TOON

Time to Subsitute Hemp for Oil

Help Save the Earth

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Every man-made fiber we wear, sit on, cook with, drive in, are by-products of the petroleum industry -- all of which could be replaced by hemp.

Dara Colwell
June 18, 2009 - AlterNet

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As the recession renews interest in the growing hemp marketplace as a potential boon for the green economy -- even Fox Business News has touted it -- hemp is becoming impossible to ignore.

But the plant's potential extends far beyond consumer-generated greenbacks. A low-input, low-impact crop, industrial hemp can play a significant role in our desperate shuffle to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"In terms of sustainability, there are numerous reasons to grow hemp," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial-hemp advocacy group.

Goggin launches into its environmental benefits: Hemp requires no pesticides; it has deep digging roots that detoxify the soil, making it an ideal rotation crop -- in fact, hemp is so good at bioremediation, or extracting heavy metals from contaminated soil, it's being grown near Chernobyl.

Hemp is also an excellent source of biomass, or renewable, carbon-neutral energy, and its cellulose level, roughly three times that of wood, can be used for paper to avoid cutting down trees, an important line of defense against global warming.

When it comes to hemp, environmental gains are inexorably intertwined with economic ones. The auto industry, hardly synonymous with being green but which has had the research dollars to apply new technology, can vouch for Goggin. For years European car makers have been using hemp-fiber-reinforced composite materials to replace fiberglass and in other components, such as door panels or dashboards. And now their American counterparts have joined in.

Blending hemp with plastics is not only cheaper for producers, but natural-fiber composites are roughly 30 percent lighter, which in turn leads to greater fuel efficiency for customers. And when they finally hit the junkyard, those parts partially biodegrade. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Honda all use this technology.

Now, where there are cars, there's fuel, or these days biofuel, which has become a contentious issue as America fights for energy independence while attempting to combat climate change.

Biofuels -- fuels derived from plants -- actually are nothing new. Rudolph Diesel, who invented the diesel engine, designed his machine to run on peanut oil, and his contemporary, Henry Ford, intended his Model-T to run on ethanol, of which hemp provided the major feedstock until the 1930s. Even Thomas Edison championed bio-based fuels, suspicious of the growing dominance of the petroleum industry, which boomed after America began taxing alcohol -- as both a beverage and a fuel -- to help pay for the Civil War.

To wean ourselves off foreign oil, the U.S. heavily subsidized the corn-based ethanol industry to the tune of $7 billion in 2006, according to zFacts, a Web site run by economist Steve Stoft.

Critics argue that the production of corn-based ethanol is problematic because corn consumes more energy from fossil fuels (such as petrochemical, nitrogen-based fertilizers) than it yields, and its production has a negative impact on the price and availability of edible corn, a staple in countries such as Mexico.

In 2007, because so many farmers north and south of the border switched to growing industrial corn, the price of corn flour in Mexico skyrocketed 400 percent, sending rioters into the streets. People need to eat and to do so, they have to be able to afford food, which begs the question: How green is ethanol when it deprives folk of basic food?

"In reality, corn isn't a viable option," says Goggin, who explains that hemp, which can be grown both as food and fuel -- its seeds, harvested for protein and essential amino and fatty acids, or for oil, which is converted into biodiesel -- has roughly four times the cellulose biomass potential of corn. "Compared to hemp, which can be harvested for multiple purposes, it's very inefficient."

As biomass, hemp can be converted into fuels such as methane, methanol and gasoline, which can help curb the world's growing appetite for palm oil used to make biodiesel, and which is having a colossally negative environmental impact.

In densely populated Indonesia, companies are draining local peat swamps and clearing virgin tropical forests, home to the endangered orangutan, to make room for palm oil plantations. This alone has resulted in 2 billion tons of carbon-dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere a year, according to the conservation nonprofit Wetlands International.

The same is happening in Brazil's biodiverse cerrado region south of the Amazon, where sugar cane and soy plantations are replacing native vegetation. Deforestation now accounts for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Global Canopy Program, an alliance of rainforest scientists based in Oxford, England. Tropical forests are essentially the planet's lungs -- and without lungs, well, it's a no-brainer ...

"If all the diesel engines today were converted to use hemp biodiesel, you could wipe out world hunger while providing a natural balance to global warming" says Paul Stanford of the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, which has worked to end marijuana prohibition and restore industrial hemp.

As hemp, which has a short harvesting period (roughly 120 days for seed), grows it sequesters, or captures, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Because biofuels emit less carbon dioxide when burned, more carbon is actually absorbed by the plants used to produce it. So, as more hemp grows, more carbon dioxide would be sucked out of the atmosphere.

