Tuesday, November 27, 2007

You Must Read This

http://www.alternet.org/environment/68498/?page=entire

This piece puts together the truly terrifying truth about drought - it may not be rising sea levels that should scare us most.

Personally, I would not choose to live in places whose long term projections involve very low rainfall. Others may have other opinions, but I think it safe to bet that sooner or later, people will start abandoning the dryest places - and it would be wise to leave while you can still sell your house.

Sharon

34 comments:

Ailsa Ek said...

Wow. I wonder how many of these people will come to New England? We may have harsher winters, but we have water. Too much, sometimes.

The more I read, the more I feel like a deer in the headlights.

Anonymous said...

Another reason to kick the meat habit!

Here are some basic facts from PETA regarding the squandering of water:

- Raising animals for food consumes MORE THAN HALF OF ALL THE WATER USED IN THE UNITED STATES. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat.

Think you can be a meat-eating environmentalist? Think again! If you care about the planet, go vegetarian.

Check out GoVeg.com or call 1-888-VEG-FOOD for a free vegetarian starter kit.

~Vegan/Leaving So. FL

Bedouina said...

I'm not going vegan (potato starch and processed rice milk - no thank you) but I do eat almost no animal flesh these days. One reason is environmental, the other reason is for health.

Yes this water crisis concerns me and yet we here in California are just not ready to leave our homes and families to go.... where? My family still owns property in North Carolina but that's no solution, clearly.

I knew I shouldn't read this blog. I have to get through chemo. One step at a time...

Anonymous said...

Yes, Ailsa, my family and I are heading your way, but I promise we'll live in harmony with nature and will not destroy whatever natural beauty is left in New England.

We are South Florida natives and remember the pristine beauty of our environment -- beaches, forests of slash pines and cabbage and palmetto palms, etc. That is, before the exodus from the north started. Now, everything is polluted, including the beaches. I haven't gone swimming in the gulf for three years due to the presence of MRSA bacteria (two friends have gotten horrific bladder and skin infections after swimming offshore) and the almost ubiquitous red tide.

Sadly, modern humankind has trashed the planet, our country. Wherever our technological civilization goes, death and destruction seems to follow.

~Vegan/Leaving So. FL

jewishfarmer said...

Vegan, I agree that vegetarianism is a good choice, but I think you radically overstate things when you say it is not possible to be a meat-eating environmentalist. For example, in a recent Cornell study, they found that the addition of grassfed livestock to the mix of polyculture raised the sheer number of people they were able to feed by a significant percentage.

And I don't feel that the use of industrial livestock statistics to describe all meat eating is especially productive - those figures apply to CAFO animals, not to sustainable farming practice. For example, my poultry get their water almost entirely from cached rainwater. 30 chickens drink 10gallons a day at the outer levels if they are also getting fresh wet grass to graze, give or take, and come to butchering weight in 12 weeks - that's less than 30 gallons of water per chicken. At an average weight of 5lbs, that's 6 gallons per hen. I can and have produced all feed from unirrigated land, fed entirely by my climate's rainfall, using considerably less water than is used to grow irrigated grains in many parts of the US. It is true that the scraps and food they eat will use water in the form of captured rainfall, but that's a good idea, not a bad one.

Many of the farmers around here raise livestock on grass, using ponds filled with rainwater. The grass also provides wildlife habitat, as do the ponds - far better than a field of soybeans or wheat would.

Industrial meat production is evil - but that doesn't mean that's the only way to raise animals.

Sharon

Anonymous said...

Another problem is that there may not be good ways to tell when or whether *your* locality will get enough rain, at the right time - the last two years we've had bad rain patterns here (though not much drought) - not enough rain in the middle of summer when we need it, and way too much in the late summer/early fall when things need to be dry for harvest. And our state meteorologist has said that we'll see less and less of our precipitation in snow (predictable, available in spring) and more and more of it in thunderstorms, which can hit or miss randomly.

jewishfarmer said...

Rosa, that's a good point, and an important one. To some degree we're all guessing. But it is worth noting that a place that gets too much water as rain at one time of year can (within limits) store it in cisterns and holding tanks for dry periods, while an area that doesn't get much at all, can't.

Personally, I fear very much that those living in the Southwest and the Prairie state of the US may simply have to abandon their homes at some point, and believe that as hard as it is to get ready, it is always better to do it before things utterly fall apart than after.

