The human race advances by exploration, adventure, experiment and innovation – by looking forward. The Green Generation worships the past and would take us backwards.

Their promotion of “sustainable farming” yearns for a bucolic nirvana of self-sufficiency with no room for modern farming that has produced the food surpluses that sustain the cities. Their worship of the ‘precautionary principle” would have us cease innovating and experimenting “in case something goes wrong”. They scare our kids with never ending forecasts of doom. And they hobble our enterprising spirit with taxes and green tape. Their goal is to force the human race to retreat to the past, abandoning our mines, farms, forests and fishing grounds. This is a real model of doom for a large part of the human race.

The climate industry forges on with scant regard for science or logic. Water vapour in the atmosphere is by far the most effective “greenhouse gas”. Should we also have a tax on steam?

Finally, to the people who say “we have not noticed any effects from the carbon tax” – we say “They planned it that way”.

More:

• Sustainable Farming – the Impossible Dream
• Retreat to the Past
• Climatists not Fair Dinkum?
• Why have we not noticed effects of the carbon tax?
• How to Create an Intermittent and Costly Electricity Supply Industry

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/retreat-to-past.pdf [PDF, 184 KB]

Keywords: Sustainable farming.

In June this year the UNEP report announced that Global Renewable Energy investment reached $257 Billion in 2011. It’s so large it rivals the $302 billion invested in fossil fuel power. But how much electricity do we get for all that money? When the details are pulled from the fog, a quarter of a trillion dollars appears to produce only about 3% of all our global electricity, and even less of our global energy. All that money, so few gigawatts.

Source: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/renewable-energy-is-a-257-billion-dollar-industry-that-makes-only-3-of-our-electricity/

Cartoon Credit: Steve Hunter http://www.stevehunterillustrations.com.au/political-cartoons/

By Viv Forbes September 2012

“To be truly ‘sustainable’, a farm must recycle everything – otherwise it is depleting its soil minerals. Therefore it cannot sell any of its produce. This means it cannot buy items from the outside world, such as machinery, to make labour less arduous, and to produce more food. It is thus an impossible dream.” – Bob Long

The man-made global warming crisis has gone cold, the “man-made extreme weather” scares are wearing thin, and people are waking up to the “tax war on carbon”, so a new theme is needed for handing control of our lives, businesses and property to the world bureaucracy. The theme for the next green alarm is “sustainability” and a favourite target is “sustainable farming”.

We need to recognise some realities. Modern cities are not sustainable without farms, and modern farms are not sustainable without modern machinery, mineral fertilisers and affordable energy. City people should thank the lord for the machinery and cheap energy that produce the surplus food and all the trucks, road trains, refrigerated vans and milk tankers that bring it to their supermarkets every day. The last thing they should advocate is “sustainable farming”.

Unlike most armchair experts on sustainable farming, my early life was spent on an almost-sustainable farm. The memorable lessons we learned are described below.

Cows were milked by hand, ploughing and planting was done with a team of draft horses. Here is how green power works:

Ploughing using Hay-burners
Photo Credit: (c) Kapai / http://www.fotosearch.com

Lucerne was cut using a horse-drawn mower and rake. Haymaking on our “almost sustainable” farm was when everyone got a job with a pitchfork – mine had a special short handle. I still have it. Here is how it was done:

Making Bio-fuel for Hay Burners
Photo credit: http://thekinnickproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/75-years-ago-eileens-diary-july-9-1937.html

For more descriptions on how a sustainable farm really works you can quickly download the full article in print-ready PDF at:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sustainable-farming.pdf [PDF, 132KB]