Chinese walker

China is currently in a phase of rapid industrialisation and integration into the world economy. But this has come at a high price, putting great strain on the environment through extensive use of fossil fuels and other natural resources. The difference in living standards between urban and rural areas – and between the east and west of the country – has also widened, and unemployment is rising fast. Many are concerned that China`s long-term prosperity could be harmed by increasing social inequality and conflicts resulting from environmental pressures and eco-system degradation. Unemployment is projected tohit 100 million by 2010, and most of these people will be in the poor western regions, where farmers are desperately trying to survive and seek better lives for their families. It is clear that China needs alternative solutions for its ailing agricultural sector, which some 900 million farmers depend on.

Agriculture in China has developed at a much slower pace than industry over the past two decades, which has led to increasing inequality between rural and urban residents. The majority of migrant workers in China`s cities come from rural areas for economic reasons: low income from farming and land loss due to urban expansion and increased mechanisation of agricultural production. Sustainable rural development in China`s west is faced with major challenges: farmers still lag behind in income compared to residents of coastal regions; ecosystems are vulnerable; poverty is persistent; and the majority of farmers rely on agriculture residues, forest biomass or coal-burning for cooking and space heating, which can have severe health effects as a result of indoor air pollution. Above all, current reliance on the exploration of industrial raw materials and burning fossil fuels cannot make farmers rich, but instead pollutes their living environment, as well as damaging their land and their means of making a living.

The Chinese government has realised how urgently it needs an alternative solution. Under the banner of creating a “harmonious society”, the government is looking into new options for sustainable rural development, utilising resources more efficiently, prioritising new and renewable energy technologies with wider market applications. With its vast territory and diverse geographical regions, China has a large stock of biomass resources from agricultural and forest residues, as well as vast areas of wasteland that can be used for bioenergy development, such as small and decentralised electricity and heat generation, household applications and biofuels cultivation.

Bioenergy development has become a top government priority, and China`s law on renewable energy was implemented in January 2006. The current focus is on electricity generation from surplus agricultural residues, which are estimated at 200 million tonnes yearly. The government has set up a long-term target of 30 gigawatts of electricity generated from biomass by 2020, which will require billions of dollars in investment. There is also a growing interest in the development of biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol, intended to reduce oil imports, which currently account for more than 46% of China`s total oil supply – a major energy security concern for the government. This explains the Chinese government`s surprise announcement that it will import one million tonnes of ethanol each year from Brazil, a development that no doubt paves the way for new business opportunities in China and the rest of the world.

However, this strategy is being defined too narrowly, and poor and disadvantaged social groups are still being overlooked. While biomass-burning power plantscould help improve the quality of life for poor people living in remote areas without access to electricity, the current plan is to build dozens of demonstration biomass power plants in economically-developed regions, such as in eastern China`s Jiangsu province and Shandong province. Rural residents will only benefit from bioenergy development if it comes to where they live and takes their daily needs into account.

In some regions, farmers suffer from the severe health impacts of coal burning at home. Fluoride poisoning is a common health problem in Guizhou province, where some 19 million poor farmers are affected, mostly women, children and the elderly – often from minority ethnic groups. Most farmers also still use biomass for cooking and heating in the traditional way, especially in poor and remote regions, while farmers in richer coastal regions are shifting towards the use of commercial energies such as coal and natural gas. Traditional biomass burning wastes a lot of energy, since the efficiency rate of a typical family stove is around 5% to 8%. One rural family I spoke to in the Northwestern Yunnan Province use an average of 14 to 16 tonnes of firewood every year, causing real damage to natural forests. By contrast, modern biomass stoves can achieve 30% to 40% efficiency rates. The use of these stoves can therefore benefit the global environment, save on resources and increase revenues for rural enterprises.

China needs to make a massive transition from traditional to modern uses of biomass as part of its strategy for sustainable rural development. This act of leapfrogging requires innovative policy support from the government. It can benefit farmers by improving their health and living conditions, reduce fossil fuel use, create jobs and generate income. Today, most of the country`s agricultural residues are burnt in the fields, causing air pollution and wasting resources. In addition to other environmental and social benefits, the same amount of investment in household biomass utilisation as in biomass power plants could generate five to 10 times more local jobs for rural residents and five to nine times more income for small companies.

The Chinese government has so far paid scant attention to these issues, particularly on how to use biomass resources more efficiently. Strong policy incentives should be established to provide favourable conditions for investments from innovators and small enterprises involved in the social and technological transition towards sustainable rural development. These energy policies could also play a large role in mitigating climate change and moving China away from burning dirty coal.

