Commodity Ecology

INTRODUCTION: Two Institutions Required in Every Watershed: Commodity Ecology and Civic Democratic Institutions

2009-12-27T23:42:00.004+09:00

Introduction: Two Institutions Required in Every Watershed: Commodity Ecology and Civic Democratic Institutions. Read that link for an explanation. And this one about maintaining biodiveristy and the bioregional state.

No where is required to entirely reinvent the wheel. Related intimately to the book Toward A Bioregional State (2005), this PARALLEL blog will be a clearinghouse of interesting technologies and materials showing that the wider window of known possibilities that can be utilized, instead of reinvented, for institutionalizing sustainability materially, in a particular watershed.

Unlike most blogs, it will be associated with a permanent number of 92 updated threads--one for each of the human commodity choices, as follows:

1. textiles
2. dyes/colorants (murex, cochineal, synthetic chemicals, derived organic coal based chemicals)
3. building materials/tool construction
4. metals
5. garbage/garbage disposal
6. soils/dirt
7. drugs/medicines
8. infant food
9. animal based food
10. vegetable based food
11. mycelium based food (mushrooms)
12. insect based food
13. transport
14. pollinators (introduced bees where none exist; or in some cases required hand pollination, in vanilla for instance; ultrasound/birdsong pollinators)
15. fertilizers
16. herbicides/pesticides
17. mineral food (typically only one: salt, sometimes earth/clays/dirt)
18. preservatives (salt, smoke, sun-dry/dehydrate, chemical, sugared, vacuum sealed, pickled, dry freeze, etc.)
19. communication/transmission technology (voice/sound, paper, mud brick cuneiform, silk rolls, papyrus, digital computers, pony express, telephone/telegraph, smoke signals from fires, semaphore, electrified metals/conductors, electromagnets, etc.)
20. condiments/flavorings
21. scents/incenses/fragrances
22. purifiers/cleansers/concentrators (soap, water, membrane sieves, clays, diatomaceous earth, ultrasound, gas diffusion/heat, etc.)
23. protectants (paint, plastic, electroplate, glass, bulletproof glass, etc.)
24. retardants (asbestos, inflammable materials, deoxygenators, glass, etc.)
25. insulators (wool, ice, straw, fiberglass, rags, vacuums, solid glass, plastic, stones/marble, etc.)
26. abrasives (diamond dust, carborundum, sandpaper, etc.)
27. lubricants
28. elastics (rubber, synthetic rubber)
29. coolants (ice, caves, chemicals, oils)
30. ambient heat (chemicals, caves, oil, hot springs, tallow, wood fires, antifreeze)
31. light/artificial light (sunlight, chemicals, oil (whale or abiotic), tallow, electricity/blubs, fire)
32. potable liquids (water, wine, sake, beer, cider, milk, tea, coffee, koumiss, etc.)
33. war materiels
34. energy (oil, solar, wood, nuclear, hydro/waterpower, charcoal, horse power, human labor, AC electricity, DC electricity, tides, zero-point technology, water based electrolysis engines, electromagnetic dynamos, etc.)
35. catalysts/mordants
36. energy storage (batteries, computer memory (a peculiar property of silicon only discovered in the 1950s), cynanobacteria (being linked as silicon substitutes in experiments) etc.)
37. aesthetics (brought into consumption simply because of perceived beauty, spirituality, and/or symbolism/ideology interests instead of a ‘material functionality’ prominent in many other consumptive positional categories)
38. musical instruments
39. toiletries
40. conductors
41. nonconductors
42. superconductors
43. semiconductors
44. environmental-proof/waterproof/airtight materials
45. adhesives
46. solvents
47. industrial tools/machine tools materials
48. tunneling/drilling materials
49. humans themselves as a ‘designed commodity’ (i.e., materials for those of eugenic bent, gene knowledge, etc.; or replaceable human parts whether transplants or cyborg machine substitutes like dialysis machines, artificial hearts, or artificial kidneys, etc.)
50. sense extensions (different from simply communications technology, actually going into human sensory areas that humans are ill equipped to do without aids of some sort)
51. calculation (human minds, abacus, computer, copper, silicon, superconductors, cynanobacteria, etc.)
52. software (from Jacquard’s loom to programmable Chinese textile machinery from the Later Han, etc.)
53. hardware
54. timekeeping (archaeoastronomy, moons, garden/plant clocks, calendars, mechanical clocks, water clocks, chronometers, Foucault pendulums, cesium atomic clock, etc.)
55. spacekeeping (string, plumb line, geodetic pyramid, compass azimuths, compasses)
56. climate manipulation (seeding, etc.)
57. money (state-financial decisions about money and exchange are equally a commodity and infrastructural issue influenced by the materiality of the commodity in question and politics of choice; local currency strategies, rice, metals/coins/bullion, paper, checks, digital transfers, stones, shells, salt, cider, cigarettes, etc.])
58. remediation (zeolite, recycling filtration, etc.; various types of water and soil cleansing technologies dependent upon physical characteristics of the materials utilized, learning options, etc.)
59. dentistry
60. stimulants
61. hallucinogens
62. intoxicants
63. narcotics
64. hypnotics
65. psychedelics/entheogens
66. anesthetics
67. chemically inert materials
68. poisons/antidotes/purgatives
69. surgical tools
70. experimental models
71. antiseptics
72. packing materials
73. fodder
74. shock-absorbents
75. real estate
76. services
77. funeral services
78. levitation
79. invisibility
80. transparent materials
81. anti-gravity / inertial variation
82. light-proof / electromagnetic-proof materials
83. insect repellents
84. sound-proof materials
85. contraceptives
86. breathable air
87. chemical fractionation
88. desiccants
89. moisturizers
90. life-extension
91. road materials [recent additions separated out see below comments]
92. cooking oils [recent additions separated out see below comments]

[larger image]

Some people already working on this are those like William McDonough--working in a few 'cradle to cradle' materials. Clipped from the parallel book blog post on this topic:

We've seen the dystopian plan of the "World Bank's world". Here's William McDonough's version of a "cradle to cradle" world and of urbanization without wastes--where urbanization is intimately fitted to a particular landscape. We might even say urbanization fitted to support the ethnosphere durability that Wade Davis speaks of in his talk above. In McDonough's world, wastes become useful items back into the city with the aim for durability of "all time." Just so you avoid thinking this is some "pie in the sky" plan, he shows you some schematics of the already agreed upon plans to build twelve cities in China in a "commodity ecology" sustainable fashion.'

(McDonough hired by Chinese Government to build cities based on Cradle to Cradle, starting 2012)

When built as a model to us all, China once more may justify the title of Middle Kingdom, core of the world. This talk is only twenty minutes as well, though represents a lifetime of work in which many other similar ecological design projects are mentioned.

TEDTalks: William McDonough
20 min 11 sec

"Architect and designer William McDonough asks what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account "All children, all species, for all time." A tireless proponent of absolute sustainability (with a deadpan sense of humor), he explains his philosophy of "cradle to cradle" design, which bridge the needs of ecology and economics. He also shares some of his most inspiring work, including the world's largest green roof (at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan), and the entire sustainable cities he's designing in China."

However, to be more systematic with a larger view, commodity ecology requires integrating each of the 90 above in particular watersheds.

This blog will aid in creating a scalable model for use anywhere in the world based on interactions myself or others post It will obviously be based on noticing different climactic, material, and interactive requirements in different watersheds worldwide (i.e., even ones that are desert, for instance).

A great deal of the history of the world can be said to be 'bad material choices'. This may be for a variety of 'purposes', though two main purposes can be detailed. First, there is only the short term interest involved in commodity choices, which tends to yield externalities that destroy the biodiversity of particular areas.

Second, more nefarious is the history of intentionally forcing people to consume certain items and reducing their choices in the category--to gain political and economic power over citizens and consumers.

So let's ponder the project of an ideal watershed commodity ecology that will maximize human commodity choice, remove political clientelism, remove environmental degradation, and preserve local biodiversity. Though the ideal watershed would be a varied solution, the project of making any of them sustainable and closed loop involves pondering the social dynamics of different commodity productions, wastes, and local material and biota availability.

Janine Benyus's short talk may inspire how to learn ideas from natural interactions for commodity ecology interactions: what life with its "3.8 billion years of field testing" might teach in terms of human design. This is known as "biomimicry."

This might mean a biologist sits that the design table, or the engineers go out into the natural world to learn ideas. Benyus's short talk opening with the story on the resistant engineers is instructive, how they learned to apply an IDEA from an organism instead of simply utilizing materials and organisms. Benyus says of life: "3.8 billion years of field testing....These are solutions solved in context, and these are...conscious emulation of life's process...taking the design principles and learning something from it."

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs
Length: 23:24

"With 3.8 billion years of research and development on its side, nature has already solved problems that human designers and engineers still struggle with. In this inspiring talk, Janine Benyus provides fascinating examples of biomimicry -- the way humans mimic nature in the products we build and the systems we implement. And because the champion adapters in the natural world are, by definition, those that can survive without destroying the environment that sustains them, biomimicry can contribute to the long-term health of our planet."

From her described "heat, beat, and treat" of most current human commodity production (with 96% wastes and only 4% product on average), to an integrated 100% of products without wastes, since "life doesn't really deal with 'things', things divorced from their system." HER lucid points in the talk describe TWELVE PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS OF HUMAN DESIGNS in turning massive waste streams into metabolically sound arrangements--that we are dealing with right now.

THREE POINTS ON COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION--IN COMMODITY ECOLOGY

1. Ideally, another strand here is that it deals with institutionalizing biodiversity in human uses, instead of leaving them out of the social human loop (like in utilizing native bees for pollination, for example). Once they have a social use, there is a systemic human desire to innately preserve them and their ecological interrelations. When the local biodiversity is integrated in commodity production, then humans take over--for their own self-interest and politics--the protection and representation of voiceless plants and animals that is in sync with them.

2. As a corollary, when they are integrated, areas of plants/animals/environments of local biodiversity that are left out of integration are less likely to suffer degradation if there is a closed loop of human commodity production that runs in a parallel track, to to speak, without 'leaks' of externalities that poison the area.

3. This blog may additionally be of use in rekindling such ecologically sound commodity relations in 'emergency recovery efforts' after natural or human disasters to aid in the organization of sustainability in destroyed and/or polluted communities and ecologies, to start out on a footing already thought of in terms of interactions.

Post away!

Note Bene: Ideally, this is a beta test for how to archive such information. Ideally, one would post one example only once, and then have a drop down list of all the numbers you could 'check' to make it appear in different sorted streams of the 90 commodity choices simultaneously--instead of having to post multiple instances of the same thing on each thread. This may require a design solution closer to a separate website with a database attachment (perhaps designed through Dreamweaver Ultradev).

Give me an email (or just post to this thread) if you know of something readymade, or if you want to be in on the website design issue.

One nice solution to direct posting over the internet is the self-categorization motif inbuilt into the left column of Portland Indymedia. There you can post once, though it allows the post to be instantly self-categorized in multiple ways, so it creates separate slowly amalgamating lists of many different self-categorized posts appearing in multiple places, though with only one post required.

- I've got another idea about users of the website capable of ranking such items for how well they like it,

- or how they could set up separate watershed filters on the idea it if is specifically to integrate a particular locality's biodiversity.

- or how particular watersheds could have open ended debates on what are their priority issues for solutions and/or integrations.

- and people could be notified by email when someone updates a particular thread they are watching, etc.

Comments:

Here's a summary of commodity ecology that I posted elsewhere:

Re: 'sustainable development', moving away from abstract terms to more grounded uncooptable terms: commodity ecology

Joan Mencher writes:

>> What words are people who are working for a truly alternative model of the
>> future where people consume much less, where cooperation and community are
>> more important, and where food production for example, is primarily local
>> (for nearby towns, villages, and maybe cities), etc. and not for a vast
>> globalized work market -- where most of what people eat is grown within 100
>> or so miles of where they lives --where most energy (including electricity)
>> is produced by solar or wind energy locally, etc.

>> I would like to know what
>
>>>> term to use instead of sustainable development for such systems.

I've suggested "commodity ecology" as a term. It's a more 'grounded' definition in particular geographically locused materials and institutions, instead of using abstract double terms 'sustainable' and 'development' which I think we can all agree can be shuffled to mean and have signification toward anything people want to stick it to unfortunately.

Unlike that, 'commodity ecology' is a very grounded and un-cooptable thing because it describes a sense of institutional forms, localization, and material interactions themselves as desired in sustainability. I additionally provide some institutional suggestions on how to get there at the links below.

"Commodity ecology is the local watershed democratization of commodity choice and their interactions."

Quoting this link:

Wednesday, May 03, 2006
COMMODITY ECOLOGY: From Living Machines "End of Pipe" Dead Ends, to Ecologically Engineering Commodity Interaction for Sustainability in a Watershed
http://biostate.blogspot.com/2006/05/commodity-ecology-from-living-machines.html

excerpts:

"Most people I know consider that sustainability means only a form of agroecology, socially speaking, a continuation of the whole 1960s ‘back to the land ethic’ revisited--and little else. I have nothing against that, and it's very important, though, however, food is only one of the 54 different materials** and material choices (or lack of choices!) we consume daily in social relations....

[**everywhere I say 54 below, insert 90 as updated in the comments ongoing:http://commodityecology.blogspot.com/ ; particularly see a suggested watershed commodity ecology planning diagram for facilitators and institutions mentioned there or here: Saturday, May 26, 2007, "Two Institutions Required in Every Watershed: Commodity Ecology and Civic Democratic Institutions,"
http://biostate.blogspot.com/2007/05/two-institutions-required-in-every.html ]

Food can hardly be the alpha or omega of a movement of sustainability because it is only a small 1/90th part of commodity relations--however important food is.

What is required is a larger vision and knowledge base for how to integrate all materials in sustainable relationships--instead of only food. This post moves toward that commodity ecology.

First, a commodity ecology of a watershed would integrate all 90 commodity choices. (Just what these 90 are will be addressed in section two.) A commodity ecology will be a human invention of how to interact the 54 different commodity choices we all use worldwide, to fit a variety of different geographic concerns concerning issues of remediation as well as sustainability of commodity choices that potentially can be as different and perfectly suited to each microclimate, soil type, people's political economic local desires, or general ecological specifics for each watershed worldwide. And if they get out of bounds with externalities, there is the political feedback from their neighboring watersheds in the bioregional state as well as from within their own as a political feedback because these watersheds are additionally electoral districts.

I personally see nothing the matter with economic scale expanding outside of a particular watershed (unlike more puritanical foodsheders, for example)--as long as externalities are successfully avoided within their home watershed. The issue of avoiding institutionalizing externalities in the first place is the greater point I think. If people wished to self-limit themselves to exclusively buying and selling within a particular watershed, well, who can or should critique that? That is the point. That is the "local jurisdictional dominance over developmental paths" that is important in the bioregional state:

Bioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State) is a set of electoral reforms (and commodity reforms) designed to force the political process in a democracy to better represent concerns about the economy, the body, and environmental concerns (e.g., water quality), toward developmental paths that are locally prioritized and tailored to different areas for their own specific interests of sustainability and durability. This denotes democratic control of a natural commons and local jurisdictional dominance in any economic developmental path decisions--while not removing more generalized civil rights protections of a larger national
state.

There should be variation within the theme of sustainability. Sustainability is the theme of variability, institutionalized--institutionalized and protected from being undermined from environmentally degradative frameworks of commodity production elsewhere.

Second, as mentioned, this commodity ecology would be done on the criteria to minimize externalities in the beginning by entirely removing the whole category. Instead of a flippant after the fact "end of pipe" concern, materials as a group would be chosen holistically inside the factory wisely through a producerist-consumerist democratic process described below (in section three). [or described at links above: http://biostate.blogspot.com/2007/05/two-institutions-required-in-every.html ]

Instead of attempting to deal with pollution politics AFTER pollution has already been institutionalized in the poor choices of material choices in factories via chemical/technological processes used--which puts producers typically at odds with the consumer politics of pollution remediation and safe health, ecology, and economy--instead the 90 different commodity producers get together in the first place led by their vision for sustainability for their watershed. In this sense then the consumer and the producers will be more of one family on the same side.

...

Third, another criteria of this human invented commodity ecology would be adjudicated on whether producers' commodity choices for their positions can be integrative or supportive--instead of degradative--of the other 53 different commodity choices in a particular watershed.

To do this, it is suggested to institutionalize a producer-consumerist deliberative interaction between all 54 different commodity producers by a regular democratic process of collective work in each watershed to create this commodity ecology as a living practice. Each "watershed of 54 heroes" and their consumer feedback of improvement or critique can be supportive of cobbling together how to institutionalize local developmental paths that are germane and particularly suitable to a watershed. This is done by an open political process to suit and protect each specific watershed's contribution to sustainability (which includes preservation of the local interaction of health, ecological security, and economic sustainability).

Each watershed can draw upon the experiences and "commodity ecology" plan of interaction of another watershed for ideas about the interactions in general, though each watershed would have a nugget of 54 interactions of commodities especially suited to its democratic producerist-consumerist process. This interaction of a democratic, watershed-specific developmentalism is where people, in the local area, can have jurisdictional dominance in the oversight of the demotion of their own pollutions and create their own 'local wing' solutions. This is implied in the short definition of the bioregional state. Each watershed has the dominant jurisdiction in its own health, ecological, and economic concerns, though within the larger civil rights rubric of the bioregional state. (See this other post for more details on this point.)

...

WATERSHED COMMODITY ECOLOGY

The challenge of sustainability is to integrate ourselves into ecology politically, with the mental focus that people used to devote to thinking up novel cogwheels or flywheel designs for clocks or heavy machinery. Instead, a means is required where we can integrate our politics and consumption into ecologically durable relationships, because it is the organization of our consumption choices that pays little heed to this which leads to environmental degradation and habitat destruction--instead of our consumption by definition in the abstract per se. However, a vocabulary for commodity ecology is lacking for the most part. I hope to provide a few ideas below for that by a comparison with some ideas that have been toyed with approaching commodity ecology without touching on it. I will show that each lack crucial material and/or socio-political insights that makes them far from sufficient for achieving sustainability as commodity ecology would. These insufficiencies relate to their lack of appreciation of socio-political institutional dynamics and/or knowledge of the major 54 commodity choice puzzle pieces. Many still view commodities as neutral abstracts. However, materials are always politically informed choices which have very different material and political ramifications.

As an introduction to commodity ecology and what I would call its applied science of ecological engineering, there are several different strategies aired in the past 20 years where I think all this is leading.

The mental prowess now required is for raising a generation of "ecological engineers." This desire--actually this requirement--for sustainability means that such "ecological engineering" of human and environment to take each other into account from the start by knowing of the biological issues and material science issues and social science issues of each item chosen. Ecological engineering would ponder the long term iterative health, ecological, and economic durability issues with each policy, commodity choice, technology, or formal institutional design change, and how each change whether biological, physical or social will give rise to a whole different kind of interaction in a particular watershed.

...

the rest here:
http://biostate.blogspot.com/2006/05/commodity-ecology-from-living-machines.html

---------------------

Since much political corruption flows from consumptive clientelism across ostensible political borders, it turns into the 'real' political borders through these tendrils of material dependence.

Therefore, all material and technological changes toward sustainability in the bioregional state should be judged on how well then can be decentralized as much as materially sustainable--optimized to a particular watershed or bioregional area's own sustainability.

In other words, this decentralized material sustainability is its own political sustainability. This means judging novel technologies and materials on more than simply soft sustainability (material sustainability), it means hard sustainability that integrates a degree of judgment on whether the technology or material can be implemented locally and in a decentralized fashion to avoid future cross-border political economic dependencies that become the source of corruption in the watershed, and soon a source of a political developmentalism that encourages more unsustainability through more political corruption, etc., in a feedback loop of corruption that is political and material.

The current more bioregional opposition to a huge liquefied natural gas terminal in Oregon (that is not even to be utilized by Oregonites!) is starting to show these type of oppositions to such political corrupt developmentalism as unsustainability in practice.

73. Fodder

2009-12-27T23:25:00.023+09:00

This is another social commodity category of use that is different than vegetable based food, as it strictly goes toward animal populations. It might though be loosely considered a subsection off 'garbage/garbage disposal, though of course it fails to have to be so its artificial to always include it in that manner there, though it would perhaps be better for us all if fodder was treated as biological organic matter waste disposal for animal feed--instead of the concrete dust and remaindered dead animals they fed on many occasions.

One use for agricultural wastes, instead of as fodder, can be their use for other materials:

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?
9:05 min

"Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment. Eben Bayer is co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic (really -- it's based on mycelium, a living, growing organism) adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation."

And in the below:

algae as a choice for fodder creation: energy and sequestration of carbon and fodder; energy and sequestration, if required for sequestration, is a win-win situation, though of course any form of thermodynamics based burning energy is hardly optimal...when there are other options that entirely remove the thermodynamic dependencies on energy (like air car, water car, the videos in the original post above as well, etc.]

Possible Fix For Global Warming? (sic, the anthropogenic aspects of this claim are uncovered to be a huge scientific fraud, just google up "Climategate", still: an interesting technological and material strategy addition)
Environmental Engineers Use Algae To Capture Carbon Dioxide

April 1, 2007 — Engineers have designed a simple, sustainable and natural carbon sequestration solution using algae. A team at Ohio University created a photo bioreactor that uses photosynthesis to grow algae, passing carbon dioxide over large membranes, placed vertically to save space. The carbon dioxide produced by the algae is harvested by dissolving into the surrounding water. The algae can be harvested and made into biodiesel fuel and feed for animals. A reactor with 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010.

Global warming's effects can be seen worldwide (editor: it's a sham, google up "Climategate"), and many experts believe it's only going to get worse. In fact, America is by far the largest contributor to global warming (editor: it's a sham, google up "Climategate") than any other country -- releasing a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide -- the primary cause of global warming (editor: it's a sham, google up "Climategate"-- besides water vapor is far more important than CO2). But now engineers have found a natural way to eliminate one of the worst contributors to our environment's decay.

What's coming from power plants, traffic jams and industrial smog is causing our ozone to disappear, ice caps to melt, and temperatures to rise. The latest international report says carbon dioxide responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gases. (editor: the anthropogenic causality through CO2 is a sham, google up "Climategate")

Now engineers say a simple, sustainable and natural solution may come from algae. "If this sort of technology can be developed, it can be deployed anywhere there's sunlight," David Bayless, a professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio University in Athens, tells DBIS.

Bayless, with a team at Ohio University, created a photo bioreactor that uses photosynthesis to grow algae just like a plant would take carbon dioxide up and, through the energy of the sun, convert that into oxygen.

"That passes the carbon dioxide over these membranes," Ben Stuart, an Ohio University environmental engineer, tells DBIS. "These membranes are fabric just like your shirt. It's a woven material, and as the carbon dioxide pass by them, that carbon dioxide dissolves into the water."

That carbon dioxide is broken down by the algae.

Nitrogen and clean oxygen are released back into the atmosphere.

But to capture the CO2 created from a power plant, algae would have to fill a building the size of Wal-Mart.

"The size of these things would be enormous, about an acre worth of land space. And so the flu gases would run through this huge building and the algae would be growing on the suspended vertical surfaces." Stuart says.

But what makes it cost effective? The algae can be harvested and made into biodiesel fuel and feed for animals.

Bayless says, "You are talking about definitely home-grown fuel, a win-win thing. You know, you are taking a potentially very negative thing in carbon emissions and turning it into a fuel that we can use domestically." He says a full-scale reactor with 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010.

There are already some test facilities working right now -- and just in time! In the past 50 years, the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have almost doubled. Texas ranks first in the nation for the highest emissions ... And just remember, once carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it stays there for about 100 years. (editor: the anthropogenic causality argument through CO2 is a sham and found to be a scientific fraud by November 2009, google up "Climategate")

The American Geophysical Union, American Society for Microbiology, and the Optical Society of America contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

---
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0407-possible_fix_for_global_warming.htm

[though 'Climategate' showed anthropogenic global warming by carbon dioxide was a global empire-driven sham discourse.]

72. Packing Materials

2009-12-27T23:25:00.022+09:00

Perhaps better to go back to wax and paper products for storage of minor things and transshipment instead of permanent polluted forms of plastic (around my biscotti for instance).

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?
9:05 min

"Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment. Eben Bayer is co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic (really -- it's based on mycelium, a living, growing organism) adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation."

Sawdust packing materials, strips of recycled paper, etc., at the destination can go into mulch/soil category, etc.

Well, even plastic bags are solved.

[Canadian] WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags

May 22, 2008
Karen Kawawada
RECORD STAFF

WATERLOO

Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true.

After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them.

Now a Waterloo teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster -- in three months, he figures.

Daniel Burd's project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.

Daniel, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life.

"Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me," he said. "One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags."

The answer: not much. So he decided to do something himself.

He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic -- not an easy task because they don't exist in high numbers in nature.

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.

That wasn't good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.

Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.

Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.

A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first.

Next, Burd tested his strains' effectiveness at different temperatures, concentrations and with the addition of sodium acetate as a ready source of carbon to help bacteria grow.

At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks.

The plastic he fished out then was visibly clearer and more brittle, and Burd guesses after six more weeks, it would be gone. He hasn't tried that yet.

To see if his process would work on a larger scale, he tried it with five or six whole bags in a bucket with the bacterial culture. That worked too.

Industrial application should be easy, said Burd. "All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags."

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide -- each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

"This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We're using nature to solve a man-made problem."

Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he's busy with things such as student council, sports and music.

"Dan is definitely a talented student all around and is poised to be a leading scientist in our community," said Menhennet, who led the school's science fair team but says he only helped Burd with paperwork.

Other local students also did well at the national science fair.

Devin Howard of St. John's Kilmarnock School won a gold medal in life science and several scholarships.

Mackenzie Carter of St. John's Kilmarnock won bronze medals in the automotive and engineering categories.

Engineers Without Borders awarded Jeff Graansma of Forest Heights Collegiate a free trip to their national conference in January.

Zach Elgood of Courtland Avenue Public School got honourable mention in earth and environmental science.

---
http://news.therecord.com/article/354044#=rss

2.

As he says, perhaps best to go back to a form of glass as well given this pollutant in most plastics--at least current non-biodegradable ones:

"I say let's bring back glass containers. These are highly recyclable, and when melted down are absolutely sterilized even against the most vicious diseases like prions that cause CJD, commonly known as mad cow disease. The only drawback with glass is the extra energy required to recycle it. But doesn't that extra energy have a much lower price tag when compared to the health care costs induced by the effects of bisphenol-A?"

Hazardous Bisphenol-A Embedded
Deeply In Modern Life
The Far-Reaching Effects Of BPA Are Unknown
By Ted Twietmeyer
1-17-10

A recent article about the FDA reversing itself on the safety of bisphenol-A [1] echoes concerns I wrote about this chemical compound in December 2007 ("Lexan, Bisphenol-A and the Big Berky water filter" [2] )

Anyone who uses products that contact food or drink made with flexible plastic should give some thought to the bisphenol-A issue.

This includes all types of soda, soft and drink bottles, but there is much more to it. It just might be that bispenol-A might be among the silent pathogens in our environment, responsible for the increase in cancer cases.

Smoking has greatly decreased, but cancer has not. Science would logically indicate that in our environment must be either new carcinogens, or the public is increasingly exposed to more existing carcinogens.

What I had not considered in my article written in 2007 about Lexan and other plastic products was the impact that a bisphenol-A ban will have on numerous other plastic products.

Hospitals and doctor offices generate a staggering amount of medical waste every day all around the world.

Disposable plastics are a required medical evil in this era of endless communicable diseases.

Everywhere around you are flexible plastic products which can contain bisphenol-A. Consider the plastic wrap and foam trays used to package meat and vegetable trays in stores. Cold-cuts are packaged in direct contact with plastics. Chemicals with preservatives and salt are used to prolong shelf life. What is known about bisphenol-A leaching out of plastics into food consumed by millions? Does this also create complex carcinogens?

What about take-out food, such as Chinese? More and more Chinese food is packaged into flexible plastic containers instead of paper. Won-Ton soup is very hot when it's served in plastic take-out containers. Is it possible heat from soups and hot foods accelerate the leaching of bisphenol-A into food?

Take-home fish-fries are usually packaged Styrofoam containers. What effects does the heat from hot fish just removed from 400 degree hot oil have on the plastic? How much bisphenol-A is leached out into the food? Ever open a container and pick up a plastic scent? What does the hot oil that drips from the fish do to the plastic? It is well-known that heat accelerates chemical reactions - and with it the breakdown of plastic compounds.

Hot coffee has been served for decades in Styrofoam cups. Coffee is highly acidic and could rapidly leach bisphenol-A from the containers into the coffee. If this coffee and bisphenol-A creates a carcinogen, countless millions of coffee drinkers from drivers to office workers to construction workers who consume this everyday may be unknowingly shortening their lives.

Here are a few commonly medical products used daily in doctor's offices and/or hospitals - all made with flexible plastic:

1. IV bags. Everything from simple saline, morphine, anti-biotics, blood donor collection bags and many more all use flexible plastic bags. Only a few extremely powerful drugs which have a PH level that will react with plastic, such as the anti-biotic Methicillin must be packaged in glass IV bottles. Everything else is in plastic. The real question is - has any company or university tested for bisphenol-A leaching out of the plastic into the medicine?

2. IV tubing - including the end of the IV line itself which inserts into a vein in the patient. This tiny plastic flexible tube smaller than a regular pencil lead left in a patient's vein after an insertion needle is used to deposit it there. It can remain in the body in contact with the blood stream in a vein up to three days (or more for some institutional standards) before it must be removed.

3. Syringes are used to inject just about every drug there is. Inside the syringe are synthetic polymer seals for the piston.

4. Plastic stents are used to keep veins or arteries open. These can remain in the body for the life of the patient.

5. Respiratory apparatus - hoses, nasal cannulas, masks, etc... are made of flexible vinyl or other polymers and are used for administering oxygen.

6. Numerous throw-away, one-time-use medical devices such as pre-loaded incision staplers used in operating rooms during surgery.

7. Catheters and other tubing inserted into the body during treatment temporarily or permanent .

8. Lens implants for the human eye for curing cataracts. These must be flexible in order to focus light on the retina. It's unknown if lens implants contain bisphenol-A, but fortunately these do have a great track record in restoring eyesight.

9. Food bags use special esophageal tubes to feed patients who cannot swallow or are in comas. Tubing is inserted through the nose and down the esophagus into the stomach. These remain in place for long periods of time for some patients who cannot eat.