"Growing hemp would improve air quality -- isn't that good enough reason to do it?" says Chris Conrad, a respected authority on cannabis and industrial hemp and who wrote Hemp, Lifeline to the Future. Only Conrad, who also teaches at Oaksterdam University, America's only cannabis college, in Oakland, Calif., knows his question is rhetorical. America is the world's only industrialized nation to prohibit the growing of industrial hemp.

That's because the Drug Enforcement Administration has historically lumped hemp in with marijuana, although the plants are different breeds of Cannabis sativa, just as Great Danes and Chihuahuas are different breeds of Canine familiaris.

While hemp contains minute levels of THC, marijuana's psychoactive ingredient (compare 0.3 in Canadian industrial hemp versus 3-20 for medical marijuana), to get high you would have to smoke a whole field of it -- but you'd probably get a headache first. Still, because marijuana has been the most politicized plant in American history, a history of smear campaigns flaming public hysteria and far too lengthy to address here, hemp hasn't escaped the association with its distant cousin.

In 1937, America passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which criminalized cannabis and levied high taxes ($1 per ounce) on medical marijuana and industrial hemp. Although growing hemp wasn't technically disallowed, the law made it prohibitively expensive, so it fell into decline.

Hemp experienced a short resurgence during World War II, when the government launched an aggressive campaign to grow hemp in the face of a severe fiber shortage. In 1944, the National Farmers Union called for the widest use of hemp within the American market, according to documents on the North American Industrial Hemp Council Web site, for hemp was always considered an essential American crop -- as American as the first pair of Levi's made from hemp fiber in 1849.

But after the war, hemp production again faded away, perhaps because the DEA has always maintained it can't differentiate between industrial hemp and marijuana, a seemingly American shortcoming.

As it stands, we can't grow hemp but we can import it, and we do, in the form of clothing, bath towels, rugs, food and car components from Canada, China and Europe, which have utilized the crop to bolster their economies. Last year, annual hemp retail sales in North America amounted to $300 million.

Our legal quandary has hurt us economically, but the environmental impact is just as great. For example, California, an agricultural giant that nets $36.6 billion dollars a year, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, is the world's 12th-largest carbon emitter and a state with a reputation for being an environmental maverick.

In September 2006, California passed Assembly Bill 32, announcing its compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, a move Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated by exclaiming, "The global warming debate is over!" But four days later, Schwarzenegger vetoed, for the second time, a bill to legalize the growth of industrial hemp, stating the measure conflicted with federal law.

If California, which grows cotton -- one of the most water and pesticide intensive crops in the world, could legally replace cotton with hemp, it could clean up the environment while supplying the domestic market with a crop that has thousands of applications. In 2005, cotton was worth $630 million to the state (although the industry is shrinking due to globalization). According to "Illegally Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition," a report written by analyst Skaidra Smith-Heisters and issued by the Reason Foundation, hemp produces more fiber and uses half the irrigation water and nitrogen fertilizer that cotton does.

"If hemp was freed up of its legal hassles, it would encourage the business climate to implement small-scale solutions, and you would see all kinds of innovation coming from this," says Smith-Heisters.

But until industrial hemp is legalized, innovation will have to come from overseas, or over the Canadian border. "Our lack of infrastructure is a great disgrace. We were once the leader in hemp technology, and we voluntarily absented ourselves from one of the most important global resources that exists," says Conrad. "We'll keep losing and face economic and environmental collapse if we remain afraid of this plant."

Canada, which produces hemp for seeds, and Europe, which mainly produces hemp for fiber, are leading the way. At the end of May, the European Industrial Hemp Association held its sixth annual international conference in Wesseling, Germany, where experts, traders, cultivation consultants and investors met to exchange information about the latest developments concerning hemp. Of the 100 or so participants, less than a handful was American.

"It was disappointing not to see any American officials educating themselves about hemp, the struggles we're facing within the industry or for pure research-and-development purposes," says Anndrea Hermann, vice president of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance and a Missouri native. Hermann attended the EIHA conference and hopes one day hemp won't be seen as a specialty crop, but as a staple. "The conference was an opportunity to pick great minds."

And with hemp, there's growing opportunity. Among exciting developments is hempcrete, a generic term for hemp-based building material used to replace concrete. In France, which has grown industrial hemp without interruption, hemp plaster is common due to its high insulation properties.

