Memo to both Main St. & Land Use Planners: this positive, global change is highly likely to occur within 10 years

 Background Info (detailed in several places elsewhere on this blog)

1.  Factory farming of crops and livestock is damaging soil, depleting water supplies, using too much energy, damaging our climate, eliminating small family farms, reducing necessary biodiversity, and polluting the ecosphere (which includes us).

2.  Big Agriculture's Globalization of food production and distribution sounds good, and once in a blue moon even looks good; however, overall it's faltering and turning into a disaster.

3.  Climate change, multiple-continent supply chains, geopolitical rivalries, war, energy shortages, financial sanctions, and the like are all making global production and distribution of food problematic.

4.  One-third of the world's food already is grown on farms less than five acres each.  Source:  https://ourworldindata.org/smallholder-food-production

The Coming Positive Global Change

1.  Whether we plan for it or not, various factors will drive humans to transition from Globalization to Localization (and Regionalization).  All goods, including food, will be involved.  A few places in the world already have made a start.

2.  As much as possible:  food will be grown locally and/or regionally; synthetic, petrochemical herbicides & insecticides will not be used; and big machinery will not be necessary.  Here's how it's done:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc3-3s115mM&list=WL&index=68    If a guy in a wheelchair and his team can do it, anyone can.  Don't miss this short clip.  It's most inspirational, and extremely informative.

3.  If you don't believe this can be done in towns and cities, do a YouTube Search for "urban community gardens", or "urban farming", and you'll be amazed.  In any case, it can be done just outside the city limits (if not smack-dab downtown).

4.  Because of greatly shortened supply chains, much less need for petrochemicals, much less need for fuel-guzzling big machinery, and much less need for packaging & processing, this type of organic farming will GREATLY reduce global energy use.  That's important because within about ten years, we'll be forced to cut way back on energy use.  [See the Nate Hagens interviews on YouTube which deal with Energy Blindness, as well as those on Minerals Blindness.  Simon Michaux and Tom Murphy also are good sources.]

5.  Because it uses drip-irrigation in areas where such is required, it also will significantly reduce freshwater depletion.  Currently, world agriculture uses 70% of all water fit for human consumption.  The lion's share of that is gobbled up by Big Ag (Factory Farming), and for the most part, drip-irrigation is not used.

You may be thinking, hey, I'm not a farmer.  Why should I care about any of this?  I would answer, do you like to eat?  😊  If your community or county or State does not start planning for the coming changes in food availability and fresh water availability, then you will be a farmer...a subsistence farmer.

We all need to convince our local authorities  to at least look into these matters.  The probability is extremely high that relatively soon we'll be forced to become a low-energy-use society all around the globe.  The metrics for such a scenario are all there.  Localization will be a massive help, but to avoid chaos, planning for it must start ASAP.

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Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Excerpt from: "Choices & Change on the Path to a Sustainable Existence..."

 Here's part of Chapter 2 (Soil, Not Oil) from my second short book.

[The book is available here:  https://www.amazon.com/Choices-Change-Path-Sustainable-Existence/dp/B0CSSVWB3N? ] ---

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Introduction

Dirt is almost totally without any life in it. Soil is a living ecosystem which, in conjunction with water, air, sunlight, and the chlorophyll in green plants, makes animal life possible on Earth. It’s a more valuable natural resource than petroleum. Partly because few people seem to recognize or appreciate that view, we are in a worldwide soil crisis. [Dr. Vandana Shiva, a renowned agroecologist, has an informative and beautiful book out titled, Soil Not Oil.]

Though not recognized as such at the time, the crisis began with the first agricultural Green Revolution in the late 1950’s and throughout the 1960’s. Because planners were concerned about human population outpacing food production, plant breeders started developing new, high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, particularly wheat and rice. The newly developed crops were high-yielding because they managed to pull more nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) out of the soil as compared to older varieties.

In addition to new crop varieties, science developed pesticides and farmers applied them to their fields in earnest, especially in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Tons of DDT were dumped onto fields, thus controlling plant-eating insects. Food production began to rise.

Apparently, few people were concerned about any potential impact of poisons on soil microbes, worms, fungi, and other life forms necessary for soil health.

At the same time, the petrochemical industry developed artificial (synthetic) fertilizers. By about the early 1970’s, worldwide food production began to increase at an unprecedented rate. Such was the start of the second Green Revolution. Due to massive application of both synthetic fertilizers and irrigation water, it lasted to about 1985 or so. Annual grain production increased by 160%.

When the Green Revolution began, the start of a long period of soil degradation also began. For quite awhile, it was unrecognized. The widespread use of DDT on crops (and thus, on soil as well) began not long after WWII, well before the Green Revolution. It was banned in the USA in 1972. The primary reason for the ban was the harm it caused populations of raptors, or birds of prey. The harm to soil generally was unknown at the time. In agriculture, other poisons took the place of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Herbicides also contributed to the ongoing degradation of soil. So, too, did the massive use of synthetic fertilizers. To understand WHY and HOW petrochemicals (in this case, synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides) cause the degradation of a most valuable resource, let’s look at soil in a bit more detail.