It simply comes down to one thing - if something is made of plastic and it's flexible, it might contain bisphenol-A. Are we facing a medical equivalent of "Don't ask, don't tell" with this issue?

Certainly there are other flexible plastic medical devices used in doctor's offices and hospitals. For medical applications, biomedical engineers must specify plastic products for manufacturing medical devices which only use FDA approved materials. These approved materials must withstand the salinity and various chemicals found in the human body. It is not known at this time which medical devices contain bisphenol-A.

The impact caused by the FDA removing bisphenol-A from plastic products will be difficult to completely implement with patient care products, if not impossible.

Only scientific testing will be able to prove whether detrimental effects are taking place. Scientific studies of the effect of cell phones on humans and animals in America all seemed to conclude there is little or no effect from microwaves on mammals. Yet in Europe test results concluded that tumors were formed. A connection has been found between the results of microwave radiation and who funds the studies. If you have doubt, consider how your microwave oven cooks meat.

How many decades passed until the serious health effects of smoking were revealed?

Logically the implication of bisphenol-A effects makes us ask the following questions:

Will the public ever be told about the effects of bisphenol-A on human beings?

Who will fund the numerous studies and tests required to find out?

Whether or not this is ever revealed, the safest thing is simply to limit personal exposure to flexible plastics containing any food or drugs.

I say let's bring back glass containers. These are highly recyclable, and when melted down are absolutely sterilized even against the most vicious diseases like prions that cause CJD, commonly known as mad cow disease. The only drawback with glass is the extra energy required to recycle it. But doesn't that extra energy have a much lower price tag when compared to the health care costs induced by the effects of bisphenol-A?

Ted Twietmeyer

[1] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/

2010/01/15/AR2010011504070.html?hpid=topnews

[2] http://www.rense.com/general79/lex.htm

74. Shock-absorbents

2009-12-27T23:25:00.021+09:00

[more fine-grained changes: different than 'protectants']

What is d3o? (2:18 min.)

"An explanation of what d3o is given by Richard Palmer, founder of d3o lab."

shock-absorbent material d3o is taking the world by storm

Holy batcapes! The age of the superhero suit is upon us

ITS rock-hard surface can take a full- on assault from a baseball bat, yet remains flexible enough to allow you to kick, leap and roll with perfect ease.

Crafted from cutting-edge science, its unique molecular structure means that while providing armoured protection against crude concrete and even barbed wire, it remains light enough to allow you to run at high speed.

It sounds like the stuff of Batman comics - but the superhero suit is here.

Identified as a major breakthrough that could impact on every sector from the military to motor sports, the revolutionary shock-absorbent material d3o is taking the world by storm.

Blessed with the kind of properties your average costumed crime fighter would kill for, it is being hailed as an invention with the potential to change entire industries and save real lives.

"It has been a battle against the odds to get this far. I've had to struggle against ignorance of the major players, work out of a back bedroom and beg, borrow and steal to keep development going, but I never doubted that it could be done," said inventor Richard Palmer.

"What we've developed is already being incorporated into everything from police body armour to protective sportswear, and the number of applications is almost infinite.

"At the moment a complete superhero suit made of our material would be a bit too heavy and far too expensive, but those challenges should be overcome within the next few years."

Speaking at an awards ceremony in London last week, where he was named the O2 X Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 in recognition of his achievement, Palmer told the Sunday Herald of a torturous invention process which saw him laughed at and driven to the edge of ruin.

In a nutshell, d3o is an advanced polymer with an intelligent molecular structure that flows with you as you move but, when shocked, locks together to become rigid enough to absorb impact energy.

In its simplest form, it is like an automatic knee-pad that can be sown seamlessly into a pair of jeans.

Yet when former DuPont scientist Palmer approached the world's largest polymer companies with his invention, they said it was impossible. Despite his evidence, several key industry boffins refused to believe such a fabric could ever be successfully manufactured.

"I stood there telling them that I'd already done this, but they outright refused to entertain the possibility. Were they calling me a liar? A fool? I really don't know, but I was frustrated, furious and appalled by the lack of imagination that commercial science exhibited."

In 1999 Palmer sold his house and car, moved into a friend's spare bedroom and did it himself.

Providing funding out of his own pocket, he kick-started the process in a garage lab, calling in academic help from friends where needed and pushing d3o to the point where it was ready for production.

Today the material they said couldn't happen is fast becoming a common component of cutting-edge protective equipment, with the d3o brand beginning to feature in a range of winter and motor sports products worldwide.

It has been adopted enthusiastically by the likes of US Olympic ski team, the four-times Everest climber Kenton Cool and Olympic cyclist Craig McClean.

Industry observers predict the miracle cloth could be earning annual global revenues of $2 billion within five years.

"The hardest part now is keeping focused. Every day brings fresh enquiries about potential new applications for d3o from airlines, police forces, and car manufacturers," said Palmer.

Presenting his award on Thursday, O2 director Simon Devonshire said: "Richard is an inspiration to anyone with a dream and the drive to realise it."

While he intends to continue developing and enhancing his revolutionary new material, Palmer's Brighton-based development lab team has already produced a range of other products.

They include a rigid Frisbee that folds like a soft handkerchief when you catch it, and the world's first bullet-proof wallpaper, a lightweight protective covering that absorbs and contains the deadly shrapnel generated when a projectile pierces most buildings.

"I know it must sound like we're trying to build a Batlab here, but I make no apology for that," said Palmer. "This is what science is supposed to be; something that excites the imagination and inspires the mind."

8:20pm Saturday 7th July 2007

By Iain S Bruce, Technology Editor

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1528394.0.holy_%20batcapes_the_age_of_the_superhero_suit_is_upon_us.php

[more on d3O]

Military to use new gel that stops bullets

A new "bullet-busting" shock-absorbent gel is set to save the lives of British soldiers by substantially reinforcing their helmets.

By Thomas Harding Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:34PM GMT 27 Feb 2009

d3O gel: New gel to stop bullets
Richard Palmer invented the D3O shock absorbing material that locks instantly into a solidified form when it is hit at high impact

Photo: REUTERS

The Ministry of Defence has awarded £100,000 to a small company that has developed a special substance that hardens immediately on impact.

It is hoped that the shock-absorbing substance will soon be fitted onto the inside of soldiers' helmets reducing in half the kinetic energy of a bullet or piece of shrapnel and hopefully making them impenetrable.

The gel, called d3O locks instantly into a solidified form when it is hit at high impact.

"When moved slowly, the molecules will slip past each other, but in a high-energy impact they will snag and lock together, becoming solid," said Richard Palmer, who invented the gel. "In doing so they absorb energy."

The d3O gel has already expanded into a range of sporting goods and is found in ski gloves, shin guards, ballet shoe pointes and horse-riding equipment. The substance relies on "intelligent molecules" that "shock lock" together to absorb energy and create a solid pad. Once the pressure has gone they return to their normal flexible state.

The gel is stitched into clothing or equipment that is supple until it stiffens into a protective barrier on impact.

If the product is taken on by defence contractors it could be used to reduce the current bulky and restrictive armour used by troops in on the frontline with gel pads inserted into key protective areas.

Mr Palmer said it was the equivalent to comparing "cumbersome" RoboCop to Spiderman with the latter's protection "nimble covert and flexible".

---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/4862103/Military-to-use-new-gel-that-stops-bullets.html

76. Services

2009-12-27T23:25:00.015+09:00

(knowledgeable value-added manipulation/treatment of materials: for example, wine is hardly only grapes, it is the vintner's art that makes the wine; there is an art in the many steps of preparing coffee or tea for consumption--it's not raw coffee or tea; can you make your own paper or bookbindings? mine and refine your own metals?; there's a dangerously fine line between delicious alcohol and a mix that lees you blind or dead)

This is another social commodity category of use that is different than mere 'energy/labor', as it goes toward specific uses of selling an experience or expertise instead of selling a commodity, per se, or at least a particularly treated commodity experience.

I'm just attempting to be accurate and refine the utility categories of uses of human commodities--in how they are socially different.

I originally was thinking about merely sexual services (like prostitution (in its worst cases a form of female/male slavery) as well as inert sexual toys) in competition with each other in the same category here.

However, it occurred to me that a number of other services are equally specialized and experiential/expertise driven forms of commodities (and equally subject to computerization or mechanization to demote knowledgeable labor competition in the category) so it was hardly a general issue of sexual services that could be justified in a category by itself, since there are a number of services.

It's still somewhat unsatisfactory to me to lump all services into a singular category of 'services' because it goes against one principle of the categories themselves: do they compete with each other for the same position? On the one hand, there are so many kinds of services that they hardly compete with each other in the same category. On the other hand, I suppose they could compete in many ways though--in terms of prioritization expenses of the purchaser.

Therefore, the general category of 'services' are included. It would be a mistake to ignore a category of expertise, selling general knowledge expertise and handling 'refinement' in human history. Issues of knowledge and technique are general to any service instead of 'services' meaning only one service.

The theme here is the selling of knowledge, experience, and expertise in a hired performance or commodity creation.

75. Real Estate

2009-12-27T23:25:00.014+09:00

(the spatial world as it is: particular geographies or land reclamation strategies)

Land is quite a commodity choice as well: how it is reclaimed, maintained, and geopolitically organized makes certain areas strategically important.

78. Levitation

2009-12-27T23:24:00.006+09:00

Three methods I know of of cancelling out gravity for levitation:

1. the electromagnetic route (superconductors though a small emf effect) as well as

2. something that actually reduces inertial weight (mentioned in the Nick Cook book "The Race to Zero Point" about antigravity and the black projects of the U.S. military and what is known about it and some select patents from after 2000.

3. just straight 'canceling gravity' otherwise known as the anti-gravitational force--with super-fast spinning materials.

This could be known as the "Bruce DePalma effect" after its first rigorous discoverer who was aware of how it revamped all classical physics to be a 'universal' only about non-rotational bodies.

Rotational bodies have different 'classicial' principles that he went into deep analysis of such as

- variable inertia,

- variable gravitational acceleration either up or down (the spinning ball launch experiment)

Bruce DePalma is (or rather, was, he died suspiciously) the "second Newtwon."

His research implies that if you spin something fast enough, it would levitate off the ground somehow canceling gravity. this was a factor of course of its mass as well as weight and the spin.

There is physical proof of this effect. DePalma summarizes this "postmodern classicial physics effect".

"

We are all familiar with the great experiment of Galileo in 1590 when he showed that objects of different weights fell at the same rate when he dropped them from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This experiment has been formulated as a principle by later thinkers. The Einstein principle of equivalence is the contemporary expression of the idea that the acceleration of gravity is the same for all objects, and, for this a construction is possible which represents gravity as a property of a geometrical interpretation of space. This is the current "standard interpretation." Of course if a situation were found wherein the rate of gravitationally induced acceleration could be varied, constructions and theories based on the original Galilean experiment would be rendered void. As well, control of the rate of fall of objects is the entré into the construction of a practical mechanical antigravity machine which could be ultimately developed.......

The basic experiment is the discovery that a rotating object behaves differently under the influence of gravity than a non-rotating one. The basic experiments are:

1) Rotating objects falling in a gravitational field are accelerated at a rate greater than "G", the commonly accepted rate for non-rotating objects falling in a vacuum.

2) Pendula utilizing bob weights which are rotating, swing nonsinusoidally with periods increased over those of pendula with non-rotating bobs.

3) A precessing gyroscope has an anomalous inertial mass, greater than its gravitational mass.

4) An anomalous field phenomenon has been discovered, the OD field, which confers inertia on objects immersed within it. This field is generated by the constrained forced precession of a rotating gyroscope.

These simple experiments which can be verified by any experimenter with simple equipment, form the basis of a new interpretation of physical Reality. As well as being the most fundamental physical discoveries since the experiments of Galileo, to mathematics must be added a new fundamental proposition, such that the phenomena be described. This proposition may be stated: No numerical quantity, representative of a physical measurement, may be infinitely subdivided. For example, a contemporary mathematician would claim that the center of a rotating disc was not rotating. This is false to fact. At the other end of the spectrum this paradox is represented by the topological fixed point theorem of Euler and the aleph null and aleph one transfinite denumerable non-denumerable paradoxes of Georg Cantor.

The limitation of the Newtonian laws of motion to the special case of non-rotating objects, (and other limitations as to the rate of change of acceleration), places our present level of physical understanding on the threshold of the resolution of these paradoxes and the generalization of our conception of motion. The spinning ball experiment which shows a greater rate of fall than a non-spinning object is the stone of David which slays the Goliath of the ideational constipation which clouds the best minds of our race. It is not germane to the purpose of this paper to engage in further exposition of these ideas. Spontaneous interest must be sparked by the individual verification of these ideas by the motivated investigator. For the present it is sufficient to say that a much greater theoretical and experimental context now exists into which these primary results fit.

With the variability of inertia established, and the interaction of a rotating object with the gravitational field, several kinds of antigravity machines may be constructed. Without going into constructional details here, the machines take two forms. The first kind involves the generation of an OD field of sufficient strength to neutralize the gravitational attraction of the mass of the machine itself and associated masses. The second form of the machine - the linear force machine - is a direct conversion of rotational energy input to a unidirectional force output through the principle of variable inertia. Details of this machinery are available from this source.

...

http://depalma.pair.com/NewPhys&UFOs.html

FREE ENERGY
The Political, Social, and Economic Implications of The N Machine / Space Power Generator

by Bruce De Palma

It is said: "The whole Universe and created world is a thought in the mind of God."
- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
If that be the case, wouldn't He want it to be the finest show in town?

As a long time worker in the field of Free Energy physics, and the inventor of the N machine which extracts energy from the Free Energy field of Space, sooner or later I would have to face the political nature of progress. It is not simply enough to violate the established laws of physics with a new experiment. (1)

We are facing at the close of the 20th century a situation unique in the history of the world. In the past the inventor had to serve the requirements of a vital and expanding society. The telegraph, the telephone, long distance communication, the railroad and automobile covered the globe and finally satellite communications making a truly global and planetary society. With the coming of the global society the planetary Earth became a floating island in space with only resource wars on the horizon as a foreshadowing of things to come.

Limitation of resources as opposed to development of uncharted territory poses a new challenge to the inventor. In the case of Free Energy, it is not a case of being able to accomplish something which had not been done before but being able to accomplish the same things which had been done before without consumption of gas, coal or oil or the pollution of natural resources by exhaust fumes or combustion by-products.

Take the case of the electric car. An automobile which could exceed the presently accepted performance while not consuming or burning oil or gas - which could be switched on before a journey and off after reaching your destination. The power unit for such a machine would extract its energy directly from space without noise or pollution.

With the growth of society limited by the finite planetary surface area the Space Power Generator offers the only hope for avoidance of resource wars. In fact, planetary renewal can be affected with the availability of unlimited non-consumptive and non-polluting Space Power. It must be recognized that advancement in society always means less manual labor and that finally we must accept the condition of un-employment as the fulfillment of the nature of progress itself. A new source of energy in our society, a new prime mover, can make possible a new kind of independence. A kind of independence for the common man where he can take pride that he has fulfilled his role in free society and now he can make his own life in the certainty of a new source of prime energy which can make him independent of the feeling that he must take orders from someone else in order to feel he has a job.

That total un-employment is the ultimate goal of capitalistic society. When all the natural forces of Nature have been harnessed man is released from the state of slavery. At this point politics becomes a form of state or option from which he can launch his platform to the stars.

If energy and transportation costs were zero, society would center around quality of life, small communities would form in which all basic life support requirements would be met locally. Money would still be required to purchase manufactured high-tech items and money could be earned through sale of community grown or manufactured goods.

A political administration would be elected to provide global planetary coordination for projects outside the scale of simple community organization. This does not imply the necessity of a global one-world government; a loose federation of autonomous states and countries would be sufficient.

In our present 1993 society Mammon has been elevated to the position of a god, i.e. nothing can be accomplished without money. The challenge is to replace promises on paper with real quality of life.

When Isaac Newton formulated his "Principia Mathematica" in the late 1600's he violated his own admonition "Hypotheses non Fingo", "I make no hypotheses" in his third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This statement implies there is an "equal" and "opposite" reaction to every action. The statements "equal" and "opposite" are in themselves an hypothesis, since every experiment in physics would have to be tested, including experiments not yet to be done, in the future, to substantiate the truth of such a statement. Newton's first two laws, the law of inertia, and the law of mass, are laws of experimental observation which define inertia and mass and do not in themselves include a foreshadowing of the results of those experiments, to wit equal and opposite. Einstein, whose theories are based on the definitions of Newton's 1st and 2nd laws and the conservation laws which grow out of the hypothesis of the third law, are in themselves a conjecture resting on the hypothesis of equality of action and reaction.

Free Energy transduced through the reactionless self-running electric engine will replace all other forms of internal combustion machines. Society will reformulate itself around the new reactionless prime mover. Man and his activities will hitch themselves to the very wheelwork of the Universe, the forces which cause the planets to rotate and move in circular orbits around the Sun.

REFERENCES

(1) Magnetism as a Distortion of a Pre-Existent Primordial Energy Field and the Possibility of Extraction of Electrical Energy Directly from Space, Bruce de Palma; the proceedings of the 26th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC), August 4-9, 1992, Boston, Massachusetts; sponsored by The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

http://depalma.pair.com/Absurdity/Absurdity04/FreeEnergyImplications.html

77. Funeral Services

2009-12-27T23:24:00.005+09:00

(quite a variety of different treatments of the body, few with the larger commodity ecology in mind)

Funeral Services can be considered another category of specialized commodity handling practices unlike others so far. It is unable to be fitted into the previous categories well, so it deserves its own category.

Cremation, though sold as 'clean' practice, actually can release a huge amount of heavy metals from past dentistry into the air and other pollutants.

Some people are already being composted, by their wishes, leaving few bodies around.

Besides pumping the toxin formaldehyde and others into every dead body and then putting them in a heavy metal capsule underground is rather polluting as well--particularly during floods when many coffins of this type tend to surface. In floods, they can be a huge air bubble surfacing when the water loosens the soil over graveyards, and leading to a lot of rotten corpses with heavy chemical treatment being carried around in floodwater.

80. Transparent Materials

2009-12-27T23:23:00.038+09:00

[more superconducting wire, and transparent superconductors as well]

Room Temperature Superconductors, Inc.

Has developed what are believed to be the world’s first, commercial, ambient-temperature superconducting polymer materials, trademarked Ultraconductors

RTS has three issued U.S. Patents.

The very large
pending application is in the process of division. It will become ten additional patent applications.

To read more about this exciting technology

Click here

Room Temperature Superconductors Inc. (RTS),
a subsidiary of Magnetic Power Inc., has developed the world's first ambient temperature superconducting materials, trademarked Ultraconductors. The company has worldwide rights to this technology, with landmark process and materials patents U.S. #5,777,292 and #6,552,883.

RTS also has achieved significant polymer technology breakthroughs and experimental demonstrations for film applications, enhanced materials properties, and additional superconducting materials.

The company's primary technology objectives are:

* To develop commercial processes and core fabrication technologies

* To reach application-ready platforms for commercial film and wire products

* To achieve proof of concepts for additional product applications

WHAT is an Ultraconductor ?

Ultraconductors

- A Primer -

By Kevin P. Shambrook, Ph.D.

ULTRACONDUCTORtm n. "Electrical conductors, which have certain properties similar to present-day superconductors. They are best considered as a novel state of matter."

Ultraconductors are patented materials being developed for commercial applications by Room Temperature Superconductors, Inc. They are made by the sequential processing of amorphous polar dielectric elastomers.

They exhibit a set of anomalous magnetic and electric properties, including: very high electrical conductivity (> 1011 S/cm -1) and current densities (> 5 x 108 A/cm2) over a wide temperature range (1.8 to 700 K).

Additional properties established by experimental measurements include: the absence of measurable heat generation under high current; thermal versus electrical conductivity orders of magnitude in violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law; a jump-like transition to a resistive state at a critical current; a nearly zero Seebek coefficient over the temperature range 87 - 233 K; no measurable resistance when Ultraconductor(tm) films are placed between superconducting tin electrodes at cryogenic temperatures.

The Ultraconductor properties are measured in discrete macromolecular structures which form over time after the processing.

In present thin films (1 - 100 micron) these structures, called 'channels', are typically 1 - 2 microns in diameter, 10 - 1000 microns apart, and are strongly anisotropic in the Z axis.

RTS was founded in 1993 to develop the Ultraconductor(tm) technology, following 16 years of research by a scientific team at the Polymer Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, led by Dr. Leonid Grigorov, Ph.D., Dc.S. There have been numerous papers in peer-reviewed literature, 4 contracts from the U.S. government, a landmark patent (US patent # 5,777,292). and a devices patent (US patent # 6,552,883.)

Another patent is pending and a fourth now is being completed.

To date 7 chemically distinct polymers have been used to create Ultraconductors(tm), including olefin, acrylate, urethane and silicone based plastics. The total list of candidate polymers suited to the process is believed to number in the hundreds.

In films, these channels can be observed by several methods, including phase contrast optical microscope, Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), magnetic balance, and simple electric contact. The channel structures can be moved and manipulated in the polymer.

Ultraconductor(tm) films may be prepared on metal, glass, or semiconductor substrates.

The polymer is initially viscose (during processing). For practical application the channels may be "locked" in the polymer, by crosslinking, or glass transition.

The channel's characteristics are not affected by either mode.

A physics model of the conducting structures, which fits well with the experimental measurements, and also a published theory, have been developed. The next step in material development is to increase the percentage or "concentration" of conducting material.

This will lead to films with a larger number of conducting points (needed for interposers and other applications) and to wire.

Wire is essentially extending a channel to indefinite length, and the technique has been demonstrated in principle. Connecting to these conducting structures is done with a metal electrode, and when two channels are brought together they connect.

From an engineering point of view, we expect the polymer to replace copper wire and HTS in many applications.

It will be considerably lighter than copper, and have less electric resistance.

---
http://www.ultraconductors.com/primer.html

2.

The wonder stuff that could change the world: Graphene is so strong a sheet of it as thin as clingfilm could support an elephant

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 7:39 AM on 7th October 2011

Revolutionary: Graphene, which is formed of honeycomb pattern of carbon atoms, could be the most important new material [transparent, electric, and strong building material as well] material for a century [it's a completely unique mixture of consumptive categories in this material: a thin, transparent, super-strong (harder than diamond) structural building material that has electrical conduction properties better than copper (copper is hardly a structural material), though graphene's lack of semiconductor principles may make it difficult for some fantasy computer operations that currently are based on mostly silicon's physical capacities of 'on/off' switching in the material itself (there are other options for this switching though than polluting silicon industries: see the category on communication materials for more options); thus with graphene always 'on' in other words, and very efficiently so, it makes it difficult to do any anticipated Boolean/operations in the material itself in base 2--the insight of all computers from Shannon onward.]

Revolutionary: Graphene, which is formed of honeycomb pattern of carbon atoms, could be the most important new material for a century

It is tougher than diamond, but stretches like rubber. It is virtually invisible, conducts electricity and heat better than any copper wire and weighs next to nothing. Meet graphene — an astonishing new material which could revolutionise almost every part of our lives.

Some researchers claim it’s the most important substance to be created since the first synthetic plastic more than 100 years ago.

If it lives up to its promise, it could lead to mobile phones that you roll up and put behind your ear, high definition televisions as thin as wallpaper, and bendy electronic newspapers that readers could fold away into a tiny square.

It could transform medicine, and replace silicon as the raw material used to make computer chips [perhaps everything except this however, see note above.]

The ‘miracle material’ was discovered in Britain just seven years ago, and the buzz around it is extraordinary.

Last year, it won two Manchester University scientists the Nobel Prize for physics, and this week Chancellor George Osborne pledged £50 million towards developing technologies based on the super-strong substance.

In terms of its economics, one of the most exciting parts of the graphene story is its cost. Normally when scientists develop a new wonder material, the price is eye-wateringly high.

But graphene is made by chemically processing graphite — the cheap material in the ‘lead’ of pencils. Every few months researchers come up with new, cheaper ways of mass producing graphene, so that some experts believe it could eventually cost less than £4 per pound.

But is graphene really the wonder stuff of the 21st century?

For a material with so much promise, it has an incredibly simple chemical structure. A sheet of graphene is just a single layer of carbon atoms, locked together in a strongly-bonded honeycomb pattern.

Pledge: George Osborne, pictured visiting the University of Manchester lab where graphene is being researched, has said £50m will be set aside to help with development of technologies based on the substance

That makes it the thinnest material ever made. You would need to stack three million graphene sheets on top of each other to get a pile one milimetre high. It is also the strongest substance known to mankind — 200 times stronger than steel and several times tougher than diamond.

A sheet of graphene as thin as clingfilm could hold the weight of an elephant. In fact, according to one calculation, an elephant would need to balance precariously on the end of a pencil to break through that same sheet.

Despite its strength, it is extremely flexible and can be stretched by 20 per cent without any damage.

It is also a superb conductor of electricity — far better than copper, traditionally used for wiring — and is the best conductor of heat on the planet.

But perhaps the most remarkable feature of graphene is where it comes from. Graphene is made from graphite, a plentiful grey mineral mostly mined in Chile, India and Canada.

A pencil lead is made up of many millions of layers of graphene. These layers are held together only weakly — which is why they slide off each other when a pencil is moved across the page.

Graphene was first isolated by Professors Konstantin Novoselov and Andrew Geim at Manchester University in 2004. The pair used sticky tape to strip away thin flakes of graphite, then attached it to a silicon plate which allowed the researchers to identify the tiny layers through a microscope.

Discovery: Professors Andre Geim, left, and Dr Konstantin Novoselov first isolated graphene in 2004. They later won the Nobel Prize for Physics last year

Russian-born Prof Novoselov, 37, believes graphene could change everything from electronics to computers.

‘I don’t think it has been over-hyped,’ he said. ‘It has attracted a lot of attention because it is so simple — it is the thinnest possible matter — and yet it has so many unique properties.

‘There are hundreds of properties which are unique or superior to other materials. Because it is only one atom thick it is quite transparent — not many materials that can conduct electricity which are transparent.’

Its discovery has triggered a boom for material science. Last year, there were 3,000 research papers on its properties, and 400 patent applications.

The electronics industry is convinced graphene will lead to gadgets that make the iPhone and Kindle seem like toys from the age of steam trains.

Modern touch-sensitive screens use indium tin oxide — a substance that is transparent but which carries electrical currents. But indium tin oxide is expensive, and gadgets made from it shatter or crack easily when dropped. Replacing indium tin oxide with graphene-based compounds could allow for flexible, paper-thin computer and television screens. South Korean researchers have created a 25in flexible touch-screen using graphene.

Ancient history: If the development of graphene is successful it will make the iPad and Kindle seem like toys from the age of the steam train

Imagine reading your Daily Mail on a sheet of electric paper. Tapping a button on the corner could instantly update the contents or move to the next page. Once you’ve finished reading the paper, it could be folded up and used afresh tomorrow.

Other researchers are looking at many ways of using graphene in medicine. It is also being touted as an alternative to the carbon-fibre bodywork of boats and bikes [and car tires?] Graphene in tyres could make them stronger.

Some even claim it will replace the silicon in computer chips. In the future, a graphene credit card could store as much information as today’s computers.

‘We are talking of a number of unique properties combined in one material which probably hasn’t happened before,’ said Prof Novoselov. ‘You might want to compare it to plastic. But graphene is as versatile as all the plastics put together.

‘It’s a big claim, but it’s not bold. That’s exactly why there are so many researchers working on it.’

Dr Sue Mossman, curator of materials at the Science Museum in London, says graphene has parallels with Bakelite — the first man-made plastic, invented in 1907.

Resistant to heat and chemicals, and an excellent electrical insulator, Bakelite easily made electric plugs, radios, cameras and telephones.

‘Bakelite was the material of its time. Is this the material of our times?’ she says. ‘Historically we have been really good at invention in this country, but we’ve been really bad at capitalising on it.’

If graphene isn’t to go the same way as other great British inventions which were never properly exploited commercially at home — such as polythene and carbon fibre — it will need massive investment in research and development.

Core material: Graphene comes from a base material of graphite and is so thin that three millions sheets of the substance would be needed to make a layer 1mm thick

That’s why the Government’s move to support its development in the UK got a warm round of applause at the Conservative Party conference.

But compared to the investment in graphene in America and Asia, the £50 million promised by the Chancellor is negligible. South Korea is investing £195million into the technology. The European Commission is expected to invest one billion euros into graphene in the next ten years.

Yet despite the flurry of excitement, many researchers doubt graphene can live up to such high expectations.

It wouldn’t be the first wonder material that failed to deliver. In 1985 another form of carbon, called fullerenes or buckyballs, was hailed as the revolutionary new material of the era. Despite the hype, there has yet to be a major practical application.

And there are already some problems with using graphene. It is so good at conducting electricity that turning it into devices like transistors — which control the flow of electrical currents, so need to be able to stop electricity flowing through them — has so far proved problematic.

Earlier this year computer company IBM admitted that it was ‘difficult to imagine’ graphene replacing silicon in computer chips.

And sceptics point out that most new materials — such as carbon-fibre — take 20 years from invention before they can be used commercial use.

You might think from all the hype, that the road to a great graphene revolution has already been mapped out.

But its future is far from certain. In fact it’s barely been penciled out in rough.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2045825/Graphene-strong-sheet-clingfilm-support-elephant.html#ixzz1aMt2nBVJ

86. Breathable Air

2009-12-27T23:23:00.037+09:00

(oxygen tanks, proper percentages of breathable air, house plants--see below for which ones)

The Current Air Regime: Composition of dry atmosphere, by volume, ppmv (parts per million by volume)

Gas Volume

Nitrogen (N2)780,840 ppmv (78.084%)
Oxygen (O2) 209,460 ppmv (20.946%)
Argon (Ar) 9,340 ppmv (0.9340%)
Carbon dioxide(CO2)383 ppmv(0.0383%)
Neon (Ne) 18.18 ppmv (0.001818%)
Helium(He) 5.24 ppmv (0.000524%)
Methane(CH4) 1.745 ppmv (0.0001745%)
Krypton(Kr) 1.14 ppmv (0.000114%)
Hydrogen(H2) 0.55 ppmv (0.000055%)

Not included in above dry atmosphere:

Water vapor (H2O) ~0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1% to 4% near surface

Minor components of air not listed above include:

Gas Volume

nitrous oxide 0.3 ppmv (0.00003%)
xenon 0.09 ppmv (9x10-6%)
ozone 0.0 to 0.07 ppmv (0%-7x10-6%)
nitrogen dioxide 0.02 ppmv (2x10-6%)
iodine 0.01 ppmv (1x10-6%)
carbon monoxide trace
ammonia trace

Many of these smaller toxics may be at higher concentrations in areas because many are a product of the world's badly organized cities. So protect yourselves with the below ideas to get breathable air in your homes and offices while returning to an economy that grows the world's forests instead of destroys them.

