By Ronnie Cummins and Will Allen, Translated by Ana Maria Quispe, February 10, 2010
"The catastrophic impacts of climate change will not occur in the future. They are happening now, "Vandana Shiva, Earth, not Oil: Environmental Justice in the Age of Climate Crisis
Climate Stabilization Requires a Cultural Revolution and Politics
The climate catastrophe, energy policy and we are facing is disturbing and frightening. But we still have time to redeem ourselves and act beyond the psychological challenges, despair and false optimism. There is still hope if we are willing to face the monsters hydrocephalus that are on the way and move forward with a decisive plan of action. The inspirational message we need to convey is that we're not just talking about reducing fossil fuel use and pollution from greenhouse gases (GHGs), but to reconstruct society, creating in effect a new Men and Women for a New century. We are witnessing the early periods of a massive awareness of the masses and to revive the power of corporations and banks out of control and the media controlled by corporations and politicians. This cultural and political revolution will give us the power to pass a deep and profound change in the industry, government, education, health care, housing, neighborhood, transportation, food and agricultural systems, as well as from our diets and ways of life. The scale of human and physical resources necessary to convert our current suicide economy in a green economy is daunting, but absolutely necessary and feasible. The only viable plan for survival, a 80-90% reduction of fossil fuel consumption and GHG pollutants, by 2050 - means that we must demand a drastic reduction in military spending (the current wars cost us a trillion dollars year). We must impose taxes on the rich and producers of GHGs and knees will our politicians, banks, Federal Reserve System and corporations out of control. The good news that Van Jones and others say, is that in this 21st century green economy not only stabilize the climate, also allow us to train and re-employ the U.S. workforce, including young people from low income and 16 to 25 million unemployed workers, such as eco-builders, installers of solar and wind energy, recycling, organic gardeners, farmers, nutritionists, holistic health providers, and other workers for a green economy.
Beyond Copenhagen: The Dilemma of Civilization
Los negociadores y jefes de estado que asistieron en Diciembre del 2009 a la Cumbre Climática de Copenhagen, abandonaron las negociaciones con literalmente ningún acuerdo significativo relacionado a reducir los GEIs (dióxido de carbono, oxido de nitrógeno y metano), y con muy poco o ningún reconocimiento al papel que juegan las prácticas de alimentación y agricultura industrial no orgánica en el calentamiento global. Desafortunadamente las declaraciones y comportamiento de los delegados de Copenhagen y la enorme división entre el Sur Global y las naciones industrializadas, han dejado en claro que galvanizar un acuerdo internacional jurídico vinculante para reducir drásticamente la contaminación por estos gases será una lucha larga y difícil. China y Estados Unidos son igual y conjuntamente responsables de más del 40% de los actuales GEIs que dañan el clima. Las emisiones de China provienen del 20% de la población, las de EEUU del 5%. Aunque China, India, México, Brasil y otras naciones en desarrollo son responsables por las crecientes emisiones de GEIs, la mayoría de estos gases en la atmósfera y los océanos hoy están directamente atribuídos a la industria y transportación de las emisiones de Estados Unidos y Europa desde los inicios de 1900. Desde una perspectiva ética, legal y de sobrevivencia, Norte América, la Unión Europea y Japón deben trazar el camino. Para evitar una desastrosa elevación global de la temperatura (un literal holocausto climático), los países ricos y altamente industrializados deben reconocer la seriedad de esta crisis, cortar sus emisiones, y parar el juego de negar y culpar a China, India, Brasil, México, Sud África