No we can’t. And people have no idea what that will mean. A farmer told me that we produce too much food, so his 300 acres going for solar will just take that much out of production. But you add those acres up and it could get nasty. Plus there is a water shortage out west and the Ogalala aquifer is being depleted so corn country west of the MIssissippi might be useless with a long term drought.
My husband and I are active with a community group resisting the solar plants. We are quiet, showing up at meeting with orange stickers on. And we speak during public comment. It is rewarding work. We were able to lobby the county to make a thoughtful ordinance with regards to wind. We’ve also hired a lawyer. We know we are fighting the feds and the state’s wallets. The solar companies are in it for the subsidies, and the farmers are in it for the 1,000$ an acre per year which sounds more like selling the Brooklyn Bridge.
as for wind...so ontario has endless windmills. we produce excess electricity and bc you cannot save it it has to be used immediately and we sell it to a loss to NY state. thats how stupid we are. you cannot dump wind electricity and save it any way on the grid. so its a net loss here. pretty clever.
absolutely true. not to mention depletion of actual productive soil. soil is actually being lost a rapid rate. fertile virgin non chemically destroyed and altered soil is very rare. and a farming crisis is certainly coming. once the costs of the toxic and chemical pesticides herbicides fungicides and fertilizers become more costly as inputs into agro...... its going to be a shit show to produce. nothing will be able to be produced on a grand scale. and if we arent going to be able to be a petro based industry anymore...what are tractors, spray planes, harvesters and the likes going to run on? try growing stuff. try growing organic. my husband and i always laugh bc we say if we ever sold anything it would be like a $100 tomato. the amount of work to grow organically is no joke. you to constantly properly ammend the soil and a certain amount of loss will go to pests bc of not using carcinogenic pesticides. it is surely a learning process. we have expanding all of our growing this year bc we are not wanting to be reliant on a failing system. or handouts from monsanto. no thank you.
But farmers have been working on ways to preserve the soil by planting beets instead of plowing, to loosen soil. THough this summer when they worked the land, the clouds of dust were incredible. Inputs have gone way up just this year. And the neighboring farmer sprayed the crap out of the beans across the way and still got some weeds. Granted the spray may have been getting after bugs or fungus…I too have wondered how they can make battery operated tractors and combines.
Organic is very labor intensive. Neighbors are trying Joel Saladin’s methods. They are young men. And they might make money without so much debt. We could learn some things from the Amish.
The green revolution as in the improvements in agriculture that happened in the 70’s staved off predicted starvation because we got very good at feeding people. They also said we were headed for another ice age back then too. (My money is on that prediction…)
i love joel. his method is sustainable. green revolution was not very green. more like chemical revolution. which killed the soils. it was another play on words. as always. the opposite.
also we cant eat solar. if we cant eat real food all the solar in world doesnt matter. maybe thats the point.
No we can’t. And people have no idea what that will mean. A farmer told me that we produce too much food, so his 300 acres going for solar will just take that much out of production. But you add those acres up and it could get nasty. Plus there is a water shortage out west and the Ogalala aquifer is being depleted so corn country west of the MIssissippi might be useless with a long term drought.
My husband and I are active with a community group resisting the solar plants. We are quiet, showing up at meeting with orange stickers on. And we speak during public comment. It is rewarding work. We were able to lobby the county to make a thoughtful ordinance with regards to wind. We’ve also hired a lawyer. We know we are fighting the feds and the state’s wallets. The solar companies are in it for the subsidies, and the farmers are in it for the 1,000$ an acre per year which sounds more like selling the Brooklyn Bridge.
At any rate thank you for your comments.
as for wind...so ontario has endless windmills. we produce excess electricity and bc you cannot save it it has to be used immediately and we sell it to a loss to NY state. thats how stupid we are. you cannot dump wind electricity and save it any way on the grid. so its a net loss here. pretty clever.
That’s so disappointing. Maybe they’ll figure out storage one of these days.
absolutely true. not to mention depletion of actual productive soil. soil is actually being lost a rapid rate. fertile virgin non chemically destroyed and altered soil is very rare. and a farming crisis is certainly coming. once the costs of the toxic and chemical pesticides herbicides fungicides and fertilizers become more costly as inputs into agro...... its going to be a shit show to produce. nothing will be able to be produced on a grand scale. and if we arent going to be able to be a petro based industry anymore...what are tractors, spray planes, harvesters and the likes going to run on? try growing stuff. try growing organic. my husband and i always laugh bc we say if we ever sold anything it would be like a $100 tomato. the amount of work to grow organically is no joke. you to constantly properly ammend the soil and a certain amount of loss will go to pests bc of not using carcinogenic pesticides. it is surely a learning process. we have expanding all of our growing this year bc we are not wanting to be reliant on a failing system. or handouts from monsanto. no thank you.
But farmers have been working on ways to preserve the soil by planting beets instead of plowing, to loosen soil. THough this summer when they worked the land, the clouds of dust were incredible. Inputs have gone way up just this year. And the neighboring farmer sprayed the crap out of the beans across the way and still got some weeds. Granted the spray may have been getting after bugs or fungus…I too have wondered how they can make battery operated tractors and combines.
Organic is very labor intensive. Neighbors are trying Joel Saladin’s methods. They are young men. And they might make money without so much debt. We could learn some things from the Amish.
The green revolution as in the improvements in agriculture that happened in the 70’s staved off predicted starvation because we got very good at feeding people. They also said we were headed for another ice age back then too. (My money is on that prediction…)
i love joel. his method is sustainable. green revolution was not very green. more like chemical revolution. which killed the soils. it was another play on words. as always. the opposite.
Very true. True.