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Richard Grevers's picture

Why "Green Tech" isn't going to save us

Submitted by Richard Grevers on 26 October 2010 - 4:48pm | Blog entry

The media has focussed on peak oil, as have the messages of many environmental groups. But other minerals will peak, and are already peaking. One of the most critical ones is phosphorous, which is required in tiny quantities in every living cell.

Phosphate mining commenced in the 18th century and increased the efficiency of agriculture - it was a significant facilitating factor in explosion of human population. We have taken most of the easy phosphorous - we finished stripping Nauru five years ago, leaving it a wasteland. » Read more

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Rimu's picture

Industrial agriculture in action

Submitted by Rimu on 22 July 2008 - 9:14pm | updated 04 Sep 2008 | Blog entry

In the USA, it's cheaper to grow corn and feed it to cattle than to use that land to just directly graze cattle on. But where are you going to put the cattle while being fed?? Why, jam them into a pen! They call em 'feedlots'

In the feedlot the cattle eat corn mixed with hormones, antibiotics, etc etc so that they get larger quicker. This improves the company's bottom line.

It's not a pretty scene. Here is one from above (click to go to google maps and zoom in, etc) » Read more

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