Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Monday, 26 April 2010
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Bolivian President Evo Morales on President Obama: “I Can’t Believe a Black President Can Hold So Much Vengeance Against an Indian President”
Evo_web
As the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba closes, we speak to Bolivian President Evo Morales about the US decision to cut off climate aid to Bolivia; narcotrafficking; the tenth anniversary of the Water Wars in Cochabamba; the protest at the San Cristóbal silver mine; and the contradiction between promoting the environment and extractive industries—oil/natural gas exploration, mining.
On Thursday organizers of the peoples’ summit released an Agreement of the Peoples based on working group meetings. Key proposals include the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute polluters, passage of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, protection for climate migrants, and the full recognition of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change
Great Brainstorming Session Results in Apology
Pope receives apology from UK Foreign Office for 'condom' memo
Internal Foreign Office memo filled with ironic suggestions about the pope's September visit to the UK has prompted an official apology to the Vatican
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 April 2010 13.51
The Foreign Office has apologised over a jokey internal memo written by junior staff suggesting the pope should open an abortion clinic during his visit and start a child abuse line. Photograph: Giuseppe Giglia/EPA
The memorandum, apparently written following a brainstorming session by a group of junior civil servants planning events for the four-day visit by Pope Benedict XVI, suggested among other ideas that he might like to start a helpline for abused children, sack "dodgy" bishops, open an abortion ward, launch his own brand of condoms, preside at a civil partnership, perform forward rolls with children, apologise for the Spanish armada and sing a song with the Queen.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
The best exposition of the problems in rural england
Can we rebuild the countryside - for sure.
Can we afford it - yes
Anyone interested ?
Call me for the answer Mr Politician
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Monday, 19 April 2010
Sunday, 18 April 2010
From Newhoggers
April 16, 2010
Peak Oil - It's a Secret
Commentary By Ron Beasley
A couple of weeks ago I reported that in a few months peak oil has gone from a tin foil hat theory to a widely accepted one. Today Chris Nelder explains that while both business and government accept peak oil they want to keep you in the dark. On March 30-31, the biennial International Energy Forum (IEF) summit took place in Cancun. Attendees at the world's largest energy forum included ministers from 64 countries, members of the IEA and OPEC, and other dignitaries.In parallel, Cancun also hosted the International Energy Business Forum, attended by some 36 companies including the top executives of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.In short, the twin conferences were a Very Big Deal.But when I searched Google News for stories containing the exact phrase "International Energy Forum" and published during the conference, it wasn't until the seventh page of results that I found any stories from major American media outlets, and those stories were strictly focused on specific issues like oil and gas prices. They said not a word about peak oil.A journalist from the oil and gas media organization Platts explained what happened on his blog. All media were barred from the IEF conference room, and exiled to a press room where the presentations were shown on monitors with no sound. When reporters asked for sound, the monitors were turned off. All sessions were then declared to be private, and the reporters that had come from around the globe to cover the conference were simply shut out.[Bold Mine]
So the powers that be are worried about peak oil but they want to keep us in the dark.
By any measure, March was a watershed month for the truth about peak oil.Estimates on the timing of the peak have narrowed dramatically, and now center on the 2012-2015 time frame. The range of estimates on the peak rate of production remain a bit broader and shrouded in caveats, but they are rapidly drawing closer to 90 mbpd. And the globally averaged, post-peak annual decline rates are settling in around 2%.In other words, industry and governments appear to be coming around to what my call has been all along: 2012, at 90 mbpd or less, then declining at about 2.5% per year.Now we know that the oil and gas industry, as well as the world's governments, are not only aware of the peak oil threat... they too are deeply worried about it.Worried enough to huddle behind closed doors, away from the press. Worried enough to formulate plans to control price volatility. Worried enough to agitate for more transparent data. Worried enough to begin planning for a future of relentlessly declining energy.But not worried enough to tell the American people the truth... not just yet.
Maybe this is why they don't want you know - Growth is only possible when energy flow is increasing. Does that mean that capitalism as we know it will be one of the first causalities of peak oil?
