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Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
brateaver@aol.com wrote in article
> Well, now I see why Mr. Asher is ugly.
No, I'm ugly because of the glass eye and the huge wart on my nose; my
postings don't contribute to the effect.
>
> He is lying when he calls that miserable state of medieval life as
> "organic farming". The basis of organic method is optimum status of soil
> organisms. It has nothing to do with unclean, unsanitary conditions of
> humans, or their habits and customs.
I referred to medieval *farming* as organic, not medieval *life*. Nothing
was meant or implied about the cleanliness of the process. Both farming
methods, however, are done at least partially without use of modern
agricultural science, and suffer lower yields.
Contemporary organic farming, although eschewing fertilizers and
pesticides, still benefits indirectly from them. As long as nearly all
farming is done by conventional methods, we don't risk locust swarms ten
miles long, thick enough to eclipse the sun, or a leaf rust spanning twenty
states.
And, of course, today's organic farmer also benefits from several hundred
years of genetic engineering, by using modern hardy, pest-resistant,
high-yield strains. Current trends in gene-splicing indicate we may soon
be able to dispense with chemical aids entirely, without impacting yield or
quality.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"In my own country, the UK, I like to point out that the average
Englishman's garden occupies 1/10 of an acre. By digging down 1 meter, we
can extract six kilograms of thorium, two kilograms of uranium, and 7,000
kilograms of potassium, all of them radioactive. In a sense, all of that
is radioactive waste, not man-made, but the residue left over when God
created the planet."
- Walter, Lord Marshall of Goring, head of CEGB.
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