"As with oil, it’s possible to envisage ‘peak food’ (the point of maximum production, followed by decline), ‘peak phosphorus’, i.e. the high point in the use of phosphate fertiliser (one estimate puts it at 2035), and, as the FAO suggests in its diplomatic way, ‘peak land’: the point at which the total area of the world’s most productive land begins to diminish (soil exhaustion, climate change) and marginal land comes up for reassessment."

Justin Rowlatt "explores the philosophical roots of a way of thinking that developed decades before global warming was an issue. He also examines some of the ideological baggage that environmentalists have brought to the climate change debate, from anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism to a suspicion about technology and a preference for natural solutions." Transcript at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/analysis/transcripts/25_01_104.txt

One interesting point is the reducing water consumption is only half the story. Gary Woodard, at the Sahra Center, talks about the "water-energy nexus": "the idea that it takes water to produce energy, and energy to take advantage of water. That is, supplies of water and power are interdependent".

On the state of water in Cyprus.

Reviews of "A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies" and Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto". Toward the end... "All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world."

"If almost every species on Earth was killed some 250 million years ago, how did our ancient ancestors survive and evolve into us?"

..."maintaining agricultural diversity is essential to protect our food supply. 'We need [it] to help farmers and to help agriculture adapt to climate change, pests and diseases, droughts, and whatever demands we're going to have make of agriculture, incl

"There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."

"We may look back at the second half of the last century as an era of cheap food. It'll be like the Hundred Years' War, as we were taught it in school: a seminal moment in human history that's gone and will not return."

In "Tajikistan, where temperatures have risen and glaciers are melting - causing floods, pollution, disease and landslides." All this is also causing political unrest between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.