ODAC Newsletter – July 31
A weekly update from a UK perspective.
Staff
Food & agriculture – July 31
-With House food-safety bill a done deal, questions remain
-Organic food ‘no better for health than factory-farmed food’ says report
-Bill would restrict antibiotics in food animals
Climate & environment – July 31
-India and Climate Change [senior non-govt American endorses C&C for Copenhagen]
-The Folly of ‘Magical Solutions’ For Targeting Carbon Emissions
-World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns
Viva 1910…or…You can’t go home again but you can live in the same neighborhood
Resistance to changing the culture we now possess (or possesses us?), a culture that is arguably fatally destructive to the biosphere, includes the argument that we can’t go back to the way we used to live 100 years ago or some other harsher time where we tied our shoes, cleaned floors with mops, and (God forbid) churned butter.
Good Farming Was More Advanced A Hundred Years Ago
Working from the premise that we will eventually run out of plentiful supplies of manufactured fertilizers, I have been reading old farming books written before artificial fertilizers became easily available. I am amazed at the sophistication with which science approached the subject of soil fertility once it become evident in the mid-1800s that farmers were rapidly depleting the native richness of their soils and had to find ways to restore it using livestock manure and green manure crops.
Gardening Changes Fast Food Addict’s Life
College senior Nick Leonard discovered a new way of life through a summer internship with the Greening of Detroit urban gardening program. The fast-food addict changed his relationship to food and began eating and cooking fresh produce.
The Economics of Entropy
The least popular of the laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics — better known as the law of entropy — is also the key to understanding the problems with modern economics. There’s an inevitable mismatch between the production of goods and services, which are subject to entropy, and the production of money through interest, which in theory drives infinite growth — but this mismatch is resolved in an unexpected way.
Peak oil notes – July 30
A weekly round-up including:
– Prices and production
– Curbing Speculation
– EEStor’s New Battery
Peak oil, prices, and supplies – July 30
-‘$20 Per Gallon’ by Christopher Steiner
-Oil is Peaking But Not Because of Speculation
-Are We Headed for Another Oil Shock?
The Sixth Extinction
Today I talk about my “favorite” disaster, called The Sixth Extinction. Even in the age of politically correct environmentalism, most people could care less about the Earth’s plant & animal species unless their decline bears directly and immediately on their own welfare. Accordingly, I will talk about some clear-cut examples where the health of the natural world adversely affects our future survival.
Clean Energy Act Is Not Going Anywhere
If you have read my book “Detensive Nation”, you know I am concerned about the damage we humans are doing to our environment. Our intensive consumption of energy, arable land, fresh water, and minerals is not sustainable. That means we humans will be forced to adopt a detensive Cultural EcoSystem. In order to ease the pain of this transition, we need a positive, proactive, and intellectually honest political system.
