Table of Contents
Summary (below)
Chapter 1: Forestry Math
Chapter 2: Tree Plantations
Chapter 3: Biomass Energy
Chapter 4: Green Colonialism
Chapter 5: Green Technology
Chapter 6: Carbon Miscounting
Chapter 7: Climate Fairytales
Chapter 8: Environmental Fairytales
Chapter 9: Global Desertification
Chapter 10: Holistic Management
Chapter 11: Abundant Landscapes
Chapter 12: Abundant Gardens
Chapter 13: Natural Health
Chapter 14: Natural Patterns
Summary
This book exposes the startling realities of the environmental movement, the barrage of ecofascism behind the virtue signaling facade, and the propaganda to salvage slavery and neocolonialism into the 21st century. We identify poor land stewardship as the root of our environmental crises in doing so, and we put solutions in front that communities can implement from the bottom up.
We begin by looking into the biomass industry, which is a continuation of business as usual with a bit of virtue signaling and a lot of environmental destruction. The wood pellet industry gives us a window into forestry math, which is a framework rooted in economics and dubious assumptions that treats forests like carbon warehouses with stocks and flows. This allows the forestry industry to sweep land stewardship practices under the rug, and keep their associated harvest cycles and carbon ramifications out of sight. We then turn to tree plantations to get a sense of what the details on the ground look like, and find a host of land grabbing, environmental degradation and oppression, and shameless greenwashing. A probe into biomass energy then leads us to address the industry’s merits. We shed light on the lavish subsidies and the use of technologies to capture and sequester carbon. We touch on how fossil fuel interests could rebrand themselves as climate saviors while profiting from carbon sequestration, and on how plants could do the job better and more cheaply by piping the output of smokestacks into biofuel plantations.
Carbon bio-sequestration also leads us to nature-based solutions and the rabbit hole of egregious greenwashing that is associated with it. We describe how carbon offsets are a sophisticated indulgence peddling scheme operated by financiers. These amount to a green tithe that benefit wealthy landowners or subsidize commercial operations: tree planting efforts are often teak or palm oil plantations, and conservation efforts are often safari tourism and big game hunting operations that double as a protection racket to not develop reserves. That leads us to green colonialism. We go through the egregious racism behind conservation efforts, the nonsensical idea of needing to protect nature, and the way conservancies steal land under the guise of protecting nature while letting corporations in through the back door to develop it. In particular miners in the name of producing green energy technology. This brings us to the realities of mining and green tech and the associated greenwashing. We poke holes at the implausible science that is being used to justify green tech and the laughably out of touch logistical realities.
This barrage of greenwashing, ecofascism, and propaganda prompts us to then take a cold hard look at the carbon emissions associated with biomass energy. We raise that carbon emissions reports are awash with greenwashing and forestry math, and resort to tallying the emissions ourselves. Computing the carbon emissions tied to burning the wood pellets is straightforward enough, but this provides an incomplete picture. International carbon accounting rules sweep land-based emissions under the rug by separating them from other emissions like energy and using forestry math to gloss over the details. Since we compute part of the land-based emissions already, we might as well compute the rest. In particular those tied to soil damage. We introduce the biology needed to understand what is going on below ground.
Computing an estimate of the soil emissions tied to biomass energy leads us to expose an accounting chicanery at the root of the climate change narrative. Not only do soil emissions tied to forestry compare with those tied to burning the associated waste as biomass for energy, but the same forestry research also shows that they are avoidable. This leads us to take a cold hard look at the fossil fuel explanation of the carbon hockey stick. We shred it to pieces and expose it as scientific propaganda. The actual story seems to be about retaining control of global supply chains in the face of looming oil scarcity, which is an actual problem that makes a complete mockery of the fossil fuel narrative. We then propose a counter-explanation. Essentially, loggers and farmers began to clear forests, tear down hedges to make way for tractors, and otherwise create wide open spaces in the industrial era. Perennial plants like trees are no longer around to prevent erosion from water runoffs, break the wind to keep carbon dioxide around after tilling and harvesting, and soak up the latter.
We continue by exposing other environmental narratives as misguided fear mongering. The extinction crisis hinges on a focus on form instead of function, and falls apart when you remark that we could simply manage our landscapes (and species) better. The fire hazard is chiefly tied to poor road infrastructure design that funnels moisture downhill and less than stellar forestry practices. The flood and drought hazards are tied to poor water harvesting practices. They could be resolved together by using earthworks to rehydrate our landscapes by harvesting more water. They also tie into the fact that the more soil carbon you have, the more soil water retention you get, and with that the less water runoffs and the less water evaporation.
