This is about lowering our speed limits when oil reaches a certain price per gallon. We really should drive at 55 when gas hits 6-bucks. The difference between driving 85 and 55 represents a tremendous savings of gas. Cutting speeds from 70 to 65 will save about a penny a mile. To 55 will save more. Cutting from 85 will save a whole great big chunk of change on your gas bill.
I recently read that driving 55 instead of 75 can save 20% or more on your mileage. But then we read a lot of things.
Maybe someone would test this out and report on your mileages...?
Years ago, when we had our first energy crisis in the 70's, there was legislation passed to mandate a 55 MPH speed limit. Perhaps you remember it? Back then President Carter tried to sell conservation and initiated the CAFE standards for cars. As well as putting solar panels on the White House. (Reagan threw them all out)
I do NOT favor passing laws requiring a 55 MPH speed limit. Here in Nevada we have often looong distances to travel. And our government mandates way too many things.
I will however sponsor or cosponsor legislation to fund research on these mileage savings, and to fund a public education effort to educate us all. Perhaps just a little bit of seed money on this issue can convince many citizens to slow down and save gas.
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<br>So, until we can rebuild our railroad system into something truly efficient that we can all use -- to transport goods, materials, and people -- and that covers the whole state, just try to leave a little earlier, drive 55, and save on your next fill-up.
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is certainly the least efficient means that we have to get from there to here. Yes, it saves time, but is enormously wasteful of fuel. As fuel becomes increasingly expensive, air travel will fall out of favor, especially for those who are not wealthy.
I predict that by this year s end, air travel in the US will be reduced by 30% or more.
We must build our railroad system and get used to communication electronically whenever possible. If we are to survive as a nation, this is a highest priority job. Air travel as we know it will soon be a thing of the past.

belong to we the people. They have been given/sold to private corporations who now have almost absolute permission to control our news and information. This is not right. This is not 1984.
Corporations now control our media, which influences our political bent, and thus elects those who favor the corporate media. Catch 22.
All public broadcasting, and all dealings of congress, executive and judicial branches must be available to all Americans, without the need for a TV subscriber box or satellite. This is imperative to the success of our America and the continuing education of our citizenry. We will give the airwaves back to the people. We must have access to global information, not just what the corporate media decide to serve us. An uninformed public is lost.

is an energy investment in the future. Someone once said it is solid electricity. I think it's petroleum/coal solidified. It takes incredible amounts of energy, especially electrical to produce this wondrous metal. Once that initial investment is made, it requires very little energy to make it change form. Aluminum is an energy investment, and is already paid for. Our trash piles are full of it. It will melt for casting at around 1400 degrees. Local solar furnaces might provide enough energy to smelt that aluminum, and with simple sand-casting can be made into usable tools and products. Good local business opportunities. It's time to figure out what we need, how to build it, and how to make the tools to build the future. No big deal, right?
Put your creative mind to work....
Also, pot metal (some kind of zinc compound) is another fine feedstock. It melts at even a lower temperature than aluminum, and in some cases is stronger.
Put your thinking cap on and be in touch...we have the materials and the knowledge to retool our world. We just need the will.

Don't use that antibiotic crap. It Is important for our immune systems to create antibodies to protect us. Minor germs will strengthen our systems. A major problem is that some germs are now mutating to ignore antibiotics. Use vodka to purify your hands, or instead, wash well. We don t need to be putting any more antibiotics and chemicals into downstream water supplies. The fish are getting stoned. Also see Vodka.

What a long strange trip it s been. In barely 100 years we ve gone from horses to mobile parking lots that are called our roadways. How many cars have you owned in your lifetime? Why have not we made transportation that would last us a lifetime? One car, energy efficient, practical, and lasting our whole lives. Impossible? Well yes, as long as if is fashionable and profitable for us to show off our imagined wealth by buying a new one every few years. Future generations will be amazed at how inefficiently we traveled. At what foolishness we succumbed to.
Now it is soon up to you, our youth, to try to figure out how to best deal with all these pending unaffordable vehicles. This is the feedstock for your futures. Put your genius and energies to work, to learn how to salvage these materials. The alternators can be re-used, the glass for greenhouses, car tops can make geodesic dome panels, rear ends and axles can be incorporated into windmills and waterwheels. Wires, lights, and 12V motors can be retrofitted. Batteries when cared for will last some time, and we will have to develop the tools to re-build and recreate aged batteries.
The average alternator will put out an incredible amount of energy with a driving source. Get together, link up your minds, share your research, experiment, create, build on this& . You can do it, and I have faith that you will.
As I have mentioned, there is a prototype of a 100 mpg hybrid vehicle here in Reno. I ve driven one. It works. It is a retrofit.
We can convert our cars to electric and hybrid. We may retool our autos, and use the IC engines as stationary generator/heaters. These can be mounted on stands at our homes, and run at optimum rpms to both create electric and supply space heating and hi-temp heating. Diesels are best. Nearly 75% of an engine s energy creates heat. The rest can be used mechanically. For example to create electric to both recharge your electric car, and add to the grid to power your house. The tremendous amount of heat created can be used for space heating (with suitable headers, high temperature heating, and water heating.) The energy in one gallon of gasoline -- is about the equivalent of four 1500 watt heaters running for an hour. And tho my math may be deficient, it is a lot of energy. In other words, to break this down, the amount of heat we generate in our cars, just getting to work and back, is probably enough to heat our homes and give us hot water. And more. We could probably recapture 50% of our cars lost energy as heat.
Reboot, retool, and rebuild.

are superior to fossil fuels in that they are carbon neutral and especially oxygen neutral. In my unscientific opinion, we have excess free oxygen to breathe in great part to the decay of the 'dinosaurs' anaerobically (without air). This liberated free oxygen. When it is all burned, that oxygen will fade away...kind of like us.
Also, bio fuels are not subject to depletion and continually rising prices, unlike oil and coal.
Particular care must be used, when selecting bio-diesel and bio-ethanol (moonshine) as an energy source. They must have a good EIEO, or Energy In/Energy Out ratio. If it takes over a gallon of oil/coal to create a gallon of bio-fuels, that is simply a lost cause. Kind of like the Hydrogen Economy. We cannot willy-nilly be herded into something that is not efficient.
To make ethanol out of corn seems to be a problem. The growing/harvesting/processing of the corn takes tremendous amounts of fossil fuel energy. Corn is extremely heavily fertilized, with components made of oil and natural gas. This fertilizer is currently killing the Gulf of Mexico from runoff. And, it seems a little obscene to be making gas for our clumsy cars while the world is starving. There's just something wrong with that.
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<br>I firmly believe that one un-named superior source of both diesel, and ethanol is industrial hemp.
Here are some of the benefits:
Drought tolerant
Requires minimal fertilizer-it's a weed.
Improves the soil
Can quickly help prevent flood runoff, and landslides.
Grows on marginal land, and improves it.
Can be converted easily into directly usable diesel.
Is less cancer-causing than oil -- can save on medical problems and expenses.
Oxygen and carbon neutral.
Requires no insecticides nor pesticides.
A source of good quality edible healthy oils and Omega oils and cooking oils.
Helps fight the war on drugs (its pollen ruins marijuana crops -- it dilutes pot potency)
Our nation's founders grew and used it productively.
Can make paper products, high quality long-lasting cloth.
Provides chemicals/paints/etc.
Is 7 times more efficient than trees in making biomass.
Fast growing and easily grown.
Purportedly helped us win World War II
Can theoretically use waste mine-water, marginal water to grow.
Absorbs more carbon than most plants.
Will produce clean burning charcoal and fuel
Contains all essential amino acids and fatty acids.
Has tremendous potential.
Unfortunately it's still illegal to grow, and our government will not even consider discussing its possible benefits. As long as it remains tied to a Schedule 1 drug, there will be no experimentation with this wonderful plant that God gave us. Perhaps it's time to re-think our unfounded national aversion to discussing hemp.
Ill thought out plans for national bio-fuels may prove to be more of a problem than a solution. Making alcohol from waste however, may be do-able by small groups or individuals. Perhaps we should change the ATF laws regarding our citizens ability to make alcohol. (see also Klebsiella Planticola)

TV is our circus, here s how to make your bread.
Bread is the staff of life. It is good if you grind your own grain(see solar grain grinders). If you cannot, store bought flour will suffice. You will need the following tools to do this: bowl for mixing, wooden spoon, flour, bread pans-optional, an oven, water, salt, yeast, gluten flour (optional), sugar/honey, oil, and time. Not Thyme.... I use a plastic mixing bowl. Rising yeast is responsive to temperatures, and plastic is somewhat of an insulator. Take 4 cups of flour, and mix it into 4 cups of heated water (not burning to the touch) and 2 full teaspoons of yeast. Stir thoroughly. Cover with a towel until doubled in bulk-(15/30 min.). Next, add 1/3 cup of oil, 4 more cups of flour premixed with 2 Tbs sugar, 1 full tsp. salt. Add 1/2 cup gluten to mix if available. Mix it all together until it is one clump. Pour this out onto a floured mixing board, and start kneading the dough. Press it over, turn it, press again, mix it up well for about 10 minutes. It will be sticky at first, but add more flour until it stops sticking to your hands. If you add too much flour, it will bake ok, but will be a heavier drier bread. You can feel when it becomes good dough, it feels alive.
Next coat both sides with a little oil, put back in bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rise in a warm place. When the dough has doubled again, then punch the center of it to release the gasses. Do this about 30 times. Now roll the dough into a cylinder (if using bread pans) cut into equal thirds, and place the dough into each pan, flattening it out. Let rise until doubled in bulk. If you are going to use bread pans, oil them with a stick of butter. Get all the corners. If you prefer to make round loaves, then get a large tin and pour a little cornmeal on it, a thin layer. This will keep the bread from sticking and burning. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes depending on your altitude and attitude. When it is done, you can rap on it with a finger and it should sound hollow. Remove from oven, release from pans, and set loaves in sideways to let them air out. When cool, eat the heel slathered in butter, and share with your friends. This bread will get mouldy within just a few days. It is natural and without preservatives. To store slice, place in plastic double bags and put in your freezer. Makes Most Excellent toast.
Making fresh bread is a sound idea. You can buy grain in bulk and save on costs of packaging, processing, refrigeration, lower transportation costs, provide community togetherness, and eat cheaply, freshly, and healthily. Talk to your neighbors about buying in bulk. Or visit your local Co-Op, such as Reno's at Wonder and Wells.

As an emergency temporary/semi-permanent insulating device, this is an excellent window insulator. In 1990 I owned a trailer that poured-in cold air from the windows. Bubble wrap fixed the problem and saved on my power bill. To use, cut a piece just larger than your window opening. Trim it to fit nicely, and to also cover any aluminum trim which leaks cold. Then spray or wipe a little water on the window, and smooth on the bubble material. You can immediately feel the difference. Nice features about this material are that it allows light through, and actually it is a rather pleasant diffused light which does give quite a bit of privacy. Also, the wrap can be quickly removed, just pull it off and store for later re-use. No idea how much energy this saves, but it did lower the power bill and make the home much more comfortable.

