Weekend postcard: Manzanita skeleton

This is a common scene in the Mediterranean climate of California: dry grass, some shrubs and pines, and an oak.

We pulled off onto the shoulder of a road and lying on its side was this skeleton of a manzanita amid the dry grass. Its cause of death remains unknown. Perhaps it died from its lack of light with the oak overshadowing it and slowly robbing it of its ability to feed itself.

The word ‘manzanita’ means ‘little apple’ in Spanish; and, indeed the manzanita’s fruit resembles an apple, if you squint…from a distance…in the twilight.

Dead manzanita skeleton

Organic can be the right choice for fruit, sometimes

This “Green Chain”column will be published in the Lake County Record-Bee on Tuesday.

The National Organic Program administers the O...
The National Organic Program administers the Organic Seal to products that meet the requirements. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes.

Forgive me please for starting this month’s column with the same John Maynard Keynes’ quote as last month’s. But new facts have been brought to light.

I have long maintained that it is wrong-headed to always choose organically-produced foods over foods produced using synthetic chemicals and fossil fuels. I have previously pointed out the use of fossil fuels to produce pesticides and fertilizers and run machinery allows conventional farming to use less land than organic methods. And, when taken in aggregate worldwide, we spare wetlands, grasslands, forests, and sundry open spaces from being cleared for agriculture. Had farmers continued to use organic farming methods, they would have needed to exponentially increase the acreage under cultivation in order to increase production to meet demand. And since agriculture is the number one cause of deforestation, more acres under cultivation means a loss of biodiversity, which is the last thing proponents of organic agriculture want.

A newly published report in the journal Nature shows that I am incorrect, if only slightly. This new paper forces me to revise my statement. The new statement: it is generally wrong-headed to always choose organically-produced foods over foods produced using synthetic chemicals and fossil fuels.

The report is titled, “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture.” While I have admittedly only been able to access the abstract, the authors find that organic farming methods are indeed less efficient than conventional ones: anywhere from 5 percent to 34 percent less efficient. But they also state, “Under certain conditions—that is, with good management practices, particular crop types and growing conditions—organic systems can thus nearly match conventional yields.”

Those “nearly match” crop types they refer to are not, sadly, vegetable and grain crops, which provide most of the calories for the world’s populations. Organic yields for vegetable and grains generally fall one-third below the yields of conventionally grown crops. On the Nature website Melissa Gilbert paraphrases lead author Verena Seufert, “Cereals and vegetables need lots of nitrogen to grow, suggesting that the yield differences are in large part attributable to nitrogen deficiencies in organic systems.”

Some fruits, on the other hand, under ideal circumstances can produce up to 97 percent of the amount of conventional yields if they are planted in rotation with nitrogen-fixing legumes to replace the critical nitrogen in the soil. Still, this 97 percent only counts the yield of the fruit crop. It ignores the need to harvest a legume instead of fruit every other rotation. There is no such need with conventional methods, which can bring double the yield since farmers would not necessarily need to rotate to a legume.

We often wax nostalgic for the good old days. Somehow, those days were better and technology, on the whole, has been bad. We downplay the benefits. Stephen Budiansky, a former editor of Nature, writes that due to the use of technology “…the total land area of American farms remains almost unchanged from a century ago, at a little under a billion acres, even though those farms now feed three times as many Americans and export more than 10 times as much as they did in 1910.”

So, if you are concerned about preserving forests, wetlands, and open space, it is usually, but not always, wrong-headed to always choose organically produced foods over foods produced using synthetic chemicals and fossil fuels—if we’re talking about certain fruits, that is.

