tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post4238203049238523604..comments2024-02-10T12:12:06.028+00:00Comments on The Real Blog: Why monoculture means more debtDavid Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11410159311875228620noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-15912484711016599462013-07-25T22:22:13.456+01:002013-07-25T22:22:13.456+01:00Actually, I do know Graham Harvey - though not I&#...Actually, I do know Graham Harvey - though not I'm afraid Kim Stanley Robinson. He's good isn't he!David Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410159311875228620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-87192440055942337732013-07-25T20:42:24.701+01:002013-07-25T20:42:24.701+01:00And if you're not fully booked, are you famili...And if you're not fully booked, are you familiar with Graham Harvey? He covers very similar terrain, particularly on "The Forgiveness of Nature" and "The Carbon Fields", but all his books can be read profitably.<br /><br />As an esconomic liberal, I particularly welcome the fact that he is scathing about the subsidies system. asquithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246701347539264295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-74588345238284480892013-07-25T17:55:42.174+01:002013-07-25T17:55:42.174+01:00I don't know if you've read Kim Stanley Ro...I don't know if you've read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red-Green-Blue Mars trilogy.<br /><br />They're essentially a book-series about terraforming Mars over two centuries with a bit of plot layered over the top so there's some people to care about.<br /><br />A large chunk of them is about the enormous difficulties of creating soil on Mars, and the recognition that nothing will grow in pure regolith (rock dust) however much water and fertiliser you chuck at it.<br /><br />The slow processes of terraforming have just about got to thin Alpine soils by the end of two centuries, which give you some idea of how hard it is going to be to restore the soil when it's been depleted.Richard Gadsdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10545595590359552775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-45324887437476636822013-07-25T15:23:41.020+01:002013-07-25T15:23:41.020+01:00I was finally converted to Organic food this year ...I was finally converted to Organic food this year for precisely this reason. For years I had seen it as just being a negative creed 'grown without pesticides' which seemed based on a certain snearing at the scientists and agriculturalists who had pronounced this stuff safe not to mention those mugs who don't realize they are poisoning themselves. No doubt you might say this is all warranted, but I couldn't see the attraction.<br /><br />Then last summer I read Charles Dowding's book on organic farming, and in particular his constant refrain that fertility was about biology, not chemistry, and that you needed to think about feeding earthworms, not feeding plants.<br /><br />This, together with a very interesting feature I heard on the world service about soil erosion, completely changed my perspective though 180 degrees so that I now saw organic food as entirely positive. Its not about saying 'we're too good for pesticides', its about conserving, and hopefully enriching, an extremely valuable and surprisingly scarce resource, the life of our topsoil. When you see that you realize that we could never hope to feed 10 billion people unless more of us buy organic, not less, because we are going to need all the soil fertility we can get.Simonnoreply@blogger.com