Category Archives: methane production

John McCain’s Global Warming Policy – Well, he calls it Climate Change

Posted on by
Reply

But you know what he means, right? nudge nudge wink wink Know What He means?

 http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/da151a1c-733a-4dc1-9cd3-f9ca5caba1de.htm

Climate Change

John McCain will establish a market-based system to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy. He will work with our international partners to secure our energy future, to create opportunities for American industry, and to leave a better future for our children.John McCain’s Principles for Climate Policy

  • Climate Policy Should Be Built On Scientifically-Sound, Mandatory Emission Reduction Targets And Timetables.
  • Climate Policy Should Utilize A Market-Based Cap And Trade System.
  • Climate Policy Must Include Mechanisms To Minimize Costs And Work Effectively With Other Markets.
  • Climate Policy Must Spur The Development And Deployment Of Advanced Technology.
  • Climate Policy Must Facilitate International Efforts To Solve The Problem.


John McCain’s Cap and Trade PolicyJohn McCain Proposes A Cap-And-Trade System That Would Set Limits On Greenhouse Gas Emissions While Encouraging The Development Of Low-Cost Compliance Options. A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options.

How Does A Cap-And-Trade System Work?A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common motive of reducing emissions.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets And Timetables

2012: Return Emissions To 2005 Levels (18 Percent Above 1990 Levels)2020: Return Emissions To 1990 Levels (15 Percent Below 2005 Levels)

2030: 22 Percent Below 1990 Levels (34 Percent Below 2005 Levels)

2050: 60 Percent Below 1990 Levels (66 Percent Below 2005 Levels)

The Cap And Trade System Would Allow For The Gradual Reduction Of Emissions.

The cap and trade system would encompass electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business, and industrial business – sectors responsible for just below 90 percent of all emissions. Small businesses would be exempt. Initially, participants would be allowed to either make their own GHG reductions or purchase “offsets” – financial instruments representing a reduction, avoidance, or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions practiced by other activities, such as agriculture – to cover 100 percent of their required reductions. Offsets would only be available through a program dedicated to ensure that all offset GHG emission reductions are real, measured and verifiable. The fraction of GHG emission reductions permitted via offsets would decline over time.Innovating, Developing and Deploying Technologies

To Support The Cap And Trade System, John McCain Will Promote The Innovation, Development And Deployment Of Advanced Technologies. John McCain will reform federal government research funding and infrastructure to support the cap and trade emissions reduction goals and emphasize the commercialization of low-carbon technologies. Under John McCain’s plan:

Emissions Permits Will Eventually Be Auctioned To Support The Development Of Advanced Technologies. A portion of the process of these auctions will be used to support a diversified portfolio of research and commercialization challenges, ranging from carbon capture and sequestration, to nuclear power, to battery development. Funds will also be used to provide financial backing for a Green Innovation Financing and Transfer (GIFT) to facilitate commercialization.John McCain Will Streamline The Process For Deploying New Technologies And Requiring More Accountability From Government Programs To Meet Commercialization Goals And Deadlines.

John McCain Will Ensure Rapid Technology Introduction, Quickly Shifting Research From The Laboratory To The Marketplace.

John McCain Will Employ The Inherent Incentives Provided By A Cap-And-Trade System Along With Government-Led Competitions As Incentives For New Technology Deployment.

John McCain Will Foster Rapid and Clean Economic Growth

John McCain Believes An Effective And Sustainable Climate Policy Must Also Support Rapid Economic Growth. John McCain will use a portion of auction proceeds to reduce impacts on low-income American families. The McCain plan will accomplish this in part by incorporating measures to mitigate any economic cost of meeting emission targets, including:

Trading Emission Permits To Find The Lowest-Cost Source Of Emission Reductions.Permitting “Banking” And “Borrowing” Of Permits So That Emission Reductions May Be Accelerated Or Deferred To More Economically Efficient Periods.

Permitting Unlimited Initial Offsets From Both Domestic And International Sources.

Effectively Integrating U.S. Trading With Other International Markets, Thereby Providing Access To Low-Cost Permit Sources.

Establishing A Strategic Carbon Reserve As A National Source Of Permits During Periods Of Economic Duress.

Early Allocation Of Some Emission Permits On Sound Principles. This will provide significant amount of allowances for auctioning to provide funding for transition assistance for consumers and industry. It will also directly allocate sufficient permits to enable the activities of a Climate Change Credit Corporation, the public-private agency that will oversee the cap and trade program, provide credit to entities for reductions made before 2012, and ease transition for industry with competitiveness concerns and fewer efficiency technology options.

