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Post by prairiegardens on Mar 8, 2019 1:35:43 GMT -5
On another note, while people are hot on the trail of tossing various things into the atmosphere to block the sun and therefore mitigate global warning, NASA has tossed in the possibility of a little ice age looming because of reduced solar flare activity. That's one theory used to explain " little ice ages" that apparently occurred between approximately 1600- 1800. Lots of people died of starvation when crops didn't get the light or weather they needed and failed, according to WIKI. How much food could we raise under artificial light and heat? Maybe have to start really seriously looking at aqua/hydroponics.....preferably underground I guess. With a bicycle powered generator. Lol. Get fit or die the new slogan. Maybe wind to help out Supposedly Israeli scientists have created a working battery out of aluminum, water and air. The explanation of how it worked made no sense whatsoever to me, but what I know about batteries and such would fit on the head of a pin with space left over for a dancing leprechaun ( St. Patrick's Day coming up  ). A few years back a bunch of people were touting cars running on water for fuel..the water was supposed to be split into hydrogen and oxygen by certain type of spark plug plus a few tweaks, so really running on hydrogen I guess, but that seems to have vanished now. |
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Post by spacecase0 on Mar 19, 2019 14:59:17 GMT -5
prairiegardens,
I have been testing plants that seem to grow calories with less sunlight,
the two that I have found so far are potatoes and parsnips.
and thankfully they also deal with the cooler weather that a solar minimum would also have.
I think that beets also do well in conditions like that, but don't personalty have the correct climate to get much out of them
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Post by jocelyn on Mar 27, 2019 17:17:50 GMT -5
hazel nuts don't need a whole lot of light either, and bear well if suited to your area.
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Post by jocelyn on Jul 15, 2019 17:22:28 GMT -5
You know, just saying, we put about 9 calories into the ground to get out one calorie in industrial agriculture settings.
Every garden tended by hand, every fruit or nut tree that is tended by hand, saves most of those 9 calories in...
Plant a peach pit, tend by hand, eat the peaches starting abut year 4.
Not so bad.
We need a change in focus, just not there yet...........
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Post by jocelyn on Jul 16, 2019 3:42:15 GMT -5
Those who grow even a portion of what they eat are saving the transportation portion of the fuel needed to produce that food, even with a tiller, grin.
Nothing is all good or all bad.
If you still have space for trees, consider food trees. They take very little inputs if adapted to your area.
We like nut butters on our breakfast toast, and have a nut butter grinder....and several buckets of nuts down cellar.
This week, I'll shell out hearnuts and we'll have heartnut butter. Yummy.
Most years we have enough nuts to get through to new crop.
Next week I might shell out hazel nuts.
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Post by reed on Jul 16, 2019 8:58:06 GMT -5
My current garden is very dependent on a gas powered rototiller. I need to experiment more with other methods. I finally saw the light that at least for me rototillers are extremely inefficient, not to mention a general pain in the ass. I'm shifting entirely to no till and find it much easier, more fun, more productive. Paths and planting areas are permanent now, no space wasted between and around as I no longer need it to maneuver that stupid tiller. I use combination of hand digging, cover cropping, mulching to work just the area I want to plant rather than tilling the whole thing all at once. It's easy to reuse or fallow an area. For example I currently have a corn patch beginning to dry down, I'll soon strip the leaves off the stalks and plant pole beans. I'v been digging potatoes in another area, it is being fallowed for now and piled with weeds and grass clippings. I'll plant something there later to mature in cooler weather. |
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 5, 2019 15:48:01 GMT -5
I use a similar method as reed. My garden area is 1,200 square feet, so fairly manageable. The hard work is breaking new ground. Once you kill the sod, a tiller isn't so handy. |
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Post by reed on Oct 20, 2019 19:16:59 GMT -5
For about 800,000 years, the time most currently existing species evolved CO2 bobbed up and down between about 200 and 300 PPM, each fluctuation taking several thousands of years. Then in space of less than 100 years it shot to over 400 PPM. No currently exiting species has ever had to adapt to change at that speed and the change is above not within the natural range. The amount over the natural maximum is in fact greater than the natural range. Took me a little while for implications of that to sink in. This isn't post apocalypse but with weather patterns changing so rapidly it is noticeable to an individual of any species, it is most certainly IMO, the end of the beginning. Downhill with increasing velocity from here on, hold on tight. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatUDnFmNTY |
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Post by steev on Oct 21, 2019 22:18:08 GMT -5
Yes, well, as a zoologist, I particularly regret the impact on many of our cousins; we will certainly try to minimize the damage to ourselves and to those species of immediate value to us, but the less "useful", though we may be ignorant of their importance in the ecosystem until it is too late to save them, their loss will not be to our benefit; The smaller the gene-pool, the less stable; the same applies to the ecosystem; gonna be a bumpy ride, folks; hold on indeed. Got kids? Sorry about that. They're gonna have to deal with what has been done in the name of short-term profit. Too many people, too little honest un-self-interested thought. We're humans; we seem to be the only species that destroys what it needs to survive; that's pretty damned special, n'est ce pas? Claro que si!