There is more to the world than maximizing next quarter's profits above projected.... It is time to retool.
As a business manager/owner you can quickly improve the quality of your employees lives and that of your company.
Schedule a 4-day workweek for your people. It will save them an immediate 20% in gas savings. It may allow you to extend your business hours. Link up with other nearby business to create a cooperative child care center for your employees. Then watch your call-in employee time drop, and employees will soon have more disposable income and be on time. Learn to cool your building by ventilating to the cool night air, rather than turn on the AC right away. Add a small evaporative cooler to cut down on unnecessary AC loading. Paint your roofs white. Employee naps after lunch have been shown to increase productivity. Buy your employees rugs for snooze time.
Whenever I go into a store the lights are on. Even in the daytime. That s crazy. Many devices exist to greatly eliminate electrical illumination. Solar heat tubes can be bought or especially made locally. Skylights work well. The initial investment will pay for itself in short order.
Make sure the bus line passes your business, and contribute to implementing mass transit. Be a real nice boss/owner and buy your folks bus passes.
Solar can be used in some businesses for drying purposes and other means.
Let s be innovative and show the world that we mean business.

A lot of folks hate clotheslines. Perhaps they think it devalues their property. Perhaps they don t like being reminded that under our clothing we are all naked. Who knows why, because they are an exceptional conservation tool, and an excellent way to get politically involved. This is a serious step in conservation and also allows for a change in mindset. A potential evolution in cultural thought.
And, if your housing association forbids them, then become a member of the board, or protest like hell until they change their minds. The former is better. The latter will probably work.
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<br>Cost per load electric dryer-$0.39, gas-$.30. Costs range between .$80 and $300 a year for dryers, and the cost of a clothesline will save you either 30 cents or 39 cents every load, and daily going up. Why not spend some nice quality time in the sun, hanging out your clothes to dry for free, and enjoying the ambience? Besides, most of us spend 90% of our times under a roof of some kind. Perhaps a little time outdoors in Nature might be cool. Wear a hat.

1/12/2007
Co-ops and chickencoops
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<br>Since the demise of the Washoe Zephyr Co-op years ago, it has been difficult to find those obscure foodstuffs we once accessed.
And while such wonderful stores as the Truckee Meadows Herbs have been the place to find some of those weird botanicals, we still do not have in our community a good co-op.
The good news is that there is one here, the bad news is that it is very small and struggling.
The Great Basin Community Food Cooperative can be found at 271 Wonder Street here in Reno. It is, conveniently, just across the street from Truckee Meadows Herbs, just up on Wonder Street off of Wells Ave. Their web address is www.greatbasin.coop, and this might be a worthwhile project for you to get involved in. Membership fees are $15 a year, and you can become a member, volunteer, or committee participant.
While they don't have a lot of space, and seem to be struggling right now, please be aware that you can help them grow.
Local Co-ops are advantageous in many ways. Besides providing access to locally grown foods, organics and other healthy consumables, co-ops do in fact lower our oil use. It was calculated that the average meal travels about 1500 miles to get onto your plate.
Also, co-ops do provide a sense of community. As you may know, in 1985, it was reported that the average American had 3 close intimate friends. Last year it was reported that that number is now down to two. Hmmm.
There is some controversy as to whether or not organic foods are more healthy than 'store' food. And, like such topics as Global Warming, there are two camps. The (usually) corporate voice is that there is absolutely no difference. The Green thought is that organics and natural foods are healthier for us all. It is possible that natural foods contain more essential trace elements than corporate foods. Certainly organics contain less preservatives and stabilizers -- elements of questionable value in some quarters -- and organics have a rigorous certification process.
Another great virtue of organics is 'what you see is what you get'. There are no hidden additives, genetically altered organisms, or other nasties in organic foods. And, while you pay a bit more for them, at least you can sleep soundly knowing that you ate the very best available.
Honesty in food labeling is lacking in America. We eat crap that has been irradiated, modified, additive-ised, and processed so severely, that surely lab rats would die being fed that diet.
Last year the US Congress considered passing the pure food act. This legislation negates sound food labeling, and requires the states to comply with federal standards for labeling the ingredients in our foods. Sadly, such good food standards as those reputedly enacted in California will no longer apply, and, the Federal standards are far inferior to real standards. Basically, we will no longer be allowed to know what is put into our foods.
(We don't now, anway...)
In a real world, human safety would supercede corporate profits, and shelf life.
However, since we are living on an experimental planet, anything goes, and thus the gold standard applies -- those with the gold make the standards. It is our choice as free humans to not buy dubious foodstuffs. And if enough of us refuse, then the corporate powers may suddenly find their bottom line is shrinking.
There is some conjecture that the health of our citizens may be linked to the purity of our foods. Tainted and polluted foods may not lead to healthy and strong bodies. Incomplete nutrition may lead to increased medical care and costs. It is possible that our food supply may be partially responsible for our outrageously expensive health care, health care which we as the only industrialized nation, do not have universal health coverage for.
Hmmmm.
So, there's some tidbits to ponder.
Change your diet, eat healthy, lower your health care costs.
In our highly advanced and tastefully hip society, we do not rely on locally produced foods.We demand overpackaged, sanitized comestibles, devoid of any freshness, and full of so many additives that our twinkies last for hundreds of years. Is this good food? Does it have the Chi that is able to sustain a helathy growing body?
Don't think so.
Case in point is our poultry industry. Chickens and eggs are mega-mass produced in prison-like factories, where steroids, antibiotics, and other unknown quantities are routinely fed to our fowl. They spend their whole lives in tiny dirty enclosures, with no exercise, fresh air or outdoors available to them. All so that Megabusiness can eke out that extra egg, or extra ounce of chicken breast.
Incidentally, a recent study showed that well over half of the chickens tested for consumption are contaminated with listeria.
But don't worry, listeria is killed with proper cooking, and now manufacturers are allowed to spray our foods with anti-listeria organisms, developed to give our foods a longer (and safer...?) shelflife.
And then, consider the esoteric possibility of Karma. Are we responsible for the suffering that we cause during our short lifespan here?
If you hurt someone do you owe a Karmic debt? If you unnecessarily hurt an animal, does that also apply?
When we buy an egg, or a chicken breast with questionable fatty tissue attached, and if these creatures were raised in suffering, do we have to repay that debt? Is that food less healthy than humanely raised foods?
Let's hope not.
Surely the rantings of this author may seem a bit over the top, but we must all fight against things which are not right in this world, and certainly unnecessary suffering of our foodstocks for the sake of profit rates pretty highly. Read "The Asphalt Jungle."
Where is PETA when we need them?
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<br>In the city of Reno, and many others, it is illegal for you to raise your own chickens and eggs. Fresh and healthy foods.
Why is that?
Of course, a rooster waking up the neighborhood at sunrise isn't going to make many points with the neighbors, but chickens can be raised without noisy roosters. Chickens will help keep the bugs out of your garden, provide wonderful fertilizer for your crops, and give you healthy foods, and even provide entertainment. A square yard of alfalfa can provide a pound of rabbit meat a year.
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<br>Perhaps this is something we can all work on. Why don't we hit up our city councils and county commissioners to allow the raising of chickens on our own properties?
This is something that we can do politically to improve our lives.
Just like the lack of personal political involvement to allow us to hang out our clothes on clotheslines in 'gated communities' and housing associations, the lack of outrage for sane solutions allows insanity to pervade our culture. Start a movement in your housing association. Get the neighbors to help change the by-laws to allow clotheslines. Tell the NIMBY's to go stuff it, clotheslines are certainly less obscene than clothes driers run from nasty coal power plants.
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<br>NNEMA is devoted to providing a public vehicle for those creative among us to express themselves. Do you know anything about raising poultry, animal husbandry, or forgotten technology?
Can and will you contribute your good inputs to this site so that we can all get a start on raising our own foods, healthy foods which will ensure our self reliance, sustainability and sanity? Our resources are not infinite, we live on a finite planet, and entropy is a harsh mistress.
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<br>Craig@nnema.org
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renofreepress@charter.net
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12/10/2006
Nevada's Coal Ambitions
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<br>An article in today's paper talked about our coal imports last year. It seems we weren't able to get enough to our power plants last annum and had to go out of country for some of our fuel.
Of course, this is not an indictment of our coal reserves (we have lots 'they' say...) but is an indication of our continual and continuing increase in the amount of energy we use.
Where is conservation?
It seems we cannot build rail systems fast enough to keep up with our new power plants.
And every new coal plant spews more and more CO2 and toxins out into our atmosphere. And we will have to build more rail systems just to keep up with this new demand for more coal.
Isn't it odd that with Nevada's new anti-smoking law, no one seems to get their panties in a bunch over the increased greenhouse gasses which seem to have a growth-life of their own. We won't tolerate the stench of tobacco, but willingly will build out of sight, out of mind filthy planet-busting fossil power plants, so we can have our lights on all night -- even when there is no-one there to see them.
Another fine NIMBY that we tolerate, or in this case it seems we prefer and embrace.
It is said that it takes 20 pounds of coal burned to give us an hour of watching TV. And most of us know that coal plants are around 70% inefficient. That is, it takes 100 lbs. of coal to give us 30 lbs. worth of power at our electrical boxes. The other 70 lbs. is lost as heat.
In a sane world, a sane society would be using that waste heat. Heat to warm houses and businesses, heat for industrial purposes.
But here in this land of plenty, we don't want the inconvenience of having to look at messy dirty coal smoke. We instead build them in the boonies to we don't have to see them. So that we can pretend they're not there at all.
What a world. What a world.
Oh my beautiful wickedness.
This corporate-corrupted world is not healthy for humans and other living creatures. It is the playground of the power seekers, the football field of financiers and other subhumans who care not for a clean and sustainable future, but only how fully they can fill their pockets.
We are indeed killing our planet, and our childrens' world.
And there is no letup in sight.
And they will keep filling their pockets, even as the air becomes too poisonous to breathe, the water too filthy to drink, and the land too barren to grow food.
This is what we have allowed to happen to our wonderful world, and there seems to be little brightness to hope for.
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<br>The early-toppers claim Peak oil has already topped. The late-toppers say that between now and 2010 will be our reckoning. And others think we may have another 15-20 years to prepare for the end of cheap oil.
Notice the words here, the end of cheap oil. Not the end of oil, that will probably never happen, but the end of cheap oil is essentially the end of our culture.
We must start now to change this craziness.
Every little thing we can do will help, but oddly, even if we do all we can it will not be enough. Or so say those in the know. Those who have written the books that we all should read.
Will we start in time?
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Coal is at best 30% efficient. Better than a car, but still sucks. Here's how it works: the power companies burn coal, to boil water, to make steam, to turn a turbine that makes electricity. This power is sent via electric transmission lines (losing energy) into our homes.
In many cases our houses have electric water heaters. Is that nuts? It would be more sane for us to burn our own coal in our own houses. Not only would it provide hot water, but we d recapture some of that lost 70% of heat to heat our domiciles, and perhaps even generate electric. What s that? Coal is a dirty fuel and will pollute our neighborhoods? Yes it sure is and does.