y otras naciones en desarrollo. Mayores cortes de emisiones de las naciones desarrolladas deben iniciarse ya y deben ser profundos, no el 7% que propuso Obama en Copenhagen, ni el 20% que ofreció la Unión Europea. It's late. Lideres científicos del clima como James Hansen están literalmente gritando a viva voz que el mundo necesita cortar sus emisiones en un 20-40% tan pronto como sea posible y en un 80-90% para el 2050 si queremos evitar un caos climático, la ruina de cosechas, guerras interminables, derretimiento de los polos y una desastrosa elevación de los niveles de los océanos. O bien reducimos radicalmente el CO2 y niveles del dióxido de carbono equivalente (CO2e, que incluye todos los GEIs, no solo CO2) contaminantes (actualmente a 390 ppm aumentando 2 ppm por año) a 350 ppm, incluyendo el metano derivado de la agricultura y el contaminante oxido de nitrógeno, o la sobrevivencia de las presentes y futuras generaciones están en un serio peligro. Como los científicos advirtieron en Copenhagen, seguir como siempre y una correspondiente elevación de 7 a 8.6 grados Fahrenheit en la temperatura global significa que la capacidad de la Tierra en el 2100 será reducida a un billón de personas. Ante este de abominable escenario, billones morirán de sed, frio, calor, enfermedades, guerra y hambruna. Si Estados Unidos reduce significativamente estas emisiones de gases, le seguirán otros países. Un signo de esperanza es el reciente anuncio de la Agencia de Protección de Medio Ambiente (EPA siglas en Inglés) de intentar regular los gases de efecto invernadero como contaminantes bajo la Ley del Aire Limpio. Desafortunadamente vamos a tener que ejercer enorme presión sobre funcionarios públicos para forzar a que la EPA reprima a los productores de GEIs (incluyendo granjas industriales y procesadoras de alimentos). La presión pública es crítica ya que los Congresistas que “dicen no” – demócratas y republicanos – junto a los agro-negocios, los de bienes raíces, los de la industria de la construcción y los defensores de los combustibles fósiles parecen determinados en mantener sus usuales y dañinas prácticas. Durante los años de Bush, las advertencias y las manifestaciones públicas contra el calentamiento global fueron ignoradas o trivializadas, a pesar de que nuestras protestas eran grandes y bien organizadas. Ahora bien, en teoría, finalmente tenemos a una mayoría en el Congreso ya un Presidente que dicen estar dispuestos a escuchar y tomar medidas para detener el calentamiento global. Pero para captar su atención, y movernos de menores a importantes cambios tenemos que subir nuestro volumen. Tenemos que dejar de pensar que vamos a mejorar sólo porque Obama es de una mentalidad recta. Las cosas van a mejorar si y, sólo cuando forcemos a Obama, a los políticos ya las corporaciones fueran de control ¡a que se plieguen a la voluntad del pueblo!
Más allá de Copenhagen: Penalizando a los Contaminadores
Instead of a weak law of "cap-and trade-offs" supported by Wall Street speculators and approved by the House, we need a real tax on GHG pollution. If we can and should directly provide discounts to the poor working class and the high cost of energy, but hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes on corporate GHG per year must be set for this next decade to develop a green infrastructure that include a new electrical grid, a massive transition to organic agriculture, mass transit improvements, a major refurbishment of the five million commercial buildings and 83 million residential buildings in the nation, and an intensive research program to develop energy alternatives. We must continue to denounce the worst polluters of greenhouse gases, such as utilities, petrochemical corporations, automakers, coal companies and mining, construction industry, and agribusiness corporations, and demand begin to re-equip industries immediately. We must move beyond polite protest and dissent to dramatically bring our message to the streets, corporate lobbies, Congress, state legislators and our local governments.
