The Earth’s resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. However, there is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living in an unsustainable fashion, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to return human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits. Therefor the Environmental Importance for HEMP and Climate Change is crucial!
In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development articulated what has now become a widely accepted definition of sustainability: “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” –Wikipedia
Crucial facts for CLIMATE CHANGE
HEMP IS THE ANSWER! Crucial facts for CLIMATE CHANGE
Hemp converts the sun’s energy via photosynthesis into multi-beneficial cellulose faster than any other plant. Hemp is at least four times richer in cellulose potential than the already legal sources, such as cornstalk and sugarcane, traditionally used for biomass production. Further, hemp is so low-moisture and woody that little to no energy is required to dry the crop prior to biomass conversion, which is not the case for other sources like sugarcane and maize.
According to the IPCC, while fossil-fuel combustion is the primary cause of greenhouse-gas emissions generated by humans (57 percent), deforestation comes in second, contributing almost one-fifth of climate-altering emissions in the form of increased CO2.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, 32 million acres of tropical rainforest have been cut down every year since 2000. The EDF notes that any realistic plan to reduce global warming has to preserve these rainforests, which absorb CO2 in the air and replace it with oxygen — just as cannabis does. If these rainforests are the lungs of the planet, then hemp can be seen as Earth’s oxygen tank.
Hemp is a suitable replacement for the wood derived from these forests because its fiber is more durable and can be recycled more frequently than wood fiber. Also, the plant’s roots penetrate a foot into the soil during the first six weeks of growth — and can ultimately extend down to eight feet — allowing the plant to withstand flooding. Hemp can also survive intermittent frosts reaching as low as 12°F. Hemp doesn’t require fertilizer or herbicides, and it enriches rather than depletes the soil via aeration through its deep roots.
The hardy and versatile hemp plant would naturally assimilate in forests and tree plantations, although this process would result in initial start-up costs for making the transition. But like every other front in the fight against global warming, it comes down to prioritizing the long-term sustainability of the planet over a shortsighted bottom line.
The various processes for converting hemp biomass into fuel are too numerous to be discussed in this article, but the most promising appears to be hydrolysis, because it can potentially yield 100 gallons per ton by converting cellulose into fermentable glucose. This means a single acre of hemp can theoretically produce ten tons — or 1,000 gallons of fuel — per growing season.
Hale the PLANTS!
The US Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency are all on record declaring the production of biodiesel and bioethanol as essential for addressing the environmental crisis caused by fossil fuels.
This is especially true since, one way or another, the days of fossil fuels are numbered. There will come a point in time when all fossil fuels have been depleted, despite being technically “renewable” because plant and animal materials create such fuels. Since the process takes millions of years, we are depleting known fossil-fuel reserves at a much faster rate than new ones are able to form, which means that workable alternative sources of energy must eventually be harnessed if we are to maintain our present car culture.
It replaces trees as the source of raw material for wood and paper, thereby conserving forests. Trees take years to grow, while a crop of hemp can be grown in a few months. One acre of hemp produces as much paper annually as 4 acres of trees.
When burning hemp as a fuel, carbon dioxide is released into the air, but this is absorbed by the next crop, which can be harvested 120 days after planting. This quick growth avoids the build-up of carbon dioxide. Also, hemp is a very leafy plant and thus contributes a high level of oxygen to the atmosphere during its growth; between 20 and 40%. This makes up for the loss of oxygen when it is burnt as a fuel, which in turn, reduces unwanted effects of global warming, acid rain and the depletion in the ozone layer on the environment.
Air pollution is reduced since hemp is naturally resistant to pests and does not need pesticides and herbicides to be sprayed. Very little fertilizers are required, since it’s abundant leaves fall into the soil and release the required nutrients and minerals, thereby creating better soil tilth. Cotton and flax are known to consume 50% of all pesticides; hemp replaces cotton as a raw material in the manufacturing of paper and cloth, and flax fiber or seed for animal feed, animal bedding and paper.
