Ok ok, this is a wake up call

[nadinbrzezinski]

so what needs to change at a POLICY level?

1.- We need to change our emphasis from fossil fuels, to renewable. Yes this will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but not eliminate it.

2.- We need to come up with ALTERNATIVES to all the stuff that uses oil in the industrial process. this ranges from the paint on your walls, to the fertilizers in the fields, to the roads we ride on, to the... well I posted the list on another thread.

3.- On a realistic level we need to move from our consumerist economy to a post consumer economy that is more sustainable (Good luck on that right now, but the fight needs to start) And yes consumers have a SMALL role in this... but sadly most of this is at the policy level. So start becoming a gnatt to your congress critter et al. Oh and realize this may very well be a generational fight... and it includes things like how the heck do we get rid of the toxic plastics (and other things) we have produced of the decades.

Realize this means we need to CHANGE the way we think about Nature... and our penchant for exploitation might go back to... our 18th century conception of the role of humans on the world. I mean in this conception creation was given to man to use as he pleases by God. (NOT WOMAN, man)

So these are just some thoughts on this.

Oh and the disaster on the Gulf... is a wake up call... as well as the floods in Tennessee (Perhaps you have not noticed but this is the SECOND 500 year flood in the middle of the country as it were, in less than five years)

But the first step is to understand just how truly addicted to oil we are... 95% of the stuff at your home is made with oil derivatives, and the other 5%, got there on a vehicle burning fossil fuels.

Oh and the use, reuse and recycle is part of it. It makes us feel good... but it is mostly feel good. Here are some things you can do RIGHT NOW that will be far more effective in the long term.

No, not boycott BP, good luck with that one.

1.- When you buy food, buy local and in season. That reduces the transportation cost and it is actually more effective at reducing demand. I mean my tangelos that I bought last week were gown in East County and driven to the Market, not in South America and shipped in, and then trucked in. You will make much of a difference.

2.- Buy organic... yes it is more expensive, but again, they are pesticide free... see that demand for oil is going down by a smidgen.

3.- I at times buy my chicken from a local farmer, who raises them in true free range. See they had a better quality of life, but we do not get the toxic dumps that otherwise we get. It is also closer to the real cost of chicken, and if you can afford it... the meat is far better tasting too. But the price... is not for the faint of heart. I also buy my eggs from the same farmer.

4.- If you absolutely need to buy coffee and tea... ME... buy fair trade. Again expensive, but it helps.

And start thinking how the hell are we going to move away from this consumerist\ oil civilization culture we live in?

These are REAL steps, based on things that will have real effects. And I do understand if some of you cannot afford to do this. Trust me, I do... it is a lifestyle and a tad expensive...but perhaps I am paying a price that is closer to the real cost. I don't know. As I read more and more into economic theory I realize that perhaps I am.

[cliffordu]

1. Kicked and recc'd

[lonestarnot]

2. Nadine.

Can I get out of shock first?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Absolutely...

:hugs:

[lonestarnot]

15. Thanks.

:hug:

[msongs]

4. lol we need a bipartisan national policy supported whole heartedly by both parties, Meanwhile

we have solar on our roof, heat on demand hot water, drip irrigation, lawn converted to fruit trees, 80% composting, and yes, fair trade coffee. Meat? No. The last remaining fish in the oceans? No. And all that without permission of any congressional republicans lol.


Msongs

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. My home Owners association are a bunch of retrograde idiots

If I win the mega lotto I will be moving away to a place I CAN DO THAT, so fast it is not even funny... just by the beach if I can. Hubby misses the waves. And that means biking not close but mostly everywhere.

[flvegan]

5. Excellent start. Thank you. I'd only add...go vegan.

If you really want to change how one "feels" about nature, I can't recommend a better means to do that.

YMMV.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. trust me, betweeen the celiac like disease

and diabetes, I got enough trouble meeting my nutrition needs. That does not mean we eat crazy amounts of beef. We stick to the four oz of protein...

Not an excuse, just a reality.

And yes I could pop a pill, I know. Oy the pharmacy.

Why I try to buy my stuff from responsible breeders who try to have a light footprint

[Hekate]

38. We each have to listen to our bodies. Every time Mr H tries to be a "real" vegetarian his colitis...

... kicks up. It's so nice to have it in remission, as I'm sure you know.

