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#Post#: 1326--------------------------------------------------
Dieoff Errata: Musical Interlude
By: RE Date: October 18, 2021, 8:09 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3GPjfv4UCU
If you notice, all the tombstones have birth years in the 1950's
This guy must have gone back to his hometown for a funeral, and
discovered how many of the people he was friends with in HS were
DEAD.
Boomers are on their way to the Great Beyond. Millenials are
not replacing them. Do the Math.
RE
#Post#: 1327--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: K-Dog Date: October 18, 2021, 9:43 pm
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Play this video and mute the audio. Play 'MY Little Town" up
above at the same time for the audio while you watch this video.
HTML https://youtu.be/cv-3Rbwb9pI
The soundtrack goes with the video. I could mix them properly
in a few minutes, but I am sure as soon as uploaded the mix to
the Tube I would be hit with a copyright violation. If I could
find a really good cover of 'My Little Town' I would mix the
audio with this video of Kensington PA today.
#Post#: 1328--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: K-Dog Date: October 18, 2021, 10:37 pm
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I did it.
HTML https://youtu.be/UNC57fdton0
#Post#: 1330--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: RE Date: October 18, 2021, 11:48 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=K-Dog link=topic=74.msg1328#msg1328
date=1634614656]
I did it.
HTML https://youtu.be/UNC57fdton0
[/quote]
Nice work. You also could do a really nice job by taking photos
off the web of emergency rooms full of covid patients and
testing sites at Walmart etc. Add pictures of bummed out towns
in Syria Lebanon Afghanistan etc. More photos of Chinese crowds
going to work all messed up. Finally shoot some video inside an
assisted living facility. Or a seniors apartment complex.
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little death
Warehouse.
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little death
Warehouse.
RE
#Post#: 1331--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: Digwe Must Date: October 19, 2021, 11:36 am
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Good work K-Dog!
#Post#: 1440--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: RE Date: October 28, 2021, 1:24 am
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HTML https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-starving-citizens-food-shortages-kim-jong-un
Put NK at the head of the line for the Famine Horseman.
Starving people there have been advised by Da Goobermint to "Eat
Less". At least this is more honest than "Let them eat cake".
Starvation stories don't make the news much anymore. Yemen is
the only other one I can think of in recent years. There used
to be lots of stories about starvation in Africa. We solved
that problem though! Didn't we?
"Depopulation" stories also becoming more prevalent.
HTML https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/population-growth-contraction-china-india-b1929094.html
The MSM doesn't call it "dieoff". "depopulation" is like
"Degrowth", more newspeak. It's more neutral and less
worrisome. A Rose by any other name is still a Rose though.
When stories like these start appearing by the dozens, you know
the trend is already well underway.
How was the Green Ag Revolution engineered? Fertilizer and
pesticides, made fro NG & Oil. Fertilizer, primarily Ammonium
Nitrate is made from NG utilizing the Haber Process developed
for making Bombs. After WWII, many bomb factories started
producing fertilizer.
Now NG has skyrocketed in price, and fertilizer manufacturers
compete for the same supply as electricity suppliers and people
heating their homes. Consequently, food will become
increasingly expensive and harder to come by. Not a huge
problem here yet, this will obviously hit the 3rd World
countries first. As long as it is THEM though and not US,
"What, me Worry?" lol.
Populations weakened by hunger become more susceptible to
disease, so the "depopulation" problem increases exponentially.
Economic problems multiply along the way down. Supply chains
fail, insufficient workers to drive the trucks, pick the
lettuce, etc.
How long before starvation becomes a real issue for the FSoA?
Hard to say, but all the leading indicators are already
happening.
Even Unicorn shitting Fusion Skittles won't solve this problem.
Star Trek Food Replicators powered by Matter-Anti-Matter engines
have yet to be invented, even by Elon Musk. A dwindling Food
Supply is inevitable, and the population will dwindle with it.
Just like the Reindeer on SMI.
RE
#Post#: 1442--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: K-Dog Date: October 28, 2021, 1:48 am
---------------------------------------------------------
More Food - More People
It wasn't until the 1950's, after the first and second world
wars, that the Haber process really started to affect farming.
Ammonia stocks, diverted in wartime to make bombs and bullets,
started being used to produce the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers
used everywhere today.