Leila, I hope you'll recognize that your job is to recover first, but after that, I do hope people in the dryer parts of CA will start the work of getting ready to move. As hard as that is (and of course it is easy for me to say because I don't have to do what you will - but my family is coastal and I grew up a few hundred yards for the sea and would love to live there still - giving that up was hard too), it is still better than the alternative. I think some people good at dryland agriculture will be able to stay in dry places - but if I didn't live in a very rural area and have those skills, I'm not sure I'd bet my life on being one of them.

Sharon

Anonymous said...

Love your site Sharon and gaining much needed info. For those concerned with drought, check out Allan Savory @ http://www.holisticmanagement.org/ - this along with permaculture practices should help for those willing to engage.

Unknown said...

We're the number 5 city on Drought Score.

DS can finish his degree in England, if he has to; houses are still selling here (there wasn't as much of a boom locally, so not many takers for subprime loans: the bust hasn't hit us as hard and the state coffers have run a surplus for the last five years) and more than a few members of the Greek Orthodox community have expressed an interest in this place.

I'll miss the mountains, but not enough to die for them.

Gretchen said...

According to this article, though, there isn't much of anywhere left to go:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21494919/

Not to downplay the drought here, but at least in the short term I think the bigger problems in Atl. are uncontrolled growth and poor resource management. 2002-2005 had above average rainfall (4 inches above normal in 2005, the year before the drought started. 2006 was 2 inches below normal). And Atlanta's average rainfall is higher than most major US cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. I am certainly no expert, but I do know that droughts happen from time to time even without catastrophic climate change thrown in, and it seems to me that not having a water management plan in place that can get you through a single year of below average rainfall is, umm, not so smart.

Anonymous said...

Bill McKibben stated that in many parts of the NW of the Great Plains, the population density has already fallen low enough to be back in the US Census's official designation for "frontier" rather than settled land!

-Brian M

Anonymous said...

Jewishfarmer, the way you raise meat is an exception to the rule. I agree that industrial meat production is evil and that it's not the only way to raise animals. However, the great majority of people in the U.S. and the world who eat meat do eat industrial animal products and in great quantities. Most people who eat animal products do not have the land, time, skills or money to raise animals sustainably or to purchase "sustainably" grown animal products. So why not discuss what the great majority of people consume here and now, industrial animal products?

Eating less meat or eating a plant-based diet is more feasible, healthier (less toxic to us and lower on food chain; our livers produce all the cholesterol we need to synthesize hormones; our long guts were designed for a primarily plant-based diet, for example), and more affordable than purchasing expensive "sustainably" raised animal products.

The Cornell Study you referred to limits per capita meat and egg consumption to 2 cooked ounces a day. Most people who eat animal products do not limit their intake to 2 oz./day. In any case, the study does not address the direct effect of such a diet on the environment.

Chris Peters, the lead author of the Cornell Study on New York's agricultural footprint, said: "It appears that while meat increases land-use requirements, diets including modest amounts of meat can feed more people than some higher fat vegetarian diets." NOTE that the comparison is to "higher fat vegetarian diets." Humans do not need a diet high in fat.

Interestingly, the study was "supported in part by the National Reasearch Initiative of the USDA." I wonder if the meat/dairy industry was directly or indirectly involved in the study.

Here are more facts on the effects meat eating has on the environment:

- POLLUTION: The meat industry causes more water pollution in the United States than all other industries combined because the animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population -- 86,600 pounds per second. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 12,000 people.

- LAND: Of all agricultural land in the United States, 87 percent is used to raise livestock and their feed. Twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a pure vegetarian.

- DEFORESTATION: Rain forests are being destroyed at a rate of 125,000 square miles per year to create space to raise animals for food. For every quarter-pound fast-food burger made of rain-forest beef, 55 square feet of land are consumed.

- ENERGY: Raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the United States. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers.

- ANIMALS: You can't be concerned about our environment without caring about our fellow inhabitants, the animals. They're made of flesh and blood, have complex social and psychological lives, and feel pain just as humans do. MORE THAN 25 BILLION ANIMALS ARE KILLED BY THE MEAT INDUSTRY EACH YEAR, and they're raised and killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person.

~Vegan/Leaving So.FL

jewishfarmer said...

