#Green Revolution

[destinysugarbuns]

How Can Leftists Vote For Harris?

Alt text:

People ask me: How can you vote for Harris if you're covid conscious a and support a free Palestine? Harris and Trump the same on these issues, and isn't genocide a line in the sand for you?

Let's break down my math so you know where I'm coming from.

If Trump wins, they won't say he won because he's the same as Harris. Why would they? They'll say he won because of the ways he's different. So if Trump and Harris are the same on Palestine and covid, this election won't be a referendum on either of those issues. It will be a referendum on the ways Trump and Harris are different.

They'll talk about Trump being more "business friendly", which will mean that people hated the way Biden and Harris and Waltz literally stood on picket lines with striking workers. They want the guy who's getting sued by auto union workers because he threatened to have them fired. They'll say we hate the way the Bide-Harris admin have gotten stolen wages back for over half a million workers. We hate that student loan forgiveness is moving forward and Harris says medical debt is next. They'll say that when the Biden-Harris admin appointed a Federal Trade Commissioner who started banning fake product reviews and investigating stores for high grocery prices and making companies that let you subscribe with one-click cancel those subscriptions with one click that we all get really mad. They'll say we didn't like the way that the Biden-Harris admin invested hundreds of billions into clean energy, that we don't want a clean energy transition, we want global warming to keep going as fast as it can.

They'll say Harris was too queer-friendly, she never should have picked a running mate who started a gay-straight alliance in a high school in the 90s. She should have picked the guy who calls it "grooming" to support gender affirmation for trans kids. They'll it was a mistake for her and Biden to make the civil rights division of the DOJ cover violations of queer rights queer rights and to make it illegal for foster parents to try and convert queer kids. As a former foster kid I especially hate this one. They'll say Biden and Harris should have never appointed someone in the Department of Education to fight book bans, because we don't think people should be reading queer books.

If Trump wins, after saying out loud on television that he's been on the phone with Netanyahu himself "almost every day" to sabotage Biden's ceasefire efforts, they won't say that your line in the sand was genocide.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization coined CSA in 2009 to describe practices aimed at increasing farm resilience and reducing the carbon footprint of a global food system responsible for up to 37 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, however, observers say that CSA has been usurped by the Gates-led corporate alliance, with programs like Water Efficient Maize for Africa serving as green-painted Trojan horses for industry. “CSA is an agribusiness-led vision of surveillance [and] data-driven farmerless farming, [which explains why] its biggest promoters include Bayer, McDonnell, and Walmart,” said Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biodiversity. “From a climate perspective, it entrenches the global inequalities of a corporate food regime. There’s no system shift at all.” Octavaio Sánchez, the grizzled director of Honduras’s National Association for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture, contends that policies that promote true resilience must focus on regenerating soils through the use of organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and the preservation of native seeds able to adapt to changing conditions. These are the cornerstones of a global agro-ecology movement that has emerged from the seed and food sovereignty coalitions of the past three decades. The peasant-led agro-ecology movement—with La Via Campesina and AFSA in front—rejects the familiar refrain from agribusiness promoters that it is condemning farmers to permanent poverty and stagnation. The movement’s position is supported by both a growing literature of case studies and the development of scientific agro-ecological practices. When Gates Foundation officers were preparing to launch AGRA in 2006, researchers at the University of Essex published a study showing that agro-ecological practices increased yields by an average of nearly 80 percent across 12.6 million farms in 57 poor countries. The authors concluded that “all crops showed water use efficiency gains,” which led to “improvements in food productivity.” The UN’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition recommended in 2019 that governments support agro-ecological projects and redirect “subsidies and incentives that at present benefit unsustainable practices,” a judgment based on similar studies undertaken around the world.

[alpaca-clouds]

My Issue with Techno Optimism

I think my least popular opinion within the solarpunk space is, that I do not like Techno Optimism. But there is a good reason for it.

The usual way techno optimists go about it is looking at the state of the world and say: "Well, it is not all bad, technology will save us one day." And this makes me so angry.

It is basically saying like: "One day there is gonna be magic and everything is gonna be okay."

This especially comes into play with the environmental stuff. "Oh, don't worry about clean energy. One day we are gonna have fusion reactors and with that unlimited clean energy." And also: "Oh, don't worry about the CO2 and climate change. One day we are gonna have machines to filter the CO2 from the air."

But actually, what they are saying is: "Let's not change anything right now. It is all gonna work out in the end."

We already have clean energy. We have photovoltaic, we have wind, we have hydro and we have nuclear. (And yes, contrary to what folks might have told you: We do know how to store nuclear waste safely.) We can invest money right now to build a renewable energy grid.

We also do know, how to store some of the CO2. Yes, trees, but also wetlands. Wetlands and especially marshes are AMAZING in storing CO2.

And no, we do not need some weird flying bus. Trains will do just fine.

To me the thing about solarpunk is, that already have all the tools we need to make it happen now. Techno optimists wanna wait for a solution to appear that allows them to not change their behavior. To just keep doing, what they have been doing the entire time. To not degrow. But that is just bullshit.

We need change. We need equity. We it now. Not in 20 years.

