[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] ENERGY DEPLETION

Mon Jan 29 19:10:08 EST 2007

Omnivore's Dilemna is one is a series we need to be reading,  
digesting (excuse the pun), over which we need to dialogue, and  
identify an intentional course of action as response. Maybe that can  
happen a million different ways as a series of individual responses.  
I continue to feel there must be concerted corporate action to bend  
the current trend. An Inconvenient Truth implies/predicts some of the  
same.

The next one is David Korten, The Great Turning. He spent time doing  
what ICA did, during the same time periods, but in/with different  
institutions. He describes two futuric courses of action: the Empire,  
and the New Earth. For him it is clear that Empire will end in  
collapse. No surprise about the two. He is hopeful that New Earth  
will be the direction of choice in the civilizing process.
and
Jared Diamond, Collapse, examines a series of cultures/social  
structures and itemizes the criteria by which to predict when a  
culture/social structure will self-destruct, The last chapter  
examines Australia. I don't think Australians want to know what he  
presents!

The one I've read most recently is in my attempt to identify where  
and how to make a socio-spiritual witness that points us in an  
alternative direction: The Engaged Spiritual Life by Donald Rothberg.

I don't have facts about creating ethanol from sugar cane. It sounds  
much the same to me--take oil, run it through the ground with  
agribusiness up front (plant, fertilize, cultivate and/or spray for  
weeds, etc), build a coal-fired plant to distill the ethanol out, and  
wallah! you have spent oil, soil, water, and coal (or some other form  
of energy) to create ethanol. The only process that might be  
sustainable is to use switchgrass, a perennial prairie grass, which  
crowds out weeds, requires nothing more than the initial planting,  
and since it is perennial needs no tillage, yearly planting,  
cultivating, or spraying. Public information released indicates that  
there is need to refine the distillation process before it can be  
considered a profitable source of ethanol.

On Jan 29, 2007, at 10:19 AM, James Wiegel wrote:

> My daughter gave me the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma,
> and the first section really expands on the corn based
> food system and ethanol as a means of taking advantage
> of the artificially cheap price of corn and its
> overproduction.
>
> Jim Wiegel
>
>
> --- David & Lin Zahrt <chbnb at netins.net> wrote:
>
>> I have watched the "ethanol craze" build in Iowa. It
>> is driven by the
>> universal awareness that we are participating
>> globally in Energy
>> Depletion. I see it as a 'quick fix' being exploited
>> by agribusiness
>> and the oil industry.
>>
>> Ethanol will be a by-product of the corn raised in
>> Iowa. Aside from
>> some of the left over by-products it is a wash--we
>> use up as much
>> energy as we produce, and we use up (as in exhaust)
>> an unbelievable
>> and consistently ignored amount of water and soil
>> resources . It is
>> an attempt to use soil and water to turn petroleum
>> into energy.
>>
>> The local agriculturalist believes it will help
>> him/her because it
>> will raise the price of a bushel of corn. At the
>> moment the price of
>> corn is the recipient of a price support program
>> which means that it
>> is sold for less than it costs to produce, the
>> balance of which is
>> made up by government subsidy. That, of course,
>> allows Cargill and
>> Archer, Daniels, Midland to purchase corn for less
>> than it costs to
>> produce so they can manufacture corn syrup and corn
>> oil, ingredients
>> that have been coveted by the fast food industry,
>> and which have made
>> a major contribution to the epidemic of obesity in
>> the US.
>>
>> I would like to believe that I am looking at the
>> real trends rather
>> than being consumed by pessimism--that I am willing
>> to take the
>> 'blinders' off and face the real future we, as a
>> society, are in the
>> process creating. I am constantly on the lookout for
>> individuals,
>> groups, movements,  with whom I could collaborate to
>> set a new trend
>> in motion. I belong to Practical Farmers of
>> Iowa--sustainable
>> agriculture; Iowa Prairie Network--protecting and
>> restoring natural
>> habitat; NW Iowa Sierra Club Group; Center for(If
>> you know of any
>> please inform me)
>>
>> I recently received a mailing (always suspicious of
>> unsolicited
>> mailings and phone calls) from a group that calls
>> themselves the
>> International Energy Depletion Institute (IEDI),
>> located in
>> Tennessee. I would scan the mailing but I am under
>> the impression
>> that it would have to come as an attachment and
>> these list-serves
>> don't accept attachments. Has anyone else received
>> such a mailing?
>>
>> In an attempt to find out more about the IEDI I went
>> to the internet.
>> Google has nothing in the first 10. Yahoo doesn't
>> either. Does anyone
>> have information on the background of IEDI?
>>
>> The mailing was 6-8.5x11 pages. This is the
>> beginning of one of the
>> pages.
>> Sample from one of the pages
>>
>> "OIL IS FOOD
>> 6 BILLION HUMAN BEINGS SIMPLY CANNOT SURVIVE ON THIS
>> PLANET WITHOUT
>> OIL. IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THE NATURAL CARRING
>> CAPACITY OF THE EARTH
>> IS PROBABLY SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ONE & TWO BILLION
>> PEOPLE AT BEST.
>>
>> 	This sobering assessment does not, in our opinion,
>> take into
>> consideration the environmental degradation of the
>> Industrial Age or
>> the impact of future Global Warming. Fossil Fuels
>> have magically
>> turned the planets depleted top soils into abundant
>> cropland. Just
>> take a look at the graph below. The evidence is
>> undisputable!! OIL IS
>> FOOD!..."
>>
>>
>> I'm asking for feedback because I think the IEDI is
>> on to something
>> important. I am suspicious of unsolicited mass
>> mailings and the fact
>> that I find no background info on the internet.
>>
>> David Zahrt
>> <chbnb at netins.net>
>>
>>
>>
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David & Lin Zahrt
Country Homestead B&B
22133 Larpenteur Rd.
Turin, IA 51040
Where a change of pace is as good as a vacation, and a sense of place  
is soothing to the soul.
<chbnb at netins.net>

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