Like all others, soil is a highly complex natural ecosystem. Most ecologists would agree that a healthy, natural ecosystem is more complex than anything ever built by humans. Anything. So, the first thing to keep in mind is: soil is a living system with more complexity than any machine or system made by us. That complex, living system is the basis of our food supply. Almost all our plant and animal food products ultimately come from the soil. Instead of essentially poisoning it with artificial petrochemicals, we should be revering it and treating it with the utmost care. [See Pal, R. 2006 in References.]

Fifty or more years ago, a good topsoil consisted of 25% air, 25% water, 45% minerals, and 5% humus. The last item, humus, is partially decayed organic matter. It’s derived primarily from dead plants, plant parts (such as fallen leaves, twigs broken off, tree bark, etc.), dead animals and microbes, and animal wastes. Humus is crucial to soil fertility. It provides not only macronutrients such as Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), & Potassium (K), and the secondary nutrients Calcium (Ca),   Magnesium (Mg), and Sulfur (S), but also the micronutrients Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe), Chloride (a form of Chlorine, Cl), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), and Boron (B). When industrial farmers use the main synthetic fertilizer made from petroleum, all the soil gets is macronutients. Over time, the soil slowly is degraded. Today’s soil contains humus hovering around 1%, and that’s only a part of what makes up the Soil Crisis.

Other Aspects of Soil Important to Humans

• About 25% of the world’s land biodiversity is found in soil. One result of that: biodiverse soil bacteria provide us with new antibiotics. Also, biodiversity overall makes a soil ecosystem healthier and more resistant to environmental stresses such as disease in soil plants and animals, drought, and other damage to soil food webs.

• Soil filters water. For the most part, large groundwater aquifers are located inside “solid” rock. Rock has many tiny crevices, cracks, and microscopic pores which allow water molecules to enter. They accumulate there over thousands and thousands of years. Before ever getting to underlying bedrock, soil filters the water as it travels downward. That’s why water from a drilled well generally is “pure”.

• Soil is an important carbon sink. It sequesters carbon dioxide, thus keeping excess CO2 out of our atmosphere.

• The mineral portion of soil is composed of various combinations of sand, silt, and clay. Individual clay particles are so tiny they can be seen only with a high-powered microscope. As such, they exist in what’s known as a colloid, or in colloidal form. In that state, they have a net negative electrical charge. This means they attract positively charged mineral nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, etc. The nutrients thus are prevented from leaching down into the lower depths of the subsoil, out of reach of many plant roots.

• Humus also exists in colloidal form. It, too, holds nutrients in the topsoil where they can be absorbed by plant roots. The colloids making up both inorganic clay and organic humus are the most chemically active parts of any soil. They are crucial to soil fertility. Humus is a great source of nutrition for plants, and by releasing the nutrients slowly during decomposition, the plant roots are not “burned” when the nutrients are absorbed. The petrochemical fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, sometimes does damage to plant roots by quickly overwhelming and “burning” them.

• Green land plants get most of their water and nutrients (other than glucose, which they make themselves) from soil. Such plants not only are the basis of our food web, but also a significant source of the oxygen we require to live.

Petrochemicals, a major cause of soil degradation, damage or destroy soil biodiversity by killing many different types of microbes which are necessary to soil health. [See Pal, R. 2006 and Goudie, Andrew S. 2019 in References.] Bacteria, the most numerous of the soil microbes, work to decompose plant and animal matter. Thus they promote nutrient cycling. So do fungi and actinomycetes. Some bacteria can pull nitrogen out of the air and “fix” it into certain plants known as legumes (e.g., alfalfa, clover, and beans). Actinomycetes resemble both bacteria and fungi, and they aid in decomposition of organic matter, thus also contributing to the cycling of nutrients in the soil ecosystem. In addition to decomposition, fungi help bind soil particles into aggregates, and so aid in resistance to wind and water erosion.

Mycorrhizal fungi in soil are especially important to green plants. “Mycorrhizal” refers to a plant’s root system. These fungi live on the roots of plants in a mostly symbiotic (mutually beneficial) manner. Their hyphae – fungal feeding tubes – allow the host plant’s roots to take in more water and nutrients than they otherwise could. The practices of industrial farming – with their use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides – are destroying these valuable fungi. Thus, over time, crop yields ultimately will be reduced because of soil degradation.

Factory farming also exacerbates wind and water erosion of soil, thus contributing even more to soil degradation.

