Comments salemguy has made

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.

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

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

A Green point

Joseph,

Good, lively article. A question I have, though, is the context for the statement, "No matter what you've been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly."

That of course is not generally true, but if he was talking about "clean coal" it's correct, hmm?

Drives me nuts our pols talk about it as if it existed anywhere, and make it seem like it must be both easy and imminent. On The American Enterprise Institute: Still crazy with denial and delay posted 1 year ago 5 Responses

Really tough research...

Uh, Jonas, do you not have access to Google?

I read your request for someone at Grist to quickly look this up, googled "organic farming can feed Africa" and got a full page worth of information. Try this link when you want to actually do some thinking:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/organic-fa ...On A food/climate manifesto presents new visions for responding to climate change posted 1 year, 1 month ago 30 Responses

Shiva's vision

Vandana Shiva is a wonderful spirit and leader, and a brilliant thinker. Thanks for the report, Tom.

That said, I'm actually responding to vakibs, via Jon, because Jon gets it...

vakibs -- it appears you are stuck in an old paradigm.

When you say: "Compost is a good fertilizer, but it cannot be sufficiently satisfy fertilizer demand," you are mistaken on several points, and I'd focus on this to make clearer the different paradigms.

First, compost isn't a fertilizer, never was, never will be. It is an organic soil amendment that brings a carbon, micronutrient and microorganism rich renewal to soil life.

A chemical analysis of compost will show about 1% nitrogen because it ignores two things: the N content of the organisms (bacteria are about 20% N, for example), and it ignores the N potential of the microbial community in the compost. There are millions of organisms in a teaspoon of compost, and healthy soil.

In addition to the N content of the organisms, converted to plant use by other organisms, the work of numerous organisms in a soil matrix is to extract N from the air!

Air is 79% N! How do you think wild, untended land can be so lush?! There is no shortage of N out there. We have to get out of the way!

Put that compost in un-chemically-treated soil and all the soil creatures -- the bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, and others -- will ensure a plant has sufficient N, as the plant needs it.

Plants are not stupid. When they need N, they produce root exudates that stimulate the organisms that will bring them N, from root zone fungi consuming bacteria, from the wastes of worms and other organisms (generally also consuming bacteria), or other organisms that will extract it from air.

The "need" for fertilizer was invented to get us to buy industrial, synthetic N produced in large chemical factories that had to do something with all that capital investment after WW II.

An irony here, I suppose, is that the synthetic N we think is needed (NOT) actually disrupts the soil organism matrix in major ways, so while we think we're doing such good for our plants, we're putting them into a stress state and destroying the very soil life matrix they need to thrive.

But plants are survivors. They will produce something, even if they are drowned in inappropriate, and polluting forms of N.

I gotta stop. I get upset about this. The environmental consequences are terrible. The quality of our food is reduced. The soil loses its life. Industrial and chemical agriculture is a scourge on the earth and its people.

Plants and their soil organism partners can produce all the "fertilizer" they need on their own.

On another topic, organic soils can also absorb more CO2 and sequester more carbon than any other medium on the planet, and can be a major contributor in mitigating climate change. Check out soilcarboncoalition.org. On A food/climate manifesto presents new visions for responding to climate change posted 1 year, 1 month ago 30 Responses

Obama biodiesel addition...

I should have hit preview instead of post. In re-reading my post, I realize there's another reason I think O means biodiesel when he says it -- I'm pretty sure he knows the generic term "biofuels" also...On Candidates talk energy in the final debate, but don't stray from their usual talking points posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses

Plastic waste mining?

It's got to be much better to capture plastic waste for recycling before landfilling, eh?

This seems bizarre to me. I get images of the Mad Max series, can't imagine what it would be like to be mining landfills, though we'll probably get to that.

Hopefully, the methane will have been fully removed, lest we release even more GHG's. On High oil prices in future could spur plastic mining from dump sites posted 1 year, 3 months ago 4 Responses

Small scale organic farming

Wow, Stephanie, what a good description of a situation so many face. We have to be able to do what you suggest everywhere, not just near large urban areas and affluent populations.

Off the top, value-added products that can handle shipping may need to be sold on the web, hmm?

Sun-dried tomatoes and fruits? Processed grains? Seeds?

I've recently seen vegie chips, made from dried and ground produce, baked up like potato chips. Great snacks, better than greasy potato chips, to be sure. Seems like a new niche.

These may be silly suggestions as they rely on remote transport, but I'm at a loss to suggest what more might be done in remote locations. Others may have better suggestions.

Fresh organic produce depends on local market access in your model, so it seems like being near population centers... as an "urban edge" organic grower, or grower coop, is an essential early step in organic transition -- but not a solution for remote farms.

Where I am, Willamette Valley, OR, small organic farms have been able to bring produce to market at competitive prices. Local demand has grown well, based on supply, with farmers markets, food coops, CSA's and restaurant sales. We can't rely on price premiums.

You've eloquently captured a set of key issues. We have to get "get big or get out" off our backs. We have to figure out how to get cheap, factory-farmed or imported produce out of local markets, it seems.

In my experience, most conventional, small farmers now rely on other work to make a living, so your comments are not unique to organic growers. I expect the need for other income will continue for all small farmers for some time.

Organic farming generally relies on less petrol inputs... maybe we're just going to have to let the cost of petrol drive agribusiness and their excessive petrol dependencies out of our food supply? On Can sustainable farming provide a sustainable living? posted 1 year, 3 months ago 26 Responses

Common sense?

I suspect most here noticed that we are using less fuel with these higher prices. Use is down as much as 4-5%? And prices are falling. People are using more mass transit, bikes, scooters, driving less, all good things.

A rising dollar is part of it, but I have to wonder if the stronger dollar correlates with using less fuel, hmm?

Are we Americans so dense that we can't see this? Reduced demand leads to reduced prices. Surprise!

More conservation and greater efficiency are the quickest ways to reduce fuel costs AND to reduce our environmental impact.

Somewhere here in this mess of politics and attitudes I hope these fundamentals will be recognized. On On energy, survey results show public favors supply, increasingly favors Republicans posted 1 year, 3 months ago 11 Responses

Philpott on Ethanol & AWG?

First time post here, still trying to figure out the protocol, but I have a question of rbright:

What is AWG?

Apart from being curious about this acronym, which I've not seen before, I am pleased at the intelligent comments I've read here.

People who write clearly, cite facts without invectives. I appreciate that.

I would contribute two possibly intelligent coments myself, have much more to say, but I'm not sure how feedback happens here.

First, yes, corn ethanol was a mistake, initiated because of corn lobby power and surpluses, now seen correctly as a not good idea, since we need it for fuel today but more importantly for food in the future.

Second, I appreciate the IEA statement that biofuels may contribute to transport fuel needs... as I recall perhaps 26% in 2050?

This appears to me to be based on two common but faulty assumptions. One, projections based on current use and growth assumptions are likely not valid in these dramatically changing times; and two, that we'll have enough affordable petroleum to be using it for the other 74%.

Greater conservation and efficiency, the two largest sources of "new energy" seem not to be well considered in most long term projections today. We can do a lot better. We must, and I hope and expect we will.

With that, I'm looking forward to learning how I am informed of and can enter this and other Grist dialogues.

SalemguyOn NYT: Consumers are complaining about ethanol-spiked gasoline posted 1 year, 3 months ago 11 Responses