Global warming--solutions.

[Amanda_931]

George Monbiot on solutions to global warming.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1935560,00.html

It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. Useful as this finding is, I hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. As Stern reminded us yesterday, there would be a moral imperative to seek to prevent mass death even if the economic case did not stack up.

Treehugger summarized Monbiot's suggestions like this, here:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/britains_stern.php

1) a 90% decrease in greenhouse emissions by 2030.
2) Give everyone a personal carbon ration. If you run out, buy it from someone else.
3) Every new house should be built to the German PassiveHaus standard: no heating system.
4) ban incandescent lights, patio heaters and garden floodlights.
5) redeploy the nuclear missile budget to wind turbines.
6) stop all road building and widening programs; invest in coaches and trains.
7) make every gas station have battery charging stations for overnight wind-powered charging
Freeze and then reduce airport capacity.
9) ban and close out-of-town superstores.

Oh, and all of this between 4 and 10 years from now.

The comments are pretty interesting at Treehugger--at that link.

[Sassy]

It all sounds good, but then why is our gov't in partnership with Mexico & Canada planning the Texas Corridor superhwy - eminent domain on over 500,000 acres, more cement, less farmland, more trucks that aren't required to have the same smog standards as trucks in the United States - the Mexican trucks will eventually go straight to Kansas City where there will be a Mexican customs under Mexican domain - not United States!  Now multiply the acres of cement & US citizens' loss of property through eminent domain when the superhwy goes all the way to the Canadian border!  More farmland, forests, wetlands etc covered over with cement!  The Security & Prosperity Partnership is on the "fast track"    Do ya think it might have any affect on "global warming"?

http://www.freepressinternational.com/wc.html - this link is to a video I posted awhile back on another possible cause of global warming.  A billion watts of concentrated microwaves aimed at the ionosphere superheating & destablizing it, hmmmmm, I wonder if that could cause "global warming"?  Read about HAARP in Alaska... or watch the video where numerous scientists, ecologists, medical people talk about HAARP & the potential damage to the environment & people's health...

It seems that the media & most people want to ignore the elephant in the room & focus on minor changes that may or may not help...  I wish it was as simple as that...  :-/

Here's another link  Scientists Say White House Muzzled Them

A report last month in the scientific journal Nature claimed administrators at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. Hansen had said in February that NOAA has tried to prevent researchers working on global climate change from speaking freely about their work.

NOAA has denied the allegations, saying its work is not politically motivated.

[benevolance]

I think one of the single greatest things we can do is increase the percentage of the planet that has forests on it.

That means re-claiming huge tracts of desert lands and turning them into orchards or irrigated rain like forests...So be it..

Huge Desalinization plants for every city within 100 miles of an ocean...This would allow the freshwater currently being piped pumped dammed from our lakes and rivers to go back to the lakes and rivers or to be used to irrigate land for forests.

In most parts of the world we re-use and recycle 10% of the water that goes into our drains toilets...etc..

Changing that to 90% recycled and re-used would allow us to demand less of our water tables and rivers

Planting huge tracts of trees and re-claiming desert lands would mean less drought...Less wind storms...It would reduce carbon dioxide levels across the planet... It would help eliminate smog...Improve air quality for everyone..

And it would lessen the demand on current wilderness for agriculture and food...Long term more forests would mean more habitat for animals and more resources to be harvested in the form of lumber.

Water is the key to saving the planet...Better use of fresh water and using salt water for coastal populations would allow us to cool the surface of the earth...

People forget that water is a terrific moderator... The more water that is on the surface of the planet the longer it takes to heat up the planet... Allowing temputures to remain moderate

Piping massive amounts of water in from oceans and desalinizing them...would erase the effects of rising water levels also...

Using salt water in all coastal areas and then recycling our waste water and sewage and releasing that recycled water into the water table would allow the water table to rise worldwide...We would replenish the aquifers...And create additional water resources worldwide.

Africa, Australia,  the middle east and western North America would benefit from this specifically..All of these continents have vast tracts of land where a little bit of water would make a huge difference.