Soil enrichment: The hemp crop grows dense and vigorously. Sunlight cannot penetrate the plants to reach the ground, and this means the crop is normally free of weeds. Its deep roots use groundwater and reduce its salinity. Also, erosion of topsoil is limited, thereby reducing water pollution. The roots give nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil. After the harvest, this soil makes excellent compost amendments for other plants, and hemp cultivation can follow the rotation of agriculture with wheat or soybean. In fact, the same soil can be used to grow hemp for many years, without losing its high quality. The hemp plant absorbs toxic metals emitted by nuclear plants into the soil, such as copper, cadmium, lead and mercury.
Fabrics made of hemp do not have any chemical residue, and is therefore safe for consumers. Even if the fabric contains only 50% hemp, it can keep the UV rays of the sun from harming the skin underneath.
Hemp products can be recycled, reused and are 100% biodegradable. The growth speed of the plant is fast enough to meet the increasing industrial and commercial demand for these products. Switching to hemp products will help save the environment, leaving a cleaner and greener planet for the next generation.
The current state of Hemp does not seem to be focused on fiber. why?
Colorado is more closely associated with cannabis production, but it is also the leading producer of hemp. On the state level, hemp was legalized in Colorado back in 2012, so producers have had a huge headstart on the competition.
Kentucky has retaken its place as a major producer of hemp since the crop was legalized by state legislators in 2013. Before the change in federal law, there were over 200 licensed hemp growers in the state as well as 43 processors.
Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota and New York are other major producers of hemp. These states benefited from their legislators legalizing hemp years before the federal law changed.
Other agricultural states are almost certain to embrace hemp as a crop now that the crop is legal on the federal level.
For the first time in our life, we as a country and a society can have hope for a sustainable thriving future. We now have the ability to utilize our natural resources of HEMP, especially hemp for fiber. Side note here, Hemp fiber is used for industry so the level of THC is non-existent, it’s a non-issue. No one’s going to smoke a shoe, a house, even a piece of paper or hemp plastic. This is a big benefit to this industry, the regulation change, there’s no ingestion of the plant on any level. So again the question is why not grow hemp fiber?
Although they do not belong to any religious order, the Sisters of the Valley’s devotion is unquestionable. Also known as the “Weed Nuns”, these women are dedicated to growing cannabis and selling medicinal products derived from it.
Based in Merced (which means “mercy”, by the way), California, the organization has been working since 2015 and composed by women of all ages with a very clear goal: to share the medicinal benefits of cannabis and achieve its legalization. In addition, their end is to fight a medical system that has historically oppressed holistic medicine.
All their products are CBD based. CBD, unlike THC, is non-psychoactive so it has no effect on the mind, but it is a powerful pain reliever and myorelaxant. In recent years, crucial research has been conducted regarding the use of CBD to treat many conditions, such as epilepsy, cancer, arthritis, stress and depression, among others.
The Sisters of the Valley strictly abide by lunar cycles for their work, as they believe this increases the healing powers of the plant. According to them, the two weeks following the new moon are ideal for medicinal development. In fact, they even sell cheaper products that they have not been able to create within the corresponding cycle. Their products include oils, soaps, balms, topicals, tinctures, and more.
Not being nuns in the strict sense, they do not take Catholic vows, but they do have some of their own. Not to a religion or a god, but to a particular lifestyle. They are committed to providing services to suffering people, to living simply, and to respecting nature and moon cycles. They also include a vow of chastity, but clarify that this does not necessarily imply celibacy.
One of their most important pledges is the activism vow: the Sisters commit to spending several hours a week fighting for progressive causes in their communities. These causes are not limited to those related to marijuana; the Sisters also lend their voice to feminist and social equality struggles, among others.
This is not at all surprising considering that the organization’s founder, Sister Kate, has been an activist for a decade. In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture responded to Michelle Obama’s concerns about children’s health by declaring that pizza sauce could be considered a vegetable. Then, Christine Meeusen declared that “if pizza is a vegetable, then I am a nun”, and began to dress as such when assisting protests. She was part of the Occupy Movement in 2011 and earned the nickname “Sister Occupy.” Having left her job in the corporate world, she is now known as Sister Kate, and she continues to use the habit to emphasize her spiritual commitment to her activity. She has also stated that “we need a new kind of nun”, as the archaic model no longer works.