Peace breaks out
Amazing times. No planes coming over us. A truly blue sky for once. Peace on earch.
Just need to street lights to be turned off, at say 11.00pm then we could have the night back,.
If there were fair taxes on fuel and stelios and ryan air paid vat and fuel tax like old people have to, then there would be continual peace.
What if the volcano kept on going for a year...
Just need to street lights to be turned off, at say 11.00pm then we could have the night back,.
If there were fair taxes on fuel and stelios and ryan air paid vat and fuel tax like old people have to, then there would be continual peace.
What if the volcano kept on going for a year...
Saturday, 17 April 2010
No idea about this business thing
Little a, BIG A, bouncy bee, the systems got u but it it aint got me.
How is it to run your own business, nobody, well a few out of thousands, has asked me that in, 23 yrs.
Funny, weird, why are so many critical and so few curious to ask such a simple question.
Of course the answer is simple.
Very few will be or are independent in this society.
Those that are ask, those that are not never ask, all their life.
How is it to run your own business, nobody, well a few out of thousands, has asked me that in, 23 yrs.
Funny, weird, why are so many critical and so few curious to ask such a simple question.
Of course the answer is simple.
Very few will be or are independent in this society.
Those that are ask, those that are not never ask, all their life.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Birds spotted at Church Farm over past weeks
GOT THIS TODAY FROM RICHARD,
Below is a list of the birds I have observed recently with dates.
Thursday 1st April
A late morning walk with Faye Maher produced the following.
1. Cormorant
2. Grey Heron
3. Canada Goose
4. Mallard
5. Buzzard
6. Red-legged Partridge
7. Pheasant
8. Moorhen
9. Wood Pigeon
10. Collared Dove
11. Green Woodpecker
12. Great Spotted Woodpecker
13. Pied Wagtail
14. Wren
15. Dunnock
16. Robin
17. Blackbird
18. Blackcap
19. Chiffchaff
20. Long-tailed Tit
21. Blue Tit
22. Great Tit
23. Magpie
24. Jackdaw
25. Rook
26. Carrion Crow
27. Chaffinch
The birds highlighted in red are the first migrants to have returned from their wintering grounds in Africa.
Wednesday 7th April
A mid morning walk with my wife Sue.
1. Grey Heron
2. Canada Goose
3. Mallard
4. Red Kite
5. Pheasant
6. Moorhen
7. Herring Gull
8. Wood Pigeon
9. Collared Dove
10. Green Woodpecker
11. Great Spotted Woodpecker
12. Swallow
13. Pied Wagtail
14. Wren
15. Dunnock
16. Robin
17. Blackbird
18. Blackcap
19. Chiffchaff
20. Goldcrest
21. Long-tailed Tit
22. Blue Tit
23. Great Tit
24. Nuthatch
25. Rook
26. Carrion Crow
27. Jackdaw
28. Magpie
29. Chaffinch
30. Greenfinch
31. Goldfinch
The Swallows highlighted were newly arrived from Africa within the last few days. There were 15 of them.
Saturday 10th April
CHURCH FARM BIRD WALK
1. Grey Heron
2. Canada Goose
3. Mallard
4. Red-legged Partridge
5. Pheasant
6. Moorhen
7. Wood Pigeon
8. Collared Dove
9. Green Woodpecker
10. Great Spotted Woodpecker
11. Pied Wagtail
12. Wren
13. Dunnock
14. Robin
15. Blackbird
16. Fieldfare
17. Song Thrush
18. Garden Warbler
19. Blackcap
20. Chiffchaff
21. Willow Warbler
22. Long-tailed Tit
23. Blue Tit
24. Great Tit
25. Treecreeper
26. Magpie
27. Jackdaw
28. Rook
29. Carrion Crow
30. Starling
31. House Sparrow
32. Chaffinch
33. Greenfinch
34. Lesser Redpoll
35. Yellowhammer
The birds highlighted in red are newly arrived migrant birds from Africa. You can see from the three lists that migrant birds are
returning to your farm on a daily basis. Spring has arrived.
