Finance Committee Chariman Max Baucus announced they had reached a tentative deal in secret negotiations with the Bush administration on four pending Free Trade Agreements.

These Democrats claimed that the deal, the details of which have never been made public, includes Bush administration concessions on the environment and labor rights while the Democrats would agree to attempt to renew Bush's fast track negotiating authority. Under the Constitution, Congress has authority over international-trade agreements. But lawmakers have long delegated that authority to the executive branch, under a process designed to streamline consideration and avoid major fights over deals fraught with complexity and political controversy.

However, fast track only allows congress an up or down vote on trade deals restricting its ability to influence the details of trade deals while greatly empowering corporate interests and lobbyists to influence them. This method of establishing trade policy has wreaked havoc on the environment and long ignored the rights of laborers in disadvantaged economies, simply because it so empowers corporations which value short-term profits above sustainability and human rights.

The deal the Democrats announced a little over a month ago claims to have provisions for protecting the environment and laborers' rights. These provisions, as far as anyone can tell so far, amount to the ability for U.S.-based organizations to petition Congress on violations of international standards in these areas, but falls far short of allowing multinational environmental interests or labor unions to sue in international courts. Corporations have been allowed to sue in international courts any organization, including labor unions, who might impede profits. This double-standard is a by-product of undemocratic trade negotiations that give corporations far more power than citizens.

Fortunately, it appears that Pelosi's deal with the Bush administration is not catching on with many other Democrats. Some estimates have as many of three-quarters of House Dems voting against renewal of fast track authority and the various pending free trade agreements. The global economy, and, hence, U.S. Trade policy, has immeasurable impact on our environment and the integrity of life for every human. If we are going to realize the kind of change necessary to rerverse climate change and establish a global culture of human rights we will all need to start demanding a say in the development of our trade policy.

I'll keep an eye on the development of the pending trade agreements as they continue to progress.

Sources: WorkingForChange, Bush's Shrinking Global Trade Agenda (WSJ), EyesOnTrade, WashBlog.