LandMan’s Recent Comments

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  Fertilizer and Switchgrass

  While switchgrass doesn't need fertilizer to grow and you shouldn't fertilize it while establishing it, like any other grass in a nitrogen limited soil it will grow better and provide greater yields with fertilizer. Since the increased yields will almost certainly be more than the cost of fertilizer, you can pretty much count on the fact that it will be fertilized.

  While increased yields is good for reducing the number of acres needed for production, there are going to be some major climatic downsides to its production.

  1st, acidic soils will need to be limed to produce switchgrass well, the liming reaction releases carbon dioxide directly to the atmosphere.

  2nd, when nitrogen fertilizer is used it can make soils release nitrous oxide (a 310 times  more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into the atmosphere when it otherwise wouldn't.

  3rd, According to the USDA the remaining ground cover biomass after harvest will need to be burned before the new growing season. This releases CO, CO2, Methane (21 times more potent than CO2), and nitrous oxide. The spring burning will release greenhouse gasses equivalent (factoring in GWPs) to about 20% more carbon than the weight of the carbon in the remaining biomass.

  Hopefully somebody smarter than me has looked into these three production issues, and switchgrass is still a net positive.On U.S. House approves toned-down energy bill, Bush to sign it tomorrow posted 1 year, 10 months ago 12 Responses

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  Jascheua, good point

  Jascheua, good point on how mandatory offsets will make emission reductions the cheaper alternative. There just aren't enough qualified projects to make much of a dent in even a year's worth of emissions. So it seems likely that they will become prohibitively expensive rather quickly. Most of the carbon reductions will have to come from the emissions side, yet we will also enjoy the many benefits from rapidly expanding the current state of science and technology in fields like landscape restoration. I just hope it isn't set up to give too much away to compensate for ecological damage like with wetland mitigation.On Groups announce voluntary carbon standard for offset market posted 1 year, 11 months ago 3 Responses

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  Nature Conservancy

  They say they don't like the fence, but share the public concerns about illegal immigration and security. On Why environmental groups have been slow to fight the border wall posted 2 years ago 38 Responses

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  Another good point

  Thank you for reminding us that most Americans live unsustainably in unsustainable communities. Some people might call that over-stating the obvious.

  Changing that culture is going to be an extremely difficult and long process of incremental steps painstakingly wrenched out of the bitterly entrenched values of greed, narcissism, and hubris. No one is suggesting giving up that fight, but any possible gains we can make on that front will be wiped away by adding another 100 million people to the equation. It'll be one step forward, two steps back.

  Sure we can possibly succeed in getting some cleaner vehicles on the road, more people living in energy efficient condos, and less people eating meat, but in the near term we will be adding several times more consumption of resources through population growth than we can possible hope to gain through our best efforts of conservation.

  Per capita energy savings only count for anything if the number people, the "capita", is held constant; or at least growing less than the amount we can save through our best conservation efforts. One of the most unsustainable things about us is that we are facing a 30% population increase over the next few decades; that is the very definition of unsustainable.

  Our fertility rate, according to the UN, is at 2.05, that's less than what it takes to replace our existing population, and is falling at an accelerating rate every year. By 2045 its' projected to be 1.85, and by then the entire world is projected to be below replacement levels. If you took immigration out of the equation our population would be at a stand-still now and by 2030 would be shrinking and shrinking at a faster and faster rate after that.

  While I agree that the wall will probably do more damage than it is worth; make no mistake that increasing our population by thirty percent in just under 4 decades will have dire environmental consequences in spite of any headway we can make through conservation in that time. On Why environmental groups have been slow to fight the border wall posted 2 years ago 38 Responses

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  good point

  Good point on global warming and climate refugees. Now, how is increasing our population by 30% (and plugging about 35 million new households into the grid) over the same timeframe that we are supposed to be reducing our overall energy consumption going to help us reduce our carbon footprint?

  I'd agree that being "anti-immigrant" would be racist, to dicriminate against someone because they came from another country is appalling. If we had a policy to allow one immigrant in for everyone who is already here that undergoes voluntary sterilization, I'd be fine with that. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen. We are also not going to suddenly make everyone want to live in condos, ride bicycles, and eat grass in the next 30 - 40 years either.

  The bottom line is that if something isn't done to stem the flood we won't be able to make the necessary headyway on conserving our natural resources and biodiversity. Millions of acres of wildlife habitat will be wiped out and millions of new drivers will polute even more (and they won't be driving fancy new hybrids, they'll be driving '78 ford vans as long as they can keep them running).

  I agree that the wall is a bad idea and will only be effective at stopping things without opposable thumbs to hold a ladder.On Why environmental groups have been slow to fight the border wall posted 2 years ago 38 Responses