The Lesser Redpoll was a surprise. It flew over the cafe area as we were enjoying a bacon sandwich and tea after our walk.
Note there were no Swallows, so these must have stopped off for food etc before moving on.
The Bird Walk was a great success and everyone enjoyed it.
Best wishes,
Richard Pople
Local Bird Guide
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Friday, 9 April 2010
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Peak Oil Recongised at US DOE - Cat getting out
Dept of Energy Acknowledges Possibility of Peak Oil Production After 2011
As seen in this graph above, the DOE has for at least a year fully expected traditional oil supplies to drop off suddenly starting in 2012 (a small discrepancy from DOE secretary Sweetnam’s stated date of 2011). The graph is especially troubling in the absence of numerous newly identified oil production projects and widespread commercial production of non-petroleum fuels. (image: eia.doe.gov)
In contrast to its official stance on a global production peak, comments by DOE secretary Glen Sweetnam in an exclusive interview demonstrate that the department is considering whether a swift and unexpected decline of oil supplies is close at hand.
“A chance exists that we may experience a decline [of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015] if the investment is not there,” Sweetnam told correspondent Matthieu Auzzaneau.
The Department of Energy’s new pessimism over the oil supply situation follows from figures in a study prepared for a meeting in April 2009. Entitled “Meeting the Growing Demand for Liquid (fuels),” the report predicted that from 2011 through 2015, global oil production would drop from 87 million barrels per day (Mbpd) to 80 Mbpd while demand would rise to 90 Mbpd. Essentially, it warned of a coming time when the status quo of oil consumption will begin to surpass supply, requiring the world to prepare for a 10 Mbpd shortage—a volume just shy of top world producer Saudi Arabia’s output of 10.8 Mbpd.
Previously, the DOE has abided by the perspective shared by the peak oil-skeptical analysis firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), which depicted any drop-off in oil supplies as a temporary dip in a cycle of small declines and recoveries that adds up to flatness over time. Deemed the “undulating plateau,” this image of supply levels has been roundly criticized by oil analysts for masking an irreconcilable supply gap. In April 2008, Sweetnam published a long-term international energy outlook that predicted that oil production would enter a plateau in 2030 that would last until 2090, only after which an irreversible decline would begin.
Regardless of whether one believes a decline in global oil production to be temporary or not, the Le Monde interview makes it clear that the DOE is considering whether the “undulating plateau” will begin as soon as next year. As as a statement from DOE World Oil Prices expert Lauren Mayne shows, the term itself functions as a euphemism for “production peak”:
Once maximum world oil production is reached, that level will be approximately maintained for several years thereafter, creating an undulating plateau. After this plateau period, production will experience a decline.While Glen Sweetnam’s new uncertainty and the above graph from the DOE show that the Department takes seriously the possibility of peak oil, the lack of outright confirmation of the coming decline it predicts likely follows from the line of reasoning implicit in the phrase “undulating plateau.” The alternate theory explains that following maximum global production, future production will form a plateau, not slope, in global supply levels because new production techniques, made possible by better investment, act to reverse losses by developing previously inaccessible reserves. In order to compensate for a near-term supply shortage, the DOE report predicts that the US would have to boost liquid fuel production by 1.8 Mbpd by 2015 (with 2007 as the base year), the largest ramp-up of any other country studied.
According to Auzanneau, Sweetnam did not appear to be knowledgeable of any newly identified oil sources, and even if he had been, the DOE states that it takes seven years for any new projects to begin making meaningful contributions to global oil supplies. Therefore, the logical expectation is that huge increases in ethanol manufacturing will be required in order to compensate for a supply decline in the US.