I read a report where it said ocean fish stocks were in serious trouble...maybe it is time to put people to work irrigating lands that are now deserts...Buildingpipelines and pumping stations...Creating a massive new food source which would eliminate our dependancy to fish the oceans as a primary food source.

Better use of water would easily allow us to double or triple the amount of food that we grow...And at the same time create more arable and out of desert and more land capable of supporting forests ....

Water is the key...It should be our top priority instead of oil...

[glenn-k]

Some have the idea that population control is the key, Peter.  They advocate getting rid of 80% of the population.

Cut down the people and the water and global warming should take care of itself.

http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/brotherhoodpart6.shtml

[Sassy]

Peter, since the elites are planning on the North American Union with the Security & Prosperity Partnership, the United States will just be able to drain Canada of their water!  Hey, that sounds like a solution!    Glenn mentioned that we could build a major pipeline along the SuperHwy to pipe the water to our cities & deserts, you did mention, one time, that Canada had more water than it needed, didn't you?  

Sassy

BTW, how is the remodeling job going on your house?  You'll have to post some pictures, the house sounded like a real neat place - glad you are restoring it.

[benevolance]

sassy

Nightmare wrapped in a disaster...Me and that house...More on that later..

Yes Canada does have a decent amount of water Manitoba is just about all water...Remnants of the largest lake in the world...Huge Glacial lake...

And in British Columbia there are several waterways and lakes that could easily be diverted to  irrigate california and Nevada

Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Northern California could all use water...they have the climate to grow massive amounts of food...

Canada could use the extra revenue as well...Canada has made a really nice niche for itself making sure it supplies the world with resources...They sell massive amounts of hydro electricity to NYC...They pump massive amounts of Natural Gas to New England from Nova Scotia and the largest single oil deposit in the world is the Alberta Tar sands oil fields..

This is not to mention the mineral rich Canadian shield that has massive amounts of Copper, Gold, Platinum, Nickel and even Diamonds

If they would just invest in pipelines to pump and distribute the water Several states could grow massive amounts of food and irrigate forests...not to mention alleviating the demand on rivers such as the Colorado...

The one thing I fear is that if they started to pump massive amounts of water from Canada they would lose sight of recycling waste water and desalinizing along coastal cities...

The Key is to recycle 90 of waste water and to use desalinized salt water for our cities...This would allow more water in our lakes and rivers to remain for wildlife and fish...It would also have a doubling effect as it would allow more water for forests, food growth and replenishing the water table.

People that have not been through Bakersfield do not understand how much you can transform a landscape with water... Millions of acres of what would be scant grazing for cattle in California have been transformed into the best orchards in the world...

Far as the eye can see mile after mile along both sides of the highways...Orange, date, pecan trees grow lush and green

Not only do the trees improve the quality of the air we breath...They prevent soil erosion...They lower the surface temputure in a hot arid region...They keep the water table up...They create massive amounts of food for the entire world...they create massive amounts of jobs to maintain....And for the economy trade products are created to eliminate trading deficits.

It is hard to imagine it...But literally in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and California...each of those states could easily transform the same amount of land that would equal the size of Say New Hampshire

Just getting water from Canada will do real signifigant long term good for the USA....As cities like Vegas keep booming the water would get used up...Nothing would change....Not until we started to recycle 90% or more of our waste water and started to desalinize on a large scale could signifigant changes be seen

People are just starting to realise that Water is among the most precious resources on the planet

If you had tried to explain the idea of paying for bottled water to someone 30 years ago you would be laughed out of town....Even in arid regions of the planet

[Amanda_931]

Gee, 30 years ago I bought an occasional bottle of Perrier or Pelegrino (but they are both fizzy waters).  And as I worked in a building with no water (or sewer--but they were available next door or across the street), we did buy drinking water for the store.  Since Nashville water always has its own flavor--too much chlorine, on occasion totally undrinkable because of algae--it seemed perfectly reasonable--and we drank a whole lot less in the way of cola beverages.  40 years ago, people were horrified that I even tried to make coffee with tap water in LA.