Hekate

[Hekate]

6. 5th Rec. I've had my own hens for a year and the eggs I share with my neighbors are unbeatable

I accidentally acquired 4 hens LOL and they are charming. I found out that there are people all over the country who now have backyard chickens -- my next door neighbor liked mine so well that he got some of his own. Mr Hekate checked and our little city's ordinances are silent on the subject of keeping hens -- I have a feeling that if you kept a rooster the neighbors wouldn't be so "silent," but all we want are eggs, and we share them.

We already had some citrus trees, and in the past year have added quite a few more fruit trees and an almond tree.

It is a tiny, tiny yard and tough clay soil and we are kind of lazy gardeners -- but all this is easy. When we share our eggs, we get avocados and oranges back. My SIL and BIL have a similar size yard they have turned into the Garden of Eden (or Garden of Eatin') by working at it.

No solar panels -- too expensive. Water conservation -- we do that without even thinking, because this is SoCal.

I can think of all the things I neglect to do, but some things are so easy.

Hekate

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Mega Lotto, if we hit it

I might just move around your neck of the woods. Two conures... and getting a few hens... add to the family as it were.

:hi:

[Hekate]

34. Would love to have you, but as you know it's wicked expensive. If I hadn't moved here 30 years ago

etc etc

Maybe our paths will cross one day though. :hi:

Enjoy your hens -- they're really sweet, in my limited experience, but you really do have to protect any garden areas you don't want dug up and eaten!

Hekate

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Mega Lotto is at 260 million right now

I got ONE Buck invested in it.

[Hekate]

39. Best of luck! Have you seen those big candles for winning the Loteria? I got one for a friend...

... who always puts a buck into the Lotto. I love her enthusiasm.

Hekate

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Nope, what was sad was the other person

putting in 200 bucks believing that they could actually get better odds.

[villager]

20. Another SoCaler here -- I've been diverting gray water from the wash -- by hand bucket!

--into the yards. I've never had better roses in the whole time I've rented here.

Of course, I have to bring back the veggie garden in the rear...

Love backyard hens. But the Ex got those when she got the house that had the original backyard...

[Oregone]

7. We need to look into the mirror and face our impending doom

Why? I don't know. I feel like a chicken little tonight. Its a great theme. Run with it.

[William Z. Foster]

8. well...

Organic does not mean pesticide free, as there are hundreds of "natural" pesticides approved for organic, and many are more persistence and require much more frequent spraying. Also, most produce in the market labeled organic today is imported, and often subject to little or no regulation or inspection. More often that not, you will be paying a premium price for inferior produce.

A box of produce driven in from a boutique farm a couple of hours away may actually use more fuel per ton that a boatload of produce from say New Zealand. Much produce moves more efficiently in terms of fuel use today than it did when everyone was "buying local."

Dried, canned, and juice concentrates are important and economical alternatives, good delivery methods for nutritional value, that do not involve buying fresh or in season.

There is no substitute for a thorough understanding of the complexities of food and nutrition, and slogans like "buy local" or "buy organic" and such are marketing slogans that tell us very little, other than that we should be prepared to pay a higher price.

"Paying more means I am getting the better stuff" and "change your personal shopping habits for a better world" is part of the very consumer mentality you say needs to change.

[Oregone]

10. I'm confused

How does "buying local" include buying "from a boutique farm a couple of hours away"?

It shouldn't take anymore carbon emissions. It should be local--as far as your grocery store (which can also be pressured to buy local in bulk).

BTW, ever heard of a "Farmer's Market"? Many cities have them now, and all you have to drive to is the town hall area in many cases. The food is not transported too far to get there, and doesn't require the packaging/refrigeration that the New Zealand produce you laud may

[William Z. Foster]

21. understood

Depends on the time of year when shipping boatloads oveseas what the refrigeration needs are. I used New Zealand as an example because they are such a good trade partner - labor, safety and environmental factors.

