Re: [Biofuel] greenhouse farming
Hey Keith; - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks very much Chip. Those are good. Compost 'tea' distillery, though? No need for a distillery. Take a 5-gallon pail, add 2 double handfuls of worm casts or finely sifted compost (aerobic, thermophilic compost, ie it got hot), a bottle cap of liquid seaweed emulsion and a tablespoonful of molasses to give the bugs something to eat, plus a little less than 4 gallons of water (preferably rainwater if the local tap water is chlorinated), stir it up with a paint-stirrer in a drill, then use a fishtank aerator pump with a bubblestone on the end to keep it aerated. Leave for at least 24 hours, stirring occasionally with a stick. Filter through an old pair of pantyhose and use. Neat. yeah, She did do a cursory explanation of what they were doing there with all that muck, but I didn't follow it, was paying attention to the soil warming system at the time, I just snapped a few pics. There are some folks (like Elaine Ingham for one) who've figured out a response to the difficult problem that it's hard to make any money out of organic growers because they don't need anything, and overcomplicated compost tea brewers accompanied by overspecialised lab tests is one such response. Lol! Yeah, true enough. This farm is a lab. They are doing a lot of stuff that looks completely counter intuitive to me. But they are also growing a lot of food and feeding a lot of people. This farm belongs to a university, and it stocks their kitchens, as well as acts as a faculty CSA. The way they are handling their mountains of compost goes against everything I've read, in that ALL of the kitchen waste, and I mean ALL of it goes in there. Scares the willies out of me. However, it's their farm, not mine. And I like these folks a lot, and they are wonderful neighbors. It's all a grand experiment. Personally, I think they'd do well to read more Howard and Price; But it's most certainly not my call. They are a school, and schools are, well, schools. :) And I'll be well pleased if I can come close to feeding as many people in my life, as they do in a year. All best And you, --chipper ___ 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] Fwd: In the Wake of Victory
This came via another list to which I subscribe. Original Message David Delaney wrote: When there is substantial general acknowledgement of the reality and significance of peak oil, as might happen sometime in the next year or so as oil production fails to respond to price increases, how should those who have struggled to win that acknowledgment exploit its much desired achievement. From John Michael Greer's blog, The Archdruid Report, http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/12/in-wake-of-victory.html /Start article In The Wake Of Victory This has not been an easy week for believers in a brighter future. As I write this week’s post, food prices in the global market are soaring toward levels that brought mass violence two years ago, driven partly by climate-driven crop failures and partly by the conversion of a noticeable fraction of food crops into fuel ethanol and biodiesel; the price of oil is bumping around somewhere skywards of $86 a barrel, or right around two and a half times the level arch-cornucopian Daniel Yergin insisted not that long ago would be oil’s long-term price; the latest round of climate talks at Cancún are lurching toward yet another abject failure; and bond markets worldwide are being roiled by panic selling as the EU’s Irish bailout has failed to reassure anybody, investors in US state and local bonds realize that debts that can’t be paid back won’t be paid back, and even the riskier end of commercial paper is beginning to look decidedly chancy. With all this bad news rattling away like old-fashioned musketry, it can be hard to look beyond the headlines and grasp the broader picture, but that’s something well worth doing just now, especially for those of us who have put in some years in the peak oil scene or, for that matter, any of the other movements that have had the unwelcome job of pointing out that infinite growth on a finite planet is a daydream for fools. What the broader picture shows, when all the short-term vagaries, the rhetoric and the yelling are all stripped away, is something as simple as it is stunning: we were right all along, and the rest of the world is slowly, with maximum reluctance, being forced to grapple with that fact. We’ve come a very long way since the peak oil movement began to take shape just over a decade ago. In those days, those of us who were concerned with petroleum depletion were basically a handful of heretics howling in the wilderness, at a time when serious books on energy by major academic presses routinely missed the obvious fact that fossil fuels would run short long before they ran out. The suggestion that oil production might be limited by geological factors was dismissed derisively by people straight across the political spectrum; if the price of oil ever actually rose above the rock-bottom levels it then occupied, the conventional wisdom went, the law of supply and demand would infallibly bring new production online and force the price back down. Then, of course, the price of oil began to go up, and production didn’t respond. All the considerable resources of political and financial rhetoric have been worked overtime to gloss over that extremely awkward fact, but the fact remains: petroleum prices are now at levels that were unthinkably high only a few years ago, the bountiful new production the conventional