BOTTOM LINE: the use of petrochemicals on farms, and all the rest of industrial agriculture, must be phased out. Farming and food supply chains must return to a smaller scale in order to regenerate our soil and cease the poisoning of food ecosystems. Organic farming, sometimes called regenerative agriculture, permaculture, or agroecology, is the best choice forward.

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The excerpt above shows how reliance on Technology can backfire if planners and policy makers are not thinking comprehensively.  I see the same thing taking shape today with geoengineers addressing symptoms rather than root causes of our ongoing Crisis.

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Not only my opinion.  Be Well, and BE AWARE

Wildfires, the micronutrient chromium-3, the highly toxic chromium-6, & Climate Change

 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/12/12/wildfires-leave-trail-toxic-metal-soil/

Our bodies contain various metals, e.g. zinc, which are necessary for proper nutrition.  Another of those metals is chromium-3 (Cr-3), which helps in metabolizing glucose, the "fuel" of living things.  Chromium-3 is commonly found in soils in the western USA, Australia, Europe, and several other countries.

There's another form of chromium which is highly toxic, chromium-6 (Cr-6).  Research has shown that wildfires can convert Cr-3 into Cr-6.  The toxic metal then is updrafted into the atmosphere and carried various distances.  Read the short Stanford news article found at the link above for more information.

By now, most people are aware that wildfires are exacerbated by the ongoing changes in climate.  All the above gives humans one more reason to mitigate climate disruption ASAP.  We aren't doing nearly enough, or fast enough.

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Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Editorial Review

 Below is a review of my first book provided by:  International Review of Books.

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The Beginning of the Path to Human Extinction, and HOW TO GET OFF IT

Which line stood out from all the others in the book?
It has taken about forty to fifty years for neoliberalism and corporate globalization to bring us to what might be the beginning of the path to human extinction.

General Summary for Context:
A look into what's going on right under our very noses—the extinction of the human race.  While this may sound a bit dramatic and drastic, the author provides us with a detailed albeit frightening look at how our preconceived notions (more is better, for example) are not leading us to happiness but instead, on a direct path to being obliterated. In addition, he offers recommendations as to how we can stop this freight train from crashing and burning, taking all of us along for the ride.

Concise Review:
A fascinating look at how our preconceived ideas of acquiring possessions, status, power and prestige (leading to unstoppable financial accumulation) is actually a barrier to personal fulfillment. Conspicuous consumption is not providing us with happiness but on the contrary, straight to ruination and destruction.  Indeed, how our actions are propelling us not to contentment but to the wanting of more and more, continuing the vicious cycle of materialism, greed and overconsumption. But there are things we can do to halt this process, and the author offers specific and informative suggestions as to what each of us can do as our part in continuing the human race.  

General Thoughts on the Book:
A truly grounding and disturbing look at how ideas and values ground into us from birth are not leading us towards happiness but to mass extinction.  Perhaps not tomorrow but certainly in the generations to come. I was riveted and totally engaged with this book and highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind who is willing to overcome their preconceived notions and take a careful look as to what this author is describing. Definitely a five star read.

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The book may be purchased here---
 https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BVJMMWLG/about
OR - 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-beginning-of-the-path-to-human-extinction-and-how-to-get-off-it-scott-haley/1141364431?ean=2940160947181\
OR-
email me & I'll send you a free pdf copy.  Make the title of your email "Book 1 Copy".

My email is:  abstractcowboy@gmail.com
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Be Well

Biodiversity Loss and Forests

 The following is from the soon-to-be-published book, The Beginning of the Path to Human Extinction, and HOW TO GET OFF IT - Notes on a Paradigm Shift.  It's a small part of a subtopic, biodiversity loss---

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When thinking about biodiversity loss, imagine a natural forest. It has a rich variety of trees, shrubs, grasses, mosses, lichens, fungi, animals, and microbes. It’s a highly complex ecosystem which provides many “services”, including those well-known, such as the prevention of soil erosion, the production of oxygen, and the trapping of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Because of its diversity, a natural forest is resilient. It can bounce back from the onslaught of many destructive factors.

Now imagine that a timber company clears it. It’s logged off, and most of the remaining vegetation (shrubs, etc.) is burned or otherwise removed. Then, in place of the previous forest, trees are re-planted on what essentially is now a timber company “plantation”. Usually, only one or two species are grown. Undergrowth (mostly shrubs) is kept to a minimum, or eliminated completely. In other words, biodiversity has been greatly reduced. In addition, pesticides often are used. Some portion of them find their way into the soil, where they negatively impact any number of necessary soil microbes and fungi. This is a bare bones description of how “forest monoculture” operates.

Which of the two forests – the original, or the monoculture “plantation” – do you think will be more resilient? Which one will shelter and nourish a wider variety of organisms? Which will contribute more to soil fertility? [Artificial fertilizers generally are not good for soil microbes or soil structure. They, along with herbicides and other pesticides, commonly are used on tree plantations.] Which one will better prevent soil erosion? Which one will better resist tree-boring or leaf-eating beetles (which are usually specific to each species of tree)? You get the idea.