Hemp can be made into almost any building material, including roofing, flooring, paint, insulation pipes and bricks. In addition, hempcrete tends to be stronger and absorb greater humidity while sequestering carbon dioxide. A joint venture with U.K.-based Lime Technology, American Limetec in Chicago is the first American company to distribute hemp-lime materials.

"Europe has already proven it can get the hemp market rolling, that it's viable and that it can be done sustainability. It makes sense for us to do it, too, though it will never happen until we get started -- and we can't until the federal government makes the distinction between hemp and marijuana," says Eric Steenstra, executive director of the Hemp Industries Association, which represents the domestic hemp industry and seeks to educate the public about hemp products. Steenstra says that every man-made fiber we wear or walk in, sit on or drive and fly in, or cook with are by-products of the petroleum industry -- and all of which could feasibly be replaced by hemp.

America seems to be getting closer to getting started. To date, 28 states have introduced hemp legislation, and 15 have passed it -- although that the legislation is not uniform. Some states have authorized studies of industrial hemp and its viability as an industry, some have legalized growing it (although they still face pressure from the DEA over permits) and others have asked the federal government to relax its laws against hemp.

Eight other states (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has reintroduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 to the House of Representatives, though what happens with the bill remains to be seen. And now that the Obama administration has announced an end to medical marijuana raids, hemp advocates are hopeful their window of opportunity is finally opening.

"We're getting close to the tipping point, and a large part of that is due to the work the states are doing. They're setting a precedent, which is the federalism our founding fathers dreamt of," says Goggin. Though hemp advocates are aware that America's insufficient infrastructure -- from the lack of processing plants to the dearth of businesses actually using in hemp in their products -- will require a massive coordinated effort, their optimism is growing as they push to get the plant legalized.

"Hemp is not going to solve all our problems, but it is an important piece of the puzzle. Why not use the resources available to assist us in the process of combating climate change?" says Goggin. "To blindly scapegoat and ignore hemp is backward thinking. At this point, we need to be forward thinking."

The Big Hate

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Paul Krugman
June 11, 2009 - The New York Times

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Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to "segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration" and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn't say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven't directly incited violence, despite Bill O'Reilly's declarations that "some" called Dr. Tiller "Tiller the Baby Killer," that he had "blood on his hands," and that he was a "guy operating a death mill." But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News's new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration's "totalitarian" agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

But let's not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration's house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama "not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself," and that in any case he has "aligned himself" with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

And then there's Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren't very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the "main person who speaks for the Republican Party today," putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped "to get people to respond to government orders" — that's a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.

It's not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that "the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals." And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a "false prophet" and that "we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression," Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he "really enjoyed" the remarks.

Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox's Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn't change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, "the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years."

And that's a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

Etheridge says marijuana ‘amazing’ medicine

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David Edwards and Stephen Webster
June 16, 2009 - The Raw Story

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Grammy Award-winning musician Melissa Etheridge told CNN that when she underwent chemotherapy following breast cancer surgery, it was not the cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs that helped her recover, but rather medical marijuana, the effects of which she called "amazing."

Etheridge was speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday as part of a new "investigation" — introduced with a cloud of smoke, a blue pot leaf and the title "America's High" — into whether the plant should be legally available as medicine.

She described the pain of cancer therapy as being "like death" and "a general pain" with a complete loss of energy and appetite.

"[Marijuana] instantly — instantly — relieves the nausea … Relieves the pain," she said, emphasizing that "you don't take medicinal marijuana to get high."

"So, it, you weren't … You weren't getting high?" asked Cooper.

"No, it's not a high," Etheridge said. "It's a normal. And I could, all the sudden, get out of bed. I could go see my kids. It was … Amazing."

Though marijuana is commonly associated with being smoked to deliver its active chemical compounds, Etheridge took the drug dissolved in butter and spread on food, or as a vapor inhalant, every four hours while on chemo.

She considered the notion of experiencing a "gateway" effect — becoming addicted and somehow driven to try other, more potent drugs — was "laughable," but that she does keep up a prescription.

"The effects [of cancer treatment] on my gastrointestinal system, leaves me with … I have a really low tolerance for acid of any kind," she said. "So, acid reflux is a constant problem. I don't want to take the little pills that they give you, that have all the side-effects, to help with that."

She said that medicinal marijuana "totally and completely settles all that."

Osama bin Laden is a Dead Man

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Cenk Uygur
June 17, 2009 - Smirking Chimp

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Almost exactly three years ago I predicted the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And a month later he was dead. Sometimes you can see the handwriting on the wall. Zarqawi had gotten careless and had also turned the local population against him, which I figured would eventually catch up with him. And it did. Now, I see similar handwriting on the wall for Osama bin Laden.