How easy it is to neglect what is all around us and required with every breath.

The fish definitely forgets it lives in a world of water for it to appear this late in the list. Perhaps it's an appropriate near cap to the list to ponder how we wrap ourselves and the commodity ecology in the gaseous chemical effect from ecological relations, unconsciously everyday.

We breathe a network of the whole commodity ecology, the air.

we drink in a network of the whole commodity ecology with water.

We raise our food in a network of the whole commodity ecology in the way the soil is treated in human agriculture and industry, etc. (huge demineralization over the past century in industrialized agriculture is slowly raising systemic disease levels; though there are solutions that are known and posted under the 'soil/dirt' category, read there).

KEEP IN MIND that all 'services' of oxygen production are dependent upon the 'accidental' history of the ecology in which we have come to be dependent.

Oxygen is 'not natural.'

Oxygen is a biological product of the history of the larger ecology as a whole.

Clean oxygen upon which we depend for our every breath really is a 'biological pollutant'. Developed as 'industrial waste' by early chlorophyll-based life on the planet (for green plants were industrious in expanding all over the face of the planet), this oxygen 'waste' is instrumental currently of our healthy ecology because of all the other creatures that depend on this 'biological waste', oxygen. Ecology itself historically developed like ecological modernization--taking wastes into itself and associating 'cradle to cradle' forms of production instead of letting oxygen wastes be unintegrated in life.

Oxygen-based life production then became another whole level of life as it became a durable infrastructure making up 20% of the atmosphere. (It was a pollutant because it killed off a lot of early bacteria that hated oxygen, which receded into the depths of the earth or deep underwater, or as most people know it, through forms of food poisoning from anaerobic bacteria that only grow in the lack of oxygen.)

Oxygen waste became so stable, that reptiles and mammals started to take advantage of the free oxygen service. These forms of life flowed from the seas (with its dissolved oxygen in the water), then this mobile life went into the land later.

Oxygen wastes from plants still flows into all of us, and oxygen is the chemical which we are the most dependent upon as mammals I would argue.

Moreover, mess up the durable percentages (i.e., more CO2 (carbon dioxide), CO (carbon monoxide), or more ozone (O3), or less oxygen) and we die or our health is impaired. Ask the canary in the coalmine. Ask the emphysema patient.

1. To help your home or office air:

a.

Kamal Meattle on how to grow fresh air
4:07 min

b.

15 House Plants You Can Use As Air Purifiers
Feb 18 2010

Here are 15 plants that could clean your air for just the price of a few drops of water each day. First lets check some of the evidence behind the claim that plants can purify your household air:

b1. NASA Research

A NASA research document came to the conclusion that “house plants can purify and rejuvenate air within our houses and workplaces, safeguarding us all from any side effects connected with prevalent toxins such as formaldehyde, ammonia and also benzene.”

Here are the results of the NASA research study:

Common name.....Scientific name.................................Score
1 Areca palm......Chrysalidocarpus lutescens......................8.5
2 Lady palm.......Rhapis excelsa......................................8.5
3 Bamboo palm.....Chamaedorea seifrizii...........................8.4
4 Rubber plant....Ficus robusta.......................................8.0
5 Dracaena “Janet Craig”....Dracaena deremensis “Janet Craig”.....7.8
6 English ivy.....Hedera helix....................................7.8
7 Dwarf date palm.Phoenix roebelinii..............................7.8
8 Ficus Alii......Ficus macleilandii “Alii”...........................7.7
9 Boston fern.....Nephrolepis exalta “Bostoniensis”...............7.5
10 Peace lily......Spathiphyllum sp. ..................................7.5

[rest here and here]

Other research at the weblink above.

2. The Forests

For a larger remediation than your personal home, bring back the lungs of the planet, the forests:

Willie Smits restores a rainforest
20:39 min

Everything is possible.

81. Anti-gravity / Inertial Variation

2009-12-27T23:23:00.036+09:00

A relatively novel category for humans. Some of what above is straight levitation though I think that anti-gravity/inertial variation is a whole different level of effects and phenomena generation through special materials/technologies, so it can have its own category.

Some of what was posted in the levitation category of material effects was actually in this category of anti-gravity.

Another for anti-gravity:

Gary Stephenson Interview: Superconductors & Gravity-Modification
27 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=524624849414827647#

"HFGW Research & STAIF Session-Chair Gary Stephenson comments on the recent ESA announcement by Dr. Martin Tajmar that superconductors produce a repeatable gravity-modification effect."

2.

There are three methods I know of of canceling out gravity for levitation:

1. the electromagnetic route (superconductors though a small emf effect) as well as

2. something that actually reduces inertial weight (mentioned in the Nick Cook book "The Race to Zero Point" about antigravity and the black projects of the U.S. military and what is known about it and some select patents from after 2000.

3. just straight 'canceling gravity' otherwise known as the anti-gravitational force--with super-fast spinning materials.

This could be known as the "Bruce DePalma effect" after its first rigorous discoverer who was aware of how it revamped all classical physics to be a 'universal' only about non-rotational bodies.

Rotational bodies have different 'classicial' principles that he went into deep analysis of such as

- variable inertia,

- variable gravitational acceleration either up or down (the spinning ball launch experiment)

Bruce DePalma is (or rather, was, he died suspiciously) the "second Newtwon."

His research implies that if you spin something fast enough, it would levitate off the ground somehow canceling gravity. this was a factor of course of its mass as well as weight and the spin.

There is physical proof of this effect. DePalma summarizes this "postmodern classicial physics effect".

"

We are all familiar with the great experiment of Galileo in 1590 when he showed that objects of different weights fell at the same rate when he dropped them from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This experiment has been formulated as a principle by later thinkers. The Einstein principle of equivalence is the contemporary expression of the idea that the acceleration of gravity is the same for all objects, and, for this a construction is possible which represents gravity as a property of a geometrical interpretation of space. This is the current "standard interpretation." Of course if a situation were found wherein the rate of gravitationally induced acceleration could be varied, constructions and theories based on the original Galilean experiment would be rendered void. As well, control of the rate of fall of objects is the entré into the construction of a practical mechanical antigravity machine which could be ultimately developed.......

The basic experiment is the discovery that a rotating object behaves differently under the influence of gravity than a non-rotating one. The basic experiments are:

1) Rotating objects falling in a gravitational field are accelerated at a rate greater than "G", the commonly accepted rate for non-rotating objects falling in a vacuum.

2) Pendula utilizing bob weights which are rotating, swing nonsinusoidally with periods increased over those of pendula with non-rotating bobs.

3) A precessing gyroscope has an anomalous inertial mass, greater than its gravitational mass.

4) An anomalous field phenomenon has been discovered, the OD field, which confers inertia on objects immersed within it. This field is generated by the constrained forced precession of a rotating gyroscope.

These simple experiments which can be verified by any experimenter with simple equipment, form the basis of a new interpretation of physical Reality. As well as being the most fundamental physical discoveries since the experiments of Galileo, to mathematics must be added a new fundamental proposition, such that the phenomena be described. This proposition may be stated: No numerical quantity, representative of a physical measurement, may be infinitely subdivided. For example, a contemporary mathematician would claim that the center of a rotating disc was not rotating. This is false to fact. At the other end of the spectrum this paradox is represented by the topological fixed point theorem of Euler and the aleph null and aleph one transfinite denumerable non-denumerable paradoxes of Georg Cantor.

The limitation of the Newtonian laws of motion to the special case of non-rotating objects, (and other limitations as to the rate of change of acceleration), places our present level of physical understanding on the threshold of the resolution of these paradoxes and the generalization of our conception of motion. The spinning ball experiment which shows a greater rate of fall than a non-spinning object is the stone of David which slays the Goliath of the ideational constipation which clouds the best minds of our race. It is not germane to the purpose of this paper to engage in further exposition of these ideas. Spontaneous interest must be sparked by the individual verification of these ideas by the motivated investigator. For the present it is sufficient to say that a much greater theoretical and experimental context now exists into which these primary results fit.

With the variability of inertia established, and the interaction of a rotating object with the gravitational field, several kinds of antigravity machines may be constructed. Without going into constructional details here, the machines take two forms. The first kind involves the generation of an OD field of sufficient strength to neutralize the gravitational attraction of the mass of the machine itself and associated masses. The second form of the machine - the linear force machine - is a direct conversion of rotational energy input to a unidirectional force output through the principle of variable inertia. Details of this machinery are available from this source.

...

http://depalma.pair.com/NewPhys&UFOs.html

FREE ENERGY
The Political, Social, and Economic Implications of The N Machine / Space Power Generator

by Bruce De Palma

It is said: "The whole Universe and created world is a thought in the mind of God."
- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
If that be the case, wouldn't He want it to be the finest show in town?

As a long time worker in the field of Free Energy physics, and the inventor of the N machine which extracts energy from the Free Energy field of Space, sooner or later I would have to face the political nature of progress. It is not simply enough to violate the established laws of physics with a new experiment. (1)

We are facing at the close of the 20th century a situation unique in the history of the world. In the past the inventor had to serve the requirements of a vital and expanding society. The telegraph, the telephone, long distance communication, the railroad and automobile covered the globe and finally satellite communications making a truly global and planetary society. With the coming of the global society the planetary Earth became a floating island in space with only resource wars on the horizon as a foreshadowing of things to come.

Limitation of resources as opposed to development of uncharted territory poses a new challenge to the inventor. In the case of Free Energy, it is not a case of being able to accomplish something which had not been done before but being able to accomplish the same things which had been done before without consumption of gas, coal or oil or the pollution of natural resources by exhaust fumes or combustion by-products.

Take the case of the electric car. An automobile which could exceed the presently accepted performance while not consuming or burning oil or gas - which could be switched on before a journey and off after reaching your destination. The power unit for such a machine would extract its energy directly from space without noise or pollution.

With the growth of society limited by the finite planetary surface area the Space Power Generator offers the only hope for avoidance of resource wars. In fact, planetary renewal can be affected with the availability of unlimited non-consumptive and non-polluting Space Power. It must be recognized that advancement in society always means less manual labor and that finally we must accept the condition of un-employment as the fulfillment of the nature of progress itself. A new source of energy in our society, a new prime mover, can make possible a new kind of independence. A kind of independence for the common man where he can take pride that he has fulfilled his role in free society and now he can make his own life in the certainty of a new source of prime energy which can make him independent of the feeling that he must take orders from someone else in order to feel he has a job.

That total un-employment is the ultimate goal of capitalistic society. When all the natural forces of Nature have been harnessed man is released from the state of slavery. At this point politics becomes a form of state or option from which he can launch his platform to the stars.

If energy and transportation costs were zero, society would center around quality of life, small communities would form in which all basic life support requirements would be met locally. Money would still be required to purchase manufactured high-tech items and money could be earned through sale of community grown or manufactured goods.

A political administration would be elected to provide global planetary coordination for projects outside the scale of simple community organization. This does not imply the necessity of a global one-world government; a loose federation of autonomous states and countries would be sufficient.

In our present 1993 society Mammon has been elevated to the position of a god, i.e. nothing can be accomplished without money. The challenge is to replace promises on paper with real quality of life.

When Isaac Newton formulated his "Principia Mathematica" in the late 1600's he violated his own admonition "Hypotheses non Fingo", "I make no hypotheses" in his third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This statement implies there is an "equal" and "opposite" reaction to every action. The statements "equal" and "opposite" are in themselves an hypothesis, since every experiment in physics would have to be tested, including experiments not yet to be done, in the future, to substantiate the truth of such a statement. Newton's first two laws, the law of inertia, and the law of mass, are laws of experimental observation which define inertia and mass and do not in themselves include a foreshadowing of the results of those experiments, to wit equal and opposite. Einstein, whose theories are based on the definitions of Newton's 1st and 2nd laws and the conservation laws which grow out of the hypothesis of the third law, are in themselves a conjecture resting on the hypothesis of equality of action and reaction.

Free Energy transduced through the reactionless self-running electric engine will replace all other forms of internal combustion machines. Society will reformulate itself around the new reactionless prime mover. Man and his activities will hitch themselves to the very wheelwork of the Universe, the forces which cause the planets to rotate and move in circular orbits around the Sun.

REFERENCES

(1) Magnetism as a Distortion of a Pre-Existent Primordial Energy Field and the Possibility of Extraction of Electrical Energy Directly from Space, Bruce de Palma; the proceedings of the 26th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC), August 4-9, 1992, Boston, Massachusetts; sponsored by The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

http://depalma.pair.com/Absurdity/Absurdity04/FreeEnergyImplications.html

85. Contraceptives

2009-12-27T23:23:00.033+09:00

This might be within the area of 'medicine' though I think it is different enough in use to be a separate category of social material use.

There are different herbs historically known for contraceptives, as well as female and male pills for contraceptives (the latter, based on cotton extracts).

83. Insect Repellents

2009-12-27T23:23:00.032+09:00

[repost]

WNV And Insect Repellants
From Dr. Gayle Eversole
6-29-2008

Regarding the CNN about the CDC official who got West Nile...

"There is no effective treatment for the virus. In more serious cases, the CDC recommends that patients be hospitalized so they can receive supportive care with intravenous fluids.

Researchers are working to develop a vaccine, but Petersen notes that it will be years before it is available to humans.

The best way to stop the spread of West Nile virus is through prevention, he said.

"Wear mosquito repellent, especially around dawn and dusk, which are peak mosquito biting times," Petersen suggests.

He says bug sprays that contain concentrations of the chemical DEET up to 50 percent work the best. Be sure to read the label or check with a doctor regarding the acceptable concentrations for children.

Spraying repellent that contains permethrin on clothing is another option. Experts caution not to put the chemical directly on exposed skin."

I would like to make the following comments -

It is possible for a product called Millenium CF may be effective in helping to defend against this viral disease in addition to supportive care and the need for IV fluids to protect from dehydration secondary to vomiting. I wouldn't encourage getting a vaccine for this or any disease.

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/mosquito/documents/permethrin.htm

Permethrin is made from marigolds but it can be very toxic and has been labelled a carcinogen, especially in the synthetic form.

It is highly toxic to bees and fish.

As far as DEET goes you might want to consider the information in this article I wrote for publication later this week in a print publication that runs my herb column every month.

Bug Me Not With Home Grown Plants
by Gayle Eversole

Natural Notes On Health

Bugs have been in an overabundant supply around these parts in case you haven't noticed.

To keep them from biting you, most mainstream sources provide information suggesting the use of DEET based insect repellants.

This information is spread widely through various media outlets but does not include the dangers of DEET.

DEET is a neurotoxin and is unsafe for children. It may not be safe for adults, pets or the environment. Avoid using repellents containing DEET.
DEET, or diethyl-metatoluamide, can cause an array of health problems ranging from dizziness to death.

After application to the skin DEET is absorbed into the bloodstream, and remains up to several months or more depending on one's ability to detoxify. Side effects may include rashes, skin eruptions, nausea, dermatitis, scarring, muscle cramps, irritability, lethargy, seizures, cerebral swelling, cardio-respiratory arrest, and fatal encephalopathy.

The American Academy of Pediatrics state that DEET is not considered safe for any child under the age of 5.

Poison Control Centers reported more than 6700 reactions to insect repellents in 1995, with 4300 related to children 6 and under.

A 26 year old man died after using DEET twice according to ABC news.

An 8 year old boy suffered seizures after being sprayed twice with DEET. DEET is toxic to children when it is used in the home by others.

Never combine insecticides with each other or use them with other medications. Even so simple a drug as an antihistamine could interact with DEET to cause toxic side effects.

Don't spray your yard for bugs and then take medications.

Until we have more data on potential interactions in humans, safe is better than sorry."

Some things you can do include eliminating standing water, and using select plants, birds, bugs, fish, and amphibians - gifts of nature - that help control mosquitoes and other pests.

Safe Mosquito Repellent

Yarrow tincture - when outdoors spray skin every hour. You can also make a healing ointment with yarrow flower tops and oil or fat. Yarrow oil is antibacterial, relieves pain, and helpful in healing all types of wounds.

A US Army study showed yarrow tincture to be more effective than DEET for repelling ticks, mosquitoes and sand flies.

Peppermint is known to repel ants, mosquitoes, ticks, spiders, mice, et al.

Planting mint near your doorway acts as a repellent. Placing clay pots planted with mint close to your doorways works too.

Eating bananas draws mosquitoes by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide given off when you breathe.

Mosquitoes are attracted by this gas.

To make a safe insect repellent you will need:

Pure Peppermint Essential Oil
Distilled Water or carrier oil of your choice. Avoid selecting oil sold in plastic bottles.

Glass or PET plastic spritzer bottle

To make a 2% solution place 2 ounces of distilled water in the spritzer bottle. Add 25 drops of pure peppermint essential oil to the bottle.

To make a 5% solution, add 50 drops of pure peppermint essential oil to 2 ounces of water.

Shake well and spray into the air, near doors, along the baseboards, or on your skin.

The 2% solution may be used for pets. Spray it on your hand and rub it gently on your pet, or take a piece of cotton fabric and tie it on your pet's collar, then apply the repellent to the cotton.

We also suggest Green Ban herbal powder for people and pets.

The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, and an Iowa State University research group discovered that catnip also repels cockroaches.

Nepetalactone, catnip's active ingredient, is about 10 times more effective than DEET.

Most commercial insect repellents contain about 5 percent to 25 percent DEET. Presumably, much less catnip oil would be needed in a formulation to have the same level of repellency as a DEET-based repellent.

Using DEET in repellents is extremely troubling.

Catnip is a member of the mint family and can be used in the recipe above. Other pure essential oils that are helpful in repelling insects are Neem, Basil, Lemon Grass, Citronella, Lemon Eucalyptus (high in the same compounds as citronella) and Palmarosa.

And at Chreating Health Institute we offer exceptionally pure therapeutic grade essential oils for making repellents and other uses.

Gayle Eversole, DHom, PhD, MH, NP, ND

Founder and Director, Creating Health Institute and The Oake Centre for natural health education

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com

84. Sound-proof Materials

2009-12-27T23:23:00.031+09:00

Experts unveil 'cloak of silence'

A working device could be used to enhance the acoustics of concert halls

Being woken in the dead of night by noisy neighbours blasting out music could soon be a thing of the past.

Scientists have shown off the blueprint for an "acoustic cloak", which could make objects impervious to sound waves.

The technology, outlined in the New Journal of Physics, could be used to build sound-proof homes, advanced concert halls or stealth warships.

Scientists have previously demonstrated devices that cloak objects from microwaves, making them "invisible".

"The mathematics behind cloaking has been known for several years," said Professor John Pendry of Imperial College London, UK, an expert in cloaking.

"What hasn't been available for sound is the sort of materials you need to build a cloak out of."

Sound shield

The Spanish team who conducted the new work believe the key to a practical device are so-called "sonic crystals".

These artificial composites - also known as "meta-materials" - can be engineered to produce specific acoustical effects.

Acoustic cloak simulation
Sound waves are channelled around an object by sonic crystals

"Unlike ordinary materials, their acoustic properties are determined by their internal structure," explained Professor Pendry.

These would be used to channel any sound around an object, like water flowing around a rock in a stream.

"The idea of acoustic cloaking is to deviate the sounds waves around the object that has to be cloaked," said Jose Sanchez-Dehesa of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, one of the researchers behind the new work.

He believes a material that consists of arrays of tiny cylinders would achieve this effect.

Simulations showed that 200 layers of this metamaterial could effectively shield an object from noise.

Thinner stacks would shield an object from certain frequencies.

"The thickness depends on the wavelength you want to screen," he told BBC News.

Sub systems

Dr Sanchez-Dehesa now wants to make and test such a material in the lab to confirm the simulations.

But researchers, such as Professor Pendry, believe the initial work is already an important first step.

Acoustic cloaks could be used to make soundproof rooms or buildings

"It's not an unrealistic blueprint - it doesn't demand that we do extraordinary things," he said. "This is something that can easily be manufactured."

If a material could be commercialised, both researchers believe it could have many applications.

Walls of the material could be built to soundproof houses or it could be used in concert halls to enhance acoustics or direct noise away from certain areas.

The military may also be interested, the researchers believe, to conceal submarines from detection by sonar or to create a new class of stealth ships.

However, the material may need to be optimised first.

"You don't want to wrap a submarine in something that is heavy and several inches thick," said Professor Pendry. "It would add quite a lot to the Navy's fuel bill, I think."

Light touch

The research builds on work by scientists from Duke University in North Carolina, US, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Invisibility cloak Image: Duke University
Duke University researchers created an invisibility cloak in 2006

Earlier this year, independent teams from the two institutions demonstrated the mathematics necessary to create an acoustic cloak.

Other scientists have shown that objects can be cloaked from electromagnetic radiation, such as microwaves.

For example, in 2006, scientists at Duke University showed how a small copper cylinder could be rendered invisible from microwaves.

The technique used a metamaterial consisting of 10 fibreglass rings covered with copper elements, to deflect the microwaves around the object and restore them on the other side.

To an observer it looked like the microwaves had passed straight through the cylinder.

Other researchers hope to build the holy grail of cloaking: an invisibility device that would channel light at wavelengths normally visible to the eye. [Perhaps already long ago done in the U.S. military black projects, particularly in the Stealth aircraft under certain electrified wing operating conditions...]

However, this technology is in a more primitive state, according to Dr Sanchez-Dehesa.

"We believe the acoustic cloak is more feasible than a similar device for light," he said. [Particularly because the similar device for light would certainly be classified immediately if it is yet to already exist as classified right now.]

---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7450321.stm

82. Light-proof / Electromagnetic-proof Materials

2009-12-27T23:23:00.030+09:00

New Metamaterial Proves To Be A 'Perfect' Absorber Of Light

Researchers have engineered a metamaterial that uses tiny geometric surface features to successfully capture the electric and magnetic properties of a microwave to the point of total absorption. (Credit: Image courtesy of Boston College)

ScienceDaily (Jun. 2, 2008) — A team of scientists from Boston College and Duke University has developed a highly-engineered metamaterial capable of absorbing all of the light that strikes it -- to a scientific standard of perfection -- they report in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters.

The team designed and engineered a metamaterial that uses tiny geometric surface features to successfully capture the electric and magnetic properties of a microwave to the point of total absorption.

"Three things can happen to light when it hits a material," says Boston College Physicist Willie J. Padilla. "It can be reflected, as in a mirror. It can be transmitted, as with window glass. Or it can be absorbed and turned into heat. This metamaterial has been engineered to ensure that all light is neither reflected nor transmitted, but is turned completely into heat and absorbed.

"It shows we can design a metamaterial so that at a specific frequency it can absorb all of the photons that fall onto its surface."

In addition to Padilla, the team included BC researcher Nathan I. Landy, Duke University Professor David R. Smith and researchers Soji Sajuyigbe and Jack J. Mock.

The group used computer simulations based on prior research findings in the field to design resonators able to couple individually to electric and magnetic fields to successfully absorb all incident radiation, according to their findings.

Because its elements can separately absorb the electric and magnetic components of an electromagnetic wave, the "perfect metamaterial absorber" created by the researchers can be highly absorptive over a narrow frequency range.

The metamaterial is the first to demonstrate perfect absorption and unlike conventional absorbers it is constructed solely out of metallic elements, giving the material greater flexibility for applications related to the collection and detection of light, such as imaging, says Padilla, an assistant professor of Physics.

Metamaterial designs give them new properties beyond the limits of their actual physical components and allow them to produce "tailored" responses to radiation.

Because their construction makes them geometrically scalable, metamaterials are able to operate across a significant portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

---
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080529190038.htm

79. Invisibility

2009-12-27T23:23:00.027+09:00

From another website: "I posted about the mysterious em-drive awhile back and now here's another development... a faster than light capable 'warp' drive that the US air force is showing remarkable interest in. So, perhaps these stories are cover to explain the invention of tech they already secretly have. Perhaps we're getting close to a disclosure of some sort.

Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip
IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2739585
[the link is gone]

AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached.

Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the idea, told The Scotsman that if everything went well a working engine could be tested in about five years.

However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences University in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of aerodynamics at the European Space Agency, cautioned it was based on a highly controversial theory that would require a significant change in the current understanding of the laws of physics.

"It would be amazing. I have been working on propulsion systems for quite a while and it would be the most amazing thing. The benefits would be almost unlimited," he said.

"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.

"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."

He said the engine would enable spaceships to travel to different solar systems. "If the theory is correct then this is not science fiction, it is science fact," Prof Hauser said.

"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further, but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case scenario would be within the next five years [to build a test device] if the technology works."

The US authorities' attention was attracted after Prof Hauser and an Austrian colleague, Walter Droscher, wrote a paper called "Guidelines for a space propulsion device based on Heim's quantum theory".

Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 1745

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 7:52 pm Post subject: 'The G-Engines are Coming' - headline 1956 Reply with quote

Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point begins in his office at Jane's Aviation Weekly with someone anonymously dropping a clipping with that headline on his desk.

The article reads that "in the United States and Canada, research centers, scientists, designers and engineers are perfecting a way to control gravity - a force infinitely more powerful than the mighty atom.

The result of their labors will be antigravity engines working without fuel - weightless airliners and space ships able to travel at 170,000 miles per second."

The article states the research is supported by the Glenn L Martin Aircraft Company, Bell Aircraft, Lear and several other US firms.

It quotes Lawrence Bell as saying they are "already working" on canceling out gravity. The head of Advanced Programs and VP in charge of the "G-Project" at Martin Aircraft, George S Trimble, adds that manufacturing a gravitational field drive "could be done in about the time it took to build the first atom bomb."

Cook almost throws it in the waste basket, because almost as soon as such reports were published in '56 it was as though they'd never existed.

The research either never happened, was discontinued, or went deep black. Cook, picking up the thread, begins by tracking down Trimble. He asked his media contact friend at Lockheed Martin, Daniella Abelman to look up Trimble without telling her specifically why. She called back soon after, and said that Trimble was alive and retired in Arizona. "Sounds hard as nails, but an amazing guy. He's kinda mystified why you want to talk to him after all this time, but seems okay with it. Like you said, it's historical, right?"

"Right," Cook said.

Abelman called back a few days later. "Separated by an ocean and five time zones," Cook writes, "I heard the catch in her breathing."

"It's Trimble," she said. "The guy just got off the phone to me. Remember how he was fine to do the interview? Well, something's happened. I don't know who this old man is or what he once was, but he told me in no uncertain terms to get off his case. He doesn't want to speak to me and he doesn't want to speak to you, not now, not ever. I don't mind telling you that he sounded scared and I don't like to hear old men scared. It makes me scared. I don't know what you were really working on when you came to me with this, Nick, but let me give you some advice. Stick to what you know about; stick to the damned present. It's better that way for all of us."

Edited by: Rigorous Intuition at: 1/8/06 5:55 pm
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anotherdrew

Joined: 23 May 2005
Posts: 528

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 8:19 pm Post subject: Re: 'The G-Engines are Coming' - headline 1956 Reply with quote

the body of raw info seems to suggest that either thay have such tech in hiding, or are willing to work their asses off making it seem like they do when they don't. I'm just not sure I can't buy any of the probable motives for them to stage a cover up of nothing. So... it seems like wishful thinking, but I'm feeling like it's true. Now a lot of possibly bad news is riding in the back seat... but how wonderful if we can really build such vehicles.

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marykmusic

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Posts: 1502
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: Re: 'The G-Engines are Coming' - headline 1956 Reply with quote
Grav-lev has been here since the end of WWII. I have seen black-and-white film of German experimental aircraft bouncing along the ground and a few feet into the air... the Nazis were so far along that Project Paperclip was developed to keep 'em working. It was a saucer-shaped craft, too. Hauneby I was on the drawing board in 1939, II in 1943, and III in 1945. Copies of these drawings are in the book Reich of the Black Sun ny Joseph P. Farrell. --MaryK

---
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=1483

87. Chemical Fractionation

2009-12-27T23:23:00.017+09:00

(gas diffusion, oil cracking, litmus tests, electrolysis, mass spectrometry)

88. Desiccants

2009-12-27T23:23:00.015+09:00

89. Moisturizers

2009-12-27T23:23:00.014+09:00

90. Life-Extension

2009-12-27T23:23:00.013+09:00

(opposite of earlier poisons category, i.e., life curtailment)

There is a whole consumptive use category to certain materials for life extension. This is more than basic foods, as people are directed toward many other things (or even food reduction as a social choice) besides foods in a quest for longevity.

When I put up the poisons category, it failed to occur to me that life extension is its required opposite. So we've reached #90.

Interesting work on methionine

Vegetarian low protein diet could be key to long life
A vegetarian diet could be the key to a long life, a new study suggests.

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 7:30AM GMT 03 Dec 2009

Reducing consumption of a protein found in fish and meat could slow the ageing process and increase life expectancy, according to the research.

Scientists have long believed that an ultra low calorie diet - aproximately 60 per cent of normal levels - can lead to greater longevity.

But now a team of British researchers have discovered that the key to the effect is a reduction in a specific protein and not the total number of calories.

That means that by reducing foods that contain the protein - such as meat, fish and certain nuts - people should live longer without the need to cut down on meals.

Dr Matthew Piper, from the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London, said that a vegetarian diet could be one way to achieve the effect.

Studies in animals including monkeys have shown that reducing food intake can benefit health and increase lifespan.

Researchers have found that reducing calories by as much as 30 per cent could reduce risks of developing heart disease or cancer by half and increase lifetimes by nearly a third.

The extreme diets - just above malnutrition levels - add an extra 25 years to the average life in Britain with the vast majority of people living to their 100th birthday

But in a series of new experiments on fruit flies, scientists discovered that simply varying the mix of amino acids in the diet affected lifespan.

Further study revealed that one particular amino acid, methionine, made all the difference. [It's similar in basic metabolism to tryptophan, both have only one codon, so two basic metabolistic paths?: "Methionine is one of only two amino acids encoded by a single codon (AUG) in the standard genetic code (tryptophan, encoded by UGG, is the other)."]

Although flies and people are very different, the researchers believe the effects are likely to be conserved throughout a wide range of different species including humans.

Dr Piper said: "It's not as simple as saying 'eat less nuts' or 'eat more nuts' to live longer - it's about getting the protein balance right, a factor that might be particularly important for high protein diets, such as the Atkins diet or body builders' protein supplements."