Given the Department of Energy’s new openness to peak oil theory, it would appear that US energy policy stands at a crossroads. Accepting the possibility of peak production next year burdens the department with added responsibility, because the ability to minimize the damages of another period of skyrocketing oil prices and/ or shortages, rests with government, not businesses or consumers. Actions that the DOE may take if it wholeheartedly embraces the premise of a steep decline in oil supplies include boosted initiatives and subsidies for ethanol and biodiesel production, stepped-up biofuel content through federal fuel mandates, and even fuel rations. In order for consumers to make the switch from gasoline or diesel to biofuels, those fuels need to be more widely available at competitive prices. However, that the only reason the public knows about the department’s changed approach is because of good journalism, not a public address, does not bode well for future clarity or conviction. It appears that, as in the UK we will have to wait and watch closely to see how the US Department of Energy addresses these issues as it strives to prevent life-altering increases in the price of heating oil and other consumer petroleum products.
Is that what we fought the war for?
So, to feed people we need oil right now.
Cost of oil is high.
Food is not cheap.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Permanent Agriculture - From journeytoforever.org 1930
Small
farms
| farms |
Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture
by J. Russell Smith, Sc.D.
Part Three
Economics, Farm Applications, and National Applications
Chapter XXIV
Considered from the standpoint of the future, and no long-distant future, either, a large part of the United States is on the road to economic Hades, going rapidly, by way of gullies, and few there are who seem to realize the significance of the catastrophe or the speed of its approach.
Plan or Perish -- Tree Crops
The Nation and the Race --
A New Patriotism is Needed
For example, the hillside shown in Figure 3 is in Virginia, within one hundred miles of Washington. It is fairly typical of thousands in the whole Piedmont area that reached from New York to Alabama, Kansas City, and the southern Ozarks. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were mightily concerned about soil erosion, such as shown in Figure 3, but the State Director of Extension Work in Virginia told me in 1920 that he did not know there was need for such a thing as mangum terrace in that area, which is typical of thousands of square miles of rolling hills impoverished and gullied by erosion, It would interest you to check upon the Pennsylvania official agricultural attitude toward gullies and soil conservation.
If there were danger that a foreign country might get possession of some little island on the coast of Maine, Florida, or Texas, thousands of Americans would jump to their feet, willing to fight and perhaps to die that this speck of land should not pass to the possession of another nation. If it did pass to some other national ownership, it would still be the same piece of land. It would still have the same good for humanity that it had before the fight. It would, in west European and American eyes, even continue to be the private property of its previous owners, yet these same men who would fight to prevent change in national government of a piece of land have little compunction about destroying land in their own country. By neglect, they will destroy an acre or two in a season. Thousands of them are doing it yearly, now. In a single generation, each of tens of thousands of Americans destroys enough land to support a European farm family for unknown generations of time.
These land-wasters think they are patriotic citizens. We need a new definition of patriotism and a new definition of treason! You are still free to destroy all of the land that you can buy or (in most cases) rent.
The Dead Neighborhood
Take as an example the hills of New England and the Appalachian hills and ridges. This area has one of the most wholesome climates in the world, a climate that helps man to be healthy and vigorous both in mind and body.
It has one of the most agriculturally dependable climates in the world. The land is not visited by the droughts and famines that are so often and so feelingly referred to in the Old Testament and which desolate so vast an area of South America, Africa, Australia, and Asia. These American hills have one of the best climates to feed man's body with food and his mills with raw material.
These American hills are variegated with beautiful flowers in spring, clothed with green in summer. The glory of autumn foliage, its red, brown, yellow, and gold set off by the evergreens, makes one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, fit to inspire man's spirit and lift it above the prosy but useful bellyful of nuts that lies beneath the falling leaves. Yet this wholesome, dependable, and beautiful land is in agricultural decline. Much of it is desolated and abandoned. The old agriculture of the level land has been tried upon the hills -- tried and found wanting.
The hills are gullied. The fields are barren. Tenantless houses, dilapidated cabins, tumbledown barns, poor roads, poor schools, and churches without a pastor -- all are to be found in too many places. No wonder whole townships are for sale and at a cheap rate. But these neighborhoods might be transformed through tree-crop agriculture and become like the chestnut communities of Europe described in Chapter II and in the chapter on the chestnut.
Professor Stephen S. Visher, Indiana University, puts it this way:
One phase of the rough land situation which has interested me greatly here in southern Indiana is the present hopelessness of the economic condition of the people who try to make a living there by the use of "flat land methods." They can't be good American citizens -- they are too poor. Your program affords hope for such people and regions.
