Some blowback about last weeks announcement that Stanford researchers find little difference between organically farmed food and commercially grown food leave a bit to be desired in the logic department. From the Times of India:
“More significantly, organic could help save the world from global warming. It saves 40 per cent of water used in conventional farming and uses non-conventional energy sources,” says Patel, claiming that he did not have to use water pump for as long as 25 days when it did not rain at all this monsoon. “In summers, I don’t need to irrigate my farms for almost 30-35 days. Head of the department of civil engineering in MSU A S Patel says if every village of average 100 acre size could shift to organic, the water saved would take care of the village’s domestic needs for the next 20 years!
The entire article is here.
Next there will be claims that low flow toilets will save the world from global warming because they use half the water of regular toilets.
Imagine how much water they’d save if they irrigated their organic crops with flushed water from low flow organic toilets. The water savings would be so enormous that it might even cancel out global warming completely… possibly even triggering global cooling, like a negative tipping point… or something… I guess.
TerryS. Yes, you are correct. A 25% reduction in yield, means that 33% more land and fuel needs to used to get the same yield.
Good catch.
Truthseeker said:
September 10, 2012 at 3:38 am
…This won’t work because low flow toilets have to be flushed twice to be effective in their primary function.
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Primary? You may be thinking of their number two function.
There’s not a PC idea out there that the Indians don’t like.
Steve C says: “…The continuing health of the soil and its microbial content, and the presence of trace elements in soil and crop are also important to the nutritional qualities of the resulting harvest. Vandana Shiva includes … some comparisons…:
“On an average, organic food has been found to have 21 per cent more iron, 14 per cent more phosphorous, 78 per cent more chromium, 390 per cent more selenium…”
Eat up. “Collings (1955) noted that … arsenic, barium, chromium, flourine [sic], lead, molybdenum, selenium, and thallium have been shown to be toxic to plants or animals at relatively low concentrations.” (p. 163) [source 1=”http://deadlydeceit.com/Milwaukee-story.html” language=”:”][/source]
‘Organic’ is an anagram for “rig a con.”
Yes, organic food can help save the world from global warming because
1) Global warming is man-made
2) Organic farming is less resource intensive
3) Organic farming can’t raise enough food to feed everyone, therefore
4) People will die
5) No more people, no more global warming.
Personally, I prefer the tangy taste of malathion on my fruits and veggies. ☺
Beats biting into a wormy apple.
Reality check says: “It seems I need to clarify my statement. I was not being sarcastic … When I say “clogged”, I mean I need a couple of pushes with a plunger to clear the line. I do often dump a five gallon bucket of water after this to make sure the lines are clear (less than once a year)…”
Thanks for the clarification, RC. Your case is anecdotal and apparently based on a fairly good system. Not all sewer pipes (would you believe it?) are well-designed and well-installed. A friend voluntarily put in a low flush toilet, believing the green propaganda. And he did save about $100 or so on his water bills over a long period. Unfortunately, during that period, the sewer pipe clogged repeatedly, quite likely as a result of insufficient flush water for his particular piping configuration, at a cost of several hundred dollars.
jorgekafkazar: That makes sense. It’s a combination of factors and my system does well with the toilets. I have also been told that the type of toilet paper used can have an effect, as can whether or not the system has the proper slope. I suppose it’s like most things in life–there are a combination of factors. Thank you for the response.
great, now we have the magic disappearing water………….global warming makes water disappear
Actually, the water leaks out the ozone hole! (/sarc)
It seems climate change people are trying any angle they can in a desperate attempt to win followers. Expect more outrageous claims.
And organic farming will also result in 2 billion people starving to death, because rheir yeilds are so low. Is that the intent?
Did they examine what the effects will be of the resulting floods downstream due to using 95% less water? Or did the downstream areas not flood before modern farming was begun?
Jorgekafkazar
The extra selenium helps to put more lead in your pencil.
