With rapid urbanisation, more people now live in cities than in the countryside, and this number is set to rise. For all the benefits cities bestow, they are expensive places. In some years, Tokyo records the highest cost of living; in others, Moscow. In 2014, for expatriates, Luanda, the capital of Angola, received the dubious accolade; and, for Angolans themselves, it had also suddenly become pricey with real estate going through the roof, so to speak, and food being prohibitive – even locally sourced mangoes were $5 a kilo.
What can urbanites do to reduce the financial burden of paying for food? Diet? Grow their own? Beg for subsidies? Some economists have proposed that they buy contracts giving rights to a food stream in perpetuity, for example, a kilogram of beef would be delivered weekly from the date the contract started until the end of the owner's life. In essence, this is what house purchase is – indefinite security of a single commodity. As is the case with buying a house, a loan from a financial institution might be necessary for the beef contract, even if it were merely for Australian blade steak and not Japanese Wagu. The contract could also be sold at the current market price if its owner moved out of delivery range or renounced beef.
In order to maintain or increase the value of their investment, it is likely some owners would support national and international policies to limit food production – a sound idea in a world where 40% of food goes to waste.
But let's imagine, in this system, a consumer purchased a 25-year contract for beef, which, over time, doubled in value. Naturally, at sale, the owner would make a tidy profit. Conversely, if mad cow disease erupted, and no one dared eat beef, then the vendor would suffer. If the owner had bought ten beef contracts, he or she might even go bankrupt in this scenario.
Let's also imagine that people bought contracts on items they had no intention of consuming: that the health-conscious purchased, yet eschewed, saturated-fat meat; that shrewd amoral vegetarians speculated in beef, as they already buy share portfolios in which multinational agri-business is represented, or they deposit money into banks that do just that on their behalf.
It is quite plausible that this speculative behaviour could lead to the overheating of the food-stream market. The state may intervene, attempting to cool things down, or it may tolerate such activity. Indeed, a government that proposed a capital gains tax or high death duties on food-stream contracts might be voted out in favour of another that believed in laissez-faire.* Besides which, an investment contract may be a way to realise wealth when there are few other possibilities either because the stock market is highly volatile, or much of the local economy generates little revenue, as is the case in Angola and many developing countries. Indeed, food-stream speculation could become a middle-class prerogative, indulged in by legislative members themselves.
I hope by now, you've realised this essay is a spoof. Yet, the fantastic food-stream market is reminiscent of the global housing market, where homeownership and property speculation have become the privilege of a few at great expense to the many, who either cannot participate, or sign their lives away to banks. You may also have realised that when I bring this topic up at a dinner party, for instance, I am usually shouted down, despite what I believe to be its inherent logic, because my friends consider a house as more tangible than a steak, and their identities are bound up with vague but powerful notions of property rights and independence.
I do concede that home-ownership offers security (not having to move, being connected to one particular neighbourhood) and creativity (being able to modify and decorate as you please), but I would prefer people rent rather than buy in an effort to lower property prices and to encourage investment in other sectors of the economy. Economists Moretti and Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago have estimated that US output between 1999 and 2009 was 13% lower than it could have been because high housing costs forced so many people to move. Income locked up in housing could otherwise have been spent on local businesses, like restaurants or gyms, and job creation would likely have ensued.
So, next time you toss a steak on the barbecue, ponder whether we should treat food in the same way we treat housing, or whether we should treat housing as we do food.
*French for 'allow to do'. An economic doctrine advocating that commerce should be free of state controls of any kind.
The Effects of Deforestation
A Every year it is estimated that roughly 5.2 million hectares (52,000 km2) of the forest is lost worldwide. That is a net figure, meaning it represents the area of the forest not replaced. To put this size in context, that is an area of land the size of Croatia lost every single year. There is a wide range of negative effects from deforestation that range from the smallest biological processes right up to the health of our planet as a whole. On a human level, millions of lives are affected every year by flooding and landslides that often result from deforestation.
B There are 5 million people living in areas deemed at risk of flooding in England and Wales. Global warming, in part, worsened by deforestation, is responsible for higher rainfalls in Britain in recent decades. Although it can be argued that demand for cheap housing has meant more houses are being built in at-risk areas, the extent of the flooding is increasing. The presence of forests and trees along streams and rivers acts like a net. The trees catch and store water, but also hold the soil together, preventing erosion. By removing the trees, the land is more easily eroded increasing the risk of landslides and also, after precipitation, less water is intercepted when trees are absent and so more enters rivers, increasing the risk of flooding.
C It is well documented that forests are essential to the atmospheric balance of our planet, and therefore our own wellbeing too. Scientists agree unequivocally that global warming is a real and serious threat to our planet. Deforestation releases 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions. One-third of the carbon dioxide emissions created by human activity comes from deforestation around the globe.
D In his book Collapse, about the disappearance of various ancient civilisations, writer Jared Diamond theorises about the decline of the natives of Easter Island. European missionaries first arrived on the island in 1722. Research suggested that the island, whose population was in the region of two to three thousand at the time, had once been much higher at fifteen thousand people. This small native population survived on the island despite there being no trees at all. Archaeological digs uncovered evidence of trees once flourishing on the island. The uncontrolled deforestation not only led to the eradication of all such natural resources from the island but also greatly impacted the number of people the island could sustain. This underlines the importance of forest management, not only for useful building materials but also for food as well.