Please ponder this carefully for a few. Cows are ruminants. They have 7 stomachs. This unique digestive system allows them to eat grass. Few other animals can do that. They were designed that way -- either by God, or evolution, or God directing evolution. They were not made to eat high-protein grains, or other cows. The reason our food industry feeds cows corn (and other cows) is that it is a fast way to put a lot of weight on them. This is a good way to minimize time and maximize profit. However, after cows are fed hi-quality grains for any length of time, they get sick. Their stomachs were not designed to digest those foods. After they get sick they are fed medicines, antibiotics, etc. to keep them alive and gaining weight, and so that they can walk into the slaughterhouse. It is not ridiculous to assume that we, when eating them will also ingest those medicines. And who wants to eat sick cows? Corn fed cows are also detrimental energy-wise and health-wise. Corn represents a large expenditure of petroleum to make. It is another form of solid oil. Pastures are not oil. Heavily fertilized land is oil. Pastures are sunlight revealed.
The difference between oil (irreplaceable stored sunshine) and growing plants (annual, replaceable stored sunshine) is that the former is capital, and the latter is income. We cannot continue to use oil as income, it is capital and once gone, gone. Finally, some concern has been expressed over the quality of beef fed with grains. For example, the ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils is not the same as grass-fed beef.
This imbalance is reputed to cause obesity, heart attacks, diabetes, and contribute to our spiraling health care crisis. Please read the excellent book: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Penguin Press, 2006. Your eyes may be forced wide open to our food problems.
Solutions: Demand and buy pasture-fed beef. Eat less beef, and instead have chicken or fish more often. Raise your own chickens. Your own rabbits. Plant that garden and fruit trees. Eat a more vegetarian diet. Soybeans are nearly the perfect plant food. Meat at one time was considered a side dish, and not our main course. Corn-fed beef is a media hype. High meat diets are media hype.

You can vote out a government, but you can t vote out a corporation. When we privatize all of our government functions, (as Bush is wont), then politics will be gone, protection will be gone, prosperity for the average citizen will be gone, and we will have no say in our futures.
Corporations exist (especially multi-nationals) specifically for the express purpose of increasing profits above projected.
The function of government, in my opinion, is to protect the people of our nation, and to improve the quality of all our lives. This includes protection from corporations. Especially predatory corporations.
If a corporation which pretends to be American houses itself offshore to evade paying full taxes, then they are not American companies. And they should be taxed to do business at a higher rate. The banking industry last year reportedly made over $17 billion in fees and penalties for overdrafts.

Let's talk disasters.
There are some over which we have no control. The sun going nova, a giant killer meteor from outer space, space aliens (as opposed to illegal), nuclear war, volcanos, or even ultra-conservatives running our government.
There are some things over which we have little control. The dam at Stampede Reservoir collapsing due to an earthquake, and flooding Washoe County. If you're in the path of that wall of water, there's not much you can do. However if you're not in that path, a little preparedness might be wise, or at least prudent.
And then there are the things we can prepare for. A collapse of the economy, an interrrupted supply of oil, Global Heating coming on in fury. A fire in your neighborhood. Whatever.
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<br>The things required for our survival appear to be in this order: atmospheric pressure, air to breathe, a narrow temperature range, water, food, and light.
If we suddenly lose our atmosphere, well, we'll all explode quickly and no big deal. Not a lot can be done about that.
If we lose breathable air, then it'll be slower. We can only hoard so many tanks of oxygen, so that is not a practical solution to this dilemma. We can however do some things to stop the quality of the air from degrading further. In Nevada, we can oppose the new $4.7 billion coal power plant to be built in Eastern Nevada. Incidentally, you may ask, why is it being built out there, when it will need rail, water, and electric transmission lines built first? The dirty little rumor is that is will be a dirty little plant, and being built there negates the need for higher air quality standards. Something to work on?
Water will be a growing problem. Not only clean drinking water, but for other things like washing, growing our food, etc.
You should have a stash of clean water in your emergency kit. Consider a gallon per day per person. Consider a bottle of chlorine bleach to purify water that you must disinfect in the field (or a bottle of vodka?). Consider a small solar still. I built one with a piece of glass and a black plastic mortar mixing tray. It put out about a quart of distilled water a day in good sunlight. A solar oven will disinfect a couple of gallons a day, or more. But anyway, this site is for you to input YOUR preparedness plans. Let us work together, and share our ideas.
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<br>Do you know how to turn off your gas/electric/water services if there is a disaster?
Does all of your family know how to do that, and your neighbors?
Do you have a pre-arranged meeting place for your family? Is it on high ground? Do you have a secondary meeting place farther away?
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<br>It's a darned good thing we're problem solving creatures, because we surely do have a lot of problems.
Are you worried about the economy, and your retirement program? My personal feelings are that within 5 years, very few of us will have any retirement tools. Basing your life on pie in the sky future money or support when you get older or injured may be a tragic mistake.
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<br>As Donald Rumsfeld said once, there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know.
But he forgot to finish that thought. There are things we don't know we know. We don't know when we are going to run out of cheap oil, but we know we will. We don't know how soon Global Warming is going to effect our crop raising capabilities, but we know it will. Most of us know that, some of us are in denial....
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As a grandfather and concerned citizen, of all the threats facing our civilization, I consider Peak Oil to be the gravest. We are absolutely dependent on cheap energy to fuel our society.
You really should read some of the books available from this site. "The Long Emergency", "The Empty Tank", and "Plan B" are essential reading for anyone of conscience. They are very important, and help answer that question of the things we don't know we know.
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<br>It's time to triage. Plain and simple.
Regarding Peak Oil, there are two camps. One is the late toppers, who think we will have enough time and advance warning to prepare alternatives to cheap energy. Let's hope so.
The other camp, the early toppers, believe that it will come upon us suddenly, without warning. One scenario is that terrorists take out the Saudi oil fields and infrastructure. Another is that some type of natural disaster happens which cuts off our flow.
The late toppers' world will be kind of like the movie, Soylent Green.
The early toppers' world will be more like Mad Max meets the Donner Party. As I've said repeatedly, magic elves do not mysteriously restock our supermarkets, it's all done by oil.
Let me point out that we will never run out of oil. We will run out of cheap oil. Have you thought about $10 a gallon gas? How will our culture sustain itself at $150, or more a barrel oil?
Read those books.
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<br>NNEMA is all about survival techniques. (Hu)Man(kind) is a tool using creature. Even better, we are tool makers. We excell at that, using our brains instead of our claws and teeth.
Let's all of us, collectively, create and maintain a survival tool. One where we can share our ideas. And while we don't have to adhere to and embrace every bolt and nut of this endeavor, certainly there are many sane things we can all do to lessen our impact on the future generations.
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<br>This is a big task. It requires much organization and thought.
It will benefit us all, present and future, in myriad ways: freedomwise, energy wise, monetarily, and with minor adjustments to our quality of life.
From soybeans, to electric bicycles, to lifeboats, to satellite cities, to wherever our imaginations take us, there we will go.
While you may eat meat, and dismiss vegetarianism, it is certainly more efficient to eat less or no meat, and save. Save not only healthwise (less heart attacks, cholesterol, OVERWEIGHT, etc.), but budgetwise (16lbs of soybeans make 1 of beef- Two week's worth of supper versus one day's dinner...go figure?)
And, for those of you who eat a lot of meat, consider that 1 square meter of your yard growing alfalfa will produce a pound of rabbit meat a year. Or consider that in Caracas, the government is assisting those in the barrios to grow 1-meter gardens which will produce up to 28 lbs. of tomatoes a year, or over 200 heads of cabbage.
Instead, in America, our Caesar salad often travels over 1500 miles to our table. Fresh and tasty!
Those of us living in the first world are going to have a much harder time adapting to POP than those living lower on the 'food chain' economically.
POP suggests that we've got a lot harder to fall, and that most of our time will be spent trying to get food. Manual labor will come in force again as oil gets more and more expensive.
If we have the insight to prepare for this eventuality, before oil becomes too expensive, then life will be much finer.
If we don't.
It won't.
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<br>Here's a concept, which includes neighborhoods. Get your friends to go in with you on a grain grinder. I bought one several years ago, and it allows me to make FRESH breads, cereal grains (good toasted), and different flours for kitchen use. As I write this, I am in the NNEMAvehicle#1, heating it with presto-logs and scrap wood, toasting the following grains for breakfast: barley, whole wheat, rice, and sesame and Amaranth. Amaranth is what sustained the central Americans through much of their culture.. (Amaranth might really be the seed corn of the future...the seed to square foot ratio is pretty awesome.)
I'm making a lot of extra to share with friends. Also, tonight I'm putting on 2 cups of soybeans to make soymilk with tomorrow. The toasted cereal cooked in sweetened soymilk makes a most excellent breakfast. AND it is fresh. The Chi is there, since the grains were living shortly before eating. Most of the stuff you get in the supermarket has little Chi.
I guess it's all about quality of life.
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<br>How about lessening our transportation costs?
I've certainly bored you to death with exploits on the trusty gas-saving moped. At 90 miles per gallon, it paid for itself after 4,000 miles. And, since I sold my car years ago, I do ride it all seasons. In the winter when it snows, I just drive slower and put my feet out. Sure, I fall down once in awhile, but I get back up and keep going. No biggie.
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<br>Do you have a bicycle? Perhaps you don't ride it much because it's too much exercise? Well, visit your local bike shop and ask them to order you a electric retrofit kit. At $350, and only a few pennies per charge, if you use it much at all it should pay for itself in short order. And even quicker when gas prices rise. The electric bike has a reputed gasoline equivalent of 1000 MPG. That's pretty hard to beat.
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Straddling the Anwar Fence. Ouch.
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<br>It is estimated that the Anwar area contains about 10 billion barrels of oil. Some loudly and gleefully proclaim Anwar will supply us all with cheap gas for another 200 years. Let's look at some numbers. In America, where we use 1/4 of the world's oil, we gobble up 20 million barrels a day. If we used Anwar at that rate, it will provide just about 500 days of fuel for our country. That's hardly 200 years.
Another point to consider is Anwar Peaking. The first half of an oil field's reserves are pretty easy to get. Often internal pressure forces the stuff above ground. The second half is much harder to get, and generally of inferior quality. So, realistically, we could have 250 days of reasonably cheap oil, and then another 250 of expensive and harder to get fuel.
Now Anwar, and other areas will take about 8 to 10 years to get online, according to reports.
No matter what we do, this is not a source that will be available tomorrow, or this year, or next year.
Since global fuel use is increasing daily, and we here will not drive 55, or demand our traffic flow system gets fixed, or quit building suburbs 30 miles away from cities, I don't see a lot of hope. Doing these things might even remove the need for drilling in protected areas, but it doesn't look like we're ready to consider conservation measures.
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<br>Our attitude seems to be: "You'll take away my SUV when you pry my cold dead toes from around the accelerator."
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<br>I would consider voting to lift the ban on exploring for domestic oil in pristine areas if and only if:
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<br>1. It is undeniably and absolutely essential to maintaining service and foods to Americans, and that we have a serious national dialogue about it.
2. We do NOT draw from our strategic oil reserves, except in times of Dire national emergencies,
3. We implement a strong and realistic national plan specifically for an interruption in oil supply and put those plans in place nationally and locally,
4. We start immediate rebuilding of our once-efficient railroad systems, We truck our big rig diesel freight haulers on rail whenever possible. Rail is so much cheaper than big trucks, and will allow the drivers to snooze and save enormously on diesel fuel costs.
5. We institute an immediate crash program to fix our ineffectual and broken traffic flow,
6. We tax gas hog vehicles, and cars designed solely for high horsepower and acceleration. Why build a car that does 140 out the door, when legal speed limits are far less?
7. An equal amount of capital is put into alternative energy,
8. We discuss lowering the national speed limit to 55. An unpopular stance, but would you rather be hungry or speed really fast to the next stoplight?
9. We stop the huge tax breaks and write-offs to the oil companies,
10. We plug the loopholes which allow speculative traders, commodities brokers, and hedge fund operators from artificially driving up the price of oil, raise margin requirements, and put some real teeth into regulating our financial markets.
11. We empower and enable the innovative thinkers among us, who are working on reasonable and real, EV Hybrids, instead of focusing on boondoggles like the Phoenix hybrid car which may never happen.
12. We allow our farmers to grow industrial hemp for supplemental bio-diesel, and cellulosic bio-fuels, and renewable bio-mass.
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<br>Advocating drilling for oil in our protected lands is a bad position for a Green like me, and I will inevitably draw the ire and fire of my fellows and a lot of negativity. But, if the choice is between drawing new domestic oil, and letting our culture collapse, I must in good conscience follow the former. As, I think, should all reasoning people.
If we have the national will to institute all of the above, then perhaps it is time to meagerly and sparingly use new oil. And to use it to great and maximum advantage.
If however, we continue to fuel our fossil folly, at current limits, then, I object and protest.
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<br>The fault here lies not with the conservationists who want to save this oil for the future and not use it all up. The fault lies with our past 100 years of development of the automobile by big industry, and our refusal to pressure them into building highly efficient cars. (Read "Internal Combustion -- How corporations and governments addicted the world to oil and derailed the alternatives", by Edwin Black)
By our mindlessly listening to the advertising industry which cons us into believing that new fast cars are really sexy, and that if we don't have one we'll be socially unacceptable, and won't get laid.
Our cars currently get just about the same mileage or less than Henry Ford's early cars. We have made no significant improvement in mileage, and have totally ignored and ridiculed President Carter's attempts to get CAFE standards implemented, and his other warnings about our energy use and calls for conservation.
What a shame.
If we all realized just how desperately dependent on cheap energy we are, then surely we would be working on solutions at all levels. The daily food we all eat is almost entirely due to cheap oil reserves. Our whole society is, and perhaps we are now entering the faze of realizing that. Especially with such high gas prices. American ingenuity, are you still out there?
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<br>Cheap oil affects all facets of our lives. We've got a long hot summer ahead, and a possibly even worse cold dark winter coming quickly. Is your house heated by natural gas? If so, will your heater work if the electric goes out? Most systems rely on electric to turn the air fans, and even allow the gas to ignite. If there's no electric, you won't have heat.
Perhaps it is time to find this out before freezing winter gets here.
If you are courageous enough, here is a little experiment you can do.
On your next day off, go outside and turn off the main power switch to your electric box. Leave it off for 24 hours. This will give you some idea of how much we need our cheap energy infrastructure, and how vital our power system is to the running of our America. Sitting in the dark may give you a clue on how addicted we are.
I use electric here only as an example covering just one facet of our energy requirements. Because our grid is also dependent on cheap oil, one way or another. Everything is interconnected, and one missing piece (e.g. cheap oil) may eventually bring the whole system tumbling down.
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<br>So I'm straddling the Anwar fence. It is uncomfortable, and a no-win situation. It's poking me in the bottom and is sharp. But at least I'm not ignoring it and pretending that everything will be ok, and that capitalism is going to save us all.
Everything is NOT ok.
Nature has big sharp pointy teeth, and will bite us all without exception.
To think otherwise is suicidal and foolish.
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<br>We are motorized lemmings, rapidly driving toward the cliff.
Good luck.
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Why is it that the smartest and most educated of us (school personnel and students) cannot figure out how to provide free education for us all? If they cannot, then surely no one can. All levels of education, up to graduate school should be available for all -- free, Universities must become self sufficient. This is a call to arms, a challenge to our educational systems to make it happen.
I walked 4 miles each way to school (uphill both ways), and certainly got the cardiac functioning well. We used to have physical education daily. We ate somewhat nutritious lunches, and did not have cola machines and candy machines at every corner. We weren t quite as overweight. Our schools did not just teach us how to pass No Child Left Behind expensive profitable corporate tests, but taught us to think, research, and explore.
It is time to teach technical expertise. Time to challenge our youth to live up to their possibilities, instead of just getting by.
My most memorable and exciting education was being involved in the Experimental College at UNR many decades ago. The university fronted us students enough seed money to allow us to design and teach our own curriculums. It was exciting and innovative. We covered subjects that were broadly diverse.
Let s let our children reach their highest level; to excel and pursue those topics that excite them. To encourage and energize them. Where are the classes on agriculture, animal husbandry, tool making and tool use, electronics repair, retrofitting, proper nutrition, what a credit card application really means, good and honest fair journalism, heavy math and sciences, how to drive properly and safely, and most importantly, how and where to find information? Are they out there?
Task #1 -- figure out how to be self sufficient, and then figure out how to generate revenue to fund universal education for us all.
Let s open our schools after hours as community centers and classes. Let s make our buildings energy efficient. Let s squirrel away enough resources to allow and encourage experimental learning.
And let s let our kids learn the joy (?) of walking to school in fresh air and sun instead of just buckling them up to go just a few blocks or more.
And if we do not have the will to make this happen, then it is up to our children to take matters into their own hands and create without our help their own futures. And their children s . Good luck and Godspeed.