In 1946 a professor in Ohio University, Athens, on the same Ohio Valley Hills wrote me as follows:
At present I am making an effort to find some method of saving the wasting counties of southern Ohio. I am taking an actual inventory of the financial income of the so-called farmers of this depleted area. I find that almost all of them have some industrial income not only to supplement their farm income but to finance their farms. It is only a matter of time until everything "goes down the river." I feel that somewhere there must be an answer to the plight of these men. None of them are able to -- or they cannot see the tangible return of plain lumbered trees.
And I add, they are right about that in most cases. But why must they kill their trees to use them? Why not crop-yielding trees?
Tree Crops and Tenancy
The tree-crop agriculturist must almost certainly be a home owner, not a shifting tenant. A half million square miles possessed by landowning small farmers is a greater basis of national strength and endurance than the landless and roving tenant who drifts from farm to farm, skinning them as he goes, or the still more landless and rootless crowds of humans, who, in the cities, shift from apartment to apartment and surge back and forth on the trolleys, subways, elevated railways. Can a nation survive on the basis of rented farms and rented apartments? There is small evidence that it can. For one thing look at the vital statistics. Our city dwellers have seventy babies per hundred funerals.
The Game Preserve
What a game preserve a collection of good crop trees would make! The trees would both shelter and feed the animals. This job is worth doing for that purpose alone by a naturalist and big-game hunter of great means or by a sportsman's club owning game preserves.
World Applications
An examination of the world regions map (Fig. 138) will show that every type of climate that is found in North America recurs in other continents. Some of them recur in every continent save Antarctica. Therefore, this book is one of world-wide application. Since I am an American and have spent only two and one-fourth years in foreign lands, my philosophy is naturally illustrated chiefly with American facts. But the philosophy is of world-wide application. The regional map shows in what parts of the world a given American tree has some chance of thriving. Conversely it shows the parts of the world in which we have a chance of finding trees that are likely to thrive in a given area within the United States.
In most cases a crop that is a success in one continent has several more continents in which to spread itself. For example, experiments by government agriculturists in India seem to indicate that mesquite seeds from California and Hawaii have been planted in several localities in India with apparent success. Since most of India suffers from drought, this is a fact of vast significance. The chapter on the Tropics (Chapter 22) gave some inkling of the valuable but unused tree crops that nature has already developed in arid lands.
Suppose we should work out a tree-crop agriculture along lines indicated and suggested by this book. What might it mean for the United States?
Tree Crops Can Increase Crop Area
This table shows that in 1925 less than one-fifth of Massachusetts was improved land in farms and less than one-eighth of the land of the State was in crop; that West Virginia had even less of her land in crop; while Iowa, a state blessed with much level land, has four-fifths of her land improved and three-fifths actually in crops, and the War Boom and tractors of 1944 showed that there was little room for expansion.
x Total crop land and pasture land other than woodland, 1925 Total harvested crop land, 1925 Total harvested crop land, 1944 x Acres
(thousand)Percent
of areaAcres (thousand) Percent of area Acres (thousand) Percent of area Massachusetts 1,072 20.8 625 12.1 581 11.2 New York 12,467 40.8 8,290 27.1 6,922 22.6 West Virginia 5,304 34.4 1,677 10.8 1,490 9.6 Ohio 17,979 68.9 10,703 41.05 10,837 41.6 Iowa 29,505 82.9 21,466 60.3 21,562 60.6 Illinois 26,700 74.4 19,755 55.07 20,302 56.6 Tennessee 10,922 40.9 6,209 23.2 5,844 21.9 Oregon 10,385 16.9 2,592 4.2 3,276 5.3 California 21,045 21.1 5,723 5.7 7,536 7.5
All figures from Yearbook, U. S. Department of Agriculture, except columns 5 and 6, from Agricultural Statistics, 1946.
The decline in harvested acres in Massachusetts, New York, West Virginia, and Tennessee is a plain result of the gully and of mechanization. Farm machines seek good topography, and the era of tree crops has not yet come.
