Hemp and the Environment

Found this website from 1999:

Hemp helps detoxify and regenerate the soil

Falling leaves and shrubs not used in processing fall to the ground and replenish the soil with nutrients, nitrogen, and oxygen. This rich organic mulch promotes the development of fertile grassland. Some of the carbon which is "breathed" in by the plant in the form of CO2 is left in the roots and crop residues in the field. The CO2 is broken down by photosynthesis into carbon and oxygen, with oxygen being aspirated back into the atmosphere. With each season more CO2 is reduced from the air and added to the soil.

Hemp roots absorb and dissipate the energy of rain and runoff, which protects fertilizer, soil, and keeps seeds in place. Hemp plants slow down the velocity of runoff by absorbing moisture. By creating shade, hemp plants moderate extreme variations in temperatures, which conserves moisture in the soil. Hemp plants reduce the loss of topsoil in windy conditions. Hemp plants also loosen the earth for subsequent crops

Hemp plants can even pull nuclear toxins from the soil. In fact hemp was planted near and around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site to pull radioactive elements from the ground. The process is called phyto-remediation, which means using plants (phyto) to clean up polluted sites. Phyto-remediation can be used to remove nuclear elements, and to clean up metals, pesticides, solvents, crude oil, and other toxins from landfills. Hemp breaks down pollutants and stabilizes metal contaminants by acting as a filter. Hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants found.

The minimum benefit of a hemp crop is in its use as a rotation crop. Since hemp stabilizes and enriches the soil farmers grow crops on, and provides them with weed-free fields, without cost of herbicides, it has value even if no part of the plant is being harvested and used. Any industry or monetary benefit beyond this value is a bonus. Rotating hemp with soy reduces cyst nematodes, a soy-decimating soil parasite, without any chemical input. Hemp could be grown as a rotation crop and not compete with any other food crops for the most productive farmland. Marginal lands make fine soil for hemp, or hemp can be grown in between growing seasons.


Hemp and the Environment

All hemp products are completely biodegradable, recyclable, and hemp is a reusable resource in every aspect: pulp, fiber, protein, cellulose, oil, or biomass.

Hemp can grow in any agronomic system, in any climate, and requires no herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, or insecticides to grow well. Hemp is its own fertilizer, its own herbicide (it is a weed), and its own pesticide. Hemp plants only need 10-13 inches of water, 1/3 of the amount which cotton requires, to grow to 8-12 feet in 3-4 months.

Using hemp as biomass fuel would also reduce global warming because the hemp energy crop would pull carbon from the air and realease an equal amount when burned, instead of just releasing carbon as petrolium gasoline does now.

Using hemp biomass to make charcoal, could eliminate the need to burn petrolium coal. Hemp biomass burns with virtually no sulfur emissions or ash, which minimize acid rain caused by the burning of coal.

Deforestation is a big problem. Keeping trees alive and standing is necessary to our oxygen supply, and our well being. Trees provide the infrastructure which keeps microbes, insects, plants, fungi, etc. alive. The older and bigger the tree, the better for the environment it is. The more trees there are, the more oxygen is in the air, which helps reduce global warming.

Hemp growing could completely eradicate the necessity to use wood at all because anything made from wood can be made from hemp, especially paper. The paper demand is suppose to double in next 25 years, and we simply cannot meet this demand without clear-cutting all of our forest. Using hemp for paper could reduce deforestation by half. An acre of hemp equals at least 4 acres of trees annually. Hemp paper can be recycled 7 to 8 times, compared with only 3 times for wood pulp paper. Hemp paper also does not need to be bleached with poisonous dioxins, which poison waterways.

Carpets made from nylon, polyester, and polypropylene contaminate ground water. Hemp carpet is biodegradable and safe for the ground water when it is discarded. In 1993, carpet made up 1% of solid waste, and 2% of waste by volume.

Our garbage facilities are overfilling with plastics. Hemp can make plastics which are biodegradable.

Petrochemicals lubricants, paints, sealants, etc., poison the ground when they are discarded. Hemp can replace all of these petroleum-based products with non-toxic biodegradable organic oil-based products.


"Why use the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the fields?"

--Henry Ford

#hempreneur

How Can Hemp Restore America? New Farm Bill May Spark Hemp for Energy

Federal Farm Bill Includes Provision Allowing Research on Hemp http://t.co/O7YodrHzyv
— Cannabis Culture (@CannabisCulture) January 29, 2014

Whether you are a liberal Democrat, or a moderate Republican, a progressive independent, an Occupy protester, a social security recipient, a US veteran, a farmer, a work from home mom, an unemployed dad, or a Silicon Valley software developer, you should be behind the movement to legalize or decriminalize non-narcotic industrial hemp.

If you are against hydraulic fracking, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against BigOil and their energy wars, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against the Keystone XL pipeline deal, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against polluting the earth, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against big government, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against the United Nations Agenda 21, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against the high cost of medical treatment, you should be for Hemp for Energy.
If you are against the high cost of gasoline, you should be for Hemp for Energy.

Hemp biomass, biofuels, and plastics could be produced to run our diesel trains, our internal combustion cars, diesel cargo trucks, and some airplanes.

Domestically grown hemp could be used to produce many of the products that are currently fabricated from imported petroleum.  Reducing the import of foreign oil would improve the economic equation for calculating GDP whereas Imports would decrease.

Domestically grown hemp would reduce the need to import oil from more and more expensive and dangerous locations, such as the Arctic circle, Nigeria, the Middle East, or from Canada's tar sands.

That would mean fewer wars and fewer deaths due to military conflict.  It would mean a reduction in pollution caused by oil spills, such as that of BP in the Gulf of Mexico.

Why Democrats, Independents, Republicans Can All Get Behind Mitt Romney in 2012

(This is still a draft and several revisions will be made over the next few days so come back!)