Do a little on-line searching and look for electric bicycles &/or conversion kits for same. For about $400 you can buy a kit for your bicycle. They can get up to 20 mph with a range of 20 miles. That is without pedaling. If you pedal, then of course your range is unlimited. EB s are nice for those long uphill rides, and getting away quickly from stoplights. Some kits come complete with new front wheels with motors built in. You just change wheels, tie up the throttle, fasten on the battery pack and off you go. You can recharge when you get home or at work.
Electric bikes can get the equivalent of 1000 miles per gallon of gas.
A bicycle is the most efficient means of human transportation, and uses little energy to make compared with other transportation. Electric bikes are even better.

were conjointly pursued by Ford and Edison in the early 1900's. They saw some of the dangers of petroleum, perhaps. It didn't happen, bummer. Even after Ford started mass production, he worked toward the electric vehicle, and reputedly consider regenerative industrial hemp oil as a fuel. (As did the inventor of the Diesel engine.) There are quite a few good books out on the early EV s.
I have a few in my lending library. Drop a line.

One could say, and perhaps correctly, that ALL the energy we use is in one way or another solar. The tides are caused by the moon which may be a spin-off of our planet, which is a spin-off of...the sun. The earth's residual heat (geothermal) is the remnants of that heat which came with us when we separated from...the sun. And other cosmic forces. All the oil, natural gas, coal and wood we use is the result of photosynthesis.
The sun produces about one horsepower of heat per perpendicular meter of the earth's surface.
The blunt truth is that we need renewable resources in our daily lives. The sun will last us for millions of years. It shines without fail. How long will our carbon fuels last? We just don t know.
Our fatal flaw is that we ve build our whole society on cheap oil.
It is time to actively pursue solar air heaters, community power plants, methane generators, evaporative air coolers, innovation, conservation, and sane community development.
Our last real energy bill missed by 1 vote. How did our District 2 representative vote on that? Nevada s governor is supporting plans to build coal plants in Eastern Nevada. I truly believe that it would be far more energy efficient for us to burn coal in our own homes, and recapture the lost heat energy instead of losing it to cooling towers. And, while it would be noticeable air pollution, to pretend that there is no pollution from coal plants is pretty slow.
The price tag, latest I ve heard is going to be about $4 billion. This does not include a $900 million investor bonus which sounds pretty shady.
The Truckee Meadows Water Association produces, with its hydroelectric generators along the Truckee river, about 8 megawatts of electric power. This is nearly enough to power all of our water pumping requirements. I have been told that there is probably another 6 Megawatts available between Sparks and Fernley. Something to ponder.
Energy is our Achilles heel.
Ugly is a nation facing Peak Oil with no dialogue on how to fix it.
Coal and Oil are suicide technologies.

