OIL

[Leftest]

I think we need to switch to alternatives

http://www.ericblumrich.com/swf/It_Makes_Me_Wonder.swf ((Flash Video))


.

[McKenzie]

1. Regretably, it's not that simple...

there is no alternative if we want to continue as we have done for the last few decades. That's what the fighting is all about.

Thanks for the link btw.

[lvx35]

2. True.

I was suprised when I really looked into it. I thought hydrogen fuel cells were good for instance, because you can get hydrogen from water, right? No. It turns out that its only a "medium" for energy. Things gonna have to change at a deeper level, or a breakthrough must be made.

[silverweb]

5. There's the caveat.

"...if we want to continue as we have done for the last few decades."

Considering where it has brought us, do we really think that we ought to continue as we have done for the last few decades?

Why is unbridled, exponential growth and expansion desirable?

Maybe it's time we scaled back some and considered a better course. If we did that, I think we'd find that there are plenty of very adequate alternatives to oil and that we really don't need it much at all.

[McKenzie]

9. "Why is unbridled, exponential growth and expansion desirable?"

Bang on target silverweb.

That is THE question we need to ask, not whether we can find another way to continue making handy-dandy-dialamatic-sponge-sharpeners (With apologies to Gilbert Shelton I think) and other bloody useless crap.

If people would only wake up and realise that this mindless materialism is actually holding back our mental evolution. The next revolution is in the mind.

[silverweb]

12. Amen.

"...this mindless materialism is actually holding back our mental evolution. The next revolution is in the mind."

It has to be or we're through as a species, along with everything else on the planet except the cockroaches.

And yet all we hear about is business as usual, as though reality can be willed away.

[Leftest]

14. JACK HERER: (Putting money where mouth is)

On Jack Herer's "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" website, he offers his book online for free for you to read -and- challenges anyone that if they can prove him wrong, he'll pay them $100,000 dollars. http://www.jackherer.com/

Read "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" from the author's website for free: http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html



---------------------


(excerpts and information compiled from Jack Herer and The Emperor Wears No Clothes)

About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas. Very few people know what "biomass conversion" or "pyrolysis" mean--not only in terms of their dictionary definitions, but in terms of what they mean as alternative sources of energy, to the limited, expensive and dirty petro-chemical, nuclear, or coal sources. The only reason the U.S.-- and every other nation on earth--can't once again become energy independent and smog free is because people are not educated concerning the facts about solutions to the environment/energy "crisis" continuously lamented and tepidly addressed "leaders", claiming they are the best informed to decide what to do. The knowledge exists right now for our lifeline to the future and the health and well-being of the Seventh Generation yet unborn. Everyone of us must learn about this existent lifeline and teach everyone else we know what the facts are the way out of the current "crisis".

HEMP IS THE NUMBER ONE biomass producer on earth: 10 tons per acre in approximately four months. It is a woody plant containing 77% cellulose. Wood producers 60% cellulose. This energy crop can be harvested with equipment readily available. It can be "cubed" by modifying cubing equipment. This method condenses the bulk, reducing trucking costs from the field to the pyrolysis reactor. And the biomass cubes are ready for conversion.

Hemp is drought resistant, making it an ideal crop in the dry western regions of the country. Hemp is the only biomass resource capable of making America energy independent and our government outlawed it in 1938.

The argument against hemp production does not hold up to scrutiny: hemp grown for biomass makes very poor grade marijuana. The 20-40 million Americans who smoke marijuana would loath to smoke hemp grown for biomass, so a farmer's hemp biomass crop is worthless as marijuana.

Fuel:

- Farming 6% of the continental U.S. acreage with biomass crops would provide all of America's energy needs.

- Hemp is Earth's number-one biomass resource; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in four months.

- Biomass can be converted to methane, methanol, or gasoline at a cost comparable to petroleum, and hemp is much better for the environment. Pyrolysis (charcoalizing), or biochemical composting are two methods of turning hemp into fuel.

- Hemp can produce 10 times more methanol than corn.

- Hemp fuel burns clean. Petroleum causes acid rain due to sulfur pollution.

- The use of hemp fuel does not contribute to global warming.

Food:

- Hemp seed can be pressed into a nutritious oil, which contains the highest amount of fatty acids in the plant kingdom. Essential oils are responsible for our immune system responses, and clear the arteries of cholesterol and plaque.

- The byproduct of pressing the oil from hemp seed is high quality protein seed cake. It can be sprouted (malted) or ground and baked into cakes, breads, and casseroles. Hemp seed protein is one of mankind's finest, most complete and available-to-the-body vegetable proteins.

- Hemp seed was the world's number one wild and domestic bird seed until the 1937 Marijuana prohibition law. Four million pounds of hemp seed for songbirds were sold at retail in the U.S. in 1937. Birds will pick hemp seeds out and eat them first from a pile of mixed seed. Birds in the wild live longer and breed more with hemp seed in their diet, using the oil for the feathers and their overall health.

Fiber:

- Hemp is the oldest cultivated fiber plant in the world.

- Low-THC fiber hemp varieties developed by the French and others have been available for over 20 years. It is impossible to get high from fiber hemp. Over 600,000 acres of hemp is grown worldwide with no drug misuse problem.

