Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On May 24, 2008, at 12:46 AM, Roy Morgan wrote:

> I skimmed an article today in Mother Jones magazine.
> http://motherjones.com/
> The article was:  "The Seven Myths of Energy Independence"
> http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/the-seven-myths-of-
> energy-independence.html
> One myth was "Once Bush is gone, change will come."
> Others were: "Ethanol Will Set Us Free" and "Energy Independence Is
> Good"
>
> One more random thought: What is the carbon foot print of a large
> pizza with extra cheese and sausage on half?

Good prior rumination, but this of course steals my attention--someone  
possibly threatening my pizzaddiction! That is akin to suggesting that  
human problems can be cured by banning hops. To arms!

I do not keep cows or goats or sheep, but except for the cheese I  
believe I could could raise all the other essential ingredients for a  
good pizza. Unless one considers olive oil to be essential. So, if the  
baking were accomplished by hand-cut wood and soil for grain and  
veggies were hand prepared and with a neighbor that provides milk or  
cheese--not using a vehicle for delivery-- perhaps the carbon foot  
print could be only the, um, methane that the milking ruminant expels.

As for the Mother Jones article, good stuff. Of the many changes  
possible, energy conservation will be taken more seriously. One of my  
personal heros is Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute--http://www.rmi.org/--who 
 has been working hard for energy conservation for a long time. My  
personal belief is that the ultimate answer to most of the problems we  
humans have is substantially lower human population. Call it Brave New  
World or what you will, I see no more certain solution to resource  
scarcity and pollution problems.

In the meantime, I sadly predict that we will use our economic and  
military might to take what we want.