Vegan, right now most Americans "visit family" using cars, to our environmental cost. So you could argue that we should focus our energies on telling people "don't visit family." But doing so would ignore the fact that it is perfectly possible to go places by foot, bike, or public transportation in many cases. The idea that because the majority do something one way, we should focus on not the method, but the fact, seems wrong to me.

The simple fact is that you made an untruthful blanket statement on my blog, and it shouldn't be allowed to stand. It is not true that you cannot eat meat and be an environmentalist. In fact, because I know you read this blog and know I both eat meat and raise it, I don't think I'm beyond the pale in taking that comment quite personally - I found it deeply insulting. If you don't believe me to be an environmentalist because of my diet, I wonder that you bother reading my blog.

It is true that CAFO meat is an environmental disaster and people shouldn't eat it. But even then I wouldn't make that statement, any more than I would say you can't drive a car and be an environmentalist, can't have children and be an environmentalist, can't fly in a plane and be an environmentalist or can't live in a state that George Bush into office and be an environmentalist. The world simply isn't that black and white - most people are imperfect, many of them are working to change that but haven't fully achieved change, and what you just said is insulting not just to me, but to them.

And just as I wouldn't tolerate someone making the blanket statement "You can't be an environmentalist and visit your Mom" just because most people visit their Moms by car, I don't plan to let your claim stand either - that statement is false.

You could do the same thing when speaking of plant based agriculture - you could respond to our discussion of growing carrots by pointing out the number of pesticides used by industrial carrot growers - and it wouldn't be any more relevant to the discussion than the information you posted above.

Yes, industrial meat production is bad. And as long as you specify "industrial meat production" instead of "meat - period" I'm delighted to have you use my blog to offer up information. But I do think that the level of discourse here is high enough that it does nothing for any of us not to make relevant distinctions.

Sharon

jewishfarmer said...

BTW, Vegan, I have seen no source for your latter citations, but at least one of them is just plain false. I've been studying the statistics on energy long enough to know that you energy claim is utterly false. All of agriculture together doesn't use 1/3 of our fossil energies. http://dieoff.org/page69.htm, also see Dale Pfeiffer's _Eating Fossil Fuels_. Which makes me wonder about the value of your other data.

I admit, I'd be more persuaded by the value of a Vegan diet if the persuasion came without the insults, condescension and falsehoods. I mind trolls far less than sincere people who are willing to do anything, no matter how unkind or untrue, to advance their agenda.

Sharon

BoysMom said...

We live in an area that is currently pretty dry, but . . .
But we don't know for sure what effect the melting artic ice will have on us.
My dad's a paleontologist, and over Thanksgiving he mentioned a collegue of his back in the 70s who had done reasearch that indicated that during the last period of glaciation that the artic ocean was ice-free.
Where we are, right now, the nearby mountains are only snow-free for about three months each year. It wouldn't take that much more snowfall for them to be snow covered year around. As Dad likes to say, we're living in the biggest experiment ever, and we cannot stop or change it. Here, well, once there were glaciers here. There may be again.

Vegan, your comment about humans not needing high fat diets is wrong. Neural cell formation and development in children requires fat. Fat is the densest form of energy available for our consumption, thus, except in an anomaly like current western society, the most valuable form of food. You can starve to death eating pure protein without fat. Look up fur trappers eating rabbits for historical evidence.
We get our meat locally. Not only is it better quality, it's cheaper. Plus, it's a closed circle: we buy their animals, they hire us to fix their computers. This is very important in small towns.
I am not an environmentalist. I am just someone who means to do what is necessary to keep me and mine alive, and include as many others as possible in the definition of 'mine'. It just happens that the environment affects us, so I pay attention to it.

Anonymous said...

My apologies if my citations were found insulting. My intention was to inform, not to insult.

The citations in my previous two posts come from a PETA brochure titled, "Think you can be a meat-eating environmentalist? Think again!" It can be found at goveg.com I use this brochure when I table locally at an Earth Day Festival.

The following article includes a U.N Study on the effect a meat-eating diet has on the environment:

http://goveg.com/environment.asp

Peace!

~Vegan/Leaving So.FL

Maeve said...

I live in an area that has been in serious-to-extreme drought for several years. During the time of dinosaurs, the area I'm in was an inland sea.