Methionine is essential to the formation of all proteins. It is naturally abundant in foods such as fish and meats as well as sesame seeds, Brazil nuts and wheat germ.

Humans have around four times more genes than the fruit fly, but both share many similar genes with basic biological functions.

Therefore, even though the fruit fly does not on the surface resemble humans, many findings about its basic biology can be extrapolated to humans.

"This work was done on flies but similar results have been found in mice," said Dr Piper. "If it turns it has the same effect on humans, then the message is avoid high levels of methionine." [tests like this are undone so far, so keep that in mind]

---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
health/healthnews/6710896/
Vegetarian-low-protein-diet-could-be-key-to-long-life.html
December 5, 2009 2:54 PM

OLD INTRODUCTION: Two Institutions Required in Every Watershed: Commodity Ecology and Civic Democratic Institutions

2007-06-03T23:06:00.001+09:00

[Go to the main front page for updated introduction. In December 2009, I formalized additional commodity ecology categories in an update. With 90 commodity use categories, it is a more complete list, with all 90 visible in the column on the right, now.]

Introduction: Two Institutions Required in Every Watershed: Commodity Ecology and Civic Democratic Institutions. Read that link for an explanation. And this one about maintaining biodiveristy and the bioregional state.

No where is required to entirely reinvent the wheel. Related intimately to the book Toward A Bioregional State (2005), this PARALLEL blog will be a clearinghouse of interesting technologies and materials showing that the wider window of known possibilities that can be utilized, instead of reinvented, for institutionalizing sustainability materially, in a particular watershed.

Unlike most blogs, it will be associated with a permanent number of 71 updated threads--one for each of the human commodity choices, as follows:

1. textiles
2. dyes/colorants (murex, cochineal, synthetic chemicals, derived organic coal based chemicals)
3. building materials/tool construction
4. metals
5. garbage/garbage disposal
6. soils/dirt
7. drugs/medicines
8. infant food
9. animal based food
10. vegetable based food
11. mycelium based food (mushrooms)
12. insect based food
13. transport
14. pollinators (introduced bees where none exist; or in some cases required hand pollination, in vanilla for instance; ultrasound/birdsong pollinators)
15. fertilizers
16. herbicides/pesticides
17. mineral food (typically only one: salt, sometimes earth/clays/dirt)
18. preservatives (salt, smoke, sun-dry/dehydrate, chemical, sugared, vacuum sealed, pickled, dry freeze, etc.)
19. communication/transmission technology (voice/sound, paper, mud brick cuneiform, silk rolls, papyrus, digital computers, pony express, telephone/telegraph, smoke signals from fires, semaphore, electrified metals/conductors, electromagnets, etc.)
20. condiments/flavorings
21. scents/incenses/fragrances
22. purifiers/cleansers/concentrators (soap, water, membrane sieves, clays, diatomaceous earth, ultrasound, gas diffusion/heat, etc.)
23. protectants (paint, plastic, electroplate, glass, bulletproof glass, etc.)
24. retardants (asbestos, inflammable materials, deoxygenators, glass, etc.)
25. insulators (wool, ice, straw, fiberglass, rags, vacuums, solid glass, plastic, stones/marble, etc.)
26. abrasives (diamond dust, carborundrum, sandpaper, etc.)
27. lubricants
28. elastics (rubber, synthetic rubber)
29. coolants (ice, caves, chemicals, oils)
30. ambient heat (chemicals, caves, oil, hot springs, tallow, wood fires, antifreeze)
31. light/artificial light (sunlight, chemicals, oil (whale or abiotic), tallow, electricity/blubs, fire)
32. potable liquids (water, wine, sake, beer, cider, milk, tea, coffee, koumiss, etc.)
33. war materiels
34. energy (oil, solar, wood, nuclear, hydro/waterpower, charcoal, horse power, human labor, AC electricity, DC electricity, tides, zero-point technology, water based electrolysis engines, electromagnetic dynamos, etc.)
35. catalysts/mordants
36. energy storage (batteries, computer memory (a peculiar property of silicon only discovered in the 1950s), cynanobacteria (being linked as silicon substitutes in experiments) etc.)
37. aesthetics (brought into consumption simply because of perceived beauty, spirituality, and/or symbolism/ideology interests instead of a ‘material functionality’ prominent in many other consumptive positional categories)
38. musical instruments
39. toiletries
40. conductors
41. nonconductors
42. superconductors
43. semiconductors
44. environmental-proof/waterproof/airtight materials
45. adhesives
46. solvents
47. industrial tools/machine tools materials
48. tunneling/drilling materials
49. humans themselves as a ‘designed commodity’ (i.e., materials for those of eugenic bent, gene knowledge, etc.; or replaceable human parts whether transplants or cyborg machine substitutes like dialysis machines, artificial hearts, or artificial kidneys, etc.)
50. sense extensions (different from simply communications technology, actually going into human sensory areas that humans are ill equipped to do without aids of some sort)
51. calculation (human minds, abacus, computer, copper, silicon, superconductors, cynanobacteria, etc.)
52. software (from Jacquard’s loom to programmable Chinese textile machinery from the Later Han, etc.)
53. hardware
54. timekeeping (archaeoastronomy, moons, garden/plant clocks, calendars, mechanical clocks, water clocks, chronometers, Foucault pendulums, cesium atomic clock, etc.)
55. spacekeeping (string, plumb line, geodetic pyramid, compass azimuths, compasses)
56. climate manipulation (seeding, etc.)
57. money (state-financial decisions about money and exchange are equally a commodity and infrastructural issue influenced by the materiality of the commodity in question and politics of choice; local currency strategies, rice, metals/coins/bullion, paper, checks, digital transfers, stones, shells, salt, cider, cigarettes, etc.])
58. remediation (zeolite, recycling filtration, etc.; various types of water and soil cleansing technologies dependent upon physical characteristics of the materials utilized, learning options, etc.)
59. dentistry
60. stimulants
61. hallucinogens
62. intoxicants
63. narcotics
64. hypnotics
65. psychedelics/entheogens
66. anesthetics
67. chemically inert materials.
68. poisons/antidotes/purgatives
69. surgical tools
70. experimental models
71. antiseptics

[larger image]

Some people already working on this are those like William McDonough--working in a few 'cradle to cradle' materials. Clipped from the parallel book blog post on this topic:

We've seen the dystopian plan of the "World Bank's world". Here's William McDonough's version of a "cradle to cradle" world and of urbanization without wastes--where urbanization is intimately fitted to a particular landscape. We might even say urbanization fitted to support the ethnosphere durability that Wade Davis speaks of in his talk above. In McDonough's world, wastes become useful items back into the city with the aim for durability of "all time." Just so you avoid thinking this is some "pie in the sky" plan, he shows you some schematics of the already agreed upon plans to build twelve cities in China in a "commodity ecology" sustainable fashion.'

(McDonough hired by Chinese Government to build cities based on Cradle to Cradle, starting 2012)

When built as a model to us all, China once more may justify the title of Middle Kingdom, core of the world. This talk is only twenty minutes as well, though represents a lifetime of work in which many other similar ecological design projects are mentioned.

TEDTalks: William McDonough
20 min 11 sec

"Architect and designer William McDonough asks what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account "All children, all species, for all time." A tireless proponent of absolute sustainability (with a deadpan sense of humor), he explains his philosophy of "cradle to cradle" design, which bridge the needs of ecology and economics. He also shares some of his most inspiring work, including the world's largest green roof (at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan), and the entire sustainable cities he's designing in China."

However, to be more systematic with a larger view, commodity ecology requires integrating each of the 71 above in particular watersheds.

This blog will aid in creating a scalable model for use anywhere in the world based on interactions myself or others post It will obviously be based on noticing different climactic, material, and interactive requirements in different watersheds worldwide (i.e., even ones that are desert, for instance).

A great deal of the history of the world can be said to be 'bad material choices'. This may be for a variety of 'purposes', though two main purposes can be detailed. First, there is only the short term interest involved in commodity choices, which tends to yield externalities that destroy the biodiversity of particular areas.

Second, more nefarious is the history of intentionally forcing people to consume certain items and reducing their choices in the category--to gain political and economic power over citizens and consumers.

So let's ponder the project of an ideal watershed commodity ecology that will maximize human commodity choice, remove political clientelism, remove environmental degradation, and preserve local biodiversity. Though the ideal watershed would be a varied solution, the project of making any of them sustainable and closed loop involves pondering the social dynamics of different commodity productions, wastes, and local material and biota availability.

Janine Benyus's short talk may inspire how to learn ideas from natural interactions for commodity ecology interactions: what life with its "3.8 billion years of field testing" might teach in terms of human design. This is known as "biomimicry."

This might mean a biologist sits that the design table, or the engineers go out into the natural world to learn ideas. Benyus's short talk opening with the story on the resistant engineers is instructive, how they learned to apply an IDEA from an organism instead of simply utilizing materials and organisms. Benyus says of life: "3.8 billion years of field testing....These are solutions solved in context, and these are...conscious emulation of life's process...taking the design principles and learning something from it."

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs
Length: 23:24

"With 3.8 billion years of research and development on its side, nature has already solved problems that human designers and engineers still struggle with. In this inspiring talk, Janine Benyus provides fascinating examples of biomimicry -- the way humans mimic nature in the products we build and the systems we implement. And because the champion adapters in the natural world are, by definition, those that can survive without destroying the environment that sustains them, biomimicry can contribute to the long-term health of our planet."

From her described "heat, beat, and treat" of most current human commodity production (with 96% wastes and only 4% product on average), to an integrated 100% of products without wastes, since "life doesn't really deal with 'things', things divorced from their system." HER lucid points in the talk describe TWELVE PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS OF HUMAN DESIGNS in turning massive waste streams into metabolically sound arrangements--that we are dealing with right now.

THREE POINTS ON COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION--IN COMMODITY ECOLOGY

1. Ideally, another strand here is that it deals with institutionalizing biodiversity in human uses, instead of leaving them out of the social human loop (like in utilizing native bees for pollination, for example). Once they have a social use, there is a systemic human desire to innately preserve them and their ecological interrelations. When the local biodiversity is integrated in commodity production, then humans take over--for their own self-interest and politics--the protection and representation of voiceless plants and animals that is in sync with them.

2. As a corollary, when they are integrated, areas of plants/animals/environments of local biodiversity that are left out of integration are less likely to suffer degradation if there is a closed loop of human commodity production that runs in a parallel track, to to speak, without 'leaks' of externalities that poison the area.

3. This blog may additionally be of use in rekindling such ecologically sound commodity relations in 'emergency recovery efforts' after natural or human disasters to aid in the organization of sustainability in destroyed and/or polluted communities and ecologies, to start out on a footing already thought of in terms of interactions.

Post away!

Note Bene: Ideally, this is a beta test for how to archive such information. Ideally, one would post one example only once, and then have a drop down list of all the numbers you could 'check' to make it appear in different sorted streams of the 71 commodity choices simultaneously--instead of having to post multiple instances of the same thing on each thread. This may require a design solution closer to a separate website with a database attachment (perhaps designed through Dreamweaver Ultradev).

Give me an email (or just post to this thread) if you know of something readymade, or if you want to be in on the website design issue.

One nice solution to direct posting over the internet is the self-categorization motif inbuilt into the left column of Portland Indymedia. There you can post once, though it allows the post to be instantly self-categorized in multiple ways, so it creates separate slowly amalgamating lists of many different self-categorized posts appearing in multiple places, though with only one post required.

- I've got another idea about users of the website capable of ranking such items for how well they like it,

- or how they could set up separate watershed filters on the idea it if is specifically to integrate a particular locality's biodiversity.

- or how particular watersheds could have open ended debates on what are their priority issues for solutions and/or integrations.

- and people could be notified by email when someone updates a particular thread they are watching, etc.

1. Textiles

2007-06-03T23:05:00.001+09:00

2. Dyes/colorants

2007-06-03T23:04:00.000+09:00

(murex, cochineal, synthetic chemicals, derived organic coal based chemicals)

3. Building materials/Tool construction

2007-06-03T23:03:00.008+09:00

Soup's on. You'll be eating it, and your children will be eating it--and all species will be eating it--unless you find a novel recipe. Perhaps graphene--see below: 200x stronger than diamond and cheaper than most building materials

Drowning in Plastic
Every bit of plastic ever made is still with us—and it's wreaking havoc on the ocean.
Jun 14, 2007
By Kera Abraham

picture:
(L) Washed Up: An albatross gazes at a sea of trash on the Midway Atoll.
(C) Jarring: Captain Moore holds a sample of plastic-contaminated seawater from the North Pacific Gyre.
(R) Sick to the Stomach: The carcass of an albatross that died with a gut full of plastic trash rots of the beach. —Cynthia Vanderlip / Algalita Marine Research Foundation; (c) Matt Cramer / Algalita Marine Research Foundation

LIFE ON EARTH depends on little specks floating in the ocean. Tiny plankton convert sunlight to energy to form the base of the marine food chain, sustaining all seafaring creatures, from anchovies to whales and the land-based animals that eat them.

But increasingly, researchers are peering through their microscopes at the specks in seawater samples and finding miniscule bits of poisonous garbage instead of life-sustaining mini-critters.

It's plastic— broken by sunlight and water into itty bitty pieces, but still intact. And now scientists are discovering the implications of one troubling attribute of petroleum-based plastic, known since its invention, but ignored under the assumption that technology would eventually resolve it: Every plastic product that has ever been manufactured still exists.

Only 50 years since we began mass-producing it, our plastic waste has built up into a poisonous mountain we have never really learned how to deal with. It makes up 10 percent of California's garbage, is toxic to burn and hard to recycle.

Out in the Pacific Ocean a vortex of trash swirls and grows, forming a garbage dump twice the size of Texas. ...

rest of article

And a video:

Alphabet Soup - A Trip to the Eastern Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre
12 min 49 sec

A Canadian filmmaker travels to the north Pacific Ocean to discover a world of unknown plastic pollution.

For one solution to change material choices:

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?
9:05 min

"Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment. Eben Bayer is co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic (really -- it's based on mycelium, a living, growing organism) adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation."

For another alternative on the same theme, find out what more durable wastes are (unlike plastics that are very fragile and unstable materially) and ingenious solutions can be found for using the more stable wastes as future materials as a natural part of the product cycle to have many social uses. For instance, tires as having multiple uses socially instead of only one categorical use of transportation: note the particular way the recycled products structurally are in sync with building materials in many different stages of use and conservation of this material throughout this eco-modernization home:

Dennis Weaver's Earthship
27 min 5 sec

"Dennis Weaver, the US retired actor, here builds himself a mansion made almost entirely from....old tyres and dirt. This is eco-modernisation, proving once and for all that eco-friendly design and construction/building does not have to smell or look funny. In fact, it is cheaper, quicker, easier and safer to construct such an 'earthship' than any conventional construction technique! This is eco-rationality in action. Prepare to be amazed."

Several interesting examples:

1. The recycled tires bulge structurally when packed with 300 pounds of packed dirt apiece, and, as if they were really designed for this, they serendipitously lock themselves into place against each other in the tire wall in that way.

2. Use of aluminum cans as filler in other places conserves concrete, making a cheap building matrix just like identical bricks would when stacked. Moreover, the cans' open end

3. serves as an inexpensive support and attachment point for the final adobe layer on the outside--almost as if they were intended for that purpose.

4. The dirt-filled tires in the wall core additionally have a form of coolant when it absorbs more heat from a hot room; and only in the winter, the reverse happens: the lower sun will come through and hit the walls in that season, warm these walls, and serve as a heat storage through the colder nights.

5. Most building materials are entirely free in this house--thus making it possible for building homes for the very poor with these techniques that can have a very modern, clean finish to them when complete.

Or grow your own home. Takes a few years though permanently renewable and integrated into the environment. However, depends upon a water source for environmental conditions as well as stable climates I presume year-round?

Mitchell Joachim: Don't build your home, grow it!
2:57 min

"TED Fellow and urban designer Mitchell Joachim presents his vision for sustainable, organic architecture: eco-friendly abodes grown from plants and -- wait for it -- meat. Soft cars, jet packs and houses made of meat ['printed' with cells from inkjet printers--printed into the 3D shaped desired without harming or killing anything sentient like an animal; all this is]...all in a day's work for urban designer, architect and TED Fellow Mitchell Joachim."

Or more durably, use straw bales, with have some additional benefits of putting in forms of infrastructure quickly like electrical and plumbing. For instance:

Straw Bale Building Methods
5 min 29 sec

"Straw Bale Building is the ultimate in rustic, self-build and ecological building technology. Simple, cheap and effective, straw bale is super-efficient in retaining heat and super-stable thus doing away with the need to build complex supporting frames. The plastering that you can choose means you can make straw bale look rustic or modern depending on your preference!"

1. Doesn't burn either. Harder to burn than regular timber frame due to compaction "like a telephone book", says the video.

Straw Bale Construction DVD from StrawBale.com
3 min 52 sec

The several steps are detailed here (less than four minute summary). A lot of the myths about this are addressed here: Straw Bale Building - Debunking the Myths StrawBale.com. Straw bale homes are three times the fire resistant of a common home, etc. and more. Water isolation and showers discussed here.

"Hempcrete": Hemp Waste Makes a Better Concrete
1:24 min

Hemp Waste + Lime = far stronger 'Hempcrete' than very pollutive industrial production of concrete: "How would like like a building material that is stronger than cement and SIX TIMES lighter?

Better yet, one of its main ingredients in the waste product of a plant that literally grows like a weed.

Here's the reality about [mineral based] cement [monopolies]:

1. The manufacture of traditional cement is incredibly energy intensive, so much so that many cement companies seek and receive legal variances to not only burn coal, but also medical waste and used automobile tires as fuel for their kilns.

2. After oil refineries and chemical plants, cement factories are the most polluting factories in the world, spewing tons of microparticles containing toxins like arsenic and mercury into the air."

The film relates that people in France can build up to 300 cheap houses a year for people using hemp wastes, because hemp is legal in the far freer country of France.

Here's use of hemp to make a private house, by what looks like volunteer labor:

Here's an Irish architectural firm that have published a book about their method, using the same method see above on a larger scale. They mention that the insulation properties of hempcrete is very good: they say "zero" additional energy required to heating such a house made of the hempcrete because of its high thermal mass (keeping heat in itself) and other insulating properties as well as the tiny air pockets in the material itself.

Or is graphene the next environmentally sound plastic?

We have so many options for sustainability, being held back by degradative politics preserving old raw material regimes in the commodity ecology categories that are unintegrated in each other. There's nothing to stop full sustainability except a handful of psychopaths in their previous infrastructural investments gatekeeping against it and with violence and repression of our sustainable options as well.

With more knowledge assembled about how possible complete sustainability is, it is more likely unavoidable. For instance: graphene:

The wonder stuff that could change the world: Graphene is so strong a sheet of it as thin as clingfilm could support an elephant

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 7:39 AM on 7th October 2011

Revolutionary: Graphene, which is formed of honeycomb pattern of carbon atoms, could be the most important new material [transparent, electric, and strong building material as well] material for a century [it's a completely unique mixture of consumptive categories in this material: a thin, transparent, super-strong (harder than diamond) structural building material that has electrical conduction properties better than copper (copper is hardly a structural material), though graphene's lack of semiconductor principles may make it difficult for some fantasy computer operations that currently are based on mostly silicon's physical capacities of 'on/off' switching in the material itself (there are other options for this switching though than polluting silicon industries: see the category on communication materials for more options); thus with graphene always 'on' in other words, and very efficiently so, it makes it difficult to do any anticipated Boolean/operations in the material itself in base 2--the insight of all computers from Shannon onward.]

Revolutionary: Graphene, which is formed of honeycomb pattern of carbon atoms, could be the most important new material for a century

It is tougher than diamond, but stretches like rubber. It is virtually invisible, conducts electricity and heat better than any copper wire and weighs next to nothing. Meet graphene — an astonishing new material which could revolutionise almost every part of our lives.

Some researchers claim it’s the most important substance to be created since the first synthetic plastic more than 100 years ago.

If it lives up to its promise, it could lead to mobile phones that you roll up and put behind your ear, high definition televisions as thin as wallpaper, and bendy electronic newspapers that readers could fold away into a tiny square.

It could transform medicine, and replace silicon as the raw material used to make computer chips [perhaps everything except this however, see note above.]

The ‘miracle material’ was discovered in Britain just seven years ago, and the buzz around it is extraordinary.

Last year, it won two Manchester University scientists the Nobel Prize for physics, and this week Chancellor George Osborne pledged £50 million towards developing technologies based on the super-strong substance.

In terms of its economics, one of the most exciting parts of the graphene story is its cost. Normally when scientists develop a new wonder material, the price is eye-wateringly high.

But graphene is made by chemically processing graphite — the cheap material in the ‘lead’ of pencils. Every few months researchers come up with new, cheaper ways of mass producing graphene, so that some experts believe it could eventually cost less than £4 per pound.

But is graphene really the wonder stuff of the 21st century?

For a material with so much promise, it has an incredibly simple chemical structure. A sheet of graphene is just a single layer of carbon atoms, locked together in a strongly-bonded honeycomb pattern.

Pledge: George Osborne, pictured visiting the University of Manchester lab where graphene is being researched, has said £50m will be set aside to help with development of technologies based on the substance

That makes it the thinnest material ever made. You would need to stack three million graphene sheets on top of each other to get a pile one milimetre high. It is also the strongest substance known to mankind — 200 times stronger than steel and several times tougher than diamond.

A sheet of graphene as thin as clingfilm could hold the weight of an elephant. In fact, according to one calculation, an elephant would need to balance precariously on the end of a pencil to break through that same sheet.

Despite its strength, it is extremely flexible and can be stretched by 20 per cent without any damage.

It is also a superb conductor of electricity — far better than copper, traditionally used for wiring — and is the best conductor of heat on the planet.

But perhaps the most remarkable feature of graphene is where it comes from. Graphene is made from graphite, a plentiful grey mineral mostly mined in Chile, India and Canada.

A pencil lead is made up of many millions of layers of graphene. These layers are held together only weakly — which is why they slide off each other when a pencil is moved across the page.

Graphene was first isolated by Professors Konstantin Novoselov and Andrew Geim at Manchester University in 2004. The pair used sticky tape to strip away thin flakes of graphite, then attached it to a silicon plate which allowed the researchers to identify the tiny layers through a microscope.

Discovery: Professors Andre Geim, left, and Dr Konstantin Novoselov first isolated graphene in 2004. They later won the Nobel Prize for Physics last year

Russian-born Prof Novoselov, 37, believes graphene could change everything from electronics to computers.

‘I don’t think it has been over-hyped,’ he said. ‘It has attracted a lot of attention because it is so simple — it is the thinnest possible matter — and yet it has so many unique properties.

‘There are hundreds of properties which are unique or superior to other materials. Because it is only one atom thick it is quite transparent — not many materials that can conduct electricity which are transparent.’

Its discovery has triggered a boom for material science. Last year, there were 3,000 research papers on its properties, and 400 patent applications.

The electronics industry is convinced graphene will lead to gadgets that make the iPhone and Kindle seem like toys from the age of steam trains.

Modern touch-sensitive screens use indium tin oxide — a substance that is transparent but which carries electrical currents. But indium tin oxide is expensive, and gadgets made from it shatter or crack easily when dropped. Replacing indium tin oxide with graphene-based compounds could allow for flexible, paper-thin computer and television screens. South Korean researchers have created a 25in flexible touch-screen using graphene.

Ancient history: If the development of graphene is successful it will make the iPad and Kindle seem like toys from the age of the steam train

Imagine reading your Daily Mail on a sheet of electric paper. Tapping a button on the corner could instantly update the contents or move to the next page. Once you’ve finished reading the paper, it could be folded up and used afresh tomorrow.

Other researchers are looking at many ways of using graphene in medicine. It is also being touted as an alternative to the carbon-fibre bodywork of boats and bikes [and car tires?] Graphene in tyres could make them stronger.

Some even claim it will replace the silicon in computer chips. In the future, a graphene credit card could store as much information as today’s computers.

‘We are talking of a number of unique properties combined in one material which probably hasn’t happened before,’ said Prof Novoselov. ‘You might want to compare it to plastic. But graphene is as versatile as all the plastics put together.

‘It’s a big claim, but it’s not bold. That’s exactly why there are so many researchers working on it.’

Dr Sue Mossman, curator of materials at the Science Museum in London, says graphene has parallels with Bakelite — the first man-made plastic, invented in 1907.

Resistant to heat and chemicals, and an excellent electrical insulator, Bakelite easily made electric plugs, radios, cameras and telephones.

‘Bakelite was the material of its time. Is this the material of our times?’ she says. ‘Historically we have been really good at invention in this country, but we’ve been really bad at capitalising on it.’

If graphene isn’t to go the same way as other great British inventions which were never properly exploited commercially at home — such as polythene and carbon fibre — it will need massive investment in research and development.

Core material: Graphene comes from a base material of graphite and is so thin that three millions sheets of the substance would be needed to make a layer 1mm thick

That’s why the Government’s move to support its development in the UK got a warm round of applause at the Conservative Party conference.

But compared to the investment in graphene in America and Asia, the £50 million promised by the Chancellor is negligible. South Korea is investing £195million into the technology. The European Commission is expected to invest one billion euros into graphene in the next ten years.

Yet despite the flurry of excitement, many researchers doubt graphene can live up to such high expectations.

It wouldn’t be the first wonder material that failed to deliver. In 1985 another form of carbon, called fullerenes or buckyballs, was hailed as the revolutionary new material of the era. Despite the hype, there has yet to be a major practical application.

And there are already some problems with using graphene. It is so good at conducting electricity that turning it into devices like transistors — which control the flow of electrical currents, so need to be able to stop electricity flowing through them — has so far proved problematic.

Earlier this year computer company IBM admitted that it was ‘difficult to imagine’ graphene replacing silicon in computer chips.

And sceptics point out that most new materials — such as carbon-fibre — take 20 years from invention before they can be used commercial use.

You might think from all the hype, that the road to a great graphene revolution has already been mapped out.

But its future is far from certain. In fact it’s barely been penciled out in rough.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2045825/Graphene-strong-sheet-clingfilm-support-elephant.html#ixzz1aMt2nBVJ

4. Metals

2007-06-03T23:02:00.000+09:00

(just another building material, though so different in the social creation implications--wastes and toxicities--that it requires its own section; mining, recycling, stream panning) Since most metals are created via very toxic "heat, beat, and treat" processes, this list will additionally highlight particular substitutes that are non-metal for sometimes what were considered very specialized "metal required" uses whether because of the properties of conduction or the properties of strength. Actually, both these issues make metals quite old fashioned solutions to such things. See 'conductors' and 'building materials' sections for more insights.

Or just create metals through 'old fashioned alchemy'--one of the little known effects of cold fusion technologies is its strange, and still theoretically unexplainable generation of different metal atoms where none existed before.

Once 'cold fusion alchemy' is perfected, perhaps any metal could simply be (slowly, atom by atom) made literally from this chemistry based water reaction where the metals were missing before.

Heavy Watergate: The War Against Cold Fusion [part 1 of 5]
10:54 min

5. Garbage/Garbage disposal

2007-06-03T23:00:00.021+09:00

(compost, wastewater treatment (graywater, other kinds of waste water), ruminant foraging, etc.)

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?
9:05 min

"Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment. Eben Bayer is co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic (really -- it's based on mycelium, a living, growing organism) adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation."

Get rid of garbage the old fashioned way. Very old. About 3 billion years old. Turn it to mycelium and then watch everything grow sustainable from the novel pristine base. Like the runners of mycelium, the use of mycelium for garbage removal has many 'organic factory' aspects for other connects to the commodity ecology of a local area.

Ideally, this entire category of garbage would disappear when commodity ecology was working properly in smooth pass-offs from one area to another--without wastes or iteratively mounting ecological damages in the locations where humans live, grow things, mine, or whatever.

The below video however is a brilliant cross-over example mixing several consumptive use categories at once: waste remediation, energy generation, and water purification all in one! The application is mentioned near the close of the video though the whole video is interesting. Imagine a 'wastewater treatment plant' that was the local energy plant as well. This does it.

Given that human waste streams like fecal coliform pollution will always exist, some form of remediation will likely always be there. This one is modular, localizable to a watershed, and thus an ingenious application of sustainable technology. It makes use of an energy technology's by-product effects (clean water and energy) to conduct waste water treatment. Talk about solving many issues at once!

Oxy Hydrogen Process (Water Fuel Cell)
8:25 min

Another major idea that has localization capacities for garbage 'REmoval' (stress on 're' and moving) is mycelium. Mycelium is an excellent base for starting the commodity ecology, because literally it was the basis for all land base life: the first land dwellers that prepared everything chemically for soil formation that other creatures that was utilized as the base of life. See this short stunning video, below. Just put in some local mycelium at a garbage dump, and you have a novel factory floor for later commodity ecology. Then take the water and purify it with the oxyhydration process, creating energy as a byproduct.

Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (17 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258

"Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas. There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet."

Re-basing commodity ecology, the ecologizing of human commodification, on mycelium seems the sounded basis to start. Moreover, it is probably to be expected because mycelium was the first arriving "'life organ' of ecology" that these species would be an integral start for life--and for other commodity ecology paths. It has THE MOST cross-connects or overlaps SO FAR with leads into other categories. It connects very well with:

58. Remediation
16. Herbicides/Pesticides
6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics
5. Garbage/Garbage disposal
7. Drugs/Medicines
11. Mycelium based food
72. Packing Materials (for seeding forests, mycelium and seeds embedded)

THAT means mycelium's many local multiple consumptive positional uses makes it a good place to start upon the commodity ecology for branching in multiple directions from this locus. He says 6 ideas. I count seven. Really, all the difficulties with sustainability are already solved. It merely means putting all the pieces together combined with challenging the corrupt developmentalism with the bioregional state institutional arrangements, challenging the arrangements that keep sustainability, sustainable politics, and territorial states from happening.

Note: in practice, remediation of the garbage in human bodies is different materially than this type of garbage remediation. Information on that location of remediation is under drugs/medicines.

Learning about mycelium is the excellent basis of a commodity ecology. And Paul Stamets is an excellent introduction.

6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics

2007-06-03T23:00:00.020+09:00

Living soil is the basis of food security and thus sustainability. The basis of good, living soil is the mycelium that helps generate the humic acids.

See this short video about the multi-billion year old history of where we got our living soil. The lesson is to learn how living soil is made, long before there were humans, then, we create that process though with ourselves within that process in the commodity ecology arrangements locally designed for specific areas.

