Investors and Crops
For the last few years, every time a hurricane strikes the US, we've been treated to yet another round of, "What about THIS one? Is THIS hurricane a sign of global warming? Not exactly? What Crap!" Every time they're trotted out to answer for the latest natural disaster, climate scientists always make the point that global warming makes all of our weather more extreme, which means more intense and frequent hurricanes AND more intense and frequent floods AND more intense and frequent droughts. This always seems to be greeted by the mass media as a weak argument on the part of a mealy-mouthed academic, since it's not contributing to their black-and-white, sensationalist pursuit of higher ratings. The problem is that any number of strategies can be deployed to deal with consistently different weather patterns, like more or less rain, higher or lower temperatures. We're good at dealing with these sorts of longer-term changes. Where we and our agricultural practices fall flat on our faces is when we can't depend ...
Posted on October 15, 2008 2:04:57 PM EDT
#
I've Got [Composting] Worms!
No, I'm not on antibiotics. No, it's not from eating old sushi. For some time now, I've been trying to find the best way for Emily and I to make the best use of our kitchen scraps. Back in the spring, I created this monstrosity of a compost bin to handle this waste. I based its design on some information I found that said an ideal size for a compost pile was one that would fill a cube four feet on a side. According to the books I was reading (can't remember the titles ATM), this would kick off a sort of "cooking" process in the compost heap that would destroy pathogens and reduce the scraps to usable compost in around two weeks. Sweet. One thing about this compost pile, it would need aeration through the center to keep things from switching to anaerobic decomposition in the center (which stinks, and also is counter-productive). No prob, I added some PVC pipes that had holes drilled in them. In the end, there was really only one problem with my compost bin: no way could two people keep a compost bin four ...
Posted on October 1, 2008 1:09:12 PM EDT
#