wisdom foresaw has not happened, and dozens of alternative resources that would supposedly be viable once oil cost $30 a barrel, or $50, or $80 are still nowhere in sight. Last week the IEA, the international organization that tracks energy supplies and predicts their future trajectory, quietly admitted that conventional petroleum production had peaked in 2006, and ratcheted down their projections of future energy supplies yet again. The mainstream media responded as usual with a flurry of pieces insisting, essentially, that we do too have plenty of fuel, nyah nyah nyah! I’m not sure if anyone was fooled, though. There’s a famous quote of Gandhi’s: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” We’re well past the stage of being ignored, and the few voices still laughing at peak oil are sounding very hollow and forced these days; the fighting is still going on, but that last stage is starting to look more and more like a near term probability. All this raises an interesting conundrum for the peak oil movement. Of the risks run by any movement that seeks to upend the status quo, the most commonly underestimated are the dangers of success. Plenty of movements that have triumphed over every adversity have faltered or even imploded when adversity gave way to achievement. There are plenty of ways that this can happen, but I suspect the one most likely to beset the peak oil movement will arrive when the movers and shakers of the world’s industrial nations turn to the more respectable members of the movement
[Biofuel] Japan Abandons Kyoto Protocol
Forwarding from another list. I trust you were all aware of this development, from the 'home' of the Kyoto Accord. Is anyone else struck by the juxtaposition of holding the current climate change talks in Cancun, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and proximate to the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and environmental disaster? Darryl Original Message Japan Abandons Kyoto Protocol December 2nd, 2010 President Bush would have been proud. Japanese Prime Minister Kan has joined the head in the sand crowd in the USA in refusing to go along with the Kyoto Protocol a measure enacted in Japan. This may have more to do with tensions between China and Japan than anything else. I wonder what the diplomatic cables on this one look like? This is from Terraviva Japan Under Fire for Abandoning Kyoto Pact By Darryl D'Monte* The timing of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's statement was deliberate, NGOs say. CANCÚN, Mexico, Dec 1, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) - Japanese NGOs feel that Prime Minister Naoto Kan's categorical statement in parliament on Monday that his government would not under any circumstances be party to a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in that historic city in 1997, went beyond irony. Although the government's position on not proceeding with a second phase of the protocol, which begins in 2012, has been known for a couple of years, this is the first time that the prime minister has publicly stated it in public. The announcement on the opening day of the U.N. climate summit in Cancún was timed to drive home a point. Yuri Onodera, programme director for Climate Change and Energy of Friends of the Earth, Japan, told journalists Wednesday, Japan's move to drop out of the Kyoto treaty shows a severe lack of recognition of its own historical and moral responsibility. With this position, Japan isolates itself from the rest of the world. Even worse, this step undermines the ongoing talks and is a serious threat to the progress needed here in Cancún. He told TerraViva the government's move may have arisen due to frustration over the process regarding major emerging economies in general, and China in particular, not agreeing to commit to reduce their emissions. The prime minister's move also came in the context of increasing tensions between the two major Asian countries. Specifically regarding China, Japan has a territorial dispute. There is also economic competition, with China surpassing Japan as the world's second biggest economy. There is sentiment involved, I suppose, Onodera added. However, Onodera, who had been active with many fellow activists in helping forge the Kyoto Protocol 13 years ago, still expects the government to commit to combating global warming. Japan recognises its place in the international community, he said. It would like to present a good face and project itself as a consensus builder. It is a truly significant for Japan, for its public image and its foreign policy. It is a matter of national pride. It would not like to be seen as dealing with this issue single-handedly. Many people will be watching if Japan is seen as not participating in the process, he continued. The government felt that substantive progress had been achieved after Copenhagen. If its role as consensus-builder went the wrong way, Japan would be seen as a blocker, which it would not like and the prime minister could change its policy, he said. He did not think that the U.S. would treat this as a precedent and cite Japan's pull-out to justify its own hard line against the Kyoto Protocol. This administration is different, he felt, it won't destroy the process openly. I truly hope that the U.S. doesn't. The continuance of the Kyoto Protocol is critical for underdeveloped countries to be engaged in the process. Asked by TerraViva whether the Japanese prime minister's statement had any resonance in U.S. climate policy, Dr. Jonathan Pershing, a top U.S. negotiator, said that since