I used the example of the boutique farm, because in the hundreds of farm market and CSA type operations I have been involved in, it is often the case that a tremendous amounts of fuel is used on a per-ton basis for moving relatively small amounts of produce. For example is a person drives 10 miles back and forth once a week to a CSA for a small amount of produce, there can actually be a higher fuel cost per pound then bulk shipments by more efficient and less polluting means of transportation - rail and ship in particular. Not always of course, but often. For the amount of produce sold at farmer's markets, there are often a lot of vehicles needed both to get the customers there and the produce there, relative to the amount of food distributed, by less efficient transportation (cars and small trucks) less efficiently loaded (a passenger or two in a car, a small amount of produce in a truck. That means more pollution and more fuel usage per ton of food distributed.

You cannot possibly feed a city the size of Chicago through a farmer's market system, and it would be very inefficient to try to do that.

I think we do need to move away from so much specialization - the brokers and investors have forced that on us, the food corporations, not the farmers and not the store owners. By the way, fuel costs have caused more produce here in the Midwest to be sold locally. But it is the distributors who control that, not the farmers or the small store owners. They bare the people to pressure. I also think that we need to keep small - 100-300 acre - family farms going. We are moving toward a two tier food system now - the boutique organic, CSA, farmer's market foodie world for the relatively upscale and privileged, and imported food of questionable quality for the masses. Caught in the middle and facing extinction are the 100-300 acre family farms from where the bulk of many commodities still comes.

My point is that this is much more complex than people are making it out to be, and farmer's markets, CSAs, buy organic, and buy local may do more harm than they do good. They are sales and marketing slogans, promoting private enterprise largely outside of the public agriculture community and infrastructure - in fact, now demanding exemption from food safety and health inspection and regulation - and the concept of "free market" solutions driven by consumer choice as a substitute for a robust public food policy and agricultural infrastructure.

We cannot shop our way to social justice. All sorts of corporations, and small entrepreneurs, want us to think that we can, and profits are what they are after there and nothing else. they have succeeded in turning their customers into zealots by attaching causes to their products which makes the customer fiercely loyal and willing to pay premium prices. Pretty successful racket. Get people to think that they are not merely buying an apricot, but are saving the world, and on top of that are expressing their values and reaffirming their deepest principles and ideals. Ka-ching!

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I understand your cynicism

but I also understand that we send one type of orange to Autralia, and we import another type to the US, which is easier to peel.

I am sorry, but that is a waste of money and resources.

There is more... our local "free range" chickens sold at the local market are raised in chicken coups with 3000 to 5000 birds per coop. they are not allowed out and once the birds leave for slaughter you need to clean up the mess, which is toxic, and pollutes even ground water.

We need to find solutions, but what we are doing is not working.

As to shop local and buy local as always do your homework. Some markets are not what they portray, others are.

[William Z. Foster]

28. agreed

I didn't say shipping produce halfway around the world is always a good idea, and yes there is much needless waste. But it is not always bad, and local is not always good. The programs the "eat local" activists here are running are the most inefficient anywhere. A lot of driving and promoting for a few rutabagas. I exaggerate, but you get the idea. A small handful of people are partially fed, and it is mostly upscale people and mostly specialty items. I see that same problem elsewhere in the country, as well. One guy I know well really went at it - buying local produce and taking it around to the local markets and restaurants. It just doesn't work, other than as a hobby or an upscale specialty thing where you can charge premium process. No matter how efficient he tried to get, he was still driving all over three counties all day with a near empty truck and very small profits.

I think the small scale organic model works especially well for poultry, by the way. For meat of all kinds. But that is already being hijacked by the corporations, as you point out and the slogan "free range" doesn't mean anything anymore.

Doing your homework is good, for you and for your food and health, but not everyone can do that - nor should they have to in order to get the best food. Not in a sane, humane and compassionate society.

I agree we need to find solutions. What will work, what did work, was the USDA and the network of land grant colleges, research stations, cooperative extension and state Ag departments. All of that has been under relentless assault by the Republicans, and now increasingly by Democrats as well, and funding has been stripped and corporations have made more and more inroads into the public agencies.

"Restore the public agricultural infrastructure, and subsidize small family farms" should be the rallying cry, not "make the right consumer choices, like I do." There ought not ever be any bad consumer choices available when it comes to food. Rather than "buy local" how about "get Wall Street out of the food system." Rather than "support organic entrepreneurs" how about "support a robust public food policy." The two approaches I am contrasting there really are going in opposite directions.