Supporting household biomass use could ease the pressure on rapid urban development as rural communities start to improve in their living conditions. At the international level, bioenergy has become a dynamic force, with governments, industry, aid agencies and private investors all seeing China as a “land of opportunity” for investment. By integrating greenhouse-gas emissions reduction with the sustainable development of rural energy systems, China can set an example for other biomass-rich developing countries as they strive for the combined benefits of social development and environmental protection.

Dr. Gan Lin is a senior research fellow at CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo).

Homepage photo by Shoebox

Cities grow around water; almost every urban settlement relies on a river, a lake or a sea for its life. But water is not just necessary for survival; it becomes part of a city`s culture and its soul. Take the water away, and the spirit of the city will often be lost.

Before the 1980s, south China`s Pearl River delta was known for its lakes and rivers. The city of Guangzhou was famous for its six waterways that divided the city. Only three decades ago its residents would go swimming in the Pearl River, or watch dragon-boat races from its banks. Further upriver, Foshan enjoyed over 5,000 kilometres of waterways. People lived by the Pearl River – and on the river – as boats plied its length.

But after decades of industrial development and urbanisation, China`s cities are becoming ever thirstier for water. Pollution is worsening, and people are becoming separated from the water that their city drinks. The Pearl River is known as Guangzhou`s “mother river,” but the city`s people are tragically estranged from their mother. And they have only their irresponsibility and greed to blame.

Guangdong is the most developed province in the Pearl River basin, and it is responsible for most of the region`s pollution. China`s system of environmental standards classify water quality with a series of benchmarks, with “class one” the cleanest and “class five” the dirtiest. In 2004, water flowing into Guangdong was of a “class three” quality, but it was a “class five” – or even below – when it reached the Pearl River delta. Quality was worst of all in Guangzhou. It was “class four” for seven months in 2005, but from January to March that year it was below “class five” the entire time, meaning it was very seriously polluted. “Class four” water is not supposed to ever come into direct contact with the human body. Water must be of “class three” or higher before swimming is permissible. Locals could only dream of taking a dip in the Pearl River. Not only were traces of life steadily disappearing from the river, but the water was also black, oily and malodorous. This all-important artery was dying, and many sections were concreted over. Years of pollution turned the Pearl River and its tributaries into dark and stinking sewers.

As if that was not bad enough, polluted rivers also spread disease. For instance, the pollution of London`s River Thames reached its worst point in the 1850s, when the local population suffered cholera outbreaks. As of June 20 this year, Guangzhou had two confirmed cases of cholera, which were traced to local river products, such as fish, crab and shrimp. Such cases are rare in Guangzhou, and in China, yet they have reappeared after all these years of economic growth.

Cleaning up

In a growing number of municipalities in the south Indian state of Kerala, an innovative biogas programme is helping to resolve several problems at once. Fetid odours that once emanated from food waste dumped in public places – not to mention the scavenging dogs, rats and crows it attracted – are disappearing. Declining, too, are associated health risks – a particular concern in southern India`s hot climate. Thanks to an Indian NGO called Biotech, food scraps and other kinds of organic waste are being used to produce gas for cooking and, in some cases, electricity for lighting.

Biotech, founded in 1998 by A Sajidas, has developed a line of biogas digesters that, so far, are cleanly and hygienically managing wastes in 12,000 households, 220 institutions (including schools, hospitals and hotels) and 20 municipal sites. An estimated 60,000 people already are benefiting. Among its clean-energy advantages, the gas, when used directly for cooking, offers a 50% savings over the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as greater safety. And the waste residue can serve as a fertiliser, contributing to greater food production.

“A huge quantity of waste is accumulated daily,” says Sajidas, a sociologist who was concerned about health and environmental problems stemming from the dumping of waste. “We can clean any type of biodegradable material to generate biogas.”

The destruction of south China`s wildlife habitats started about 1,000 years ago, and still continues today. This led to many animal extinctions and severe reductions in wildlife populations, and has been compounded by the use of wildlife for food and for ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

One might imagine that the pressure on wildlife would have decreased as levels of education and urban incomes have risen in the region. But the greatest reduction in wildlife consumption was actually in 2003, and came as a result of public fears about the risks of catching Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from wild animals. In late 2004, the demand for civet cats decreased so much due to the fear of SARS that 141 farms released 4,000 of the animals into the wild.

Bird flu later added to this concern.

“What kind of scissors are we going to need for decoupling? Maybe they`ll have to be silver scissors, or golden!” A colleague was joking about a serious issue: How can we fulfill the basic needs of people, while decoupling economic growth from environmental and social destruction? How can we secure human well-being without wasting natural and human resources? How can we break the assumed link between success and happiness?