Consider, too, the following. Humans cut down (worldwide) an estimated fifteen billion trees per year, and re-plant only five billion. About half the forests which once covered almost half Earth’s land surface are now gone. Only approximately one-fifth of our planet’s old growth forests remain undisturbed and in pristine condition. In general and globally, we simply are not sustainably managing a crucial natural resource.

Forests have been called the “lungs” of the world. Luckily for us, they work differently than do animal lungs. Trees take in CO2 and “breathe” out O2. It’s usually easy to take adequate oxygen for granted, but we really shouldn’t. All green plants should be fully appreciated and valued as absolutely necessary to life on Earth. [A possible exception to that would be noxious weeds, such as various thistles & mesquites – both of which are injurious – and poisonous/deadly nightshade.] Arguably, trees should be at the top of the list of green plants to be revered. If for no other other reason, because they provide us with oxygen and are necessary carbon “sinks” (and that’s critical to the climate problem). It has been estimated that deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

At times, we no longer seem to fully appreciate that green plants in general truly are a miracle of Nature. As you may recall from your high school Biology class, the process of photosynthesis is one of the main reasons life is possible on this planet of ours. In the presence of sunlight and chlorophyll, plants convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose (food) and oxygen. The balanced chemical equation is: 6CO2 + 6H20 + energy/sunlight & chlorophyll → C6H12O6 + 6O2. The value of that process is incalculable. Photosynthesis is a colossal accomplishment of evolution.

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Not only my opinion.  Be Well

p.s.  The book should be out sometime next week.

From Researchers: How to Have Resilient Communities, a Good Economy, and a Sustainable World

It has taken about forty to fifty years for neoliberalism and corporate globalization to bring us to what might be the beginning of the path to human extinction.  If not that, it is at the very least, the path to the end of organized human existence.  In other words, the beginning of the end of civil society.

Yes, bold statements.  I write them as an environmental geographer (a human ecologist) who has been involved in various aspects of the ongoing Crisis for almost fifty years.  I started studying human impact on the environment in 1972 at Arizona State U.  After many years as an ecology teacher, an independent consulting ecologist, and a hazmat specialist with the Sacramento County Environmental Management Department, I came to the conclusion stated in the first paragraph above.

I've also concluded that unfortunately too many people on Main Street in the USA don't seem to grasp the severity of the ongoing socio-eco-econ-ethical Crisis.  Nor do they appear to fully understand the cause of it.  And finally, they also don't seem to be aware of the massive paradigm shift in values required to survive and thrive in the future.

In a way, I don't blame them too much.  The neoliberal propaganda is so thick in this country that it's a wonder anyone fully understands the dire consequences of overloading (with pollutants) the waste sink known as our atmosphere.  Or understands the egregious damage to soil and crops from the overuse of synthetic pesticides.  Or understands how biodiverse, healthy, natural ecosystems prevent the spread of disease.  Or understands how the petrochemical industry literally is poisoning our habitat and the natural systems upon which our survival depends.  Or grasps the severity of the nuclear waste problem.  And on & on.

Below are only a few suggestions/needs/actions which can help to take us out of the mess we've created.  I placed one of those articles in all three bold-faced categories.  That's how important I believe it is.  Both videos are in two of the categories.  The Crisis is multi-faceted.  There is no one silver bullet to solve it all.  Keep that in mind.

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Resilience -

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/04/06/The-Earth-Is-Telling-Us-We-Must-Rethink-Our-Growth-Society/

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/14/7563/htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suHCiRlT-oc&list=WL&index=68&t=6s

Economics -

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/04/06/The-Earth-Is-Telling-Us-We-Must-Rethink-Our-Growth-Society/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfGcwfYlAg

https://steadystate.org/top-10-policies-for-a-steady-state-economy/

https://steadystateeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Degrowth-ISEE-2021-A-Practical-Steady-State-Economy-LK-1.pdf

https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/the-case-for-cooperative-business-ownership-a-mahb-dialogue-with-professor-anu-puusa-university-of-eastern-finland/

Sustainability -

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/04/06/The-Earth-Is-Telling-Us-We-Must-Rethink-Our-Growth-Society/

https://futureu.education/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Richardson_Neoliberalism-environmental-policy_FutureU.pdf

https://stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378019314116?dgcid=raven_sd_recommender_email

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suHCiRlT-oc&list=WL&index=68&t=6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfGcwfYlAg

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Not only my opinion.  Be Well

p.s.  Yes, there's a lot to digest here, but you can't learn much in just a few minutes.  Solutions to the Crisis are many, and complicated.  We humans have become accustomed to "sound-bite" size pieces of information, but solving these problems will require much more than those tiny bits.