[Oregone]

23. "We cannot shop our way to social justice."

No, but maybe we can help get started down the path by growing our way there.

Pop a tomato seed into some dirt behind your house and your rant becomes a moot point.

Corporations, entrepreneurs, marketers, slogans, zealots, and all that bullshit quickly falls to the wayside.

You seem angry about this and you seem to be framing it conveniently to create an argument. But just as you say that it is complex, the alternative ideas are also not so cut and dry.

I live in a "sustainable" community (you can walk to many farms). There is a big town seed swap and gardening convention. The "buy local" movement is interwoven with the "grow local" movement. Nearly everyone has a garden, no matter how small, and its quite refreshing (especially considering I live on an island and all)

No one is saving the world. They are merely not killing it so quickly, nor are they killing their bodies so quickly as well.

And BTW, Farmer's Market produce is seemingly a better deal than grocery produce for some odd reason these days

As for people in Chicago...I don't know. I choose not to live there. That entire model is not sustainable as far as I can tell. Ill seek another way to live in a more rural manner and telecommute.

[William Z. Foster]

37. yes

If the movement raises public demand for restoring the public infrastructure for the benefit of all of the people, then that is good. If the movement promotes consumer choice for the few in lieu of pressure for restoring the public infrastructure, that is bad.

At most farm markets what I see (and I typically know all of the growers in the area) is hobbyists, part-timers, growers who have no other outlets, and growers who are anxious to get rid of their stock at any price. All of this cause downward pressure on prices and keeps the better growers away. There are also a few dedicated people doing some extraordinary things, as well, but they are the minority. Most people cannot tell who is who, and it frustrates me to see "growers" do well at farmer's markets who are not really serious growers, but can talk a good line and know what consumers want to hear. It varies in different parts of the country, and with different products. The fruit growers at the farmers' markets in Colorado are great I think. The organic veggie and herb folks - wonderful people, but.... just not serious farming, more like a lifestyle. That is fine, but is not an alternative for feeding the public, not a model we can duplicate or scale up. there are a couple of really good growers I know in WA, serious growers, who do a great job and sell at all of the farmer's markets in the state. Some good folks selling in SF whom I know.

You are lucky you can live in the country and telecommute. Detroit and Chicago are full of people with few options and nowhere to go. The farmers - as a community - are committed to feeding them, first and foremost. What that takes - today, tomorrow, the next day - is often at odds with what the CSA organic and buy local movement is demanding of farming.

Heh - no, not angry, and not looking for an argument. Sorry if it seemed that way.

Well I am angry, actually, about some things. The growing and desperate food emergency around the globe, the collapse of local agricultural systems everywhere, the decline of the public farming infrastructure here and the privatization of the ag colleges, the domination of the food supply by Wall Street and a handful of corporations, the horrendous pressure on immigrant farm workers, the crap the corporations are hustling to people, the misinformation they are putting out about nutrition, the control over the FDA by the pharmaceutical industry, the slow death of farming communities around the country...

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Actually the farmers I buy directly from

don't use pesticides...

But I am sure you knew that.

I just NOW started buying cucumbers. They JUST NOW came into season locally.

You see you may be sneering at this practice of actually not buying at a major chain store, and sticking to my local economy, alas my local FARMERS, that I buy my apples from, my tomatoes from etcetera, are VERY LOCAL.

You know where your strawberries are grown at? I know where.

By the way that Orange you buy at the store from New Zealand, the cost is much higher than you are paying, but that's ok

As to the consumer culture, you are confusing buying to eat with buying crap you don't need because you were told you needed it by sleek marketeers.

Oh and I woudl not call them boutique farms either. They sell both at the market, and to the stores.

[Oregone]

18. Cucumbers and Tomatoes?

Sounds like something you could be growing on your own. :)

Everyone should be encouraged to just grow a few plants. What it could save in packaging, fertilizers (if they don't use petro-based), refrigeration, transportation, etc, could have a significant impact.

BTW...I believe the "boutique" label was from condescension, but Ill await to be corrected.

