permaculture

[Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

The person who developed the microbes for microbetech is Hugh Muir, son of 
the naturalist John Muir. He comes from his father's tradition of "do no 
harm" to the natural world. Microbe remediation is similar to remediation by 
fungi and works on the same principles. The microbes are not modified - they 
are encased in organic solutions that help them stay in the system long 
enough to gain a foothold and do their work. They are naturally occurring 
microbes, that are hand picked because of the functions they wear in the 
system, just like inoculants. Which is worse? A monocrop field that has been 
robbed of almost all soil life and must be artificially force fed to grow 
anything, or using microbes to start the process of a healthy system?  

Why is it ok to bring fungi into an area but not microbes?  As Toby says, 
microbes are constantly evolving.  They do well when there is a balance in 
the system and mutually beneficial connection amongst many elements. When we 
bring nitrogen fixer inoculants into a system, these are microbes brought in 
from outside. When we import soil or organic material, we are bringing in 
outside microbe systems that may have been altered by man's interference. 
These things tend to sort themselves out in a healthy system, such as an 
intact wetlands. 

The best thing to do would probably be to go to one of the places microbe 
remediation is used and see how the ecosystem is doing, years later. Microbes 
cleaned up an almost totally toxic Sea of Japan and allowed the fishing 
industry to survive. They have accomplished miracles in cleaning up toxic 
waste in ecosystems when used with care and responsibility. 

It seems that is the key, how responsible are the parties? These guys seem 
very, very idealistic and ethical to me - they love the earth and want it to 
survive with beauty. I am not a microbiologist or genetic expert, so have to 
go with what I've seen, what I've thoughtfully observed, what I do know, and 
some gut instinct.

Cory 




--- On Tue, 5/4/10, Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill - solutions?
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2010, 7:45 PM
> As a former geneticist, I'm sure you
> would know far better than I, but is
> there actually money available for exploring things like
> petroleum-eating
> microbes? There's a pretty narrow range of "benefits" that
> have come out of
> GM thus far -- at least in crop science -- and even those
> few have only come
> in areas where corporations like Monsanto and DuPont have
> poured tens of
> millions of dollars. My concern is that GM techniques are
> costly enough to
> implement that it's only the uber-rich and uber-powerful
> (aka evil
> corporations) who can wield these tools. At least that's my
> impression. Is
> it realistic to expect research funding for more benign
> uses of GM
> techniques? I'm not intimately aware of happenings in the
> field -- maybe
> this sort of thing is already happening?
> 
> -Ben
> 
> On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Toby Hemenway 
> <toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:
> 
> > As a former geneticist, I want to point out that
> nature transfers genes
> > between species, between families, even between phyla
> and kingdoms. It was
> > viruses that taught geneticists how to do it; viruses
> move genes between the
> > most distantly related organisms with great frequency
> and ease, making the
> > genetically engineered tomato with a fish gene look
> like child's play.
> > Nature is far ahead of us in the breeding world, and
> is doing things we can
> > barely dream of.
> >
> > It makes no more sense to condemn genetic engineering
> itself than it does
> > to condemn a hammer or a computer. It's a tool. A
> permaculturist doesn't
> > rule out a tool simply because of its origin; if we
> did we wouldn't use
> > hammers, computers, or anything else that's a product
> of an unsustainable
> > culture. The techniques of genetic modification are
> not evil; it's the
> > godawful stupid things they do with them that are the
> evil. If we can talk
> > about using technical solutions like hair mats and
> mycelium to clean up oil
> > spills (with all their pluses and minuses), then we
> ought to include GMO
> > microbes that eat oil in the toolkit. None of them is
> going to solve the oil
> > problem, but while we work on the technical level, we
> work on other levels
> > too.
> >
> > My sense is that activism, even Jensen's violent kind,
> isn't going to bring
> > civilization down--and I like Derrick a lot, and I
> speak as an activist. The
> > elites are much better at violence than anyone else. I
> think oil will just
> > get too scarce, and the crash will solve a lot of
> those problems. I just
> > hope it happens soon enough.
> >
> > Toby
> > http://patternliteracy.com
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 4, 2010, at 4:50 PM, jamesdavid Sneed wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Perhaps you can share your research sources 
> on each statement about the
> > microbes so each of us can pursue that. Also, even if
> an organism has NOT
> > been genetically engineered as in splicing, a few
> "non-gmo" breeding
> > techniques would never occur in Nature without humans
> forcing them to
> > happen, and thus also bear dangerous potential.
> > >> Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 19:59:18 -0700
> > >> From: cory8570@yahoo.com
> > >> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > >> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill -
> solutions?
> > >>
> > >> Oil eating microbes die when the oil is gone.
> The oil, on the other
> > hand, sticks around in one form or other and keeps on
> killing. They are now
> > using toxic stuff that sinks it to the bottom of the
> ocean. I guess out of
> > sight, out of mind... The company I am most familiar
> with uses only existing
> > microbes, they are not GM at all.
> > >>
> > >> Cory
> > >>
> > >> --- On Mon, 5/3/10, jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> From: jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
> > >>> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill -
> solutions?
> > >>> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > >>> Date: Monday, May 3, 2010, 2:13 PM
> > >>>
> > >>> Aren't a lot of those oil-eating microbes
> genetically
> > >>> modified? That would be cutting off our
> nose to spite our
> > >>> face.
> > >>>
> > >>>> Date: Sun, 2 May 2010 20:50:49 -0700
> > >>>> From: cory8570@yahoo.com
> > >>>> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > >>>> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill
> - solutions?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I'm checking with a friend of mine
> who creates microbe
> > >>> formulas to see if he has one for this
> problem. Some
> > >>> microbes do eat oil, just need to assess
> the entire process
> > >>> and all waste products, consequences,
> etc. Tailored,
> > >>> cultured microbes might be best for this
> job. Anybody know
> > >>> of any other organizations that might be
> able to handle
> > >>> that?  Application will definitely
> be something to
> > >>> solve.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Cory
> > >>>>
> >
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