Sister Kate and her partner, Sister Darcy, aim to create “spiritual and honorable jobs for women.” The only requirements are a strong social and ecological commitment, and the desire to live and work as a community. After working there two years, women can choose to become Sisters and take the vows. Of the current members, only one has a background in the Catholic Church.
An Ancient Calling
Their way of life has often been compared to that of the Beguines. In fact, they were a great source of inspiration for the Weed Nuns. The Beguines were groups of Christian women that emerged in the 12th century. They engaged in charitable activities, worked independently, and owned land. They also produced literary material, took no vows and were allowed to leave the association whenever they chose to.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, their medicinal practices and their rejection of the Catholic Church caused many to be persecuted and even burned at the stake. The Sisters of the Valley cannot escape this comparison: they know that their rituals, their mission and way of life would have condemned them to fire a couple of hundred years ago. This is why they place so much emphasis on social struggles and applaud the growing cultural and gender diversity in the cannabis arena.
Photo by Shaughn and John. Follow them on Instagram.
Could industrial hemp be part of the future of battery powered vehicles? Fresh research into the efficacy of hemp batteries says yes.
There is indeed precedent for this. An iteration of Henry Ford’s original Model T was partially composed of hemp ‘bioplastic’ and powered by hemp biofuel. In 1941 Ford presented what should have been a groundbreaking invention: a car powered by and largely built by hemp.In 1941, Popular Mechanics described Ford’s work as “ a step toward materialization of Henry Ford’s belief that someday he would “grow automobiles from the soil.”
Now, with battery-powered vehicles beginning to supplant those that use combustion engines, researchers are constantly looking for sustainable and efficient ways to create battery power.
Late last year, research demonstrated that hemp batteries can be more powerful than commonly used lithium and graphene. Researcher and popular YouTuber Robert Murray Smith discusses the experiment at length in a recent video.
He began by observing a Volts by Amps curve of both the lithium and hemp batteries. Much to his surprise, the power beneath the hemp cell 31 times greater than that of the lithium cell. The use of hemp in batteries is not new. In 2014, researchers in the US discovered that unused fibers from hemp can be converted into “ultrafast” batteries that are “better than graphene.” Dr. David Mitlin of Clarkson University, New York led this experiment into hemp tech. Scientists ‘cooked’ waste bark fibers of hemp and transformed them into ‘carbon nanosheets.’
This process has since been dubbed ‘hydrothermal synthesis.’ Subsequently, the team was about to transform fibers into high volume capacitors. Such ‘supercapacitors’ have represented a paradigm shift in the way energy is stored.
“With banana peels, you can turn them into a dense block of carbon – we call it pseudo-graphite – and that’s great for sodium ion batteries,” Mitlin explained. “But if you look at hemp fibre its structure is the opposite – it makes sheets with high surface area – and that’s very conducive to supercapacitors.”
A peer-reviewed paper ranks the capacitors “on par with or better than commercial graphene-based devices.”
A team of students in Morocco have successfully developed an environmentally sustainable home made almost exclusively from hemp and solar panels.
The building was erected as an entry into the SUNIMPLANT project’s ‘Solar Decathlon’, a competition organized by the United States Department of Energy and Morocco’s Centre de recherche en Energie solaire et Energies nouvelles to encourage construction of solar-powered buildings.
This design is unique and was built from only locally sourced hemp, vegetable-based bio-resins, and other non-synthetic materials found in the region.
“This ‘spaceship’ is advanced in time and reflects a turn not only in North Africa but in hemp construction, which doesn’t have comparable prototypes anywhere in the world.” — Monika Brümmer, German Architect and Project Leader
Monika is also the co-founder of Adrar Nouh, a Spain-based NGO with a focus on using hemp to build environmentally sustainable homes in Morocco’s poor and rural High Rif region.
The spherical home spans 90 square meters (approximately 969 square feet) and features 24 photovoltaic solar panels with a total price tag of only $120,000. The structure actually costs less than half of the most expensive entries in the competition.
