Investment

» axolotl - CASTRO CONDEMNS USA - WORLD'S GREATEST POLLUTER!

Here is who is talking - http://www.therealcuba.com One of those old cars in Cuba probably spews more pollution than 10 modern cars. Scientist say that there is evidence of 27 degrees average differences between ice age climates and warmer periods - the oceans were 100 to 200 feet lower in the great ice ages. The 1/2 degree is obviously nothing in comparison to 27 degrees. The Left as represented by Al Gore has a "convenient" explanation for everything that points away from "Global Warming". It is "aerosols" that cause a temporary cooling, not the sun cycles. That 1/2 degree temp. would be ignored if it was down - they would say it is not accurate - look at the melting glaciers instead. Al and Castro and Chavez are fellow travelers along with Hillary and Obama and Reid and Pelosi.

-- posted by axolotl

» lcha - Foods that travel well

This is a good article that shows what looks like a no-brainer benefit in carbon reduction actually has the direct opposite effect in some cases. It shows how just "doing something" for the sake of reducing carbon emissions can have unintended and non-beneficial consequences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinio...

THE term "food miles" - how far food has traveled before you buy it - has entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in Europe, are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" contemplate the damage wrought by trucking, shipping and flying food from distant parts of the globe.

There are many good reasons for eating local - freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space - but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.

On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and a chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples sold in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem. In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it seems, is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.

But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment? Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe's push for "food miles labeling," recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption. Other scientific studies have undertaken similar investigations. According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling evidence suggests that there is more - or less - to food miles than meets the eye.

It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator. Instead of measuring a product's carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production - what economists call "factor inputs and externalities" - like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.

Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand's clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.

These life-cycle measurements are causing environmentalists worldwide to rethink the logic of food miles. New Zealand's most prominent environmental research organization, Landcare Research-Manaaki Whenua, explains that localism "is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle than during transport." The British government's 2006 Food Industry Sustainability Strategy similarly seeks to consider the environmental costs "across the life cycle of the produce," not just in transportation.

"Eat local" advocates - a passionate cohort of which I am one - are bound to interpret these findings as a threat. We shouldn't. Not only do life cycle analyses offer genuine opportunities for environmentally efficient food production, but they also address several problems inherent in the eat-local philosophy.

Consider the most conspicuous ones: it is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively local food production - food will always have to travel; asking people to move to more fertile regions is sensible but alienating and unrealistic; consumers living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand choices beyond what the season has to offer.

Given these problems, wouldn't it make more sense to stop obsessing over food miles and work to strengthen comparative geographical advantages? And what if we did this while streamlining transportation services according to fuel-efficient standards? Shouldn't we create development incentives for regional nodes of food production that can provide sustainable produce for the less sustainable parts of the nation and the world as a whole? Might it be more logical to conceptualize a hub-and-spoke system of food production and distribution, with the hubs in a food system's naturally fertile hot spots and the spokes, which travel through the arid zones, connecting them while using hybrid engines and alternative sources of energy?

As concerned consumers and environmentalists, we must be prepared to seriously entertain these questions. We must also be prepared to accept that buying local is not necessarily beneficial for the environment. As much as this claim violates one of our most sacred assumptions, life cycle assessments offer far more valuable measurements to gauge the environmental impact of eating. While there will always be good reasons to encourage the growth of sustainable local food systems, we must also allow them to develop in tandem with what could be their equally sustainable global counterparts. We must accept the fact, in short, that distance is not the enemy of awareness.

James E. McWilliams is the author of "A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America" and a contributing writer for The Texas Observer.

-- posted by lcha

» hickfish - Foods that travel well

In response to Foods that travel well posted by lcha:

In the food industry, we are seriously looking into this study and its surprising results. I saw this study recently, but didn't think to post it here.

I will be happy to pass along developments along these lines as we see them in our business.

-- posted by hickfish

» permabear - Newsweek cover story: The Truth About Denial

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/sit...

This article is for all of those on this board who I argue with week after week. It represents the denial of science and stone age thinking that your viewpoint represents and which science has conclusively refuted over the years.

-- posted by permabear

» axolotl - 1975 TIME magazine cover warns of Global Cooling!

Don't worry, Warren Buffett will spend a few billion to combat global warming - anyone notice that Warren does not seem to be on the Left wing bandwagon yet? Come on, Warren, drop a billion on carbon credits from Al Gore.

-- posted by axolotl

» tjg911 - permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you

In response to 1975 TIME magazine cover warns of Global Cooling! posted by axolotl:
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Editted to add I meant this to be a post not a reply sorry axitol (sorry I also forget the correct spelling of your name).
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On a local radio show this morning I heard an interview with a man who has put up $100,000 to anyone who can scientifically prove that global warming is man made. If this is so accepted in the scientific community, then there's a tidy sum to be made. My guess is the money will remain in his pocket despite the hand wringing of the global warming alarmists.
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Even Al Gore can claim the money and donate it to charity the fellow said. Well good ole Al has shut the door on debate. Oh sure, that's an open mind! Science, true science, not junk science, NEVER stops looking at evidence and adjusting their theories. Only someone that knows they are full of methane would do that! Al, what a snore!
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Anyone aware that the US patent office wanted to close back in the 1880's or 1890's because "all the things have been invented"!
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I'm enjoying the global warming today, it may not even get into the 60's. I left all the windows open last night and it was so cold in here with 15-20 mph winds out of the east off the Atlantic Ocean that I considered starting the wood stove. I'd have choked it down to burn it slow and that makes more smoke due to poorer combustion just to PO Al baby. I did not want to start cresote build up so I just closed all the windows and dressed a bit warmer.
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$100,000 it's like free money, so easy even a caveman (or a left wing socialist) could do it, no?
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Tom

-- posted by tjg911

» permabear - permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you

In response to permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you posted by tjg911:

http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/060720...

Well $100,000 would be a very generous and needed donation to the National Academy of Sciences for starters.

-- posted by permabear

» lcha - permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you

In response to permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you posted by permabear:
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Permabear, don't confuse policy statements and opinions with rigorous scientific PROOF.
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The British Royal Scientific Society has been proved wrong many, many times throughout it's long history. Consensus does not = rigorous scientific PROOF.

-- posted by lcha

» tjg911 - permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you

In response to permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you posted by permabear:
And so we just sit back and wait for that scientific proof.
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The 100 thou will be paid.
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All of us that have been blind to the religon of the High Church of Gore Et Al will be put in our place.
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We will genufleck at the feet of the Hollyweird elitists.
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And so the wait begins..... let's not hold our breath, methinks the wait will be rather lengthy!
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Tom

-- posted by tjg911

» permabear - permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you

In response to permabear, here's a fast 100 thou for you posted by lcha:

Permabear, don't confuse policy statements and opinions with rigorous scientific PROOF.

Climate change has been as rigorously studied as just about any other scientific issue in the past ten years. Those joint Academy of Sciences statement is about as conclusive as conclusive can get from current scientific knowledge about the issue. It's not my fault if you folks want to keep your heads in the sand and reject current scientific knowledge about this issue. To me it is more of a political view rather than a scientific view that you are taking. The science is on my side.

-- posted by permabear