Now, the soil and climate of Massachusetts and West Virginia are such that certainly ninety percent of their land area would grow crop-yielding trees of some productive variety, after the manner of the chestnut orchards of Corsica, described in this book. Therefore it seems fair to assume that tree crops may easily increase fivefold or sixfold the crop-yielding area of New England and of the Appalachian region of which West Virginia is a type.
When one adds to this the large amount of rolling land, too steep for permanent agriculture of the plow type, to be found in the nonmountainous parts of eastern States and the rolling sections of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (Figs. 51, 52, 95, 116, 117, 129), Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and other States, it seems a conservative statement to say that tree crops, by utilizing steep, rough, and overflow lands, could double the crop-yielding area of that part of the United States lying east of the Mississippi and perhaps all east of the one hundredth meridian.
By utilizing the same sort of land in the foothills of the Rockies, the Sierras, the Cascades, and the Coast Ranges, it would seem probable that tree crops could double, perhaps more than double, the present crop-yielding area of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States. Note the California figure, less than one-thirteenth of her area in harvested crops. This use of crop trees on the slopes of mountains in semiarid lands (Fig. 125) indicates that there are many tens of thousands of square miles waiting in the arid parts of the United States, Mexico, Central America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. However, it should be pointed out that, in the irrigated West, it is not fair to compare unirrigated tree-crop acres with irrigated acres on a basis of equality.
Use of Tree Crops in Arid Lands
If the available gully water that now runs away in arid regions should be utilized for isolated crop trees in the manner indicated in the last chapter (Fig. 133), at least one million square miles of semiarid land west of the one hundredth meridian in the United States might possibly have its productivity doubled.
The Wood Supply
The continuance of geological surveys and technical invention seems to reveal unexpected supplies of some of the mineral resources, especially oil (from shales), but no credible estimator finds any optimism in, or any quick alleviation for, the declining timber supply. In other words, our Western civilization, with its vast use of raw material, seems to be inevitably moving into a shortage of wood and timber. The United States has the best there is. We are cutting timber faster than we grow it, and we are still exporting, for a time, at least, to wood-hungry neighbors east, west, and south, but the timber famine looms.
In our present civilization the refuse of the grain agriculture is straw, almost worthless and quite generally wasted. In contrast to this, the tree crops, once established, will leave a substantial annual by-product of wood. Only a little of it will be saw timber, but this fact is of declining importance today, when the use of wood in the form of pulp, paper, carton, and even paper board, is increasing rapidly.
Tree Crops, the Water Supply, and Navigation
Suppose that three-fifths of the hill lands east of the one hundredth meridian were in crop trees whose productivity made it profitable for the farmers to cover their lands with water pockets or terraces with back ditch (Fig. 130). This would mean a greatly increased amount of water held in the ground from rainy season to dry season. This would make decreased flow in the spring of the year, with the result that many streams would be carrying in the minimum period several times their present flow. This would mean improved water supply for cities and for river navigation and quite likely for lowland irrigation.
Tree Crops and Water Power
We are entering the age of almost universal distribution of electric power. To make this power we are rapidly building reservoirs to store mountain water for power purposes. And these reservoirs are being filled up by silt at a rate which promises an untimely end, and in some cases much sooner than the builders expected. It is now estimated that Lake Meade, back of the gigantic Hoover (Boulder) Dam in the Grand Canyon, will be full in a century. And what will that do to Southern California?! The people of California seem quite unconcerned over the fact that nearly half of the people live in a land that has prospect of greatly reduced water supply a century hence because of overpasturing and wild erosion in the Colorado River Basin. The future? What has the future done for us?? And what are we doing to the future?? Reservoirs built in Algeria by the French have been completely filled. The same thing has happened in our Cotton Belt. Most of this silt in eastern America is produced by wastage of fields through preventable erosion. The tree-crop agriculture, with field water pockets or Soil Conservation Service terraces, would keep most of the silt on the land where it is needed. This would greatly prolong the life of reservoirs. The storage of water in little field reservoirs would increase the minimum stream flow and therefore the minimum water supply and would therefore increase power output at minimum seasons. Since this low peak in power development is a very damaging factor, these water pockets would have a great influence on the capital value of power installations. It should be remembered that it has been done already for its power and timber value alone and for its agricultural value alone (Chapter 23).