Desalinized water has a reputation for being worse than either Nashville or LA water.  It is not "pure water," as I understand, but still has a significant quantity of salts in it, at least when produced in tap water type quantities (let alone the kind of quantities that would be usable for irrigation).

And I keep reading that irrigation, even with pretty good water, often has the effect of making the land too salty to use.  That seems to be why Iraq is a desert and not the Garden of Eden.

[benevolance]

Amanda

Well you have a point on Desalinization...It does depend on what type...The largest and one of the cheapest types of desalinization is the double reverse osmosis which they use and have perfected in Israel...The water is pure when it comes out the other end...

It is worth noting that irrigation can cause salt damage...That is why they need to stop just using the colorado river in the USA to irrigate western states...Some rivers have a terribly high mineral content...the Colorado is one such river as it cuts it'w way through the grand canyon moving a lot of sediment and minerals in the water with it.

Which is why it is important to take all of the waste water and recycle it...And allow it to be put back into the water table....The water table in America keeps getting lower and lower...Wells are routinely 500 feet deep....Pioneer americans could get more water at a fraction of that depth

Replenishing the water table would allow farmers to pump more water out of the ground where the ecosystem would have a chance to better filter the water naturally

It is not a perfect solution but it would play a major role in helping stay off the effects of increased salt contents in irrigated soil

As for the arguement about the amount of water needed for large cities...We have seen in Saudi Arabia and Israel that millions of people can have all of their water needs met completely with desalinized water....They have perfected the technology and it has gotten to the point where desalinized water would be cheaper than pumping water from the colorado river for California residents

I think in the next 20 years we will see lakes and bodies of water with desalinizing staions on them to lower their salt content...So that water taken from these bodies of water will not pollute irrigated lands with salt

[Sassy]

Here's a link to possibly the worst cause of global warming that many people aren't aware of - this video only talks about one of the culprits in the US - there are many of the same throughout the world - including Australia, Norway, Canada, Russia, France, Japan, Peru, UK & S.Africa.  

If more people were aware of this, we might just be able to create such an outcry against it, we'd have our solution right then & there!  

http://www.freepressinternational.com/wc.html

There's also a large pdf file I could send, if anyone is interested.  Scott Stevens, a former weatherman, quit his job & started doing serious research after Katrina.  The pdf file is his research.  

[Amanda_931]

This turned up on another list today (not all of it below):

http://www.abc.net.au/centralvic/stories/s1805531.htm

The problem with desalination has always been that it's expensive - plants cost a lot to build, and they're not cheap to run, either. But RMIT scientists say they've developed a solar-thermal desalination plant that turns salty groundwater intot he good stuff, and produces no greenhouse emissions in the process. It'll be on display at Pyramid Hill.

Dr John Andrews, from the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, is the Project Manager, and he says it's for real.

"It's certainly technically possible to use solar heat to desalinate salty groundwater or seawater. The groundwater at Pyramid Salt, where we're doing this demonstration, has a salinity quite near that of seawater.

"The technology is proven; we'll be showing that it can be done today."

So how does it work?

"The basic process is using solar heat to heat up the salty water. We then introduce it into a chamber where the air has been taken out, where it will boil at a temperature less than 100 degrees centigrade. We're using solar heat - at its hottest, around 80 degrees centigrade.

"The salty water boils, and just the water comes off as vapour. That's then condensed by passing over cooling coils, and then we collect the fresh water that comes out of that condensing process."

That leaves a concentrated salty solution behind, which a salt company can then use to produce salt.

Other processes have been used for producing fresh water out of salty; Perth's plant uses reverse osmosis, and other thermal processes include multi-stage flash or multiple-effect evaporation.

"In Perth, they're using reverse osmosis and that needs electricity," Dr Andrews says.

"They're overcoming the greenhouse problem - which is always the basic problem you've got to overcome - by having a windfarm that inputs electricity into the grid to an equivalent amount to what's used by the plant that's set up in the Kwinana complex.

"We're using solar heat, not electricity, to see if we can get a cheaper option that has no greenhouse emissions."

The salt producer hosting the demonstration has a history of collaboration with RMIT for solar power.

[Sassy]

Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines

What's the solution for this problem?