[William Z. Foster]

43. you think?

"Boutique" means a small business with specialty products of superior quality catering to a select and discerning clientele. I am not using it in a derogatory way.

[William Z. Foster]

24. that will work

Knowing the grower works. If they say they use no pesticides they are either not being honest (common, sadly) or they are not calling "natural" poisons "pesticides," or they are taking huge loses and don't care about that, or they are in a desert environment creating artificial growing conditions - (greenhouse, irrigation), or growing where the pests have not yet arrived (they will.) That is fine if they want to go about things that way, but it can never scale up to feed the general public. "There is no free lunch" as they say. Also, while you may have made this to work for you, the vast majority of people, should they follow your advice, are very vulnerable to being ripped off.

I am not sneering at avoiding the super market. Buy right from the farm is what I promote, learn more about farming and the farms is what I say. But that is not a substitute for a robust public food infrastructure and policies. Consumer choice is no way to drive policy on something as important as food.

I work with small growers all over the country, including CSAs, organics, boutiques, hobby farms and everything else, so yes I know where every single piece of the hundreds of fruit and vegetable varieties I eat every year come from.

I think it is important to educate the public about food, farming and nutrition. Your slogans do not do that, and in fact work against it. The more your slogans catch on, the more likely it is that corporations will hijack them. That has already happened with organic.

I am glad that your food strategy is working for you, it sounds great and I have no problem with it. However, I am merely pointing out that it should not be presented as an alternative, as a solution for everyone. It is not and cannot be. I should say, cannot be without a massive public investment to restore small family farming. That demands public policy and infrastructure, and privatized free market and consumer choice alternatives can work against that. Why learn about farming or lobby for a restored public food policy and infrastructure when I can just shop for my alternative, solve the problem for myself individually, and at the same time feel like I am saving the planet? That is the danger. See what I mean?

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. You are pointing out that we need to reexamine the national cheap food policy

This buy local is mostly stop gap until the cheap food policy is fully revised and brought into sustainable practices

As to my local market... I live on the coast, of a high desert area.

:-)

And I worked long enough at a kibbutz, actually raising chickens for eggs, to have more than just a clue.

By the way reexamining the cheap food policy of the US, that makes vegies too expensive, and meat insanely cheap... is based on growing corn and monoculture in the Midwest. We, as a nation, will pay for that... what is it now, close to two generations? Yields have stagnated and in a few cases are actually going down.

So we are in agreement essentially... as to the high policy issues... and trust me, I have written more than one letter to my congress critter. Alas she ain't gonna get it. She comes from an urban district.

[William Z. Foster]

31. bingo

Now we are talking.

Back in the 30's many people were seriously deprived of proteins and fats. The grain polices made sense, solved the problem. It needs to be revisited, yes, but ADM, Cargil and other multi-nationals stand in the way of that.

It is much easier to use organic methods were you are, but again there is no free lunch. Little problem with mold, fungus and insects. Irrigation is required and leads to leeching of heavy metals and other toxins from the soil. Of course, if that were ramped so as to feed a substantial percentage of the population up the pests would eventually arrive, or the irrigation water would run out. In the major west coast urban areas, there is an extraordinary demand for farm market, organic, and CSA products, and a sufficiently concentrated and upscale population to support it. But of course, those "sufficiently concentrated and upscale population" centers come at an environmental price, as well.

Yes, farmers are working the soil and the crops too hard in many places, but they are fighting to survive and that is forcing them to push everything and to get big or die. They have no control over the global marketing forces driving these problems, and in fact we need to buffer and insulate them - and all of us as eaters - from those forces. On the west coast there is a lot of corporate farming and absentee and corporate ownership. That is not so much the case in the rest of the country, and west coasters often can't imagine thousands of 100-300 acre family farms who are not in the organic or CSA millieu, but are progressive and safety conscious and community oriented. In California it is either/or - gigantic corporate farms, or small scale farms geared to a relatively upscale specialty market.

The kibbutz is a good hands on experience and good background, I think.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. I asked questions from my egg dealer that he actually asked

you worked in one of these? I knew the right questions, including the size of containment cages, as well as the belt... as well as the general layout of a coop. If he was telling the truth, and that might fit the boutique model, but it is better for the chickens. They are keeping them in an open range, with a lower population and they move them every so often from area of field to area of field, essentially using chicken poop, which is not that concentrated due to lower population size, to fertilize the land. Too much of that crap... and it is toxic.