A commission will also be convened to provide recommendations on the percentage of allowances to be provided for free and the percentage of allowances to be auctioned, and develop a schedule for transition from allocated to maximum auctioned allowances. Cap-and-trade system will also work to maximize the amount of allowances that are auctioned off by 2050. John McCain Will Provide Leadership for Effective International Efforts John McCain Believes That There Must Be A Global Solution To Global Climate Change. John McCain will engage the international community in a coordinated effort by:

Actively Engaging To Lead United Nations Negotiations.Permitting America To Lead In Innovation, Capture The Market On Low-Carbon Energy Production, And Export To Developing Countries – Including Government Incentives And Partnerships For Sales Of Clean Tech To Developing Countries.

Provide Incentives For Rapid Participation By India And China, While Negotiating An Agreement With Each. John McCain Will Develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan John McCain Believes A Comprehensive Approach To Addressing Climate Change Includes Adaptation As Well As Mitigation. He believes:

An Adaptation Plan Should Be Based Upon National And Regional Scientific Assessments Of The Impacts Of Climate Change.An Adaptation Plan Should Focus On Implementation At The Local Level Which Is Where Impacts Will Manifest Themselves.

A Comprehensive Plan Will Address The Full Range Of Issues: Infrastructure, Ecosystems, Resource Planning, And Emergency Preparation.

:}

There are a ton of problems with this plan but the first of the problems is IT”S TOO LONG. In fact, I doubt that anyone will ever read these words, and not just because this is an obscure blog at an obscure site. Nobody will ever get this far! The other problem is it takes too long. I mean no significant reductions before 2050. Who is going to be left alive at that point? But the real killer is the Cap and Trade system. This is just an industry fudge to get around the Clean Air Act. We need to shut down every coal fired powerplant in this country. Contrary to T. Boone Pickens, we need to convert all of those plants to natural gas, until we can get rid of them. We need to start at least three major “Hot Rocks” projects here in the US now. More about Cap and Trade when we look at Obama’s environmental proposals.

:}

Natural Gas Sales Lead To Social Crisis in Bolivia – The fight over hydrocarbons heats up

Posted on by
Reply

Its not just OIL. Every form of hydrocarbon will become  flash points as part of the world abandons the carbon economy while others rush to it as a salvation.

 http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/16/fight-over-natural-gas-has-bolivia-on-brink-of-collapse/

Fight Over Natural Gas Has Bolivia on Brink of Collapse 

 Written by Levi Novey

Published on September 16th, 2008

Posted in Bolivia

Having gained confidence after handily winning a recall election with 67% of the vote last month, Bolvia’s President Evo Morales has proposed some controversial changes to Bolivia’s Constitution. He wants to redistribute wealth obtained from the sale of Bolivia’s abundant natural gas resources in a more equitable way to help the poor. He also wants to change the constitution so that he can run for a second term. These proposals have lead to violent protests in the country’s eastern provinces, that contain the bulk of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves. These regions are now threatening to break away. Tension is high and a civil war might soon emerge.Some of Morales’ opponents claim that he is trying to obtain dictatorial powers. They subsequently have blockaded roads, and temporarily shut down natural gas pipeline flow to Brazil (which gets 50% of its gas from Bolivia). Martial law has been declared in one province and the details of one particularly violent incident are still sketchy. It is unclear if Bolivia’s military is entirely behind Morales. At least 30 people have died so far during the conflict, and countless others have been injured.

Last week Morales also accused the United States of helping to fan the flames of the conflict, framing it as a coup d’etat to remove him as president. He expelled the American ambassador to Bolivia to send out his message of disapproval. The U.S.’s ambassador has denied the claims made against him.

:}

But this has happened before:

http://www.oilcrisis.com/bo/

Bolivia’s Mesa Offers to Step Down as Protests Mount, by Andrew J. Barden in Mexico City for Bloomberg [2005 March 7]

“Bolivian President Carlos Mesa offered his resignation to Congress almost 17 months after taking office, amid stepped up protests against the government’s energy policies…”It’s a highly dangerous moment for Bolivia,” Mesa said in a letter to Congress, read aloud by Cabinet Chief Jose Galindo and broadcast on CNN’s Spanish network. “These movements are leading the country to a point that is unsustainable. I can’t continue to govern under these circumstances,” the letter said.

“Mesa’s resignation would throw the South American country back into a political crisis less than two years after former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was forced from office following deadly riots in opposition to his plans to export natural gas to the U.S. and Mexico.”

“Evo Morales, leader of the second-largest party in Congress, the Movement Toward Socialism, is leading protests to demand a new hydrocarbon law that raises royalties for foreign companies in Bolivia such as Spain’s Repsol YPF and Total SA of France. Bolivia has 28.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Latin America’s second-largest reserves after Venezuela, according to BP Plc’s statistical review of world energy.”