[Amanda_931]

Oops, and here we thought that the Gates money all came from Microsoft.

Monbiot's book is available from Powells bookstore--in the original British edition.  I read something somewhere that the U.S. publisher is holding it up for us.

He's talking about setting carbon limits for us all.  Maybe especially in an island nation drastic carbon limitations.

To the extent that there probably won't be supermarkets where we can go any time any day and cruise the aisles to find what looks good.

Right now, sites like treehugger are saying things like--buy local, have dinners where everything--or nearly--comes from less than a hundred miles away.  But going to those places to buy may produce as much CO₂ as bringing the one pound of Chilean grapes in as part of a container full of grapes in a full shipload.

If we get serious about this, then some of the oil/gas horrors will be take care of themselves.

[benevolance]

Well the melting polar ice caps are a concern... and that is from greenhouse gas ...

But the growing stockpile of "nucular" waste is a growing world problem....We create waste that will be insanely deadly toxic for 10,000 years or something like that...

The solution to the world's problems will not come from weaning off oil...It will come from Power generation that is non toxic, and emits less greenhouse gases.

Be it solar...or the heavywater trillium fission plant they are trying to build in france.

Cheap clean abundant energy will solve a lot of the poverty problems in the world...It will also allow for the electric car industry to take hold...

It is already exponentially cheaper to plug your car in and drive it 100 miles a day on the batteries and charge it when you get home at night...Imagine the possibilities if Electricity costs were cut in half across the world...

There is a massive push by General Motors and Toyota to have next generation battery technology...They have designed electric cars that can carry 6 adults and travel comfortably long distances without charging...

they are waiting for the electric infrastructure and battery technology to catch up...

A lot of this problem comes from a lack of funding...The beefits of solar were known 100 years ago...Zero funding was allocated for Solar, Wind and eco sources of electricity...It was oil, coal, gas...all the way.

Fundamentally changing the way we spend our money would result in a paradigm shift....Take a fraction of the money we spend blowing up Afghanistan and Iraq each year...And spend that on research for longer lasting batteries..Or spend it on building better/ cheaper solar cells.

Spend a fraction of the defense budget that goes for weapon design and research...Folks we are talking about billions upon billions of dollars...And just start planting trees...In america...And in the rain forest...Start planting trees...

Start fighting deforestation...Stop the spread of deserts...And effectively lower the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere

Half the problem is the emissions...The other half if reduction in vegetation of the planet... So planting trees goes a long way... This is something that need not be in the future...We do not need a new tech breakthrough to achieve this...Plant the trees and see drastic improvements....It is instantaneous easy to calculate and practical.

The other huge problem is population...We need to see a stabilization of the world's population...If it were to reach a point where growth was negliable or even if growth stopped....Then advances in food growth, or water management would allow for better conditions worldwide..It would mean more resources could be alloacted to restoring the environment...More resources could be allocated to cleaning up the wastes and the air...

So the cliff notes version of the solution is less people....More trees...And by golly that alone would solve almost all of the problem....

[glenn-k]

As the ocean warms up it is increasingly burping up methane -- enough to set off the gas sensors on ocean going vessels.  

Reducing population -- the US is doing a pretty good job of that.  Over 600,000 Iraqi's and counting,  DU is killing our own troops and their offspring - major birth defects - irradiated wives, and any others over there - Italian's have been smart enough to realize that-- Officially over 3000 of our troops dead - unofficially the military magazines put the number at more than 25000 if I recall right and and something like 125000 with severe enough problems from Iraq - Afghanistan and more, that they shouldn't worry about procreating anyway.

It'll probably all work out in the wash. :-/

[MountainDon]

Yes Canada does have a decent amount of water Manitoba is just about all water...Remnants of the largest lake in the world...Huge Glacial lake...