Ideally I'd love to see land grant colleges FUNDED. ADM severely scaled back, farmers allowed to grow more than just corn even in the huge corporate farms...

As I said policy level... which is not what most people are into... the changes have to be systemic. They also have to reflect new realities in the world economy and peak oil. I also realize that peak oil will bring the end of the Green Revolution. Free lunch... Malthus comes to mind and population bombs. Many people make fun of Erlich, but we are heading to that...

And I know I am blessed to live where I do... in order to buy what I buy. And I realize what these markets are... and why they are not good at the infrastructure level... but we will need changes at so many levels it is not even funny. And most people have no clue.

Oh and we have to thank Nixon for the beginning of this mess.

Of course I'd also advocate that kids go on trips to the farm and well, learn where their food comes from... since most Americans are isolated from their food in amazing ways...

[William Z. Foster]

41. very good

As I said, I think the small scale organic model works especially well with poultry. When I was a kid, everyone kept chickens right in the city. Giving away my age there.

I think that people need to realize is three things about farming: it is suburbia and all that it entails that is not sustainable. Farming has been forced to change to accommodate suburbia - move farther out, spend more on transportation, cater to upscale tastes and standardization, etc. It is suburbia we should question and change, not farming. Much of the organic, CSA and buy local movement represents a suburban mentality, yet another pressure from suburbia to meet the whims and fads of suburbanites who are 3 or 4 generations removed from the farm and do not have a clue. Not all of the movement, but the money in the movement and in this culture money means power and control.

Suburbia is different than urban areas. Urban areas allowed farming in fairly close, didn't compete with farmers for real estate the way suburbs do, made transportation by rail into the city center, and distribution from there to the neighborhoods easy and efficient.

On peak oil and farming - if we ran out of oil tomorrow, little would change in farming. Instead of each farmer being able to feed 1200 people, he or she could only feed 12. That does not mean that farming would collapse, it means that suburbia would collapse, and all of those people who left the farm 3-4 generations ago would have to return. The oil supports the suburban lifestyle, not farming.

Third: corporations control the food supply, not farmers.

One of the big problems with the foodie movement - for all of the good things about it - is that it focuses on farming as the problem and seeks to change farming, rather than targeting the suburban lifestyle and the corporations and capitalism, at the very least the reign of free market capitalism over the food supply system. It seeks to force farmers to give them upscale gentrified consumer choices, rather than fighting for a restoration of the public agricultural infrastructure which would benefit ALL - the farmers, the farm communities, the general public AND the foodies.

We MUST restore the USDA and state ag departments and Land Grant colleges, and we MUST get Wall Street out of the public food supply system.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. As I said you and I are talking of a high policy level

I see these markets as a stop gap ONLY if they can put pressure onto the usual suspects.

As is... except in my back yard... a lot of suburbia was at one time prime time food producing land.

But if Peak Oil happened tomorrow... we will see massive starvation, mostly human populations are beyond present day production abilities, let alone a collapse of the ability to feed people at present rates. That has to do with what we need on top of the soil to produce these amount of food.

As to the foodie... I don't consider myself a foodie... I realize though that I have to put SOME pressure on how the system works, and at least the local environment allows me to do that.

If I had the money I'd fund a college myself... or better yet buy a Senator.

:-)

[William Z. Foster]

44. "foodie" is not bad

I am one myself, I guess. My sister most definitely is and keeps me in line.

If oil disappeared tomorrow, the biggest challenge would be relocating people closer to the farm. But if we could get the workers and the farms into proximity to one another, house everyone, and bypass the food brokers and corporations, no one need starve. The bankers would start showing up for their blood money, and threaten to take the land, though. I make that all sound easy. It would not be, but it could be done.

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. Not outside the US

there are many places around the world that DEPEND on that USAID wheat and rice.

Global Weather change will lead to more food problems, and peak oil will lead to that

On the bright side though... we should be able to mostly feed our present population.

