ucgreen’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  I recently read Michael Pollan's Omnivore Dilemma, which included a rather hefty indictment of Big Organic.  It's entirely possible that Klein's statement is supported by what Pollan wrote.  As I recall, Pollan visited three organic farms -- two large scale farms and one small scale farm.  The first two farmed huge monocultures that depended on chemical inputs (namely composts, manures, fishmeal, etc).  They also depended on intensive plowing regimes (which greatly disrupts soil biology) to control weeds in lieu of pesticides.  The crops were sold all over the US at places like Whole Foods.  The addition of extensive transportation shrunk the saving of fossil fuels to nearly nothing.  Essentially, it was just conventional farming with substitutions -- only a marginal improvement.  The third farm was a humongous polyculture that only sold locally.  It was indeed organic, but it was done with almost no inputs.  In fact, the farm had restored the formerly depleted soil (due to overfarming in the past) over the course of three generations.  My point?  Big Organic is just a different flavor of conventional -- a marketing scheme.  I would take Big Organic's report with a grain of salt for sure.

  
  I guess what I mean to get at is that the way things look, local does sound better than organic (if a choice even needs to be made -- beware a false dichotomy).  A small, local farm is going to have a much more attentive farmer.  Any spraying will more likely be spot spraying, which is a far cry from the dousings seen on convention farms.  And for what it's worth, Big Organic is just asking a premium for a label.  Big Organic has sacrificed so much of the original organic movement's intentions, one of which is to get your food locally and season permitting.  You cannot truly have organic if it is not local.  But best of all is to buy local organic, which shouldn't be much of a problem nowadays with all the farmer's markets popping up.

  
  (Oh yeah, and there are arguments to be made for the value of keeping money in a local economy rather than sending your region's wealth to some wholesaler based a thousand miles away.)

   

  Peace and carrots, Chris

  On The obvious advantage of organic food over conventional posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago 16 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  "Kinimonth's comment says that some of the energy store in the cloud as heat or as 'heat of vaporization' can be radiated out to space or to the earth as IR or as visible radiation -lightning."

  I think this line alone best exemplifies just how you are full of shit and lies.  I'm done replying to you.  You are not worth the time of day.

  On MoveOn calls on Senate to preserve Clean Air Act in climate bill posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 14 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Hah, nice try.

  You tell me that the theory of greenhouse gas effect violates the second law of thermodynamics (whicch I've never actually seen any evidence to support thus claim) and then you go ahead and quote a professor who says that "the so-called greenhouse gases (water vapour, CO2, etc) and clouds emit more radiation, both to space and back to Earth, than they absorb." which is a clear violation of the fundamental physical law of Conservation of Energy.  How can something emit more energy than it absorbs?  The laws of physics don't change to your needs.

  Frankly, I see now you're a deliberate liar and misleader.

  Good day.

  On MoveOn calls on Senate to preserve Clean Air Act in climate bill posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 14 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  R.W. Wood's note does not prove anything.  First off, it's a "note" -- it was an informal experiment that he performed.  His experiment was to see whether it was radiation trapping or convection that made [b]real[/b] greenhouses warmer than their environment.  He did not impliacte anything further from there.  He ends by saying just that!

  
  Bohr's work that earned him the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics is the groundwork for explaining the greenhouse effect.  The fact that atoms can absorb and emit radiation (such as infrared radiation -- heat) is the basis of the greenhouse effect.  How you can say otherwise is either complete ineptitude or deliberate lying.  It's so plain and clear that there isn't even a middle ground.

  On MoveOn calls on Senate to preserve Clean Air Act in climate bill posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago 14 Responses