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, the former President of Bolivia:
“Our country’s long-term energy needs are dwarfed by its vast supplies.”

What does vast mean in Bolivia today?

“”According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Bolivia’s proven natural gas reserves were 24 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), as of January 2003. A study by U.S.-based consulting firm DeGolyer & MacNaughton in April 2003, however, certified Bolivia’s natural gas reserves at 54.9 Tcf, giving Bolivia the second-largest reserves in South America after Venezuela. The graph to the right reflects the large increases in reserve estimates since 1997.” From USA’s Energy Information Agency

Comparing Bolivia’s Natural Gas reserves with Global consumption of 90 TCF of natural gas per year, giving the benefit of the doubt that reserves are “certified” indeed at 54.9 TCF, Bolivia would be able to meet humanity’s Natural gas needs for 223 days. Is that a vast amount?

Peasants in Bolivia organized in September 2003 to revolt against “selling” [giving away?] their energy inheritance to the USA, where the average person consumes 40 times more natural gas, 15 times more electricity and 15 times more oil. To characterize this transfer of natural wealth as necessary for the economic well-being of their country is to completely misconstrue the inherent value of this resource in the long term as a mechanism for internal economic development. Furthermore, it could only come from ignorance of realistic global oil and natural gas reserves and prospects, or because Sanchez is deliberately ignoring these facts to support a political agenda

:}

And you know what this always leads to? When will they ever learn that standing in the road of social justice is foolish at best and disruptive at worse. People that have nothing have nothing to lose:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/12/content_9938579.htm

Even the Chinese know that.

Bolivia crisis cuts natural gas supply to Brazil by half

 RIO DE JANEIRO, September 11 (Xinhua) — The political crisis in Bolivia led to a 55-percent reduction in the country’s natural gas supply to its biggest customer Brazil, Transierra pipeline company said in a statement on Thursday,    The reduction was due to malfunction of a pipeline in southeastern Bolivia. It remains unclear if it was a technical problem or an act of sabotage.

    It is the second incident with Bolivia’s pipelines in less than24 hours. A pipeline in the Yacuiba region exploded on Wednesday, leading to a 10-percent reduction in the natural gas exports to Brazil.

    Brazil needs about 60 million cubic meters of natural gas everyday, and half of the supplies comes from Bolivia.

    Edison Lobao, Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy, has met with technical personnel and experts from the country’s state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras to work out a contingency plan to deal with the supply reduction.

    Sao Paulo city, which depends on Bolivia for 60 percent of its natural gas supply, has already launched a contingency plan. Sao Paulo state’s Basic Sanitation and Energy Secretary Dilma Pena said that the industrial sector will face the biggest reduction in gas supplies.

    She added, however, that residential and commercial clients, as well as hospitals, will be spared from the supply reduction.

    Protests, which broke out two weeks ago against Morales’ plans to amend the constitution and reallocate gas revenues, turned violent this week in southeastern Bolivia. Anti-government protesters blocked the road, stormed official buildings and clashed with supporters of the president.

    The borders to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay have been closed and Bolivia’s ambassador to Brazil, Rene Mauricio Dorfler, said his government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the country.

:}

San Antonio Makes Money Off Human Waste – That’s right TX city makes cash off doodoo

Posted on by
Reply

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/09/11/san-antonio-generating-gas-from-sewage/

 San Antonio Generating Gas from Sewage

Written by Ariel Schwartz

Published on September 11th, 2008


san antonio

San Antonio, Texas is making use of its 140,000 tons of sewage generated each year to capture methane gas. The city’s utility board of trustees approved a contract this week to sell 900,000 cubic feet of natural gas derived from the sewage each day to Ameresco, a Massachusetts energy services company.

Though methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it has a variety of uses. The substance can be used for fuel in gas turbines or steam boilers, and it is also used as vehicle fuel in the form of compressed natural gas. Additionally, NASA is researching methane as a potential rocket fuel.

According to Steve Claus, the chief operating officer of the water system, San Antonio’s sewage generates 1.5 million cubic feet of gas each day—enough to fill seven commercial blimps or 1,250 tanker trucks. The facilities needed for the project will be ready in about two years.

San Antonio will get $250,000 a year for the methane—a sum that I hope will go towards more renewable energy efforts in the area.

:}

 http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0937395520080909

San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tons a year of a substance gently referred to as “biosolids,” which can be reprocessed into natural gas, said Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city’s water system.

“You may call it something else,” Clouse said, but for area utilities, the main byproduct of human waste – methane gas – will soon be converted into natural gas to burn in their power plants.

 The private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market,” Clouse said.