Increased food production has allowed the human population to
swell to its current almost 7 billion size *. Estimates are that
a third of the earth's human population is fed thanks to the
Haber process. Many people believe that to stop or limit the use
of synthetic fertilizers would lead to mass starvation.
* If the article is 10 years old I don't see it matters.
Haber Process is an Energy Glutton
Given that the Haber process requires temperatures of 400 - 550C
and pressures of 200 - 300 atmospheres it's not surprising that
it uses a lot of energy. Manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers
uses about 5% of the world's natural gas production, equivalent
to 1-2% of the world's annual energy consumption.
HTML https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/images/haber-process-fertilizer-plant.jpg
While natural gas is among the more plentiful fossil fuels, this
level of use is not sustainable in the long term. As well, as
oil reserves worldwide dwindle, prices will rise putting
fertilizers some farmers have come to depend on out of reach for
the poor.
HTML https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/haber-process.html
#Post#: 1462--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: K-Dog Date: October 29, 2021, 9:06 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Farmin[/center]
[center]
[img
width=400]
HTML https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.agdaily.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F03%2Fbg-dust_bowl-001-libraryofcongress.jpg&f=1&nofb=1[/img]
[/center]
I read three centimeters of topsoil takes a thousand years to
build up.
WTF, I have a patch of glacial till on the east side of the
house. Fifty years ago, this ground lay buried 20 feet under.
Nothing but sand and rock. The till was exposed when second
growth forest was cleared, and the land was graded. I turned the
top 18 inches of the till into thick, rich topsoil in five
years.
I did this by working grass clippings, dead leaves, and wood
chips into the till along with a few dead rats. It is wet in
Seattle. It did not take long for everything to rot into
topsoil. This years' contribution will be compost which
started to rot about a year ago. Most of it has already turned
to CO2. I will work this compost in when I finish harvesting
this years' veggies. I still have green tomatoes. It is a
warm autumn here. I will turn the compost into my topsoil with a
shovel.
Nature does not have surplus area to feed topsoil growth like I
do. The ratio is fixed one to one. I have surplus organic debris
to feed my garden. Natural soil would build more slowly, but
thousands of times more slowly? In some places I guess. My
latitude is at 47 degrees. It rains enough for forest to grow
here. Thick forest. Natural soil builds faster where I live than
other places. But I know from making my own topsoil by
understanding the process, that there are places in the world
where it takes much longer than a thousand years to build up
three centimeters.
The thousands of years to build an inch of soil dictum as been
around for decades. I don't like it so much. On hearing it
people get doe eyes and go silent. It is a thoughtstopper. An
imprecise maxim which in the right time and place expresses true
fact. In other time and place the statement is not true. But the
factoid carries the gravitas of an all encompassing deep
thought.
People don't understand what topsoil is. That is where the
deep feeling of gravitas comes from. Gardeners and organic
farmers know what soil is. But lots of people don't have a
clue about what soil is. Many city people don't know what
dirt is made from. They never had to think about it.
Just hearing soil is broken down plant matter does not mean
much. It is an oversimplified description. Soil describes the
surface of the earth where the surface is not water, or bare
rock. A broad definition. Soil comes in different kinds. Soil
where plants can grow is topsoil. Pulverized rock mixed with
decayed organic matter with a zoo of microorganisms having
capability to hold water. That last part is very important. Crop
plants can't grow without soil which holds water.
I read there are only 60 Years of Farming left if soil
degradation continues. I read 150 years somewhere else.
WTF, somewhere in the world somebody will be farming in 60
years. Even 150 if people are still around.
The calculation of when soil runs out is descriptive, but it
results from math and is an abstraction. Math abstracted from
the real world. Valuable information when understood in the
right way. But only if understood in the right way. In proper
context. Degradation comes from turning soil with a shovel. The
same technique which can also build it up. Turning topsoil
destroys organic matter unless new organic material is turned
into topsoil at the same time. The reason is, organic matter in
soil is not fully decomposed. Microorganism in soil break down
organic matter turning organic matter into carbon dioxide. But
microorganisms need oxygen to digest organic matter. Turning
soil aerates microbes as oxygen from the air is mixed into the
soil. Microorganisms then get to work, multiply and thrive.
Carbon is released.
Apparently an average farm, I assume in America, digests soil
from plowing at a rate that would mean it would all be gone in
60 years or 150 years, something like that. Some farms will last
longer whatever the number is. Somewhere a farm has already
burned up all its topsoil.
