Prime Numbers

Where is the world’s third largest organic market? The Soil Association says almost 80% of British households buy organic food. That’s more than any other European country apart from Germany. The UK has around 4,000 organic farms. A quarter of them are in the south-west, while Wales devotes 10% of its horticultural land to growing organic food – compared to just 4% in the UK as a whole. The costs of global warming could double to $150 billion per year over the next decade, with insurers taking $30–40 billion in claims – the equivalent, in financial terms, of one World Trade Centre attack each year. Recycling just one tonne of paper (picture 100 bin bags full) saves 17 trees, 17,000 gallons of water and enough energy to heat the average home for six months. But the average family in the UK is still throwing out six trees of paper a year. Every year ‘upgrading’ sees two million working Pentium PCs buried in the British countryside. Roll on the WEEE Directive.... Four million new private cars hit China’s roads every year. If growth continues at this rate, 150 million cars will jam the streets by 2015 – that’s more than the US. The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat, a new report on a long-running theme from Compassion in World Farming, reminds us how inefficient livestock rearing can be as a way of producing protein. An acre of land used in this way yields an average of 20 kg of usable protein, whereas an acre of corn should yield 35 kg, and soya beans score a massive 161.5 kg. Living next to a derelict piece of land reduces the value of the average home by 15%. Turn that into a well maintained park, and the value rises to 6% above the average. Worryingly, the people interviewed in a recent UK survey had some pretty muddled ideas about renewable energy. Only 19% could name at least one type of renewable. 17% thought it involved ‘recycling’, and another 17% thought it was ‘energy you can use again’. But 90% did seem to think it was ‘a good thing’. Something to work on?

3 June 2004