Transition to an Organic World
Organic Lifestyle Comments Off on Transition to an Organic World
It’s sometimes hard to see from the inside the magnitude of the changes that human society is undergoing right now.
The industrial revolution is over and we are transitioning into the age of digital information. Chemical agriculture is transitioning into more responsible organic agriculture. And our energy economy is transitioning—or just beginning to transition—from fossil fuels to renewable energy. All three of these transitions go hand in hand. The more information we have about the environment and the world’s ecologies, the more sense it makes to grow food organically and to curb carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Those carbon emissions, as you know, are particularly troublesome. When it comes to our sources of energy, humans are still hunter-gatherers. We hunt for oil and natural gas, and then burn them to power our motors, and do so at an unsustainable rate that’s warming the world and its oceans to dangerous levels. Climate change is here and getting worse. We hear a lot of talk and see a lot of hand wringing, but who’s doing anything serious about it? What’s the plan, Stan?
Let me make a suggestion. In the United Kingdom there’s a fledgling company called Air Fuel Synthesis. On its website, AFS writes, “We believe there is a strong case, based on energy security and ambitious carbon reduction targets, to develop a near carbon neutral fuel using low carbon electricity, hydrogen, and atmospheric carbon dioxide.” The principals in AFS have secured start-up funding and are on their way to setting up the system that will create hydrocarbon fuels out of thin air. Here’s how it works:
The petroleum and natural gas that we harvest from the ground as fossil fuels are hydrocarbons—molecules of carbon and hydrogen. They make powerful fuels, and when burned, produce carbon dioxide and water. The carbon dioxide gets dumped into the atmosphere by the trillions of tons. It acts like panes of glass in an automobile on a sunny day. Heat is generated by sunlight but because of the glass in the car windows, it can’t escape. This is the so-called greenhouse effect. It creates climate change.
Air Fuel Synthesis aims to take carbon and oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the air and hydrogen from water molecules and bring them together to form methanol, (CH3OH), a liquid hydrocarbon fuel that can power auto, truck, and airplane engines. Instead of digging up fossil fuels and dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the AFS set-up will recycle the carbon dioxide that’s already in the atmosphere. By making our fuel carbon neutral, other natural systems for sequestering carbon, such as in plants and in the ocean, can start to reverse the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
But, you may ask, what about the energy it takes to split apart the carbon dioxide and water molecules? Where will that come from?
AFS says it will use electricity from carbon neutral, renewable sources. Let me suggest that there are huge stretches of shade-free surface on the earth where it’s almost always sunny. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. And so do the world’s oceans. Solar panels produce electricity with no pollution. The oceans are already an electrolyte, so electricity passed through negative and positive poles will dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Solar electricity can also be used to dissociate carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. The raw materials for making methanol are floating in the air and water in superabundance and are there for free. The energy to power methanol factories shines down on us in superabundance every day—and it’s free.
Here’s a further wrinkle in this transition. Instead of hauling methanol to filling stations, these renewable energy factories could burn the methanol on site and use the energy to drive electricity-producing turbines that charge up batteries to be swapped into and out of cars and trucks. Re-useable batteries are hauled to the factories and returned charged up to the filling stations. The engineers can work out the most efficient ways to do this.
So what’s preventing humans from making this transition from fossil fuels to free recycled fuel?
There’s no political will in Congress to do something like this here in the U.S. because Congresspeople spend most of their time raising money so they can stay in office. The big corporations that control energy, autos, and transportation stay committed to fossil fuels because they are lucrative and that money can be used to buy the political impotence of Congresspeople. Tell the guy who’s holding an open sack under a money spigot to turn off his money machine and he’ll likely say, “Later.”
Unfortunately for the status quo, later is now. The transition to a new world is underway. Virtually free energy, organic food, and limitless computing power are on their way.
***
WALMART AND TARGET TO SELL ORGANIC FOOD
Walmart plans to announce that it is putting its muscle behind Wild Oats organic products, offering the label at prices that will undercut brand-name organic competitors by at least 25 percent.
The move by Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer and grocer, is likely to send shock waves through the organic market, in which an increasing number of food companies and retailers are seeking a toehold.
“We’re removing the premium associated with organic groceries,” said Jack L. Sinclair, executive vice president of Walmart U.S.’s grocery division. The Wild Oats organic products will be priced the same as similar nonorganic brand-name goods.
Over at least the next few years, Walmart’s move is likely to raise prices for organic ingredients, which are already going up because of fast-growing consumer demand. Organic food accounted for $29 billion in United States sales in 2012, according to the most recent data, the Organic Trade Association said. Ten years earlier, its sales were $8 billion.
Eager to tap into that demand, Target, one of Walmart’s primary competitors, said on Tuesday that it would expand the presence of organic products in its stores. At Walmart, internal company research found that 91 percent of customers said they would buy “affordable” organic products if they were available, executives said.
***
ORGANICS UNDER ATTACK
Without any input from the public, the USDA has changed the way the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) decides which non-organic materials are allowed in certified organic products, according to the Organic Consumers Association.
The change all but guarantees that when the NOSB meets every six months, the list of non-organic and synthetic materials allowed in organic will get longer and longer.
The USDA’s new rule plays to the cabal of the self-appointed organic elite who want to degrade organic standards and undermine organic integrity. For consumers, farmers, co-ops and businesses committed to high organic standards, the USDA’s latest industry-friendly move is a clarion call to fight back against the corporate-led, government-sanctioned attack on organic standards.
***
KOCH-BACKED BILL NIXES MANDATORY GMO LABELING
A Republican congressman from Kansas has introduced legislation that would nullify efforts in multiple states to require labeling of genetically modified foods, the Reuters news service is reporting.
The bill, dubbed the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, was drafted by Rep. Mike Pompeo and is aimed at overriding bills in about two dozen states that would require foods made with genetically engineered crops to be labeled as such. The bill specifically prohibits any mandatory labeling of foods developed using bioengineering.
Makers of biotech crops and many large food manufacturers have fought mandatory labeling, arguing that genetically modified crops are not materially different and pose no safety risk. They say labeling would mislead consumers.
Pompeo reiterated those claims, stating that GMOs are safe and “equally healthy” and no labeling is needed. “It has made food safer and more abundant,” he said.
“It has been an enormous boon to all of humanity.”
There are currently 66 active bills and ballot initiatives in process in 27 states to require labeling of foods made with GMOs, according to the Environmental Working Group, which is tracking the measures. “The vast majority of Americans… consistently tell pollsters that they want the right to know whether there are GE (genetically engineered) ingredients in their food,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the EWG.
###