Tree Crops and Flood Control
If three-fifths of the hill lands east of the one hundredth meridian had water pockets large enough to store all ordinary rains, the flood problems on our rivers, including the Ohio and the mighty Mississippi, would possibly be so much reduced in size as to cease to be a serious economic menace to property situated in their flood plains. Every continent can use these advantages. America has no monopoly on the possibilities of increasing the proportion of crop land, the usable resources of wood, of water, of navigation. Other continents also may mitigate the extremes of high and low water in their rivers by detaining the rain upon their uplands in water pockets and terraces with back ditch.
Discharge of Yadkin River at Salisbury, N. C., 1901
This graph shows (in part only) the actual amount of water day by day for a year in a small North Carolina river. In this particular year the maximum discharge per second was 104,640 cubic feet; the minimum was 2420; the average was 8,636. Suppose masonry reservoirs had raised the minimum to 6,000, while water terraces raised it to 7,500 and protected the masonry reservoirs from filling -- at the same time that they doubled the agricultural output and quadrupled the agricultural valuations. It is high time that we quit skinning this Continent.
After the great flood of 1907, Pittsburgh created a Flood Commission. The Commission investigated and recommended a series of reservoirs in the mountain defiles upstream from Pittsburgh to hold flood waters until the flood danger had passed. These expensive reservoirs, if built, are destined to rapid filling, if the short-lived mountain farming of the present type continues with its gullies. But if the agricultural land were in water pockets or horizontal terraces, these would catch the silt which otherwise fills the reservoirs, would hold back much more water than the reservoirs themselves hold back. It would thereby increase the available resources of flood control, of water power, of navigation, and would benefit every town from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Too bad some Pittsburgh millionaire does not make a demonstration of this on a few thousand acres.
The Ohio River floods are charged with destroying a thousand lives and a billion dollars' worth of property (1940 dollars), and they are getting worse rather than better.
Tree Crops and the World's Food
The ability of tree crops to increase the world's food is suggestively shown in a table invented by W. J. Spillman (Appendix). The high rank of nut trees compares most favorably with the animal products, because the animals eat our crops before we eat the animals.
Next: 26. The Great Hope and the Many Little Hopes
Back to the Small Farms Library Index
Monday, 5 April 2010
Carl Sagan - A life...
First, Michael Shermer analyzes Carl Sagans career to test common claims (such as the idea that Sagans popularizing interfered with his scientific research). Shermer reveals the true nature of the so-called Sagan Effect.
Then, William Poundstone (author of Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos) provides an entertaining look at Sagans lesser known interests — especially his marijuana use (and the media fascination with that revelation).
Keay Davidson (author of Carl Sagan: A Life) rounds out the event with a discussion of Sagans ideas about exobiology and nuclear proliferation.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
The Shall we Shan't we increase National Insurance Debate
Just listening to that bliar mandelson talking about the NI increase. The lies and spin goes on.
If I were to be asked for an opinion, having employed quite a few and generating around £300k a year in EMPLOYERS NATIONAL INSURANCE of 13.4% for the pleasure of employing people I would suggest being more radical...
Rather than tinkering around with shall we increase this stupid tax that creates the incentive to employ as few people as possible here's an idea.
Abolish all taxes on employment- income tax, employees and employers NI
Put much more tax on luxury expendatures and raise the same through tax on pollution!
If I were to be asked for an opinion, having employed quite a few and generating around £300k a year in EMPLOYERS NATIONAL INSURANCE of 13.4% for the pleasure of employing people I would suggest being more radical...
Rather than tinkering around with shall we increase this stupid tax that creates the incentive to employ as few people as possible here's an idea.
Abolish all taxes on employment- income tax, employees and employers NI
Put much more tax on luxury expendatures and raise the same through tax on pollution!
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