Manitoba, that's where I was born! Lake Agazzi is the name of that ancient lake. FYI, the lake left an extremely flat plain. As you drive across southern Manitoba today from Winnipeg, east to west it's bone numbing flat. The only elevational relief are the drainage ditches that outline the roads. BUT, then you come to a rise! That's the old shoreline of the old lake. (It's also bone numbing flat the other direction but the shoreline gets mixed up with some ignaceous rock formations (Canadian Shield) and that confuses the issue. Also interesting are several mounds that extend for miles; they are rich gravel fields, the morraines of ancient glaciers. .... just in case your mind wasn't full of enough trivia!

Oh, northern Manitoba today is a fisherman's paradise. Minnesota says they're the land of 10,000 lakes; MB (official post office abreviation) has way more lakes. Also a great place for hunting; moose, deer, etc.

[Sassy]

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?  Interesting article & viewpoint...

[Amanda_931]

Neither NRSP nor Dr. Tim Ball made George Monbiot's index to Heat, although the idea that he is pretty famous for--warming, if true, would be very good for Canada--did.

But NSRP does make it on other lists--as an oil company sponsored organization.

Ball has his own page as a denier here (in a geography, not climatology department--although this may be from smog-blog.):  

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball

Probably we don't need to completely damn people for belonging o "an oil company sponsored organization" especially without asking how much, how involved with a whole web of organizations, etc., but the oil companies did learn a lot from (then) Phillip Morris on how to confuse issues.

Ball's lawsuit sounds pretty interesting.  Against the writer of a letter to the editor and the newspaper that printed it.  (as opposed to letting the paper become bird cage linings and forgotten).  But there's a lot about that on a slightly difficult website called smogblog--difficult just because so many people have put so much into it.  (and I need to get up around 6 AM tomorrow.  I hate having to get up at a given time)

Somebody somewhere talks about Pascal's not really a "proof" of the existence of God.  Basically if we guess wrong, and there is no god, it may well be a no harm no foul situation (don't ask my athiest acquaintances to believe that!).  On the other hand, if we guess wrong, declare that there is no god, and the old man with the white beard comes back and does everything that conservative believers think he will do, then we're in great big trouble.  Found it: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/zerofootprint_r.php

Much easier to assume that climate change is real and plan accordingly.  This could have positive effects.  Although our lives would be very different.

There was a fascinating interview in Grist magazine with the man who popularized, if not coined, the phrase "death tax."  Well worth reading.

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/01/31/luntz/index.html?source=weekly

[Sassy]

Being pro-active & doing your part to reduce the impact you make on the environment is a good thing - preparing for possibilities is a good thing... and getting away from the intense urbanization is a good thing...

But then

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/zerofootprint_r.php RD: Technology is trusted to do a lot of the basic surface operational risk and methodology. How do you measure the information risk of the bank and how much capital you should put towards it? If you're HSBC and your headquarters are in London, how much capital do you need to support the fact that an office might be taken out? I really think that these things are hard to quantify. If you think about the cost of SARS to our economy, it was really high and I don't think you would have been able to forecast that. There were two little planes hitting two towers in New York and it did small numbers by Baghdad's standards --

THD: -- and it cost a trillion dollars.

RD: We couldn't have forecast that either. Forecasting doesn't work. Risk management and resilience do

unfortunately makes me suspect of the whole premise...

Why aren't people talking more about the weather manipulation that has been going on since the 1950's?  Why aren't people talking more about HAARP & the superheating of the ionosphere with a billion watts of microwaves?  

And then you look at the real intentions that the UN's Agenda 21 - to place people in highly urbanized locations & to make most of the world's land inaccessible to most of society... take a look at the Santa Cruz site I posted Liberty Garden
http://www.libertygarden.com/documents/LG_private-property.pdf & The Future of Food

I've only seen the trailer for "An Inconvenient Truth" so can't really judge whether what Al Gore shows is truth or more political hype - you see, I don't trust politicians too much...  :-/ So, like with most things, I have to play the devils advocate until I get through all the propaganda & see some truth...

It's just like with 9/11 - so many questions unanswered, in fact, totally ignored by the political "leaders" on all sides, except for a few.   There's no mention by these same "leaders" about weather manipulation, chemtrails, HAARP...  I guess that's why I like Ron Paul - he has dared to question 9/11, the Iraq war, weather manipulation, the Patriot Act, etc etc.   Most of the others are still in a "popularity" contest - haven't ever progressed past highschool...  :-/

[Amanda_931]

Resilience in that context means being able to withstand a calamity.