1/10/2007
NNEMALog
Fast Cars and Fat Fido.
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<br>This week several notable events were reported.
We now have a pill for our fat pets. Yes, we can continue to overfeed our pudgy little home-critters, and then give them a slimming pill.
That's right, no guilt now for corpulent canines. Of course, the side effects are loose stools, vomiting, and internal digestive problems. Small price to pay.
The poor and chronically hungry on this planet will surely cheer this astounding development.
Also in the news were the latest big happenings in the auto world. New models were trotted out, and highly touted were the virtues of our newest cars.
Higher performance, sleeker styling, better built, and oh, yes, one small mention of fuel economy. A very small mention.
But then, why should Detroit listen to our clamor for fuel efficient vehicles, their gas hogs are selling like crazy overseas.
The Chinese love opulent SUV's and surely the clever thinking on our automakers minds is to subvert their economy by conning them into consuming like America does. Consume, consume, bigger and bigger.
This ploy has certainly worked on us, and now we are the largest debtor country.
We fell for the hype, and hopefully the Chinese will, too.
And when they all also are in debt because of overconsumption, then, aha, a new age will begin.
Where will China look to then for cheap labor?
You got it, the U.S. of A.
Full circle, the jobs will come home like pigeons to roost.
Very clever these Capitalists, it seems they do have our welfare in mind after all....
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<br>An article in "BackHome" magazine, Nov/Dec 2006 talks about the energy required to move our cars. The sidebar on P. 29 tells us that the original Volkswagon Microbus came with a 25 HP engine. While this was enough to move it down the road at 60 MPH, the "needs" of American buyers dictated a more powerful, faster 45 HP engine. The author also talks about just how much power it takes to move a small car on our asphalt jungles.
A Honda Civic requires 1.7 HP to move at 20 MPH. At 60 MPH it goes up to 16 HP, and to rocket down the road at 80 takes 35 HP.
Also, you may note that to travel up a 7% grade at 60 requires only 25% more HP, or 20 HP total.
Doesn't seem like a lot of energy to get us from here to there.
Why then do our cars come with engines that develop hundreds of horsepower?
One can guess that the "needs" of American drivers dictate that we must be able to motivate from zero to 60 in under 7 seconds.
Because, by gosh, someone else may beat us to that next red light. Gotta be the first one there, otherwise we'll be stuck in 'traffic'.
Someone surely has made a study of how much of our lives are lost to sitting in traffic, and it's got to be horrific. Probably millions of lost man-hours sitting at red lights. Bucky Fuller once remarked that at any one time in America there are a million cars waiting at traffic lights.
So is the problem that our traffic flow sucks, or is it that our car craziness is to blame? Probably both.
Could it be that our 'needs' are really artificial?
Perhaps this quest for acceleration is boosted by clever advertisers, convincing us that we are incomplete and unworthy if we don't have the fastest car on the block?
As one car company boasted in their commercials, "You really can have it all..."(if you buy our car).
And if we don't have the latest, sleekest, sexiest car, then we're not with it, and we probably won't get laid.
They slyly intimate to us, that if we buy their car, we can have sex with the very most beautiful people, and they will love us eternally, regardless of our faults. And if we don't then we will be destined to a life of drudgery and dullness, scorned and shunned by all.
So remember, next time you're stuck in traffic, all you have to do to have a real life is buy their product, spend years paying it off, and then magically the roadways will be bereft of traffic, and you'll be the only one on the road, free to zoom around impossible mountain curves, and stop on a dime.
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<br>NNEMA is our feeble attempt to add a voice of sanity to our nutso world. We must raise the issue of the correlation between unnecessary acceleration and fossil fuel depletion. And regardless of our conservation efforts, remember, the Chinese are getting sucked into our consumptive habits. And we have a whole new country being acclimatized to bigger, better, faster, sleeker, and sexier.
Will an attitude change by Americans make a difference? Will the world still long to be like us if we embrace smaller, cleaner vehicles with truly better gas mileage? Will we suddenly become 'uncool', and not be the trendsetters for the planet?
Who cares?
If America suddenly advocated sanity, the world would surely see the wisdom in it.
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<br>So what can we do?
Make that next new car a fuel efficient one. Tell your local car dealers you don't care how sexy the car is, you want good mileage. Write a letter or email the American manufacturers, and insist on economy over aesthetics.
Start carpools in your neighborhoods, see if your neighbor needs anything at the store when you go.
Instead of making 20 trips a day around town, try to hit all those stops in one journey.
Instead of getting that car which goes from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds, buy a lesser powered (more economical) steed. And who cares if you're second or third in line at that stoplight?
Flip off a Humvee next time you see one. Gross consumption is unseemly.
Drive 55 whenever it's safe to do so. You'll save a bundle on gas, and significantly reduce your chance of death or injury in an accident.
And if you're a Reno NNEMA-ite, call and write to your city council, and insist that they fix our traffic flow.
Not next year, not the year after, but urge them to fix it now.
This will save us all bundles of money, allow better gas mileage, and probably cut down on road rage, monday morning heart attacks, and eventually make us a more civilized civilization.
Walk to that convenience store 3 blocks away when the weather's nice instead of driving.
Next time you fill up, check you tire pressure, and add air if they need it. This will get you better gas mileage.
Talk to your employer about saving fuel and money by incorporating a 4-day workweek. This is an immediate savings of 20% on gas and transportation costs.
And finally, send in your good ideas on how to conserve and be more sane.
End log.
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Yeah, yeah, you can save the world by buying fluorescent lights.
Not.
You can save the world by growing a garden, minimizing your light/energy requirements, and learning serious conservation techniques.
I don't think that fluorescents are all they're said to be. They are heavier, probably more energy-intensive to make and transport, don't last quite as long as touted, NOBODY disposes of them properly (mercury in our landfills -- even for Nevada that's too much, the Mercury capital of the nation). We go through a lot of fluorescents where I work. They should be disposed of properly, as per the warnings on the package. The number for hazardous disposal is 800-601-9007. A web site for the same is www.lamprecycle.org., and others. Do a search.
According to their site, there were almost 700 million mercury bulbs disposed of last year. Only about 23% of them are being recycled. Surprisingly, businesses, which use most of them (78%) do the most recycling. They recycle about 29% of the lights disposed, and households only recycle 2%. Hmmm.
The cost of recycling this mercury should be built into the manufacturer’s, sellers costs. But then, it’ll only get passed on to us in the end.
When LED's finally develop a good light, and drop in cost --and they are real close -- then we'll have saner lighting.
And when our businesses and homes install solar tubes and skylights for free natural daytime illumination, we will have made another giant step.
In the end, fluorescents are probably better than incandescents. They will save money on your monthly power bill, but are not the ‘cure‘ for our electric consumption.
In the end, they ARE better than incandescent, and quite a bit cheaper to run.
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We may just well be facing an imminent food crisis. Weather changes are messing with our national farming (the corn crop this year is late because of cold weather and too much moisture on the ground), droughts and flooding may exacerbate our crop yield, petroleum based fertilizers are becoming more expensive, and also fuel costs for mechanized farming are going through the roof, as well as getting stuff to market.
Oddly, it has been suggested that the average person urinates enough nutrients to fertilize enough corn to feed them for the year. And yet we are stuck on artificial fertilizers. (see Klebsiella planticola). Instead we flush all our crap into our water supply, polluting our rivers, raising nitrogen levels, and getting into our underground reservoirs.
Let’s repeal the pure Food Act and enforce our right to be apprised of Frankenfoods, additives, pesticides, hormones, chemicals, radiation, etc.
A more vegetarian diet is healthy, makes you wealthy, and wise.
We once had in our country a good stock of foods and grains for times of future famine. Now our reserves are woefully depleted, and if we face a year or two of bad crops and failures, then watch out.
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<br>Follows is from truthout
And to read more articles on the Environment, please visit the t r u t h o u t environment page.
Go to Original
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent UK
Sunday 20 April 2008
Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent.
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research - reported in the journal Better Crops - because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.
The GM crop - engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup - recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.
But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.
A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over.
Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.
Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington - and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis - said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.
A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . "Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile."
Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted - the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development - concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.
Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."
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Don’t claim to be a great gardener. But I like to grow things. My seed catalog arrived and I’ve ordered and received some seeds. I am avoiding hybrid seeds, as I have my doubts about their ability to faithfully reproduce. Hybrids lack the ability to breed true for any length of generations. Thus you have to buy new hybrid seeds every year. Open pollinated or non-hybrids will reproduce their lineage faithfully. Think about making your own compost piles. Buy local produce. Use your paper shredder waste as mulch for your garden and plants. Put fruit trees in your yard. Experiment with indoor container winter gardening. While you may not have enough land to fully feed yourself, certainly you have enough to make a contribution to your food supply, and the ability to put fresh, wholesome, non-chemical vege-tables on your table.You may be surprised and the number of grains and seeds in your local markets that will grow.
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Now just how are we supposed to do that? Oh, wait, the oil companies are going to solve the problem. At least they tell us that on all their commercials…. And, please note that the oil companies are spending 100’s of millions of $ on a new campaign to convince us that they, too are unfair victims, and only have our best interests at heart. Oh, and get ready for them to slam the ‘environmentalists for interfering with free capitalism and causing our high gas prices. Our government it seems is unable to work on this, and at best they spend hours and hours of debate, while nothing is getting done. Do not rely on your current government to solve these problems. It is up to us all to each disentangle ourselves from this massive mess we find ourselves in. This page will soon post several tools you can build to help supplement your heating and energy costs.
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is like aluminum. It is an investment in the future. It is energy expended, and needs salvaging. Glass is one of the most monumental discoveries of our time. It is stupendous!
A substance which allows one form of energy (light from the sun) from passing, but prevents another (heat from the sun) from escaping. Wow. The ancient Romans used glass (the wealthy ones) to trap heat in their homes in winter.
Every bit of glass going into the landfill is a terrible waste. We must actively recycle and re-use this energy intensive substance.

Opinions are like elbows, we all have a couple of them. As a non-scientist, but semi-informed layman, I believe that climate change is caused by excess global warming. Excess global warming is caused by often wasteful human activities- especially the burning of fossil fuels. Granted, volcanoes, methane from cows, and the sun are also factors, BUT to assume that the copious burning of fossil fuels does not add to our heat-load is pretty silly. Sixty million gallons of petroleum burned every day is a horrendous amount of heat calories. As is the tons and tons of coal used in the majority of our power plants. It is documented that our cities are in fact 'heat islands', and it is probably because they generate a lot of, well, heat! Climate Change means just that, change. CC does not necessarily mean the overall climate will get hotter. It may even cause major global cooling, and some suspect (myself included) may bring on a new Ice Age. We just don't know. Climate change will cause catastrophic weather events such as droughts, floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, decreased crop production, heat waves, increased insect damage, more disease and epidemics, etc. While energy-company funded scientists clamor that CC is just an illusion, or is caused by the sun, it appears a responsible majority of unbiased scientists feel that climate change is real and serious. Until there is consensus on the causes of warming, let us not be distracted from the issue at hand. The issue is that the climate is changing, and very rapidly. Let us not get lost on who is responsible, or how or why or when. We must address what to do about it, not who made it happen. Let's see the forest and the trees and instead use our still considerable remaining energies to fixing the problems.
In my opinion, here is how it will play out. Hotter, record-breaking summers. Colder, record-breaking winters. Spring and autumn will virtually disappear, lasting only weeks. Weekly or bi-monthly temperature oscillations may get extreme. Each year the temperatures will continue to break records. The tremendous change in seasonal temperatures will tax our systems to the breaking point. Tremendous winds will rip out much of our infrastructure and buildings. Our economic and industrial ventures will suffer even more. In the end, ice will once again cover much of our world.
Climate change is, in my opinion, the third greatest threat to humanity. The second is Peak Oil and the collapse of our culture. The first is Global Thermonuclear War.
But then, I may be wrong. I hope so.
You may still think that human activities have no effect on our climate. Please, quit using Fox News as your sole source of information.
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If you have a little spare bread, consider talking with your neighbors and friends about conjointly buying a grain grinder. They'll run you over a hundred bucks, but split between several families it won't cost you too much. With a grinder (electric and manual attachments) you will be able to grind fresh living whole-wheats and other grains, make simple healthy cereals, pastries and breads, and possibly nut butters. With the price of grains rising higher and higher, it will be a very thrifty move to buy grains in bulk. This will not only save some money, but if you bake as you need it, there will be less need for refrigeration and that can lower our energy use. By adjusting the coarseness of the grind, you can make tasty whole grain breakfast cereals. I&rsquo;ve ground and mixed, wheat, brown rice, barley and other grains. Some of the whole grains are much tastier if you toast them first, especially brown rice. They are easily toasted in a solar box oven. To make cereal, use 1 part of ground grain per 4 parts of water. Add a little salt, boil gently for about 10-12 minutes, squirt in a little honey to taste, and add a pat of butter before you pour your half and half milk onto it. OOOO goood.

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In addition to a national Oil Reserve, we also need a national Grain Reserve. This will help stifle rapid food inflation and pay farmers a decent price for their goods, but will also provide us with an emergency edible reserve of quality food.
And, like the oil reserve, should be carefully guarded and ONLY used in dire emergency. At one time we supposedly had a couple-year supply of grains. The latest I’ve heard is that it’s down to about 6 months. Scary.
We are a society of some 400 million people who mostly are reliant on good weather, cheap fertilizers, cheap oil, and solvent farmers to get our daily food to our supermarkets. Imagine a break in the chain that provides us with these things we take for granted. I don't want to imagine that.

We're the only first-world country without universal health care. Cuba has more comprehensive care. No more Pharma subsidies. No more Pharma advertising for prescription drugs, Why should we pay for their advertising? Don't ask your doctor, he/she already knows... I will sponsor legislation making it illegal to advertise for prescription drugs. We need an end to subsidies and an end to Pharma companies using taxpayer funded research to produce their exclusive and patented drugs. Our government must be allowed to bid on prescriptions. We must prosecute theft, over billing and fraud by our medical ‘insurance‘ companies. Let’s get into stress reduction which is purportedly responsible for over 50% of our dis-ease. The Federal government must stop prosecuting those who provide Medicinal Marijuana to sick people. Let us buy drugs from out of country, where they are cheaper. I’d rather have drugs of slightly inferior quality than no drugs at all.
According to Newsweek, side effects from prescription drugs are now the 4th leading cause of death in the United States.
Research suggests that 80 cents of every dollar spent on health care pays for private health insurance, profits, paperwork, and bureaucracy. We could save $350 Billion by eliminating the profit motive and moving to a single payer Universal health care system.
It costs Medicare 3% for administration costs, yet private insurance eats up 30%.
We must take the profit out of medical care. We need health care, not health insurance. Time to eliminate the un-necessary and very expensive middle-man.
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On May 08, 2008 an initiative petition was filed with the Secretary of the State of Nevada for the purpose of allowing the DRI (Desert Research Institute) to research Hemp as a source of biomass for energy. This petition and its originator can be accessed via www.myspace.com/hemppetition, or email at hemp petition@yahoo.com
It needs 59,000 signatures of Nevada registered voters by November 11th. It’s time to get out the clipboard, download the petition and hit the streets. Please help support this effort, and you can help financially by donating to Industrial Hemp for Fuel & Farming Inc. at your local US Bank, 140 Vassar Street in Reno.
Yes, this is another item for your list of things to do to create a better world. Please help.
This effort is not affiliated with my campaign, however I fully support it.
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We need HSR from Bordertown through to Topaz Lake. Between Truckee and Fallon/Yerington. And eventually to Elko and East. We need it from the North, through Tonopah and southward. To the Eastern borders. It will be expensive but will provide jobs, radically extreme energy and transportation savings, cheaper freight, minimal upkeep, less taxes, etc. Rail gets 400+ miles per gallon for one ton of transport. Wow. Third only to the electric bicycle, and busses. Our highway system is overdue for a meltdown. We cannot afford to repave our asphalt continually or constantly, nor the taxes that entails. And once it starts to disintegrate, it will do so quickly and irreparably.
Light rail and pneumatic tubes are our gifts to the future.
Rail is the key. We once knew how to do it. We MAY have the resources left to rebuild this marvelous system.
This will be part of my 'Pork' legislation.
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Growth hormones and other chemicals are a routine part of our food supply. Our beef, chickens, eggs, cheese and milk have hormones in them. The food industry is not required to label them. In fact, they are fighting to prevent non-hormone foods from advertising that fact. It is no wonder that our children seem to be maturing physically faster than we did. They have more hormones, thanks to fast food. It is unknown how this will effect our future adults. There has not been time to allow for proper testing, and these additives have been included under strong pressure from the food industry.

