Nullius in Verba

The trouble with Hemp

… there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.

Any time there is a discussion about forests, someone brings up the possibility of substituting hemp for paper and for petroleum products. I read on one discussion forum,

“[Industrial hemp] can be harvested every four months while traditional varieties of trees are allowed to grow to maturity, preserving forest ecosystems.”

Help me out here. In what way is a monoculture that needs fertilizers and pesticides better than a tree plantation? Plantations have no/low fertilizer need and no/low pesticide use. No agricultural crop can claim to be as environmentally friendly as a plantation of trees. Even though plantations may be less complex than ‘wild’ stands, tree plantations contain more biodiversity than any agricultural crop.

Hemp needs choice land, more water, more fertilizer, more pesticide.

[Hemp] does best on loose, well-drained loam soils with high fertility and abundant organic matter. Plants require plentiful moisture throughout the growing season … [and] substantial amounts of available nutrients to produce high yields … numerous fertilization studies [etc.] conclude that hemp requires liberal fertilization for high fiber yields. Source: US Dept of Agriculture report, Industrial Hemp in the United States: Status and Market Potential

And every four months is so optimistic as to border on ludicrous. Try a four-year rotation to prevent soil depletion:

A three-year, but preferably a four-year rotation, such as cereals, clover for green manure, corn, hemp and then back to cereals is recommended to help maintain soil fertility.” Source: Government of Canada; Agriculture Canada: Report on Hemp, Bi-Weekly Bulletin, December 16, 1994 Vol. 7 No. 23, by Gordon Reichert.

And the reason the Canadian report recommends a fear-year rotation for hemp? Hemp rapidly depletes the soil of nutrients.

[Hemp] extracts more nutrients per hectare than grain crops, removing about two to three times as much nitrogen, three to six times as much phosphorus, and ten to twenty-two times as much potassium per hectare, owing to fast biomass production.

Lastly, since land will be needed in either case, wouldn’t trees be the more environmentally agreeable choice?

Timber’s Term of the Week: Timber Beast

Timber Beast

n

Forest Service personnel (or any establishment types) who invariably side with timber industry.

Someone obsessed with denuding woodland of all marketable timber.

A logger.

A lumberjack.

Like most definitions, the meaning of Timber Beast has morphed over the years. The first definition is how it is currently used, foresters abetting the timber industry’s greed. In the first part of the twentieth century, a timber beast was often at odds with “big timber.” The IWW (International Workers of the World aka Wobblies) press referred to the men who worked as loggers in the lumber camps as “timber beasts,” apparently due to the way the men were treated. The timber beasts lived in isolated camps, far from towns and civilization.

The name was already undergoing changes in the time around World War II with Archie Binns’s book. The timber beast, Charlie Dow typifies the old-style high-balling logger. His sons though do not share his passion.

The term, timber beast, is mentioned in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. There the Timber Beast refers to membership in the IWW. In Vineland, Crocker Scantling (according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a scantling is a “small timber used in construction.”) was hired (by a consortium of timber companies) to eradicate IWW timber beasts. According to Wikipedia, “The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour day and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest.”

There’s a song from that era, The Timber Beast’s Lament (Author Unknown). You can find it on a CD by Utah Phllips We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years (Philo, released by Rounder Records). According to the Utah Phillip’s website, “George Milburn collected this unsigned I.W.W. poem and included it in The Hobo Hornbook [NEW YORK, 1930]. It’s source is not known.”

The Timber Beast’s Lament

(Hear it here on Canadian Broadcasting)

I’m on the boat for the camp
With a sick and aching head;
I’ve blowed another winter’s stake,
And got the jims instead.

It seems I’ll never learn the truth
That’s written plain as day,
It’s the only time they welcome you
Is when you make it pay.

And it’s “blanket-stiff” and “jungle-hound,”
And “pitch him out the door,”
But it’s “Howdy, Jack, old-timer,”
When you’ve got the price for more.

Oh, tonight the boat is rocky,
And I ain’t got a bunk,
Not a rare of cheering liquor,
Just a turkey full of junk.

All I call my life’s possessions,
Is just what I carry `round,
For I’ve blowed the rest on skid-roads,
Of a hundred gyppo towns.

And it’s “lumberjack” and “timber-beast,”
And “Give these bums a ride,”
But it’s “Have one on the house, old boy,”
If you’re stepping with the tide.

And the chokers will be heavy,
Just as heavy, just as cold,
When the hooker gives the highball,
And we start to dig for gold.

