Senate committees
Hi Folks.
I have not been posting much in the last few months because I have been very busy getting my herb garden in in my front yard and expanding my large food garden in the back. I have also been doing research for the Green Party, which some of you know i am a member of ( Both Provincial and Federal) and I am a member of the Post carbon Institute ( local chapter CKOAP). If that is not enough I have been teaching hand drums to my students and getting more involved in my music. That means my writing has been cut way down,except to all the posts write on various "Peak Oil" and survialist groups. I have not had time to even make Bee's wax candles, something I love to do.
I woke up around 5 in the morning and could not get back to sleep after watching the senate committee talking with industry people about what to do about global warming and how we are going to meet our Kyoto goals. One person said that if we started tommorrow with some solution it would take about 18 months just to get the solution online and running and that is not counting the years of slogging through government regulations. It is a complex issue with no easy fixes according to them.
It was also reported that we are running out of time(some say we are past it, but I am an optimist).
I have an easy fix that can be done in a very low-tech fashion. Part of the proplem is getting CO2 out of the air. Plants are very good at doing that. Treehuggers are against cutting down any trees since they clean the air so well. We still need virgin fibre to make paper so where are we going to get it if not from trees? Yep you guessed my solution. Grow HEMP. Lots of HEMP. The simplist solution is to grow so much hemp that it helps clean the air, and we would not have to cut any trees for paper and you gain a wonderful feedstock of other products like good food from the seed and oil from the seed and cloth, paper and building materials from the rest of the plant. This Weed will grow in poor soil and actually enrich it if the leaves are allowed to fall and proper harvesting methods are used. It does not need much if anything in the way of pesticides or herbicides or fertilizers. I think that is part of the problem. Companies like DOW and Monsanto can not make a big buck out of it, so they will do what ever they can to urge any other crop to be grown because then they can make money off it. Do not hate them for that since that is the job of big souless multi-nationals, they are just money making machines that do not care if the planet goes to hell in a handbasket, as long as they can give the stock holders a return on their investment. In order to do that well, they MUST dominate the business they get into, even if it means going against a great idea.
I see Low-tech solutions to many of our modern problems. It seems no one wants to hear them because they can't make a buck off them. A short list of things i think we need to do NOW is build up a bicycle manufacturing industry ( You do know that Cycling is THE most efficient means of transportation?), Encourage the growing of Hemp everywhere,encourage the growing of your own food locally and set up simple farmers markets within walking distance of large masses of people, in the cores of cities,discourage the use of the personal car in favour of cycling, taking a train or bus and leave the roads to transport trucks untill the rails can be built up again. Those few simple, not expensive solutions will go a long way to meeting our Kyoto commitments and make us healthier as a side bonus.
All we need is the political will.
Michael J. Kaer
Author of "What Money Can't Buy" available at
http://www.mjk-private-income.com
I have not been posting much in the last few months because I have been very busy getting my herb garden in in my front yard and expanding my large food garden in the back. I have also been doing research for the Green Party, which some of you know i am a member of ( Both Provincial and Federal) and I am a member of the Post carbon Institute ( local chapter CKOAP). If that is not enough I have been teaching hand drums to my students and getting more involved in my music. That means my writing has been cut way down,except to all the posts write on various "Peak Oil" and survialist groups. I have not had time to even make Bee's wax candles, something I love to do.
I woke up around 5 in the morning and could not get back to sleep after watching the senate committee talking with industry people about what to do about global warming and how we are going to meet our Kyoto goals. One person said that if we started tommorrow with some solution it would take about 18 months just to get the solution online and running and that is not counting the years of slogging through government regulations. It is a complex issue with no easy fixes according to them.
It was also reported that we are running out of time(some say we are past it, but I am an optimist).
I have an easy fix that can be done in a very low-tech fashion. Part of the proplem is getting CO2 out of the air. Plants are very good at doing that. Treehuggers are against cutting down any trees since they clean the air so well. We still need virgin fibre to make paper so where are we going to get it if not from trees? Yep you guessed my solution. Grow HEMP. Lots of HEMP. The simplist solution is to grow so much hemp that it helps clean the air, and we would not have to cut any trees for paper and you gain a wonderful feedstock of other products like good food from the seed and oil from the seed and cloth, paper and building materials from the rest of the plant. This Weed will grow in poor soil and actually enrich it if the leaves are allowed to fall and proper harvesting methods are used. It does not need much if anything in the way of pesticides or herbicides or fertilizers. I think that is part of the problem. Companies like DOW and Monsanto can not make a big buck out of it, so they will do what ever they can to urge any other crop to be grown because then they can make money off it. Do not hate them for that since that is the job of big souless multi-nationals, they are just money making machines that do not care if the planet goes to hell in a handbasket, as long as they can give the stock holders a return on their investment. In order to do that well, they MUST dominate the business they get into, even if it means going against a great idea.
I see Low-tech solutions to many of our modern problems. It seems no one wants to hear them because they can't make a buck off them. A short list of things i think we need to do NOW is build up a bicycle manufacturing industry ( You do know that Cycling is THE most efficient means of transportation?), Encourage the growing of Hemp everywhere,encourage the growing of your own food locally and set up simple farmers markets within walking distance of large masses of people, in the cores of cities,discourage the use of the personal car in favour of cycling, taking a train or bus and leave the roads to transport trucks untill the rails can be built up again. Those few simple, not expensive solutions will go a long way to meeting our Kyoto commitments and make us healthier as a side bonus.
All we need is the political will.
Michael J. Kaer
Author of "What Money Can't Buy" available at
http://www.mjk-private-income.com
posted by Michael Kaer at
3:57 AM
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