The short stunning video demonstrates that mycelium is an excellent base for starting the commodity ecology on a groundwork of living soil because literally mycelium was the later basis for all land base life that depended and grew up from that living soil. Mycelium was the first land dweller that prepared everything chemically for soil formation that other creatures utilized later.

Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (17 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258

"Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas. There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet."

Other frameworks of creating living soil like hot composting, worm farming (vermiculture), or mulching potentially are separated from the long term embedding of humans in the larger ecological relationships that can be institutionalized at the same moment. These other techniques can be done, though with re-basing commodity ecology, the ecologizing of human commodification, on mycelium seems the added sounded basis to start maintaining and constructing novel ethnobotany relationships in particular ecoregions.

Moreover, it is probably to be expected because mycelium was the first arriving "'life organ' of ecology" that these species would be an integral start for life--and for other commodity ecology paths. It has THE MOST cross-connects or overlaps SO FAR with leads into other categories. It connects very well with:

58. Remediation
16. Herbicides/Pesticides
6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics
5. Garbage/Garbage disposal
7. Drugs/Medicines
11. Mycelium based food
72. Packing Materials (for seeding forests, mycelium and seeds embedded)

THAT means mycelium's many local multiple consumptive positional uses makes it a good place to start upon the commodity ecology for branching in multiple directions from this locus. He says 6 ideas. I count seven. Really, all the difficulties with sustainability are already solved. It merely means putting all the pieces together combined with challenging the corrupt developmentalism with the bioregional state institutional arrangements, challenging the arrangements that keep sustainability, sustainable politics, and territorial states from happening.

Intimately related to this section are the categories on herbicides/pesticides and fertilizers. That is, if you have to use them. In many cases, you can get soil that is healthy, live, and productive without them. For instance, a quote from the short film below:

"You can fix all the world's problems, in a garden. You can solve them all, in a garden....And most people today don't actually know that,...and that makes most people very insecure [to see salty dead desert soil bloom and desalinize before their eyes because they are more attached to their worries and mental constructions than solving the issue]."

Greening the Desert
5:20 min
http://permaculture.org.au

A short film on turning around worst case scenarios of soil in the world, turning them into a (mycelium-rich) garden. The heavily salty desert around the even more heavily salty Dead Sea in Israel becomes a garden without pumping in extra water or artificial fertilizer/herbicides. "We could green the entire Middle East in this way," Geoff Lawton says in the film.

In the above video, the permaculturist notes that nearby degradative and self-destructive farms burn away the secret that could save their soil. The degradative farms burned off so called 'waste from agriculture' and turned it into easily erodible and easily-lost ash because they were ignorant of what to do with it. For the permaculturist, these so-labeled wastes were a key feature of creating their oasis of desalinated soil in the desert, without adding any water artificially and just working with what they had to create solutions for everything.

This is a longer film about Tasmanian/Australian Bill Mollison, who invented the permaculture term with his 1970s book Permaculture One.

From the following film, Mollison noted by 1989--nearly twenty years ago--there were already over 1,000 working examples of permaculture in the world.

Permaculture (1989 film) [The Life of Bill Mollison]
52 min 33 sec

Details the rise and rise of the "Permaculture Concept" as espoused by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton. (Another version of the same here.)

The term 'permaculture' was meant to reflect 'permanent culture' and permanent agriculture,' after noting that all historical societies predictably destroyed themselves with soil destruction and desertification. Societies have been desert creating entities--though is it required? Hardly so. Permaculture is a word originally coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the mid 1970's to describe an "integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man", as a consciously designed landscape which mimics the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an (over!)abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs. People, their buildings and the ways in which they organize themselves and plant species spatially are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent or sustainable agriculture has always been one of permanent or sustainable culture, or sustainable society.

Bill Mollison as an inventor of the concept of permaculture (with David Holmgren) and Geoff Lawton as founder of the Permaculture Research Institute are names associated with international 'permaculture activism'. All help spread working test plots of permaculture examples around the world.

This is a lecture about permaculture:

Introduction to Permaculture - segment 1
19 min 47 sec
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8298358562571067395

A lecture given by Mary Shalhub-Davis at Sacred Grounds Coffeehouse in Tampa, Florida, on the subject of Permaculture.

The definition she likes is "permaculture is an holistic approach to landscape design and human culture. It is an attempt to integrate several disciplines: biology, ecology, geography, agriculture, architecture, appropriate technology, and community building." Importantly she notes that permaculture can be urban or rural, small or large in land scale. The secret is creating the low-labor cycles where the plants, the animals, and the (potentially modified) landscape, interact in such a way as to provide an overabundance of food without much 'farmer' labor input, if any at all. In the Bill Morrison video he talks of 'abandoned' permaculture plots where its owner had moved away. However, the permaculture kept on producing, creating a veritable garden of Eden without any farmer to watch over it.

Permaculture is: without any synthetic pesticides or herbicides (species interactions achieve this effect for free), has a radical reduction of farmer labor required, has zero tilling, is without additional water requirements, as well as is a form of perennial agriculture (instead of annual plantings), is without a clear planting cycle, and can be integrated (typically) into pre-existing forest ecologies.

(If forests don't exist groups like the Colombian llanos-residing dwellers at Gaviotas (see the book Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (1999)) solved that difficulty as well by creating a forest-creation cycle from nothing that provided a foreign species fast-growing tree as a trellis for later 'local domestic' forest growth that would take over from the foreign species. They were able to start a process of forest generation in an area that had been desert and eroded soil for thousands of years in the frontier of Colombia. They expanded their community built on an economy of forest creation and profit--leading to expansion of forest lands with expanding human settlement and agriculture from virtual desert conditions.)

This is another example from Australia. People began to be interested in this man, Peter Andrews, and his ideas during a decade-long drought in Australia (that ended slightly in 2008) that revealed ONLY his farm had maintained its greenery. Everyone else around him was desert. He created a soil-creating framework, an oasis of permaculture techniques. He had just as much water or raw materials issues as the rest of neighboring farmers and ranchers. However, only his organization of them was sustainable while others were creating deserts from their forms of organization.

Australian Story - "Land Regeneration"
29 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8960194180325234816

Details the use of basic permaculture concepts to change a piece of salted and degraded land into a productive oasis.

Effectively 'learning from Ladakh,' Australian Peter Andrews is applying and reinventing the EXACT water harvesting and soil infiltration techniques as Northern India (15 minutes into it).

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh
1 hr 0 min 11 sec
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5314168278683386338

Are we facing the prospect of going 'back' to the future? Will the future be more like the past? These kinds of questions need to be raised, and they are with great insight and understanding in this film about the development of Ladakh, in Northern India. A poignant and timely look into the dark face of globalisation, this documentary contrasts the once utopian essentialisms and sustainable practices of the Ladhaki's, with the disastrously destructive modern encroachment and infiltration.... In this gripping and authentic film, both local markets and local identity are undermined and soon everything is exploited.

Here is a forest garden based permaculture started with experiments by Mr. Robert Hart.

Forest Gardening with Robert Hart ... a film by Malcolm Baldwin (1 of 2)
7 min 25 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weGAe9NM0kg

"[A] haven of tranquility and abundance....His vision was to plant a major edible forest which could fulfill a healthy diet in beautiful surroundings. Some thirty years later, this....provides a model of what can be achieved in any backyard...grown in a secession of layers that imitate nature. The natural forest is regarded as having seven stories...the top story as being tall, light-demanding trees, the second story being short shade trees, the third story is the shrub level, the fourth the herbaceous, the fifth plants that spread horizontally, the sixth the rhizome or root layer, and the seventh the vertical level [of] climbers and creepers." He is indebted he says to Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960), a Japanese inventor of "3-D" methods of linking soil and conservation with food production (fodder trees to conserve soil, supply food and feed animals).

(2 of 2)

Here is a 'permaculture trio' of three short films in one. Another one about Robert Hart, edible forest gardens, as well as urban permaculture.

PERMACULTURE TRIO: Forest Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Urban Permaculture
48 min 5 sec

[T]hree short (about 15 minutes) documentaries.... 1) Robert Hart's Forest Garden Find out loads about what forest gardening is, and how to make your own.... 2)Edible Landscapes Second is an amazing case study about Rural Permaculture in Britain, showcasing loads of amazing edible plants and aquaculture and flowers, as well as fantastic medicinal plants. Look out for a cure for female infertility that's dropped in here.... 3) Urban Permaculture This is a brilliant and inspiring documentary of permaculture techniques used effectively in an urban back garden. With little more than 2 hours of work a week, this couple produce about a fifth of their food intake....

Another example of a working permaculture in a temperate and high altitude climate. The coldest places in Austria are growing lemons at 3,000 ft and much more: the Kramaterhof alpine farm of Sepp Holzer is an alpine garden of Eden with strategic uses of large rocks for passive heat in the winter in the farm's water system.

Farming With Nature: A Case Study Of Successful Temperate Permaculture;
A visit to the farm of Sepp and Veronika Holzer; The Krameterhof in Lungau, Austria
37 min 10 sec
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=727825431796194016

Permaculture is a design-based approach to practical sustainability, using systems thinking and approaches that combine regenerative ethics with ecological principles to create sustainable environments. Permaculture was developed in the sub-tropics (Australia) and thus there was some debate about how well it could adapt to practiced in Temperate climates. [Like Robert Hart's temperate forest-based permaculture,]...[t]his film dispenses with any such worries. In this documentary, we take a look at a case study of permaculture in the Austrian Alps, which is snowed over for much of the year. Despite this, by using permaculture design and a lifetime's experience, the farm here produces abundant and diverse yields, while attracting interest from people and restaurants far and wide.

Here is greater detail about permaculture in practice.

Permaculture in practice
49 min 42 sec
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7629806485951726891

Permaculture in Britain, interspersed with case studies from all over the country. Packed with inspirational design features and beautiful Permaculture systems.

Here is an permaculture 'eco-subdivision'. It was conceived as an integrated landscape of human and ecological relations with multi-species (plants and animal raising mixed with agriculture/orchard and housing for a full community.

Murrnong - a permaculture subdivision
8 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOW-RdCFax0
A permaculture community subdivision based on tree crop agriculture, on the edge of an Australian country town....

If this can be done in arid Australia, it be done virtually anywhere.

Here's a smaller home version, 'square foot gardening' might be called 'square foot permaculture' due to the employment of many permaculture principles at a very tiny scale, though still based on seeding and harvesting processes (unlike permaculture that just grows an "Eden" of food endlessly without tending). There is a very tiny amount of tending in this model:

Square Foot Gardening
36 min

As if it's not obvious, I don't care for totalitarian unsustainable police states whether they are Cuban or based in the United States. However, for a LARGER working model of organic, soil-creating agriculture--and political mechanisms that support it instead of destroy it--take a page from the "accidental agricultural revolution" in Cuba after they lost access to subsidized Soviet Block inputs and petrochemicals from 1989:

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution PT-1 and PT-2 (1989 to present in agriculture)
Canadian Broadcasting Company
90 min
(split into in ten minute segments at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdnlcYx6AIE )

Other Secrets of Sustainable Soil Creation

However, another secret of sustainable soil has been recovered from Amazonian archeology. See the below BBC video about this.

The lost urbanized societies in the Brazilian Amazon and the western half of Bolivia are yielding other secrets of soil sustainability, how to create renewable soil with large agricultural techniques, instead of creating a social process that destroys the soil. One key to this process of sustainable soil involves 'char-and-burn' remineralization of the soil instead of 'slash and burn' (meaning remineralization by burning items to white ash).

For remineralization, in a lower-temperature, lower-oxygen char-and-burn of any 'agricultural waste' you create charcoal instead of white ash. Then you mix that charcoal in the soil. Since charcoal is hard to erode and only partially turned to free chemicals, this remineralization by charcoal-in-the-soil facilitates a slow and stable release of minerals into the soil--over centuries. This places minerals durably in the soil instead of with white ash turning these minerals into something erodible and easily-lost.

In the below video, see a working example of this ideal anthropogenic (human-created) 'char-and-burn' form of agriculture that makes a soil-creating agriculture instead of a soil-destroying agriculture. Even after these urban Amazonians are long gone, their anthropogenic soil is still incredibly rich. Learn one of the 'secrets of the 'terra preta'' below: this sustainable char-and-burn mineralization of the soil to move away from the unsustainable slash and burn styles of mineralization. (Some of these videos have been removed though I leave the titles to see so you can find them, as well as because I assume someone will repost these elsewhere. Then I will update the links).

Unravelling Human Creation of Amazonian 'Terra Preta'/Dark Soil (Or, How to Make Permanent, Anthropogenic, Self-Renewing Soil); 7 min.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kUvgOPAPnA

"This is a short excerpt from a BBC Horizon documentary entitled "The Secret of El Dorado". It recounts how a previously unknown highly populated area of Eastern Bolivian Amazonia extending into the Amazon River Basin gave the area a major urban/agricultural society. It completely disappeared as Europeans arrived. However, it left its 'terra preta'--the dark earth of the Amazon--that is still mined and carried off because it is so beneficial a soil. And it still self-replicates--long after the original human/indigenous creators have died off and their secret lost. We are slowly unraveling how to recreate this perpetual self-renewing soil. Some secrets of it are featured in this short video clip. One secret is slash-and-char instead of slash-and-burn. The charcoal mixed later into the soil creates a slow release of minerals instead of burned ash that is eroded away very quickly. Very smart. See the amazing differences of scale of yields by only varying the addition of charcoal! Watch the longer video below for more detailed information about other aspects of the terra preta."

BBC - Horizon - The Secret of El Dorado
49 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2809044795781727003

"New evidence that advanced societies flourished in the Amazon Basin before the arrival of Europeans. It was the most notorious wild-goose chase in history: the Conquistadors' search for El Dorado, a fabulous kingdom of gold that Indians said lay hidden in the jungles of the Amazon Basin. But now, at last, archaeologists have uncovered the truth behind that myth. They have found evidence of a huge society, as advanced as the Egyptians or the Incas, right in the heart of the rainforest. And this is more than the story of a lost world rediscovered. For it seems that the people of the real El Dorado possessed a secret with the power to transform our world and their secret in the soil could be the solution to solving famine in the Third World and other nations [by making local independent and autonomous agricultural sound for poor soil areas--because you can invent the soil out of nothing in a low-tech way!] once and for all."

So, one of the main points is that a long durable human agriculture (permanent culture) would be soil creating instead of soil destroying. Actually at the herbicides/pesticides I go into this as well, so see that link.

Below is something I wrote for the Encyclopedia of Social Problems (2008, pending) on "Erosion." Perhaps I'll add some more of the details that were clipped out of the accepted draft. It helps you understand the generalizable biochemical processes involved in good soils.

Erosion

Erosion can refer confusingly to effects of human and natural processes, and human-natural interactive processes, the latter serving here as the focus in discussing soil erosion and biodiversity loss, particularly as a result of surface water runoffs in both urban and rural environments.

When humans disrupt soil creation processes habitat fragmentation, habitat destruction, and general ecological unraveling begins in that soil gradient's plant and animal life specific to it. Worldwide, the majority of biologists blame anthropogenic soil erosion and biodiversity loss for the current sixth major mass extinction event in the history of planet Earth. This is the first anthropogenic mass extinction event, and it is far more rapid than any of the “Big Five” in past geologic times.

Natural Erosion and Soil Creation

In different soil gradients, a specific slow, organic and inorganic physical process of natural soil creation occurs that involves beneficial erosion. This process jockeys increasingly with a faster, human soil erosion and sheet runoff that kills plant and animal life within a soil gradient—carrying the slowly formed soil away. Thus, anthropogenic soil erosion and associated biodiversity loss start in the alteration of this balance in the creation or destruction of soil and in how humans affect water dynamics.

Understanding soil creation chemically and physically is necessary if one wishes to understand and arrest the process of soil destruction. Soil creation results from a mixture of decayed organic and inorganic matter relationships which create an all important macro-molecular chelate arrangement of humic acids. Humic acids are a major component required for making humic substances, created via microbial degradation of once living matter. A large amount of humic molecules are hydrophobic, meaning they innately allow in the presence of water, clumping into `water avoiding' supramolecular nodes.

Only the acidic component of humic substances, mainly carboxylic acid, gives soil a capacity for chelation, a capacity to ‘store’ inorganic minerals as ions without them having a strong chemical bond with anything else. Chelated inorganic ions are both more readily bioavailable for plants or are sequestered away from them if they are poisons. Thus one of the most important properties of humic acid is this chelation ability to solubilize many ions into hydrophobic cations (water avoiding, chemically positive ions). For bioavailability chelation, ions like magnesium, calcium, and iron are made available for plant absorption. For sequestering chelation, humic acid holds apart as ions many elements that otherwise would form toxic molecular salts to poison the soil without positive biological effect (like cadmium and lead). For instance, sodium and chlorine ions naturally want to combine to form a salt. Instead, in good fertile soil they are attached as separate ions to humic acids and clay—rendered harmless by chelation. Thus, many good soils contain large quantities of safely chelated “salt,'' held apart in ionic form from precipitating out in this way. Plant growth thrives in such “theoretically saline'' soils, in many cases. In short, humic acid chelation capacities have an important dual role for living systems: making biological uptake of nutrients possible as well as sequestration of poisons. Chemistry of varied humic acids has a profound influence on chelation capacities as well.

On the contrary, human soil erosion processes chemically have in common destruction of the humic acid creation process. This causes [1] loss of chelation capacity and [2] loss of water permeability and loss of soil infiltration capacities as a consequence. For agriculture, the latter can lead to [3] forced excessive watering, and in turn, a raised pH. Water as slightly alkaline (chemically positive) as well as dilutive would demote the slightly acidic (chemically negative) environment that encourages humic acid creation and would thus demote chelation action further. Such watering as a consequence can lead to [4] artificially raised water tables that can bring in external salts to precipitate from below, creating a hardpan and encouraging soil erosion of the drier soil above it. These four interactive soil destruction factors cause increased salt precipitation in chelated soil. This encourages a chemical and physical change toward poorer soil and less water-absorbent soil in both urban and rural areas. This primes the conditions that cause soil erosion whether by sheet water runoff or wind.

Erosion: Just Add Water or Wind

Poor land/soil uses like deforestation, overgrazing, styles of chemical and physical agriculture (tilling), unmanaged construction activity, and urban impermeable surfaces demote humic acid formation. This leads to erosion because less humic acid means less hydroscopic soils, resulting in an innately dry soil—regardless of climate. Human-created poor soils facilitate ongoing natural water erosion and wind erosion above rates of natural soil formation. In heavily eroding water conditions, it is not water alone that erodes, but also suspended loads of abrasive particles of poor loose soil, pebbles, and boulders which expand the power of erosion as they traverse and scrape soil surfaces. Waterborne soil erosion in these conditions is additionally a function of water speed and suspended particle dynamics.

Wind erosion occurs in areas with little or no vegetation, often in areas without sufficient rainfall. However, the common factor of a less humic acidic hydroscopic soil facilitates wind erosion regardless of climate. One example is the long-term shifting dunes in beaches or deserts, which advance to bury any plant life even when underground sources of water may be sufficient. Huge areas of western China are experiencing expanding desertification and wind based erosion, whipped into incredible dust storms caused by mostly anthropogenic climate change. Both water and wind erosion cause further biodiversity loss from receiving water sedimentation and ecosystem damage (including fish kills).

Anthropogenic soil erosion and biodiversity loss expand from edge effects, the ecological juxtaposition between contrasting environments. The term identifies boundaries of natural habitats and disturbances by poor land use choices. When an edge is created to a natural ecosystem and the area outside is a disturbed system, even the natural ecosystem fragment is affected for great distances inward from the edge. This edge effect area is called the external habitat and has a different microclimate than the residual interior habitat. This partially compromised external habitat starts a feedback loop process, leading to further soil erosion and microclimate change unraveling and exposing more interior habitat to further habitat destruction. For example, Amazonian areas altered by edge effects exceed the area actually cleared, and fires are more prevalent in the external habitat area as humidity drops and temperature and wind levels rise. Increased natural fire frequency from the 1990s in the Amazon, Indonesia, and the Philippines is an edge effect.
In such contexts, an ecosystem unravels toward a simpler ‘emergy’ state (embedded or sequestered biomass energy). Intrusive exotic species are part of this, further causing biodiversity loss to levels of lower complexity. Exotics are hardly to blame. The blame is human soil erosive processes that create edge effects and biodiversity loss which exotics opportunistically utilize.

Shifting Blame and Shifting Cultivation

The blame for much of the world’s soil and biodiversity erosion usually focuses on the poor—the slash and burn cultivators of mostly the Developing World. However, transnational corporate Developed World logging around the world with Developed World directed mining, export-driven grazing of cattle and plantation agriculture linked to a war economy demoting political expression of local ecological self-interest. This combines as the major blame for soil and biodiversity loss, as well as the major factor keeping such degradation in place. In short, current faulty and unsustainable Developed World models and associated warfare are the larger origin of soil erosion, defoliation, and biodiversity destruction. Another example of misplaced priorities of exclusive blame (though proper concern) on peasant slash and burn for erosion is its false magnification by politicized Developed World research institutions. Despite the largest blame for soil erosion and biodiversity loss coming from Developed World developmental models, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assessed shifting cultivation of the last independent natives to be the main cause of deforestation—ignoring more invasive and destructive unsustainable Developed World logging. The apparent discrimination and policy focus against independent shifting cultivators (whom the FAO recommend be forced to work on export economy rubber plantations) caused a confrontation between FAO and environmental groups who saw FAO supporting unsustainable commercial logging and plantation interests against local rights of indigenous people to be independent economically.

The lesson here is that the infrastructural and cultural adherence of more than 3-4 billion people (at least ambivalently) supportive of Developed World political economic models and commodity choices are far more dangerous to soil erosion and biological diversity than the estimated mere 250 million people subsisting on slash and burn. Instead of nomadic slash and burn sustenance-minded shifting cultivation villages, it is the expansion of permanent agricultural monocropping techniques particularly in export frameworks of high herbicide/pesticide commodities, mining pollution, transnational corporate logging, and tree plantations that has led to more soil erosion and biodiversity loss. Massive export-oriented sheep and cattle herding, for instance, led to soil erosion and biodiversity loss in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the Amazon. In less than 150 years in Australia, export-oriented monocrop agriculture in New South Wales led to clearing 90 percent of native vegetation. The same chosen agricultural strategy and chosen commodities removed 99 percent of Tallgrass prairie in North America in the same period, leading to extreme habitat fragmentation and massive suspended loads (sediment) flowing down the Mississippi River. In the past fifty years, erosion is affecting even oceans, with over sixty massive ‘dead zones’ of deoxygenated ocean water appearing off the littorals of the Developed world.

In short, organizing developmental paradigms of more locally attenuated human-environmental commodity relationships to maintain local natural soil gradient formation processes and to maintain soil infiltration are two generalized goals common to addressing soil erosion and biodiversity loss. There are already many land use techniques developed in urban and rural areas to allow for quick sedimentation and slowing water speed. Wider goals are to demote contexts that allow suspended loads or soil destruction in the first place—by altering agricultural and construction practices to mitigate against loosened soil or heavy watering. There are frameworks of urban water handling and agricultural water and soil handling already developed to allow for more water infiltration, less (sometimes zero) soil tilling, and elimination of chemical pesticides and herbicides.

Integrating ecological relationships into urban infrastructural relations and making rural extraction sustainable by encouraging soil-creating human activities instead of soil destruction are both crucial. This seems to be the only route to demote massive soil erosion and biodiversity loss that follow soil gradients. Comparatively historically, soil and biodiversity survive with human societies, or all will fall together.

Mark D. Whitaker
See also

Environment: Runoff and Eutrophication, Sewage Disposal; Environmental, Degradation, Movement; Water: Organization, Quality, Supply.

Further Readings and References

Ascher, William. 1999. Why Governments Waste Natural Resources: Policy Failures in Developing Countries. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins Press.

Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Viking.

Hillel, Daniel. 1991. Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil. New York: The Free Press.

Ponting, Clive. 1992. A Green History of the World the Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Potter, Christopher S., and Joel I. Cohen. 1993. Perspectives on Biodiversity: Case Studies of Genetic Resource Conservation and Development. Washington, D.C.: AAAS Press.

Pye-Smith, Charlie. 2002. The Subsidy Scandal: How Your Government Wastes Your Money to Wreck Your Environment. London Sterling, VA: Earthscan.

Quammen, David. 1997. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction. Scribner.

Steensberg, Axel. 1993. Fire-Clearance Husbandry: Traditional Techniques Throughout the World. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters’ Commission for Research on the History of Agricultural Implements and Field Structures. Herning: Poul Kristensen.

Books on Permaculture:

Permaculture One: A Perennial Agricultural System for Human Settlements by Mollison and Holmgren (Paperback - 1990)

Permaculture Two by Mollison (Paperback - Jun 1979)

PERMACULTURE: A Designers' Manual by Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay (Hardcover - Oct 1, 1997)

The Permaculture Way: Practical Steps To Create A Self-Sustaining World (Practical Steps) by Graham Bell, Bill Mollison, David Bellamy, and Brick (Paperback - Mar 30, 2005)

Permaculture Magazine by Permanent Publications - Magazine Subscription - 4 issues / 12 months

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren (Paperback - Dec 2002)

How to Make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield (Paperback - Jun 22, 2002)

Or contact the Permaculture Research Institute, founded by Geoff Lawton.

In comments below are strategies of zeolite, soil remineralization from mining tailings, and other material inputs utilized to make soil sustainability.

7. Drugs/Medicines

2007-06-03T22:59:00.006+09:00

Apricot Seeds

Coconut Oil, Very High in Lauric Fatty Acid Which Has Many Health Uses

(different forms of medicine; are you given options or are you forced to consume certain medicines by those who have limited your choices and even hidden and outlawed cheap and effective remedies?)

For two hundred years, there has been an economic competition from the empirics/homeopaths that caused the allopathics to found the American Medical Association. This organization has been found guilty of conspiracy before to repress alternatives. For more details see below the film Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime. I quote from this film's narration:

"The war of money between Hoxsey and the doctors is another old story in medicine. In the 1800s, doctors tried to stop the popular empirics from collecting their fees by denouncing them as quacks. Economic competition from the empirics caused the doctors to found the AMA. But the AMA was a small trade association without political clout, and the balance of power remained equal until the turn of the century. Then, new medical treatments emerged that were potentially very profitable. Then the AMA joined with strong financial forces to transform medicine into an industry. The fortunes of Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller financed surgery, radiation, and synthetic drugs. They were to become the economic foundations of the new medical economy. Ironically, John D. Rockefeller himself used only an empirical homeopath while investing in allopathic medicine. Surgery became viable [for the first time without potential secondary infection deaths] with anesthesia and infection control, and doctors advocated expensive radical operations. These in turn produced the need for a large, and lucrative hospital system. The allopaths also discovered a new toxic mineral, radium..." etc. 1:03:35 into the film.

Furthermore, it narrates:

"The AMA targeted Harry Hoxsey as public quack #1. But by the 1940s, its quack files had swelled to include 300,000 names. Hoxsey had long charged a conspiracy. His solitary voice was now echoed by many others. In the 1950s, a Congressional committee came to the same conclusion. The Fitzgerald Report to Congress named at least a dozen other promising cancer treatments seemingly blocked by organized medicine. Their proponents were mostly doctors of high reputation. The treatments were immunological or nutritional. Dismissing them as quackery, were panels of surgeons or radiation therapists. The congressional report emphasized two outstanding cases of alleged suppression: Harry Hoxsey and Dr. Andrew C. Ivy. If Hoxsey fit the [stereotypical] image of a quack [without being one], Dr. Ivy certainly did not. [He was the organizer of the Bethesda Navel Medical Research Institute, former national director of the National Cancer Advisory Council, Vice President of the University of Illinois, and a former board member of the American Cancer Society; he was associating himself with the drug Krebiozen (more information available from the book Krebiozen: 13 Years of Confict (1963)).

The Hoxsey film documents a disturbing pattern at least three times: where the AMA doctors attempted to buy a workable cancer treatment, though were refused by the inventors. Then the AMA sets out to destroy through its political institutional allies the alternative it was unable to profit from, though attempted to. There were Congressional investigations into AMA fraud in 1953, 1963, and 1981 the film documents as well.

Moreover, the American medical association was found guilty of ‘conspiracy’ to destroy the chiropractic profession in August, 1987.

Other medicines condemned without investigation include:

HERBAL

Chapparal tea, University of Utah

Essiac
Renee Caisse, RN

Gerson Therapy
Max Gerson, MD

Vitamin C
Linus Pauling, MD; Nobel Laureate

Macrobiotics
Kichio Kushi

IMMUNOLOGY

Bacteriophage
Robert F. Lincoln

Coley’s Toxins
William Coley, MD

Coffey-Humber Extract
Walter Coffey and John Humber MD's

Glover’s Serum
Thomas J. Glover, MD

Glyoxylide
William F. Koch, MD

Hydrazine Sulfate
Joseph Gold, M.D.

Immuno-Augumentive Therapy
Lawrence Burton Ph.D.

Krebiozen
Andrew C. Ivy, M.D.

Laetrile (featured in the film linked below)
Earnst T. Krebs, MD

Livingston Vaccine
Virginia Livingston

Ozias Treatment
Charles Ozias, MD

Revici Method
Emmanuel Revici, PhD

Rife Microscope
Royal Raymond Rife

I recommend the Hoxsey film and the following one for those interested in health freedom choice and in researching ongoing repressive politics against free nutritional therapies --whether in the United States and in many cases, worldwide.

Hoxsey - How Healing Becomes A Crime (Alternative Cancer Cure)
1:23:32 min

This documentary concerns Harry M. Hoxsey, the former coal miner whose family's herbal recipe has brought about claims of a cancer cure. Starting in 1924 with his first clinic, he expanded to 17 states by the mid 1950s, along the way constantly battling [the poor track record of] organized medicine that [attempted to] label him a charlatan. Hoxsey's supporters point out he was the victim of arrests, or "quackdowns" spearheaded by the proponents of established medical practices. Interviews of patients satisfied with the results of the controversial treatment are balanced with physicians from the FDA and the AMA. A clinic in Tijuana, Mexico claims an 80% success rate....What is apparent is that cancer continues to be one of humankind's more dreaded diseases, and that political and economic forces dominate research and development.

