salemguy’s Recent Comments

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  Glenn,

  Couple facts you should clarify before making statements like:

  "Climate pollution is released into the air when American farmers switch their land from growing food to growing fuel, and South American agricultural interests burn the rainforest to clear land to grow additional food to fill the gap."

  That's a hypothetical statement not supported by facts. I think you must know this. Amazon deforestation (down considerably in recent years) is driven by 1) lumber harvest and land grabbing (only 4% is titled... take it and its yours, apparently, and Amazon rainforests are rarely burned because of lumber value), 2) more land for cattle, the second use that's been observed regularly, also now declining, and 3) any crop eventually, but no biofuel crops have been observed. I think this is a myth invented by big oil.

  I'm going to add another comment on this with another fact you should consider, quoting you again:

  "(like anyone who pays more for food as a result of ethanol mandates)" is repeating a fallacy. Oil prices, weather and commodity speculation had a lot more to do with food and corn price increases last year. Both the price of corn and the food CPI are down this year, and ethanol production has increased. 

  This past year, the cropland devoted to corn in Brazil decreased. Where is there an indirect land use effect here? There is not one, as hypothesized.

  I agree with your cautions on offsets. USDA might be stupid enough to credit no-till conversions even as farmers upped their glyphosate applications. The entire agribiz establishment, in which I include USDA, appear to have no idea that more chemicals and GM crops that depend on them are absolutely not sustainable. There is no carbon benefit to be had there. Somebody should do a life cycle/land use study on it.

  The GM and chemical companies have studiously and successfully avoided soil and ecosystem impact studies, by the way, so this isn't as far-fetch as it may sound.

  Good post. Thanks.

   

  On The Non-Concession concession? posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 1 Response

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  Last response

  Close of thread?

  Given Mr Green didn't respond to a simple question, I'd say Joseph's assessment was correct.

  Green hogwash occurs to me as doubly applicable here. On The American Enterprise Institute: Still crazy with denial and delay posted 1 year ago 5 Responses

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  A Retro Idea

  Why doesn't GM simply pull out the EV-1 plans and go for it? Put it in a current chassis? Use the one that's been done? Minimize "retooling" and maximize time-to-market?

  I understand this was a successful vehicle before they all got crushed.

  How much R&D would that cost? Seems like zero to me. On GM will keep investing in electric-car R&D posted 1 year ago 4 Responses

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  Couple questions for David

  David,

  Excellent commentary, thank you. I'm puzzled, though (new here) at this assertion about O's energy plan:

  "It is marred by its lavish support for biofuels and "clean coal," ....

  Do you think we can do without biofuels in the future? What is lavish about his plan?

  I think we agree that "clean coal" is an oxymoron, and what I see in his plan is a set of parameters that will moderate its development.

  What am I missing?
  On What can greens expect from Obama? posted 1 year ago 8 Responses

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  Bovine methane

  John,

  Interesting assertions, but I have some issues with the report you cited, and the depth of related articles on the site. I don't think the jury's in on this.

  I'm also quite suspicious of singular USDA-ARS studies, having observed significant bias, when they have an agenda. I don't know if that's the case here, and I haven't done a lot of animal methane production research, but using the same cows for pasture feed and high-grain feed is a flag for me, in terms of research design, as is the "highly-digestible" grain diet vs. the "low-quality fiber" pasture diet.

  I also didn't get how they got good measurements in winds of 2 meters/second, and "rapidly changing winds." Could bring a new understanding of the term "breaking wind," I suppose.

  Do you have some other research citations that reach this same conclusion? On A food/climate manifesto presents new visions for responding to climate change posted 1 year ago 30 Responses