According to Brümmer, the building could be optimized even further if hemp-clay boards were installed as internal partitioning walls and floors. Although funding restrictions did partially obstruct their original goal, the home features some interesting innovations such as hemp wool-derived panels which protect the underside of the solar panels against extreme weather conditions, an important inclusion for a region which reaches up to 114°F in the shade during August and September.
Other contestants included students from Morocco’s National School of Architecture and National School of Applied Sciences and the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics, located in Germany.
Monika’s building offers the opportunity of an entirely off-grid experience, unencumbered by the need for outside electricity while maintaining the comfort of a modern lifestyle.
“The cylindrical envelope of the circular building, with minimal exposure of the 24 exterior panels, gives interior comfort through optimal damping and thermal phase shift, and osmosis of the components in the hempcrete formulation,” said Monika Brümmer, as reported by Hemp Today.
Demand for hemp-based building materials has been high lately, especially as more people learn that ‘hempcrete’ can replace traditional fiberglass, sheetrock, and drywall and offers superior temperature control, flame resistance, and noise reduction.
The product also has the potential to be carbon-neutral, but US-based growers tend to focus on growing hemp for CBD and other compounds instead of hempcrete, which requires taller and more fibrous hemp stalks.
Despite technical difficulties, this Moroccan ‘hemp house’ shows the world that environmentally sustainable construction is possible.
Phillip Schneideris a student as well as a staff writer and assistant editor for Waking Times. If you would like to see more of his work, you can visit his website, or follow him on the free speech social network Minds.
Hemp and Honey Bees are two of the most popular social topics in the world right now – and why shouldn’t they bee? They’re two of the most powerful contributors to better overall human health and happiness.
CBD from Hemp provides seemingly endless potential to human health with its neuroprotective and anti-oxidant qualities. Honey bees provide some of the most potent immune-boosting byproducts, including raw honey, bees wax, and propolis, each contributing anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory benefits. Combining CBD and Honey just makes sense!
On top of all benefits to our physiological health, Cannabis and honey bees also contribute to a more sustainable world. As we currently face alarming rates of toxic emissions from fossil fuels and chemical and nuclear plants, the world needs some help keeping itself clean.
Honey bees and Cannabis provide two of the answers.
Hemp helps rid the world of harmful toxins, soaking up heavy metals from soils and encouraging ecological proliferation. According to smithsonianmag.com, “Over the years, bees, honey and wax have been tested for fluoride, lead, zinc, nickel and potassium; more complicated molecules like naphthalene (a toxic compound derived from coal tar, and also the main ingredient in mothballs); even radioactive compounds like cesium, tritium and plutonium.” Honey bees help rid the world of toxins and are responsible for 1/3 of the food we find so irresistible. Certainly, together, they make any location they co-inhabit a better place to live. They also provide all the essential nutrients humans beings need to survive.
We need them both.
But do they need each other?
In order to understand what potential synergy might exist between them, we need to better understand their truest natures, independent of each other.
Bees need to feed
As Cannabis plants feed off of a specific combination of sunlight, water and soil nutrients, bees seek out their own specific formula from nature. Inside the hive, larvae and queens feed off of pollen, densely packed with important amino acids, while worker bees feed off of nectar, rich in carbohydrates.
Bees will fly up to 5 miles in search of pollen and look for flowers producing the largest repeatable quantities of nectar. Nectar comes from male and female plants which require the assistance of insect pollinators. The male plant first offers a minibar of delicious nectar to the bees, free of charge, teasing them with a small sampling of the goods. Once the feast has begun, female plants offer up to 3 times the amount of nectar as the males, luring the bees with the male pollen to their flowers, completing a successful reproductive cycle.
Cannabis plants reproduce by way of wind pollination and have no need to produce nectar, making them less attractive to the honey bees when other flowering plants are more available. That’s not to say that male Cannabis plants and their pollen don’t help the honey bees. Whitney Cranshaw, a professor of entomology at CSU’s Department of Bioagricultural Science and Pest Management, said “While hemp pollen is collected by bees, it is unlikely that there is any benefits to hemp from bee pollination. The benefits is that it is a good source, present in late summer, that can be an important resource for bees when alternative pollen resources are not available.”
