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ISIS Report 18/05/10
Science in Society #46 Letters to the Editor
SiS 46 | Subscribe here
Note: comments to every article are now
possible on ISIS’ website. The letters here were submitted separately, and
include only a tiny selection of the comments. Do read the rest on www.i-sis.org.uk
Putting food and energy together in
sustainable cooking and agriculture
I heartily agree with your statement in Sustainable
Agriculture, Green Energies and the Circular Economy (SiS46): “Biofuels and biochar make
clear why we need to think about food and energy together.” Using solar thermal
for cooking food (to rave reviews) also makes this a reality. I am using 60 to 90
percent solar on catered events. I just catered a Brazilian event for 110
people, with black beans cooked in less than half an hour. Dark coloured foods
cook much quicker in solar than by conventional gas.
With regard to fixing nitrogen in soil for grain
crops, I have come to the conclusion that the practice of combining grains and
legumes in cooking for maximum nutrition also works in the garden. I plant each
corn kernel with a sweet pea within inches of each other. The result is that I
have never produced so much corn; and the corn stalk supports the pea and
shades it enough that I can also harvest peas during the warmer months.
I have been following ISIS since 2001, and
working to feed film and television crews in Hollywood for the past 20 years,
being a single mother now of three adults and four grandchildren. However, my
opposition to the Iraq war, my decision to stop serving beef, and eventually,
activism on behalf of a small urban farming organisation South Central Farmers
cost me my catering job with the production companies. At the advice of my
son-in-law who served in the Marine Corp during the invasion of Iraq, I bought a large solar oven and took it to the public as a sign of hope and ingenuity
that we can solve problems without conflict. I took it to farmers markets,
conventions and green expos. I have always been involved
in community based agriculture and gardens while managing public property where
members gardened. And that was how I started my catering business. I grow my own fresh organic
produce.
As my business
grew because I was serving such great fresh food, my involvement with organic
farmers became a necessity. The farmers supported my business by giving
me great deals and special treatment. I love them! I have a lovely garden, keep
bees, and now cater weddings with solar cooking. It is a challenge to work with
nature, minimize waste, teach conservation, and to be the grounds keeper, chef,
and bottle washer; but my efforts have made my dream of thirty years a
reality.
Susan Rigali,
Solar chef, www.savorsolar.com,
Los Angeles, California, USA
Your article is very thought-provoking. All
the developed and developing nations should work up on this model to normalize
climate change and save the humanity from disaster.
Dr. RKS Rathore, Agra, India
Gross incompetence of those releasing SmartStax corn
SmartStax
Maize a Medley of Transgenes with Problems (SiS 46) sheds light on
the nature of GM Crops and makes the issue crystal clear: No one who reads it
could accept the presence of GM crops in the open environment and the
international food supply, or fail to recognize the gross incompetence of those
charged with preserving the environment and protecting the health of US
citizens.
What does seem
insane is the fact that people so useless could have been entrusted with
positions of responsibility, which allowed them to put so much at risk. I quote
you: “As insane as it may appear, EPA regards the health effects of transgenes
stacked together and their impact on the environment as equivalent to a mixture
of chemicals pesticides sprayed on a plant…They presume that there is no need
for environmental assessment or toxicological evaluation of the mixed genes and
their products within the crop plant, where many unintended effects in gene
expression and metabolic profile can occur". ..The corporations appear to
have been given carte blanche to load our food and feed with untested
mixtures of old transgenes, with utter disregard of the interactions among the
transgenes and gene products ..”
Douglas Hind, director and national coordinator of many indigenous
peoples and organic and rural farming organisations, Guadalajar, Jalisco, Mexico
Food Inc
horror changed my life
The Food, Inc. Horror
Movie is another great report from ISIS. I first heard of similar
reporting a couple decades ago, when John Robbins split from his family
business (the business of ice cream, Baskin and Robbins), and wrote a number of
books, beginning with Diet for a New America. In the book, he gave some
figures for the production of meat and dairy in terms of water, land and grain
use. Following that, I made a strong dietary shift toward whole grains, beans,
vegetables, etc. It was a happy turning point for me, which I've always been
grateful for. I then moved into nutritional studies, including western and
eastern approaches, and macrobiotics; and have offered my experience and tips
to friends and family, and anybody interested. But it isn't enough, is it?
