Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Greg and April" <gregandapril@earthlink.net>]

Interspaced.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Nagel" <activism98201@verizon.net>
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 13:34
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] My [unpublished] op-ed piece on ethanol


> Well, I guess we'll just have to disagree.
>
> Your discussion centers around mass production.  While mass production is 
> efficient, it is so at the expense of needing to promote growth.
>
> None of this is sustainable in a growth environment.  And seeing that the 
> economic system that maintains these methods of production rely on growth 
> in order to operate, it's not a workable system long-term.



***************

While there is something to be said about economy of scale, there is nothing 
that says that it has to be big, even then there is a cap as to how big you 
can get without causing more problems than you solve, in distrubution, 
bringing in raw materials and the like.    There is nothing that says you 
have to continue to grow, in order to thrive.


****************


> Ethanol production (especially from corn) is going to ramp up big time. 
> And it's not because it's a good idea, but rather because of the existing 
> lobby groups.

****************

I disagree.    Lobbiest groups have been trying to promote ethanol ( from 
corn and other sources ) as a fuel since the 1970's.    It's only now that 
people becoming more concerned with global warming and forigen oil issues, 
that it is being accepted, because it is a good idea, compared to the 
alternatives.

People argue that electric cars are cleaner, but, what is the price of 
electricity?    Dirty air and contaminated soil from coal?    Currently 
approved nuclear reactors still carry an extreamly high long term cost. 
There is only going to be so much hydro power, the wind and sun don't work 
24 / 7 / 365 in most places.    Hydrogen is and always will be, a pipe 
dream, from problems in current technology.

There will always be a need to move things from where it is to where it 
isn't, and a reasionaby energy dense fuel will be a part of it.

*******************

> As to your statement "Properly processed, remaining solids could even 
> provide direct nutrition for human consumption," there's that magic word- 
> "processed."  At what cost is this production?  How much energy are we 
> going to pump into this?

****************

As far as processed, it could be as simple as drying the distilled solids, 
with the waste heat from the distilery.    Why do you think that primary 
energy needs be used?    Secondary energy or waste energy would do just 
fine.

****************


> Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should.


****************

Funny, people say the same exact thing about what we call sustainable 
farming.    Yet we know that that isn't true is it?

You would have us believe that sinse you believe that it can't be done, 
people don't even try to do it.

Why not find ways of making it work, instead of just saying it can't be 
done.

If I believed what people have been saying about raising rabbits, I would 
have given up last year.    I didn't.    I ignoring what people conventional 
wisdom, and started putting rabbits all in one large pen, rather than in 
individual cages, and now I have had my first sucessful litters.

I spent two years trying to breed rabbits, and didn't get anywhere untill I 
ignored conventional wisdom, and did it differently.

I was told the same thing that you said, "Just because you can do it, 
doesn't mean that you should do it", when I asked a couple of people about 
colony breeding of rabbits, and told them that I didn't have problems with 
the rabbits fighting.


You know what?
Just because you think something will not work, doen't mean it will not or 
can not work if the problem is approched differently.


By saying " it can't be done ", people build the foundation of a prision, 
than limits them in all they do.


Now start telling me how ethanol can be a sustainable fuel - think outside 
the prision of "it can't be done".

Greg H.