Another film:

G. Edward Griffin - A World Without Cancer - The Story Of Vitamin B17
55 min - Apr 7, 2006

"G. Edward Griffin marshals the evidence that cancer is a deficiency disease--like scurvy or pellagra--aggravated by the lack of an essential food compound in modern man's diet. That substance is vitamin B17. In its purified form developed for cancer therapy, it is known as Laetrile. This story is not approved by orthodox medicine. The FDA, the AMA, and The American Cancer Society have labeled it fraud and quackery. Yet the evidence is clear that here, at last, is the final answer to the cancer riddle. Why has orthodox medicine waged war against this non-drug approach? The author contends that the answer is to be found, not in science, but in politics--and is based upon the hidden economic and power agenda of those who dominate the medical establishment.

With billions of dollars spent each year on research, with other billions taken in on the sale of cancer-related drugs, and with fund-raising at an all-time high, there are now more people making a living from cancer than dying from it. If the solution should be found in a simple vitamin, this gigantic industry could be wiped out over night. The result is that the politics of cancer therapy is more complicated than the science."

I additionally recommend investigative journalist Phillip Day's book on nutritional health research. Most of this information has been hidden by self-interested medical establishments because cheap treatments of many things are well known, though they have been hidden from the public. See the book Health Wars.

And mycelium is a far more efficient and effective form of (free, unpatentable) form of medicine. It has several billion years of field testing, so it works on mycelium as well as us--because both humans and mycelium have an uncanny similarity biologically for what keeps us alive and healthy. Therefore, free, unpatentable mycelium abstracts can make a true revolution against the synthetic, deadly, hyper-expensive treatments. Note Paul Stamets research showing that mycelium is hundreds of times more effective than any synthetic drug on the market.

Mycelium is an excellent base for starting the commodity ecology, because literally it was the basis for all land base life: the first land dwellers that prepared everything chemically for soil formation and self-medicine against bacteria and other viral pests. See this short stunning video, below.

Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (17 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258

"Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas. There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet."

Re-basing commodity ecology, the ecologizing of human commodification, on mycelium seems the sounded basis to start. Moreover, it is probably to be expected because mycelium was the first arriving "'life organ' of ecology" that these species would be an integral start for life--and for other commodity ecology paths. It has THE MOST cross-connects or overlaps SO FAR with leads into other categories. It connects very well with:

58. Remediation
16. Herbicides/Pesticides
6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics
5. Garbage/Garbage disposal
7. Drugs/Medicines
11. Mycelium based food
72. Packing Materials (for seeding forests, mycelium and seeds embedded)

THAT means mycelium's many local multiple consumptive positional uses makes it a good place to start upon the commodity ecology for branching in multiple directions from this locus. He says 6 ideas. I count seven. Really, all the difficulties with sustainability are already solved. It merely means putting all the pieces together combined with challenging the corrupt developmentalism with the bioregional state institutional arrangements, challenging the arrangements that keep sustainability, sustainable politics, and territorial states from happening.

Issues like the material corruptions above are why the bioregional state requires 'commodity reform' as much as checks and balances against existing corruptions of democratic political institution that have maintained this corruption. Such changes have a huge backing since it expresses supermajorities that support more democratic feedback into developmental politics.

Politics is always over developmental directions--some more representative (like the bioregional state) than others.

In the definition of the bioregional state:

Bioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State) is a set of electoral reforms and commodity reforms designed to force the political process in a democracy to better represent concerns about the economy, the body, and environmental concerns (e.g. water quality), toward developmental paths that are locally prioritized and tailored to different areas for their own specific interests of sustainability and durability. This movement is variously called bioregional democracy, watershed cooperation, or bioregional representation, or one of various other similar names--all of which denote democratic control of a natural commons and local jurisdictional dominance in any economic developmental path decisions—while not removing more generalized civil rights protections of a larger national state.

Other temporary enhancements to encourage human self-healing seem ethically sound, like much of electromedicine:

VIBE Machine Interview With Gene Koonce
18:33 min.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XBcPAyo9kdg

Other examples of electromedicine/frequency medicine are Dr. Peter Guy Manners' Cymatic Instrument (based on audio frequencies instead of electrical frequencies), or a Chinese Qigong infrasound machine utilized in China, based on infrasound 'taped' from Qigong masters and played back 'at' hospital patients for healing. This enters an area that is quite interdiciplinary and based on knowing about the bioelectric and bio-audial frameworks of DNA activation and biofrequency conditions of health in the human body and reachiving it through sympathetically inducing in the body enough of a frequency effect to allow the body to heal itself naturally.

However, when other 'natural' additions or techniques are irreversible or inequitably available as commodities we are off into a 'brave new world' of ethical dangers. For instance, if bodily regeneration is only available for the rich in the future, it would create a class-based hive society. The future is here and it requires an equitably available preventative medicine based regime.

Alan Russell on regenerating our bodies
19:37 min.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/142

Aubrey de Grey says we can avoid aging
23:31 min.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

Such are the promise and perils of this category of human commodities of medicines: will medicine maintain equality among humans or only become another form of inequality being reified biologically, with different life chances based on access to these regenerative medical ideas? Will we be repressively limited access to free nutritional therapies by international corporations that don't like the competition with their expensive products? This is how the Codex Alimentarius from the WTO is attemping to outlaw nutrituional therapies by 2009. You should watch this: see a nutritionist's videotaped talk concerning GLOBAL threats to our health and medical freedom due to the WTO's repressive Codex Alimentarius that would outlaw many free nutritional therapies to benefit the international pharmaceutial manufacturer sales, at this link.

Only if medicine is [1] entirely opt-in/opt-out, [2] reversible without harm, and [3] equally available would seem to be three critical caveats that avoid any unknown feedback effects associated with the famous phrase "you know, it was a great idea, er, at the time, until..."

Just to keep in mind what is known for free therapy, though systemic interests want to keep from everyone:

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74

In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated -- until now.

May 31, 2000

The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.

Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.

The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."

The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.

"Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended."

Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.)

In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia investigation.

"I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible." Guzman said.

In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, "We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared."

Guzman provided the title of the work -- "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute -- and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid.

The summary of the Virginia study begins, "Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)" -- two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. "Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size."

The 1975 journal article doesn't mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study -- in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part:

"The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."

Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote:

"It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again Œdraw back the veil‚ over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration."

News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors.

Raymond Cushing is a journalist, musician and filmmaker. This article was named by Project Censored as a "Top Censored Story of 2000."

Avoid the "run from the cure" described in the following film. Instead, run to the cure(s):

RUN FROM THE CURE - The Rick Simpson Story, Full Version [the curing powers of natural, unpatentable, hemp oil]
58:02 min

"They let the genie out of the bottle with this one, and the big money can't put it back in." A Film By Christian Laurette - After a serious head injury in 1997, Rick Simpson sought relief from his medical condition through the use of medicinal hemp oil. When Rick discovered that the hemp oil (with its high concentration of T.H.C.) cured cancers and other illnesses, he tried to share it with as many people as he could free of charge - curing and controlling literally hundreds of people's illnesses... but when the story went public, the long arm of the law snatched the medicine - leaving potentially thousands of people without their cancer treatments - and leaving Rick with unconsitutional charges of possessing and trafficking marijuana! [The corrupt Canadian government attacks everyone in sight related to this, even its own military curing soldiers of various ailments far better than the expensive "required" allopathic medicines that make drug companies richer and people sicker with side effects, with little cure in sight, and most cures withdrawn by a money-model base of medicine, instead of cures put in sight by a healing-model base of medicine.]

Canada is in the middle of a cancer epidemic. Meet the people who were not allowed to testify on Rick's behalf at the Supreme Court of Canada's Infamous Rick Simpson Trial on September 10, 2007...INCLUDING A MAN WHO WAS CURED OF TERMINAL CANCER USING HEMP OIL! IF YOU SEE ONLY ONE DOCUMENTARY THIS YEAR...MAKE IT THIS ONE! Download the whole movie for free and share it at http://www.phoenixtearsmovie.com VIEW ALL 7 FILES AT http://www.youtube.com/chrychek - Please make a donation in any amount using the donate button on phoenixtears.ca and together we can CRUSH CANCER without government support. The world deserves a cure for cancer. Please support this world-changing cause. http://www.phoenixtears.ca ; http://www.phoenixtearsmovie.com ."

8. Infant food

2007-06-03T22:57:00.000+09:00

9. Animal based food

2007-06-03T22:56:00.013+09:00

The larger category here is meat based foods, whether animal or fish, or their derivatives like milk-based butters or animal fat oils.

A book on our innate "bioregional diet" as important to resuscitate for our own health is Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity, by Gary Paul Nabhan

From Publishers Weekly
With 21st-century science promising better living through genetic engineering, and myriad diet fads claiming to be the answer to obesity and disease, this exploration of the coevolution of communities and their native foods couldn't be more timely. Ethnobiologist Nabhan (Coming Home to Eat) investigates the intricate web of culture, food and environment to show that even though 99.9% of the genetic makeup of all humans is identical, "each traditional cuisine has evolved to fit the inhabitants of a particular landscape or seascape over the last several millennia." Sardinians are genetically sensitive to fava beans, which can give them anemia but can also protect them from the malaria once epidemic in the region. Navajos are similarly sensitive to sage. [Other cultural regions--of food, genes, and culture over time--thus build animal fats into diets as why people some people are healthy on these diets and others less so.] In both cases, traditional knowledge allows safe interactions with these powerful medicine/poisons through cooking methods or food combinations. Nabhan questions the wisdom of genetic therapy, which "normalizes" the "bad" genes that can cause sickness but also enhance immunity. Most inspiring in this bioethnic detective story are Cretans, maintaining their health for centuries through traditional living, and Native Americans and Hawaiians, whose communities, devastated by diabetes, find an antidote by returning to their traditional foods, customs and agriculture. Mixing hard science with personal anecdotes, Nabhan convincingly argues that health comes from a genetically appropriate diet inextricably entwined with a healthy land and culture.

From Booklist:
Ethnobotanist and nutritional ecologist Nabhan continues the paradigm-altering investigation into the matrix of food, place, ethnicity, and well-being that he's been conducting in such influential books as Coming Home to Eat (2002). A leading voice in the slow-food movement and a thoroughly engaging guide, Nabhan now delineates the evolutionary dimension of newly recognized interactions among cuisine, culture, and genetics that inspired him to modify an old adage: "We are what our [recent regional instead of ancient paleolithic!] ancestors ate and drank." He teases out the evolutionary secrets of chili peppers and explains why some folks like them hot and others can't take the heat. Since it's easiest to see the hidden benefits of ethnic cuisines in isolated island societies, he travels to Sardinia, where, for centuries, fava beans have protected the populace from malaria, and to Hawaii, where natives have discovered that traditional yet neglected taro dishes control diabetes [in their genotypes best]. With millions [really the majority of the world, he writes] of people suffering from little-understood food-related maladies, Nabhan's revelations of the complexities of our [regionally] inherited interactions with food, the true significance of the healthful "synergies" of traditional ethnic cuisines, and the essentiality of both biodiversity and cultural diversity are as critical as they are fascinating.

Therefore, beware the industrial pressures that attempt to avoid your 'bioregional diet' of traditional regional foods, many of them (not all!) high in animal fats. Ms. Fallon describes the U.S. as the worst case scenario of powerful industrial destruction of bioregional dietary standards, where diet and scientific knowledge is sculpted or perverted to be advertising for industrial profit instead of for health:

The Oiling of America, by Mary Fallon (of the Weston Price Foundation, discussing Dr. Mary Enig's (Ph.D., medicine) research on animal fats, cholesterol, and industrial food's perversions of scientific studies on health
2:03:00 min

"Margarine is the bad guy and butter and eggs are the good guys [for certain regional foodways--see Nabhan's book above.] For fifty years, big business, government agencies and medical organizations have campaigned deceptively against animal fats, meat, eggs, butter and other nutritious, traditional foods, leading to huge profits from the sale of toxic margarine, shortenings and liquid vegetable oils, and the foods that contain them [because these have greater profit margin potentials for large scale suppliers than the others]. Scientific data contradicting current anti-animal fat public health policy was suppressed and censored for many years. Dr. Enig and Sally Fallon now tell you the truth about how that happened. The Oiling of America will open your eyes to fraud and deception behind the lipid hypothesis of heart disease. Topics include:

* How scientists cheat in scientific studies
* Why cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease
* The dangers of cholesterol-lowering diets and drugs
* Why trans fatty acids and [the industrial chemical processing techniques of many] liquid vegetable oils are [making them] so dangerous to human health."

With Fallon and Nabhan in mind, let's go to the sea, next:

Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish
19:02 min.

Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie's honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain.

And open-ocean farmed fish is unsustainability incarnate, with a host of dangers to the local communities of people and ecologies where it has been destructive worldwide. Avoid farmed fish. Why? Watch this four part documentary of its effects:

Farmed Salmon Exposed (1/4)
3:26 min

A short documentary by the Pure Salmon Campaign--though what they say applies to the devastating effects of open-ocean farmed fish in general.

In the name of maintaining biodiversity, the Slow Food Movement of institutionalizing biodiversity and varietals is a far more long term and far more sound model for health, ecology, and economy--than cloned cattle.

"The Slow Food movement was created to combat fast food and claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement. The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a resistance movement to fast food. It has since expanded globally to 100 countries and now has 83,000 members."

Since in the bioregional state the local jurisdictional autonomy on economic developmental path decisions is the primary jurisdiction, decisions like this along the model of 'does it fit where we live?' will be far more instrumental for setting commodity policy in a watershed. This is already seen in the many county level governments and states that have institutionalized much higher local levels of human health-ecological health protection concerning commodities, than federal baselines.

Thus, decisions on all commodities will be up to particular local watersheds, a model of state more akin to modeling biodiversity and ecological variegation as the purpose of the state to protect and maintain, instead of destroy. However, this fails to mean that large scale baseline standards laws (or laws to outlaw) certain commodity uses and merely supply-side uses will disappear from larger jurisdictions. These will only be baselines of human health, ecological, and economic sustainability local protection though, in all cases, instead of attempts to make multiple local areas suffer under larger federal 'glass ceilings laws' attempting to stop local health, ecological, and economic protection from going higher, when the public in that area wants it.

In this movement toward material sustainability, I can think of nothing more appropriate than [1] to demote supply-side biased agricultural monocropping and its recent budded-off twin, [2] to demote supply-side biased cloned animal strategies. Both have always been short term evil twins against local long term ecological, health, and economic durability. They are evil twins organizationally speaking because they are interwoven in massive pollution/externality streams connected via monocropping feedstocks for such 'animal monocropping.'

In this category of 'animal based food,' the Slow Food Movement encouraging local varietal use and maintenance is far more important to institute with commodity ecology interactions.

Seven Arguments Against Cloned Animals

Arguments against cloned animal monocropping are very numerous and interrelated to health, biodiversity/ecological, and economic sustainability issues:

[1] Clones cannot be perfect copies.

"...clones are far from perfect copies. All clones are defective, in one way or another, with multiple flaws embedded in their genomes. Rudolf Jaenisch, a geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimates that something like 4-5% of the genes in a cloned animal's genome are expressed incorrectly.

[2] Clone and human health difficulties arising from clones get transferred into the food chain: you.

"These often subtle genetic defects can have tangible consequences. Cloning produces an extraordinarily high number of deaths and deformed animals. Some clones have been born with incomplete body walls or with abnormalities in their hearts, kidneys or brain function, or have suffered problems like "adult clone sudden death syndrome" and premature ageing."

[3] Without the data on its safety at all, it is only another open air experiment on your health, thanks to the corrupt FDA--just like their corrupt open air experiment without notification concerning GMOs.

"...who knows how this is transferred to YOU. Nothing has been done in research on these issues of long term exposure.

[4] Cloned animals demote biodiversity.

[5] Cloned animals encourage agricultural 'shakeout' or agricultural/stock consolidation land tenures, which become more prone to externalities (like factory farming large scale arrangements).

[6] In practice, cloned animals would yield more health dangers to you from wider 'monocropped animals' in factory farm conditions, with more loads of crowd diseases risk, stress, and antibiotics given to them all the while, which gets transferred to you as well, as well as leads to pathogens becoming immune to antibiotic treatment.

[7] It's against the animals themselves.

In general, the added risks and lack of similarity in cloned meat is anti-consumer and anti-animal on every level.

As mentioned in the Commodity Ecology title page, institutions on the watershed level (CDIs and commodity ecology) help facilitate this changeover, equitably and sustainably, for the iterative long term. It is very similar to the goals of the Slow Food Movement.

[Slow Food Snail with Green Phrygian Cap]

The bioregional state in many ways, from the point of view of animal/vegetable varitals, the state formation implications or component of the Slow Food Movement:

The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:

* forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems

* developing an "ark of taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated

* the preservation and promotion of local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation

* the organization of small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)

* the organization of celebrations of local cuisine within regions (e.g. the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)

* Taste Education

* educating consumers about the risks of fast food

* educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms

* educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties

* Various political programs to preserve family farms

* Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy

* Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering

* Lobbying against the use of pesticides

* Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners

* Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces

Building those two institutions of commodity ecology and CDI in all watersheds will aid in making commodity uses streamlined and optimized in particular watershed areas as well as encourage local democratization--instead of merely watching corrupt governments institutionalize biased commodity uses against local health, the ecology, and against the sustainability of the economy itself.

10. Vegetable based food

2007-06-03T22:56:00.008+09:00

DENUTRIFIED FOOD AND INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE

Recently, it has been noted that Americans are shrinking--as junk food and denutrified food takes its toll.

"Poverty and poor diet mean the average US man is getting smaller, while Europeans keep growing taller
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html

Researchers have made a startling discovery: Americans are shrinking. A nation once famed for its strapping, well-nourished youth is gradually diminishing in physical stature." Of course, it's only Americans shinking, as the rest of the world continues to grow. Why? The U.S. has rejected health for industrial production in many food products and the lies of big medicine that ignore industrial production kills food, with suffering of the population, the soil, and the economy as a result.

A book on our innate "bioregional diet" as important to resuscitate for our own health is Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity, by Gary Paul Nabhan

From Publishers Weekly
With 21st-century science promising better living through genetic engineering, and myriad diet fads claiming to be the answer to obesity and disease, this exploration of the coevolution of communities and their native foods couldn't be more timely. Ethnobiologist Nabhan (Coming Home to Eat) investigates the intricate web of culture, food and environment to show that even though 99.9% of the genetic makeup of all humans is identical, "each traditional cuisine has evolved to fit the inhabitants of a particular landscape or seascape over the last several millennia." Sardinians are genetically sensitive to fava beans, which can give them anemia but can also protect them from the malaria once epidemic in the region. Navajos are similarly sensitive to sage. [Other cultural regions--of food, genes, and culture over time--thus build animal fats into diets as why people some people are healthy on these diets and others less so.] In both cases, traditional knowledge allows safe interactions with these powerful medicine/poisons through cooking methods or food combinations. Nabhan questions the wisdom of genetic therapy, which "normalizes" the "bad" genes that can cause sickness but also enhance immunity. Most inspiring in this bioethnic detective story are Cretans, maintaining their health for centuries through traditional living, and Native Americans and Hawaiians, whose communities, devastated by diabetes, find an antidote by returning to their traditional foods, customs and agriculture. Mixing hard science with personal anecdotes, Nabhan convincingly argues that health comes from a genetically appropriate diet inextricably entwined with a healthy land and culture.

From Booklist:
Ethnobotanist and nutritional ecologist Nabhan continues the paradigm-altering investigation into the matrix of food, place, ethnicity, and well-being that he's been conducting in such influential books as Coming Home to Eat (2002). A leading voice in the slow-food movement and a thoroughly engaging guide, Nabhan now delineates the evolutionary dimension of newly recognized interactions among cuisine, culture, and genetics that inspired him to modify an old adage: "We are what our [recent regional instead of ancient paleolithic!] ancestors ate and drank." He teases out the evolutionary secrets of chili peppers and explains why some folks like them hot and others can't take the heat. Since it's easiest to see the hidden benefits of ethnic cuisines in isolated island societies, he travels to Sardinia, where, for centuries, fava beans have protected the populace from malaria, and to Hawaii, where natives have discovered that traditional yet neglected taro dishes control diabetes [in their genotypes best]. With millions [really the majority of the world, he writes] of people suffering from little-understood food-related maladies, Nabhan's revelations of the complexities of our [regionally] inherited interactions with food, the true significance of the healthful "synergies" of traditional ethnic cuisines, and the essentiality of both biodiversity and cultural diversity are as critical as they are fascinating.

Therefore, beware the industrial pressures that attempt to avoid your 'bioregional diet' of traditional regional foods, many of them (not all!) high in saturated, animal fats. And beware the people who do this merely to sell "unsaturated vegetable oils." Why? Ms. Fallon describes the U.S. as the worst case scenario of powerful industrial destruction of bioregional dietary standards, where diet and scientific knowledge is sculpted or perverted to be advertising for industrial profit for such unhealthy versions of vegetable oils, instead of for health:

The Oiling of America, by Mary Fallon (of the Weston Price Foundation, discussing Dr. Mary Enig's (Ph.D., medicine) research on animal fats, cholesterol, and industrial food's perversions of scientific studies on health
2:03:00 min

"Margarine is the bad guy and butter and eggs are the good guys [for certain regional foodways--see Nabhan's book above.] For fifty years, big business, government agencies and medical organizations have campaigned deceptively against animal fats, meat, eggs, butter and other nutritious, traditional foods, leading to huge profits from the sale of toxic margarine, shortenings and liquid vegetable oils, and the foods that contain them [because these have greater profit margin potentials for large scale suppliers than the others]. Scientific data contradicting current anti-animal fat public health policy was suppressed and censored for many years. Dr. Enig and Sally Fallon now tell you the truth about how that happened. The Oiling of America will open your eyes to fraud and deception behind the lipid hypothesis of heart disease. Topics include:

* How scientists cheat in scientific studies
* Why cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease
* The dangers of cholesterol-lowering diets and drugs
* Why trans fatty acids and [the industrial chemical processing techniques of many] liquid vegetable oils are [making them] so dangerous to human health."

In the 'medicines/drugs' section of Commodity Ecology be sure to read what is posted there about the health properties of saturated vegetable coconut oil. In general:

[1] Check out the films at BioregionalStateTV for other agricultural solutions for sustainability. Click on 'more from user' for the rest.

[2] Additionally see the category "6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics" for how to remove the urban and rural metabolic breaks in nutrient flows with city-to-farm composting and other ingenious ways to stop such separation of human consumption from production.

[3] In the name of maintaining biodiversity, the Slow Food Movement of institutionalizing biodiversity and varietals is a far more long term and far more sound model for health, ecology, and economy--than industrial pesticide/herbicide laden agriculture.

"The Slow Food movement was created to combat fast food and claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement. The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a resistance movement to fast food. It has since expanded globally to 100 countries and now has 83,000 members."

As if it's not obvious, I don't care for totalitarian unsustainable police states whether they are Cuban or based in the United States. However, for a working model of organic, slow-food, pro-biodiversity agriculture and political mechanisms that support it instead of destroy it, take a page from the "accidental agricultural revolution" in Cuba after they lost access to subsidized Soviet Block inputs from 1989:

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution PT-1 (1989 to present in agriculture)
Canadian Broadcasting Company
46 min
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5350731284170267256

"Cuba: The Accidental Revolution are two one-hour documentaries celebrating the country’s success in providing for itself in the face of a massive economic crisis, and how it’s latest revolutions, an agricultural revolution and a revolution in science and medicine are having repercussions around the world. Cuba: The Accidental Revolution (Part 1), airing Sunday, July 30 at 7 P.M. on CBC Television, examines Cuba's response to the food crisis created by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989. At one time Cuba's agrarian culture was as conventional [and unsustainable and polluting] as the rest of the world. It experienced its first "Green [Industrial Agricultural and Toxic] Revolution" when Russia was supplying Cuba with chemical and mechanical "inputs." However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 ended all of that, and almost overnight threw Cuba's whole economic system into crisis. Factories closed, food supplies plummeted. Within a year the country had lost over 80% of its foreign trade. With the loss of their export markets and the foreign exchange to pay for imports, Cuba was unable to feed its population and the country was thrown into a crisis. The average daily caloric intake of Cubans dropped by a third. Without fertilizer and pesticides, Cubans turned to organic methods. Without fuel and machinery parts, Cubans turned to oxen. Without fuel to transport food, Cubans started to grow food in the cities where it is consumed. Urban gardens were established in vacant lots, school playgrounds, patios and back yards [and the state allowed these to be private profit-driven cooperatives, as well as allowed urban farmers to use unused public land in usufruct]. As a result Cuba created the largest program in sustainable agriculture ever undertaken. By 1999 Cuba’s [organic] agricultural production had recovered and in some cases reached historic levels [thus in other words organic agriculture was more productive than suboptimal industrial/pesticide/herbicide based]."

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution PT-2 (1989 to present in agriculture)
Canadian Broadasting Company
46 min.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3045843288423571289

"In Cuba: The Accidental Revolution (Part 2), airing Sunday, August 6 at 7 P.M. on CBC Television, we learn that the country has been blockaded since 1961, but today Cuba has the highest quality of life in the region, the highest life expectancy, and one of the highest literacy rates in all of Latin America. With the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Cuba lost the foreign exchange needed to pay for expensive drugs and medicines. As a result, much of Cuba’s medicine today is based on medicinal plants. These are grown on farms, processed in small labs and made available to patients through an extensive network of medical clinics. Today Cuba’s advances in alternative medicine could have important consequences for other countries around the world. Cuba boasts other firsts as well: The Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana is regarded as the flagship biosciences lab in the developing world. Cuban scientists are working on an HIV vaccine, a meningitis vaccine, a Hepatitis C vaccine, and other pharmaceuticals. Cuba has also embarked on a program of medical internationalism. There are 25,000 Cuba doctors serving in 68 poor countries around the world. The Latin American School of Medical Science has 10,000 students from developing countries primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are educated for free with the understanding they will return to their home countries to practice. Fidel Castro has survived many perils and at 78, he is rumoured to suffer from a number of afflictions. As his health declines the world wonders: what will become of Cuba's Green [Biodiversity] Revolution after he is gone? Even now Castro presides over a political system, which although socialist, has an economy where bartering and quasi-entrepreneurial practice seemingly influence many trades and professions, including the "green" sector...."

Totalitarianism has nothing to do with sustainability. It only perpetuates the forms of power and developmental inequalities that lead to environmental degradation. Lots of very ingenious agricultural/foddering relationships and medical regimes based on choice (shock!) of treatments have sprung up in Cuba because its totalitarianism was weakened in some sectors of the economy. It's worth knowing a different model of organizing agricultural and medial reality is not only possible, it is better. The political sector is still totalitarian in Cuba though the economic issues since 1989 have gone through some interesting forms of ecological rationality and ecological localization that go against state management and previous state encouragement of environmental degradation toward state encouragement to maintain biodiversity and locality instead.

Since in the bioregional state local jurisdictional autonomy on economic developmental path decisions is the primary jurisdiction, decisions like this along the model of 'does it fit where we live?' will be instrumental for setting commodity ecology policy in a watershed. This is seen in the many county level governments and states that have institutionalized higher local levels of human health and ecological health protection concerning commodities than federal baselines of the U.S. It is additionally seen in the 'accidental biodiversity localization revolution' in Cuba since 1989.

Thus, decisions on all commodities will be up to particular local watersheds, a model of state more akin to modeling biodiversity and ecological variegation as the purpose of the state to protect and maintain, instead of destroy. However, this fails to mean that large scale baseline standards laws (or laws to outlaw) certain commodity uses and merely supply-side uses will disappear from larger jurisdictions. These will only be baselines of human health, ecological, and economic sustainability local protection though, in all cases, instead of attempts to make multiple local areas suffer under larger federal 'glass ceilings laws' attempting to stop local health, ecological, and economic protection from going higher, when the public in that area wants it.

In this movement toward material sustainability, I can think of nothing more appropriate than [1] to demote supply-side biased agricultural monocropping and its recent budded-off twin, [2] to demote supply-side biased cloned animal strategies. Both have always been short term evil twins against local long term ecological, health, and economic durability. They are evil twins organizationally speaking because they are interwoven in massive pollution/externality streams connected via monocropping feedstocks for such 'animal monocropping.'

In this category of 'vegetable based food, the Slow Food Movement encouraging local varietal use and maintenance is far more important to institute with commodity ecology interactions.

Seven Arguments Against Industrialized Agriculture

Arguments against agricultural monocropping are very numerous and interrelated to health, biodiversity/ecological, and economic sustainability issues:

[1] Organic actually has equal or higher output than industrialized agriculture.

[2] The industrialized agricultural food is incredibly denutrified and denatured--leading to wider ill health.

[3] The social practices of creating industrialized food is self-defeating. It is connected to soil erosion and humus demotion.

As early as the 1920s and 1930s, damage to the soil was noticed, and its effects on vitamin content in the food were noticed. From Ausubel's book Seeds of Change:

"During the period of the 1920s and 1920s, several U.S. scientists noted that food quality, along with animal and human health, declined when the synthetic NPK trinity of nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium was substituted for organic manures and compost. So striking were these findings that the scientists and over four hundred medical doctors in England published a statement by the esteemed British medical journal The Lancet calling for a revolution within medicine. They argued for a greater emphasis on preventive medicine with a balanced fertile soil as the foundation of a healthy diet.

It was further noted that organic seeds actually did much better than chemically treated seeds, despite the propaganda otherwise:

"In the 1920s, the nutritionist Sir Robert McCarrison experimented with cultivating seeds organically and chemically [for a comparison of outcome effects on each]. His tests showed that the seed from a manure-grown crop was superior in its germination rate to other seeds [chemically grown]. The longer the manure had been composted, the more impressive was this biological effect....This experiment is one of the only ones ever conducted on organic seeds. This oversight is more surprising considering the primary importance of the superiority of organically grown foods...[p. 130-1]"

And there were even Congressional testimonies given.

The below is a verbatim unabridged extract from the 74th Congress 2nd Session: Senate Document 264, in 1936, showing they were aware that "modern" agricultural positional choices of herbicides/pesticides are really regressive politically since it is increasingly destroying the consumer instead of serving them. Minerals were being leached out of the food. However, still nothing is being done, belying that suppliers are really looking out for us at all--including looking out for themselves:

"Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon minerals we take into our systems than upon calories or vitamins, or upon precise proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume."

"Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper mineral balance?"

"The alarming fact is that foods (fruits, vegetables and grains) now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them."

"The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of them aren't worth eating as food...Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems than upon calories or vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume."

"This talk about minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact, a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new that the text books on nutritional dietetics contain very little about it. Nevertheless, it is something that concerns all of us, and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes."

"You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot - that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain."

"Laboratory test prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!)"

