Climate Food and Agriculture

Legalizing hemp would help environment and economy, says report

The U.S. war on non-smokable hemp hurts the environment and the economy, according to a new report from the free-market-promoting Reason Foundation. To wit: Hemp fiber requires six times less manufacturing energy on average than polyester fiber, and requires less pesticides and water than cotton. Hemp can be used to make paper, fiberglass, and cement, […]

Conventional milk contains toxics, says the USDA

The Organic Center acts as a kind of shadow USDA, digesting the latest peer-reviewed research on organic food, translating it into English, and issuing summary reports. Consumers won’t want to miss the center’s newest one on pesticide residues [PDF]. It contains one of those handy guides on which conventional fruits and veggies convey the most […]

A post-petroleum American dream

"This craziness is not sustainable," concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues:

Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire.

And without petroleum. Oil is shooting over $100 per barrel, caused ultimately by a looming decline in global supply, and exacerbated by rising demand in China and India, foolish policies such as the occupation of Iraq, and repressive regimes such as in Nigeria. And if we are serious about reducing carbon emissions to near zero in order to avert climate catastrophe, we must scale back our use of petroleum to near zero.

While we're learning to live without petroleum, we need to rebuild the workforce, infrastructure, technologies, and tax system, as Herbert suggests. I will argue in this post that we can accomplish all of these goals by replacing internal combustion engines with electric motors, using other energy sources for other petroleum uses, and perhaps most importantly, by changing the arrangement of the buildings, production, and people in our society in order to eliminate the need for so much petroleum.

In order to understand how to accomplish all of this, we need to know how petroleum is used, so let's look at some numbers!

Biodiesel company convinces B.C. restaurants to switch oils

Came across this piece about a biodiesel company in British Columbia that’s convincing restaurants to switch to a lighter, healthier cooking oil so it can buy the oil and turn it into biodiesel. And partly I’m just excited because the program, called Restaurant Green Zone, is finding the biggest success in Chilliwack! And that’s fun […]

Pushing for ‘fair food’ on campus in the land of hog factories

Last year, a bunch of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got tired of the industrial dreck served up in the cafeteria. They discovered that the landscape around them was producing some amazing, chemical-free meat and produce and set about figuring out how to get some in school dining halls. Photo: […]

An honest, interesting statement from Piedmont Biofuels of North Carolina

I’m a fierce critic of biofuels, but I’ve always had a soft spot for small, region-based biodiesel projects that create fuel from local resources, providing jobs in the bargain. (I proudly ran Emily Gertz’s feature on the topic in our 2006 biofuels series.) The income from such projects remains within communities, rippling around and building […]

Norway says whale consumption is good for the planet

Eating whale meat is better for the planet than eating beef, pork, or chicken, according to a comparative carbon-emissions calculation by Norwegian lobbying group the High North Alliance. Says the alliance’s Rune Froevik, in what may be a bit of an exaggeration, “Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the […]

Alcohol refinery may enhance tourist industry

Tourists, bird watchers, and native cattle herders in Kenya's Tana River delta may soon have a spanking-new alcohol refinery in the middle of their wetland. Granted, the wetland will be slightly less wet because a third of its water will be diverted to cropland. Always one to look for a silver lining, I would hope that this refinery will include an air-conditioned bar where tourists and herders alike can gather for happy hour after a long, hot day of wildlife viewing and cattle herding.

Paul Matiku, Executive Director of Nature Kenya (and might I add, a real pessimist) claims:

Large areas would become ecological deserts. The Delta is a wildlife refuge with cattle herders depending on it for centuries as well. There is no commitment to mitigation for the damage that will be done and no evidence that local incomes will be in any way improved.

*Cough*loser*cough*! Excuse me.

Here, Richard Branson, after publicly admitting that his investments in corn ethanol were a mistake, goes on to say:

"But, ah, there are countries in the world like Africa [actually a continent], um, like Mozambique, where they have got sugarcane plantations lying wasted, doing nothing ..."

Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?

Well, maybe my words can't describe how bad corn ethanol is, or Mayor Bloomberg's, or those of top scientists, but I think I have found someone's words that do: Opus's from Bloom Country.

First, however, the lastest grim news from Fortune: "The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike." Yes, "plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months." Why?

Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it's become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel.

If you can't make money with oil at $100 a barrel, you are not much of an alternative fuel.

But I know what you're thinking -- if corn ethanol is so bad, what's wrong with plants being scrapped? Well, the corn ethanol business is here to stay. The corn ethanol mandate from the most recent energy bill requires doubling supply from current levels. Fortune explains what that means:

Forbes says that Frankenfruits are already here

In the mid-’90s, amid much fuss, a biotech firm called Calgene introduced the Flav’r Saver tomato. Genetically engineered to last longer on the shelf, the Flav’r Saver didn’t turn out to have much “flav’r” to save. To make a long story short, consumers generally steered clear of it; farmers had trouble growing it; Calgene burned […]