Steve C says:
September 10, 2012 at 5:57 am
Yield isn’t the only parameter of interest when comparing organic with chemical farming. The continuing health of the soil and its microbial content, and the presence of trace elements in soil and crop are also important to the nutritional qualities of the resulting harvest. Vandana Shiva includes (second para from the end) some comparisons here , for example:
“On an average, organic food has been found to have 21 per cent more iron, 14 per cent more phosphorous, 78 per cent more chromium, 390 per cent more selenium, 63 per cent more calcium, 70 per cent more boron, 138 per cent more magnesium, 27 per cent more vitamin C and 10-50 per cent more vitamin E and beta-carotene.”
I would take EVERYTHING uttered or written by Vandan Shiva with a HUGE grain of (in)organic salt. She is a known anti-GM radical who plays very fast and loose with the facts.
Reality check says:
September 10, 2012 at 9:20 am
“It seems I need to clarify my statement…. When I say “clogged”, I mean I need a couple of pushes with a plunger to clear the line. I do often dump a five gallon bucket of water after this to make sure the lines are clear (less than once a year).”
OK, but that was the point in my original post which was not to use low flow toilets at the farthest point from your tank, that way there be no need for an occasional extra flushing with a five gallon bucket of water to be sure the line is clear..
Of course we all have heard the slogan:
If it’s yellow, let it mellow.
If it’s brown, flush it down.
I know a fellow who works for a water treatment plant at a city in the Tulsa viewing area. I specifically asked him if his job was made easier or harder by the prevalence of low-flow toilets. He said it makes his job harder.
One more thing that came to mind while reading this discussion: Someone published two aerial photos of Las Vegas, taken 10 years apart. The earlier photo had a much smaller green footprint on the landscape than the later photo did. It surprised me, because we keep hearing how little water there is, and how we have to conserve it, etc. Be that as it may, I came away with the idea that having a growing population is not necessarily a recipe for devastation of the landscape.
On the other hand, if an area previously had a thriving population, and then that population was decimated, can allow that area to descend into unlivable wilderness, even desert.
India agriculture mostly relies on monsoons. The northwest India river Indus basin (Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan = 212 million people) has less ground water despite Himalayan feed-in than during the start of “green revolution” (satellite based ground water estimate http://www.geology.ohio-state.edu/~alsdorf/es121/References/Rodell_etal_Nature2009_IndiaGroundwater.pdf) . The southern India Penner basin (home to 10.9 million) has only monsoon rains to rely on.
If small farmers ever had enough spare money they would be able to switch from furrow irrigation to spray (+/- 30% more water saved) or drip (50+% more water saved). Writer is talking about villages of 100 acres & apparently not individual plots of 100 acres, so systematic up to date irrigation is improbable. Current apex of technology is irrigation sensors can even send Israeli grower’s cell phone a message of plants’ water needs.
For those villages with motorized or even manual irrigation pumps any reduction in crop water means less input cost (manual pumping uses up food as calories, and is especially tiring drawn from deep source). Indian writer’s farming target group may get a worthwhile practical financial trade off despite less crop yield than from other agriculture practices. More to the point is writer’s emphasis that more resources can then be directed to human water needs.
“Organic” in USA is a legally defined certification category so probably we should transpose the broader appellation of “natural method” agriculture for western readers. A lot of sensible work is done in India with so called agricultural “appropriate technology” & writer is due credit for showing his water strategy. Rural poor outside of the USA deal with different parameters – even a discarded 5 gallon bucket is still a great find to some I know. More to the point is writer’s emphasis that more resources can then be directed to human water needs – it’s a culturally compassionate factor.
Nope, they make it worse. The higher concentration of organic matter in the raw sewage flow will increase the total suspended solids (TSS) residence time in sewers & intercepters, allowing for more anaerobic digestion en route to the sewage plant. End result is more biomethane escaping out of the sewers, destroying the planet.
Not sure about Willis’ Burning Man porta-potties however, those could cut either way….if it is hot & dry, I suppose the poop (technical term) could be discharged onto the alkaline bed to dry & blow away as dust. No methane flux. Best done after everyone leaves, however. I’m sure it would take environmental permits.
Alternatively, the Burning Man poop could have been anaerobically digested & the biomethane used as fuel in the “art cars”. That would have reduced the carbon footprint of the event.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/09/the-playa-willis-excellent-adventure/
I received a notice in the mail from our local water distributer in Alameda county California, warning that excessive use of water has been observed and using over base line water limits will cost more.