Water and energy create the physical foundations of sustainable development. For billions of people worldwide there are still daily questions of availability. Thousands of cities face the same question: how to secure their citizens access to safe drinking water and energy? Once there is water, it has to be kept clean, and sanitation and waste water treatment are needed. Once there is energy, it must also be clean so that it does not pollute the air and become a health or fire hazard. The production of energy must be safe, or it makes jobs dangerous and creates new environmental problems. A vicious circle!

The step from poverty, from no freshwater and no energy, to having basic human needs fulfilled is huge, but millions of people take it every year. Waves of industrialization and economic growth bring people from rural areas to cities and to urban lifestyles that focus on consumption: cars, fashion, entertainment, industrial food and drink – and more economic growth.

“Sustainable Consumption and Production”

My article “The truth about dead chickens”, published by chinadialogue on June 14, attracted widespread attention in the Chinese press. A report and an interview with me appeared in the newspaper Southern Weekend on July 19, and aroused further public debate on food safety. Thousand of articles commenting on the matter have been published, with Google finding 355,000 related articles. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao recently held a special meeting of the State Council to discuss these product quality and food safety issues.

Dead chickens continue to enter the food chain, thanks firstly to farming methods that go against biological principles, and also due to an unreasonable system of retail pricing. Ensuring food safety requires guaranteeing the environmental security. Only a clean environment can produce quality food, and only when the products in question can command a decent price can sustainability be guaranteed. This will mean that the price differential between various products needs to be greatly increased, reflecting vastly different levels of consumption across the country. Using the money in the pockets of China’s rich urbanites to promote environmental protection can lead directly to safer and healthier food for the country.

The total assets of high-income families in Beijing currently stand at 23.56 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion), with fixed assets accounting for two-thirds of this figure and financial assets accounting for the other third. There are between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan-millionaires in the capital. They are the people that Deng Xiaoping said would “get rich first”, and the vast majority of them live in China’s largest cities; in the end we must accept their existence, regardless of any doubts we may have about how they acquired their wealth.

But look at some other figures, and you will notice that China still has 200 million people living in poverty, a figure second only to India. The population of China that does not have adequate food and shelter numbers 23.65 million. The poor tend to live in agricultural areas; while the villas of the urban rich might remind you of Europe, China’s remote villages are more like Africa. However, the worst environmental problems are suffered by the cities, and the poverty-stricken actually enjoy China’s best environment. How can we balance this strange inequality?

Money, as they say, cannot buy you everything. China’s rich may have cars, houses, exercise equipment, pets and purified water, but they cannot buy clean air and safe food. Supermarket shelves may carry green or organic produce, but the environmental limitations of the places they are produced %26mdash; and the products’ lacklustre supply %26mdash; dashes any hopes of products of superior quality or flavour

The poor economic performance of rural areas is due to low levels of industry. This also means a lack of pollution, and less of the waste generated by high levels of consumption. The sky stays blue, the water crystal clear and the air clean; food produced in these areas is bound to be safe. Economically undeveloped areas are to be found mainly in China’s west, where the air, water and soil are the envy of the east. Sustainable economic, social and environmental development should not allow us to build factories in these areas; if we do, we will not find anywhere to produce uncontaminated food. And if we use market forces, so that the consumption of the rich actually benefits the poor, we can not only protect the environment but also realise social harmony.

The rich have ever higher demands for food safety; they want food free of genetic modification, fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. Even if fertiliser-free harvests are half the size, they can command prices 10 times higher than normal, ensuring a good profit for both farmers and merchants. And the rich can have genuinely organic food.

The sheep and cows of Inner Mongolia eat natural grass, and taste far better than their straw-eating counterparts in Shandong province or Hebei province. However, market limitations and an inadequate information mean that city-dwellers do not get to eat the real thing; livestock from Shandong province is often moved to Inner Mongolia and passed off as local produce. With the cost of livestock from both regions being the same, herders desperately try to increase the number of animals they keep. In the end, the environment suffers greater damage, and more investment in grassland management is needed. This is because better products do not obtain better prices; dairy firms know that most of their cows eat straw rather than grass, but still claim their milk comes from “grassland cows”.

In a similar fashion, hens are often raised in dark and confined spaces, where they consume fodder contaminated with additives and pesticides. A single hen can lay up to 250 eggs a year, when free-range hens can lay no more than 50. However, since these free-range eggs can be taken to the city and sold for 10 times the price of battery-farmed eggs, herders can profitably give up their cattle and produce free-range chickens and eggs. This will mean the herders can resume their nomadic lifestyles; they can also relieve some of the ecological pressure on the grasslands, which are faced with growing desertification, and Beijing will suffer fewer sandstorms.

