Mass production vehicle conversion to plugin hybrids and eventually to pure plugins, that don't need fuel at all, that recharge in a few minutes and don't need backup power; could procede in stages. Without needing a new car. Avoiding the cost and energy use needed to manufacture a new car. The steps:   more »

Our valiant (Gristmill) advocate for kinder gentler GMO supposes this hypothetical, we need to sway people like this to our organic ag point of view. "Suppose you are growing, say potatoes, organically and occasionally have to apply a natural fungicide or pesticide derived from another plant grown somewhere else." You grow the natural plants that repel or suppress parasites along with the potatoes. Even using crop rotation and mixing mulch made from the repellant plants into the soil for the next potato crop. Mulch that stops fungus and pests. And suppresses weeds. Why not? Copy nature's own strategy. Walnut trees prevent competing plants from invading their area with natural herbicide built into their genes. Cedar trees discourage competing fungus and bacteria with genetically coded cedar oil, evolved for that purpose.   more »

Why? Because organic fertilizer does not release nitrous oxide, chemical fertilizer does. It is a 296x worse GHG than CO2. Chemical fertilizer releases this GHG in an amount that is equivalent to 2/3 of the CO2 uptake of the crop fertilized. Organic farming build the soil ecosystem to act as a living carbon sink, the praies were 20 to 30 feet thick with organic carbon rich soil when they were first plowed. The fertility was gone in 10 years, then chemical fertilizer burned the remaining organic matter out.   more »

What is at the root of the problem of fuel farming, ethanol, biodiesel, or biomass for combustion? It is the false claim that consuming biomass in flames as either solid or liquid fuel is carbon neutral. That it only emits CO2 that has been absorbed by plants and that makes it "green", instead it makes this false claim "greenwashing". Consider this. Think about the natural carbon cycle, before industrialized humanity appeared on the scene.. Prairie soil was 20 to 30 feet thick, soil stored a huge millenial amount of carbon. Wetland peat bogs were even thicker, storing more carbon. Coral reefs stored carbon as calcium carbonate made by the coral.   more »