Sources:
Biello, David. ”Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?” Scientific American. April 25, 2012. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=organic-farming-yields-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change accessed 04/25/2012)

Budiansky, Stephen. “Math Lessons for Locavores.” NYTimes.com. Published: August 19, 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?_r=2 accessed 07/31/2011)

Gilbert, Melissa. “Organic farming is rarely enough: Conventional agriculture gives higher yields under most conditions.” Nature News & Comment. (http://www.nature.com/news/organic-farming-is-rarely-enough-1.10519 accessed 06/13/2012)

Seufert, Verena, Navin Ramankutty, and Jonathan A. Foley. abstract for “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture.” Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11069 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11069.html accessed 06/13/2012)

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Weekend Postcard: A Green Car Grows in Berkeley

I saw this car-shaped hedge growing in a Berkeley neighbor hood and knew that it had to be a weekend postcard. Berkeley must have more Toyota Prius‘s per capita than anywhere else on earth. And, just down the street sits an all-electric car made by a company I have never heard of. But this car beats all those others. Not only is this car Zero-Emissions green, it absorbs CO2 rather than emitting it. I dub thee the Topiary DL.

Berkeley is, well, different:

A car grows in Berkeley

“Let it be said that, on balance, I would like the world to look someday, much like Alice [Waters] probably wanted to look. A city on a hill—or many cities on hills—surrounded by unbroken vistas of beautiful countryside; seasonal, and sustainable fruits and vegetables specific to the region. Healthy, happy, antibiotic-free animals would graze freely over the land, depositing their perfectly odorless, organic shit back into the food chain so other wonderful things might grow…The schoolchildren of the inner cities would sit down each day to healthy, balanced, and entirely organic meals cooked—by happy, self actualized, and enlightened workers—to crispy perfection. Evil lawyers and stockbrokers and Vice Presidents of Development for Bruckheimer Productions would leave their professions and return in great numbers to work the fields of this new agrarian wonderland, becoming better people in the process. In this New Age of Enlightenment the Dark Forces of Fast Food would wither and die—as the working poor abandoned them to rush home between jobs and cook wild-nettle risotto for their kids. It would all be clean and safe and nobody would get hurt. And it would all look…Kind of like Berkeley.” – Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw.

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Green Games

Cover of "The Skeptical Environmentalist:...
Cover of “The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World” Cover via Amazon

 

Here is today’s Green Chain column for the Lake County Record-Bee.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes.

It appears we are witnessing the crumbling of the green movement, as we know it. Dr. James Lovelock, who postulated the ‘Gaia hypothesis’ of earth operating as a self-regulating organism, is the latest to stray, if not exactly leave the faith. The list non-orthodox greens grows continually and now includes Mark Lynas, the author of The God Species and Stewart Brand, the author of the iconic Whole Earth Catalog.

Perhaps the first to change his mind and leave the Greens was Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace. He felt those in the environmental movement had made their point,

“[W]hen a majority of people decide they agree with you it is probably time to stop hitting them over the head with a stick and sit down and talk to them about finding solutions to our environmental problems,” Patrick Moore says.

Greens have always been fractious, and similar to the Tea Party on the right, they hate compromise. Former Greenpeace director Paul Watson berated Patrick Moore in an email: “you’re a corporate whore, Pat, an eco-Judas, a lowlife bottom-sucking parasite…” And, Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist took a pie in the face from then true believer, Mark Lynas.

At the heart of the disagreement sits the use of technology. “There is a battle underway for the soul of environmentalism,” writes freelance journalist Keith Kloor, “It is a battle between traditionalists and modernists. Who prevails is likely to be determined by whose vision for the future is chosen by a new generation of environmentalists.”

Traditionalist Greens say, “Stop!” Technology is the Problem. The Worldwatch Institute says we should not simply stop growing our economies, but we must actually contract: “The rapidly warming Earth and the collapse of ecosystem services show that economic ‘degrowth’ in overdeveloped countries is essential and urgent…. Degrowth can be achieved through policies to discourage overconsumption, raising taxes, shortening work hours, and ‘informalizing’ certain sectors of the economy.” The goal, Rik Scarce writes in his book “Eco-Warriors,” is to arrive at “a steady-state relationship with all of nature’s creations, wherein human attitudes and actions dominate no one and no one thing. Their alternative seeks to guarantee life, liberty, evolution, and happiness for humans and non-humans alike.”