the U.S. was not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, it was not for it to comment on this development. However, he added that he was aware of previous discussions about Japan's opposition to a continuance of the treaty, on which Japan was quite clear. There were now two tracks one for continuing with Kyoto and the other without. It is every country's right to take its own decision, just as it is important for a group of countries to move forward, he said. Russia is also a concern in this respect, Ondera told TerraViva. It has made its support for the second phase of the protocol conditional on other major emerging economies, but at the same time, it is also flexible. Japan is moving in the opposite direction and will be isolated. NGOs in Japan were engaging with government policies of all ministries and mobilising the public to tackle global warming. Recent economic issues, including nearly five percent unemployment, had diverted the attention of the government and opened up policies
Re: [Biofuel] Japan Abandons Kyoto Protocol
They were expecting flak at Cancun. This is from a week ago: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20101127a4.html Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010 Japan will oppose Kyoto extension at COP16 Kyodo News Japan won't agree to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 even if that means isolating itself at the U.N. climate change talks next week in Cancun, Mexico, a senior Japanese negotiator said Thursday. The remark underscores Tokyo's determination to establish a fair and effective emissions-reduction framework in which all major emitters - including China and the United States - can participate as one to succeed the legally binding Kyoto pact. Even if the Kyoto Protocol's extension becomes a major item on the agenda at Cancun and Japan finds itself isolated over it, Japan will not agree to it, said Hideki Minamikawa, vice minister for global environmental affairs at the Environment Ministry. The biggest problem is that an agreement has not been reached on a framework in which all major emitters will participate, Minamikawa said. No such agreement is expected at the 16th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16), which kicks off Monday at the Mexican resort and lasts through Dec. 10. Some countries, including China, are calling for provisionally extending the Kyoto pact. Forwarding from another list. I trust you were all aware of this development, from the 'home' of the Kyoto Accord. Is anyone else struck by the juxtaposition of holding the current climate change talks in Cancun, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and proximate to the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and environmental disaster? Darryl Original Message Japan Abandons Kyoto Protocol December 2nd, 2010 President Bush would have been proud. Japanese Prime Minister Kan has joined the head in the sand crowd in the USA in refusing to go along with the Kyoto Protocol a measure enacted in Japan. This may have more to do with tensions between China and Japan than anything else. I wonder what the diplomatic cables on this one look like? This is from Terraviva Japan Under Fire for Abandoning Kyoto Pact By Darryl D'Monte* The timing of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's statement was deliberate, NGOs say. CANCÚN, Mexico, Dec 1, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) - Japanese NGOs feel that Prime Minister Naoto Kan's categorical statement in parliament on Monday that his government would not under any circumstances be party to a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in that historic city in 1997, went beyond irony. Although the government's position on not proceeding with a second phase of the protocol, which begins in 2012, has been known for a couple of years, this is the first time that the prime minister has publicly stated it in public. The announcement on the opening day of the U.N. climate summit in Cancún was timed to drive home a point. Yuri Onodera, programme director for Climate Change and Energy of Friends of the Earth, Japan, told journalists Wednesday, Japan's move to drop out of the Kyoto treaty shows a severe lack of recognition of its own historical and moral responsibility. With this position, Japan isolates itself from the rest of the world. Even worse, this step undermines the ongoing talks and is a serious threat to the progress needed here in Cancún. He told TerraViva the government's move may have arisen due to frustration over the process regarding major emerging economies in general, and China in particular, not agreeing to commit to reduce their emissions. The prime minister's move also came in the context of increasing tensions between the two major Asian countries. Specifically regarding China, Japan has a territorial dispute. There is also economic competition, with China surpassing Japan as the world's second biggest economy. There is sentiment involved, I suppose, Onodera added. However, Onodera, who had been active with many fellow activists in helping forge the Kyoto Protocol 13 years ago, still expects the government to commit to combating global warming. Japan recognises its place in the international community, he said. It would like to present a good face and project itself as a consensus builder. It is a truly significant for Japan, for its public image and its foreign policy. It is a matter of national pride. It would not like to be seen as dealing with this issue single-handedly. Many people will be watching if Japan is seen as not participating in the process, he continued. The government felt that substantive progress had been achieved after Copenhagen. If its role as consensus-builder went the wrong way, Japan would be seen as a blocker, which it would not like and the prime minister could change its policy, he said. He did not think that the U.S. would treat this as a precedent and cite Japan's pull-out to justify its own hard line against the Kyoto Protocol. This administration is different, he felt, it won't destroy
