Apologies for my silence here \u2013 the book-writing has been in overdrive, and I\u2019ve also been trying (with limited success) to keep up with the winter\u2019s woodland work.<\/p>\n
Anyway, some moments of respite today. Time enough for a blog post with brief notes on three things, viz.<\/p>\n
So, I now have a final title and subtitle for my new book after much discussion with my publisher \u2013\u00a0Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft<\/em>. Not sure of an exact publication date yet but in the autumn.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve had my struggles with the writing, but I\u2019m feeling quite happy with where it\u2019s at now. It\u2019s a more accessible read than my previous offerings, with a bit more personal backstory. Thanks to everyone who\u2019s given me reading suggestions and other help, which has been very useful and much appreciated.<\/p>\n A paper<\/a>\u00a0published recently in the journal\u00a0Nature Communications<\/em>\u00a0has definitively settled the debate on the energy costs of microbial protein that I\u2019ve been involved in. In his book\u00a0Regenesis<\/em>, George Monbiot claimed that a kilogram of microbial protein manufactured by the Finnish company Solar Foods could be manufactured at an electrical energy cost of 16.7 kWh. Even that energy-hungry figure seemed to me improbably low. I calculated an energy consumption figure of at least 65.3 kWh \u2013 see\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new paper \u2013 co-authored by the outgoing CEO of Solar Foods, Pasi Vainikka, who features heavily in the key Chapter 7 of Monbiot\u2019s book \u2013 gives a similar figure to mine at 69.3 to 73 MWh per tonne of protein (this equates to 69.3 to 73 kWh per kilo of protein). This figure, by the way, covers only the direct energy costs of the manufacturing process itself, not things like building factories or solar panels, nor the energy costs for other inputs like water and minerals (a tonne of mineral inputs is required for every 12 tonnes of protein produced). Anyway, it\u2019s more than four times higher than Monbiot\u2019s figure, and about seventy times higher than the energy cost of producing the protein in industrially farmed soybeans.<\/p>\n There\u2019s more to say about the new paper. Hopefully, I\u2019ll take a deeper dive into it in a post later in the year. But for now I\u2019ll just conclude that the uncertainty about the real energy figure for producing bacterial protein powder is over. The 16.7 kWh\/kg figure is erroneous, and should be corrected.<\/p>\n Solar Foods\u2019 new CEO\u2019s first priorities\u00a0reportedly include<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdriving growth in the Health & Performance Nutrition segment especially in the United States\u201d and \u201cincreasing product price points\u201d. It seemed clear to me when I published\u00a0Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future\u00a0<\/em>that this technology wasn\u2019t going to feature in any brave new world of cheap mass-produced protein to feed humanity. That now seems certain. I got quite some blowback for my book, a lot of it from people who really wanted the 16.7 kWh\/kg figure to be true, even though they didn\u2019t have any evidence to show why my figure was wrong.<\/p>\n Ah well, shooting the messenger is a hallowed tradition. Unfortunately, while the hype around bacterial protein powder will dim, there\u2019ll undoubtedly be some new supposedly ass-saving corporate product hitting the newsstands \u2013 but not the streets \u2013 any day now. And so it goes on. I can only hope that more people will see this ecomodernist merry-go-round for the distraction it is and will stop invoking technology as a substitute for the real work of building resilient local communities.<\/p>\n One person who\u2019s already on board with this, or perhaps I should say who\u2019s already off the merry-go-round, is Adam Greenfield in his interesting recent book\u00a0Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire<\/em>. Or sort of off the merry-go-round anyway. There are a lot of resonances between his book and my own books, not least my forthcoming one. I align with Adam around the ideas that tech won\u2019t save us, the modern nation-state won\u2019t save us, we\u2019ll have to try saving ourselves through grassroots politics, through practice, through community, through building refugia etc.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not one of those dreadful authors who comes across a book in their own field and pathetically starts leafing through the pages to see if their name \u00a0\u2026 oh, all right, all right, it\u2019s on page 181 \u2013 \u201cThe influential farmer and agroecologist Chris Smaje\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve often wondered who I am and whether anyone has noticed me, so \u2026 thanks Adam.<\/p>\n But alas that sentence is about as good as it gets for Dr Smaje. Over the next few pages, Adam proceeds to pour cold water on \u201cSmaje\u2019s vision\u201d. He does it with a rare graciousness that I\u2019ll try to reciprocate here, but it\u2019s at this point and onwards in his text that some of its weaknesses start to coalesce \u2026 and I\u2019m not convinced that his vision of Smaje\u2019s vision is clear of obstructions.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll start with this point of divergence between us \u2013 Adam writes \u201cI think it\u2019s a reasonable bet that whatever else happens, most of us will continue to live in densely settled urban places, even amid the worst conditions\u201d (p.182). Whereas I think it\u2019s a reasonable bet that fewer of us will do so.<\/p>\n I have no idea how many fewer \u2013 I do not, as Adam implies, espouse any schemes involving \u201cthe decantation of billions into [the] countryside\u201d (p.184). Partly because it\u2019s not about \u2018decantation\u2019, and partly because the numbers are unknowable. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever talked about \u2018billions\u2019 moving to the countryside \u2013 definitely not in my two recent books, anyway. I usually only specify numbers when I\u2019m fairly sure about them, like \u2018more than 65.3 kWh\/kg\u2019 \u2013 but if I\u2019ve talked anywhere about billions moving to the countryside I\u2019ll happily recant it. What I certainly have done is objected to the organisation formerly known as RePlanet, which has been supported by various prominent journalists and scientists, in its vision of 90 percent urban residence globally by the year 2100. Now that\u00a0would\u00a0<\/em>likely involve the decanting of billions.<\/p>\n As I see it, people generally seek peace, health and prosperity where they can. They care less whether those things are to be found in the city or the country. It\u2019s the things themselves that matter. In recent history, the locations best able to deliver those good things\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0often been urban (leaving aside the history of coercing or \u2018decanting\u2019 people from the countryside). In future history, I think those locations will more often be rural. Why? Well, Adam does a pretty good job of explaining it in his book \u2013 urbanism is a high-energy, high-capital, high political order settlement pattern, and the shocks to it in the world to come will impose high costs that governments either won\u2019t wish to or won\u2019t be able to maintain. In which case \u201cthe electric power, water, gas and sewerage infrastructures that support high-density habitation will swiftly fall into disrepair\u201d (p.31). And with them will fall many of the opportunities for peace, health and prosperity. Possibly, he\u2019s projecting urbanism to fall apart in the more climate-challenged parts of the world to come, but not elsewhere. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s true that some cities will do better than others, but I don\u2019t find much logic in that wider assumption.<\/p>\nManufactured food \u2013 another newsflash<\/h3>\n
To the lifehouse?<\/h3>\n