In many circumstances, the products we use in our efforts to be more sustainable have a bigger footprint than we think. Recent articles in the Washington Post and from the Worldwatch Institute show how the production of large amounts of polysilicon in China are dumping toxic wastes on the surrounding landscape--the homes of poor Chinese villagers. The byproducts from these industrial processes include silicon tetrachloride, which ruins the soil chemistry and releases poisonous fumes. The situation is ironically inconsistent with the end use of this valuable product, which is usually for photovoltaic solar panels, which turn solar energy into "green, renewable" electricity. This is actually only one example of the ways that efforts by the developed world to become sustainable only result in more environmental degradation and socio-economic disparities.

The situation in [one Chinese] village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water. -washingtonpost.com

Producing polysilicon is extremely profitable due to high demand, and the Chinese manufacturers are increasing their profits by refusing to invest in recycling technology, which is available now. The manufacturers apparently have the law on their side. They maintain that their practices are in keeping with all Chinese environmental restrictions, and while formal complaints have been made to portions of the government responsible for environmental protection, no action has been taken.

We have been legislated to death and unless we take our world back, we won't make it.

Toxic energy, burning food for fuel, various degrees of polluting the environment, they are legal.

There are even ideas that say the rich should be allowed to continue to pollute for a tax/credit system at a high cost if they choose, and only the poor and middle class need to adjust their pollution levels as they get paid for allowing others to pollute.

Like HORTON HEARS A WHO, it's going to take everyone being stewards of our environment to turn this mess around. True success demands we work as one.

By government order, hemp is illegal. Hemp is a biomass champion that scrubs the air of excess CO2 as it grows, burns clean as biofuel, grows up to 4 crops a year that can be converted into 50,000 plus useful products and services, and has the ability to help restore the economically essential family farm system.

Richard M. Davis of the USA Hemp Museum has a book called HEMP FOR VICTORY: A GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTION.

(free preview ebook link posted through 5/31/08)

http://www.hempmuseum.org/H4V/H4VAGWS.pdf

In Davis' book, he recommends we use the successful WWII Hemp For Victory program to grow enough hemp to suck the excess CO2, the cause of global warming regardless of the source, from the atmosphere.

Davis explains the who, what, when, where, ware (many websites listed), why and how about applying hemp to help solve the problem of global warming.

Growing hemp on 10-20% of unused federal land would be a good start. Traditional growers can also use existing farm land that has been polluted with decades of toxic fertilizers and grow hemp for a spell.

Hemp's root system grows up to six feet deep and aerates the soil. Hemp is so good at what it does it was reportedly used to clean the soil around Chernobyl.

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_10.html

Growing hemp indoors in abandoned buildings could help also, turning unused real estate into income producing property, as demonstrated in the great Showtime television series Weeds

http://www.sho.com/weeds

when Conrad grows inside in both commercial and residential buildings.

We must do something now. The failure of congress to pass Ron Paul's Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007

http://youtube.com/watch?v=U0XGGgO9GlQ

was one more death knell in our battle to save ourselves from the results of legal pollution levels and the impact those decisions are having on our world.

We deeply appreciate the efforts of the heroic congress people who at least put the issue on the table again. They are listed in the above Youtube webeo link, a piece the Museum put up in gratitude for their effort.

In case we have not damaged the planet where simple cause and effect cease to work, restoring hemp to nature should do the trick of reducing the excess CO2 at cause for global warming.

But first we must turn away from our stupid energy policy that uses food for fuel, rather than hemp biofuel, which burns four times more efficiently than corn and when in pellet or log forms, can be burned at plants that make electricity or buildings to make heat.

For more information on how hemp is useful for energy, check out another book posted on line for free, HEMP BIOMASS FOR ENERGY by Tim Castleman, Fuel and Fiber Company

http://fuelandfiber.com/Hemp4NRG/Hemp4NRGRV3.htm

We are limited only by our imaginations, which are vast.   Read More »