This is the interview that convinced me to vote for Mitt Romney, even though I am a HUGE Ron Paul fan, and voted for Obama in 2008.

This is my list of reasons for begrudgingly supporting Mitt Romney in 2012.

Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Romney and he and his father the Most Honorable Dr. Ron Paul is behind some VERY IMPORTANT issues.

• Legalizing industrial hemp.  Ron Paul submitted legislation in May 2011 called the Industrial Hemp Farming Act (HR1831) that would legalize non-narcotic industrial hemp.  Hemp is a HUGE part of the solution to the energy crisis, national security crisis, climate change (drought), the trade deficit, the ailing auto industry, the national debt, and more.
• Audit and End the Federal Reserve.  Ron Paul has spoken endlessly on this topic and recently Rand Paul submitted legislation to audit the Federal Reserve.  For EXCELLENT research on the twisted history of the Federal Reserve, watch Money Masters by Bill Stills.  This is actually MORE important than hemp but not as personal to me since I want to build cars our of American hemp - (see Wikispeed).
• Sound Monetary Policy - Ron Paul and Rand Paul are gaining support across the country for sound monetary policy that reduces the Federal Reserves ability to monopolize our currency and perpetuate poverty with their pump and dump falsely created economic cycles.  Economic variances will always exist.  Panics will happen, but we should not allow CENTRAL PLANNERS to manage our entire economy.  This is a form of Communism.  Yes, the Federal Reserve and all its puppet central banks around the world are GREATLY responsible for war, debt, and the destruction of the social progress that has been made by our founding fathers.  Gold and silver should be part of the global monetary supply officially to curtail central bank printing fiat money.
• Ending the IRS and the Federal Income Tax.  Who wouldn't be behind this.  How else can you starve the beast that has build a military empire around the world? Between the CIA, the US Military, and the Federal Reserve, backed by our tax dollars illegally stolen by the IRS, the USA has been in so many wars, I doubt any American could name all the countries and all the invasions, all the tackled leaders, all the death and destruction.  Rape, pillage, and plunder in the name of "liberty" and "democracy".  BS.

Obama and Romney Are the SAME! so I can vote my for Mitt Romney with social conscience still intact.  Let's face it, Romney doesn't look like a bad guy.  It's his party I am not so fond of because the GOP includes in its umbrella Neo Cons who are responsible for stripping social benefits in order to make room for militarism.  That is FASCISM.  

Why NOT Obama?

Yes, I voted for Obama in 2008.  I read both of his books, did extensive research and finally decided that the GOP was the greater of 2 evils.  Little did I know then that The Republican and the Democrat presidential candidates are guided by the same puppetmasters.  They are the ones who REALLY deserve our WRATH!

• Erosion of Civil Liberties - Obama has made continuous efforts to STRIP THE UNITED STATES OF OUR SOVEREIGNTY, grounding his ability to remove democratically elected leaders with NATO forces and suggesting that the UN and NATO give him the right to declare war, without Congress.  He should have been impeached for Libya.  Sound radical and conspiratorial? Do the research.  SOPA, NDAA, indefinite detention, Nation Defense Resource Preparedness (NDRP), and most recently the Transnationl Pacific Partnership Pact (or whatever name it has now) that would allow corporations in 8 other nations to completely circumvent our national laws.  This guy was a constitutional law professor and head of the Harvard Law Review?
• Bank Bailouts - He did nothing to counter the rising power of the Big Banks that manipulate our policy, steal wealth from the middle class, cause financial havoc, all the while taking bailouts.  Privatized gains and socialized losses.  What is that but SOCIALISM.  It is NOT capitalism.  Free markets would have allowed the Big 4 banks to collapse years ago.  Instead they are protected by government, at our expense.

What has Obama done well?

I will give him credit where credit is due.  Obama came into office on the hopes and dreams of those who were completely disillusioned by the damage that George Bush did with his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and massive deficits, scandals, and treason.  It wasn't hard for ANYONE to look better than Bush.  That was probably part of an elaborate plan to deceive us, but I will save that for later.

• Healthcare Reform - I am a social liberal progressive, I think.  I am not sure what the proper label is for my positions.  I think there should be competitive private healthcare for all, insured by the US Federal government or State governments.  This could be in the form of a public option or universal healthcare.  I am not caught up on the label.  Healthcare should be a natural right of every American citizen, regardless of race, state of residence, financial wherewithal, or current health condition.  Obama did manage to get more Americans covered, but did nothing to address the rise of healthcare costs.  This was a big failure, but let's give him points for trying.
• Energy policy - Obama has done quite a bit to support renewable energy.  This is the WISE business choice.  We need to be talking about efficiency, conservation, alternative sources, balanced usage, and ending the wars.  Something closer to the Carter Doctrine but without the part about "protecting our national interests abroad at all costs".  That part was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the creator of the Mujahidin, National Security Advisor to Carter, and father of the 2 sons who were advisors to BOTH McCain and Obama in the 2008 elections.  Again, we have had puppetmasters controlling our government for generations and very few of us recognize that.  Ron Paul gets it.
• The BP oil spill - By forcing BP to put aside $20B, Obama avoided the catastrophic financial damage that could have been inflicted on the region like Exxon did with the Valdez in Alaska nearly 30 years ago.  Very few people have been paid for the damage in that case.  The oil companies get away with murder all the time.  A more balanced energy policy and hard nosed investigative journalism may put the Four Horsemen back in their proper place - to serve the greater good of society.
• Bank Subsidies in the Form of Educational Loan Origination and Servicing - I am pretty sure that Obama led the effort to remove the middleman banks from educational loans that cost borrowers about $6B in fees each year.

Last But Not Least

This is where a little bit of twisted logic comes into play.  It is