The Fatal Footprint of American Consumers
We all know in general that the cars, trucks, power plants and coal, domestic heating, cooling and manufacturing sectors show a majority of GHGs in the atmosphere and oceans. But did you know that the domestic use of fossil fuels (housing, transportation and food) account for 67% of total energy consumption and 67% of GHGs that are emitted? 1. Heating, electricity and cooling of our poorly insulated and designed 113 million homes and apartments, and operating our electrical and gas appliances consume 26% of fossil fuels. Walking in our high-consumption cars (an average of 22 miles per gallon) so badly used (1.4 passengers per trip) burning another 23.4% of energy. Eating highly processed and packaged foods, in addition to meat and animal source food, chemical and energy produced in factory-style farms, transported long distances, and putting our waste in the trash (instead of breaking them down for fertilizers) consumed another 17.3% energy of the nation. The average American generates 19.6 tonnes of GHGs each year, more than double than the European and Japanese (9.3 tons per capita) and 7.3 times more than the citizens of developing countries (2.7 tons per capita). Save The projection for U.S. Climate Chaos: $ 700 billion annually. The estimated cost of the next 40-50 years to replace coal and natural gas with solar and wind energy (wind) in the generation of electricity according to current usage levels is $ 15 trillion dollars (equivalent to gross national product or U.S. GDP a year) 2 We must reduce fossil fuel use by 80-90% in the nation of five million commercial buildings and 83 million homes (currently using 40% or 12 quadrillion watts of power total), including reducing the size of buildings, changes in lighting, windows, walls, ceilings and floors so thick and tight as possible (R-50 or R-60), and put furnaces and ducts inside the refurbished space . The estimated cost for these changes in future decades will add another $ 10-15 trillion. This is based on an extensive reconstruction of $ 50,000 per residential unit and $ 600,000 to $ 2,000,000 per commercial building, with two million new compact units per year they may replace older homes and businesses and meet the 90% reduction fossil fuels standard. The conversion of our current food systems and agricultural chemical (genetically modified organisms or GMOs) and energetic intensive (which currently represent 35% of our GHG and $ 800 billion annually in health care costs related to the diet) to a organic system, local production, efficient energy and sequester carbon will cost at least another $ 100 billion, or $ 5 trillion in 50 years. Rebuild our mass transit system and reorganize the personal transport (5-15 people at high mileage "with Jitneys smart" electric cars and vans instead of 1.4 passengers in major oil consumers, along with a massive increase in cycling ) will cost at least another $ 100 billion a year, or $ 5 trillion in 50 years. In other words, we must begin to dispose of 700 billion per year in federal spending away from war and corporate charity, providing training and employment in a giant green jobs program (similar to the program Works Project Administration New Deal era in the 1930s), and build a new green economy and full employment. Where are we going to get that money? Not by raising taxes and poor workers, but rather the rich and corporate polluters, guaranteeing loans from a new banking system and controlled Federal Reserve. A large part of this transition to a low organic carbon will require innovative public and private financing for the home, transportation, food and conversion of agriculture, along the lines of the Clean Energy Program rate at the Property (PACE acronym in English) the State of California. 3 Under the regime of "Slow Money", homeowners, renters, businesses, and farmers can immediately start to reduce their energy bills and carbon emissions and update their homes, businesses, farms, with no money down, low costs interest added to their mortgages and their taxes for a period of 30-40 years. Can we pay $ 700 billion per year? Of course we can, although the short and unsustainable earnings undoubtedly suffer. Consider that the Pentagon budget, not including wars over oil and strategic resources in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will cost more than $ 700 billion this year. Do not forget that Obama and his advisers, recently delivered approximately $ 12 trillion dollars in grants and aid to kleptomania and pathological criminals on Wall Street, those who govern our financial system out of control. What we are proposing is clearly a small change compared to our recent payments to corporations. Business owners, consumers, farmers and industries honored to reduce their carbon footprint and help to develop the green economy can and should receive substantial tax credits. Profiteers, mercenaries, toxic pollutants, and Masters of War can go to hell because there are financial.
Hidden Damage of Greenhouse Gases Foods Inc.
Although transport, industry and energy producers are significant polluters, few understand that the worst producer of greenhouse gases in the U.S. is "Food Inc." or food and industrial agriculture, responsible for at least 35% of U.S. emissions (the ridiculous EPA figures fluctuate between 7% and 12% while some climate scientists estimate could be as high as 50% or more). Industrial agriculture, biofuels and livestock grazing-including the destruction of what remains of rainforest in Latin America and Asia to feed livestock and biofuels, are the main drivers of global deforestation and wetland destruction that generate additional 20% of all GHGs causing unstable weather. In other words, the direct and indirect impacts of industrial agriculture and food industry are the main cause of global warming. Currently, conventional farms (energetic and non-organic chemical-intensive) emit at least 25% of carbon dioxide (mainly of tractors, trucks, harvesters, transport, refrigeration, freezing and heating), 40% of methane (mostly gas animals and manure ponds), and 96% of nitrogen oxide (from much of the manufacture and use of synthetic fertilizers, the millions of tons of manure from cattle, swine and poultry, and millions of tons of water black scattered in agricultural fields). For every tonne, methane is 21 times more harmful nitrogen oxide and 310 times more harmful as GHG carbon dioxide, when priced in a period of one hundred years. The damage gets worse if you look at the impact on global warming over the next crucial periods of 20 years. Many climate scientists now admit that they have drastically underestimated the dangers of GHGs other than CO2, including methane and nitrous oxide emissions, responsible for at least 20% of global warming. 