Categories
-
Recent Posts
- Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”
- The conveyor belt may be slowing down — Yikes!
- Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial
- New war and energy alliances over next resource wars
- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
- Why do people vote for Trump?
- Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”
- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
- Why some people are conservative and others liberal
- Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America
- Book review: How Democracies Die
- Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean
- Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”
- Fox news estranges millions of families and instills hate and fear in its cult members
- Book review of “Deer Hunting with Jesus” Best book on why people vote for Trump
Tag Archives: agriculture
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
Nitrogen fertilizer poses significant threats to humans and the environment
NRC. 2015. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System. National Research Council, National Academies Press. 19 pages. Nitrogen (N) is essential for agricultural productivity, but in its more reactive forms, it can pose significant threats to humans … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Groundwater, Planetary Boundaries, Pollution, Soil
Tagged agriculture, fertilizer, nitrogen, runoff
Comments Off on Nitrogen fertilizer poses significant threats to humans and the environment
Plant more prairies to save topsoil and prevent pollution runoff
[ A program to plant more prairies to enrich the soil, keep topsoil from blowing and washing away, and provide a bio-diverse habitat for hundreds of species is receiving little funding or farmer participation, even though it would save farmers … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Topsoil
Tagged agriculture, food, peak soil, prairie
Comments Off on Plant more prairies to save topsoil and prevent pollution runoff
After collapse: plunder or feudalism?
IWW poster “Pyramid of Capitalist System” (c. 1911), depicting an anti-capitalist perspective on statist/capitalist social structures Preface. In this post an anonymous author looks at what will happen if society collapses and we have to suddenly go back to … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Food, Peak Phosphorus, Soil, Where are the rich going
Tagged agriculture, billionaires, collapse, farming, feudalism, greenhouse
6 Comments
The effect of high energy prices on small business. U.S. House of Representatives, 2014
[ This hearing is about how the unaffordable prices of energy are affecting ordinary people. Chairman Tipton at one point says that “I do not think that Americans truly realize the significant amount of energy that is necessary to be … Continue reading
Posted in Congressional Record U.S.
Tagged agriculture, energy, food
Comments Off on The effect of high energy prices on small business. U.S. House of Representatives, 2014
The Back to the Land Movement: why it failed and why we need to try again
[ This is my book review of “Back from the Land: how young Americans went to nature in the 1970s, and why they came back”. Some succeeded, but most failed, and there are lessons to be learned from the previous … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Books
Tagged agriculture, back to the land, energy, farms, peak oil, what to do
Comments Off on The Back to the Land Movement: why it failed and why we need to try again
Fruit and nut crops decline as climate change melts fog
Fimrite, P. May 22, 2014. As Central Valley fog disappears, fruit, nut crops decline. San Francisco Chronicle. California produces 95% of U.S. fruit and nut crops that depend on disappearing Tule fog. The soupy thick tule fog that regularly blanketed … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Peak Food
Tagged agriculture, fog, food, fruit, nuts
Comments Off on Fruit and nut crops decline as climate change melts fog
Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014
Preface. At last, many years after I first published “Peak soil: Why biofuels destroy ecosystems and civilizations” in 2007, Congress had a hearing to educate House members on why preserving topsoil is so essential for food production for future generations. … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Peak Topsoil, Pesticides, Soil, U.S. Congress Infrastructure, Water Pollution
Tagged agriculture, cover crop, erosion, no-till, peak soil, soil health, U.S. House of representatives
Comments Off on Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014