Modernist Greens say that technology has a role in making the world greener and more livable for all creatures, including humans. Stewart Brand says “If Greens don’t embrace science and technology” they risk becoming irrelevant.

The modernists are in favor of cities, people, and technology (including genetically engineered food).

Cities, people, and technology are…good? What is happening? Has the world gone crazy?

Perhaps the world is crazy. (Not exactly a news flash now, is it?)

As you know, I have argued on these pages that people, cities, technology, and economic growth have not only improved our lives here in the United States, but have improved the environment. Economic growth using non-renewables has overall been beneficial. The author of “The Rational Optimist,” Matt Ridley notes that technology takes less land and uses materials other species do not want:

“[E]conomic development leads to a switch to using resources that no other species needs or wants…. Contrast Haiti, which relies on biomass (wood) for cooking and industry, with its much (literally) greener neighbour the Dominican Republic, which subsidises propane for cooking to save forest…. [E]conomic growth leads to a more sparing use of the most important of all resources – land.”

Is economic growth and technology a wonder cure? A panacea that works with no side effects? No. But, then everything has its upsides and downsides.

If we humans continue to move from rural to urban (cities are denser), drill and mine for our energy rather than grow it, continue to wring more food and fiber from each acre, and develop incentives for conserving water and our fisheries, we will yet leave a better place for our (and Nature’s) children and grandchildren.

Matt Ridley sums it up well:

“Seven billion people going back to nature would be a disaster for nature.”

Notes/Sources:

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Weekend Postcard: Sailboat on Clear Lake

A few weeks back we saw colorful sailboats on Clear Lake. (Clear Lake is in Lake County in northern California.) According to the Konocti Bay Sailing Club, 45 boats participated the 28th Konocti Cup (their route is here). We might see one or two sailboats in a month, to see so many at one time was marvelous.

To see more photos of the event, click here.

Weekend Postcard: Hop Vines in the Garden

Zeus hops growing in a halved wine barrel.

Hop plants are technically bines and not vines; vines use tendrils to grow and bines do not.

Nevertheless, this bine is a Zeus hop (Humulus lupulus var. whotheheckknowsii, part of the CTZ–Columbus, Tomahawk, Zeus–hops triad). I have planted approximately 20 hop rhizomes inside containers around the house. I have hung wire from my decks down to the containers, a drop of ten to twelve feet. The few that have popped up seem to migrate to the wires pretty readily.

For more information about growing your own hops:

Weekend Postcard: cappuccino at Peet’s

Cappuccino at Peet's Coffee in Berkeley

 

 

Beauty lives in simple pleasures. And, at $2.50 for a simple cappuccino made with competence and delight is an affordable luxury. Taking a moment to enjoy the bubble of calm and the wondrous taste of cappuccino with its foamed milk and dark espresso roasted coffee complemented this visual treat.

I was walking toward University of California, Berkeley and stopped at the original Peet’s at Walnut & Vine just one block off of Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley for a small jolt of 1,3,7 trimethylxanthine (caffeine). The barista obviously took pride in his work and poured this lovely tree pattern.

Perfect for a forester.

 

 

Weekend Postcard: Redbud in bloom

The western redbud (Cercis occidentalis) has bloomed throughout Lake County, CA. With its cordate (heart-shaped) leaves and magenta flowers, it dazzles us during spring.

Flowers and nascent leaves of the redbud

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Weekend Postcard: Lilac Flower

Spring has meant an explosion of color around the neighborhood. The flowers and new shoots on the plants feed the soul (okay, I’m not a complete non-romantic).

Since it is spring, we have planted the tomatoes in hopes of getting those delicious fruits for our sandwiches and salads. We have also planted some hop rhizomes in hopes of brewing some beers and flavoring them with hops that we grew. Thanks to trade we do not have to rely on our limited abilities to grow our own food.

Lilac flower in the front yard