We will have famine in America,
maybe by 2050,
caused by a shortage of diesel fuel
delivered to farmers,
a shortage that will prevent them
from planting and harvesting
enough crops
to feed America.
Hubbert's curve
U. S. population growth projection
Look at the charts.
We only have one method,
for feeding the vast majority
of 300 million Americans.
Diesel fuel
in tractors and combines
and trucks and trains.
Less diesel fuel,
less food.
How will we feed
425 million Americans
in the year 2050?
That is the burning question.
I'm so frustrated.
I love my fellow left wing liberal Democrats,
but the focus on climate change,
when nothing about climate change
threatens to kill millions of Americans,
and famine from lack of diesel fuel
does threaten
to kill
millions of Americans,
that focus on climate change
makes me feel very frustrated.
I'm reading a book on cancer;
I bought the book at Amazon,
after reading a diary here at Daily Kos
about the book:
Living Downstream
With this eloquent and impassioned book, biologist and poet Sandra Steingraber shoulders the legacy of Rachel Carson, producing a work about people and land, cancer and the environment, that is as accessible and invaluable as Silent Spring--and potentially as historic.
Cancer,
caused by synthetic chemical carcinogens,
most of them petrochemicals,
is killing millions of Americans
every year,
millions who would not have died of cancer,
if they had not been exposed to those chemicals,
and millions more
who beat the cancers they get,
but at a great cost in suffering through the treatment.
Fighting the use of petrochemicals,
because of the cancer they cause,
seems more urgent
than fighting about production of greenhouse gasses,
since the folks are dying of cancer now,
and the climate change will kill Americans....
exactly how?
Exactly when?
But the worst disaster
to ever hit America
will be the famines
resulting from the shortage
of diesel fuel
in America.
Go back to the top of the diary,
and look at the two charts again.
Oil production,
worldwide,
is going down,
now.
Population in America,
is going up,
now.
By the way,
the reason I focus on America,
is that there are always reports of famines
in other places around the world,
and Americans,
the folks of my home country,
pretty much ignore all that.
And I can't get a clear picture
of what's really happening
in places like Africa.
I read so many different things,
and I can't see any clear statements
I can make to you
about any of those places,
or about the world as a whole.
But I feel I know a great deal about America,
I feel I know what a diesel powered tractor is,
what a diesel powered combine is.
I've known a few farmers,
here and there,
I've watched a few farm programs on TV,
I live in the middle of Kansas,
for cryin out loud.
When I was a young child,
I visited my grandma's farm,
each summer.
I've seen a little
of how it's done,
at least the old fashioned,
small scale farming,
growing about an acre of fruits and veggies,
for your family.
Which brings me to my own, current,
backyard garden.
First of all,
I feel that we humans in general,
at least me in particular,
need animal protein and fat.
It's the most practical way
to stay healthy.
That makes it a challenge
to feed myself and my family
using just the back yard.
I intend to build a chicken coop,
and eat the eggs from the two or three chickens
living in our little chicken coop.
But,
unless I find a way
to produce the ideal food
for my chickens
from my back yard,
I'll be forced to buy chicken feed
from a feed store,
chicken feed produced by a big, commercial farmer,
who used diesel fuel,
and petrochemical bug killer and weed killer,
to get me my chicken feed for my chickens.
That's our challenge,
to feed ourselves,
without that big oil input.
The first thing to do,
the most important key
to feeding everyone,
is to quickly reduce
the population of America.
I say quickly,
and folks think I want to kill someone.
But killing folks
makes the survivors
breed like rabbits.
So,
in addition to the obvious fact
that this whole diary
is about making life better in America,
and killing lots of folks
would make life worse,
but in addition to that obvious fact,
killing,
in the long run,
just increases the population,
and makes the coming famine
that much worse.
The only killing I would even consider
would be assisted suicide,
when things get really bad,
and food is carefully rationed,
I can visualize some Americans,
especially those older than 80 and ill,
who might go on a hunger strike,
and name a younger American,
and tell the world,
my ration of food
can go to that younger citizen,
and I'll just bow out gracefully.
I can visualize myself doing that,
if things get truly desperate,
when I'm over 80,
and if I'm ill.
I truly want to tell young folks,
anyone considering having even one child,
I want to tell them,
if you have that child,
if you bring even that one child into this world,
you inspire me to kill myself,
by way of refusing my ration of food,
and giving that food to your child;
I want young folks to imagine that trade-off,
I want them to feel profoundly guilty,
guilty for even considering
bringing any children at all
into the world
at this point in history,
as we run short on oil.
That's what I want to do.
I want every American
to get surgically sterilized,
and have no babies at all,
for the next twenty years,
then start having a few,
judiciously.
Yes.
Seriously.
Look at the charts again.
But lets turn our attention
to the present,
and the glimmer of hope
I can present to you,
in the form of my backyard garden.
I haven't yet learned
how to take the pictures from my phone,
and put them in Photobucket or other site,
and post them here,
so I'll try to use my skills as a poet
to paint my picture with words.
One plot is about 4' x 16',
and it has a thick jungle of
green bean plants,
full of white blooms,
and many small pods already showing,
yellow wax beans,
full of lavender colored blooms,
and many small pods already showing,
more than the green bean plants,
and,
in that long plot,
we have cucumbers vines,
those panted a month ago
spreading like crazy,
with lots of yellow blooms,
and another 4' row,
just planted a week ago,
coming up,
2" tall,
and at the end,
a short row of cabbage
(my earlier cabbage planting failed)
and a short row of tomatoes,
from planting seeds,
not from buying small plants at the store,
and some potatoes,
from planting shriveled potatoes
found in the house.
In a smaller plot,
3' x 4',
we have watermelon and cantaloupe;
the cantaloupe seeds we planted are from
a melon we ate,
and saved the seeds,
months ago.
A smaller plot yet,
2' x 3',
has yellow squash,
and zucchini squash.
A three foot diameter circular plot
has onion sets,
about 35 of them,
growing quite well.
I'm becoming addicted;
I want to keep planting,
more and more,
and watching the plants come up,
lush and green,
and think about eating their fruit:
cucumbers sliced
and covered with ranch dressing,
green beans and wax beans,
cooked in bacon fat,
zucchini and yellow squash and onions and potatoes,
boiled in a pot with a whole chicken,
and seasonings.
Yum!
P.S.:
I forgot to write about wind and solar and nuclear.
The President said,
all of the above,
and I agree.
I like those sources of energy.
But those things are for making electricity.
I like electricity,
and I want lots of nuclear power plants, built,
yesterday,
already.
And I want wind and solar equipment
covering America,
totally,
North to South,
East to West.
But,
unless we have really great batteries,
and have thousands of those batteries made yesterday
and unless we magically build thousands of
electric combines and
electric tractors,
yesterday,
to use those great batteries,
all that nuclear and wind and solar
will not feed
400 million Americans,
or even 300 million Americans.
I gotta get to bed.
Thanks for reading.