Ultimately, the wealthy should curb their pursuit of further riches; after all, money is nothing more than a set of numbers after a certain point. The lower levels of demand from poorer areas are actually helping to protect the environment. If China’s poor all drove cars and built factories, polluted the air and contributed to global warming, how long would our planet have left?

But are people really willing to pay 10 times the price for environmentally friendly products? In fact, the wealthy will work it out for themselves: do they want to pay for safer food, or medicines when unsafe food makes them ill? Moreover, what percentage of their annual income will it actually cost? Even if a single egg costs two yuan (US$0.26), it only comes to a few thousand yuan a year for a family of three – insignificant when your income is measured in the millions. And buying free-range eggs will help protect the country’s environment; the rich will realise they can look after the environment and still make a living.

So, how can we guarantee “green” food really comes from environmentally sound areas? It will require the help of far-sighted entrepreneurs, who can cooperate with scientists and locals to build trust in their customer base. Consumer confidence is the lifeblood of any company, and when you can ensure that, the returns will be enormous.

Jiang Gaoming is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences` Institute of Botany. He is also vice secretary-general of the UNESCO China-MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Committee and a member of the UNESCO MAB Urban Group.

Also about food safety on chinadialogue:

China’s food fears

Facing up to “invisible pollution”

Homepage photo by Alex Vinter

On the plains of northern China is a county known as “the home of cotton”. During the harvest, white cotton buds sway in the breeze, stretching as far as the eye can see; 400 square kilometres (600,000 mu)are covered with the plant. This scene has become a common one in China since the start of the reform era in the 1980s, and local cotton farmers have filled their wallets on the proceeds.

In the 1990s, however, an outbreak of bollworm shattered the dreams of riches that many harboured in the region. After this plague, far less cotton was planted. Despite government rulings that aimed to bolster the cotton industry, farmers did not want to take the risk, turning pale at the prospect of losing another harvest to pests. There was no more cotton planted in the area for several years.

This only changed at the end of the last decade, when genetic engineers developed a pest-resistant strain of cotton. And at first it worked. Cotton planting started to recover. The pests were smaller and less pesticide was used. Production rose and profits increased; farmers wanted to plant cotton again.

But as time passed, pest-resistant cotton`s failings started to become apparent. The seedlings were very susceptible to diseases, and preventing these diseases meant a continued reliance on chemicals. The plants also suffered from root rot and verticillium, a wilt-causing fungus. These can be prevented by spraying the crops with chemicals, but they are hard to cure. The new strain of cotton was also not resistant to aphids, which were controlled with yet more pesticides. Today there is a wide proliferation of chemicals on the market specifically designed for cotton growers.

Even with the new cotton, pesticides still need to be sprayed every three to five days. Forty kilograms of solution is used to cover one mu of land (667 square metres), containing 60 to 100 millilitres of pure chemical pesticide. The scientists who genetically engineered this pest-resistant cotton may have succeeded in controlling the pest they were targeting, but not any of the others. The farmers remain reliant on toxic chemicals.

As soon as the cotton seeds germinate, measures must be taken to prevent bollworm attacks. This particular pest can reproduce three to five times in a single growing season, making it even harder to combat. And today`s bollworms are nothing like their predecessors, they cause far more damage. To maintain harvests and profits, the cotton farmers have no choice but to keep spraying costly chemicals.

Moreover, the bollworms have been joined by some as yet unidentified pests. Three or four years ago a new insect appeared, decimating the cotton harvest. Although small and weak-looking, they have been very damaging.

Fields in China today are battlegrounds covered with destructive chemicals. Yet despite the herbicides and pesticides, weeds and insects continue to multiply, and the chemicals are becoming ever stronger. Insects are forced to adapt faster, becoming resistant by developing thick layers of waxy covering and enzymes that break down pesticides. In fact, the pests are evolving faster than the chemicals can be developed, and most pesticides now struggle to kill an adult insect. Even the leaves of pest-resistant cotton are now dotted with holes where insects have attacked.

Cotton starts to blossom in the middle of August, and only then does the spraying stop. During the yearly harvest, one mu of land will yield between 250 kilograms and 300 kilograms of cotton on average; the costs of this single mu of land will reach 230 yuan (US$31) for fertiliser; 34 yuan (US$5) for agricultural membrane; 300 yuan (US$40) for chemicals; 70 yuan (US$9) for genetically-engineered seeds; and 100 yuan (US$13) to prepare the land. This results in a profit per mu of between 516 yuan (US$69) and 1,066 yuan (US$142) annually.

