From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.environment,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:17:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: beaver.1992Oct14.231723.5703
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Oct14.174506.26835@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.191732.24793@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct11.114043.13438@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com
>>(Nick Szabo) uses the following phrase a lot:
>>Average topsoil depth on 28 WA certified-organic farms has increased
>>over the last 10 years.
>>
>>Cash flow through WA certified-organic farms in 1987: $300,000
>>Cash flow through WA certified-organic farms in 1992: $2,300,000
>
>Yes, enviro-yuppies will pay outrageous prices for "organic" foods.

When I do buy vegetables, I rarely find myself paying more than 5c/lb
more for organic around here; more often they are the same price;
sometimes even below.

>Of course *all* farming is the practice of growing food using
>organic chemistry. 

Wendell Berry wouldn't agree with your definition. In general, there
is often a gap between abstract ways of describing things and what is
normally conceived of as being done. Mr. Coffman also knows, I'm sure,
that "organic" in "organic farming" doesn't mean the same as "organic"
in "organic chemistry". In fact, Websters lists many meanings, amongst
which are:

  3a1: of, relating to, or derived from living organisms
  3a2: relating to, yielding, dealing in, or involving the use of food 
       produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin 
       without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth 
       stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides <organic farming> <organic 
       stores> 
  3b1: of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds
  3b2: relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned 
       with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon 
       compounds

		    Nick says we can make topsoil, you just supported
>his claim. 

I don't dispute what we *can do* Mr. Coffman, merely what we *do* do.
Net topsoil thickness in the US has been in decline since the late
1800's.
	    
>>>Redirecting water for power and farming is critical to our industries.
>>
>>Hydro-electric plays a limited role in the eastern US.  1% of the
>>waterflow is sufficient for almost all bioregionally-specific farming,
>>especially when labor-intensive, small-scale techniques are used. Such
>>techniques reduce water usage and increase yields - sample plots like
>>Ecology Action's demonstration farm in Willits, CA. exceed USDA
>>averages by up to 1000%.
>
>Indeed, let's return agriculture to $0.50/hr stoop labor. Today's
>farmer feeds 75 people. In the days of stoop labor the ratio was
>4 off farm people for every farm laborer. Labor intensive agriculture
>is back breaking hard work from sunup to sunset. 

No it isn't, at least not by definition.
						  
						  I won't willingly
>go back to cutting cane by hand.

I would have hoped that Mr. Coffman had read subsequent posts before
writing this, but who knows. I've said, both here and elsewhere, time
and time again, that I'm not suggesting a return to "stoop labor".

Two followups, one prompted by Dean Alaska.

Ecology Action are practitioners of the "Biodynamic French Intensive"
form of horticulture, as popularized in the US by Alan Chadwick. The
cornerstone of the method is the infamous "double-digging", which is
intended to simulate the soil conditions found in earth slides. This
is combined with large quantities of organic material additives, and
raised beds to make possible inter-plant spacings up to 30% less than
conventional techniques. The method is very demanding on labor for the
digging part (no-one has yet figured out how to do this with a
machine, since avoidance of soil inversion is a key part of the
process), and the close, non-linear arrangement of plants makes
automatic harvest difficult to devise. However, the digging part
becomes easier, and is required less frequently as time passes. A good
critique of the method appears in Robert Kourik's book on "Edible
Landscaping", with an excellent list of situations where it simply isn't
worth the effort.

"Stoop labor". I read a nice article a few months ago about the
nature of hoe handles, in particular why the hoes used by most migrant
workers used to have (and often still have) short handles. It makes it
easier for a field foreman to identify people who are not working -
they are not stooped to the ground. I suggest that a consideration of
the politics of power relations is always worthwhile when mentioning
aspects of the past, present and future.

>First stoop labor, now genocide. What next?

Voluntary limitation on family size would do just fine, Mr. Coffman.
Do you always assume the worst in your debate opponents ?
>>>>	9) does not use products whose production uses
>>>>		more energy than they save, either in terms of
>>>>		food or existing non-human energy supply.
>>>
>>>This doesn't just destroy the economy, it violates the laws
>>>of physics.
>>
>>What *are* you talking about ? 
>
>He's talking about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I make a tool. That tool takes energy (and energy-as-material) to
create. The tool saves energy in use. If the tool saves more energy
during its lifespan of use than was used to create it, I should
probably use it. How have I violated the 2nd Law ? The law does not
state that there is only amount of energy required for a given
human-scale task; if I can find a method which involves less work, and
can use the tool to good effect, all I have to ask is whether the
energy involved in making the tool offsets the energy saved by its
use.

-- paul
-- 
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a
little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider
price only are this man's lawful prey.
						John Ruskin
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