The gas will be sold to power generators, he said.

Some communities are using methane gas harvested from solid waste to power smaller facilities like sewage treatment plants, but San Antonio is the first to see large-scale conversion of methane gas from sewage into fuel for power generation, he said.

Following the agreement, more than 90 percent of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will be recycled, he said. Liquid is now used for irrigation, many of the solids are made into compost, and now the methane gas will be recycled for power generation.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth, Editing by Chris Baltimore and Lisa Shumaker)

:}

 http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/900732.html

The utility already sells for reuse a portion of the water that’s cleaned up at its wastewater treatment plants. It also has contracts to turn up to 80 percent of biosolids into compost that’s sold for use in yards and gardens.

“As far as we know, SAWS is the only city in the United States that has completed the renewable recyclable trifecta,” Clouse”.

Clouse said it will take 18 to 24 months for construction of facilities needed for the contract.

:}

Not so delicate post

:}

http://sustainablog.org/2008/09/12/in-praise-of-poop-3-san-antonio-harnesses-power-from-sewage-methane/

For this the third entry in the annals of excellent excrement (after cow and E. coli poop), we will have to travel deep down into the heart of Texas…and then even farther down into the sewers of San Antonio. So don your rubber body suit, gas mask, and sense of humor, for sewage is no longer just stuff to be dumped and forgotten.

No, San Antonio is out to prove that sewage, and specifically the methane that it gives off oh so (i.e., too) naturally without any bother or cost to us, can be used as a source of alternative fuel…I mean it is natural gas, after all.

:}

:}

Screw The Environment – Humans were meant to pollute and they have the right to pollute

Posted on by
Reply

I never thought I would be citing Kathryn Rem at the SJ-R for an environmental article. Don’t get me wrong she is a dandy writer, in the same league with Tim Landis (whom I regularly “borrow from”), but she usually writes a food column. I read it faithfully because I am a minor foodie, and she usually has cool things to say. In her Seeing Red About Green, she broke a story that I might have missed. Thanks Ms. Rem!

www.sj-r.com/features/x379998865/Kathryn–Rem-Seeing-red-about-the-green-movement

:}

This is the article that I think she based her article on:

http://industry.bnet.com/retail/2008/07/14/one-quarter-of-consumers-say-screw-the-environment/ 

 Retail Industry

Industry news and insights by Lisa EverittOne-Quarter of Consumers Say ‘Screw The Environment’Two new studies say 10-26 percent of shoppers are “Never Greens,” whose reactions to environmental claims ranges from apathy to outright anger.

Mintel International in Chicago coined the term “Never Green” to describe 10 percent of the shopper universe. A second study by The Shelton Group of Knoxville, Tenn., found that 26 percent of respondents were “hardcore skeptics,” mostly upper middle-class, conservative, middle-aged men.

 reporter Jim Edwards profiles William Coverley, a retired investment banker from Ohio, who just bought his 10th vehicle, a 2008 GMC Yukon XL that gets 14 miles per gallon.

“I don’t care about the environmental reasons and I’ll tell you why,” Coverley said. “All this stuff about carbon emissions, no one really knows about the output of the sun and yet it’s the single most important input behind global warming . . . Are the Chinese going to be environmentalists? Are the Indians going to be environmentalists? Are the Russians? I don’t think so.”

Edwards suggests studying your market carefully before launching green marketing, because emphasizing environmental claims may cost you the business of people like Coverley or Washington accountant Sally Herigstad. She bought organic produce by mistake at Fred Meyer and was dismayed to discover a recently deceased two-inch caterpillar in her steamed broccoli.

Shelton Group CEO Suzanne Shelton found that 46 percent of respondents felt “guilty, skeptical, irritated or unaffected by green issues,” and the same percentage put their comfort ahead of convenience and environmental concerns. The study was commissioned by Shelton Group client BP Solar.

Lisa Everitt

A Denver-based business writer, Lisa Everitt is a veteran of daily and weekly newspapers and trade magazines, including The Natural Foods Merchandiser, Rocky Mountain News, Inter@ctive Week, San Francisco Business Times, and the Peninsula Times Tribune. 

:}

So in the end that is what the environmental movement is up against.  The environmental Rape Crowd, proud that they are stealing from their grandchildren because their grandparents stole from them. If you think they aren’t vocal, you would be wrong.

:}

www.screw-the-environment.imgwebdesign.co.uk

www.deadbabyseals.gather.com

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2041643/posts

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODDDu25OG6M

http://screwtheenvironment.blogspot.com/

www.iammamahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2007/09/screw–environment.html

 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/4/8/214522/1724

:}

Farming And Growing Food After The Oil Runs Out – We Shall Survive

Posted on by
Reply

People have been brainwashed to believe that our world will come to a crashing end without oil. The Peak Oil people in particular have a saying “back to the olduvai valley” because they believe that our civilization will crumble like the Egyptions, Greeks and other GREAT civilizations. Olduvai was the valley where they found the homonid Lucy’s bones.

