Transterrestrial Musings

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More fear mongering. Never mind that this article comes close to correctly stating that CO2 increase comes after the temp increase. Walter Williams' latest weekly short covers GW very well.

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/07/silencingdissent.htm

Posted by Mac at August 8, 2007 10:51 AM

Nice article. As the Gorical has claimed before, the shift to environmentally green (i.e. non Co2 producing) technology is going to change and invigorate the econony while moving away from it's present consumerist/war production base. Somehow, I don't think his supporters had a massive increase in herbicide use as part of the scenareo. Meanwhile, I'm still facinated how "green" it is to cover the hills with windmills. This isn't your father's eco-fantasy, boyo.

Posted by K at August 8, 2007 11:33 AM

I love it!

So the eco groups beloved organic foods (they have been whining all we normal folks MUST eat) must be outlawed to support their beloved global warming initiatives.

Posted by Kelly Starks at August 8, 2007 12:19 PM

Hold on there Kelly. Try organic. I've found its a darn sight tastier than processed. Organic beef and poultry is great, and at least here in Texas, not too much more expensive to purchase. I agree that berating people that they MUST eat organic is wrong, but trying it and liking it and what it does for my health is great.

Posted by Mac at August 8, 2007 02:11 PM

I am a frequent shopper at Whole Foods. I am NOT an acolyte of organic foods. If they taste better, great -- I'll pay more. If they are wilted or pitted because they lacked proper pesticide applications, then I won't.

I reject the religious aspects and iconography of organic farming. It is not inherently superior. Indeed, for some crops, if one doesn't apply fungicide, I can get poisoned by the fungal toxins.

As for soil bacteria CO2 emissions -- I would be unsurprised if massive plowing contributed to CO2 increases. If anyone has a link of aggregate CO2 emission estimates from plowing vs. seed drills, I would be delighted to examine it.

As far as I am concerned, "global warming" is a power grab attempt by Puritanical control freaks. It brings to my mind such things as:

-- The closing imagery of Animal Farm;
-- The iron triangle of Big Government, Big Industry, and Big Labor (the fascist triad, dontcha know);
-- The resentment of Old World aristocrats (and their contemporary ilk) towards their more successful, liberty-loving misfits in the New World.

Posted by MG at August 8, 2007 02:48 PM

The first article seems to have missed a few things in his equations. Assuming the organic farmer sells his produce locally and uses local sources of manure, how does that compare to mega farms shipping produce thousands of miles and the carbon impact of producing synthetic fertilizer?

In addition, organic farming isn't static. Given this type of information, I'm sure organic farming will evolve to produce a greener result.

On the other hand if right wingers stopped eating organic food based on these articles that's fine by me. I guess that would be one way to reduce the carbon impact caused by the rest of us eating organic food.

Posted by Offside at August 8, 2007 06:06 PM

The second article should also be taken very seriously.

If right wingers stopped exercising in addition to avoiding any organic or other healthful produce it may lead to various maladies that will keep them otherwise occupied, medicating themselves with synthetic products while meditating on their feelings of dysfunction, and most importantly out of mischief such as launching ill-conceived wars.

In fact since the right wing is so opposed to organic produce, or any green endeavor for that matter, I would like to suggest that all imported Chinese goods and produce be first beta-tested on them. Any volunteers at this blog?

Posted by Offside at August 8, 2007 06:40 PM

I dunno.

I guess the first step is to tell us how to tell whether or not someone is "right wing."

Are you up to the task? I mean, you are the one throwing the meaningless term around...

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 8, 2007 06:45 PM

I think Offside is showing the effects of the production of organig produce.

Much like organically grown mushrooms, he is showing the effects of being kept in the dark and fed copious quantites of horeshit.

Posted by Mike Puckett at August 8, 2007 08:11 PM

While I don't care one way or the other, I like whole foods: Their CEO is a libertarian, and has an excellent talk you can find about the morality of being a libertarian, and how the democrats, in being so anti-business, are hampering the rest of the causes they espouse.

Posted by taoist at August 8, 2007 10:19 PM

I don't think Democrats in (federal) office WANT to solve the problems they espouse. It would put them out of a job.

*/ cynicism remains on

Posted by MG at August 9, 2007 03:33 AM

I don't think Democrats in (federal) office WANT to solve the problems they espouse. It would put them out of a job.

*/ cynicism remains on

Posted by MG at August 9, 2007 03:34 AM

I don't think Democrats in (federal) office WANT to solve the problems they espouse. It would put them out of a job.

*/ cynicism remains on

Posted by MG at August 9, 2007 03:34 AM

And if the tree-hugging, branch-biting, weed-worshiping left didn't consume so much organic food, they wouldn't vote in support of ill-conceived wars just because its popular and they want to be re-elected.

Posted by Mac at August 9, 2007 05:37 AM

Mike, I think you need reading glasses. Though I have to say horeshit is an interesting word. I guess you collect that in the best little horehouse in Texas ?

Also try eating organic carrots for your eyes. Or, since I obviously can't help myself here, the horeganic variety.

Posted by Offside at August 9, 2007 06:55 AM

Offside,

Maybe you need some carrots, because you missed Rand's question to you.

Posted by Leland at August 9, 2007 08:26 AM

In fact since the right wing is so opposed to organic produce, or any green endeavor for that matter...