Are machines which hold promise for the future. At one time solar hot air engines were being built to pump out the mines in the west. Solar engines have run devices from pumps to printing presses. And it is possible that they are more manufacturable than internal combustion. We need to research and build Stirling, and other hot air engines, as well as research obscure items like the Tesla Turbine, flywheels and other novel devices. Along with drastic conservation techniques, these may provide a future path to sustainability and fulfilling lives for us all.
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When it’s winter, and your house is subjected to blustery winds, and sub-zero temperatures, it takes a lot of BTU’s to keep warm. Your power bill tells all. If it’s below zero with wind chill, then you have to heat to 70 degrees. Nearly half of our energy use is in heating and cooling and lighting our buildings.
If, on the other hand, your house were built underground, your mean surrounding temperature is about 50 degrees. It makes more sense to heat a house from 50 than it does from zero.
Underground, earth-sheltered, and bermed buildings make a lot of sense in a crazy world. As do hay bale and hempbale homes. These should be our thrust.
When I grew up in Sparks the northern hills were beautiful. Now they are filled with endless icky boxes that are grossly inefficient, and wasteful. We could have build those houses into the hills, artfully, unobtrusively, and efficiently.
But we didn’t. Shall we continue with the ecological disasters we still build, or can we all work toward enabling the crafty construction of sane abodes? We certainly should do this. Will we do this?
Additional advantages to undergrounds are that they are quiet, require less upkeep and maintenance, probably require less firefighting infrastructure, are less subject to firestorms and conflagrations, could conceivably lower your insurance premiums, they’re unobtrusive, and finally, are more of a protection from Weapons of Mass Destruction which may come at us from terrorists, the Chinese, the Russians, the French, the English, the Pakistanis, the Israelis, or other WMD possessors.
Existing housing cannot be abandoned, but must be retrofitted, and perhaps eventually the materials can be reused for undergrounds.
Other great tools are Haybale and Hempbale structures. Made from non-exotic locally available materials, they are super-Insulated and do not nearly contribute to our carbon load.
Underground houses built from used tires are an especial way to kill 2 birds with one stone.
We must also consider plumbing and water concerns.
We will eliminate or downsize our water disposal and water use requirements. I am absolutely convinced that we can provide for the domestic disposal of our liquid and sewage wastes using solar hot air evaporators and anaerobic digesters as are commonly found in India. Then perhaps we can quit flushing our wastes into our clean water supplies.
What is left from evaporators will be a powdery sterile substance which can be used on our small lawns, trees, and above ground-bearing vegetables.
This will allow the reduction or elimination of expensive sewer piping. Once a year you can shovel out the desiccated crap and spread it around your acreage.
Another good concept is to build facing South. The ancient Greeks and Romans built entire cities planned on a southern axis. With overhangs, they were cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
To build an efficient solar house: insulate it like a thermos bottle and have windows facing South. The Earth is a pretty darned good thermos bottle.
All new buildings should be LEEDS approved.
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Real retrofittable hybrids are almost here. They’re not being built by the big boys, with hundreds of millions to sink into elitist toys like the Phoenix car, or electric truck assists. They are being painfully crafted by local people. I have driven a locally made retrofit hybrid/electric car. It was an amazing experience. The creator has sunk all his disposable wealth and time over the last 4 years to make this vehicle. Now he is broke. No one is interested. He is $50,000 short of making this a reality for us all, and I want to help get him and those wonderful creators like him the funds to finish their good works. Where is the help for our honest and hard working brilliant minds, whose efforts will retool our planet? Vested interests and corporations have sucked up the gravy for far too long. It is time to help and fund our wonderful creative American spirit again, and to foster those great minds and talents among us who tirelessly work to improve all our lives.