I have no idea what the climate will be like in the area, what with seasonal fluctuations and global climate changes. But I do know that packing up and moving isn't the answer. Where would we go to? Everywhere that seems great, in terms of having water, seems to have some other climatic woe, from hurricanes to flooding to earthquakes to volcanoes... :/

What I do know is that I appreciate you and your blog, Sharon. You impart your message, your concerns, your advice without leaving me with the sense of condescension and self-righteous judgment that so many in the various eco circles seem entitled to dish out.

Leila Abu-Saba said...

I'm going to chime in on the vegan debate ... just to say that I don't regard PETA as a reliable source of information.

And when I read the brochures at my local produce market promoting veganism, and look at the sort of foods they suggest a vegan eat, including egg substitutes, fake foods, processed foods of every variety - well I just am not convinced.

I eat animal flesh less than once a week now that I'm in treatment for breast cancer; mostly I just take in a bit as part of a communal meal, to be sociable. I do eat yogurt and occasionally cheese. I also eat cold water fish like sardines every once in a while.

WE have a sustainably farmed chicken in the fridge which I will turn into poule-au-pot tomorrow; I'll probably eat the broth, the veg and a bit of the flesh, and let my family eat the rest of the chicken.

I don't like extremist statements, and the many, many vegan statements about what to eat I have encountered seem to jump from "too much meat is bad for you" and "factory-farmed meat is bad for the planet" to NOBODY SHOULD EAT ANYTHING MADE FROM ANIMAL PRODUCTS AT ALL.

Since I don't feel bad about animals dying for my diet (I am an animal and part of the animal world - animals prey upon each other) I am not swayed by the "poor dead animals" argument.

So far, the vegan argument just doesn't add up to me. But I respect anyone else's choice to eat as they choose.

If you start extrapolating from my diet to your opinion of my politics, values, and worth as a human being, well that's just your projection and it bothers you much more than it bothers me.

The Arabs say: eat to your own taste, and dress to the taste others.

Anonymous said...

I concur that changes in temperature are much easier to adapt to than severe shortages of water.

But the causes of the current interruption of rainfall patterns isnt just coming from global warming. The bigger contributor is likely to be global dimming/particulate pollution. This pollution reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface, reducing evaporation. Then the particles act as nuclei for raindrop formation, but you end up with clouds composed of many more smaller raindrops that are less likely to be shed as rain. These clouds are also more reflective of sunlight and exacerbate the reduction in sunlight reaching the surface.

The biggest problem with this process is that the particles have to be constantly replaced, and they mostly come from coal plants and human induced fires. A sudden contraction of these human activities could lead to a sudden reversal of the dimming/rainfall reducing trends. Global rainfall levels would be restored, but we would then face the full impacts of increased greenhouse gas levels (projected at 2-3 degrees warmer versus the 0.5 degrees we have seen so far). I think basic human agriculture could weather this well, especially since we live in a world where growing sweet potato and corn in Canada wouldnt be limited by access to suitable plant material for the new climate.

Anonymous said...

The citations in my previous two posts come from a PETA brochure titled, "Think you can be a meat-eating environmentalist? Think again!"

Well, that explains a lot. I stopped looking to PETA for any kind of factual information years ago - right after they started putting up billboards with a man in robes holding a lamb, with the caption "Jesus Was A Vegetarian."

Anonymous said...

Sharon, here is the source for the citation on energy:

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142

BTW, all of PETA's citations are well documented by reputable sources. See the footnotes of the following article:

http://goveg.com/environment.asp

~Vegan/Leaving So.FL

Anonymous said...

I think that the basic problem is that everything from drought and temp changes to rising oil prices, while happening quickly in once sense, is happening too slowly to jolt most people out of their stupor. If suddenly gas were $5/gallon tomorrow, or there was no water at all coming out of the faucets in Atlanta-well that would get people's attention. But gas/oil prices have been rising in increments- even at ten cent increments it is too small a jump to really command attention, while water still comes out of the spigot in Atlanta.

I'm not sure what has to happen to really get most people to notice-unfortunately I think only dire events will do this.....(Katrina for example).

As for me, I live in New England- which has had odd weather for awhile now- with periods of low rain in summer, but all in all we are in good shape so far. I shudder to think of the hordes fleeing both drought and foreclosed housing in the US- most seem to be in the same areas too......
The US government seems to have its blinders on regarding all of this, which is no suprise. And I don't see any of the front runner candidates speaking to these issues or saying anything I agree with- at this point I may just choose not to vote-which I have never done, but I don't even see the point anymore.....

jewishfarmer said...