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Post by reed on Oct 22, 2019 3:59:50 GMT -5
I reckon so.
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Post by prairiegardens on Oct 30, 2019 11:23:01 GMT -5
A highly sobering article came along yesterday on FB which documented research done by a mathemetician, of all things. (It starts there, at least) . He started looking into the widely reported diminishing of nutrient value in vegetables after reading that although algae plankton was bigger and fatter than ever before, creatures depending on it were dying of starvation. Turns out - according to him- the balance of nutrients are all kittywampus because of the surfeit of carbon dioxide leading to algae developing a much higher proportion of sugars and carbohydrates at the expense of proteins and some other actual nutrients. The suggestion was made that the higher levels of carbon dioxide were turning food into what is essentially junk food. So he wanted to know if that applied to land vegetation as well.
Apparently it does. He has been almost unable to get any grant money to look at this - apparently it's considered none of a mathemetician's business, but now a few others including people from Japan and Harvard, in research areas considered more appropriate, are also looking into it and their findings are scary.
One thing they are suggesting is that bee die off may partly be caused by this as plants are absolutely showing the same reaction. Protein levels are dropping, as are the levels of several other nutrients including iron. Sugar and carbohydrate levels are rising. This seems to me pretty scary as other than trying to breed plants higher in nutrients to start with, how can this even be countered, much less reversed?
There is already some thought about the lower level of nutrients in our food is helping drive the levels of obesity as bodies try to get the nutrients they need by eating more. This would seem to indicate obesity and diabetes will become the norm, as will other issues rising from lack of nutrients, even without the pressures of various 'cides residue in our food.
I will try to pluck the link from FB and post it.
We just can't seem to get it.
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Post by flowerbug on Dec 25, 2019 11:01:59 GMT -5
i'm not sure this makes sense to anyone else here, but i think most of humanity is just insane with the amount of damage they consider acceptable for them to do to the world around them.
some of the research into insecticides and the results of those chemicals on the wildlife is just staggering. the use of biocides to target pest species which do collateral damage, the breeding of resistant microbes, etc. it all just strikes me as insane. the microbiology that supports us doesn't particularly care about us in any larger sense i'm sure, they're just doing what they can to survive and to keep the cycle going.
us higher ups though, we're doing all we can to breed more resistant strains of about any microbe we can and this is going to turn around and bite us in the hiney parts...
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 25, 2019 14:06:58 GMT -5
Ah yes, what I call Tibbles's Law "As technological knowledge becomes more advance, the amount of environmental damage capable of being done by a given number of people increases, and the number of people needed to commit a given amount of environmental damage decreases.". There's another one that needs a name that goes "Our ability to destroy always far outpaces our ability to fix."
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Post by steev on Dec 26, 2019 11:09:35 GMT -5
That's why war was developed faster than medicine.
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Post by flowerbug on Dec 27, 2019 6:18:13 GMT -5
That's why war was developed faster than medicine.
it seems much easier to destroy than create or to heal. it is a challenge to reach people in ways that make them realize they can make a lot of difference just by making different choices about what they do. they may not even think about it at first, but if you can nudge them just a little bit then perhaps it can end up making a big impact.
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). A few years back a bunch of people were touting cars running on water for fuel..the water was supposed to be split into hydrogen and oxygen by certain type of spark plug plus a few tweaks, so really running on hydrogen I guess, but that seems to have vanished now. 