Thousands of years of prairie growth left a thick layer of
topsoil over the American Midwest. In Iowa this prairie legacy
created topsoil which was 14 to 18 inches deep, in the year
1900, over a hundred years ago. A hundred years later farming
degraded the topsoil to be only 6 to 8 inches thick.
As topsoil thins, it gets difficult to grow crops. Yields
suffer. A good harvest can't tolerate bad weather. Hot
climate changed weather will cause heat and drought. Entire
crops will be lost as remaining topsoil does not store enough
water to keep crops alive. Soil will continue to degrade as
climate chaos intensifies. A double whammy and this is not good.
No till farming. Farming techniques that do not turn soil exist.
There is an answer to the soil degradation problem. Not turning
soil keeps in carbon and enriches soil biology. Organic no-till
practices, with cover crops and other smartness increased soil
carbon by 9 percent after two years, and by 21 percent after six
years. I encountered this factoid and I believe it is true based
on my own experience, somewhere in the world. Plowing a cover
crop into topsoil builds up organic matter.
Capitalism does not build topsoil. Capital always wants to grow
and in the American farming industry short term profit is more
important than long term farm health. Extractive and destructive
technology is used over alternative technologies because such
technologies give maximum profit. If soil were to be gone in 10
years instead of 60 or 150, short term profit would consider
consequence. But capitalism cannot give long term solutions to
problems because profit must always be maximized. Thus the
economic system we have is self-destructive. Like a scorpion
carried across the river on the back of a frog. We will drown
without revolutionary change. That is the nature of America and
our capitalist world as we know it now. Capitalism does not
consider the future and our march of chaos into a land of bad
consequences inexorably goes on.
#Post#: 1464--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: Digwe Must Date: October 29, 2021, 10:28 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=K-Dog link=topic=74.msg1462#msg1462
date=1635559575]
[center]Farmin[/center]
[center]
[img
width=400]
HTML https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.agdaily.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F03%2Fbg-dust_bowl-001-libraryofcongress.jpg&f=1&nofb=1[/img]
[/center]
I read three centimeters of topsoil takes a thousand years to
build up.
WTF, I have a patch of glacial till on the east side of the
house. Fifty years ago, this ground lay buried 20 feet under.
Nothing but sand and rock. The till was exposed when second
growth forest was cleared, and the land was graded. I turned the
top 18 inches of the till into thick, rich topsoil in five
years.
I did this by working grass clippings, dead leaves, and wood
chips into the till along with a few dead rats. It is wet in
Seattle. It did not take long for everything to rot into
topsoil. This years' contribution will be compost which
started to rot about a year ago. Most of it has already turned
to CO2. I will work this compost in when I finish harvesting
this years' veggies. I still have green tomatoes. It is a
warm autumn here. I will turn the compost into my topsoil with a
shovel.
Nature does not have surplus area to feed topsoil growth like I
do. The ratio is fixed one to one. I have surplus organic debris
to feed my garden. Natural soil would build more slowly, but
thousands of times more slowly? In some places I guess. My
latitude is at 47 degrees. It rains enough for forest to grow
here. Thick forest. Natural soil builds faster where I live than
other places. But I know from making my own topsoil by
understanding the process, that there are places in the world
where it takes much longer than a thousand years to build up
three centimeters.
The thousands of years to build an inch of soil dictum as been
around for decades. I don't like it so much. On hearing it
people get doe eyes and go silent. It is a thoughtstopper. An
imprecise maxim which in the right time and place expresses true
fact. In other time and place the statement is not true. But the
factoid carries the gravitas of an all encompassing deep
thought.
People don't understand what topsoil is. That is where the
deep feeling of gravitas comes from. Gardeners and organic
farmers know what soil is. But lots of people don't have a
clue about what soil is. Many city people don't know what
dirt is made from. They never had to think about it.
Just hearing soil is broken down plant matter does not mean
much. It is an oversimplified description. Soil describes the
surface of the earth where the surface is not water, or bare
rock. A broad definition. Soil comes in different kinds. Soil
where plants can grow is topsoil. Pulverized rock mixed with
decayed organic matter with a zoo of microorganisms having
capability to hold water. That last part is very important. Crop
plants can't grow without soil which holds water.
I read there are only 60 Years of Farming left if soil
degradation continues. I read 150 years somewhere else.