Admittedly some of those societal “downs” caused famine and pestilence, but in others it merely led to lots of people going back to farming. As silly as it may sound, you can generate electricity with a bicycle and charge a battery to run a computer. Us modern humans have run on excess energy  for so long it might not hurt us or the planet to take a break and set some priorities.

So anyway from where I live in Riverton IL in the USA, I would just go back to farming and let a few yard birds run. Others are not so lucky. I have said with no malice or cruelty that a lot of people are going to die. But I think we will do what humanity has done for 1000’s of years…we hang together.

Here is what other people say:

http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/greenfutures/articles/602540

Farming without fossils

In a world on the cusp of fuel shortages, one enterprising collection of British farmers have come up with a solution they claim is practical, profitable – and close to home. They’re growing their own. Trevor Lawson reports

Barton reckons that the Goodwood estate’s tenant farmers could produce enough biofuel to supply the estate and themselves, and still have a surplus for sale. The key, he argues, is keep it local. “There’s no point in producing seed here, sending it miles for processing and then bringing the fuel all the way back. It’s too inefficient.” So Barton is looking at a combined rape press and refinery system that will produce 2,000 litres of fuel an hour, round the clock, for as long as there is rape seed to supply it. He’s also got plans for the pressed ‘cake’ that’s left over. “You can make it into dense briquettes for a superb solid fuel, burning more slowly than wood but at a higher temperature. So it can be used to feed boilers to generate heat and electricity.” Barton’s logic seems inescapable, and it’s finding allies in Whitehall, too. Nick Cooper manages the Farming Without Fossil Fuels project at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/stephen_decater_on_farming_without_oil

 Stephen Decater speaks with Els Cooperrider of The Party’s Over on KZYX about biodynamic farming in Round Valley of Mendocino county. Stephen talks about draft horses, their history, and how he uses them. He also talks about the Live Power Community Farm, which is a community-based agriculture (CSA) project, and how this arrangement differs from a market-based relationship. They are looking for apprentices now. Contact info: livepower@igc.org and (707) 983 8196.

 :}

The above is a cool site complete with Post Carbon Institute and Energy Farming sections

:}

Then there are the back to the earth types:

 http://www.soilassociation.org/peakoil

Peak Oil: the threat to our food security

Peak oil refers to the point when the maximum amount of oil that can be extracted globally is reached. Thereafter, production will tail off as remaining reserves become more difficult and more expensive to harvest. Many of the services that we currently take for granted – cheap flights, cheap imports and global distribution of food – will be radically curtailed.
 One of the greatest impacts will be on how and where our food is produced. The dominant models of intensive agriculture and the global food trade depend on vast inputs of oil. In a post peak oil world, the combination of higher transport costs, climate change and increased conflict will necessitate us all relying far more on re-localised food supplies. Even though it requires far lower amounts of oil, organic farming is not exempt from the need to adapt.

You can find out more in our information sheets on peak oil and climate change and agriculture.

Over the last 20 years, the Soil Association has established organic farming as the most sustainable method of production and helped grow a burgeoning market for organic food. Now we must refine our focus if we are to adapt to the changing external circumstances which will touch all our lives very soon. The phrase that comes to mind is that we are ‘building the ark of sustainable agriculture’ for the new era ahead.

The challenge is immediate, but fear should not be the driver. The Soil Association is optimistic that we have the vision and means to create a new, localised food culture that will deliver long-term quality of life in place of the old dynamic of unrestrained globalisation and short-termist exploitation.

http://transitionculture.org/2006/12/20/applying-energy-descent-plans-to-food-and-farming-an-article-in-living-earth-magazine/ 

Applying Energy Descent Plans to Food and Farming – an article in Living Earth magazine.

samag1

The Soil Association is the UK’s organic certification body, and they are making peak oil and the relocalisation of food the focal point of their 60th Anniversary conference in Cardiff in February. I am editing a report that will accompany the conference, which explores this deeper, and to introduce this, I recently wrote an article that appears in Living Earth Magazine, the organisation’s publication. It suggests that the concept of Energy Descent Plans could be applied to food and farming in the UK, an idea that will be explored in more depth in the report. Here is the article followed by some additions from within the Soil Association.