There are serious environmental consequences from this constant pesticide use. Water is taken from irrigation wells to dilute the chemicals, and some of the chemicals inevitably end up in the groundwater, threatening the health of local residents. In the course of our investigation, we saw numerous chemical containers left lying around a well. The plastic membrane that is used to cover the ground will be picked up and left between fields or burnt by more conscientious farmers, but many will leave it in the fields, eventually leaving the earth unsuitable for planting.

By contrast, Jin Anlei, a farmer in north China`s Hebei province, successfully developed a method of organic cotton farming. Jin uses sparrows to control pests, and steadfastly refuses to use fertiliser, pesticides or genetically-engineered crops. After seven years, his fields are rich and fertile, with large populations of crickets and earthworms. His bumper harvest in 2004 became famous at a time when other cotton farmers were suffering disastrous yields. Cotton experts from the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences made a special trip to visit his farm and were left speechless by what he had achieved.

Cotton is an important resource for clothing manufacture, and cottonseed oil has industrial uses. But do we have to pollute our environment for the sake of our clothes? Even genetically-engineered cotton requires huge quantities of chemical assistance. In any case, our long-term goal has to be protecting the environment and using our land sustainably.

Caihong Li is an MA student at Shandong Agricultural University; she won the Shandong Outstanding Graduate Award in 2007.

Jiang Gaoming is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences` Institute of Botany. He is also vice secretary-general of the UNESCO China-MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Committee and a member of the UNESCO MAB Urban Group.

The future of food is one of competing visions, says British food-policy expert Tim Lang. One view – the dominant one — is that, in general, “great advances are being made in the long struggle to feed people adequately”. The other holds that “these advances have come at a cost, are faltering in their own terms (notably malnutrition) and that a fundamental redirection of food supply” is needed.

As a warming planet with an increasing population, the earth faces a difficult debate about its food supply. “Issues such as climate change, oil dependency, looming mass water stress, obesity alongside hunger, are structural, not peripheral issues,” contends Lang, who delivered the 2007 Rachel Carson Memorial Lecture in London on December 6. (Carson`s books — particularly 1962`s Silent Spring, which documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the natural environment – helped to spark the environmental movement in the west.)

Lang noted that the lecture`s sponsor, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK, and other specialist NGOs all “need to ensure that their voices are heard” as the food-supply debate grows louder. But, he says, “single-issue campaigning will not be enough” and work needs to be cross-checked – verified from a variety of sources and points of view. In confronting the host of issues involved, amid the challenging quest for safe, justly produced and sustainable food for all, Lang proposed four principles that “might unite us”.

They are:

(Reproduced with permission from therapy today, a journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, BACP.)

“We`re the only species on the planet ever to document our own extinction.” — The Guardian, November 20, 2007

Let me get straight to the point. I need some help with a couple of clients.

My first challenging client is a mother of a certain age, indeed a grandmother and great-grandmother multiple times over. Wise, wrinkled and worn, she`s a tough old bird who over a very long life has survived a lot of ups and downs. Her problem now is her large and chaotic family, who still live in her house and have nowhere else to move.

So far, she`s been the archetypal “good-enough mother”, trying to teach her children by example – and with the occasional slap on the wrist – the consequences of unsustainable behaviour.

But her family doesn`t get the plot. They have little idea of healthy boundaries, or hygiene, or the importance of delaying gratification. They eat and drink the fridge empty the minute she puts something in it, and they`re heating the house and burning fuel and resources like there`s no tomorrow, squabbling incessantly that all the mess is someone else`s fault. Our elderly but previously robust client is finding it increasingly hard to cope, and she fears that her family`s dysfunction will be the end of all of them. We`re her therapist. What do we do?

So, to our second client – and I suspect you may be grasping by now where I`m taking us. This man is one representative member of our first client`s household, who`s been told by doctors that if he doesn`t address his self-destructive behaviour – his smoking, his drinking, his addiction to fatty and sugary foods, his lack of exercise, his thinking only of his own immediate pleasure – then he`s going to die. Probably quite painfully and probably quite soon.

On the bright side, this client has listened to the doctors sufficiently to come into therapy. He`s perfectly intelligent, but his response is not untypical. Can`t be happening to me. Let`s get a second opinion. A third. A fourth. Perhaps if he tries minor adjustments to his lifestyle, he can avoid the radical surgery, the chemo- and radiotherapy, the massive life changes which the doctors say he must make.

As this client`s therapist, our dilemma is how to help him to realise that the doctors are right and that he really must change.

Gaia and the denier

I guess you know by now who I`m talking about. Client one is, of course Gaia, our Earth Mother, the planet we live on. Overcrowded, running out of resources, but above all heating up at potentially catastrophic speed as global-warming gases build up in the atmosphere.

