E-Book; Allan Yeomans; Priority-One; Keyline Plow; Global Warming ect.

Found this summary-


WE SWITCH TO ETHANOL AND BIO-DIESEL FOR TRANSPORT

They are totally competitive but we must use taxes and excises to peg oil prices above $65 to stop the oil industry juggling the market and killing their development. The Amazon basin alone could grow enough sugar cane and palm oil to fuel the whole world (and this is exactly where it needs to be produced - the Amazon and other Equator regions, NOT in or with North America's Corn). The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. Demand, use and support bio-fuels (from the equator regions of the Globe).

WE SWITCH TO NUCLEAR ENERGY FOR INDUSTRIAL POWER

The quantities of nuclear waste generated are incredibly tiny and disposing of them is incredibly easy. Increasing background nuclear radiation several fold is a health benefit and makes us live longer. We simply can’t run a modern civilization on solar energy and wind. Weapons proliferation is unrelated to nuclear electricity generation. And as we have seen, any country with money to waste can build nuclear weapons if they really want to, and we can’t stop them. End ignorant bigotry. Become a positive pro-nuclear energy advocate. Put a $150 per ton tax on coal.

WE SWITCH TO HUMUS PRODUCING AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD

Soil humus is composed of 58%carbon. So increasing the natural fertility of soil can only occur by extracting carbon dioxide from the air. To illustrate, the destruction of the soil fertility of the Great Plains in the US dumped as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as came from every car Americans ever built. So we reverse the process. We buy organic produce. Because, to make money out of organic produce a farmer has to increase the fertility of his soil. Switch today! It’s healthier and free of chemicals. Additional, most agricultural chemicals destroy soil fertility so agricultural chemicals must cease being a tax-deductible item. We must also cease subsidizing any type of chemically based agriculture.

WE STOP TRUSTING GREEN MOVEMENTS AND OIL INDUSTRY PROPAGANDA

From now on we must decide if the demands of green movements, despite all their media hype, have the effect of supporting continued use of fossil fuels, agrochemicals and oil based raw materials. Are they anti-wind, anti-nuclear, anti-hydro, anti-wood? By demanding restricted farm areas are they encouraging more intensive farming practices and thus more chemical use. Millions of dollars are spent on strategies massaging our beliefs. Dispute their structured dogma. Never let manipulated hypocrisy succeed.



THESE ARE SOME OF THE MESSAGES IN PRIORITY ONE
•Everybody wants, and hopefully expects to have, a consistent rise in their own standard of living.
•Financially, it is more sensible to stop Global Warming and halt climate change than pay the damage bills that result.
•There is more than enough oil, gas and coal in the ground that, if burnt would make the atmosphere too toxic for mammals to breathe.
•All societies must have access to abundant energy at reasonable prices.
•Nuclear energy is economical, and is already much safer than we require. Nuclear waste is not a problem. Weapons proliferation is unrelated to power generation.
•Apart from nuclear energy, alternative energy systems can never power modern industrial societies.
•The Kyoto Protocol and such other myths are placebos. They are never structured to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
•A hydrogen economy is an utter fiction for any immediate foreseeable future.
•Practical high-energy fuel cells still don't exist.
•Walking and riding bicycles is a hopeless vision of a personal transport system. It is unlikely, impractical and relatively dangerous
•We can keep our automobile based societies. We simply change our diesel to biodiesel and re-tune our cars and modify all new cars to handle ethanol and ethanol blends. Costs are almost insignificant.
•Tropical Third World Countries will then have their turn to boom. They will become prosperous and independent by producing fuel from sugarcane and oil palms.
•Acid rain will cease.
•Improving the fertility of soils is the only practical way of removing existing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.
•Clearing land and then developing the soil is far safer than not doing it.
•Trees and rain forests are red herrings and serve no critical purpose in preventing Global Warming.
•Some food prices will rise some will fall. There will be little or no significant over all food-cost change.
•Our new food will however taste better and be more nutritious. We will be healthier and we will live longer

 

This is not a statement of facts. It is a collection of opinions. As someone who is working and wants sensible advances to sustainability, it is imperative to separate propaganda from useful advances. Here are some of the statements I have problems with:

1) "Nuclear Waste is not a problem". Really? When did basic physics change? (For all my years in the Navy Nuclear Power program, managing nuclear waste was an extremely demanding and unforgiving issue...and that was just getting it to a "temporary repository"...since we don't have a permanent repository.)

2) "Alternative Energy Systems can never power modern industrial societies". I bet that has a bunch of solar powered homeowners scratching their heads. So only fossil fuel systems will work forever? (Think carefully about how this statement has no real message of any meaning.)

3) "Walking and riding bicycles is a hopeless vision of a personal transport system." Visit Copenhagen.

4) "They will become prosperous and independent by producing fuel from sugercane and oil palm." Visit Indonesia.

5) "Trees and rain forest are red hearings and serve no critical purpose in preventing Global Warming." Visit Easter Island (if Indonesia is suffering from another fire disaster).

 

I agree. The most interesting points to me are in the agriculture/soil management area. I don't know if he is correct, but I am willing to bite on the idea of CO2 management by soil management. He grabs the reader by suggesting fossil fuels are not the total problem, but rather agriculture mismanagement. From that premise I thought we could at least leverage the finding to allow use some continued use of fossil fuels, but instead the solution is to ban fossil fuels and go full-out on nukes, and rain forest based bio ethanol and palm oil...none of which I am sold on.

 

If there's ANYTHING behind his soil management/CO2 idea, perhaps our best path forward is for more of us to "Go Local - Go Organic".

As for his opinion on nuclear waste...he should go visit Fukushima.

 

Land already in agriculture can be improved; perhaps this fellow is among those pointing at appropriate techniques. In any case, that information is widely available.

Forests their soils, habitats etc. are here underestimated. Suggest we all catch up on actual carbon dynamics of old forests. Much improved understanding in the past decade.

Bicycles are hopeless for some things but not for others. Just another example of the author appearing a bit too dogmatic.

 

Soil management is good. Cutting old forest and replacing with young trees is a thing someone might do. If so, the 'old' soil carbon buns off (1/3 to 1/2 of it) and that takes decades/centuries to turn around. So let us not just focus on the fast-growing young trees. Top posted ref person might not know about all that.

Biodiversity in old forests is another thing. My bibliography on this has 188 citations and surely it is incomplete. In the past it has been hard to get PCers to READ but perhaps JamesBurke you are different?

No doubt, planting forest on bare land is going to be helpful in many ways. New trees get tall and migrant birds land there and begin pooping out seeds they have acquired elsewhere. Then the fun begins.

Replacing old forests with new plantings can get you $$ if the old trees can be sold to SOME ASIAN COUNTRY or if you are replacing with oil palm. See Indonesia. Usta be the same for rubber but the latex price has taken a dive. So, if you want to talk about $$, and CO2 externality and biodiversity mean nothing to you, well OK. Gotcha. But please don't quote 1960's ecology in re. Something more has been leart since.