WTF, somewhere in the world somebody will be farming in 60
years. Even 150 if people are still around.
The calculation of when soil runs out is descriptive, but it
results from math and is an abstraction. Math abstracted from
the real world. Valuable information when understood in the
right way. But only if understood in the right way. In proper
context. Degradation comes from turning soil with a shovel. The
same technique which can also build it up. Turning topsoil
destroys organic matter unless new organic material is turned
into topsoil at the same time. The reason is, organic matter in
soil is not fully decomposed. Microorganism in soil break down
organic matter turning organic matter into carbon dioxide. But
microorganisms need oxygen to digest organic matter. Turning
soil aerates microbes as oxygen from the air is mixed into the
soil. Microorganisms then get to work, multiply and thrive.
Carbon is released.
Apparently an average farm, I assume in America, digests soil
from plowing at a rate that would mean it would all be gone in
60 years or 150 years, something like that. Some farms will last
longer whatever the number is. Somewhere a farm has already
burned up all its topsoil.
Thousands of years of prairie growth left a thick layer of
topsoil over the American Midwest. In Iowa this prairie legacy
created topsoil which was 14 to 18 inches deep, in the year
1900, over a hundred years ago. A hundred years later farming
degraded the topsoil to be only 6 to 8 inches thick.
As topsoil thins, it gets difficult to grow crops. Yields
suffer. A good harvest can't tolerate bad weather. Hot
climate changed weather will cause heat and drought. Entire
crops will be lost as remaining topsoil does not store enough
water to keep crops alive. Soil will continue to degrade as
climate chaos intensifies. A double whammy and this is not good.
No till farming. Farming techniques that do not turn soil exist.
There is an answer to the soil degradation problem. Not turning
soil keeps in carbon and enriches soil biology. Organic no-till
practices, with cover crops and other smartness increased soil
carbon by 9 percent after two years, and by 21 percent after six
years. I encountered this factoid and I believe it is true based
on my own experience, somewhere in the world. Plowing a cover
crop into topsoil builds up organic matter.
Capitalism does not build topsoil. Capital always wants to grow
and in the American farming industry short term profit is more
important than long term farm health. Extractive and destructive
technology is used over alternative technologies because such
technologies give maximum profit. If soil were to be gone in 10
years instead of 60 or 150, short term profit would consider
consequence. But capitalism cannot give long term solutions to
problems because profit must always be maximized. Thus the
economic system we have is self-destructive. Like a scorpion
carried across the river on the back of a frog. We will drown
without revolutionary change. That is the nature of America and
our capitalist world as we know it now. Capitalism does not
consider the future and our march of chaos into a land of bad
consequences inexorably goes on.
[/quote]
There are several methods to accelerate the building of topsoil
that also offer a yield from the land. I highly recommend the
work of Alan Savory. His results give me great cause to be
humble. It is possible to build topsoil using intensive
rotational grazing at a rate of up to an inch a year depending
on the climate. This is not theory. We've seen it work.
Oh, vegans hate him, so...forewarned.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
This is his rather famous Ted Talk. However, he has much good
material at his institute's site.
It is possible to use holistic grazing in rotation with other
crops and mixed livestock varieties.
You mention the Great Plains. The bison and other herds of
ungulates were a major factor in creating the very deep topsoil.
Holistic grazers now follow the pattern that naturally exists.
The bison would go through an area and intensely mow it down.
They stayed bunched up fairly tight because of the predators
that were always on the fringes of the herd. They generally
moved slowly, mowing as they went. They, of course, fertilized
the ground as they went but it was much more than that. By
eating the grass down, the root mass died back to accommodate
what it could support, then began to grow again as the above
ground growth resumed. This adds organic material rapidly.
Also the hoof prints create tiny reservoirs for rainwater to
soak in slowly. Having unlimited grazing, the bison would not
return until the grass had grown up again. Add in the effects of
occasional wildfire and you have an efficient soil building
system. I should add here that for thousands of years natives
would use fire to drive the bison over jumps and into traps.
This had profound effect on the prairie ecology.
No till is better than till, but perennial crops would be
better. For that we can look to Wes Jackson. A remarkable man.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNviVl8_JI
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j12vrJIh0Tk
Also, getting biochar into the soil really accelerates the
fertility gain. The char in the soil acts as habitat for the
microorganisms and they tend to thrive. Depending on the scale
of the project there are many methods one can use to build
topsoil.