Vegan, thanks for the apology - I apologize for reacting so strongly - this isn't my best week. I admit, I'm another person not taken by PETA's statistics - I don't have time to hunt down all their sources, but the idea that livestock use 1/3 of all fossil fuels is just wrong.

Maeve, I agree, everyone can't just move, and perhaps I wasn't very clear on that point. But I do think that there are some places that are most likely *NEVER* going to be able support population like the present one - among them the dryer parts of the American Southwest, Las Vegas and similar areas. I think small populations of dryland farmers may do very well there - but the key word is *SMALL* and I don't think it will be that long.

I think the Southeast will muddle along - they aren't in a decade-long drought, but suffering from severe, shorter term drought. They will likely become dryer - they will also likely still get enough water to support themselves, even if with much, much much more restrained usage. Golf courses and 20 minute showers may be toast, but I think Atlanta will go on, but maybe not Pheonix.

Void genesis, do you have some studies to point to on that? Most of what I know about global dimming is in regards to the Monsoon in Asia, rather than on current rainfall. I'd love some more information on this!

Sharon

RAS said...

In regards to the SE drought, gretchen's right -the problem with Atlanta and a few other cities is that they've grown so fast with absolutely NO idea of water management. They've just assumed that the water would always be there. Now, Atlanta has doubled in size in the past ten years with all that entails -golf courses, mcmansions, the whole nine yards. But they still depend on the same water sources. A year of drought, and it's gone.

Not that the drought has been a picnic or anything; it's been real hard on farmers and livestock, but it hasn't been a catastrope. We are still within the excepted possible range of drought, and it seems to be breaking.

I've seen differing long term projections for this area. Some say will get drier, and some say will get wetter as the climate shifts more towards subtropical. I don't know, but even the drier estimates don't show this becoming a desert.

Michelle In TN said...

Living through an exceptional
drought is something. It got
so bad this summer that the grass
crunched beneath my feet. My
horses coughed and one started
to colic. My pastures were dust.
My garden was abandoned. I lost
most plants that were planted in May, but my fall plantings are doing ok. I planted a fall garden
three times before the weather
cooled enough for the seeds to germinate. It was quite a hairy
adventure. Even my (spare) well
went dry. Heck of a time to try
my hand at sheep farming. I put
off making baby sheep until this
week (for late april lambs) in the
hopes that I would have a little
grass for them. Keeping my fingers
crossed.
Michelle in Ga
http://youandyouroilthing.blogspot.com/

Jamey and Carol said...

I think I would agree with Sharon on this one - the probability of drought is going to be higher in North American areas with lower rainfall. But the wildcard aspect is amazing... the climate is fantastically complex.

The real kicker is our best guess on the next century is "more frequently, more of it, and longer". Like more frequent droughts and floods, more coming (or not) from the skies at those times, and longer periods between. It isn't going to be a more sub-tropical world all the time, even for the poles. It's going to be a wild, random ride.

This New Scientist article from last winter - http://tinyurl.com/yvga7f was really interesting frosting for that idea. The study was a combination of the "best" climate models for 2100. They then pulled out the likelihood of extreme weather events. Everywhere is more likely to have warmer extremes, but the patches for extreme water are higher.

I agree with Sheila - plan to the best of your ability. Prepare for more of everything you don't want from the weather. Build up your organic matter in the soil, that at least will keep the water in (drought) or keep the soil intact (flood) for longer.

Oldnovice said...

I agree with Jamey; nobody knows what we'll get next year based on what we've had this year or last year. Here, in North Texas, we had severe droughts for several years in succession. This year, we had more than sufficient rainfall.

Anonymous said...

Ouch! Did you see the Oil Drum article on the impacts of biofuels on US water supplies?

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3285#more

In addition to the old biofuels compete with food crops problem, there is an additional problem that biofuels can be even more stressful than food-industrial agriculture on water quantity and water quality, depending on exactly where they are grown. That is "biofuels also require significantly more water than even the least efficient fossil fuel systems"

Further It sure looks like most of the corn biofuel is planned for exactly the parts of the US already running huge aquifier deficits.
-Brian M.

jewishfarmer said...