What really
rankles us ‘independence-loving, tax-hating’ Americans is subsidizing the
factory-farming industries without our consent or knowledge. We believe we live
in a free-market economy, and yet we pay exorbitant (but hidden) fees and
taxes, so that we can produce more of what is truly bad for us, burn mountains
of grain to suppress or raise costs, and dump more nitrogen into waterways.
Let's get out
there and kick some congressional butt, and make it understood that while no
one has to be a vegetarian (that’s a personal choice), no industry should be so
sheltered and cushioned by secret, and in that sense illegal, use of billions
of our tax dollar.
Liam Scheff,
Independent Journalist, Boston, MA, USA
How nitrogen
fertilizers turn soils acid
The information
in China’s Soils Ruined
by Overuse of Chemical Fertilizers (SiS 46) is very important and
doesn´t get to most farmers who are also victims of bad technical assistance.
The promises of increased production! I would like to have more detailed
information about the processes by which nitrogen-based fertilizers or wild
fire retardants turn soils acid and the implications for the atmospheric concentrations
of NO2 for example.
Paulo Cezar
Mendes Ramos, Brasília, Brazil
Dr,
Mae-Wan Ho replies
The most
important acid forming reactions for N fertilizers is microbial oxidation of
ammonium compounds and urea to nitrate, especially when N fertilizers are added
in excess of what the plants can assimilate.
NH3 + 2O2 → H+ + NO3-
+ H2O
ammonia
CO (NH2) + 4O2 → 2H+ + 2NO3-
+ H2O + CO2
urea
It is the
protons (H+) generated in the nitrification reactions that cause
acidity.
When plants
assimilate nitrate, i.e., when they take up the nitrate and react it with an
organic compound (R-OH) they consume protons, as follows:
R-OH + NO3- + H+ → R- NH2
+ O2
So if
nitrogen is in balance, there should be no acidification of the soil.
As
far as fire retardants are concerned, there are many different chemicals
already known to be harmful to wild life. Among the ones used are ammonium
phosphates, which can also generate protons and hence acidity.
Real hydrology at last
The Real Importance
of the Amazon Rain Forest (SiS 46) describes important research that corroborates the insights of Viktor Schauberger 80 years before.
Schauberger demonstrated the close connection between trees, the Earth’s water
cycle and the production of rain, and saw the tropical rainforest as the
powerhouse for balancing climatic extremes on the planet. He called the forests
‘the cradle of water’ in the sense that they produce the most balanced and best
quality fresh water. The forest canopy receives rain imbued with the Sun’s
energy and draws up water from deep in the soil, transpiring abundant and high
quality water which balances the two energy sources. Schauberger proposed a
complex water cycle below ground, where the water molecules from precipitation
are broken down to provide energy for new growth, then to be recycled into new
water. He believed that that new virgin water is created by the coming together
of molecular hydrogen and free oxygen in the depths of the soil, stimulated by
the trees’ root systems. Schauberger was an intuitive, and it is good to see
some of his insights supported scientifically.
Alick Bartholomew, Bath, UK
If Mr Bunyard or anyone else wishes to see
this biotic pump in action, a winter spent on the west side of Vancouver Island
north of Long Beach would provide an excellent example. It happens before your
eyes, vapours rising even from the clear-cut stumps. It impressed me so when I
lived there. It was hard to measure, but it seems as though the rains were again
reaching for the sky. And the minds’ eye now trying to stretch to the scale of
the Amazon, and is indeed awe-inspired. Further, imagine this in western Europe,
before the great beech and oak forests were lost to sheep!
Todd
Millions, Cypress Hills Range, Saskatchewan, Canada
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