4 Most of CO2e (all GHGs not just CO2) emitted by industrial agriculture comes from long-range transport, heating, freezing and processing. So if you cook everything yourself, buy only locally produced vegetables and eat more raw vegetables, produce less CO2. The conclusion is that we as a society are what we eat. In this era of climate chaos and oil limits, we make the transition to regional agriculture energy efficient and adaptable to the climate, orchards and crops based on local urban and primarily vegetarian diets or simply will not survive. Almost all the methane derived from food and farms in the U.S. operations comes from confined animal industry, huge breeding cows, pigs and poultry raised cloistered, and decomposition of food waste thrown into the ground rather than be separated from other solid waste and properly treated manure. To dramatically reduce emissions of methane, we need an immediate ban on factory farms, dairies and feedlots. We also need mandatory separation and recycling of food waste and green waste at the municipal level, so that we can produce large quantities of high quality organic fertilizer to replace the billions of kilos of chemical fertilizers and sewage that release greenhouse gases, destroy the fertility of the soil and threaten public health. Casi toda la contaminación por óxido de nitrógeno se deriva de los billones de kilos de fertilizantes sintéticos de nitrógeno y de las aguas negras esparcidas en campos de cultivo (esto está prohibido en los campos y ranchos orgánicos) destinados principalmente a la alimentación y cría de animales. Desde que 80% de la agricultura de los EEUU está dedicada a la producción de carnes, lácteos, y producción de animales, reducir los GEIs de la agricultura implica eliminar la sobreproducción y el sobre-consumo de carnes y productos animales.
La Agricultura y los Criaderos Orgánicos pueden Reducir Drásticamente las Emisiones de GEIs
The current catastrophic damage and not yet recognized the potential from farms, industrial production and distribution of food must be corrected. This will involve radical changes in agricultural practices, government subsidies, food processing and manipulation. It will require the conversion of a million farms and ranches chemical to organic production, and the establishment of millions of urban gardens and courtyards and communal. If consumer pressure and mobilization of bases to change public laws can not force the U.S. commercial farmers to change their farming, processing and shipping of their products, will be almost impossible to deal with the disastrous U.S. GHG emissions and to climate change. 5 However, in a very optimistic, if farmers change and make the transition to organic agriculture, soils will become a significant reserve of GHGs, literally absorbing the excess of these gases in the atmosphere and kidnapping them where they Seating on the floor. Our planet has five depots where GHGs are impregnated and store: oceans, atmosphere, soil, forest and oil deposits. 6 As the farms and lands in the U.S. are so degraded by chemical-intensive practices, monoculture and excessive logging, can only absorb and pay half (or less) of the gases that would have been able to absorb have been managed organically. As a result of careless handling, the atmosphere and oceans are absorbing these gases normally should do the land and vegetation. This has caused a catastrophic excess of greenhouse gases in the oceans and atmosphere. This surplus has caused climate change and extreme temperature fluctuations, including droughts and torrential rains. It also causes acidification of the oceans creating dead zones and a decrease in the population of fish and crustaceans. Unfortunately, when evaluating agricultural pollutants, government bureaucrats defenders agribusiness EPA and USDA (acronym in English of the Department of Agriculture of the U.S.) do not include these emissions. Neither takes into account transportation, refrigeration, heating and agricultural products as emitters of greenhouse gases, even when food travels an average 2,500 miles to our tables and are routinely frozen and cooled to ensure their distribution. Nor have the particles of "black carbon and CO2 emissions of trucks, tractors and other equipment used in the field. Not include emissions from fertilizers used in the manufacture or use of wasted packaging, or wastewater that are scattered in fields, or the methane from animal factories, not the billions of tons of spoiled food from our landfills. Rather, these GHG emissions related to food and agricultural industry, are grouped and concealed within the categories of industrial manufacturing, transportation and electrical use. Consequently there is no news to go live to the public by the high agricultural pollution, food, garbage and sewage. As government officials deliberately fail to assess the actual emissions from the food industry and agriculture, act as if these emissions were insignificant compared to total U.S. emissions, even though they represent one third of the total. Consequently the majority of lawyers and general public do not realize how urgent it is regular and drastically reduce emissions of food and industrial agriculture.