As you note, a very big force working against this is capitalism
and debt. The farmer cannot go to the bank and say he wants to
redesign his entire system and he'll need a few years to get
a really good return.
For the libertarian Christian perspective - but his work is
valid - Joel Salatin
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B6Sud9Viyg
There are many methods to build soil. If there was a real push
for regenerative ag, giant strides could and would be made - but
that is not going to happen before the money lenders lose
control. As Jim Hightower used to say, "If you want the water
to clear up you have to get the hogs out of the creek."
Building soil is building wealth.
#Post#: 1465--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dieoff Errata
By: RE Date: October 30, 2021, 3:48 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Here is something on the Ag level I DO know something about and
can contribut my 2cents to. :)
Soil Building vs Depletion is a simple calculation of Inputs vs
Outputs More inputs than outputs, soil builds. More outputs
than inputs, soil depletes. So what are the outputs and inputs?
In large part, 3 very common elements Carbon, Hydrogen and
Oxygen are used for the life process, and all are present in the
atmosphere as gases. Nitogen also is necessary and makes up a
large part of living systems, also in great supply in the
atmosphere. But it is present as N2, a diatomic molecule that
is quite stable, and needs to be "ficed" into Nitrous Oxide or
Ammonia to be useful for living things. Legumes (beans) do that
naturally, the Haber process does it industrially.
C,H & O provide the energy source for all living things, in
plants through Photosynthesis from energy collected from the
sun. It is stored in two other types of molecules,
Carbohydrates and Fats.
The next important element necessary for the energy system is
Phosphorus, not a gas and not present in the atmosphere to any
significant degree. P is necessary to move the e
energy around as part of a molecule Adenosine Tri-Phostphate.
This powers all the uphill reactions of all living things, plant
or animal. A couple of systems, the Krebs Cycle and Electron
transport chain do the energy transfer job. These are pretty
complex systems, but overall pretty efficient for what they need
to do.
Finally, there are a whole bunch of other elements required to
build a plant or animal, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium,
Iron, Sulfur, Chlorine etc. Chlorine is the only gas here, but
it is too reactive to hang out in the atmosphere. It is present
as a salt in various inorganic and organic molecules, or as an
ion in salt solutions with water.
Now that we have a primer here on the system, where is it all
coming from in any given biome to make all the living things in
that neighborhood? As noted, the C, H, O, & N all come from the
atmosphere. C combined with O2 as CO2, H&O combined as H2O,
water. O2 & N2 also present. Everything else comes from the
land or water environment they grow in.
Now, in a closed system, all the trace elements recycle. Dead
animals and plants give back the trace elements to the soil.
They also hand them back while living when they excrete. Thus
shit and piss are good fertilizers.
However, no biome can produce more living things if it is a
closed system without more inputs of all types. Similarly, if
there are more outputs than inputs, any given biome will be
reduced in what it can support. What we do now is take biomass
from one place where it grows, and move it somewhere else to get
eaten by people and the animals they raise for food. After
that, the excretions are moved out to sea through the rivers.
They don't get back to where they originated from. So over
time, the soil depletes.
In the H-G era, this did not happen. Everything stayed pretty
much where it was, just moving around a little bit. With the
development of Ag and Cities, the stuff started moving away from
where it was, then downstream and out to sea. Constant
depletion for the last 10,000 years.
You can build soil in some places if you are careful with your
inputs and outputs, but you can't rebuild it everywhere.
The available minerals have been washed out to sea, and getting
them back is quite hard because they are so diluted. Good in
theory for sea creatures, but they have other problems to deal
with also, like the ocean heat content. For Homo Sap, we live
on land and the total available stuff is depleted. We have
supplanted what was available through mining, but like coal,
phosphate mines are pretty played out also.
Homo Sap numbers will reduce and the rest of the biome will
recover, over time. Quite a long time. What it took 10.000
years to wash out to sea will likely take 1M years to get back
as the ocean inundates the land and the stuff that makes life
possible gets redeposited. In the meantime, Homo Sap numbers
will decrease to whatever the land still can support in total.
That number is not too large, relatively speaking. I can't
tell you the exact number, but my WAG would be about 1:1000.
How long it will take to drop that low also unknown. I do know
however the Reindeer on St. Matthews Island accomplished this
task in a very short time indeed.
RE
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