Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Food for Thought...

Escapism

Are we in danger of hiding from reality? Is the world becoming too dangerous? Too complicated? Too depressing?

Well, looking at the next three months of blockbuster films that will be hitting the big screens they do seem to have a common theme. The summer seems to be full of super hero movies of one kind or another

Opening last week was Iron Man. For those who don’t know, those who somehow missed the hype, perhaps travelling too much, or spending too many hours in basements of intergovernmental meetings, Commissions or Conferences, Robert Downey Jr. plays an often drunk arms producing billionaire and playboy, Tony Stark – hmm some might say this looks a little too much like type casting here! Tony is captured, and to escape from his capturers creates an Iron Man suit. He then decides to adopt a dual identity…seem a little familiar? Iron Man is followed by the next Batman film, The Dark Knight, with Heath Ledger playing the Joker - his last film before he overdosed on prescription drugs. Then throughout the summer each week brings us another super hero: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, The Chronicles of Narnia, Hellboy II, Wanted – with Angelina Jolie in possibly her last action film if rumors are to be believed, Hancock, the X files…it goes on.

It is true things out there in the real world are looking more and more difficult. The seemingly all encompassing challenge of climate change now accepted by all, including President Bush, is with us. And we have to develop both mitigation and adaptation strategies, policies and actions to deal with it. During the past year there has hardly been a week without a story related to climate change in the news or more recently energy security, in particular food security and biofuels. This reminds me of the analogy made by my good friend Gary Lawrence. Gary said sustainable development was like the fair ground game ‘whack a mole’. In this game you have a mallet, and as a mole comes up you whack it, causing other moles to come up in response. It seems at times in sustainable development that we embark on what we think is a solution only to find it precipitates another problem.

Something like 100 million tonnes of food a year is being diverted to make biofuel. The last year has seen the price of wheat double to 200 uk pounds a ton, while rice has soared by over 70%.

Josette Sheeran head of the UN Food Programme said for those on $2 a day it means cutting out meat and taking children out of school. For those on $1 a day it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating cereals. For those on 50 cents a day it is a total disaster.

The CSD could play an important role here, looking at the interlinkages that biofuels presents to us, perhaps setting up an Ad hoc working group to look at suitability indicators for Biofuels (Thursday 6:15-7:45 Venue: DH Library Auditorium).

It would be great if Iron Man, Batman, the Hulk, Aslam or Angelina would save us but that isn’t going to happen. We need to be far more intelligent about looking at how to address the issues of the future and to, as my old friend Gary said, ‘embrace complexity’

Oh I forgot to mention, the new Star Trek will be out soon…the trailer looks really good…