- One acre of hemp can produce as much usable fiber as 4 acres of trees or two acres of cotton.

- Trees cut down to make paper take 50 to 500 years to grow, while hemp can be cultivated in as little as 100 days and can yield 4 times more paper over a 20 year period.

- Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.

- Hemp paper is longer lasting than wood pulp, stronger, acid-free, and chlorine free. (Chlorine is estimated to cause up to 10% of all Cancers.)

- Hemp paper can be recycled 7 times, wood pulp 4 times.

- If the hemp pulp paper process reported by the USDA in 1916, were legal today it would soon replace 70% of all wood paper products.

- Rag paper containing hemp fiber is the highest quality and longest lasting paper ever made. It can be torn when wet, but returns to its full strength when dry. Barring extreme conditions, rag paper remains stable for centuries.

- Hemp particle board may be up to 2 times stronger than wood particleboard and holds nails better.

- Hemp is softer, warmer, more water absorbent, has three times the tensile strength, and is many times more durable than cotton. Hemp production uses less chemicals than cotton.
- From 70-90% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp until 1937.

- A strong lustrous fiber; hemp withstands heat, mildew, insects, and is not damaged by light. Oil paintings on hemp and/or flax canvas have stayed in fine condition for centuries.

Industry:

- Almost any product that can be made from wood, cotton, or petroleum (including plastics) can be made from hemp. There are more than 25,000 known uses for hemp.

- For thousands of years virtually all good paints and varnishes were made with hemp seed oil and/or linseed oil.

- Hemp stems are 80% hurds (pulp by-product after the hemp fiber is removed from the plant). Hemp hurds are 77% cellulose - a primary chemical feed stock (industrial raw material) used in the production of chemicals, plastics, and fibers. Depending on which U.S. agricultural report is correct, an acre of full grown hemp plants can sustainably provide from four to 50 or even 100 times the cellulose found in cornstalks, kenaf, or sugar cane (the planet's next highest annual cellulose plants).

- One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, making hemp a perfect material to replace trees for pressed board, particle board, and concrete construction molds.

- Heating and compressing plant fibers can create practical, inexpensive, fire-resistant construction materials with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities. These strong plant fiber construction materials could replace dry wall and wood paneling. William B. Conde of Conde's Redwood Lumber, Inc. near Eugene, Oregon, in conjunction with Washington State University (1991-1993), has demonstrated the superior strength, flexibility, and economy of hemp composite building materials compared to wood fiber, even as beams.

- Isochanvre, a rediscovered French building material made from hemp hurds mixed with lime petrifies into a mineral state and lasts for many centuries. Archeologists have found a bridge in the south of France from the Merovingian period (500-751 A.D.), built with this process.

- Hemp has been used throughout history for carpet backing. Hemp fiber has potential in the manufacture of strong, rot resistant carpeting - eliminating the poisonous fumes of burning synthetic materials in a house or commercial fire, along with allergic reactions associated with new synthetic carpeting.

- Plastic plumbing pipe (PVC pipes) can be manufactured using renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical feed stocks, replacing non-renewable coal or petroleum based chemical feed stocks.

- In 1941 Henry Ford built a plastic car made of fiber from hemp and wheat straw. Hemp plastic is biodegradable, synthetic plastic is not.

.

[IronLionZion]

15. So why don't people use hemp for that stuff?

:shrug: Sure the oil companies have an iron grip around America. But we are not the only country in the world that uses energy. And surely the oil companies don't control every country in the world?

Yes, I know many countries use hemp for food and fiber. But which countries use hemp for fuel today?

If this was a simple solution to a simple problem why hasn't somebody actually done it yet?

Nobody can collect the money because it is impossible to prove it is false....or true.

:think: It's an honorable goal and kudos for trying.

[Leftest]

16. Actually it has been used for that stuff

The below Hemp fuel car is one of the latest examples to prove to the nay-sayers and disbelievers. But below isn't the only example. Hemp has been been used for a wide range of products before it was scandalized. Hemp fuels even saw limited use by Japan during World War II.

I can appreciate your reluctance to research what this remarkable plant has to offer. But I am sure that if you researched it further, you would be impressed as to what it has to offer society.


http://www.hempcar.org/









.

[Wilms]

3. Wow. Thank You. Nominated. nn/t

[dchill]

4. Stunning. Recommended...

Welcome to D.U., Leftest.

[Leftest]

11. Hi dchill

:hi:

[silverweb]

6. Incredible.

Brilliant and chilling. Thank you.

[Dunvegan]

7. No, not easy. "Nearly" impossible...

...like the United States putting a man on the moon seemed in 1960.

...like curing smallpox.

...like splitting the atom.

We've done the "nearly" impossible before.

The images in this Flashflim are only a fraction of the pain, suffering, horror, and death that the pursuit of oil, past peak, will bring us all.

Every drop of oil seems to be extracted with a drop of blood.

Rivers of oil...rivers of blood.

It's worth the effort to put down the oil can in every way we find we can.

Nominated.

[DainBramaged]

8. The tears roll down my face as I type this

We may have crossed the line, and I don't know if the future is enough time to recover.

Greed, destroyer of civilization.

[DainBramaged]

10. You must take five minutes to watch this.

[dchill]

13. kicking for OIL