Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Certainly you're free to disagree. But I can't figure out exactly what it
is you're disagreeing with. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 12/1/2006 at 8:00 AM charlotte plummer wrote:

>Hi I am sorry but I have to disagree with you.  My Dad put up solar
>panels in the eighties and said he was money well spent.  He even got a
>tax deduction for it.  He a coal stove also installed made in Germany.  He
>has to work a little to keep it going but he says it is worth it.  He 85
>and still going strong.  I also heard somewhere the solar panels or
>materials are coming down in proce.  They will be making cheaper ones
>soon.  Charlotte
>
>TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:  
>Robert, I thought their season extension was interesting, but to tell the
>truth that solar installation had to be financed by thousands in
charitable
>donations from somewhere. The solar had to cost far more than the
>greenhouses themselves. They're a nonprofit, but from a business
standpoint
>it would be suicide. None of us can repeat their setup and repay the cost
>through our sales. Market farming is a slim profit margin business at best
>today without a huge investment in solar to pay off. Energy costs are
>already putting some farm sectors out of business and it's not just fuel
>but the energy going into building machinery, transporting food, plus the
>fossil fuels that make pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. People are
>going to be forced to grow without those energy inputs. 
>
>The arguments about technology saving our butts have all been answered.
>Technology can only increase efficiency, not create energy. I favor wind
>power but all the alternatives cost more money than any government can
>afford and far more than the public is willing to sacrifice for. The bad
>news is most of the cost of solar now comes in the equipment you have to
>buy to use it, and these high dollar gems like batteries and inverters
>don't come down. Rising demand is forcing prices up already. Few people
>have any idea how unrealistic it is for solar to save us from rising oil
>prices. Or realize that solar manufacture takes as much energy as building
>a car. As the cost of fossil fuel keeps rising the cost of energy to
>manufacture solar must rise. There are no alternatives that will let our
>civilization keep up our energy standard of living. Hard fact: If anything
>else packed as much punch for the cost, we'd jolly well be using it
already
>instead of oil. So the alternatives will bankrupt us. I've studied this
>from every known angle. All this modern "progress" from the Industrial
>Revolution on was fueled by cheap energy. Mainstream experts of all
stripes
>know this and know cheap energy is over. I'd love to have alternatives
>because there's no light at the end of the tunnel. 
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1464050,00.html
>http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2155717
>
>Sorry but I have to disagree with some of those points you made -
>historians know it was not the Bomb that ended WW II, and we do not have
>the capability or money to switch it all to solar, and Japan has been in
>economic trouble for years and is hopelessly tied to our own economic
>decline - nor would Japan save our butts if they could. 
>
>I wish all of that was a bad dream. Unfortunately most people won't or
>can't face facts because of what they'd have to do. Still, there are
>millions in this country who need to be more self sufficient in food,
>growing more of their own, swapping with neighbors etc. because they can't
>make ends meet. Two or three generations ago people knew how. They don't
>now. But those who do learn again how to live on the land - without
relying
>on fossil fuel inputs - will be more secure. I promote that. It's an
>individual choice.