Energy scarcity is an opportunity for a better world, says Rob Hopkins

I used to think that one day the world would literally run out of oil. A driver in Leicestershire would use the last drop and that would be that, similar to the felling of the last Truffula Tree in Dr Seuss’s The Lorax. It turns out that scarcity kicks in earlier than that. It’s not the last drop that is the problem but the mid-point of production, when all the oil that is easy and cheap to extract has been used up. It looks as if we are reaching that point soon.

:}

Where folks have “farmable” or “growable” land, all of us will have to plant Victory Gardens and raise rabbits and chickens. We will have to buy and sell local. For those that do not… well that is something we all should be planning for now. There are probably 2 billion people in harms way. What about the economy? Well what about it? Aren’t WE the economy. Money may be worrthless…but so what. That is only gona matter to people that gots a lot of it.

:}

Will Field Corn Kill Us? No but it’s killing the cows..

Posted on by
Reply

Many people were horrified by the scandal surrounding cattle that were so weak that they were either being prodded with a forklift or actually carried to the kill room with the fork lift. Most people, not being involved in agriculture, wondered how anyone could be so callous. BUT the most disgusting thing you run into when you look into the issue of Factory Farming Cattle (and there are a lot of nasty things here) is that the corn that is feed to the cattle after they are weaned is killing them. So to slaughterhouse staff and meat packers its a matter timing whether they get them in the kill room before they die.

http://richard-goodman.blogspot.com/2008/02/meatpacker-in-cow-abuse-scandal-may.html

 Meatpacker in Cow-Abuse Scandal May Shut as Congress Turns Up Heat

By DAVID KESMODEL and JANE ZHANG
Write to David Kesmodel at david.kesmodel @ wsj.com
and Jane Zhang at Jane.Zhang @ wsj.com
February 25, 2008; 
CHINO, Calif. — Last year, a man carrying a hidden video camera took a $12-an-hour job at a little-known beef slaughterhouse here. Now the meatpacker is about to collapse, and has become a flashpoint in a national debate over meat safety and the quality of food Americans serve their schoolchildren.

Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., one of the biggest suppliers of beef to the national school-lunch program before videos showing animal cruelty at the plant helped trigger the biggest meat recall in U.S. history, probably will shut down permanently, according to the company’s general manager, Anthony Magidow.

:}

As John Robbins points out modern cattle raising is all about carving up cattle quick:

What About Grass-fed Beef?

 Feeding grain to cattle has got to be one of the dumbest ideas in the history of western civilization.

Cows, sheep, and other grazing animals are endowed with the ability to convert grasses, which those of us who possess only one stomach cannot digest, into food that we can digest. They can do this because they are ruminants, which is to say that they possess a rumen, a 45 or so gallon (in the case of cows) fermentation tank in which resident bacteria convert cellulose into protein and fats.

Traditionally, all beef was grass-fed beef, but in the United States today what is commercially available is almost all feedlot beef. The reason? It’s faster, and so more profitable. Seventy-five years ago, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter. Today, they are 14 or 16 months. You can’t take a beef calf from a birth weight of 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little more than a year on grass. It takes enormous quantities of corn, protein supplements, antibiotics and other drugs, including growth hormones.

Switching a cow from grass to grain is so disturbing to the animal’s digestive system that it can kill the animal if not done gradually and if the animal is not continually fed antibiotics. These animals are designed to forage, but we make them eat grain, primarily corn, in order to make them as fat as possible as fast as possible.
 All this is not only unnatural and dangerous for the cows. It also has profound consequences for us. Feedlot beef as we know it today would be impossible if it weren’t for the routine and continual feeding of antibiotics to these animals. This leads directly and inexorably to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These are the new “superbugs” that are increasingly rendering our “miracle drugs” ineffective.

:}

Letting Corporations into anything in agriculture besides processing is turning out to be a disaster in many respects from beginning to end. To this end we could talk about any plant or animal that we eat, but if we keep our focus on corn it becomes clear that all the corporate ag production affairs require one thing energy and lots of it.

While the movie, King Corn, has a lot going for it, like cute college kids out for a lark and the absurdity of growing an acre of anything in the current farm system, it is actually a pretty good look at why growing as much corn as we do is stupid and corporate farming only compounds that.

:}

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/

While the planting, growing and harvesting of field corn takes an incredible amount of energy, the real energy comes after it has been harvested. You can’t eat the stuff so it all has to be PROCESSED to be used or eaten by animals most of which don’t like the stuff but eat it if they are forced to. As the film makers themselves say:

 http://kingcorn.net/

Almost everything Americans eat contains corn: high fructose corn syrup, corn-fed meat, and corn-based processed foods are the staples of the modern diet.  Ready for an adventure and alarmed by signs of their generation’s bulging waistlines, college friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis know where to go to investigate.  Eighty years ago, Ian and Curt’s great-grandfathers lived just a few miles apart, in the same rural county in northern Iowa.  Now their great-grandsons are returning with a mission:  they will plant an acre of corn, follow their harvest into the world, and attempt to understand what they—and all of us—are really made of.

