I've been reading a book lately,
the title is
Hot:
living through the next fifty years on Earth
by
Mark Hertsgaard
I bought it for six dollars,
online,
and it came to my mailbox
a few days after I bought it,
very fast.
Here is a website where you can buy it
for about the same price,
$2,
plus
$4
shipping,
equals
$6
http://www.valorebooks.com/...
I want to review this book,
even though I'm not quite finished,
and spell out some things
I keep forgetting to spell out.
Below the squiggly:
The worst chapter in the book,
in my opinion,
is chapter 7,
In Vino Veritas: The Business of Climate Adaptation
The best chapter is chapter 8,
How Will We Feed Ourselves?
The two main things missing from the book
are the same things missing from any book or article
or movie
about global warming
I've ever watched or read:
1. Exactly how will humans suffer and die?
2. What would be a sustainable number of humans on Earth,
a number who could easily avoid
the massive suffering and death?
The reason I don't like chapter 7,
is that it deals with the wine industry.
I want to know what it is,
exactly,
about global warming
that will cause the suffering and death
of millions of humans,
and the author wants to tell me that
"The Character of Our Wines Was Changing"
(that's the title of a section of the chapter)
The reason I like chapter 8
is that the author tells us to build a chicken coop.
Not really,
but almost.
He tells us to follow the leadership of the First Lady,
and plant a Victory Garden....
wait,
Victory Garden was the term used by a different First Lady,
Eleanor Roosevelt.
He writes about that,
as well.
He writes about the Western Sahel,
a region in Africa,
South of the Sahara Desert,
and North of the rain forests,
a region that sounds a lot like Kansas,
reasonable amount of annual rainfall,
but often in the form of a few hard rains,
with long dry spells,
months long.
The small scale farmers
of the Western Sahel
figured out that they could grow trees,
from seeds,
by fertilizing between the rows of crops
with manure from livestock,
because the manure has tree seeds in it,
and the trees grow
between the rows of crops,
which makes the land hold the water
during the long dry spells.
I already noticed,
years ago,
that even abandoned houses
in Kansas,
because of trees planted decades before,
plus volunteer trees,
growing along fence lines,
plus the houses themselves,
all these factors cause the yards of these houses,
these abandoned houses,
to hold water well.
With no one watering the yard,
for years,
these houses had lush vegetation,
all around.
The bushes
and trees,
and houses themselves,
hold the water,
by providing shade
and roots
and encouraging microbes in the soil.
This means that we,
here in Kansas,
can grow plenty of crops,
with a high yield per acre,
in our yards.
In our yards.
And the chickens,
or ducks,
can eat some of the crops,
and the bugs that infest our crops.
However,
since farming between rows of tees,
just as in yards,
will not allow giant farm machines,
the people must return to the land,
and there must be plenty of land for them to return to.
Which means we need way less humans,
brought about by voluntary contraception,
such as surgical sterilization of four out of five of us,
for two or three generations,
so that each of us will have plenty of good land.
If my hometown of Wichita, Kansas
had 5,000 humans in it,
instead of 500,000,
then we could do this:
My wife and I,
for example,
along with her four brothers,
and her sister,
and a few of her uncles and aunts,
and great aunts,
if we had about
25 to 50 yards,
plus empty houses,
to use for growing crops,
and raising livestock,
we could feed ourselves easily.
Imagine all of us,
more than ten but less than twenty of us,
living in two or three of the houses in our neighborhood,
next door to each other,
and all the other houses,
for about ten houses out in all directions from us,
if those houses were simply empty,
we could use the yards to grow vast amounts of
tomatoes,
potatoes,
cucumbers,
green beans,
peas,
etc.
And we could use some of the empty houses to raise
chickens,
ducks,
goats,
and hogs,
maybe dairy cows,
etc.
We need to remember,
the list of reasons feeding ourselves is better:
(I'm sure others have longer lists,
but just off the top of my head:)
1. We would have food security,
since we would not be forced to work at some job,
such as I work hard,
at a Walmart Supercenter,
and then get some money,
and then pay for huge expenses other than food,
then hope I have enough money left over for food.
2. No transporting of food from far away,
to my local store,
then from the store to my home,
using fossil fuels,
and increasing global climate change,
every step of the way.
3. We could use no pesticides,
no herbicides,
and still feed ourselves.
The chickens and ducks could eat all the bugs that try to eat the crops.
If the bugs are so numerous as to reduce the yield of a crop,
it would be okay,
since the chickens and ducks would be making insect protein and fat
into egg protein and egg fat.
Or, we could eat the insects ourselves.
4. We could fertilize our crops with animal manure,
including human animal manure.
That would increase our crop yield.
My wife just started watching the movie,
Wall E.
Which reminds me of another movie,
Waterworld.
http://www.youtube.com/...
The Waterworld variant trailer
shows the Earth,
as seen from space,
and it zooms in on the North polar region,
and it shows the ice melting,
and the land vanishes,
submerged underwater.
The plot in the movie is based on the idea
that if all the ice on Earth melts,
the only dry land would be a small island
that was the top part of Mount Everest.
This link gives more accurate information:
http://www.britannica.com/...
With the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet, additional sea-level rise would approach 10.5 metres (34 feet). While the current generation of models predicts that such global sea-level changes might take several centuries to occur,
Here is another site:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/...
The main ice covered landmass is Antarctica at the South Pole, with about 90 percent of the world's ice (and 70 percent of its fresh water). Antarctica is covered with ice an average of 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet).
I'm having trouble finding a simple article
at any website
that points out that most of Earth's ice is on top of
East Antarctica,
and when the greenhouse gasses
reach a much higher level,
and stay there for a few hundred years,
all ice will melt,
including East Antarctica,
and the sea level will rise,
about 200 feet.
I found a map a while back,
it was bookmarked on my old computer,
but I'm having trouble finding it now.
But I remember much of it,
vividly.
With no ice on the planet,
Florida is gone,
Louisiana is gone,
much of the East coast land is submerged,
and the Gulf of Mexico
reaches North to the boot heel of Missouri.
That is drastic enough.
And that's why I hate that part of Waterworld.
It gives the Conservatives and the fossil fuel businesses
a way to ridicule us on the left,
accusing us of ridiculous exaggeration,
with just the top of Mount Everest
the only dry land?
It makes me furious
at all those involved with the movie.
I like my fiction
based on reality,
rather than insane bullshit.
Wall-E is another movie that's over the top:
http://adisney.go.com/...
The story line is that the Earth becomes so toxic,
that no one can live there,
for 700 years.
Then the plants come back,
and the humans return,
from a multi-generational pleasure cruise,
and they start farming,
and everything's okay.
I don't like that story,
because it seems that it's very far-fetched
that things would take place in that manner.
Billions will starve,
before a tiny percentage of humans
could ever escape on the pleasure cruise.
But it's a Disney kids movie,
and it might inspire kids to join us,
and the First Lady,
in planting Victory Gardens,
and building chicken coops,
and raising ducks and chickens,
and goats and hogs.
I'm tired of working on this diary.
Thanks for reading.