Other than the pixels on your monitor, what is your proof of this? Because I'm a very conservative right-wing person. But I'm also a big believer in being green.

I'm that way because I'm personally frugal fiscally speaking. I'd rather generate my power than buy it, I'd rather eat home grown veggies than buy them, I'd rather build my house with a ton of insulation to conserve heat and cool because insulation is cheaper NOW than heat and cool will be 20 years from now. I want to recycle my water 3 or 4 times in steps, to conserve the water on my property because it's cheaper to do so.

I know many other crunchy-cons who feel the same way. So your argument is totally bogus. I do have limits though, I keep my ammo from getting green.

Posted by Steve at August 9, 2007 08:44 AM

And Offside shows the importance of Occam's Razor, the caution against unnecessarily multiplying assumptions.

Because, all of a sudden, Offside changes the terms of the debate.

The first article seems to have missed a few things in his equations. Assuming the organic farmer sells his produce locally and uses local sources of manure, how does that compare to mega farms shipping produce thousands of miles and the carbon impact of producing synthetic fertilizer?

Why should one assume that organic farmers either sell locally or buy their fertilizer locally? While there are "eat local" movements out there, those are not necessarily focused on organic food. Conversely, many supermarket chains now sell organic food (meat and produce) and they make no claim to their origins being local.

So, Offside's making rather heroic assumptions in order to supoprt his claim. But the article, he himself notes, makes no such assumptions.

So, given comparable suppliers and markets, is organic more green or not? That is the question that was posed and answered.

Posted by Lurking Observer at August 9, 2007 09:31 AM

Lurking,
OOO, OOO, OOO, pick me, pick me!

I have the answer. I live in Raleigh NC. I see CALIFORNIA grown organic veggies and fruits in every store I buy groceries in. That includes the mainstream jobs too. It's roughly 2700 miles to the San Joaquin Valley from me. That's a pretty big carbon foot print vs organic carrots, lettuce and almonds. All of which I've seen here, and more.

Posted by Steve at August 9, 2007 10:15 AM

Hmm...

(http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest.shtml)

The data demonstrating that organic farming practices can reduce atmospheric carbon levels come from TRI's longest-running field study, The Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial® (FST). Launched in 1981, the FST is a 12-acre, side-by-side experiment comparing three agricultural management systems: one conventional, one legume-based organic, and one manure-based organic. In 23 years of continuous recordkeeping, the FST's two organic systems have shown an increase in soil carbon of 15-28%, while the conventional system has shown no statistically significant increase. For the organic systems that translates into more than 1000 lbs of captured C (or about 3670 lbs of CO2) per acre-foot per year—and that’s not even counting the reductions in CO2 emissions represented by the organic systems' lower energetic requirements. A comparative analysis of FST energy inputs, conducted by Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University, found that organic farming systems use just 63% of the energy required by conventional farming systems, largely because of the massive amounts of energy required to synthesize nitrogen fertilizer.

"Results like these are a bright spot within the otherwise dreary picture of global climate change research," notes Daniel Desmond, Director of the Office of Pollution Control at PDEP. Organic farmers "are the only group or philosophy that looks at carbon as a resource rather than carbon as a waste product."

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at August 9, 2007 01:15 PM

And further:

http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2007/0107/notill.shtml

Using an improved design of its no-till roller—and only a legume cover-crop for fertility and weed management—the Institute’s no-till organic corn plots produced 160 bushels per acre (bu/a), compared to 143 bu/a for tilled organic plots.

Hmm... no till organic. Hmm. Not just random speculation, Offside.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at August 9, 2007 01:30 PM

And another common misconception debunked (same link):

One of the myths about organic agriculture is the common claim that organic yields cannot equal those of conventional agriculture. For the past 26 years we have been growing corn and soybeans in replicated, randomized large plots under organic and conventional farming systems. Over the long haul, among well-managed organic and conventional systems in our trial, we have seen that crop yields between these systems are not statistically different.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at August 9, 2007 01:39 PM

Hmmm...TnT, if I read your press release right, it's saying that spreading organic detritus (horseshit and/or horeshit, or last year's weeds 'n' stems 'n' things) over the ground and plowing it under is a way to bury carbon compounds. Er...gosh?

I mean, here's my new and clever organic way of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere:

(1) Grow weeds.

(2) Plow them under.

Presto! Carbon offsets! Plus, as a bonus, in a few hundred millions years, we get some new oil.

Honestly, this stuff about carbon offsets makes me wonder whether people have any numerate sense of the size of the atmosphere. It's about 5x10^18 kg, so the present CO2 content (0.038%) is about 1.9x10^15 kg. If you want to reduce the CO2 content to 0.033% (roughly pre-industrial levels) in 100 years, you need to pull out 2.5x10^12 kg of CO2 every year, or about 80 metric tons per second.

It can be done, according to Rodale, if we put 1.5x10^9 acres or 6 million square kilometers of cropland (85% of the world's cultivated land) into these organic farming techniques. Assuming of course the organic farming techniques themselves produce zero CO2 (no tractors and such, and anyone weeding mayn't exhale), so we can use the gross CO2 uptake in the article as the net CO2 uptake.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 9, 2007 01:51 PM

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