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Plowing Carbon Into the Fields
OzPeter writes "A wheat farmer in Australia has eliminated adding fertilizer to his crop by the simple process of injecting the cooled diesel exhaust of his modified tractor into the ground when the wheat is being sown. In doing so he eliminates releasing carbon into the atmosphere and at the same time saves himself up to $500,000 (AUD) that would have been required to fertilize his 3,900 hectares in the traditional way. Yet his crop yields over the last two years have been at least on par with his best yields since 2001. The technique was developed by a Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, and is currently in trial at 100 farms around the world."
Sorry. I have a typo. The last paragraph should be changed to "Although modernization may appear to reduce the population, a recent article in 'The Economist' claims that modernization does not necessarily do so. I will try to find the article if I have time. Perhaps, you in the SlashDot community can help me to find the article. It was published this year.".
The problem with the idea of controlling population is who exactly is going to have less babies. I mean, if you keep hammering home in people's heads that the planet is crowded and there's too many humans, it sorta makes the idea that life is sacred seem rather foolish now, doesn't it.
I mean, when your overpopulation is 3 billion, it makes even a nuclear war a workable proposition.
This is my sig.
If this is not an Onion story, then the farmer better be prepared for some serious court expenses.
He would be sued by the Farm Industry and its associated EPA:
1) Pollution by releasing unauthorized elements- never mind that larger corporates do it all the time.
2) Poisoning the food deliberately- never mind the frequent salmonella outbreaks are because of unsafe corporate practices.
3) Conspiracy against State - with a view to reduce tax income from corporates by using alternate stuff - ???
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
This assumes that the fertilizer actually did something in the first place.
nothing untoward would happen.
if leaded gas were still legal (and it is in many countries), this would basically be pumping lead into your food. whatever comes out of the tailpipe is going to wind up in that ground, and you might want to figure out what it is before you put it there.
i am reminded of the uses of raffinate favored by mining companies... including the way they took the raffinate sludge waste from the process of converting uranium yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride, treated it, the called it 'fertilizer' and sprayed it on open fields. with the approval of the nuclear regulatory commission.
but i guess you are one who thinks it was silly of people to sue them into stopping this? what could be wrong with spraying uranium processing waste on to open fields, right next to a tributary of the mississippi river, and trusting the company to monitor and study the effects of this spraying? (the company that would otherwise have to pay millions of dollars to transport and dump it in a proper disposal facility)?
Or shut the fuck up.
If you're arguing that it's ok to kill people for some pseudo-scientific ideas about population, then put your money where your mouth is. And a bullet.
Two two, hey hey, yeah yeah.
Enter.
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When you speak in real life, do you also fail to think before saying something, or is that just something you do when posting on the internet? Have you never heard of teenagers with fake ids to get into a bar? There are ways to fake all these documents. Please think before opening your mouth.
Qxe4