Klebsiella Planticola
This is about the scariest thing I’ve ever read. It is several pages long, but important to read. As pulled from a webpage on the internet:
The Gene-Altered Monster That Almost Got Away
The Deadly Genetically Engineered Bacteria that Almost Got Away: A Cautionary Talle
Web Note: In the early 1990s a European genetic engineering company was preparing to field test and then commercialize on a major scale a genetically engineered soil bacteria called Klebsiella planticola. The bacteria had been tested--as it turns out in a careless and very unscientific manner--by scientists working for the biotech industry and was believed to be safe for the environment.
Fortunately a team of independent scientists, headed by Dr. Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University, decided to run their own tests on the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola.
What they discovered was not only startling, but terrifying-- the biotech industry had created a biological monster--a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all terrestrial plants.
After Ingham's expose, of course the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola was never commercialized.
But as Ingham points out, the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into the environment.
Moreover it's not only genetic engineering that poses a mortal threat to our soil ecology, the soil food web, as Ingham calls it. Chemical-intensive agriculture is slowly but surely poisoning our soil and our drinking water as well.
This article orginally appeared in the Green Party publication Synthesis/Regeneration 18 (Winter 1999)
Ecological Balance and Biological Integrity
Good Intentions and Engineering Organisms that Kill Wheat by Elaine Ingham, Oregon State University <www.soilfoodweb.com>
A genetically engineered Klebsiella-planticola had devastating effects on wheat plants while in the same kind of units, same incubator, the parent bacteria did not result in the death of the wheat plants.
Consider that the parent species of bacteria grows in the root systems of every plant that has been assessed for Klebsiella's presence. The bacterium also grows on and decomposes plant litter material. It is a very common soil organism. It is a fairly aggressive soil organism that lives on exudates produced by the roots of every plant that grows in soil. This bacterium was chosen for those very reasons to be engineered: aggressive growth on plant residues.
Field burning of plant residues to prevent disease is a serious cause of air pollution throughout the US. In Oregon, people have been killed because the cloud from burning fields drifted across the highways and caused massive multi-car crashes. A different way was needed to get rid of crop residues. If we had an organism that could decompose the plant material and produce alcohol from it; then we'd have a win-win situation. A sellable product and get rid of plant residues without burning. We could add it to gasoline. We could cook with it. We could drink grass wine-although whether that would taste very good is anyone's guess. Regardless, there are many uses for alcohol.
So, genes were taken out of another bacterium, and put into Klebsiella-planticola in the right place to result in alcohol production. Once that was done, the plan was to rake the plant residue from the fields, gather it into containers, and allow it to be decomposed by Klebsiella-planticola. But, Klebsiella would produce alcohol, which it normally does not do. The alcohol production would be performed in a bucket in the barn. But what would you do with the sludge left at the bottom of the bucket once the plant material was decomposed? Think about a wine barrel or beer barrel after the wine or beer has been produced? There is a good thick layer of sludge left at the bottom. After Klebsiella-planticola has decomposed plant material, the sludge left at the bottom would be high in nitrogen and phosphorus and sulfur and magnesium and calcium-all of those materials that make a perfectly wonderful fertilizer. This material could be spread as a fertilizer then, and there wouldn't be a waste product in this system at all. A win-win-win situation.
But my colleagues and I asked the question: What is the effect of the sludge when put on fields? Would it contain live Klebsiella-planticola engineered to produce alcohol? Yes, it would. Once the sludge was spread it onto fields in the form of fertilizer, would the Klebsiella-planticola get into root systems? Would it have an effect on ecological balance; on the biological integrity of the ecosystem; or on the agricultural soil that the fertilizer would be spread on?
One of the experiments that Michael Holmes did for his Ph.D. work was to bring typical agricultural soil into the lab, sieve it so it was nice and uniform, and place it in small containers. We tested it to make sure it had not lost any of the typical soil organisms, and indeed, we found a very typical soil food web present in the soil. We divided up the soil into pint-size Mason jars, added a sterile wheat seedling in every jar, and made certain that each jar was the same as all the jars.
Into a third of the jars we just added water. Into another third of the jars, the not-engineered Klebsiella-planticola, the parent organism, was added. Into a final third of the jars, the genetically engineered microorganism was added.
The wheat plants grew quite well in the Mason jars in the laboratory incubator, until about a week after we started the experiment. We came into the laboratory one morning, opened up the incubator and went, "Oh my God, some of the plants are dead. What's gone wrong? What did we do wrong?" We started removing the Mason jars from the incubator. When we were done splitting up the Mason jars, we found that every one of the genetically engineered plants in the Mason jars was dead. Wheat with the parent bacterium, the normal bacterium, was alive and growing well. Wheat plants in the water-only treatment were alive and growing well.
From that experiment, we might suspect that there's a problem with this genetically engineered microorganism. The logical extrapolation from this experiment is to suggest that it is possible to make a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all terrestrial plants. Since Klebsiella-planticola is in the root system of all terrestrial plants, presumably all terrestrial plants would be at risk.
So what does Klebsiella-planticola do in root systems? The parent bacterium makes a slime layer that helps it stick to the plant's roots. The engineered bacterium makes about 17 parts per million alcohol. What is the level of alcohol that is toxic to roots? About one part per million. The engineered bacterium makes the plants drunk, and kills them.
But I am not trying to say that all genetically engineered organisms are technological terrors. What I am saying is that we have to test each and every genetically engineered organism and make sure that it really does not have unexpected, unpredicted effects.
They have to be tested in something that approximates a real world situation. I've worked with folks in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and I know the tests the EPA performs on organisms. They often begin their tests with "sterile soil." But if it's sterile, then it's not really soil. Soil implies living organisms present. If you use "sterile soil" and add a genetically engineered organism to that sterile material, are you likely to see the effects of that organism on the way nutrients are cycled, or on the other organisms in that system? No, you're not likely to. So it's probably no surprise that no ecological effects are found when they test genetically engineered organisms in sterile soil. They really need to put together testing systems, which assess the effects of the test organism on all of the organisms present in soil.
What do we mean, organism-wise, when we talk about soil? Agricultural soil should have 600 million bacteria in a teaspoon. There should be approximately three miles of fungal hyphae in a teaspoon of soil. There should be 10,000 protozoa and 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes in a teaspoon of soil. No root-feeding nematodes. If there are root feeding nematodes, that's an indicator of a sick soil.
There should be roughly 200,000 microarthropods in a square meter of soil to a 10-inch depth. All these organisms should be there in a healthy soil. If those conditions are present in an agricultural soil, there will be adequate disease suppression so that it is not necessary to apply fungicides, bactericides, or nematicides. There should be 40 to 80% of the root system of the plants colonized by mycorrhizal fungi, which will protect those roots against disease.
What happens when you apply the most fungicides and pesticides to soil? In every single case where we have looked at foodweb effects of pesticides, there are non-target organism effects, and usually very detrimental effects. The sets of beneficial organisms that suppress disease are reduced. Organisms that cycle nitrogen from plant-not-available forms into plant-available forms are killed. Organisms that retain nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, etc. are killed. Organisms that retain nutrients in the soil are killed. Once retention is destroyed, where do those nutrients go? They end up in our drinking water; or end up in our ground water. You and I as taxpayers have to pay in order to clean up that water so we can drink it.
Wouldn't it be much wiser to keep those organisms present in the soil so those nutrients would be retained and become available to the next crop of plants instead of ending up in our drinking water where we have to pay in order to have clean drinking water? How do you do that? You get the organisms back into the soil. If you grow the proper number and types of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and microarthropods, mycorrhizal fungi in the root systems of the plants, you can do away with pesticides. It's been done. We can reduce significantly the amount of fertilizer that goes into that soil. In experiments that have been done all over the country, all over the world, inorganic fertilizer inputs have been reduced, or are not added at all, without reduction in plant growth. Where green manure or legumes are not available, approximately 40 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, once every four years, are still necessary.
Let's talk about why today's conventional agricultural systems require such massive inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. When a healthy soil is first plowed out of native grassland, for example, the disease-suppressive bacteria and fungi, protozoa and nematodes are present. For the first 5 to 15 years after plowing native grassland you don't have to use any pesticides. No fertilizers are required because there is natural nutrient cycling, natural nitrogen retention, and disease suppression. As you plow that soil, you start to kill the beneficial organisms, you lose the organic matter, and you lose the food to feed the beneficial organisms. After about 10 to 15 years, if you're not adding back adequate plant residue to feed those organisms, you lose them, and start having significant disease problems. Then you either leave that land and farm elsewhere, or in the US, we used fertilizers to keep yields high. As more and more of the organisms were killed by the salt effect of the fertilizers, and the constant plowing mined out more and more of the organic matter, starving the beneficial organisms to death, disease became a serious problem. And we started using more and more pesticide to knock the disease back.
In California, around 1955, those disease problems became so severe that they thought they would lose agricultural production. So the University of California came up with a better way to kill those disease-causing organisms. It's called methyl bromide. This chemical kills disease-causing organisms-but it also kills everything else. There is very little natural disease suppression going on in agricultural soils in California.
How many organisms are left in strawberry fields that have been methyl-bromided 2 to 3 times a year for the last 14 years? There are no microarthropods left. There are no beneficial nematodes left; only root feeding nematodes. And there is nobody to control root-feeding nematodes in those soils. How many protozoa are left in that soil? None. You cannot cycle nutrients. There is nobody home to make nitrogen plant-available. So what do you have to do? You have to add fertilizer. We force ourselves to have to add fertilizer. We have no other choice if you're going to grow those plants in those soils.
How many fungi do you have left in that soil? No beneficial fungi-they're all disease-causing. How many bacteria are left? All are gone, except for 100 per gram of soil. We should have 600 million per teaspoon in that soil; we have 100 left. There is nothing left to retain nitrogen in those soils, nothing. So you apply fertilizer. What happens to the fertilizer? Whatever fertilizer contacts the roots of the plants is indeed taken up; the rest of it flushes through the soil into the ground water, into the river. Take Santa Maria River in California as an example. This land has had methyl bromide applied 2 to 3 times a year for the last 14 years or more. Fertilizer is applied as sidedress when strawberries are planted. About two weeks later, the river goes up to around 150 parts per million nitrates. What is the toxic level for nitrate for humans? Ten parts per million nitrates is what the EPA tells us. It used to be three parts million but that evel was increased. Can you drink that water in the river in the Santa Maria valley? Not unless you'd want to die. You would destroy your kidneys pretty fast if you drank that water. It is high in nitrate. It is so toxic that you can't even put that water back on the plants. The high nitrate burns the plants.
We have a simple solution for this problem. Get the right kind of organisms, the right numbers of organisms, back in the soil and let them start performing their functions again. Put food for the organisms back into the soil; put the organisms back into the soil. It's that simple. Send us your soil samples and we can tell you whether you have that food web in your soil.
How are you going to fix that set of organisms it if you don't have a healthy foodweb? We can help you with that question. We can indeed move towards that time when we really don't need pesticides anymore; where you only apply fertilizer once every four years and in very small amounts. We can move to a sustainable agriculture. It takes time and effort, but it is possible.
This article is adapted from the presentation the author gave on July 18, 1998 at the First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering.
See also: Holmes, M.T., Ingham, E.R., Doyle, J.D., & Hendricks, C.W. (1998). Effects of Klebsiella-planticola SDF20 on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy soil. Applied Soil Ecology, 326, 1-12.
Copy posted at: http://www.purefood.org/ge/klebsiella.cfm
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<br>Review of article by Union of Concerned Scientists
"Effects of Klebsiella planticola on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy soil."
M.T. Holmes et al.,
Applied Soil Ecology 326:1-12, 1998
A recent report in Applied Soil Ecology illustrates the unexpected ways in which environmental release of genetically engineered microorganisms might cause widespread ecological damage. The core experimental finding is that the addition of a genetically engineered bacterium, Klebsiella planticola (SDF 20), to a small microcosm consisting of wheat plants and sandy soils kills the plants, while the addition of the non-engineered parent, Klebsiella planticola (SDF 15), does not.
Klebsiella (SDF 20) is a lactose-fermenting acterium engineered to produce increased ethanol concentrations in fermentors that convert agricultural wastes to ethanol. The system (developed in Germany) envisioned the disposal of fermentation residues, including the engineered bacteria, as an organic soil amendment. The report that the engineered bacteria cause plant death raised the possibility that soil amendments would kill or impair crops in the fields where they were used and, further, that, once released and established, the Klebsiella could not be eliminated.
The paper explored but failed to nail down the mechanism of plant killing. Whatever the mechanism, the research suggests that engineered microorganisms can have far reaching, potentially devastating, effects.
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11/28/2006
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<br>Let there be light.
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<br>While this site has a tendency to take pot-shots at the wealthy, this ire is not totally directed to the wealthy, rather it is to the greedy.
One can be wealthy and not greedy. One can also be poor and greedy.
There are many kinds of wealth. There is discovered wealth, invented wealth, inherited wealth, and surely other means.
This is directed to those of us who haughtily claim that their riches are the result of their hard work. And whether or not this hard work included ruthlessness and taking advantage of others, the real conclusion here is that your wealth is a result of the hard work of our whole society. Those who build and maintain our infrastructure, those whose work has made it possible for you to acquire your wealth are just as responsible and deserving of it as you are. For without this infrastructure, this golden playland of opportunity created by us all, you would not have been able to gain these riches.
An excellent book, "Global Survival" edited by Laszlo and Seidel, suggests that part of the blinders on us is the belief that money buys happiness. We are spending our environmental capital and not living off the interest as we should be, while under the delusion that more and more consumption are necessary for us to be happy. Not so, says David Myers in chapter 7, "The simple, stubborn fact is that the Earth cannot indefinitely support our present consumption, much less the expected increase in consumption. For our species to survive and flourish, some things must change."
With an expected doubling of our global population in the next 40 years, and no sign of lessening of energy use, we may be very hard pressed to keep the boat from sinking in the next few short decades.
Mr. Myers' chapter clearly points out that it is not how rich one is, but rather how fulfilling life is that is the real source of happiness.
Soaring wealth and shrinking spirit is as he calls it the "American Paradox."
Yet those who market to us our newer and newer luxuries claim that without economic growth, the world will end.
No no no and No.
The world will end if we do not curb our consumption.
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<br>Enough bashing of the economically enhanced, let's talk tools.
Surely you have a flashlight somewhere in the house for those infrequent power outages.
Ours probably has dead batteries, go figure.
In an emergency, it is nice to have a good light source, no matter how small, and the problem of dead batteries is of some concern.
In a functioning world, we merely have to go to the local convenience store and get new batteries.
In a malfunctioning world it may be a lot less simple, especially if the world malfunctions long-term.
We do have new tools to use thanks to our technical planet.
The LED flashlights now available have several advantages. LED's practically last forever, and also they use much less juice to run.
Rechargable batteries are good for many hundreds of recharges. And, while the voltage of a rechargable is typically less than that of an alkaline, (1.2Volts as compared with 1.5) the light they give out is nearly as bright as alkalines. Not too much difference. They work.
Also, solar battery chargers have been available for many years now. A standard solar recharger can fill up 4 batteries in between 8 and 10 hours.
The average disposable battery uses 40 times the energy to make as we get out of it. Not so with rechargables.
Rechargables are much more green, sustainable, and make sense, especially for emergency lighting.
A pocket sized 9-bulb LED flashlight will cost about $7. 8 rechargable batteries will run you about $8 to $10. A pocket sized solar battery charger will cost somewhere around $15. So, for less than $40, you can add to your survival kit a good, reliable, rechargable, long lasting source of illumination for those times when the power goes out, or you find yourself in the boonies, looking for wood in the dark to start a fire. Pretty darned handy, and fairly earth-friendly.
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<br>For those of us who don't have the bread to lay out to get a rechargable system, those nice aluminum Mag-type small flashlights will work with LED bulbs instead of those fancy, expensive krypton-type ones which seem to burn out every time you put in new batteries. Buy a white LED bulb from your local electronics store, and if you cut the leads to about1/3 inch, they will plug in directly into the bulb socket (plug). Of course, if the light does not come on, then you probably have the leads reversed. Take out the LED and plug it in the other way. You may have to drill out the reflector, also, because the LED is just slightly larger than the standard bulb. Also, it doesn't hurt to slightly crimp the ends of the leads to ensure good contact into the socket.
This works reasonably well, and makes a servicable light, even tho' it's not extraordinarily bright. Good enough in a pinch.