"No man today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are turning into big stomachs."

"No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or fixed proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that our diets must contain in addition something like a score of minerals salts."

"It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack or one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives."

"We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for normal function of some special structure in the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless."

"Certainly our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems than upon calories of vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein of carbohydrates we consume."

"This discovery is one of the latest and most important contributions of science to the problem of human health."

Senate Document No. 264, 1936. [[http://www.mich.com/~vit/gvt.html]]

[4] The power relations in agricultural food becomes a form of risk enforcement and forced 'foddering' of humans without their say in the matter if it is industrialized--along with the demotion of other options for health as

[5] Industrialized agriculture demotes biodiversity.

[6] It encourages by #5, more systemic ecological situations where pesticides/herbicides are unable to handle pests that only grow because of the ecological monocrop scale. If scale was smaller, pests would go down as a consequence as well.

While food becomes more denutrified with industrialized agriculture and all its externalities, the medical lobby wants to seriously demote vitamins even though it is known that many people are 'fed though malnourished' from their food. Vitamins and nutritious food are cheap solutions to health of a people and the ecology involved. However, such healthful practices interferes with profit margins of people who only get paid when you are in ill health, so the medical industry has a concern to maintain ill health instead of actively promote health. What else can be said except to note their desire--supposedly by 2009--to force the Codex Alimentarius (a U.N./WTO amalgam) to attempt to outlaw certain vitamin supplements? It's already recently implemented in Europe as of two years ago.

This following 2003 article excerpt, from the UK Alliance for Natural Health, an organization mounting a legal challenge to the Food Supplements Directive, was before Britain was roped into the same framework. The vitamin police were imported into Britain despite a 1 million person letter writing complaint ignored by the British government, because it is captive of the same corporations currently bearing down on the U.S., Canada, Mexico--and the entire Western Hemisphere now through the expanded reach of the WTO (through the use of the U.N.'s) Codex that makes the EU frameworks internationalized by 2009:

"ON 3rd JULY 2003, the European Food Supplements Directive was passed into English Law, which will, over the next few years, effectively ban around 5000 discrete products currently legal to sell in health food shops and pharmacies. This Directive has been devised and pushed forward by the unelected EU bureaucrats in order to "harmonize" the selling of health supplements throughout the EU, and was railroaded through the British Parliament by the Blair Government despite being rejected by the House of Lords. The way that the Government passed it was outrageous: just before the vote by the Standing Committee in the House of Commons, five Labour MPs who were going to vote against it were replaced by more obedient MPs. Even then, this directive was only passed by 8 votes to 6!

"So it seems that the European Parliament and the present UK Government are determined to pass the Food Supplements Directive despite the will of the people and even of MPs themselves. Why? Because it is the will of the EU Parliament which is very strongly influenced by the massive pharmaceutical companies in Europe. They are the only ones that will financially gain from the destruction of the health supplement industry. After all, people who take responsibility for their own health by taking supplements need less drugs because they are healthier.

"It is ironic that the Malnutrition Advisory Group has recently released a report showing that about 2 million people in the UK(!), including 60% of hospital patients, are not getting adequate nutrition and they admit that this is severally affecting their health and ability to heal. Of course, they don't mention supplements because they are still under the false and dangerous impression that this fictitious thing called a "well-balanced diet" exists that can adequately supply all the nutrients that the body needs. Of course, there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support this; in fact, the research actually indicates that modern food production and processing techniques, cooking methods and pollution levels guarantee that it is well-nigh impossible for anyone to get the nutrients they need for optimum health on a "well-balanced diet". (And if you can't get optimum nutrition using ingredients from the supermarket, how on earth are you going to find it in a disgusting NHS hospital slop canteen!) Given this terrible state of modern nutrition, it is astonishing that our governments are trying to move legislation towards a vastly reduced availability of nutritional supplements. What is going on?

"Many of us have been protesting about these proposals for the past five years, writing letters to our MPs and MEPs, signing million signature petitions and even marching on Parliament here in London. Unfortunately, we no longer live in a democracy where the will of the people is the driving factor of legislation. The EU Parliament is not interested in personal freedom, or even personal health… only control and more control. And they have tried to justify this assault on our rights to take supplements on the grounds of our safety, even though health supplements have a safety record second to none — see LaLeva's Safety of Dietary Supplements and Comparative Safety Graph. And given their incredible safety, it is rather odd that the tabloid newspapers have been running sensational headlines over the past few years on the dangers of nutritional supplements. (I wonder who is behind those media campaigns?)

"Already, the supplement market in Germany and Norway are severely controlled, and it is illegal, for example, to buy Vitamin C over 200mg in strength because it is considered by Brussels to be unnecessary, although of course, it is very necessary for the population to continue to buy cigarettes and alcohol as they are very healthy for governments' bank accounts. I have just heard (10/3/04) from a very reliable source that a woman has been arrested in France for selling 500mg tablets of Vitamin C because in that country doses of that strength are now considered medicinal! (There is absolutely no safety issue with Vitamin C and you can freely buy 1000mg tablets here in the UK and US at the moment… I take 3 a day.) Soon, these sorts of controls will be pan-European, and you will only be able to buy from a small and bland list of ineffective, inorganic supplements and in doses that the EU diktat considers appropriate. Many innovative products and companies will simply disappear, and it will become much harder for each of us to take responsibility for our health."

More on this issue at a previous post.

So the WTO's Codex would 'harmonize' disharmoniously with current U.S., Canadian, and many other countries in the Western Hemisphere's more locally representative laws that benefit the consumer health freedom access to vitamins and minerals--forcing all countries internationally involved in the WTO to remove their pro-consumer and health freedom access legislation, like the EU. [[http://energygrid.com/health/2003/07ap-supban2.html]]

All of this consumptive consolidation and externalities are integrated into enforcement of industrial agriculture.

[7] Consolidated industrial models of agriculture impoverish farmers and make small scale land tenures less durable which are required for sustainability and institutionalizing biodiversity.

For instance, the huge opposition to "Terminator taxes" on simple seeds amongst the global farming population is another sign that industrialized agriculture is coming up against serious opposition for its extension.

Terminator Seed Rejected In UN Meeting In Brazil!

From Multiple Sources
3-25-2006

Just an hour ago here in Brazil, the Chair of the UN meeting announced that governments have agreed to reject language that would have undermined the moratorium on Terminator.

Groups, communities and individuals across the world have joined together in this fight to ban Terminator and your action has been effective in this important first step.

The Ban Terminator Campaign will continued to monitor the meetings today and next week.

Terminator rejection - a victory for the people

A broad coalition of peasant farmers, indigenous peoples and civil society today celebrate the firm rejection of efforts to undermine the global moratorium on Terminator technologies - genetically engineered sterile seeds - at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Curitiba, Brazil.

"This is a momentous day for the 1.4 billion poor people world wide, who depend on farmer saved seeds," said Francisca Rodriguez of Via Campesina a world wide movement of peasant farmers, "Terminator seeds are a weapon of mass destruction and an assault on our food sovereignty. Terminator directly threatens our life, our culture and our identity as indigenous peoples", said Viviana Figueroa of the Ocumazo indigenous community in Argentina on behalf of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

"Todays' decision is a huge step forward for the Brazilian Campaign against GMOs," said Maria Rita Reis from the Brazilian Forum of Social movements and NGOs, "This reaffirms Brazils' existing ban on Terminator. It sends a clear message to the national government and congress that the world supports a ban on Terminator."

"Common sense has prevailed--lifting the Moratorium on the Terminator seeds would have been suicidal literally," said Greenpeace International's Benedikt Haerlin from the Convention meeting. "This is a genuine victory for civil society around the world - it will go a long way to ensuring that biodiversity, food security and the livelihoods of millions of farmers around the world are protected."

Terminators, or GURTS (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), are a class of genetic engineering technologies which allow companies to introduce seeds whose sterile offspring cannot reproduce, preventing farmers from re-planting seeds from their harvest. The seeds could also be used to introduce specific traits which would only be triggered by the application of proprietary chemicals by the same companies.

At the CBD, Australia, Canada and New Zealand along with the US government (not a party to the CBD) and a number of biotech companies were leading attempts to open the door to field testing of Terminator seeds by insisting on 'case by case' assessment of such technologies.

This [Anglo-American corporate] text was unanimously rejected today in the CBD's working group dealing with the issue.

It still needs to be formally adopted by the plenary of the CBD.

Despite today's victory, there is no doubt that the multinational biotech industry will continue to push sterile seed technology.

'Terminator' will rear its ugly head at the next UN CBD meeting in 2008.

The only solution a total ban on the technology once and for all," concluded Pat Mooney of the Ban Terminator Campaign. Now all national governments must enact national bans on Terminator as Brazil and India have done.

---
http://www.rense.com/general70/term.htm

And more from the author of Seeds of Deception, an hour-long talk by the author about his book on GM-crops:

The REAL Reasons You Want to
Avoid Genetically Modified Foods
(Jeffrey Smith, on his book Seeds of Deception)
59 min 57 sec

Conclusion

In general, the added risks and lack of similarity in industrial food versus more sustainably produced and nutritious food is anti-consumer, anti-farmer, anti-soil, and anti-sustainability on every level. There are many other forms of agriculture that have been developed, for instance perennial polyculture, or 'no till' agriculture, or forest multi-story polyculture.

As mentioned in the Commodity Ecology title page, institutions on the watershed level (CDIs and commodity ecology) help facilitate this changeover, equitably and sustainably, for the iterative long term.

[Slow Food Snail with Green Phrygian Cap]

The bioregional state in many ways, from the point of view of animal/vegetable varitals, the state formation implications or component of the Slow Food Movement:

The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:

* forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems

* developing an "ark of taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated

* the preservation and promotion of local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation

* the organization of small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)

* the organization of celebrations of local cuisine within regions (e.g. the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)

* Taste Education

* educating consumers about the risks of fast food

* educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms

* educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties

* Various political programs to preserve family farms

* Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy

* Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering

* Lobbying against the use of pesticides

* Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners

* Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces

Building those two institutions of commodity ecology and the CDI in all watersheds will aid in making commodity uses streamlined and optimized in particular watersheds as well as encourage local democratization--instead of merely watching corrupt governments institutionalize more biased commodity uses against local health, the ecology, and against the sustainability of the economy itself.

11. Mycelium based food

2007-06-03T22:55:00.003+09:00

[MMM. I will always remember my first morel.]

(mushrooms, other fungi; some delicious and nutritious, some deadly poison)
Mycelium is an excellent base for starting the commodity ecology, because literally it was the basis for all land base life: the first land dwellers that prepared everything chemically for soil formation that other creatures utilized later. See this short stunning video, below, about the history and importance of mycelium introductions as the base of everything.

Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (17 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258

"Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas. There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet."

Re-basing commodity ecology, the ecologizing of human commodification, on mycelium seems the sounded basis to start. Moreover, it is probably to be expected because mycelium was the first arriving "'life organ' of ecology" that these species would be an integral start for life--and for other commodity ecology paths. It has THE MOST cross-connects or overlaps SO FAR with leads into other categories. It connects very well with:

58. Remediation
16. Herbicides/Pesticides
6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics
5. Garbage/Garbage disposal
7. Drugs/Medicines
11. Mycelium based food
72. Packing Materials (for seeding forests, mycelium and seeds embedded)

THAT means mycelium's many local multiple consumptive positional uses makes it a good place to start upon the commodity ecology for branching in multiple directions from this locus. He says 6 ideas. I count seven. Really, all the difficulties with sustainability are already solved. It merely means putting all the pieces together combined with challenging the corrupt developmentalism with the bioregional state institutional arrangements, challenging the arrangements that keep sustainability, sustainable politics, and territorial states from happening.

Fungi as Food Sources

Traditionally, mushrooms were identified and picked for food. The mushrooms you see at the markets are now commercially cultivated. These mushrooms are grown in highly controlled environments at specific temperature and humidity levels.

Mushrooms that made their way to our dinning tables

Shiitake Mushroom (Lentinus edodes)

Also known as Japanese mushroom, Chinese mushroom and mushroom of the forest.

It is a saprophytic fungus which colonises dead wood of various species. In Japan, it occurs naturally in a type of tree called Shii. Therefore the name Shiitake in Japanese.

It is of medium size, with a cap diameter of approximately 2-4" and a stalk that is 4-5" long. The cap is round, brown and "scaly" while the stipe is yellowish-white with a prominent, persistent annulus.

Economic Importance of Shiitake Mushrooms

Shiitake Mushroom is the second most cultivated mushroom in the world, only after Agaricus, the Paris mushroom. Besides China and Japan, Shiitake is also widely cultivated in Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Singapore as well as Holland, the United States and Canada.

Shiitake's protein has a full complement of essential amino acids so it can be used extensively in a vegetarian diet. Its active ingredient, Lentinan (a polysaccharide), has been shown to reduce cancer and cholesterol.

The Shiitake Mushroom is as common in Asian countries as Agaricus bisporus is in the West. Its cultivation method is similar to that of P. ostreatus.

Agaricus Mushrooms

This genus includes the commercially cultivated Agaricus brunnescens (bisporus). This is not a tropical species and those sold in supermarkets are imported [from Europe/North America.]

The basidiocarp consists of a stipe bearing a ring and pileus. the pileus is cup-shaped and when fully opened, the gills rapidly turn dark brown.

The young button stage is marketed as 'Button Mushrooms'.

Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)

This species is a saprobic fungus that can commonly be found, growing on dead trees, in nature. This large white, gray-brown or ivory-colored mushroom is named for its oyster shell-like shape. Its cap can grow to around 5-15 cm in its longest dimension. It has white gills running down a very short, off-center short and white stalk.

Paddy Straw Mushroom (Volvariella volvacea)

The Paddy Straw mushroom is large. Its cap, if allowed to mature, often exceeding 5" in diameter, and is light to dark gray.

When young, the mushroom is entirely enclosed in a white, egg-like structure called the volva. As the mushroom develops, the stalk will elongate and push the cap upward, thereby rupturing the volva, leaving only a cup-like structure at the base of the stalk.

Many Chinese recipes require this mushroom. It is commercially cultivated on a mixture of raw cotton waste and rice bran and harvested in the button or egg stage before the pileus emerges. In the wild, the fungus tends to grow on decaying vegetation and wood.

Wood Ear (Auricularia polytricha)

The earliest record of this species dated back to about 200-300 BC. It is now cultivated throughout the South Pacific and Asia. It has a common name that refers to the ear-shaped structure of the fruiting body: Mu-Er (wood ear) in China, and Pepiao (ear) in Hawaii.

The fruiting bodies are usually brownish to reddish brown and has a consistency of jelly. In nature, the two species are saprobes that grow on tree logs.

The cultivation of these species is the same as that of the Shiitake Mushroom. It is cultivated on logs and also on a mixture of saw dust and cotton waste.

Silver Ear (Tremella fuciformis)

Commonly known as 'Jelly Fungi' because of the gelatinous, jelly-like nature of the basidiocarps which are wrinkled or consist of leaf-like folds.

It is a saprophyte growing on decaying branches. This species produces a white, lobed, irregularly shaped fruiting body.

It is has been long utilized as a "herb" to cure many ailments. Tremella fuciformis is also known as 'silver ear' or 'snow ear' fungus, is widely eaten in the east. Chinese believe that it could cure tuberculosis, high blood pressure and common cold. It is also a Chinese delicacy.

The method of cultivation of this species is identical to that of the Shiitake and Auricularia since it is a wood inhabiting species.

Enoki (Flammulina velutipes)

The Enoki is a very small, delicate mushroom. The species is whitish-yellow, with a cap not more than ¼- ½ " in diameter. The stalk is approximately 3-4" long and about ¼" thick.

It is cultivated on sawdust medium in a large container. It would seem to be an unlikely candidate for cultivation because of its small size, but seems to be commonly sold in supermarkets. The origin of cultivation of this species is believed to be in Japan.

These mushrooms are believed to contain medicinal properties...

Lingzhi or Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)

Ganoderma is not a palatable mushroom. It can be used to make tea or soup.

It is a large, hard and leathery fungus with sessile or stalked basidiocarps. the undersurface of the basidiocarp is characterised by the presence of many tiny pores.

It is one of the most respected ingredients in traditional oriental medicine. It is cultivated for its medicinal and tonic values.

Cordyceps (Cordyceps sinensis)

This fungus is a parasite growing on insects. It produces a long club-shaped structure or stroma on the dead body of the host.

Cordyceps sinensis that grew on caterpillars.

When the caterpillars died, the fungus is dried and used in traditional Chinese medicine as a tonic and for various ailments.

Isn't it a joy to see these mushrooming in front of your eyes?

Cultivation of common edible mushrooms

We will discuss some of the better known species from both Western and Eastern cultures.

In these species, three methods of cultivation are used:

1. Composted substrates: usually horse manure and straw or just straw alone
2. Woody substrates: logs or sterilized sawdust
3. Inoculation onto the roots of living trees: this is done only for those mushroom species that form mycorrhizae with the roots of certain species of trees.

[4.] Compared to far more complicated 26-step artificial morel growth processes.

Agaricus bisporus is the most cultivated mushroom in the world.

The substrate on which it is cultivated includes horse manure, wheat straw, corncobs and several plant or animal wastes.

The composting process is a mixed fermentation involving a range of microorganisms, bacteria and other fungi, which will degrade some of the complex compounds such as lignin and cellulose. The biological activities of the microorganisms make the compost warm. When the compost cools, it will have a consistency similar to that of thick oatmeal and will provide an environment well suited for mycelial growth of A. bisporus. The mycelium that is inoculated into the compost is referred to as the spawn.

Following growth of mycelium throughout the substrate, a casing layer, is placed over the substrate. The casing layer is critical in the fruiting body formation of A. bisporus. The biological activity of bacteria, various soluble salts, together with the lowering of the temperature between 14-18o C, will optimize fruiting body production in A. bisporus.

Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)

It was first cultivated on tree logs. In late 1950's, an important innovation developed in which sawdust was used as the substrate material. This method would become important, not only in cultivation of Pleurotus, but all cultivated mushrooms cultivated on wood.

This process involves placing sawdust in a polypropylene bag that is then sterilized, cooled and inoculated with Pleurotus. [The more complicated morel process involves this at one stage.] The inoculated substrate is now placed in the dark, and after the mycelium has grown throughout the substrate, openings are cut through the bag where fruiting bodies will develop. This process is more ecologically sound because it utilizes waste material as the substrate for cultivation of the mushroom. It also shortens the period of fruitbody formation to approximately two months.

Although P. ostreatus appears to be a popular cultivated mushroom, it is soft, fragile and has the shortest shelf life of any cultivated mushroom. It often has bacterial or fungal contamination within a day or two of arriving at the market place.

Paddy Straw Mushroom (Volvariella volvacea)

Paddy straw is practically the only material used to prepare the substrate for cultivation of the Paddy Straw Mushroom even though other substrates (eg. rice straw, cotton waste, dried banana leaves and oil palm bunch waste) had been successfully used but with lower yield. The cultivation method of this mushroom is similar to that of Agaricus bisporus. In Indonesia and Malaysia, mushroom growers just leave thoroughly moistened paddy straw under trees and wait for harvest.

[Pig trained to look for (and eat unless you watch it) truffles]

Truffles (Tuber melanosporum and other related species)

Unlike the other fungi that have been discussed, truffles are actually members of the division Ascomycota rather than Basidiomycota. They grow underground and form mycorrhizae with certain species of European Oaks.

Fungi that form mycorrhizae have never been cultivated, at least not with the two methods previously described, because of their obligate relationship with the roots of trees. Thus, a different strategy was required to "grow" truffles. The environmental and nutritional requirements for formation of fruitbodies of truffles are not known.

In cultivation of truffles, it is important to have a background in ecology as well as mycology in order to grow truffles successfully. T. melanosporum will only grow where its host tree can grow. Within its host range, one method of "cultivating" truffles requires a lot of land where the host trees can be planted. To ensure truffle formation, the mycelium of the truffle is inoculated into the roots of these trees.

Because truffles grow underground, they must be dug out. The best way to find truffles is to let pigs, and sometimes dogs, "sniff" them out.

Mushrooms Cultivated in Singapore

Shiitake Mushroom (Lentinus edodes)

The Shiitake mushroom has the distinctive advantage of a much longer shelf-like because they are more commonly sold dried while most other mushrooms are sold fresh. A great deal of research has been carried out, in Japan, on the nutritional and medicinal value of the Shiitake. It is said to be rich in vitamin D2, has anti-tumor and antiviral properties and removes serum cholesterol from your system.

Growing morels on your own? Check this out this web site.
(Source: http://www.gaia.org/farm/mushroom/morel.html)

In the local scene...

To bridge the gap between academic R&D activities and business, a few of our Singaporean entrepreneurs took the opportunity to enter business ventures to cultivate mushrooms using agricultural waste.

The cultivation of mushrooms is a blooming business now. At least 15 tonnes of mushrooms are cultivated locally monthly for export and for local markets. Most of the locally-cultivated mushrooms are the Shiitake mushrooms. Those fresh mushrooms you see at your supermarkets could have been harvested from their farms.

Not only have these enterprising entrepreneurs found a way to shorten the production time of certain mushrooms, they can now produce these mushrooms are year round using the latest biotechnological methods!

Truffles

What is a truffle ?

Truffle, a fungus belonging to the order Tuberales, is a subterranean European fungi. The fruiting body, which is often referred to as the truffle, is usually round and pitted, and 1-7 cm (0.5-3 inches) in diameter.

Truffles have been collected for at least 3600 years. They have a tantalizing taste and aroma. The flesh of all truffles is nearly white when young; as the truffle matures, the flesh becomes darker with a marbling of lighter tissue.

Economic Importance of Truffles

Truffles are undoubtedly the most sought-after delicacy among the fungi with great economic value. The taste and aroma of commercially collected truffles is so intense that they are used as a flavoring instead of a separate dish.

How does truffle grows?

Growing underground, they are difficult to find and very expensive as a result. It is perhaps the most highly prized of all edible fungi.

Truffle-producing fungi have also formed symbioses with trees (mycorrhizae) because fungi cannot make their own food. The hyphae coat the roots of the tree and help their host absorb soil minerals. In return, the tree host provides the fungus with carbohydrates and other nutrients, the product of the tree’s photosynthesis. Truffles contain spores for reproduction. Many truffles have a strong smell and attract animals such as chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels to help disperse their spores by digging them up.

How are truffles recovered from the soil?

In North America, truffle collectors use clues to find truffles.

First, it must be warm and the soil moist. Truffles are often found 10 to 14 days after a heavy rain. The umbrella-shaped mushrooms which pop up after a good rain can be used as a kind of clock. Look for truffles after these mushrooms have started to collapse.

Second, the right trees present must be present. Truffles are formed by fungi that are partners (ectomycorrhizal) with certain trees such as pines, firs, oaks, hazel nuts, hickories, birches, beeches, and eucalyptus.

Due to truffles' distinctive odour, their underground location may be determined by animals trained for this purpose. Every Spring, truffle hunters in Europe take to the woods, hoping that the sensitive noses of their trained pigs and dogs will lead them to buried treasure.Several species are highly esteemed delicacies, particularly the Perigord truffle, Tuber melanosporum, and are usually found under oak or beech trees.

Pigs and dogs are the usual truffle hunters.

Attempts are being made to farm truffles due to the difficulty in finding them in the wild. The harvest has steadily decreased for the last 90 years, due to forest destruction and the killing of trees by air pollution. France produced 1,000 metric tonnes of truffles in 1892; now, only 50-90 tonnes are harvested each year.

More visuals of truffles and 'truffleculture' in the Languedoc (southern France), via the village website of Uzès featuring their annual truffle festival.

More on Morels

Morels are found on the ground in a variety of habitats, including moist woodlands and in river bottoms. They are delicious and thus are cultivated for economic reasons.

The surface of a morel is covered with definite pits and ridges. It is about 2" to 12" tall. There are three common species of morels:

* The common morel (Morchella esculenta): When young, this species has white ridges and dark brown pits and is known as the "white morel." As it ages, both the ridges and the pits turn yellowish brown, and it becomes a "yellow morel".

* The black morel (Morchella elata): The ridges are gray or tan when young, but darken with age until nearly black. The pits are brown and elongated. These morels are best when picked young; discard any that are shrunken or have completely black heads.

* The half-free morel (Morchella semilibera): This is the exception to the rule that morels have the bottom of the cap attached directly to the stem. The cap of the half-free morel is attached at about the middle. These morels have small caps and long bulbous stems.

Although morels are quite distinctive, it is still possible to confuse them with false morels. Some of these false morels are actually poisonous!

Morel Life Cycle

A technique of artificially growing morels (with their complicated life cycle) was developed by mycologist Gary Mills after much trial and error, and observations of morels growing in nature. What is linked here is a sequence which Gary demonstrated for the PBS series, Scientific American Frontiers. The temperature, humidity, substrate and other detailed parameters were placed in the public domain by George Robert Trager.

12. Insect based food

2007-06-03T22:55:00.001+09:00

[Insects in a Beijing (China) market in 2004.]

"There are millions of insect species known worldwide. Only 1500 or so are reported edible."

Edible Insects

Insects have played an important part in the history of human nutrition in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas. Hundreds of species have been used as human food. Some of the more important groups include grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetle grubs and (sometimes) adults, winged termites (some of which are very large in the tropics), bee, wasp and ant brood (larvae and pupae) as well as winged ants, cicadas, and a variety of aquatic insects.

Ordinarily, insects are not used as emergency food to ward off starvation, but are included as a normal part of the diet throughout the year or when seasonally available.

In Europe the use of insects of foods has always been very limited. Although frequently mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature, there are only very few reports on the use of insects as food in later centuries. Only in times of starvation, insects were eaten. The main reason for the difference between Europe and the other continents is that insects are not so abundant and generally much smaller compared to tropical regions.

Recently the use of insects as food has declined in many tropical regions, partly to increased availability of ‘better' foods. This often includes meat and more Western styles of dishes [which is causing huge changes in health in populations unused to eating this European food in Asia; see this book for examples of why:

Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity by Gary Paul Nabhan (2006)

].

As insects are a very good source of nutrients, the question remains whether insects are not actually the better food.

In Africa insects are traded on a large scale and several industries produce canned insects and insect dishes.

On the other hand, in the US and to a lesser extend in Europe, eating insects has increased. However, not as a regular food, but more as a curiosity.

Insects are for example covered in chocolate or offered as sugared candies.

Tequila flavoured candy with worm (source)

Chocolate covered ant candies (source)

Most religions accept insects as normal food and place no restrictions or taboos on consumption of insects. Jewish traditions consider only a few types of insects as kosher. However, in practice, Jews avoid eating insects deliberately, as only trained entomologists may be able to distinguish between kosher and non-kosher insects.

In Muslim regions the use of insects is very restricted. Only grasshoppers are considered halal (allowed to eat), when died a naturally death or killed lawfully. Practically all other insects are considered haram. However, in countries such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia, many different insects are eaten traditionally, even in nominal Islamic regions. In Arab countries only grasshoppers can be found on markets.

As over 1500 different species of insects have been reported as being consumed or edible, this is a too long list to describe in detail. The following pages give some more information on the use of insects as food:

* Classes of edible insects
* Regions and countries
* List of reported species
* Some nutritional data

Classes of edible insects

There are millions of insect species known worldwide. Only 1500 or so are reported edible.

Insects are subdivided in many different orders, groups, genera and species. Below some groups of insects and their use as food are described.

Butterflies and moths (Order Lepidoptera).

The larvae (caterpillars) of many species of moths (and a few species of butterflies) are used as food. They are a particularly important source of nutrition (protein, fat, vitamins and minerals) in Africa. In one country alone, Congo (formerly Zaire), more than 30 species are harvested. Some caterpillars are sold not only in the local village markets, but are shipped on a large scale from one country to another. Caterpillars are canned in Botswana and South Africa. In the rural countryside, they are usually dried in the sun before being sold in the market.

Adult moths and butterflies are not eaten – their wings and bodies are clothed with the small flat scales and hairs that make them so colourful.

A colony of Imbrasia ertli on the base of a Funtumia tree (Congo). The caterpillar descend from the foliage of the tree each time they moult. It is at this stage they are collected for eating. Normally the whole colony is taken and can either be eaten after roasting or boiling or else can be sun dried for later use. (Source)

True bugs (Order Hemiptera).

Most of the insects in this order that are used as food live in water. The famous “Mexican caviar,” or ahuahutle, is composed of the eggs of several species of aquatic Hemiptera; these have formed the basis for aquatic “farming” in Mexico for centuries. One species in Asia, the “giant water bug,” is now exported from Thailand to Asian food shops all over the world.

Thai Giant Water Bug (Lethocerus indicus ), eaten steamed, also ground into a paste with chilli and eaten with sticky rice (Source)

Cicadas (Order Homoptera).

This order includes many insects, such as aphids and leafhoppers, which are important agricultural pests, but only the cicadas are used widely as human food. The nymphs of some species, known as “periodical cicadas,” spend up to 17 years underground where they feed on roots. After 17 years they emerge from the soil, climb up a tree trunk or fence post and molt to the adult stage. Periodical cicadas occur as “broods” which appear above ground only once every several years in any one locality. When they do appear, however, it is often in vast numbers. That is when they are collected as food, sometimes even by school children in the United States. They can be fried. Many cicadas have shorter life cycles, and some of them were collected as food by Indian tribes in what is now the western United States. They are eaten regularly in many other countries, especially in Asia, and some are very large. A cicada from Malaysia even has a wing span of nearly 18 cm!

Brood X, one of the North American periodical cicadas (Magicicada sp.). (Source)

Termites (Order Isoptera).

Termites are most widely used as food in Africa. They are social insects with colonies divided into “castes” that include workers, soldiers, winged adults and a queen. The queen becomes very large and she lays thousands of eggs. Colonies of some species build huge earthen mounds, called termitaria, which may be up to 20 feet high. Periodically, the winged adults emerge in huge swarms, mate while in flight, and then start new colonies. They are highly attracted to lights, even candlelight, and that is one way they are captured for use as food. The wings are broken off, and, fried, termites are delicious. The queens are considered a special treat and are often reserved for children or grandparents.

Termites. (Source)

Bees, ants and wasps (Order Hymenoptera).

