Re: [Biofuel] Stop Trashing the Climate
Isn't methane a product of anaerobic decomposing as opposed to composting, which is aerobic, and produces very little methane, if any? Keith Addison wrote: Ken Riznyk wrote: How is the methane produced in my backyard compost heap any better than the methane produced in a landfill? Because it's the byproduct of ongoing food and biomass production on a local scale, offsetting food production on an industrial scale, as opposed to simple waste with no benefit. But to your point, methane is methane is methane, yes. Also the compost heap itself is doing a lot of offsetting. Composting is about the best carbon sequestration method going. Landfills offset nothing, or worse. Industrialised agriculture is heavily negative, it's a major GG emitter, responsible for 14% of global emissions, the same percentage as world transport. So your compost-grown food almost certainly comes out well ahead in the climate-change stakes, methane and all. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.135 / Virus Database: 270.4.4/1530 - Release Date: 7/2/2008 8:05 AM -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20080703/4d7cc651/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Stop Trashing the Climate
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Re: [Biofuel] Stop Trashing the Climate
you raise a good point, bernard. composting can be managed so as not to be anaerobic. i generally assume that in all likelihood, most compost piles do emit at least some methane at some point, however, simply because small pockets of anaerobic activity may present themselves even when the intent is to compost anaerobic-free. On 7/4/08, Chris Burck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Stop Trashing the Climate
Hello Bernard Isn't methane a product of anaerobic decomposing as opposed to composting, which is aerobic, and produces very little methane, if any? Yes, ideally. But composting is anaerobic too, to a lesser degree, or some parts of it are, much less so than an anaerobic digester. Everybody's compost pile is different, if they stink and attract flies and rodents then view them with suspicion. There are also various anaerobic composting methods, sort of hybrids, like this one for instance: http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:UErIF68OXesJ:www.metafro.be/leisa/1994/10-3-18.pdf+compost+anaerobichl=enct=clnkcd=9 The modified anaerobic composting system But well-managed aerobic, thermophilic composting should produce little or no methane. What little it may produce will be more than offset by the carbon it sequesters (despite the co2 emissions during the process). Best Keith Keith Addison wrote: Ken Riznyk wrote: How is the methane produced in my backyard compost heap any better than the methane produced in a landfill? Because it's the byproduct of ongoing food and biomass production on a local scale, offsetting food production on an industrial scale, as opposed to simple waste with no benefit. But to your point, methane is methane is methane, yes. Also the compost heap itself is doing a lot of offsetting. Composting is about the best carbon sequestration method going. Landfills offset nothing, or worse. Industrialised agriculture is heavily negative, it's a major GG emitter, responsible for 14% of global emissions, the same percentage as world transport. So your compost-grown food almost certainly comes out well ahead in the climate-change stakes, methane and all. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck
Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck By Naomi Klein, The Nation Posted on July 4, 2008, Printed on July 4, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/90409/ Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: disaster capitalism. It usually goes well -- until it doesn't. For instance, independent conservative radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down, Doyle announced. We've invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin' Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government ... . Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years. There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: We are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so. It's been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied. And the disaster capitalists have been busy -- from private firefighters already on the scene in Northern California's wildfires, to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, to the housing bill making its way through Congress. The bill contains little in the way of affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and makes sure that the banks that made bad loans get some payouts. No wonder it is known in the hallways of Congress as The Credit Suisse Plan, after one of the banks that generously proposed it. Iraq Disaster: We Broke It, We (Just) Bought It But these cases of disaster capitalism are amateurish compared with what is unfolding at Iraq's oil ministry. It started with no-bid service contracts announced for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies -- not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. As London-based oil expert Greg Muttitt points out, the contracts make sense only in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq's oil fields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win. One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of back-room arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oil fields, accounting for around half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners. That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anticolonial struggles. According to Muttitt, the assumption until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop brand-new fields in Iraq -- not to take over ones that are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support. The policy was always to allocate these fields to the Iraq National Oil Company, he told me. This is a total reversal of that policy, giving INOC a mere 25 percent instead of the planned 100 percent. So what makes such lousy deals possible in Iraq, which has already suffered so much? Ironically, it is Iraq's suffering -- its never-ending crisis -- that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain its treasury of its main source of revenue. The logic goes like this: Iraq's oil industry needs foreign expertise because years of punishing sanctions starved it of new
Re: [Biofuel] Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck
While I understand that my country never intends to truly liberate Iraq and her citizens, but I wonder Naomi Klein understands how naive going on about the reported 25/75 split will be read by royalty owners in the United State. 25% is twice as much as royalty owners in the United States typically receive.In the event a conservative talk show host hasn't yet used that detail to discredit, the more reasonable points Klein offers one soon will Doug, N0LKK Keith Addison wrote: Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck By Naomi Klein, The Nation ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck
Hi Doug While I understand that my country never intends to truly liberate Iraq and her citizens, but I wonder Naomi Klein understands how naive going on about the reported 25/75 split will be read by royalty owners in the United State. That would by a very partial reading. 25% is twice as much as royalty owners in the United States typically receive.In the event a conservative talk show host hasn't yet used that detail to discredit, the more reasonable points Klein offers one soon will Royalty owners in the US also wouldn't be delighted to get only 3% instead of their usual 12.5%. Anyway that wasn't the deal - Iraq only gets 25% when it was supposed to get 100% and it's their oil anyway, and the guys with the 75% shouldn't even be there, they're just poised to rip the rest of the place off too. It's stretching it to call it royalties. You'd have to go back to the 50s to find oil royalties like that. Even then, when Aramco (Socal) was forced to cough up a share at last, the Saudis got 50%, not just 25%. Actually Klein doesn't refer to royalties. She calls it pillage, and she talks of a heist, and a stick-up, but she doesn't say royalties. Trying in advance to sidestep what conservative talk show hosts in the US might refer to would probably mean never opening your mouth at all, and that might not help either. I suppose it happens, quite an ugly form of self-censorship. A visit to FAIR http://www.fair.org/index.php or SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/ quickly establishes how reality-based talk show hosts tend to be. There's no real pressure on them to change their ways, it works well for them and for whoever's paying the piper. A part of all this methinks: Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We? http://www.alternet.org/story/90161/ Why People Think Americans are Stupid http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=21629 :-( And you're going to have an election soon eh? Be prepared for lots of scathe from the world's 6.3 billion non-voters. Anyway Naomi Klein can look after herself, she's more than a match for a talk show host, IMHO. Best Keith Doug, N0LKK Keith Addison wrote: Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck By Naomi Klein, The Nation ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