[Biofuel] Biofuels, Bioenergy and Biochar: False Solutions Lead to Land-Grabbing
From: ETC Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ETC Group News Release: Biofuels, Bioenergy and Biochar: False Solutions Lead to Land-Grabbing Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 Side Event: ETC Group, Biofuelwatch, EcoNexus, African Biodiversity Network/Gaia Friday Dec 3rd, 20:15-21:45 Room Sandía, Cancunmesse Industries and governments are joining forces to create policies that support the use of crops and other biomass (trees, agriculture residues, manure and more) as substitutes for coal, oil and gas - not just for energy and fuels, but also for the production of plastics and chemicals. While presented as green, clean, and renewable, the shift from petroleum to biomass is, in fact, worsening climate change, increasing deforestation and biodiversity loss, degrading soils and depleting water supplies. Further, the new bio-based economy threatens livelihoods, especially in the global South where it encourages land grabs. At the same time that a massive demand for biomass is being created, using lands for carbon sequestration (as offsets via REDD, for example) is being promoted. Creating an industrial demand for biomass is clearly incompatible with slowing deforestation, and yet, predictably, industry players are pushing to ensure that the expansion of industrial monocultures plantations and practices associated with growing, harvesting and using biomass will be rewarded by offset-financing. The example of biofuels should serve as a warning, said Silvia Ribeiro from Canada based ETC Group. They have resulted in increased deforestation, hunger and land grabs, without reducing carbon emissions. Biotech companies are now pursuing 'synthetic biology' to create artificial microbes that can convert plant biomass into all manner of fuels, chemicals and products. This is shortsighted and risky. We have no regulatory structures to oversee the production and use of synthetic life forms. What will happen if biomass-digesting, engineered microbes are accidentally released into the environment, as is likely? Creating new demands for plant materials will never solve the problem of climate change stated Rachel Smolker from Biofuelwatch. Incredibly, some are now advocating that we burn massive quantities of plant material to make charcoal (aka biochar) and bury it in soils. Proponents make all sorts of claims about the capacity of biochar to sequester carbon, for which there is little scientific basis, and they fail to consider the impacts of dramatically increasing the demand for plant matter. Finally, Teresa Anderson from the Gaia Foundation said that false solutions add insult to injury for people in the global South. Small farmers, indigenous peoples and pastoralists are not the people who caused climate change, yet they are already suffering the consequences. Now these false solutions are making them suffer even more as they face eviction from their lands to make way for biofuels and the bioeconomy. Our new report Biofuels - a Failure for Africa exposes the false claims made about biofuels, and how they are failing farmers and Africa as a whole. Contacts: Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group, (mobile 552 653 3330) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] Teresa Anderson, EcoNexus/African Biodiversity Network/Gaia (998 189 6201) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] Rachel Smolker, Biofuelwatch (mobile 998 108 3108) [EMAIL PROTECTED] FOR MORE INFO: On biofuels: See Gaia Foundation/ African Biodiversity Network report: Biofuels - A Failure for Africa, available here: http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=119qid=52354http://www.gaiafoundation.org/content/biofuels-failing-africa-report-ethiopia On the bioeconomy: See ETC Group's newly released report: The New Biomassters, available here: ../../node/5232http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5232 On biochar: See Biofuelwatch's briefing: Biochar For Climate Mitigation: Fact or Fiction, available here: http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=120qid=52354http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/biocharbriefing.pdf See also: African Biodiversity Network and Gaia Foundation's joint briefing: Biochar Landgrabbing: The Impacts on Africa, available here: http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=121qid=52354http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/biochar_africa_briefing2.pdf Biofuelwatch's handout: Offsetting tar sands emissions with biochar? (English and Spanish), available here: http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=122qid=52354http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/biochar_and_tar_sands_handout.pdf and http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=123qid=52354http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/biochar_and_tar_sands_espanol.pdf - ETC Group is a registered Charity in Canada. ETC Headquarters are at: 431 Gilmour Street, Second Floor Ottawa, ON K2P-0R5 Canada ___