[RainDog]

9. legalize hemp and grow to replace petrol-derived products like plastic bags

and so many other uses.

Stop pretending that this issue is about some mythical stoner and accept that farmers want to grow hemp as a cash crop because it can be used to create car bodies that are stronger than steel.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. ++++10000

Hell we used Hemp for evertying at one time from rope to clothes...

And to the stoner... it is not even the same plant

There are a few other plants involved in the Homespun movement that could be used as well. So clothes would not be that fine looking... so what?

[RainDog]

14. not to mention replacing wood paper pulp

because, predictions to the contrary, we are not a paper-free society.

hemp could also replace cash crops for farmers who have pushed for ethanol - and, hey, to stop the use of corn syrup in everything...

Unfortunately, Americans, we've seen, will not turn to public transit or living closer to work until gas is more expensive.

this is combined with the cost of housing that is closer to work - a lot of people cannot afford to live in the cities where they work - it's cheaper to live elsewhere and commute.

but this sort of "solution" to overpriced real estate is horrible for the environment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Earth Day I went to State to do some research

Of course I drove to the Trolley station and took the trolley.

So I come out and the Transit department has a bus right there asking people if they took transit. They are trying to sell it.

Young kids go... why? I mean that's what the poor people do... I am not kidding. This is a State College.

So I turned on them and kindly explained to them why you ride transit. They went... you must be poor

And I told them... I am sure I have more money in the bank than you've made in your life... (And at 20 years of age for each of them I think I am correct)... then I added, wealth is not just in the money, but clean air, a better planet and a solution to global weather change.

Kid looked at me... shook head.

No kid, I am not a tree huger, but I am looking out for YOUR NATURAL INHERITANCE... and unless you are in the bidness department, this wrong headed thinking makes no sense.

Well guess what? bidness department...

[SammyWinstonJack]

29. ^5

:thumbsup:

[kentuck]

25. I think you may be right Nadin....

This spill just may be the catalyst to finally get us to do something about carbon fuels, especially those under our water, our lifesource.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. I hope it does

this is not the black death, but that had massive cultural effects.

The French Revolution can be blamed on a few years without summers... and a few other historic events.

[pansypoo53219]

30. oil will soon be

as un-necessary as whale oil. whoever comes up wiyh the next big fuel will rule the world.

read kevin philips american theocracy. part 1 + 3 are brilliant.

[Turborama]

32. Can I add something? Don't by anything that comes packaged in styrofoam

Something I wrote for a magazine as part of an article on how plastic is entering into our food chain. If anyone wants to read the full article I'll post it in full either here or in the Environment forum.


Beware of Styrofoam cups and containers

According to the EPA and the World Health Organisation, the styrene in Styrofoam is a human carcinogen that can leach into cups and containers. So, if you are going to buy fast food, it’s best to transfer straight away any food that comes in Styrofoam containers into ceramic or glass dishes and double check to see what that ‘instant’ food is surrounded by before you by it.

Styrofoam (actually "polystyrene foam") is one of the most dangerous packaging products made by man and is made from benzene, a known carcinogen, which can be released in microscopic particles when it comes into contact with warm food and drink. Converted to styrene, a plastic soup like substance, it is then injected with gases to build the bubbles needed in a "foam" product. The gases used are often ozone-depleting CFCs or HCFCs - which also destroy ozone, although somewhat more slowly that CFCs. Other widely-used gas substitutes are pentane and butane, both major contributors to urban smog. Polystyrene is totally non biodegradable. Bury a foam coffee cup in your garden tomorrow and 500+ years from now future generations will be able to dig it up, rinse it off and use it. Polystyrene also takes up huge chunks of space in landfill sites, precisely because it is, for its weight, so bulky. Polystyrene is lethal when discarded on land or water. Chunks of plastic foam (especially the foam "peanuts" used in packing) look like food to animals and marine life. Birds often choke on the plastic. Sea turtles die from eating foam plastics because their buoyancy keeps the turtles from diving for their food.

Also, not using styrofoam is(obviously) another way we can reduce our use of fossil oil.

Thanks for posting. This is the sort of proactive discussion about sustainability I love.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. Avoid it as much as I can

also if you get packaged goods in it... try to recycle