 

But where will all that corn go? Ian and Curt leave Iowa to find out, first considering their crop’s future as feed.  In Colorado, rancher Sue Jarrett says her cattle should be eating grass.  But with a surplus of corn, it costs less to raise cattle in confinement than to let them roam free: “The mass production of corn drives the mass production of protein in confinement.”  Animal nutritionists confirm that corn makes cows sick and beef fatty, but it also lets consumers eat a $1 hamburger.  Feedlot owner Bob Bledsoe defends America’s cheap food, but as Ian and Curt see in Colorado, the world behind it can be stomach turning.  At one feedlot, 100,000 cows stand shoulder-to-shoulder, doing their part to transform Iowa corn into millions of pounds of fat-streaked beef.

 

Following the trail of high fructose corn syrup, Ian and Curt hop attempt to make a home-cooked batch of the sweetener in their kitchen.  But their investigation of America’s most ubiquitous ingredient turns serious when they follow soda to its consumption in Brooklyn.  Here, Type II diabetes is ravaging the community, and America’s addiction to corny sweets is to blame.

 

The breadth of the problem is now clear: the American food system is built on the abundance of corn, an abundance perpetuated by a subsidy system that pays farmers to maximize production.  In a nursing home in the Indiana suburbs, Ian and Curt come face-to-face with Earl Butz, the Nixon-era Agriculture Secretary who invented subsidies.  The elderly Butz champions the modern food system as an “Age of plenty” Ian and Curt’s great-grandfathers only dreamed of.

.

 November pulls Ian and Curt back to Iowa.  Their 10,000-pound harvest seems as grotesque as it is abundant.  They haul their corn to the elevator and look on as it makes its way into a food system they have grown disgusted by.  At a somber farm auction, Ian and Curt decide to tell their landlord they want to buy the acre.  The next spring their cornfield has been pulled from production and planted in a prairie, a wild square surrounded by a sea of head-high corn.

 :}

OKOKOKOKOK So maybe corn IS killing us but will we miss it when its gone because of energy prices. Probably not one bit though the first winter maybe tough if gasoline goes to $100 a gallon. The first to go though will be the exporting of grain. Do you believe we actually pile billions of tons of corn on diesal power ships so that other people can refine (errr spend their energy on) it? They can’t eat it either.

For more:

Iowa Corn
Get info on biotechnology, corn products and Iowa corn growers.

Corn Palace Convention and Visitors Bureau
As seen in KING CORN, Mitchell, South Dakota’s Corn Palace is a monument to the country’s leading crop.

American Corn Growers Association
“America’s leading progressive commodity association, representing the interests of corn producers in 35 states.”

A Zillion Uses for Corn!
An extensive list of products that contain corn.

Putting DNA to Work: Improving Crops: From Teosinte to Corn
See photos of corn’s ancestor and read about how its genetic makeup has evolved.

EWG: Farm Subsidy Database
View graphs and databases on corn subsidies in the United States.

Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Farm Subsidies
Reprinted from a 2005 New York Times article, this piece examines how the country’s corn overproduction is affecting its farmers.

No-Till Farmer
Top tips on growing monoculture corn.

Corn Refiners Association
Learn about corn refining and resulting products.

High Fructose Corn Syrup
HFCS, how it’s made and how it affects your health, plus other links.

:}

Weird Bird Friday – Thanks Harry

Posted on by
Reply

My Friend Harry Haynes likes Weird Bird Friday and he sent this obviously photoshopped image. Its funny so TGI(WB)F.

 duckattack.jpeg

:}

As always dedicated to Susan Kay and John Martin who blog about all things Denver and are listed in our Blogroll. It is a widely kept secret that they are expert Flautists who entertain small poor children in Boulder on the weekends. Way to go!

:}

One Of The Best Articles Ever On Green Automobiles – The ins and outs of biofuels and electric cars

Posted on by
2

US News is my hero:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/01/11/the-pros-and-cons-of-8-green-fuels.html

The Pros and Cons of

8 Green Fuels

Our dossiers detail which fuels

are overrated—and which

could power your next car

By Rick Newman

Posted January 11, 2008


 

After years of talk, rising oil prices—combined with global-warming concerns and a disdain for foreign oil—have finally set the stage for breakthroughs in alternative fuels. To see how the hottest new technologies stack up, click on each fuel for a rundown of its attributes and flaws, or click on the topics on the left to see how various fuels compare:

  • What is it?
  • What’s good about it?
  • What’s bad about it?
  • Where would it be most useful?
  • How much will it cost?
  • When’s it coming?
  • What’s taking so long?
  • Who’s doing it?
  • Could it be a silver bullet?

