Forget Global Warming, Prepare for New Ice Age, Says Scientist

[chogan2]

Originally Posted by DaveinOlyWA

with Earth Day rapidly approaching, it seems that TV has dubbed this week "Earth Week"... besides extra green segments on the "Today Show" and "NBC National News" several cable stations are focusing on environmental topics centering on global warming and climate change.

so a lot of good updated info available. the amount of info is a bit overwhelming, so i have Tivo'd much of it so i can watch it at my leisure.

having already seem a few good shows on the History Channel, its obvious that "Global Change" is what we need to concern ourselves.

for the first time in history, the Earth is changing and not because of what we want it to do, its changing because of what we are not doing.

climate, weather, food, energy are all on precipitous brink of a major change and that direction is not looking good.

Just in passing, rice futures hit a new all-time high, and two large US chains imposed restrictions on the number of large bags of rice you could buy at one time. There have been rice riots in poorer countries, due to high prices, which are most due, I think, to the near-total failure of the Australian rice crop, due to the recent drought. That hardly gets noticed here in the US. But it's unusual to see even mildly disorderly markets in the US.

Sam's Club, Costco limit rice purchases as prices rise - Apr. 23, 2008

[DaveinOlyWA]

ya i saw that... pretty pathetic when the economy is so uncertain that corporations feel its necessary to prevent people from hoarding staples such as rice.

the price of rice has increased 141% since Jan in some places making speculation a possibility despite the rice industry saying there is no shortage. a huge chunk of that price increase has to be fuel.

lets face it, we think of ourselves as free-thinking individuals but in reality, we are just mice following the piper.

[Devil's Advocate]

Food shortages are being caused by the diversion of food crop fields to ethanol producing crops, for use as ethanol. It may not be the only cause, but it is surely making the situation worse.

Very few countries in the world are net food exporters, and it is those countries where ethanol is being pushed hardest.

IMHO - Ethanol was a failed idea from the outset, even worse than what others claim H2 would be. Ethanol costs more to produce, yields at best equal energy to what it produces, is no cleaner than other fossil fuels, and would require the diversion of significantly more crops to satisfy current let alone future energy needs. (and yes if we cut down a couple of hundred thousand acres of rain forest we too can produce ethanol like Brazil)

[tripp]

It will be interesting to see what happens with the biofuels. The EU has already started pulling back from biofuel targets. I'm not sure if it's because of environmental degradation and food prices or what, but they are doing it.

here in the states I think it will be interesting to see what happens with biofuel legislation.

Somebody in the economist was arguing that developing nations need to adopt industrial agricultural practices and let western mega corps run them. That sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by tripp

.

Somebody in the economist was arguing that developing nations need to adopt industrial agricultural practices and let western mega corps run them. That sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

There was a woman on the Today show just a day or so ago that claimed that it is much better for the environment to buy and eat locally grown food to minimize the fuel burned to transport it. She was advocating buying from Farmer's markets and coops. Seems to make sense to me.

[F8L]

Originally Posted by dogfriend

There was a woman on the Today show just a day or so ago that claimed that it is much better for the environment to buy and eat locally grown food to minimize the fuel burned to transport it. She was advocating buying from Farmer's markets and coops. Seems to make sense to me.

In most cases that is true and we preach the same thing but for some items one must consider the types of foods grown and the energy input that goes into it. I.E. if you try to grow tomatoes in Alaska in the winter then the energy required to grow them is less than what would be epended in shipping them up from Mexico or South America. This doesn't take into account human rights issues or pesticides though.

I support our Placer Grown (local food and market group) members up here and we always invite them to our Earth Day events and such.

[DaveinOlyWA]

get it from an organic farmer and double your benefits. produce grown without pesticides, etc. taste better, are better for you...

get past the look of them (naturally grown produce is not waxed for appearances) and you are doing a BIG part to save the environment and benefit your family. we buy produce from a place just around the corner from in-laws... plan to pay up to 250% more for the food (although certain times of the year, sales bring prices down nearly to grocery levels) since its hand cultivated AND HAND WEEDED (the cost of not using chemical... a cost i am willing to pay) produce is expensive to grow.