That leads us to discuss climate change itself. We propose to relegate carbon as an indicator of topsoil loss and global desertification, and put water vapor tied to lower soil water retention in the driver seat where it belongs. This leads us to explore a few hypotheses that could help explain the recent warming and influx of water vapor in the atmosphere. One possibility is that aircrafts are spraying chemicals in our skies. This is unlikely to be a direct cause, but it is still worth raising nonetheless because it might be fueling unusual weather like droughts and floods. A more likely one is that agrotoxins like glyphosate might be damaging soils enough to affect water retention. Another is the way international trade agreements are driving subsistence farmers in developing countries out of business and replacing them with commercial crop plantations, with food autonomy ramifications. Yet another is the regulatory barriers that get in the way of growing food in urban settings in developed countries, which also has food autonomy ramifications. A last one that we consider is the destruction of carbon rich peat soils following deforestation in tropical countries.
This environmental destruction is avoidable, so we then turn to ways to regenerate our landscapes. We discuss the authoritarian nature of modern land stewardship practices and propose switching to holistic management methods. One key idea is to design our landscapes so that elements serve more than one function for other elements. Another key idea is to design around minimizing input and waste instead of maximizing output. We sketch out what applying these concepts would look like in practice, and illustrate this with regenerative grazing in an agroforestry setting. The latter allows to run twice more cows per surface than traditional grazing, with extra yields from birds, fruits, nuts, timber, fiber, and fuel, while building soil instead of destroying it. We then bring up that the focus on maximizing output is driving economic inequality and (debt/wage) slavery in modern societies, and that modern food supply chains are driving modern energy use. Promoting food autonomy would eliminate the bulk of each of these problems.
We then focus on putting solutions in front of our environmental conundrums. We do so with an eye on communities implementing them from the bottom-up, without disrupting existing operations so much that major changes or top-down incentives are needed. This leads us to propose alley cropping on contour. It is a way to reintroduce perennials that nurture soil life, harvest water, add yields and fertility, prevent erosion, break the wind, soak up soil emissions, and provide habitat for beneficials. Adding soil cover to nurture soil life and prevent water evaporation would be the logical improvement from there. Cover cropping is a good way to get the needed mulch. It is also possible to grow crops in a living mulch like clover to not depend so much on fossil fuel for nitrogen. We could take landscape regeneration further still by using earthworks to harvest more water. From there we could use syntropic farming to quickly establish urban food forests, and seed pellets to scale planting forests elsewhere. In principle this could rehydrate our landscapes fast enough that communities could operate run-on-the-river hydropower and grow algae for biofuel in aquatic ecosystems everywhere.
Food autonomy of towns and cities is the next point that gets our attention. A garden can be an incredibly productive and abundant environment, because it allows to do away with farming practices like merciless weeding or row cropping and make optimal use of succession planting. We touch on using passive solar greenhouses to extend the growing season. We bring up how a rocket mass heater can keep it (or a home) warm using stick wood or less conventional fuels. We highlight ways to use less space by growing in three dimensions, and less time with lazy gardening and do-nothing gardening methods. We briefly introduce aquaponics and wicking beds to get proteins and nitrogen for even more yield. This leads us to discuss the use of ponds, natural swimming pools, and natural sewage treatment. We also highlight hydraulic systems that can be used to pump water, create artificial streams, and oxygenate artificial pools using water (and gravity) as the sole input.
We then turn to the objections that authoritarians raise about regenerative agriculture as a climate solution. We poke at their misconceptions about fertility, sketch out how soil fertility actually works, and expand on how it ties into plant health. We give pointers on making home-made amendments to provide plants with extra nutrients or deal with pests. We discuss animal health, which works in the same way, and highlight a few common-sense ways to stay healthy. This leads us to the effects of stress on health. In particular, stress related to toxic people. That leads us to discuss the nature of authority, which underpins this toxicity, and ways to lawfully resist an authority that is trying to enforce nonsensical diktats.
We wrap up by touching on how this ties into cognition, language, and reality. We highlight the instrumental role that focus plays in cognition. Focus underpins the symbols in our minds, the heuristics that we use to reason by extension, and our very consciousness when we distinguish ourselves from our context. Nature itself seems to be all about symbols communicating with one another. This prompts us to suggest that nature has no laws, and is instead language. We propose ways to test this idea. One touches on artificial intelligence. Another touches on physics. The last one touches on spirituality.
We conclude on hopeful notes about our environment, and less hopeful ones about energy and food shortages. The environmental problems are fixable and quickly at that, so there is little to be worried about. The looming but still avoidable energy and hunger crises are more preoccupying. Consider building a rocket mass heater in your home for next winter, so you don’t depend as much on fossil fuel for heating, cooking, and hot water. Also, consider participating in local food growing efforts to build food autonomy, so we collectively have more food to distribute this winter. Most importantly, spread the word and share this document. We are all collectively safer when those around us are safe too. Lastly, consider joining indigenous peoples and small farmers in their fight to stop the WWF’s 30x30 plan, which is set to become the largest land theft in history. Coordinate with indigenous rights groups and nodealfornature.org to that end.