What is it?

Corn Ethanol
A fuel derived from the sugars in corn and other plants. Pure ethanol is usually blended with gasoline. “E10″—10 percent ethanol—is common today. E85—85 percent ethanol—is the highest practical blend; some gas is still required for combustion in most climates.
Cellulosic Ethanol
A biofuel refined from cellulose, the fibrous material that makes up most of the plant matter in wheat, switch grass, corn stalks, rice straw, and even wood chips.
Biodiesel
A renewable fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fats, including soybeans, canola oil, and even used cooking oil. It’s sometimes mixed with conventional, petroleum-based diesel to help cut down on tailpipe emissions.
Clean Diesels
Diesel is refined from petroleum, like gasoline, but the pollution it produces is harder to control. “Clean diesel” vehicles burn the fuel more efficiently and trap pollutants better. New low-sulfur diesel fuel also pollutes less—much like unleaded gasoline, compared with leaded.
Hybrids
There are several kinds of hybrids. In general, today’s models have a battery-powered electric motor that drives the car at slower speeds and a gas engine that kicks in at higher speeds. The engine also helps recharge the battery, along with energy captured from the rotation of the wheels during deceleration.
Plug-In Hybrids
Same principle as for ordinary hybrids: There’s an electric motor and a gas engine, except that the battery powering the motor would be recharged from an electrical outlet, at home or someplace else. The motor would power the car until battery power waned. Then the gas engine or another secondary power source would kick in.
Electric Vehicles
Any car with a battery-powered motor—including every variety of hybrid—is an electric vehicle to some extent. A pure electric vehicle would be run entirely by the battery-powered motor.
Hydrogen/Fuel Cells
The concept is similar to hybrids: an electric motor would drive the car much of the time. In this case, the motor would be charged by something under the hood called a fuel-cell stack, which converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity that flows to the battery. The on-board fuel would be hydrogen.

Top

Primary sources: Automotive News, Union of Concerned Scientists, dieselforum.org, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, American Automobile Association, Renewable Fuels Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Biodiesel Board, Center for Automotive Research.

 

Please note, I did not include ALL of the article here but each link for the topic should take you to a longer article which takes you through each category list at the top of the article. For the attention challenged please click on the main US News link at the beginning of this post. Each category is laid out in linear bullet fashion. Either way its one hell of a piece.

Weird Bird Friday – TGI(WB)F

Posted on by
Reply

Yes its time for our weekly tribute to the birds in our lives. This weeks image comes from San Francisco’s own John

Mitchell:

http://www.jungle-life.com/?query=john+mitchell&amount=0&blogid=1

strange.jpg

Being a print by John Mitchell it’s important to take a closer look where you may notice the flowers giving birth to these strange birds through their delicate vaginas.

Strange Birds by John Mitchell

:}

Dedicated to Pa Martin and Ma Kay, 6th generation farmers who saved this bloggers life by warning him about the impending earthquake that hit Illinois last night. They called me up and said, “The cattle was a acting funny.” So I slept in my car last night. Thanks guys. 

Juche – a simple name for a nasty idea. Kim Il Sungism

Posted on by
Reply

Jodie Foster, Pregnant Man, Iran, Prince Philip, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, American Idol, Obama, China, Beyonce, Rolling Stones. (sorry for the deception but please read below)

Normally I wouldn’t bother to cover this but since it’s on the list I felt I needed to “dis” it as much as I could. I even took the time to get Buzzes top searches for the week to punch it up a bit. I even checked every category Energy Tough Love has to publicize this human indignity. The list of “Religions” that I used to start this meditation on the relationship between Religion and the Environment placed Juche well down on the list but with 18 million adherents that still alot of folks. I had never heard of it before and I even asked a couple of people if they had heard of it. Imagine my suprise when I typed it into a search engine and up popped this Prick who claimed he was god:

www.dictatorofthemonth.com

kim.jpg

During his lifetime he forced millions of people in North Korea to worship him. Can you imagine anything more degrading or disgusting then a man who points a loaded gun at your head and demands that you treat him like a god. You must pray to him. Oh most Divine Leader. Makes me want to puke. But then he is followed by this buffoon:

www.beconfused.com

jong.jpg

Now they are “worshiping” something no better than a trained monkey. If they had an ENVIRONMENTAL group in North Korea, I wish them the best of luck but I ain’t gonna publish it. I ain’t even gona type it into a search engine. If anybody ever deserved to get a nuke shoved up his poop shoot. This would be it.