So that the old "for want of a nail" doesn't come true for the whole world--"for want of a fuse....the whole electric grid in the US went down for three weeks" type thing.

these guys say that the earliest written version was before 1400, somebody else cites Benjamin Franklin (who probably put it in Poor Richard's Almanac)  http://www.rhymes.org.uk/for_want_of_a_nail.htm

For want of a nail - rhyme

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Resilience also means that we don't have to regret not taking a moderatly simple action that would have saved--or helped save--a way of life because we were for instance soooo sure that technology would cure all, or there weren't any problems that could land us in trouble.

[Sassy]

Just like the boyscout motto... "Be prepared"... that's what we've been doing -  & being informed is part of being prepared, IMHO...

Here's an article from the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegetarian-is-the-new-pri_b_39014.html

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

[Amanda_931]

I tend to think that I'm like the kid (under 20, I think) working for me just now.  When asked what he eats, he replied "food."  The two people working with me right now are both pretty easy to cook for--or with.

But in general when I do cook, it's often vegetarian, frequently vegan (no eggs or dairy).  And like it.  And recently, I've been cooking a lot.

There have been exceptions, of course.  A no-bean chili with sausage and beef and turkey.  Or the cold and damp night I made chile con queso right off the Rotel can--complete with a whole pound of Velveeta cheese, took it to a potluck known for people who are seriously picky about what they eat.  (Atkins is good.  Don't combine fruits and vegetables in one meal.  Ovo-lacto vegetarian, who does eat fish.  Fish are inedible.  Chicken is a vegetable.  Peanut allergy.  A couple of supertasters--spicy foods?--why are you trying to kill us? Non-drinkers.  Home-made beer and wine are wonderful, and science says, soooo good for you.  Go deeper and it doesn't get any better.)  Even the less sensitive of the supertasters, and someone who believes--probably correctly--that a serious health food regimen has saved his life--were scarfing it down--and he'd watched me make it.

Seriously, I think that Frances Moore Lappe made the point--IIRC in the first edition of Diet for a Small Planet, a long long time ago--that one of the biggest users of water in California was farmers growing alfalfa to feed cows.  Water was already an issue in California and other western states, but we hadn't done much if any thinking about eating local, or global warming (in fact I think that the fear--still could happen--was that parts of the globe were going to get colder).

[Sassy]

Yep, I'm the same way - either am eating organic, mostly fruits, veggies & whole grains or chicken & barbecued steak... & then at times (more often than I'd like) I just feel like eating junk - I'll never be a purist when it comes to food.  Now, that Velveeta cheese - Glenn said "it's nice to know that other people think that Velveeta is cheese, also   )

But getting back to the article - there's so many variables that go into the global warming  - don't think I could completely go vegetarian.   And just watched the video "Who Killed the Electric Car?"  What a shame...  :-/

[jraabe]

It's amazing how much energy goes into the food chain. Calculate what human and machine effort went into a package of fozen vegetables that I toughtlessly take out of the freezer and throw in the microwave.... I don't know but I'll bet it takes more energy than an ancient farmer used working his land for a whole year.

I wonder sometimes if someone coming into an American kitchen from 300 years ago would even recognize most of the stuff we eat as food?

Back then everyone had to live on locally grown organic food. They called it FOOD!

No Cheeze Whiz and not even frozen peas from California! Now we have to work really hard to get locally grown organic food. We call it NATURAL. It almost makes me want to grow my own! (If I only had the ENERGY).

[MountainDon]

It almost makes me want to grow my own! (If I only had the ENERGY).

We used to grow a lot of our own vegetables back home (in Canada). Beans, peas, corn, assorted squash, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, and so on. It took a lot of work. It did taste real good and we froze the freezables for winter use. Here in NM where we are it is much more work, requires much more water, and is not worth it. I guess that proves we were never meant to live in the desert.

[glenn-k]

You would be surprised what drip irrigation on a simple timer can do for you.