And I’ll cuss the siren skid road,
With its blatant, drunken tune,
But then, of course, I’ll up and make
Another trip next June.

Books on IWW and Timber Beasts:

The Centralia Conspiracy By Ralph Chaplin

We shall be all: a history of the Industrial Workers of the World By Melvyn Dubofsky, Joseph Anthony McCartin

Capitalism and Human Obsolescence By John A. Young, Jan M. Newton

For Every Complex Environmental Problem

For every complex environmental problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.

Any time there is a discussion about forests, someone brings up the possibility of substituting hemp for paper and for petroleum products. I read on one discussion forum,

“[Industrial hemp] can be harvested every four months while traditional varieties of trees are allowed to grow to maturity, preserving forest ecosystems.”

Hemp needs choice land, more water, more fertilizer, more pesticide.

[Hemp] does best on loose, well-drained loam soils with high fertility and abundant organic matter. Plants require plentiful moisture throughout the growing season … [and] substantial amounts of available nutrients to produce high yields … numerous fertilization studies [etc.] conclude that hemp requires liberal fertilization for high fiber yields. Source: US Dept of Agriculture report, Industrial Hemp in the United States: Status and Market Potential

And every four months is so optimistic as to border on ludicrous. Try a four-year rotation to prevent soil depletion:

A three-year, but preferably a four-year rotation, such as cereals, clover for green manure, corn, hemp and then back to cereals is recommended to help maintain soil fertility.” Source: Government of Canada; Agriculture Canada: Report on Hemp, Bi-Weekly Bulletin, December 16, 1994 Vol. 7 No. 23, by Gordon Reichert.

And the reason the Canadian report recommends a fear-year rotation for hemp? Hemp rapidly depletes the soil of nutrients.

[Hemp] extracts more nutrients per hectare than grain crops, removing about two to three times as much nitrogen, three to six times as much phosphorus, and ten to twenty-two times as much potassium per hectare, owing to fast biomass production.

Lastly, since land will be needed in either case, wouldn’t trees be the more environmentally agreeable choice?

Samboja Lestari

Willie Smits is working to turn the deforestation, caused by palm oil plantations in Indonesia, around.

His district had been deforested because of the desire for palm oil to make bio-diesel (download a BOS report on the threat from palm oil). His organization, Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS), has created 3,000 jobs through reforestation at Samboja Lestari in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. Due to Smits, it’s no longer the poorest district and biodiversity has increased.

Smits practices the triple bottom-line principle of People, Profit, Planet. This from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) website:

Smits believes that to rebuild orangutan populations, we must first rebuild their forest habitat — which means helping local people find options other than the short-term fix of harvesting forests to survive. His Masarang Foundation raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world — and to empower local people.

Watch him speak in this video. Be careful, if you keep your computer in your lap hold onto it because you will want to give him a standing ovation at the end.

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Timber’s Term of the Week: Timber Beast

Timber Beast

n

Forest Service personnel (or any establishment types) who invariably side with timber industry.

Someone obsessed with denuding woodland of all marketable timber.

A logger.

A lumberjack.

Like most definitions, the meaning of Timber Beast has morphed over the years. The first definition is how it is currently used, foresters abetting the timber industry’s greed. In the first part of the twentieth century, a timber beast was often at odds with “big timber.” IWW press referred to the men who worked as loggers in the lumber camps as “timber beasts,” apparently due to the way the men were treated. The timber beasts lived in isolated camps, far from towns and civilization.

The name is already undergoing changes in the time around World War II with Archie Binns’s book. The timber beast, Charlie Dow typifies the old-style high-balling logger. His sons though do not share his passion.

The term, timber beast, is mentioned in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. There the Timber Beast refers to membership in the IWW (International Workers of the World aka Wobblies). In Vineland, Crocker Scantling (according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a scantling is a “small timber used in construction.”) was hired (by a consortium of timber companies) to eradicate IWW timber beasts. According to Wikipedia, “The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour day and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest.”

There’s a song from that era, The Timber Beast’s Lament. You can find it on a CD by Utah Phllips We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years (Philo, released by Rounder Records). According to the Utah Phillip’s website, “George Milburn collected this unsigned I.W.W. poem and included it in The Hobo Hornbook [NEW YORK, 1930]. It’s source is not known.”

The Timber Beast’s Lament (Hear it here on Canadian Broadcasting)
Author Unknown