Chemical Fertilizer and Sewage: Silent Murderers
The most dangerous poisons, contributors to greenhouse gases, used by farmers and ranchers are the synthetic nitrogen and municipal and industrial wastewater. It is obvious that the use and manufacture of pesticides provide serious problems and generate their own GHG during the manufacture and use (more than 12 billion kilos per year). But the use of chemical fertilizers in the agricultural industry is six times more than chemical pesticides, added to the huge volume of wastewater that is spread on the land. 7 German chemical corporations developed the industrial process of the two forms of synthetic nitrogen used in the early 1900s. Before the 2nd World War, the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer in the U.S. was limited to 5% of the total nitrogen applied. At that time, most of the nitrogen came from animal manure as fertilizer (treated) and fertilizer in the same way that organic farming today. 8 During the 2nd World War, all European powers, especially U.S. factories expanded their production of nitrogen for bombs, munitions and fertilizers for the war. Since then the use of nitrogen fertilizer and the ability to make bombs has exploded. In 1990 over 90% of nitrogen fertilizer used in the U.S. was synthetic. 9 According to USDA, the average nitrogen fertilizer used each year from 1998 to 2007 was 11 billion 300 million kilograms. To produce this nitrogen manufacturing fired at least more than 1 kilo of greenhouse gases per pound of nitrogen produced. . This is 75 billion 103 million kilos of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year only for the manufacture of the synthetic fertilizer nitrogen. 10 Most of these emissions is made up of nitrogen oxide, the most harmful gases in the U.S. agriculture. Besides the impact on GHG, nitrogen fertilizer has other negative environmental effects. Two-thirds of U.S. drinking water are contaminated with high levels of carcinogenic nitrites and nitrates, mostly from the excessive use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Some public wells have such high levels of nitrogen that is dangerous and even fatal for children to take the water. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are the largest contributors to the infamous "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, the coast of California and Oregon and 400 other locations around the world. Very little nitrogen synthetic fertilizer was used before 1950 so that the damage has occurred today in the last 60 years. If you will assess the environmental impact of the synthetic nitrogen today would never use in agriculture. Until a ban on the production of food and fiber, we should at least impose high taxes in their manufacture and use. Unfortunately, at present agriculture is excluded from the scheme of "cap-and trade-offs" passed by the House of Representatives. So even though industrial agriculture is the greatest cause of GHG emissions more than any other in the U.S., you can not regulate under the proposed mechanisms and designed to limit greenhouse gases, unless we demand to do so. We should demand that taxes be put synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, adjust the short term and eradicate it as soon as possible. 11 We also require donations are completed or sales of hazardous and toxic wastewater for agriculture, gardens and orchards. Instead of contaminated wastewater and chemical-intensive farms, organic farming produces crops safe, superior nutritional quality, comparable yields for normal climates and even under conditions of drought or too much rain without using synthetic pesticides, sewage or chemical fertilizers.
The Good News of Organic and Climate Change
The "good news" without climate change published by the Rodale Institute and 12 other scientists, is that the transition or conversion of industrial agriculture, water, chemical and energetic intensive practices of organic farming system in the 1.5 billion hectares of cropland and 3.3 billion hectares for grazing can be snatched up over 7,000 kilos per hectare of climate damaging CO2 each year, instead of nurturing the land, plants, grass and trees resistant to drought, heavy rains, pests and diseases. We have already noted that agriculture and organic farms provide us with more nutritious food manufacturers, food full of vitamins, antioxidants, and essential minerals, free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics and sewage. In 2006, carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels in the U.S. (approximately 25% of world total) was estimated at nearly 6.5 billion tons. If kidnapping rates kilos/CO2/hectárea 7,000 / year would apply to the 175 million hectares of crops in the U.S., nearly 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year kidnap, mitigating quarter of total fossil emissions the country. If grazing were also converted to organic practices, we might well reverse global warming.