[social-activist2024]

India's Green Revolution: A New Chapter

While the original Green Revolution transformed India's agriculture in the 20th century, a new wave of sustainable practices is taking shape. Today, farmers are embracing organic farming, agroforestry, and precision agriculture to address environmental concerns and ensure food security. 🌱🌾

Key trends include:

Organic Farming: A growing number of farmers are opting for organic methods, reducing chemical inputs and promoting biodiversity.

Agroforestry: Integrating trees with crops helps conserve soil, improve water retention, and provide shade, benefiting both yields and ecosystems.

Precision Agriculture: Using technology to optimize resource use, farmers can tailor inputs to specific field conditions, reducing waste and increasing efficiency.

These initiatives not only enhance agricultural productivity but also contribute to climate resilience and rural livelihoods. As India continues to lead the way in sustainable agriculture, the future of farming looks greener than ever!

[protoslacker]

[P]owerful figures in international development argued that the best way to catalyze economic growth and foster climate change resilience across Africa was to teach millions of smallholder farmers to approach agriculture “as a business.” As I read more about these efforts, I was struck by how the most influential voices—President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Bill Gates, and others—used history in their calls for a “Green Revolution in Africa.” Collectively, they drew on accounts about an earlier “Green Revolution,” in which American scientific ingenuity had “fed the world” and staved off predicted famine in Asia in the 1960s. Yet, the stories they told left out crucial details. The scholarship that I build on in the book convincingly shows that the prevailing Green Revolution success narrative obscures a much more complicated history of how American-led development efforts in Asia and Latin America were fundamentally tied to U.S. foreign policy. The prevailing story also overlooks how the Green Revolution drove unequal development in the rural countryside and led to lasting ecological effects from massive fertilizer and pesticide use. This disconnect prompted me to ask how the Green Revolution’s success narrative has remained compelling for so many even in the face of sustained critique from historians and social scientists.

Aaron Eddens in an interview at UC Press Blog. Q&A with Aaron Eddens, author of Seeding Empire

Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa by Aaron Eddens

[wholelottabotany]

The Food Sovereignty Revolution, Right Down the Street

Lemme get on a soapbox really quick about Community Gardens. Because home farms are one thing, local farms are one thing, but nothing can bring people together and inspire confidence like a community garden. 

Starting to grow your own food can be a daunting task, with a lot of conflicting information, and it can be difficult when you don’t have the land you need. Having an accessible area for people of all walks of life to come together and experience the trials of food growing makes it easier to inspire people to overcome the learning curve. 

I found a nice resource in finding local community gardens by you if you'd like to participate this summer. I also HIGHLY recommend reaching out to anyone you know from Churches, Parks, Schools, Recreation Centers, and other public spaces, and ask them if gardens can be added to their possible developments. I have a few resources on my website for the importance of these gardens if you want to learn more, or send them to people you are trying to convince. It is extremely important that people understand how beneficial this can be for themselves, and their people.

[aparrotandaqrow]

When we talk about the solutions to climate change being systemic, not personal (and personal INCLUDES the radical reforms to ways of life that certain segments seem to promote as being necessary to fight climate change), decarbonizing heavy industry is pretty much exactly the sort of systemic change we're talking about. This is one of the most meaningful actions to combat climate change the Biden administration could be taking.

Don't usually share work stuff but I do work in climate policy and nearly every memo I write includes some variation of "government funding for this obscure but necessary area of climate mitigation research has been multiplied (sometimes by like, 1000x) under the Biden Administration" and while I know the oil permitting stuff is much splashier news there's a whole world of work that needs to be done under the surface that Biden is doing. And if he doesn't win in 2024 all that progress goes away and the climate is absolutely fucked

[beingjellybeans]

How Forcing Employees Back to the Office Undermines the Green Revolution Sparked by COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic was a disruptive force, reshaping lives and industries across the globe. Yet, amid the challenges, it also triggered an unintended green revolution—an opportunity to rethink our approach to sustainability. As lockdowns and restrictions led to a dramatic reduction in pollution, carbon emissions, and waste, many began to realize that a more sustainable future was possible.…

[godsun57]

Power of the People, the People are the Power!

[probablyasocialecologist]

The standard legend of India’s Green Revolution centers on two propositions. First, India faced a food crisis, with farms mired in tradition and unable to feed an exploding population; and second, Borlaug’s wheat seeds led to record harvests from 1968 on, replacing import dependence with food self-sufficiency.

Recent research shows that both claims are false.

India was importing wheat in the 1960s because of policy decisions, not overpopulation. After the nation achieved independence in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru prioritized developing heavy industry. U.S. advisers encouraged this strategy and offered to provide India with surplus grain, which India accepted as cheap food for urban workers.

Meanwhile, the government urged Indian farmers to grow nonfood export crops to earn foreign currency. They switched millions of acres from rice to jute production, and by the mid-1960s India was exporting agricultural products.

Borlaug’s miracle seeds were not inherently more productive than many Indian wheat varieties. Rather, they just responded more effectively to high doses of chemical fertilizer. But while India had abundant manure from its cows, it produced almost no chemical fertilizer. It had to start spending heavily to import and subsidize fertilizer.