E Forestry management is important to make sure that stocks are not depleted and that whatever is cut down is replaced. Without sustainable development of forests, the levels of deforestation are only going to worsen as the global population continues to rise, creating a higher demand for the products of forests. Just as important though is consumer awareness. Simple changes in consumer activity can make a huge difference. These changes in behaviour include, but are not limited to, recycling all recyclable material; buying recycled products and looking for the FSC sustainably sourced forest products logo on any wood or paper products.
F Japan is often used as a model of exemplary forest management. During the Edo period between 1603 and 1868 drastic action was taken to reverse the country's serious exploitative deforestation problem. Whilst the solution was quite complex, one key aspect of its success was the encouragement of cooperation between villagers. This process of collaboration and re-education of the population saved Japan's forests. According to the World Bank, 68.5% of Japanese land area is covered by forest, making it one of the best performing economically developed nations in this regard.
G There is, of course, a negative impact of Japan's forest management. There is still a high demand for wood products in the country, and the majority of these resources are simply imported from other, poorer nations. Indonesia is a prime example of a country that has lost large swaths of its forest cover due to foreign demand from countries like Japan. This is in addition to other issues such as poor domestic forest management, weaker laws and local corruption. Located around the Equator, Indonesia has an ideal climate for the rainforest. Sadly much of this natural resource is lost every year. Forest cover is now down to less than 51% from 65.4% in 1990. This alone is proof that more needs to be done globally to manage forests.
H China is leading the way in recent years for replenishing their forests. The Chinese government began the Three-North Shelter Forest Program in 1978, with aims to complete the planting of a green wall, measuring 2,800 miles in length by its completion in 2050. Of course, this program is in many ways forced by nature itself; the expansion of the Gobi Desert threatened to destroy thousands of square miles of grassland annually through desertification. This is a process often exacerbated by deforestation in the first place, and so represents an attempt to buck the trend. Forested land in China rose from 17% to 22% from 1990 to 2015 making China one of the few developing nations to reverse the negative trend.
Film Noir
After the Second World War, a curious change came over the outlook of Hollywood films. Rather than the positive, happy-ending stories that dominated the silver screen before the war, pessimism and negativity had entered American cinema. This post-war disillusionment was evident in Hollywood and the movement became known as film noir.
One would be mistaken to call film noir a genre. Unlike westerns or romantic comedies, film noir cannot be defined by conventional uses of setting or conflict in a way that is common to genre films. Film noir is more of a movement, pinned to one specific point in time in much the same way as Soviet Montage or German Expressionism was. Instead, the defining quality of film noir was linked to tone, lighting and an often sombre mood.
True film noir refers to Hollywood films of the 1940s and early 1950s that dealt with dark themes such as crime and corruption. These films were essentially critiquing certain aspects of American society in a way film had never done before. Since that time there have occasionally been other great noir films made, such as Chinatown, but the mood and tone are often different to the original film noir movies. One possible reason for this is the time in which the films were made. A common perception of art is that it reflects the society and time in which it is made. That makes film noir of the Forties and Fifties quite inimitable because, luckily, the world has not had to endure a war of the scale and destruction of the Second World War again.
Paul Schrader, a writer of films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, sees film noir as one of Hollywood's best and least-known periods. In his essay Notes on Film Noir, he admits that classifying film noir is almost impossible because many films considered as film noir vary greatly in style. He observed that there were four main traditions in film noir. First were the films specifically about war and post-war disillusionment. Schrader believes these films were not only a reflection of the war but also a delayed reaction to the great economic depression of the 1930s. The trend in Hollywood throughout this period and into the war was to produce films aimed at keeping people's spirits up, hence the positivity. As soon as the war ended, crime fiction started to become popular, which mirrored growing disillusionment in America. Films such as The Blue Dahlia and Dead Reckoning picked up on a trend started during the war with The Maltese Falcon in 1941, which is seen as the first example of film noir.
Another film noir tradition was post-war realism. This style of the film was similar to some European films of the same era, such as Italy's neorealist films like Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and Roberto Rossellini's Open City. Part of this style was created by filming in real locations and away from constructed sets. The honesty of this style of film suited the post-war mood in America and is demonstrated well in Jules Dassin's Night and the City, much of which was filmed in and around London.
The third tradition of film noir according to Paul Schrader involves what he characterises as 'The German Influence'. Especially during the 1920s German Expressionism was one of the most unique and creative forms of cinema. Many German, Austrian and Polish directors immigrated to America before or during the rise of Hitler and in part due to the increasing control and prevention of artistic freedom. Many of them, such as Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder, would find their way into the Hollywood system and to this day remain some of the most celebrated directors of all time.
It was the lighting developed in German Expressionism, in particular, that was most influential on film noir. The interplay of light and shadow created by chiaroscuro was highly suggestive of hidden darkness and was largely responsible for creating the mood and feeling of film noir. But it was the coupling of expressionist lighting with realistic settings that really gave film noir its authenticity. It is no surprise then that two of the most popular film noir feature films, Sunset Boulevard and Ace in the Hole, were both directed by Billy Wilder.
The final tradition of film noir noted by Schrader is what he dubs 'The Hard-Boiled Tradition'. He notes how American literature of the time was the driving force behind much of this style of film noir. Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain were tough, cynical and uncompromising and their work reflects this type of attitude. If German Expressionism influenced the visual aspect of film noir, it was this hard-boiled writing style that influenced the characters, stories and scripts depicted on screen. Raymond Chandler adapted the screenplay for the film noir classic Double Indemnity from a James M. Cain story. This writing team, with Billy Wilder, again directing, was the perfect combination for one of Hollywood's most celebrated films.