Toxic Sewage Plant Municipal Drain
Addition of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, harmful foods, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and meat factories environmentally destructive, a very serious problem in the U.S. is the increased use of hazardous sewage drainage plant to fertilize the fields crop. 60% of all drainage water produced in the U.S. are currently applied to agricultural fields for food and people. An estimated 4 to 45 billion kilos. 13 A crucial collection of scientific studies indicate that municipal sewage routinely contain hundreds of dangerous pathogens, toxic metals, anti-flammable (fire), endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, pharmaceuticals and other dangerous chemicals from residential drains, storms, hospitals and industrial plants. The current drain poison spreads in at least 28 million hectares of the 140,000 farms and non-organic crops across the U.S.. The so-called "regulation" of the EPA for this drain is the worst in the world. Unless we stop this dangerous practice, industry wastewater destroy millions of hectares of crops in addition to urban need for future urban gardens. The drain is also a producer of emissions of concern.
The Organic Movement must be the Most Important Political and
We must promote and agitate, as "practice what they preach" in our daily lives. We must organize a mass movement in the U.S. and globally to make the 1.5 billion hectares of crops and 3.3 billion hectares of grazing to organic production as soon as possible. The organic regulations prohibit the use of synthetic nitrogen, pesticides, sewage, artificial hormones, GMOs, and other practices that emit gases, environmentally destructive and threatening to health. The organic should be a rule not the alternative. To facilitate the transition to organic mass must force the U.S. Congress and state and local government, to remedy this great "transitional organic", including the creation of thousands of nuclei in the organic-trained agents, and one million new gardens urban community and school. Thousands of U.S. farmers have already made this transition to organic. Millions more need to do the same. More and more farmers in the world are learning that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution and produce higher quality yields turning to organic practices. While we develop an alternative market and put pressure on legislators and regulators to act, we must make an appeal to the conscience of conventional farmers who use the existing Federal Conservation Reserve, Conservation Security Programme, the Environmental Quality Incentives Environment (EQUIP acronym in English) and special programs to help them start practice this change to organic as soon as possible.
Fixing Climate Stability: Earth and More
Farmers in the U.S. and around the world know more than 200 years to be good the loss of soil fertility. Durante las últimas dos centurias, numerosas estrategias han sido diseñadas para reemplazar el nitrógeno del suelo y la materia orgánica sin el uso de químicos. Muchas de estas estrategias son ampliamente usadas hoy por los agricultores bio-dinámicos. Tan temprano como en 1813, John Taylor lamentó la pérdida de vegetación en la tierra (materia orgánica) y sintió que estábamos destruyendo nuestro precioso suelo por sembríos excesivos y descuidadas prácticas agrícolas. 14 Desde 1840 alquimistas y fabricantes trataron de convencer a los agricultores de renovar la fertilidad con químicos comprados en tiendas. Pero los agricultores desconfiaban de estos productos y de los beneficios que ostentaban sus vendedores. Otros científicos argumentaron por años que la tierra con un contenido alto de materia orgánica era más productiva y fértil aún en tiempos de sequías y de exceso de humedad. 15 Como resultado, los agricultores estadounidenses reemplazaron tradicionalmente su material orgánico con cultivos fertilizantes, estiércol y abonos, muchos nunca compraron fertilizantes hasta la década de 1950. En el 2007 y 2009 resultados similares a estas conclusiones fueron reportados en estudios como en los realizados en los lotes agrícolas experimentales de Morrow de la Universidad de Illinois, y en Champaign Urbana (el más antiguo y continuo lote experimental en EEUU). Allí los investigadores encontraron que la siembra continua de maíz con nitrógeno sintético sembrado desde 1955 sufría significantes pérdidas de carbono y de nitrógeno comparados a los sembrados antes de 1955 cuando los lotes se fertilizaban orgánicamente con estiércol, plantas fertilizantes y abonos. 