In order to have a sustainable amount of pollen to feed the bees, the field would need to be dominated by males. If as a farmer, your goal is to capitalize on byproducts of male plants including seeds and fibers, your Cannabis plants can be a highly beneficial food source for the bees. More studies will have to be conducted to see if any data appears suggesting the bees help in the propagation of the hemp.
Arranging a Marriage
If Cannabis doesn’t have the natural honey bee draw of other plants, is it possible to get cannabinoids naturally into the honey. The short answer, not naturally.
There are several ways to “trick” the honey bee into landing on a female Hemp plants, which are rich in cannabinoids. Once the bees have landed on the female flowers, they’ll stick to the cannabinoid-rich trichomes.
How do you trick a bee?
Spray your female buds with a sugar water as similar to the fructose/glucose profile of nectar, which will entice the bees to land.
Use bees to pollinate indoor grows (e.g. Greenhouse grows), which traps the bees inside and forces them to land on female Cannabis plants.
These two methods result in bees picking up the cannabinoid-rich resins on their hairy bodies. There are preliminary studies showing that these resins that have stuck to their bodies have made it into the propolis, an anti-microbial wax sealant that bees create for use in their walls.
In conclusion, there is no evidence that honey bees will naturally produce CBD Honey by putting hives in near proximity to hemp varietals. The Hemp produces beneficial pollen which can be a supplemental food source to the bees during food scarcity and the bees can use the Cannabis resins to produce propolis. Here are some more questions with answers still to be determined:
Could honey bees minimize the pollen drift between hemp and marijuana fields for marijuana growers trying to prevent genetic cross-contamination?
Bees are known to increase fruit and seed production for other species of plants like strawberries and squash. Will there be an increase to hemp seed set and yield through biological pollination?
The current rate of plastic production is about one billion tons in three years. That is what a 2016 article in ScienceDaily says, quoting a University of Leicester study. Plastic is inert and hard to degrade. So it becomes a toxic techno-waste that has severe polluting effects on the earth’s biodiversity
A National Geographic report says that plastic kills millions of marine and land animals every year. Experts have found out that all species to have eaten microplastic – from small shrimps to big elephants. The effects vary from damaging the digestive and reproductive systems to death.
But Mother Nature has provided a simple solution to this menace: the hemp plant.
Hemp: A Victim of Human Folly
Hemp, or industrial hemp, is one of the earliest plants that our ancestors cultivated and used. Archeologists have found evidence of the use of hemp fiber some 10,000 years ago. Experts estimate that hemp cultivation began about 8000 years ago.
The many benefits of hemp have been available to human beings for centuries. But its cultivation and use were banned in most countries across the globe in the 20th century. The only crime of the plant is that it belongs to the same species, Cannabis Sativa, as marijuana.
But there is a significant distinction between hemp and marijuana. That is in the concentration levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component that gives marijuana its psychoactive properties. Marijuana can contain up to 30% of THC per dry weight.
Hemp, in contrast, contains 0.3% THC per dry weight. It does not have the psychoactive potential to get people high. Hemp got banned because this vital difference got overlooked.
The 21st century has, at last, brought a realization of this mistake. Many countries across the globe have now legalized hemp farming and the production of hemp derivatives fully or partially.
With the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Farm Bill 2018), hemp is now legal across the USA. It is also legal in the EU countries as long as the THC content is 0.2%. It is legal in Canada and several other European and South American countries.
In Asia, China is the biggest grower and supplier of hemp Seed and hemp products across the globe. China also has the longest history of continued hemp production for almost 6000 years.
Hemp against Plastic
People had hailed the 1907 innovation called synthetic plastic as a solution to a wide range of problems. It has now become an unmanageable problem itself. But we do not need any technological innovation to counter it. The hemp plant offers a ready solution.
Hemp fiber can produce a non-toxic and fully biodegradable substitute for plastic. Natural plastic derived from the cellulose fibers in plants has been in use since much before the current petrochemical-based synthetic plastic was invented.