Our second client is ourselves – humankind. Desperate for that second, third, fiftieth scientific opinion which will tell us that the prognosis isn`t so bad. That maybe it`s not our fault. That maybe the earth just does heat up and cool down once in a while, quite naturally, that just some small adjustments will be enough, and that we`ll get through this.

We all want to be lied to about climate change. It`s just too big. Right up front, then, my appeal in dealing with these two clients. How do we calibrate the message that things, this time, really, honestly, are very serious? How do we avoid propelling our client straight from denial to despair? How, in the words of a recent article in the British newspaper the Guardian, does one “cry wolf, but gently”? How do we break this bad news?

There`s already good evidence that on matters of climate change, as the media and politicians begin to talk more of what is happening, people are swinging straight from ignorance and denial through alarm to numbing and weary boredom. You will have heard the arguments. The “greenies” and other Cassandras have constantly got it wrong. The ozone layer, acid rain, nuclear power or nuclear winter, the millennium bug, and now this. Just another scare story. We just don`t want to listen any more. And anyway, there`s nothing we can do.

I`ll return to the issue of breaking bad news, but let me for a moment be that

fabled boy coming off the hills and seriously warning of the wolf.

Crying wolf – but gently

The truth is that if we – me, and you, as well as the Americans, the Chinese, all of them out there – carry on living and consuming, driving, burning, thinking and just living as we currently do, and do not make massive changes very soon indeed, then human civilisation will end, if not in our own lifetimes then possibly as early as in those of our children or grandchildren.

It`s that bad – in effect a terminal diagnosis that raises profound questions about how we as humans order our affairs. Our politics, our economics (the systemic failure, as described in a 2006 report to the British government by Sir Nicholas Stern, of the market system), our thought systems, the way we elect our governments, the way we practise journalism or organise our health services. None of which are, if we`re honest, truly fit for purpose for the challenges of the 21st century.

The truth is that it won`t be enough just to drive a Prius hybrid, change our light bulbs to energy savers, or ban plastic bags or set up a climate-change helpline. If the most serious of consequences are to be averted, all those things must be done and much, much more. The arguments and the evidence are now clear, but for perhaps all too understandable but potentially catastrophic reasons of human psychology, the message is neither truly getting through nor being acted on.

In a nutshell, and as has been powerfully argued by the former American vice president Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, the debate over whether climate change is happening, and whether it`s human-induced, is over. That`s a bald scientific fact which we as therapists in particular now need to understand – confirmed in the plainest of language by the respected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth report, completed late last year.

The science is conclusive

Just as there was once heated disagreement about whether the sun revolved round the earth or vice versa, or over the nature of gravity, this matter is resolved. The disagreements are no longer about whether global warming is happening or whether it`s caused mainly by humankind, but rather about just how much time we have left to correct things, and whether it might already be too late. Scientists advising the IPCC talk of a window of less than 10 years – TEN YEARS! – to start making the massive global changes that might give humankind a chance of survival.

In the meantime, ordinary people the world over continue with their ordinary lives as if nothing untoward was happening. Coverage of the last IPCC report in most British media lasted just one day, before they returned to business, celebrity and Christmas preparations as usual. True, newspapers, radio and television are increasingly reporting strange happenings in nature – unusual floods here, unprecedented drought there, the disappearance of butterflies, collapses of bee populations, Arctic melting, the disappearance of ski runs in the Alps, hawthorns blossoming in the autumn. But where is the comprehensive and universal articulation of an overarching, corrective narrative of imminent danger which might give ordinary people the motivation and the tools to respond properly?

One is reminded of tourists in Sri Lanka in December 2004 who excitedly and naively — and tragically — explored the rock pools uncovered by a retreating sea without realising that this meant they were about to be hit by a tsunami.

Hard for you to hear?

Let me pause for a brief moment. Are you, like our second client, finding this difficult to read and to hear? Is this something you don`t really want to know? Perhaps you would rather put this article aside at this point, or turn your attention to something less disturbing.

In naming what`s happening in ordinary conversations, and with clients, I`m acutely aware how easily people can be shut down and put off. So the temptation is to sugar the pill, to focus on the opportunities rather than the threats. But without a felt understanding, not just a thought understanding, of how urgent this is, will people really change? I fear not. So, please bear with me as we return to what`s actually now a very straightforward narrative.

In the space of less than 300 years — from the start of the industrial revolution to when, very much later this century, we might achieve a carbon-neutral global economy — we are in the process of pumping back into the atmosphere, through the burning of oil, gas and coal, an amount of carbon which Gaia took 300 million years to capture. That`s a process one million times faster than that which laid those reserves down. Gaia managed for a while to absorb the extra, but she`s showing every sign of no longer being able to cope. She has a fever.

