Comments David Foley has made

Please read the book

I was a student of both Dennis and Donella Meadows in the 1970's, and a friend afterwards.  I was around during most of this debate.  Virtually nothing in LTG has been disproved (yet) for 2 important reasons.  First, LTG was never a prediction of the future - it was a warning that we need a major course correction.  Second, if you actually read the book - something most of its critics have not done - you'll see that most of its projections deal with the period we're just now entering: that is , the time from about 2005 to 2050.

I heartily recommend that people read The Limits To Gorwth for themselves.  Better yet, read the 1992 sequel, called Beyond The Limits, which is, I think, better than the original or its 2002 successor.On The authors of Limits to Growth were right, 30 years ago and today posted 3 years, 3 months ago 9 Responses

Don't fight the straw man

If by chance, someone from the Flat Earth Society were able to publish an op-ed in a major newspaper, few would waste their energy arguing with the poor fool.

Don't waste time and energy on reactionaries.  Find the people who want to help solve this problem.  They're everywhere.  Today, you could change every light bulb in your house to a compact fluorescent.  Tomorrow, you could convince your neighbor to do the same, maybe work together to form a little neighbor light-bulb-buying coop.

Or whatever.  The point of these conservative essays is not just to sow confusion - another aim is to pull your strings, make you dance to their tune by reacting to them.  Don't fall for it.On What's next in the global warming discussion posted 3 years, 7 months ago 13 Responses

Zero emissions?

Good post, but be careful not to repeal the laws of physics.  As long as there's a Second Law of Thermodynamics, there will never be a "zero-emissions" automobile.  Some cars, such as electric ones, may be displaced emissions vehicles - that is, their pollution may be displaced to another location - but no vehicle will ever convert 100% of its fuel into motion.On Smells like french fries posted 3 years, 7 months ago 33 Responses

Ideal Farm Bill

1. Ration the market.  Each farmer, to stay even or get ahead, tries to produce more crop.  The market treats the crop as a commodity - it doesn't distinguish one soybean from another.  Therefore, each farmer works to produce more, but the effect of all farmers doing this is overproduction and pressure on the crop price to drop.  Meanwhile, since each farmer is trying to produce more, the price of inputs such as fertilizer, machinery, etc., is bid higher.  Result: each farmer is caught in a profit squeeze - and each farmer decides that, just to stay even, they have to produce MORE crops.  Rationing the market breaks a vicious circle: if you want, say, 50,000 soybean farmers, then allow each farmer to produce up to 1/50,000 of the market.  This isn't socialized farming - each farmer is free to run the farm as he or she sees fit - but it caps individual production instead of subsidizing non-production or production for export, as we now do.

2. Financially reward restoration of Natural Capital.  Right now, good topsoil is worth little or nothing until it's put into use.  A farmer can increase income by running down soil in order to boost production.  Soil is capital, but markets don't recognize this.  It will take a subsidy to give farmers an incentive to rebuild topsoil.  Here's a strange fact: in the United States, our largest "export", both in value and weight is - topsoil.  We "export" most of it to the Gulf of Mississippi.  We aren't "importing" any.  That's a bad balance of trade.