The cellulose fiber in plants is used for producing several varieties of biodegradable plastic. Hemp has about 65-70% cellulose, which makes it a viable plant for natural plastic production.
Henry Ford produced the original Model T Ford in 1941 using hemp plastic panels. This plastic was 10 times stronger than steel in withstanding the impact of a hit without denting.
Substituting synthetic plastic with 100% biodegradable hemp plastic will be a blessing for our environment. Apart from being eco-friendly, hemp is also sustainable.
Why is Hemp Sustainable?
Hemp is sustainable for a variety of reasons. Apart from being a natural source of non-toxic biodegradable plastic, the hemp plant helps in topsoil conservation. Farmers use hemp as an in-between crop to keep their soil fertile.
Hemp cultivation needs 50% less water than cotton. Hemp is totally free from pesticides because it is naturally insect resistant. It is also easy to grow hemp plants organically.
Hemp is a source of paper more efficient than other trees currently used for paper production. One acre of hemp can produce four times more paper than an acre of trees. Incidentally, the first paper ever used was in China, and it was hemp paper.
Hemp is also a source of biofuel. If we use a biofuel derived from hemp, our transportation fuel will be 86% greener than gasoline. It is not for nothing that Henry Ford designed his first Model T hemp plastic car to run on hemp biofuel.
Hemp Plastic and the Chinese Plastic Pollution Riddle
This is an obvious question. If hemp plastic is such an eco-friendly product, why does China still contribute 30% of global plastic pollution? China is the global leader in producing and exporting hemp and its products. It truly seems inexplicable.
But the answer is rather simple, as it happens. First of all, much of China’s plastic pollution is because the country was importing plastic waste from many European countries. China believed that it has solved the recycling problem of single-use plastic. The country started making products out of such plastic.
But the products proved to be below international standards. China had to stop making them. It also banned the import of plastic waste from European countries in 2016. But the aftermath of its import policy is still far from over.
Secondly, because of the long-term ban on hemp and its products in much of the world, hemp plastic is only just beginning to find its way into public consciousness. As of now, hemp plastic is far more expensive than the kind of cheap single-use plastic the world has become used to.
This is another barrier. Global commitment to end plastic pollution is not high enough to make hemp plastic commercially viable immediately. China is not an exception in this. Only a strong global political will to ban single-use plastic within national boundaries will facilitate the uptake of the more expensive hemp plastic.
If world leaders can actually make a concerted move, planet earth will benefit in a number of ways.
The Many Benefits of Hemp
Hemp seeds are highly nutritious and constitute a source of complete plant-based protein. The omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acid content of hemp seeds is precisely the right proportion (1:3) that the human body needs. Hemp seeds are ideal for vegans as no other plant-based protein is so complete.
Dehulled or unshelled hemp seeds are also rich in fiber. Hulled or shelled hemp seeds lack in fiber content. But even hulled hemp seeds are high in nutrition value. These seeds are also extremely versatile, usable in several ways – cooked or raw.
Hemp seed oil is also equally nutritious with a high content of good fats and a low content of the harmful ones. Cold-pressed hemp seed oil preserves the goodness of the oil in its entirety. Like the seeds, the oil derived from hemp seeds is also versatile.
Hemp seed oil is edible and can be taken by itself or as a salad dressing. It is also good for cooking, except for deep frying. Topical use of hemp seed oil can improve hair and skin health. It also has anti-inflammatory properties.
The cannabinoids (CBD) derived from hemp buds, flowers, leaves, and stems have much medicinal potential. CBD oil is particularly good for arthritis. Healthcare professionals have also used it with success to manage anxiety and sleep disorders.
Hemp stalks yield fibers that can be processed into fabric for clothing. Hemp fiber is also used for making ropes and sails. All of these products have natural antibacterial and antifungal properties. Incidentally, canvas used to be made of hemp fabric.
Finally, hemp can also be used as a building material. There are amazing benefits attached to this use as well. This easy to grow plant seems to provide an environmentally sustainable solution to many problems we’ve created for ourselves!