Even with the delayed greenhouse effect of the industrial revolution so far, we`re already committed to a global temperature rise of most probably two degrees Celsius [3.6 degrees Fahrenheit]. And – this is the really alarming piece – scientists who have been at the forefront of understanding how Gaia works, notably James Lovelock, now warn of a tipping point, to which we may already be committed, of some two-and-a-half degrees heating, beyond which the feedback mechanisms which have kept the planet cool for millions of years flip, and start to accelerate rather than moderate temperature rise.

The consensus-driven, cautious and measured IPCC continues to argue in its latest report that the current trend of climate change can still be averted, as it puts it, at reasonable cost. But for the first time, it is also now warning of the likelihood, if the world continues with business as usual, of “abrupt and irreversible impacts”.

Six degrees of warming

Let`s consider some of those possible impacts. If the earth approaches six degrees of heating, which is within the IPCC`s range of forecasts for this century, scenarios being taken very seriously could include:

%26bull; Extensive melting of the ice caps, and, combined with the heat-driven expansion of sea volume, sea-level rises of several metres. That would irreversibly flood coastlines and some entire countries, and cities such as Shanghai, London and New York. The consequences for the global economy and human welfare would be dire.

%26bull; The melting of tundra and permafrost, and the release into the atmosphere of huge quantities of methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

%26bull; The drying out and possibly the wholesale burning of the Amazon rain forest and its transformation into dry savanna.

%26bull; The disappearance of Tibet`s and South America`s glaciers, and with them the summer river-flows that water the agriculture of hundreds of millions of people.

%26bull; The desertification of northern China, North Africa, southern Europe and much of the western and central United States.

%26bull; The death of carbon-absorbing algae in the oceans and the collapse of fish species and food chains as the seas warm dramatically.

%26bull; All of this leading to hundreds of millions of refugees on the move, and death on a scarcely imaginable scale.

%26bull; And if you think it may not be as bad as scientists are warning, almost every indicator of change is happening faster than in the previous worst-case scenarios.

So, what has this got to do with therapy?

Let us consider again the clients with whom we opened, and the analogy of breaking bad news. As any doctor is now trained to understand, bad news – of the death of a loved one, for example, or of a terminal diagnosis – has to be conveyed with compassion and kindness, but also clearly, honestly and directly, without beating about the bush.

The bearer of such news can`t make the fact of the message any less painful to the person receiving it. One does not amputate a leg in slices.

Therapists may indeed already have had clients coming to them with fears of what climate change will mean, for themselves and especially for their grandchildren. How do we respond?

I have no data to prove it, but I can imagine that quite soon, within years and not decades, and possibly as a result of some particularly serious natural disaster, public opinion on a global level will at last begin to grasp the meaning of what is happening, and suddenly be very, very afraid. Reflecting Carl Jung`s thinking, we may experience a seismic shift in consciousness as a presently hidden collective awareness breaks the surface. And we must profoundly hope that the shift does not come too late.

So, if as therapists and counsellors – and, indeed, as journalists writing that first draft of history – we presume to be at the leading edge of human consciousness, I believe we should prepare ourselves in three important ways.

%26bull; We must first inform ourselves of the simple science of what is happening, and address our own denial and avoidance – and be ready to deal with the existential fears for ourselves and those we love which will be revealed when we do that.

%26bull; Second, as therapists and as fellow human beings, we must seek to help our two opening clients – Gaia and her children – to work together to understand the threats that face them, and together empower both ourselves and those who govern us to make the choices and changes that might yet avert the worst.

%26bull; Third, some might wonder whether there`s any point in engaging with therapy if things are so bad. I think that`s wrong. Just as we would continue to work lovingly in a hospice, for example, with someone who is dying, we also need to work lovingly with each other and our clients as we openly address the meaning of climate change.

I am personally not optimistic, but we must still hope that a miracle cure may yet be found, or that our immune systems will mobilise in time to fight the infection. In addressing the dangers we now face as individuals, as families, as communities and as a species, we need to show realism, clarity and courage, but also congruence and compassion. Whatever the outcome.

(Reproduced with permission from therapy today, a journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, BACP.)

Mark Brayne is a former Reuters and BBC foreign correspondent whose postings have included Beijing. He is now working as a psychotherapist specialising in trauma support and treatment for individuals and organisations in the news business and beyond. For the past six years, he has been European director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.

This article, first published in the December 2007 issue of therapy today, is abridged from a draft prepared for the December 2007 London conference of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy`s Association of Independent Practitioners, on the theme of “Trauma: Keeping Cool in a Crisis”.

