12: Global social policy at the nexus of water, energy and food
Water, energy and food are fundamental to individual and collective welfare. They focus attention on the mismatch between resource needs and the social systems through which resources are distributed. Some of this mismatch arises from environmental variability, but significant components are shaped by global social policy (GSP). For instance, the large energy inputs required to produce synthetic fertilisers and pesticides for industrial agriculture require international networks for monetary investment and infrastructures to move food for billions of people daily. Likewise, the tens of thousands of large dams that now block rivers around the world to create reservoirs for irrigation, cities and hydropower require global networks of engineering expertise and supply chains for construction materials like sand and cement. The energy extracted from fossil fuels requires significant water inputs, while energy use is the dominant contributor to climate change, the adverse impacts of which disproportionately affect those least responsible for the rapidly warming planet.
Water, food and energy have each long been significant areas of GSP, such as in international development, foreign aid and global trade (Schmidt, 2021). Perhaps surprisingly, however, the connections between water, energy and food, and their impact on human welfare and environmental health, have not always been fully recognised. That changed in the years between 2005 and 2008, when global food prices skyrocketed even though there was no physical shortage. Riots broke out in nearly two-dozen countries as the cost of wheat rose by 130 per cent and the price of rice doubled (Bush, 2010). At the same time, strong economic growth from 2003 to 2008 pushed oil prices to uncharted heights (Lutz and Hicks, 2013).
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