All I did was put in a very small garden, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis (any one want some zucchinis?) yellow squash and other things.
It’s irrigated with a drip watering system, very efficient watering means.
On the note of low volume flush toilets I made one.
I used a brick, put it in the toilet, it worked great… really cut the water usage down…
However the toilet paper kept getting stuck on the brick!
/Sarc..
Cheers
Silver Ralph: “And organic farming will also result in 2 billion people starving to death, because rheir yeilds are so low. Is that the intent?”
I hate to say it but they really don’t care about these nameless and faceless victims of their religion; in fact, it’s the opposite: it will lower the population of those considered a burden on the Earth and at the same time they get to feel good about themselves and the possibility of living 2-4 years longer (if you even believe the organic mantra propaganda). It all works together.
Tom in Florida: My sewer lines run from each end of the home to a central point were my kitchen sink is, then down a pipe to the septic tank. I always thought this was odd, but perhaps it’s a really good design. Interesting…. 🙂
Some personal reflections.
Organic, while a belief system to many, is actually a marketing term. The original idea was to build a case for small farmers to sell locally grown produce/meat at higher prices. The basis for the higher price is that it costs more for small growers because they’re operating small scale. If one searches USDA and the local cooperatives archives you can still find the original powerpoints used to sell the small farmers on the idea.
Yeah, over time there are some certifications required to label food ‘organic’. Still, it’s a marketing term. http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/249063/aib777_1_.pdf.
Consider the term organic. When used with food, most people immediately jump to a conclusion hand farmed in thinking. If one checks the fine print of certifications, (from the above PDF link):
Mention organic to a chemist and they immediately think organic chemistry. So long as the ingredients are organic, that is occurring naturally in nature the food can contain them and be called organic.
In the the last decade, big business has discovered the world of higher priced organic food. That organic section at the local mart? Guess where that food came from, and I sincerely doubt that local produce supplied most of it. I also sincerely doubt that it is terribly fresh.
Fifteen years ago, half to three quarters of our local farmers market were booths put up by farmers as they sought better prices for the food stuffs they supply for pennies to the commercial buyers. Now, I hope to see a van or booth that I know is a local farmer. All of the others are manned by people who buy it by the crate from a vendor / commercial exchange. Usually they’ll tell you anything you want to hear. From the same PDF as linked above.
You want traditional organically raised food? Raise it yourself. Otherwise, accept that you are getting what the market has at the price you can bear. If someone claims that organic food tastes better, google “Penn and Teller”, “organic banana” and snicker quietly. If someone is serious about their claim, a little investigating will often show they’re comparing apples to lettuce or some other mismatch. All tomatos, apples, lettuce, etc, etc, types do not taste the same! even if you grew them side by side (e.g. heirloom pasta tomato versus any winter type daylength independent tomato variety) at the same time of year.
Ruminations from a former organic strawberry and tomato grower/vendor…
Power Grab says:
September 10, 2012 at 11:24 am
I know a fellow who works for a water treatment plant at a city in the Tulsa viewing area. I specifically asked him if his job was made easier or harder by the prevalence of low-flow toilets. He said it makes his job harder.
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I assume you mean a wastewater plant, not a water plant. Big difference between “new” and “used” water. 😎
I’ve worked in both. Water is vital to the treatment of wastewater. There are many different designs but basically they all “condense” miles of a water way into a small area. They do that by concentrating bacteria and what the bacteria feed on into that small area. Once the bacteria break down the complex orgainics into simple compounds, the water is discharged. The downstream water plant will then further treat the water to make it safe and economical for human use and consumption.
It takes energy for both types of plants to do their job. If the CAGW crowd keeps driving up the cost of energy and you can delete “economical” from the system.
San Francisco, in an effort to save water, enforced a low flow toilet by law.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/02/san-francisco-loads-bleach-stop-summer-sewer-stink
14 million dollars, for 27 million pounds of bleach. To pour into the sewers, because the “solids” are not making it to the treatment plants.
I really hate to say it, but they can polish that turd all they want. Its not going to get shiny.