I would just observe that just because we can't know everything about climate, doesn't mean we can't know *anything* about climate, nor should we confuse "weather" with "climate" - that is, just because a dry region had a wet year doesn't mean it isn't a dry region.

I'm going reiterate - I haven't seen a single climate projection - and I've seen a lot of them - that suggests that the Southwest is going to have anything like enough water to support its population over the next hundred years. I think the odds are excellent - 100 - 1 at least, that people will be moving out of those places to wetter ones, and it would be better to do it sooner than later, in the midst of a disaster. That is, of course, just my opinion, but to the extent I give advice here, I'm sticking with it.

Other parts of the US are likely to experience more frequent severe weather, and probably more frequent droughts - but that's not the same as being in year 10 of a 100 year drought. Ask yourslf - if you can't live on just the rain that fell there the last 10 years, including growing crops, is this a good place for you and your family?

I don't mean to be overly blunt here, but I'm genuinely scared for people who live in that region.

Sharon

Anonymous said...

Sharon, thank you for the apology. All of us tend to overreact to one degree or another when our enculturated ways are challenged. One assimilates better and is less defensive when pursuing knowledge on one's own (my homeschooling sons taught me this) than when being urged by another person to do so, as we all know.

It's not easy to overcome one's culture, especially our omnivorous Western culture -- whether it's to drive a smaller car or not to drive at all or to become a vegetarian or a vegan, for example. In both cases it takes will power and discipline and being willing to tolerate being perceived by others in our culture as anti-social or rude or arrogant.

I empathize with those who do not eat a plant-based diet. I, for one, did not become a consistent and devoted vegan until I was 44 years old, after having flirted with vegetarianism since my 20s. What finally convinced and precipitated me and my family to embrace veganism wholeheartedly was the plethora of scientific research (beginning in the 1980s) supporting the premise that a plant-based diet is the optimal diet for human health, the Earth and the well-being of animals.

Even Dr. Benjamin Spock in the 7th edition (1998) of his book "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care" says "Children who grow up getting their nutrition from plant foods rather than meats ... are less likely to develop weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancer."

Boysmom, infants and children do need fats in their diet, but they do not need to consume a high fat diet. As infants and toddlers, they do best with human milk -- rich in Omega3s fatty acids and low in protein, unlike cow's milk. After two years of age, they do well and thrive on a wholesome and varied plant-based diet, as research indicates and as stated by many experts and pediatricians, including Dr. Spock.

~Vegan/Leaving So. FL

Anonymous said...

I've been vegetarian since I was 14 (I'm now 34), and I'm only now starting to reconsider this habit. Why? Because I am so fed up with the horrors of industrial farming. It is indefensible to me that so many animals are raised this way, and I would like to find ways to support local farmers who raise their animals in a sustainable and humane way. Either I make charitable donations to help them out, or buy their meat. Either way, it seems I'm morally supporting the business of killing animals for food.

I'm not sure there's another option, since I don't think it's fair (or feasible) to convince others to stop eating meat entirely. My partner is a meat-eater, and there is NO WAY he will stop eating meat, nor do I want him to, since he really enjoys it.

Elins trädgård said...

Where I live drought is not the problem. This area is cool and rainy now and with a warmer climate it will probably be even wetter.

A lot of the land here is unsuitable for farming/growing veggies. But animals can graze there. We also have vast forests with wildlife - a great source of environtmently (sp?) sound food.

So veganism would not be a good choice here - you would have to import a lot of food to get a varied diet. Fat would be a problem - while we can grow fruit, berries, roots and veggies, we have no really good fat source. Hazelnuts maybe, but you couldn't count on them as a relieble source of fat.

We don't raise animals ourselves, but we buy locally produced, grassfed meat, organic eggs and honey from people we know. We eat a lot of meat (and fat!) during winter, when it's cold and you need the calories (my skinny, fast-growing kids certainly need it!). Then, in summer, when there isn't much meat left in the freezer we eat mostly vegetarian with lots of fresh veggies and roots. And so comes autumn, time for slaughter, with meat again. It's a natural cycle, and quite sound I think.

Anonymous said...

There are a few good primers on global dimming around the net.

The wikipedia one is pretty comprehensive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

Another paraphrases a BBC documentary on the topic

http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GlobalWarming/globaldimming.asp

This is a big component of our current and future climate change concerns, but even more complex and reactive than greenhouse gases,

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