16 Un significativo factor en la degeneración de estas tierras es la pérdida de materia orgánica, ya que ésta alimenta el suelo con microorganismos y con micorriza fungís, ambos componentes vitales de un suelo saludable. Desde 1950, las mayores áreas agrícolas de EEUU han sido bombardeadas anualmente con enormes cantidades de plaguicidas y de fertilizantes sintéticos mortales también para el suelo, como lo sucedido en los lotes de Marrow. Las conclusiones de este estudio debieron constituir una alarma tanto a los agricultores como a los consultantes en fertilizantes sintéticos. Estas conclusiones son que las actuales recomendaciones en la aplicación de estos fertilizantes son entre un 40 a 190% excesivas y que la fertilidad de la tierra sufre a largo plazo cuando los agricultores dependen de estos fertilizantes sintéticos y no reemplazan la materia orgánica utilizando un manejo orgánico del suelo. Sembrando en varias parcelas químicamente maltratadas y abusadas con agricultores de algodón, vegetales y maíz bajo nuestra tutela, fuimos capaces de aumentar la materia orgánica en 3 a 4 años de 1.5% a 3 y 4% eficientemente doblando la cantidad de secuestro de los dañinos GEIs, a la vez de eliminar el exceso de fertilizantes de nitrógeno y las emisiones. Estos logros se debieron al uso de pequeñas cantidades de abonos, a la siembra de cultivos fertilizantes en el otoño y en los meses de invierno ya los cultivos de alta fertilidad en la primavera y el verano. Cada aumento de cada unidad en el incremento del porcentaje de materia orgánica representa un aumento en el nitrógeno del suelo, nitrógeno producido por los microorganismos de la descomposición de materia orgánica. Este incremento en materia orgánica también le permite al suelo absorber y secuestrar más carbono.
Mas Allá de las Fábricas de Vacas, Cerdos y Aves
Just as we must rectify our way of planting, we also make in regard to what to plant and what to eat. Our excessive dependence on meat is unsustainable in the long term, we notice that 80% of our agriculture is aimed at producing animals, animal-source foods are less energy efficient. Raising animals on factory requires too many calories (fossil fuels) of too much land, too much nitrogen fertilizer at a time of dangerous pesticides, antibiotics and hormones, not to mention the millions of hectares of genetically modified (GM). Some examples illustrate these points very clearly. It takes between 4.5 to 5.5 kilos of grain (corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton) to produce just ½ kilo of steak (about 2.200 to 2.800 kilos of grain to produce just 227 kilos of meat). It takes a gallon of oil to grow and transport food to produce that ½ kilo of steak. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel (for growing grain) to produce just one calorie of protein produced steak. It takes 5.0000 gallons of water to produce just one kilo of steak (from cows kept in confinement). We all need to eat less meat (or better all) of those fat meats raised in abusive conditions, such as hotels pigs and chickens prisons. Only the lower third of U.S. meat consumption also would reduce emissions by one third. And if you replace the animals in these "factories" with meat raised on small farms to the organic way, you reduce their own carbon footprint, would fight the inhumane treatment of farm animals and improve their health. Carnivores do not necessarily have to stop eating meat, they only need to understand that meat is safer, if more humanely raised organic farming and sustainable manner to the maid in "factories." Ultimately, if we change our eating habits and restrict our need to buy and consume unnecessary clothing and induced and Madison Avenue marketing campaigns can significantly reduce our carbon footprint. That government bureaucrats and corporations or behavioral change in the short term, will depend on the strength of a grassroots movement in the U.S. and globally. But we can never build, build, motivate or lead such movements unless we begin to practice what we preach and establish viable models for organic conversion and a green economy in our individual lives and local communities. On the other hand, change our habits is not enough, we should sue the Obama administration to act and impose a carbon tax, including a tax on chemical agriculture. We require emission reduction commitments much higher, ending with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nationalization of major banks and financial institutions, and a restoration of democracy, beginning with elections with public funds. The rest of TARP bailout should start green energy projects, transportation and sustainable agriculture, to recruit and train unemployed people to refurbish and build new green economy. These are the main strategic issues, communities want a new green infrastructure, health foods, new industries and new quality jobs.
