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Recent Posts
- The Biblical Revelations, critical thinking, and how this affects us today
- Why the U.S. is ignoring nuclear winter in nuclear policies & strategies
- Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
- Nuclear weapons must be reduced or we risk nuclear winter
- Fusion is already running out of fuel
- Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
- Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
- Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
- Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
- The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
- Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
- What percent of Americans are rational?
- Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
- Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
- Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
Tag Archives: agriculture
America loves the idea of family farms. That’s unfortunate. By Sarah Taber
Preface. As declining fossil fuels force more and more people back into being farmers, eventually 75 to 90% of the population, it would be much better for this to happen with family farms than gigantic mega-farms with workers who are … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching
Tagged agriculture, collaborative, farming, worker-owned farms
4 Comments
So you want to start a vertical farm?
Preface. Vertical farms sound even more impossible than rooftop farms, which at least can use free sunshine. And they use massive amounts of energy to heat, cool, ventilate, light, and so on, not a good direction to go given energy … Continue reading
Why we must get rid of pesticides
Preface. France is one of the few nations trying to use fewer pesticides. This is the direction we must go to prepare for the end of the fossil age, since pesticides are made out of finite petroleum. Also, we are running … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Pesticides
Tagged agriculture, pesticides
Comments Off on Why we must get rid of pesticides
Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
Preface. Before the fossil fuel age began, about 80 to 90% of people farmed to make a living. Since the end of the oil age will send us back to the past, farmland and farmers will once again comprise … Continue reading
Posted in Overpopulation, Peak Food, Soil
Tagged agriculture, peak food, population, sprawl
5 Comments
Replacing diesel tractors with horses or oxen – what will that be like?
Preface. Since fossil fuels are finite, at some point increasing numbers of farmers with diesel vehicles and equipment will want to replace them with horses, which can do the work of six people. Below is what energy expert Vaclav Smil … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Life Before Oil, Muscle Power, Peak Food, Vaclav Smil
Tagged agriculture, horsepower, muscle power, oxen
1 Comment
Book review of Dirt: the erosion of civilization
Preface. On average civilizations collapsed after 800 to 2,000 years because they’d destroyed their topsoil, some of it caused by deforestation to grow more food, make metals, ceramics, glass and other objects requiring high heat, which fossils provide today. Today, … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Peak Food, Soil
Tagged agriculture, erosion, peak food, peak soil, soil
4 Comments
Solar PV requires too much land to replace fossils
Preface. This is a brief summary of the Capellan-Perez paper that calculates the land needed to use solar to replace electricity as well as the land needed if solar were to replace all of societies use of energy (i.e. transportation, … Continue reading
Why world leaders are terrified of water shortages
Preface. The article blow shows how water crisis in Yemen and Syria led to civil war, mass migration, roadblocks by angry citizens, water riots, increased dengue fever as people hard water, and 1 million refugees fleeing to Europe. Egypt also … Continue reading
Posted in Caused by Scarce Resources, Drought & Collapse, Mass migrations, Middle East, Social Uprising, Starvation, Water
Tagged agriculture, conflict, mass migration, revolution, war, water
1 Comment
From wood to fossil fueled civilizations — the greatest tragedy mankind will ever know
Preface. These are my notes from this book about how we went from an organic sustainable economy to a temporary fossil-fueled one. It’s one of the few books I’ve found that explains what life was like before fossil fuels in … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Life Before Oil, Supply Chains
Tagged agriculture, biomass, coal, food, industrial revolution, transition, wood
5 Comments
Pigeon towers to cope with peak phosphate and natural gas fertilizer?
[ Natural gas based fertilizers intensified crop production per acre up to 5-fold, yet natural gas, like phosphate, is finite. We are going to be forced to reinvent our fossil-based agriculture, why not start with pigeon towers? Beats going to … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Phosphorus
Tagged agriculture, phosphate, pigeon towers, what to do
3 Comments