On a recent trip to a chicken farm, I found that in the six months since I last visited, the farm`s guard dog had put on weight and become lethargic. He was more friendly than ferocious. As it turned out, the farm owner had tried to save trouble by feeding chicken fodder to his dog. The German Shepherd had lost interest in his previous diet of leftover meals, and this was the result.

The chicken feed comes from a well-known local company, and is priced at 140 yuan (around US$20) a bag. It contains a mix of hormones, trace elements and animal proteins. This diet can fatten a newly hatched chick into a plump five-kilogram chicken in 41 to 45 days, while grain-fed birds take around 150 days to reach three kilograms. The same time-saving, rapid-growth fodder has been used by farmers raising pigs – feed additives mean pigs can be raised in four months, rather than the usual 12 – as well as ducks, geese, fish, shrimp, crabs, eels and turtles. Some are even raising cows on this chicken feed.

If the feed could change a dog`s temperament, it is unlikely to be doing us any good either, when it enters the human food chain. China`s markets and supermarkets are filled with this “rapid-growth food”: meat, eggs and seafood; fruit and vegetables grown out of season; grain cultivated with fertilisers and pesticides. There is no other choice on our shelves.

Numerous food additives are already in use. Borax, a compound initially used in the chemical industry for the production of ceramics, optical fibre, cosmetics and fertiliser, is now used as a food additive in China. An investigation following a food-poisoning incident in south China`s Guangxi province found of the 13 types of food tested, 12 contained borax. The compound was also the cause of a mass food poisoning incident at a middle school.

Plump, succulent watermelons; tempting red tomatoes; golden yellow pears: who knows what harmful substances may lurk within? Both Jinan and Xi`an have reported three and four-year-old boys growing beards and young girls growing breasts due to their additive-filled diets. Fruit-growers use over a dozen different hormones to speed up the ripening process, increase fruit size and affect colouring. Hormones increase harvests, and for the farmers it seems ridiculous not to use them. Even I got excited about the possibilities 25 years ago, when I was teaching a course on plant biology. But problems arising from these developments have caused a necessary rethink.

Other substances that make their way into our foods include trace elements, which are mostly heavy metals, brightening agents, preservatives and artificial colourings – not to mention the potential risks of genetically-modified foods. Technology is taking over the food production industry: the industry with the greatest impact on our health. We have struggled for a long time to make sure we have adequate shelter and nutrition, but some of the advances we made along the way come with a huge price tag. In terms of humanity`s survival, they may even be a step backwards.

The use of feed additives can reduce disease among livestock, promote growth and allow more intensive farming. But the dangers to human health and the environment are becoming ever more apparent. A particular additive that promotes the growth of lean meat in pigs, in humans causes heart palpitations, high blood pressure, muscle tremors, headaches, nausea and anxiety – and in the most serious cases, convulsions and blackouts. Pork contaminated with just 2.8 milligrams per kilogram caused a cluster of 31 poisoning cases in Guangdong in April, 2002.

Our overheated economy has brought massive ecological damage to China. Nobody can deny that the cities lack clean air, while the countryside lacks clean water. Now the problem is spreading to our food. Urban residents, who make up 30% of the population, may yet pay the price of polluted food (those in rural areas tend to keep the safe food for themselves). Modern agriculture uses fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, additives and hormones with abandon; crops are farmed out of season and genetically-modified organisms are used to increase growth, while quality drops. No one is willing to pay premium prices for high quality food, so no one produces any.

While our food may be cheap, however, we could end up spending more treating the health problems it raises. The same is true in developed countries. The US has no problem with the size of its harvests, but declining quality has caused genuine concern. Arsenic has been found in chickens on sale in US supermarkets. Obesity is widespread, meaning profits to companies selling weight-loss drugs; companies that are now planning an assault on the Chinese market.

One of the major factors behind the hidden dangers in our food is a quest for profit. Farmers can buy any of these feed additives, hormones and drugs appearing on the market. Therefore, manufacturers are even known to use industrial materials to reduce costs and grab market share. The emphasis is on keeping costs down, and there is no way to eradicate the risks. Nor does legislation seem able to keep up with the challenge of increasingly intensive agriculture.

Solving food safety issues means looking at the market. If urban consumers refuse food that contains hormones and additives, if they stop buying genetically modified or out-of-season food, sales will drop. Differential pricing for products of different quality will mean consumer feedback, which can encourage farmers to produce safer food. Solving the root of the problem means society rejecting this dangerous “rapid-growth food”. The government must strengthen oversight of food safety, and allow the people to eat without fear.