Here are the clues that Osama's days are numbered:

1. In one of his latest tapes, he was asking for donations to his cause. This is not something that was part of the regular fare before. If they're desperate enough to attach that to a threat that was otherwise bragging about how they're going to rip us apart, then they might be running low on cash. It doesn't sound very menacing to beg for a handout. If they're running low on funds, then they could be in a world of trouble.

2. The Pakistani army is moving into South Waziristan as we speak. They've already cleared out the Swat valley. Bin Laden was so nervous about that, that he did a tape on the intricacies of Pakistani politics, railing against specific politicians and their strategic goals. Gee, I wonder why he knows so much about Pakistan and cares so much about the army's movement into these tribal areas. He hears footsteps.

3. The Taliban who have traditionally protected Al Qaeda leadership have alienated the local population in Pakistan by carrying out a series of terrorist attacks against respected tribal leaders and innocent civilians. When you lose the local population, you're living on borrowed time.

4. We have a smart president. In the seven years after 9/11, the Bush administration could not for the life of them get the Pakistani government to move against the Taliban or Al Qaeda, who had taken shelter in northern Pakistan. They got almost no results in rooting out those forces from the Swat and Waziristan areas. I don't know if it's because they didn't know what they were doing or it was because they didn't really care to try.

But now we have a president who actually cares to get the job done and apparently knows how to do it. I say that because of the facts on the ground. A Pakistani government that was considered weak and ineffectual in the five months since Obama's inauguration has somehow been able to muster up a massive campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the north. I don't know what the Obama administration did behind the scenes to get this done, but they did it. They got results.

So, now Al Qaeda is being squeezed from the north in Afghanistan and from the south in Pakistan. They might be running out of money and out of options. They have lost the good will of their hosts and might be in some serious trouble here. So, given these circumstances, I'm willing to go out on a limb again and say I think Osama bin Laden will be killed or captured within the year (killed is far more likely; he might even die of natural causes as he attempts to flee the area in deteriorating health). If the Pakistani army blazes through South Waziristan the way they did in Swat, it might be quicker than that.

One final prediction -- if this does come to fruition, the right-wing in America will fervently claim that Barack Obama had nothing to do with it and that any Republican president could have done the same, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Carter says Palestinians being treated ‘like animals’

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June 16, 2009 - Raw Story

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Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel's blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals."

Following the talks, Carter called for an end of "all violence" against both Israelis and Palestinians.

"This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace… all of us are children of Abraham," he said at a joint news conference with Haniya, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave.

Hamas, a group pledged to the destruction of Israel which violently seized power in Gaza two years ago, is listed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

Carter was expected to pass on a letter from the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants including Hamas in a cross-border raid almost three years ago, and who remains in captivity.

Earlier Carter denounced the Israeli blockade and the destruction wrought by its 22-day military offensive against Gaza in December and January.

"My primary feeling today is one of grief and despair and an element of anger when I see the destruction perpetrated against innocent people," Carter said as he toured the impoverished territory.

"Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings," he said.

"The starving of 1.5 million human beings of the necessities of life — never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then denied the means to repair itself," Carter said at a UN school graduation ceremony in Gaza City.

The United States and Europe "must try to do all that is necessary to convince Israel and Egypt to allow basic goods into Gaza," he said.

"At same time, there must be no more rockets" from Gaza into Israel, said Carter, who brokered the historic 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

"I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wracked against your people," he said at a destroyed American school, saying it was "deliberately destroyed by bombs from F16s made in my country."

Israel's offensive killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left large swathes of the coastal strip sandwiched between Israel and Egypt in ruins. Thirteen Israelis also died in the conflict.

"I feel partially responsible for this as must all Americans and Israelis," Carter said.

Israel has insisted that the Gaza blockade, which bars all but essential humanitarian supplies from entering the enclave, is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming, but human rights groups have slammed it as collective punishment.

Shortly after entering Gaza, Carter's convoy of white UN 4×4 vehicles stopped briefly in the area of Ezbet Abed Rabbo, one of the most ravaged during the Israeli onslaught at the turn of the year.

The massive destruction in the area has made it a regular stop for the succession of foreign dignitaries who have come to Gaza since the war.

As Carter briefly emerged from his vehicle to look at the damage, one resident ran up, yelling that he wanted to talk to the former US leader, and getting into a brief shoving match with bodyguards.

"They all come here and look at us like we're animals and then they go home," said Majid Athamna. "We're not animals, we're human beings."

"If he wants to come and visit us, he has to listen to us."