12/3/2006
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<br>Lifeboats?
In a sane world, one fantasy is that we all realize the terrible threat we face with declining energy supplies, and all pull together to make it right. To make it sustainable.
Not to say necessarily that we do not live in a sane world, but really, we do not.
We, especially as Americans, the major consumers, are not ready to hear about a lessening of our consumption.
It flies in the face of sales.
Of volume, of profitability, of capitalism.
We are not ready to hear that conservation is a good and desirable thing. The corporate model is that conservation is not profitable.
Yet those of us who read intermittently, do know that conservation is indeed profitable.
Unfortunately, our culture is dominated by the business of selling more and more goodies, and our credit card companies do not believe in prudent spending, they encourage in many ways to spend more and more.
While this author had great hopes at one time for a re-awakening in our civilization, that hope is dimming.
We will not be ready to give up our toys until it is too late.
When the power system starts its intermittent and acceleratingly frequent blackouts and brownouts, when gas gets up to and over $5 a gallon, and when our economic system finally takes the big hit, then perhaps we will see some common sense. When our beloved internet starts misfiring and our servers and desktops start rebooting because of power fluctuations, then we will be ready.
Perhaps.
One thrust of this NNEMA site was to get our neighborhoods together and functioning before the blackouts.
The idea of individuals and small groups creating 'lifeboats' was not seen as an answer to our future problems.
But maybe it's time to think these thoughts.
Perhaps we should consider lifeboats.
The rest of the world wants to be like us, to consume like us, to use it up like us.
Don't blame them, advertising is very powerful and highly refined.
We certainly have been suckers for it.
And many of us still think that unlimited growth, crazy, unsound, wasteful growth is necessary for a 'healthy' economy. They think that all we have to do is make more and consume more and everything will be ok.
And they're certainly not shy about telling us that.
Lifeboats and Noah's Arc.
Maybe it's time.
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Say, this webpage is getting a bit strange, even for me.
But, why not be educational, express positions, and even try to be entertaining...?
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<br>Music and song
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<br>Energy In Equals Energy Out. This is the mantra of our fossil fuel economy.
EI=EO
EI E EO
Can you say that? E I E E O?
If so, here’s a little song for you.
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<br>“Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
And on this farm they grew Modified corn,
EIEEO
With a GM here, and a GM there, here a G there an M, everywhere a G and M,
Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
And with this corn they fed some cows,
EIEEO,
These cows ate corn and then got sick
(cows were designed to eat grass, not high protein grains)
EIEEO
Sick cows get drugs and medicines,
(so that they can walk into the slaughterhouses)
EIEEO
We eat those drugs and medicines,
EIEEO.
With a sick cow here, and a corn crop there, here a G there an M, everywhere a medicine,
Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
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<br>(feel free to add your own stanzas...)

means ‘Not In My Back Yard. People, often speculative homeowners, object to new technology which they wrongly think may devalue their house worth. They also think windmills are unsightly.
What is unsightly are our mobile parking lots (AKA our highway system) with thousands of cars standing at red lights. Ugly is a lot of things but not windmills.
The word for the day should be PIMBY, which means Put It in My Back Yard! Farmers in the Midwest are reportedly making $5,000 an acre leasing land for wind farms.
Go PIMBY, no NIMBY.
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Stands for Nevada Neighborhood Emergency Management Association. I have my doubts about FEMA so it's time for NNEMA.
It is good to be prepared for emergencies. Especially ones you can see coming. We can’t do much about a giant meteor hitting Earth, but we can prepare for Peak Oil, conflagrations, earthquakes and other nasties.
You should start an emergency kit for yourself. One that you can easily grab on the way out the door, and one for each member of your family.
My basic kit is a large cooking pan, 5 lbs. each of rice and dry beans (soybeans are best), a couple of gallons of water and a lighter. The average person can survive weeks without food, and 10 lbs. of dry goods will keep you comfy for quite a few more weeks. Your major concern will be to get clean water. Like the half of the world doesn't have now. If you boil your water, then most pathogens can be killed.
Also throw in a space blanket. For freezing and wet weather, it may give you an edge, and include a handy portable supply of warm clothing.
I have an article I wrote last year on an emergency kit which I will post later as a Plog on this site.
Think about starting your own NNEMA chapter.
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NNEMA Lending Library
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Following is a list of some of the books available through our Reno NNEMA library. There are a lot of books yet to be posted on gardening, and finding natural plant foods and medicines, but they will come with time. If you would like to add your library of good books so that others can borrow and learn from them, please get the list and send it to us. We don't know just how getting these books out is going to work. Years ago at UNR, some good folks had a similar lending system, and they lost a lot of books. So, one possibility to protect against this dilution is to ask for a returnable deposit for books borrowed. This deposit would be returned as books are returned. This way it costs no one to read, but insures somewhat against loss to the library. If you have a better idea or way, please respond.
Hopefully we can get all the books into a database or spreadsheet eventually, and it will facilitate the growing of the library.
It is important, and increasingly so in the future, to have access to 'old knowledge'. Hard copy old knowledge. To share knowledge.
This library may not fly, but at least it's worth a shot.
To borrow any book, please write & we'll figure out how to connect.
To add your books, please write & we'll figure out how to connect.
Thanks,
CB
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Energy-related, and Peak Oil related books:

Approaching Free Energy Rodale Press editors 1982-116P. Rodale Press NA Alternative energy, houses
Biodiesel, Basics and beyond William H. Kemp 2006, 588P Aztext Press 0-9733233-3-7 biodiesel energy
Big Coal The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future Jeff Goodell 2006-324P. Houghton Mifflin 0-618-31940-9 Coal Energy
Biodiesel Growing a New Energy Economy Greg Pahl 2005-281P. Chelsea Green Publishing 1-931498-65-2 biodiesel energy
California Under Corporate Rule Peter Camejo 2006-261P. Transcontinental Printing NA California Politics
Charging Ahead John J. Berger 1998-398P. University of California Press 0-520-21614-8 Renewable Energy
Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices Union of Concerned Scientists 1999-292P. Three Rivers Press 0-609-80281-X Green Products
Cooking with the Sun B. and D. Halacy 1992-114P. Morning Sun Press 0-9629069-2-1 Solar Cookery
Diet for a Dead Planet Christopher Cook 2006-326P. The New Press 978-1-59558-84-9 Food Industry
Direct Use of the Sun's Energy Farrington Daniels 1972-374P. Yale University Press 0-300-399-4 Solar Energy
Energy at the Crossroads Vaclav Smil 2005-427P. MIT Press 0-262-19492-9 Energy Policy
Energy & Problems of a Technical Society Kraushaar & Ristinen 1993-488P. Wiley & Sons 0-471-57310-8 Power Resources
Energy Switch Morris, Craig 2006-209P. New Society Publishers 0-86571-559-9 Renewable future
Facing Starvation Lennard Bickel 1974-376P. Reader's Digest Press 0-88349-15-3 Hunger
Food Not Bombs Butler & McHenry 2000-105P. See Sharp Press 1-884365-21-3 Food Relief, US
Fueling the Future heintzman & Solomon 2005-406P. Anansi Press 0-88784-724-2 Fuel
George Washington Carver Rackham Holt 1944-342P. Doubleday NA Biography
Global Survival-The challenge... E.Lazlo, P. Seidel, EDS 2006-290P. SelectBooks, Inc. 1-59079-104-5 Sustainability
Greenhouse Christianson, Gale E. 1999-305P. Walker and Co. 0-8027-1346-7 Global warming
Harnessing the Wind for Home Energy McGuigan, Dermot 1978-134P. Garden Way Publishing 0-88266-117-5 Wind power
Ideas and Integrities R. Buckminster Fuller 1969-318P. Collier Books 63-11571 Future Design
Internal Combustion How corporations... Edwin Black 2006-408P. St. Martin's Press 978-0-312-35907-2 History, power resources
It's the Crude, Dude Linda McQuaig 2006-369P. St. Martin's Press 0-312-36006-1 Oil Addiction
Kicking the Carbon Habit William Sweet 2006-256P. Columbia University Press 0-231-13710-9 Global Warming, renewables
May All Be Fed John Robbins 1992-415P. Wm. Morrow & Co. 0-688-11625-6 Food Habits
Moment in the Sun R. & L. Tienow 1967-365P. Ballantine Books 67-16535 Early Ecology
Nuclear Power:The Unviable Option John J. Berger 1979-381P. Dell 0-440-35994-5 nuclear power
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth R. Buckminster Fuller 1972-127P. Pocket Books 671-78046-8 Environmentalism
Plan B 2.0 Lester R. Brown 2006-365P. W.W.Norton & Co. 0-393-6162-0 Solutions
Power Down Richard Heinberg 2004-208P. New Society Publishers 0-86571-510-6 Future Options
Preparing for the Twenty First Century Paul Kennedy 1994-428P. Vintage Books 0-679-74705-2 Future vision
Small is Beautiful Schumacher, E.F. 1975-305P. Harper & Row 0-6-80352-5 Buddhist Economics
Solar Revolution Travis Bradford 2006-237P. MIT Press 0-262-2604-X Solar Energy
The Empty Tank Jeremy Leggett 2005-236P. Random House 1-4000-6527-5 Peak Oil Crisis
The End of Fossil Energy John G. Howe 2005-163P. McIntire Publishing 0-9743404-3-X Energy
The Good Fight Ralph Nader 2004-294P. Regan Books 0-6-75604-7 Politics
The Heat is On Ross Gelbspan 1998-278P. Perseus Books 0-7382-25-5 Global Warming
The Long Emergency James H. Kunstler 2006-325P. Grove Press 0-8021-4249-4 Must Read
Windpower Principles N.G.Calvert 1979-122P. Halsted Press 0-470-26867-0 Wind Energy


Tools
Accurate Tool Work Goodrich & Stanley 1908-217P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-82-1 Metalworking
Advanced Metalworking Projects Hanes, Hal 1987-76P. Lindsay Publications 0-917914-68-6 Tool making
Bob Villa's Toolbox Vila, Bob 1993-232P. William Morrow & Co. 0-688-11735-X Tool using
Care and Operation of a Lathe Sherldon Machine Co. 1942-103P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-105-2 Lathe work
Casting & Forming Processes in Manufacturing Campbell, J.S. Jr. 1950-536P. McGraw-Hill NA Metalworking
Charcoal Foundry (making) Gingery, D.J. 1983-80P. Gingery Publishing 1-878087-2 Tool making
Charcoal Kiln (making) Olson and Hicock 1946-30P Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-106-X Tool making
Civil Engineer's Pocketbook Trautwine, John C. 1908-1079P. John Wiley & Sons NA Reference
Complete Book of Sand Casting Ammen, C.W. 1979-238P. Tab Books 0-8306-1043-X Tool making
Design & Building the Sheet Metal Brake Gingery, D.J. 1985-52P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-6-6 Tool making
Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories(building) Gingery, D.J. 1982-158P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-5-8 Tool making
Do It Yourself Vacuum Forming Walsh, D.E. 1994-125P. Vacuum Form NA Tool making
Drill Press (building your own) Gingery, David J. 1982-128P. Lindsay Publications 0-9604330-4-X Metalworking, toolmaking
English and American Toolbuilders Roe, J.R. 1926-315P. McGraw-Hill NA Tool makers, history
Extractve Metallurgy Newton, Joseph 1966-532P. John Wiley and Sons 59-14124 Metallurgy
Forge Craft Crowe, C.P. 1913-175P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-108-7 Tool making
Forge Practice Bacon, J.L. 1912-279P. John Wiley & Sons NA Metalworking
Forging Handbook Naujoks & Fabel 1939-630P. American Society for Metals NA Metalworking, forging
Formula Book, The Stark, Norman 1979-209P. Andrews & McMeel, Inc. 0-8362-63004 Formulas
Gadgeteer's Goldmine McComb, Gordon 1990-406P. Tab Books 0-8306-3360-X Electronics Projects
Getting the Most Out of Your Lathe Brown, Sam 1935-48P. Delta Manufacturing Co. NA Metalworking, lathes
Hand or Simple Turning Holtzapffel, J.J. 1881-592P Dover (reprint) 0-486-26428-9 Lathe working
Handbook for Drillers Cleveland Company 1989-46P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-5-6 Metalworking, drills
How to Cast Small Metal & Rubber Parts Cannon, W.A. 1986-168P. Tab Books 0-8306-414-6 Tool using
How to Design & Build Centrifugal Fans.... Gingery, D.J. 1987-112P. Lindsay Publications 0-917914-60-0 Tool making
How to Run a Lathe O'Brien, J.J., M.W. 1942-128P. South Bend Lathe Works NA Lathe working
How to Sharpen Craftsman Handbook 1969-32P. Sears, Roebuck & Co. NA Tool using
Inventions...of Nikola Tesla Martin, Thomas C. 1992-496P. Barnes & Noble 0-88029-812-X Tesla
Jigs, Fixtures, & Shop Furniture Engler, Nick 1989-122P. Rodale Press 0-87857-839-0 Woodworking
Lathe and Planer Tools Kaup, Stabel, Hayden 1908-40P. Lindsay Publicat