With bees and wasps, it is usually the bee or wasp “brood” (larvae/pupae) that is eaten. Most adult bees and wasps don't taste good, but there are exceptions. Canned wasps, wings and all, are sold in Japan, and rice cooked with these wasps was a favourite dish of the late Emperor Hirohito. With ants, it is also the larvae and/or pupae that are usually eaten, but not always. Roasted leafcutter ant abdomens are sold, instead of popcorn, in movie theaters in some places In South America. In some cultures, bee nests are collected as much for their bee grubs as for the honey. In Mexico, certain kinds of ant pupae, known as escamoles, are found on the menu in the finest restaurants. They are served fried with butter, or fried with onions and garlic.

Beetles (Order Coleoptera).

Beetles have complete metamorphosis. Larvae, pupae and/or adults of many species are used as food. Obviously, people do not eat adult beetles whole; the hard parts (wings, legs and head) are removed during preparation for cooking. The larvae (sometimes called “grubs”) are soft-bodied.

Australian tyape arlkerlatye grubs (Source)

Grasshoppers, crickets, etc. (Order Orthoptera).

Grasshoppers and crickets and their relatives have played an important role in the history of human nutrition. Roasting and sautéing are frequently used methods of cooking, after first removing the wings and legs. Seasonings such as onion, garlic, cayenne, chili peppers or soy sauce may be added. Candied grasshoppers, known as inago, are a favourite cocktail snack in Japan .

The inago grashopper (Oxya japonica) (Source)

Spiders and scorpions (Class Arachnida)

Spiders and scorpions are two different orders within the class Arachnida (spider-like organisms), the Aranae (spiders) and the Scorpiones (scorpions). Only a few of the over 40.000 species in this class are eaten.

Scorpions are eaten in the south of China and neighbouring countries. They are reared in ‘ranches', mostly in people's homes, then sold in the markets. Scorpions have a woody taste and should be eaten whole, except for the tip of the tail.

Spiders are also mainly eaten in South-East Asia. In Cambodia large, tarantula like, spiders are still commonly eaten in the North of the country.

Scorpion soup. (Source)

Walking sticks and leaf insects (Order Phasmatodea).

These grotesquely shaped insects are used as food in a few places in Asia and in Papua New Guinea.

The edible Extatosoma tiaratum from Papua New Guinea. (Source)

http://www.food-info.net/uk/products/insects/classes.htm

Adopted from : www.food-insects.com

2.

New, the online book:

"The Human Use of Insects as a Food Resource: A Bibliographic Account in Progress"

Table of Contents and Preface

Chapters 2-28 now online. Please read the Preface to find out how all of this is supposed to unfold.

About the book, and Table of Contents

The Human Use of Insects as a Food Resource: A Bibliographic Account in Progress

Gene R. De Foliart
Professor Emeritus
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Table of Contents*

Preface

Part I. Introduction, The Western Hemisphere and Europe

Chapter 1. Introduction (not yet written)
Chapter 2. Insect Foods of North American Indigenous Populations North of Mexico (pp. 1-95)
Chapter 3. The Use of Insects as Food in Mexico (pp. 1-49)
Chapter 4. Central America and Caribbean Islands (pp. 1-11)
Chapter 5. South America: Overview (pp. 1-10)
Chapter 6. South America: Brazil (pp. 1-20)
Chapter 7. South America: Colombia (pp. 1-15)
Chapter 8. Other Countries in South America (pp. 1-23)
Chapter 9. Western Attitudes Toward Insects as Food: Europe, The United States, Canada (pp. 1-40)
Chapter 10. Western Research on Insects as Food and Animal Feedstuffs (pp. 1-30)

Part II. Africa

Chapter 11. Southern Africa: Overview (pp. 1-10)
Chapter 12. Republic of South Africa (pp. 1-22)
Chapter 13. Southern Africa: Zimbabwe (pp. 1-17)
Chapter 14. Other Countries in Southern Africa (pp. 1-16)
Chapter 15. Central and Eastern Africa: Overview (pp. 1-14)
Chapter 16. Central and Eastern Africa: Congo (Kinshasa) (Formerly Zaire) (pp. 1-35)
Chapter 17. Central and Eastern Africa: Zambia (pp. 1-19)
Chapter 18. Central and Eastern Africa: Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda (pp. 1-17)
Chapter 19. Central and Eastern Africa: Angola, Congo (Brazzaville), Others (pp. 1-22)
Chapter 20. Northern and Western Africa (pp. 1-30)

Part III. Asia, Oceania

Chapter 21. Southwestern Asia (pp. 1-23)
Chapter 22. South-Central Asia (pp. 1-23)
Chapter 23. Southeastern Asia: Overview [incomplete]
Chapter 24. Southeastern Asia: Thailand (pp. 1-35)
Chapter 25. Other Countries in Southeastern Asia (pp. 1-28)
Chapter 26. Eastern Asia (pp. 1-36)
Chapter 27. Oceania: Overview, Papua New Guinea, Others (pp. 1-20)
Chapter 28. Oceania: Australia (pp. 1-51)

Appendix Chapter 1. General Bionomics: Insect Orders and Families With Complete Metamorphosis

Appendix Chapter 2. General Bionomics: Orders and Families With Incomplete Metamorphosis

Appendix Chapter 3. Potential Hazards with Ingestion of Insects

* Chapters for which page numbers are shown are those so far posted.

Preface

Compilation of the papers found here began in 1975 when the author started preparation of a technical paper on a subject he knew nothing about.

It was to be delivered on the University of Wisconsin campus as part of what organizers were calling "A Workshop on Unconventional Sources of Protein." More details about the workshop will be available later in a book I am preparing, titled, "Insects as a Global Food Resource: The History of Talking About it at the University of Wisconsin."

During the ensuing 27 years (approximately) pertinent references were gathered in fitful spurts, some in connection with research projects but others simply because they pertained to the broader subject of insects as food. From early on, it seemed that the subject warranted a book-length updating of F.S. Bodenheimer's classic Insects as Human Food published in 1951.

Although the goal continued to be eventual publication of a book, the growing assemblage of papers had many immediate uses. It was a resource file not only for research but for a growing outreach effort that included founding The Food Insects Newsletter, introduction of a 1-credit course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, creation of a traveling exhibit for elementary and middle school students, and responding to increasingly frequent invitations to write review articles or to speak on the subject locally or at meetings of professional organizations in this country and abroad.

Mentioning all this activity, you may have guessed, is an attempt, a weak attempt, perhaps, to explain how easily one can let year after year slip away without completing a particular major goal – like finishing this book.

In 1997 though, my wife, Louise, or "Lou," who was adept on computers, helped me launch an intensive electronic literature search through the University of Wisconsin libraries aimed at pulling in copies of many articles that I had not seen previously. Lou's sudden death, from cardiac arrhythmia, in February 1998 brought this particular stretch of productivity on the book to an abrupt end. After dealing with a variety of new distractions, like learning how to survive on my own cooking (which became possible, actually, by handouts from friends), I again turned attention to what had by now become THE BOOK, a monstrous piece of unfinished business. Getting it out suddenly seemed a matter of greatest urgency, and I resumed work on it early in 2002. One main concern was that all the effort made to obtain and translate numerous French and Spanish language works on the subject not be wasted by continued delay.

By this time I had decided to publish the book on the Internet, for two reasons. One, I was thoroughly disgusted with the high price of science books; two, rather than waiting until all the final details were cleared up (which always takes longer than one expects), I could start posting a few chapters at a time, as they become ready. This more informal approach seemed the best way to ensure that the book might actually become useful to somebody, some time, somewhere. For example, I haven't written Chapter 1, the Introduction, yet. Have you ever seen a book with no Chapter 1? Of course not. Until now. But, with our informal Internet approach, we don't have to hold up 27 other chapters simply because we lack a Chapter 1. It's one of the nice things about the electronic age; we can add an Introduction later, when we get around to it.

In deciding to go with what we have, warts and all, I have tried to provide for future expansion. The title hints at that, ". . . in Progress." Chapters are numbered independently, each chapter beginning with page 1. Tables are listed for most chapters, but, for now, readers will need to consult the original sources if they wish to see the tabular data (table numbers in the original sources are given). Eventually I hope to find time to seek permission from publishers to include the tabular data here. At the end of the References Cited in most chapters, there are additional references under the heading, "Added References." These are references pertinent to the chapter but not cited; it is my hope that soon after we get all existing text online we can start adding abstracts below these titles, and also start adding additional titles. Also, it is my intention, at that time, to invite readers to submit pertinent references of which they are aware but that are not yet listed, and, if possible, to furnish copies (the hills are getting steeper on the UW campus and I no longer have a stable full of young people eager to do legwork to the libraries). We may also be soliciting volunteers willing to translate papers from languages other than English. By then, we might even be soliciting for pertinent photographs, as long as accompanied by adequate data. When the time comes, potential donors should inquire first, before sending material of any kind, in order to avoid duplications. Such inputs from others will be acknowledged, of course, somewhere in the book within a reasonable time.

There are important papers in the "Added References" sections, and readers should consult them where possible in order to be sure of having completely updated information on a country or region. The 1997 work by F. Malaisse, with chapters on the caterpillars, termites and other edible insects of Congo (Kinshaza) (formerly Zaire) is one good example. The three chapters (pp. 198-242) are also a good example of pages needing translation before this author can proceed with abstracting and future incorporation. Another good example is The Edible Insects of China, by Chen Xiaoming, 181 pp. published in 1999, in Chinese, and fortunately for some of us, with an English abstract. Chen lists 177 edible species, far more than will be found in our text on China. Another important recent source under "Added References" is the 1997 special issue of Ecology of Food and Nutrition, titled Minilivestock, edited by M.G. Paoletti and Sandra G.F. Bukkens, with chapters by various authors on a number of countries. In a chapter on Ecuador, a country for which little information was available previously, G. Onore lists 83 edible insect species.

Following the section on "Added References" in some chapters is an additional short section titled, "Items Needing Attention." These are mostly missing bits of information or other problems with the references already included under "References Cited." Here again, after all of the chapters are online, we will turn our attention to these "items needing attention." These are the sorts of dangling details I mentioned above that always take longer to clear up than one expects. Once again, I will probably seek help from readers who have ready access to a particular paper that poses a problem.

Finally, we welcome input from taxonomists who spot errors in our use of names or who can supply the names of species authors where these are missing. Prof. Robert Jeanne and Steven Krauth, Curator of the Entomology Department Insectarium have supplied names already of authors of some species of Hymenoptera.

Our first task now is to finish getting the existing chapter texts up on the website. After that is done we can think about how best to handle additional references and other alterations. Maybe, with help from users we can eventually make this a quite complete collection of papers on this important subject.

Acknowledgments

Although the main business of my laboratory was medical entomology, many individuals in the lab made a contribution to this project at one time or another, in one way or another. This was especially true of the people holding Specialist or lab assistant positions down through the years, assisting in research, doing library searches, formatting the Newsletter, etc., etc.; chronologically, three of the most involved were Marsha Lisitza, Joyce Keesey, and Catherine Howley. Postdoc Christine Merritt was also of great help, especially in rounding up literature. Howley and Merritt both put in many volunteer hours after my retirement and the termination of my medical entomology program with its associated funding. Graduate student research, of course, yielded pertinent literature. Mark Finke and Barbara Nakagaki earned PhDs, while Stephen Landry and Megha Parajulee took Masters' degrees on this subject, before continuing on to PhDs in other entomological specialties. Wives of two graduate students made an immense contribution by furnishing translations, Dianne Landry, who is fluent in French, and Heloisa Scholl, fluent in Spanish.

Moving up to the present time, thanks are due to my son-in-law, David Jansen of Portland, Maine who installed and has maintained this website up to now, with some help on maintenance from his daughter, my granddaughter, Cortney Jansen. I am greatly indebted to two of my Madison neighbors, Laura Herman and Jennifer Stevens, who come to the rescue when I am in trouble on the computer (which is most of the time when I am on the computer). Thanks go to Janet Deutsch, webmaster for the UW Department of Entomology who is helping put this book on the website, and will sometime in the future help shift it to the Entomology Department website or to the General Library System digital collections. I thank Lee Konrad of the Digital Content Group, General Library System and two members of his group, Jean Gilbertson and Jean Ruenger-Hanson, for valuable discussions on handling this as an on-line work. I am indebted to my Entomology Department colleague, Prof. Robert Jeanne, for establishing the contact with the Digital Content Group.

Gene De Foliart
Madison, Wisconsin
June, 2002

Page last update 9/29/02.

http://www.food-insects.com/book7_31/The%20Human%20Use%20of%20Insects%20as%20a%20Food%20Resource.htm

http://www.food-insects.com/

13. Transport

2007-06-03T22:54:00.006+09:00

This is an important category. The first large scale territorial states depended upon external transportation infrastructures to expand. We can always walk, though states failed to develop until we could ride, i.e., until we elaborated other commodity choices of transportation. They were different in different areas of the world. Three examples historically are given--the horse, the camel, and the llama. Then we can discuss the current environmental difficulties with an oil-based transportation and how we do already have solutions for it. However, lots of corruption keeps oil in place against its more consumer friendly challengers for this category.

Horses, and Camels, and Llamas, Oh My: Honoring more Ecologically Suited Transportation

Brother of early sociologist Max Weber, Alfred Weber, described a 'horse state' (not his term though his idea) as an important innovation in human/environmental capacities that allowed humans to develop larger territorial jurisdictions. It was a merging of nomadic riders who could with agricultural populations who were unable to. This lead to the first large scale states and empire in world history from the Shang in proto-China, to the Assyrians in the current Middle East. Regional variations of the horse state were the 'camel state' (how could you have Islamic expansion without in in these areas, or the Caliphates?); or the llama state (how could you have the Incan Empire in South America without this multi-purpose transport, textile, and food supply--which was a nationalized infrastructure? The politics of this empire would look very different without riding in on the back of the local's dependencies for transport controlled by the state).

So think of the horse, the camel or the llama in the same category as the automobile. Sometimes, as this video shows, the camel wins easily over the car given what suits the area involved well.

Keith Bellows: Celebrating the camel
16:06 min

Keith Bellows gleefully outlines the engineering marvels of the camel, a vital creature he calls "the SUV of the desert." Though he couldn't bring a live camel to TED, he gets his camera crew as close as humanly possible to a one-ton beast in full rut.

And in the Arctic areas, only sleds of frozen fish work for creating any large scale transportation. In conclusion, the point is that transportation is a major consumptive category of human existence. Much human scale and range depends upon its reliability and sustainability suited to a particular ecoregion.

However, we still pretend that the unadaptable automobile is a good idea despite it breaking down whenever we forget to build its roads or provide its oil supply.

As for removing one difficulty of oil toward more localized solutions--here we go. A water based car has finally made it to mass production? Genepax, of Japan, is looking to connect with a larger auto manufacturer. The water-based cars have been in existence for at least 20 years. None have politically made it this far however--without being bought up and shut down, or without their main inventor being killed (like Stan Meyer for instance).

Water based car in Japan
1 min 22 sec

What if you are in the desert without water? Perhaps this will make it to mass production soon.

Solar powered electric car
14:10 min

If it fails to make it to mass production, you can make one on demand. Build it yourself. The plans are here: http://www.sunnev.com.

What about if its dark, cold as ice, and we are without water? Well, we have air--in the compressed air car. This mass manufactured car engine runs on pure air: without thermodynamics, without pollution.

The Air Car
8:52 min

The MDI air car is being mass manufactured. The first location was by Tata Motors in India from March 2007. It got some American media attention when it appeared at a New York City Auto show in 2008. Next will be an American production model. That is scheduled presumably for production starting in 2009--in the New England area in the last news that I saw about it.

So we already have solar/electric, water, and air cars. Why do we have gasoline monopolies on transportation, tell me once more? I will tell you: corporate and government interlocking corruption is why we consume gasoline. It's the raw material regime phenomenon I talked about before. Read Edwin Black's Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives to get up to speed on this history.

What about smarter roads as well?

A few interesting ideas to creating a self-funded 'road ecology' for transportation infrastructure maintenance--that minimizes empty cars and creates a way to fund the infrastructure away from reliance on a cycle of institutionalizing gasoline (through gasoline taxes) to maintain roads, into different sources of road infrastructure funding based on traffic itself. Which makes far more economic sense--though it could be biased against equality of access for the poorer in society to fund roads solely this way. Just expand it as a choice.

Robin Chase: Getting cars off the road and data into the skies (13 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/212

"Robin Chase founded Zipcar, the world’s biggest car-sharing business. That was one of her smaller ideas. Here she travels much farther, contemplating road-pricing schemes that will shake up our driving habits and a mesh network vast as the Interstate. With Zipcar, Robin Chase turned the concept of car-sharing -- and carbon-saving while you're at it -- into a reality and even a full-blown trend. If she weren't a proven start-up entrepreneur, you might imagine Robin Chase as a transportation geek, some dedicated civil servant, endlessly refining computer models of freeway traffic. Or if she weren't such a green-conscious problem-solver, you might take her for a businesswoman only. Ultimately, the best way to understand Chase is simply as a remarkable innovator. Case in point: In 2000, Chase focused her MIT business training on founding Zipcar, now the largest car-sharing business in the world. Using a wireless key system and Internet billing, members pick up [and access a choice of different 'status' and use-dependent] Zipcars [instead of access to only one type of car] at myriad locations anytime they want one. The idea is at once ordinary and highly sophisticated, with powerful technologies applied to tasks as prosaic as grocery shopping. But the result couldn't be more straightforward: fewer cars, less carbon. Since its founding, Zipcar has doubled in size every year, making Chase's biggest ideas and her latest company, GoLoco [grouped trip sharing index of others so you can travel together if desired], look mighty promising. "Robin Chase has already changed the way we drive, but she's not satisfied. Now she wants to change the way we live as well."--Harvard Gazette"

Her WiFi-microwave radiation intensive 'solutions' however are harmful to the very biological life she wants to help: us and other species. I suppose that comes from the MIT specialized training that has left her clueless about the ecological bioelectric damages caused by her solutions. However, remove the WiFi and it's a better assortment of ideas. WiFi extensions would have terrible second order effects on health as well as civic freedom since it would yield a police state. And a police state is the key to unsustainability and corruption. It is a mistake to concentrate only on the materials, because the issue of unsustainability an unrepresentative, tyrannous, political framework that encourage repression and more corruption. A surveillance grid, discriminatingly utilized by those in the pilot seat, can only be utilized for corrupt and unsustainable goals instead of open representative ones like she imagines.

14. Pollinators

2007-06-03T22:52:00.000+09:00

(introduced honeybees where none exist; or in some cases required hand pollination, in vanilla for instance; ultrasound; bombiculture)

15. Fertilizers

2007-06-03T22:50:00.004+09:00

(organic, inorganic, even sonics are being utilized to expand growth of plants)

Read this discussion over at herbicides/pesticides.

Physically, however it is done, phosphorous and nitrogen are required for the growth of plants optimally. We currently utilize many unsustainable, toxic, and soil-destroying mechanisms to push into plants these two elements.

The following short video discusses how to escape the dependency on increasingly toxic low quality phosphate rock with a recycling program that yields methane bio-gas--and the bio-gas 'waste products' are phosphorous-rich materials that can be applied to plants. It is being done in Europe in combined bio-gas/phosphorous fertilizer plants already:

City To Farm Composting Project
7:15 min

Betsy Kettle explains the City to Farm Composting Project. This is a different method of collection and processing urban food scraps that could potentially supply the farmlands around major cities with an odourless, leachate free compost. The security of the urban food supply may be dependent on growing locally without dependence on petrochemical-based fertilizers and minimal transport. Organic agriculture based on compost may be our future food security and also create a more sustainable agricultural system.

What about nitrogen? Well, do some selective planting of fast growing nitrogen-fixing trees, like tree lucerne, that provide nitrogen rich soils for other plants in the area. Cut these trees regularly and use those products for something else. The following arrangement is shown raising milk goats with tree lucerne cuttings because they are high in protein. In two parts, this is a short 20 minute documentary about the co-inventor of permaculture concepts, David Holmgren. The first few minutes solve the nitrogen issue:

Permaculture co-originator 'Holmgren', Pt1
9:09 min

'Eco-Centric', a story by reporter Tim Lee from the 2004 ABC program 'Landline' about permaculture co-originator David Holmgren, whose "pivotal role in developing permaculture has scarcely been recognised" http://www.holmgren.com.au.

Permaculture co-originator 'Holmgren' doco Pt2
9:06 min

Another way to create durable soils full of required minerals and other materials is to draw upon rediscovered Amazonian soil fertility strategies:

Unravelling Human Creation of Amazonian 'Terra Preta'/Dark Soil (Or, How to Make Permanent, Self-Renewing Soil); 7 min.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kUvgOPAPnA

This is a short excerpt from a BBC Horizon documentary entitled "The Secret of El Dorado". It recounts how a previously unknown highly populated area of Eastern Bolivian Amazonia extending into the Amazon River Basin gave the area a major urban/agricutural society. It completely disappeared as Europeans arrived. However, it left its 'terra preta'--the dark earth of the Amazon--that is still mined and carried off because it is so beneficial a soil. And it still self-replicates--long after the original human/indigenous creators have died off and their secret lost. We are slowly unravelling how to recreate this perpetual self-renewing soil. Some secrets of it are featured in this short video clip. One secret is slash-and-char instead of slash-and-burn. The charcoal mixed later into the soil creates a slow release of minerals instead of burned ash that is eroded away very quickly. Very smart. See the amazing differences of scale of yields by only varying the addition of charcoal! Watch the longer video below for more detailed information about other aspects of the terra preta.

BBC - Horizon - The Secret of El Dorado
49 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2809044795781727003

New evidence that advanced societies flourished in the Amazon Basin before the arrival of Europeans. It was the most notorious wild-goose chase in history: the Conquistadors' search for El Dorado, a fabulous kingdom of gold that Indians said lay hidden in the jungles of the Amazon Basin. But now, at last, archaeologists have uncovered the truth behind that myth. They have found evidence of a huge society, as advanced as the Egyptians or the Incas, right in the heart of the rainforest. And this is more than the story of a lost world rediscovered. For it seems that the people of the real El Dorado possessed a secret with the power to transform our world and their secret in the soil could be the solution to solving famine in the Third World and other nations [by making local independent and autonomous agricultural sound for poor soil areas--because you can invent the soil out of nothing in a low-tech way!] once and for all.

16. Herbicides/Pesticides

2007-06-03T22:48:00.004+09:00

Herbicides/Pesticides (and fertilizers which are thrown into this category) are actually a larger issue of agricultural organization--which involves erosion.

The images above show what has happened in only 50 years of poor agricultural practices: there are holes in the ocean--deoxygenating destroying malestorms, killing everything in its path, and leaving hundreds of square miles of oceanic rotting death.

Note the rate of increase.

Note the single corporation that is hugely responsible and its history.

The World According to Monsanto (2008)
109 min.

"On March 11, 2008, a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural TV channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years."

For alternatives to this, see the soil-creating forms of agriculture and permaculture without chemical herbicides and pesticides.

Besides the herbicide and pesticide monopolies, we can just utilize "despored mycelium" that Stamets talks about in this short video. Get rid of the synthetics entirely, the old fashioned way. Very old. About 3 billion years old.

Utilize mycelium's properties as a pesticide as well as soil creator.

Then watch everything grow sustainable from the novel pristine base. Like the runners of mycelium, the use of mycelium for pesticides has many 'organic factory' aspects for other connects to the commodity ecology of a local area without the synthetic monopolies like Monsanto.

Mycelium is an excellent base for starting the commodity ecology, because literally it was the basis for all land base life: the first land dwellers that prepared everything chemically for soil formation that other creatures that was utilized as the base of life. See this short stunning video, below. Just put in some local mycelium in as a pesticide, and you have a clean basis of organic agriculture.

Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (17 minutes)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258

"Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas. There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet."

Re-basing commodity ecology, the ecologizing of human commodification, on mycelium seems the sounded basis to start. Moreover, it is probably to be expected because mycelium was the first arriving "'life organ' of ecology" that these species would be an integral start for life--and for other commodity ecology paths. It has THE MOST cross-connects or overlaps SO FAR with leads into other categories. It connects very well with:

58. Remediation
16. Herbicides/Pesticides
6. Soils/Dirt/Hydroponics
5. Garbage/Garbage disposal
7. Drugs/Medicines
11. Mycelium based food
72. Packing Materials (for seeding forests, mycelium and seeds embedded)

THAT means mycelium's many local multiple consumptive positional uses makes it a good place to start upon the commodity ecology for branching in multiple directions from this locus. He says 6 ideas. I count seven. Really, all the difficulties with sustainability are already solved. It merely means putting all the pieces together combined with challenging the corrupt developmentalism with the bioregional state institutional arrangements, challenging the arrangements that keep sustainability, sustainable politics, and territorial states from happening.

Learning about mycelium is the excellent basis of a commodity ecology. And Paul Stamets is an excellent introduction.

Additionally, instead of active attacks on bugs and diseases of plants, make the plants hardier as the solution. This is a quote from the short video about Forest Gardening:

"The high art of organic production is producing really good compost...[with a really large] variety of materials. The best are woody plants, though obviously they take a very long time to rot down, so they have to be shredded....The most striking features of the garden are its fertility and lack of pests and diseases. "I don't use chemicals on this place at all but use...sprays of seaweed, liquid comfrey, and liquid nettles. These do not have the effect of destroying bugs and germs, but build up the disease and pest resistance of the plants."

Forest Gardening with Robert Hart ... a film by Malcolm Baldwin (1 of 2)
7 min 25 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weGAe9NM0kg

---------------

There is the issue of waste plastic. Why? Because plastic, being lipophilic, absorbs many oil-based chemicals and concentrates such herbicide/pesticide wastes into the food chain more intensely when the plastic-chemical admixtures are swallowed--killing sea life in the process or eventually getting back to human consumption of plasticized/polluted fish that way. This is a side issue, though another real world implication of utilizing synthetic pesticides/herbicides that become highly concentrated poison pills back into ocean and animal life--and then to ourselves.

Watch this 13 minute video on the garbage accumulating in the oceanic gyres, as problematic a result of poor material choices as the herbicide/pesticide induced 'dead zones' in the ocean.

Alphabet Soup - A Trip to the Eastern Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre
12 min 49 sec

A Canadian filmmaker travels to the north Pacific Ocean to discover a world of unknown plastic pollution.

An uncle of mine who is retired from DuPont NEVER HEARD OF EITHER OF THESE ISSUES of dead zones or oceanic gyre garbage...which shows the extent of scientific specialization and hubristic ignorance institutionalizing nearsighted crops of humans, generation after generation, in the current unconnected monocultures of the universities.

More interscientific curricula are required likely as solving these agricultural issues because the difficulty is with human ignorance certified falsely as knowledge, instead of it being something only to do with the commodity change per se.

The origins of dead zones origins and how a chemical cocktail of nitrates and phosphates and other pollution leads to their creation can be found at this link on the bioregional state and the oceans over at Toward A Bioregional State.

Completely removing forms of chemical agriculture (which will increasingly save the humic soil as well) means an entire reformation of agriculture. This will likely entail particular localized solutions that are more conservative of biodiversity. Certain forms are already in existence in some locations and their commonalities are they move away from monocropping toward other forms of permiculture, forest gardening (multi-level agriculture), perinneals agriculture (instead of based on breeding for fast growing annuals), 'no-till' forms of agriculture (for soil conservation, incresingly no-till additionally means no-pesticide as well in some versions), and using interactive species (sometimes even other plants cross planted with others that kill pests instead of just alternative insects) to remove agricultural pests. It's all about knowing of the lateral relationships instead of focusing on the commodity at hand. And the bees. Use native bees associated with what particular crops they most efficiently utilize. Carting around bees should be phased out.

Stop Phosphating and Nitrating the Oceans

A short treatment of the origin of such pesticide laden phosphate frameworks from the chemical industry is found Karen Steingraber's _Living Downstream. It came mostly from decommissioned warmaking factories making chemicals--that then kept up production and simply turned the phosphates and nitrates and other things useful in explosives. Then there was the ecological and social terrorism of the so called "Green Revolution" of agrochemical pesticides sales worldwide, which massively impoverished local forms of agriculturalists and send then hurtling toward the slum cities.

For the historical origin of artificial nitrates see the book _The Great Guano Rush, and The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben (on the Haber process). Both started the whole downhill ecological destruction of agriculture. We can turn that aruond with mycelium applications for pesticides.

Of course there are the wallflowers who sigh romantically and say it started with agriculture itself, though that is silly because it is a categorical argument when it is exactly what kinds of agriculture is the issue: actually many forms of agriculture have survived over millennia in China in the same areas (though with versions of economic shakeout and regional specializations that launched millions into endless poverty and instability of course by the Yuan into the Ming).

Second, the Aztecs had some good ideas for durable organic fertilizer based agriculture in their milpas.

Third, the difficulties with poor soil agriculture in Amazonia has been solved toward stable forms of tenure that demotes the endless ecocline erosion frameworks destroying the forests there in some populations. There was an interesting article in the British magazine The Ecologist about this. This was before what I can only surmise was a recent 'editorial coup/lobotomy' that in my opinion dumbed down the magazine from discussions of political economy toward shallow editorial lines of thinking that change comes only from the consumer instead of from blaming the organizational frameworks themselves. Most consumers are held hostage to this clientelistic framework hardly of their own design or blame.

Anyway, before the lobotomy at The Ecologist, this article was printed concerning a man working over 20 years in and out of academia in experiments in Latin America. He solved ‘solved’ the jungle/poor soil frameworks of agriculture, fuel provisioning, and salable commodities through a form of ecological modernization. The magazine The Ecologist wrote a short article about it several years ago, aiming for wider coverage of it’s combined features of local consumptive durability, poverty alleviation, and ecological security--all addressed simultaneously. [cite: “Rainforest Saver: After 20 years work a British tropical ecologist thinks this can save the world’s rainforests” [and generate income for local people without destroying it],” The Ecologist, Volume 35, No. 1, p. 56]

Fourth, on biodiversity as agriculture instead of against it, read Kenney Ausubel's Seeds of Change, and Gary Nabhan's Enduring Seeds. Both argue some forms of agriculture are more conducive to maintaining biodiversity that destroying it.

Additionally, The Slow Food Movement should have a chapter in every watershed worldwide.

In short, ideally, to institutionalize biodiversity it is paramount to integrate it into agriculture. I've got lots of notes about other forms of agriculture organization that can additionally remove the requirements of the category of pesticides. See some of the comments about that. Perhaps I'll post a summary article below about this as well.

For the moment, here is a draft of an encyclopedia article I wrote for the Encyclopedia of Social Problems, on "Erosion." Read it at the commodity category on soils/dirt/hydroponics.

17. Mineral food

2007-06-03T22:47:00.000+09:00

(typically only one: salt, sometimes earth/clays/dirt, nutritional trace elements)