India did see a wheat boom after 1967, but there is evidence that this expensive new input-intensive approach was not the main cause. Rather, the Indian government established a new policy of paying higher prices for wheat. Unsurprisingly, Indian farmers planted more wheat and less of other crops.

Once India’s 1965-67 drought ended and the Green Revolution began, wheat production sped up, while production trends in other crops like rice, maize and pulses slowed down. Net food grain production, which was much more crucial than wheat production alone, actually resumed at the same growth rate as before.

But grain production became more erratic, forcing India to resume importing food by the mid-1970s. India also became dramatically more dependent on chemical fertilizer.

According to data from Indian economic and agricultural organizations, on the eve of the Green Revolution in 1965, Indian farmers needed 17 pounds (8 kilograms) of fertilizer to grow an average ton of food. By 1980, it took 96 pounds (44 kilograms). So, India replaced imports of wheat, which were virtually free food aid, with imports of fossil fuel-based fertilizer, paid for with precious international currency.

Today, India remains the world’s second-highest fertilizer importer, spending US$17.3 billion in 2022. Perversely, Green Revolution boosters call this extreme and expensive dependence “self-sufficiency.”

[drjacquescoulardeau]

La Chaise-Dieu / Casa Dei Super Omnia

Le 13 juillet 2024, Clément Gomy et moi-même avons présenté en trois heures à La Chaise-Dieu notre travail publié en e-Book (289 pages) au format Kindle. Par étapes der 15 minutes et pause questions de 10 minutes, nous avons essayé de montre comment la réforme religieuse de Charlemagne a eu des conséquernces sociales monumentales : 80 jours chômés dans l’année, aboliltion de l’esclavage, christianisation universelle, et pour compenser le temps de travail libéré une révolution verte sans précédent, une révolution proto-industrielle, première en Europe, l’exploitation de l’énergie hydraulique pour activer des moulins à grain, à huile, a tan et à foulon (pour la fibre de chanvre, la toile de chanvre, donc une proto-industrie terxtile, et plus tard le papier). Le livre et cette présxentation sont entièrement bilingue, ou presque.

On July 13, 2024, Clément Gomy and I presented, in three hours, at La Chaise-Dieu, our work published in an e-book (289 pages) in Kindle format. In 15-minute stages of presentation and 10-minute question breaks, we tried to show how Charlemagne's religious reform had monumental social consequences: 80 days of unemployment in the year, the abolition of slavery, universal Christianization, and to compensate for the liberated working time, an unprecedented green revolution, the first proto-industrial revolution in Europe, the exploitation of hydraulic energy to activate grain, oil, tan and fulling mills (the last type for hemp fiber, hemp cloth, therefore a textile proto-industry, and later paper). The book and this presentation are entirely bilingual, or almost.

History makes Omerin (cable industry, number one in the world and Europe) the direct descendant and heir of the proto-industrial revolution developed by the Carolingians and the Benedictines starting in the 9th century. Ignoring the past is like castrating your imagination.

2024, Éditions La Dondaine, Medium.com

Charlemagne,  *  Middle Ages,  *  Benedictine Monasticism,  *  History of the printing press,  *  Water mills

[pebblegalaxy]

15 Must-Read Environmental Books: A Comprehensive Guide to Sustainability and Conservation Literature #SenseandSustainabilityBlogHop @MindRustic @sukaina1422

15 Essential Books on Environmental Sustainability and Protection: A Comprehensive Guide Introduction: In an era where environmental concerns are at the forefront of global discussions, literature plays a crucial role in educating, inspiring, and mobilizing people towards sustainable practices and environmental protection. This article explores 15 seminal works that have shaped our…

[cipriannicolaepopa]

Revoluția Verde, o armă cu două tăișuri: creșterea productivității, dar decăderea nutrițională a grânelor

Un studiu publicat în noiembrie 2023 de o echipă de oameni de știință din diverse instituții indiene a arătat că, deși Revoluția Verde a crescut producția de grâu și orez în India, aceasta a compromis serios valoarea nutrițională a acestor alimente și a crescut concentrația de elemente toxice. Analiza a relevat că programele de ameliorare genetică s-au concentrat doar pe randamentele de…

[protoslacker]

The myriad projects that made up both the original Green Revolution and the current one playing out in Africa, Eddens writes, “share common narratives that center the agency of White Westerners who bring technology to the agrarian frontier while devaluing the knowledge of indigenous people and smallholder farmers the world over.” Such a simplistic frame of mind has been rich soil for a whole bounty of  pseudo-scientific ideas and outright lies that mark out clear divisions “between those deemed most vulnerable and those tasked with saving them.” 

Alex Park quoting Aaron Eddens in an article at Africa Is a Country. Untangling the roots of Empire

The coterie of billionaires and foreign aid agencies intent on transforming African agriculture have mostly upturned people’s lives.

Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa by Aaron Eddens

[hempproductsonline]

Can I Buy Cigarettes Online? Here's Your Answer!

Yes, you can buy cigarettes online! Learn about the legalities and explore your options, including herbal cigarettes with this blog.