A New Work Projects Administration
Una moderna Administración de Proyectos de Trabajo podría entrenar y emplear un masivo cuerpo verde para crear una infraestructura verde y una economía post carbono. Cuando FDR creó la Administración de Proyectos de Trabajo en 1930 había 60,000,000 de trabajadores en el mercado laboral. Veinticinco por ciento o 15,000,000 personas estaban desempleadas. Hoy, hay 154,400,000 trabajadores en el mercado laboral. El Departamento de Trabajo estima que el 10.3% de la población está desempleada. La mayoría de analistas argumentan que el porcentaje es mas alto 16.5%. Quien quiera que tenga la razón, 15.9 millones o 24.7 millones de personas están sin trabajo, más que durante la Gran Depresión. Ellos necesitan desesperadamente trabajo y entrenamiento al igual que las personas durante la Depresión. El medio-ambientalista Bill McKibben tiene razón, necesitamos movilizar una armada de raíces para demandar reducciones en las emisiones, una armada de trabajadores para convertir nuestra infraestructura en una economía verde. Lo que quiere decir que debe enviar mensajes de texto, por twitter, e-mail, usar FaceBook, Google, YouTube y otros recursos para educarse en lo que respecta al cambio climático. Una vez que Ud. entienda la gravedad de la situación, podrá cambiar sus hábitos, informar a sus amigos, y participar en demostraciones de cambios climáticos. Se organizará a nivel local y entonces coordinará sus esfuerzos locales con las redes nacionales como la Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos y www.350.org. Sus hijos y nietos dependen de que Ud. les deje un mundo habitable. No hay tiempo que perder. Nota: Contacte a estas organizaciones o personas para información y para conocer a otras en su comunidad que están participando en los esfuerzos por reducir las emisiones.
References:
1. Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change. Pat Murphy. New Society Publishers, pp. 120-127. 2. Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change. Pat Murphy. New Society Publishers, p. 85 3. “How innovative financing is changing energy in America” by Cisco Devries. Grist, January 27, 2010. http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-26-how-innovative-financing-is-changing-energy-in-america#comments 4. “Los otros contaminantes que cambian el clima” by Jessica Seddon Wallack and Veerabhadran Ramanathan. Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica. Vol. 9 Number 4, 2009. pp. 29-40 5.Nutrient Overload: Unbalancing the Global Nitrogen Cycle. Staff of World Resources Program. 1998-1999 6. Agriculture and Climate Change: Impacts and Opportunities at the Farm Level. A Policy Position Paper of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. 2008 7. Three times more phosphorous and potash fertilizer are used than pesticides, so farmers use about 8 times as many pounds of commercial fertilizer as toxic pesticides. 8. Allen, Will, 2008. The War on Bugs, Chelsea Green, pp. 93-96, 144 9. Ibid., pp. 146-147 10.United States Department of Agriculture Fertilizer Use Statistics, 1998-2007 11. Until we stop being a military country, we will continue to make synthetic nitrogen for bombs. 12. “The Organic Revolution, How We Can Stop Global Warming” by Ronnie Cummins, and Alexis Baden-Mayer from the Organic Consumers Association. October 19, 2009 http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19404.cfm 13. The US EPA estimates that 16 billion pounds of dry sludge are produced each year and that one-half of that is applied to farmland. The Carlisle Group, which is the largest distributor of sludge, contends that about 135 billion pounds of sludge are applied to farmland. 14. Taylor, John Arator, 1813, Reprint 1977, The Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 15. Wells, David, 1852. Comparison of the Organic Matter Content of Soils from Massachusetts and Ohio. Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard University. 16. RL Mulvaney, SA Kahn and TR Ellsworth, Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production. Published in 2009 by The Journal of Environmental Quality. SA Khan, RL Mulvaney, TR Ellsworth, and C. Boast. The Myth of Nitrogen Fertilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration. Published in the November/December 2007 issue of The Journal of Environmental Quality. Cawood, Matt, 2009 Why Synthetic Nitrogen is Bad for Soil Carbon Published in Stock and Land, Oct. 4. Will Allen es agricultor, organizador comunitario, activista, y escritor en Vermont. Es el consejero de la Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos. Su libro “La Guerra a los Insectos” fue publicado por Chelsea Green en el 2008. Su wweb site es www.thewaronbugsbook.com El web de su rancho es www.cedarcirclefarm.org Ronnie Cummins es organizador, escritor y activista. Es el Director Internacional de la Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos (OCA siglas en Inglés) y Co-autor del libro, Alimentos de Ingienería Genética: Una Guía de Defensa para los Consumidores. El sitio web de su organización es: www.OrganicConsumers.org Ana María Quispe, es dietista, ecóloga, activista por derechos humanos, traductora de OCA y Vía Orgánica.
