by Paul J. von Hartmann | Feb 7, 2020
“For a long time I have been concerned with . . . how our main economic measures failed to take into account environmental degradation and resource depletion. If . . . growth is not sustainable because we are destroying the environment . . . our statistics should warn us. But because GDP [Gross Domestic Product] didn’t include resource depletion and environmental degradation, we typically get an excessively rosy picture.” ~ Joseph E Stiglitz
Humanity has failed to realistically assess the long-term, functional importance of integrated natural systems. Bingeing on environmental toxins, mankind has been ignoring the laws of nature in order to make more money for the past 100 years. Moral detachment from responsible respect for nature; the quality of life on Earth for future generations is a corporate afterthought, typically dismissed as being too costly for meaningful concern.
It would cost trillions of dollars for our largest industries to be environmentally responsible. Accounting for clean air, unpolluted water and uncontaminated soil would make several major industries unprofitable or obsolete. “Political reality” serves the cult of toxic industrialism, supplanting ancient traditions of stewardship for the Earth. Future generations have been forgotten in the cypher of progress, abandoned in pursuit of immediate profit at any cost.
‘Inherently unsustainable’
Over time, chemical industrialism has proven to be inherently unsustainable. After decades of poisoning Earth’s atmosphere, water, air and soil, we are finally forced to admit we are facing extinction. Foundering in chemical and radioactive waste, we can no longer ignore or deny that fundamental changes must happen, now.
Motivated by GDP and industry’s insatiable desire to control unevenly distributed, toxic energy resources, radical disintegration of the natural order is leading to global extinction. Ignoring the primary importance of nature’s integrated systems, mankind continues to consume toxins with little or no regard for the predictable result. Humanity is in the initial stages of systems disintegration right now. The point at which irreversible systemic collapse becomes unavoidable will be reached in our lifetimes, if it hasn’t been already.
The good news
The good news is that cannabis hemp agriculture offers several unique and essential properties, necessary for repairing Earth’s systemic equilibrium. Most importantly, hemp is the most efficient, globally distributed crop there is, for turning sunlight into usable energy.
So-called “unquantifiable externalities” are the immeasurable, priceless things we can’t hang a price tag on. Quality of life, pure air, clean water and rich soil are universally valued, mostly in an abstract, often spiritual sense, but not in a corporate, numerical way. Since they can’t be assigned a number value, unquantifiables are routinely left out of the resource exploitation equation. Inevitably, the real price of industrial profit is eventually paid by people and animals downstream, geographically and chronologically. Generations that follow ours are heading toward degenerative health, a degraded environment, and violent collapse of the human social order, unless we act in a time-efficient, globally coordinated campaign of organic, non-GMO agriculture, immediately.
The spring planting season of 2020 is precious beyond measure. We don’t know how many growing seasons we have left before “cascading systems failures” and “non-linear extinction level events” become irreversible. (2) Indicator-species populations have been crashing for decades. Yet humans continue to consume toxic, gaiacidal resources degrading Earth’s environment, as though there were no alternatives. There are many things that can be done to heal the planet; but, there is only one plant possessing all of the properties necessary for doing everything that needs to be done, in the time we may have left to make a difference.
Repairing & healing
Cannabis hemp is uniquely qualified to replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Hemp can simultaneously repair Earth’s atmosphere, feed the world, end economic disparity, expand the arable base, and purify the hydrologic cycle. At the same time, Cannabis can heal our bodies and calm our minds.
A crop so useful and beneficial sounds too good to be true, making it especially difficult to talk about after eight decades of “drug war” propaganda. Whether our species is capable of making the requisite shift in value from “illegal” to essential remains to be seen.
The so-called “political reality” we’re presently slugging our way through can be characterized as “Cannabis is valuable but, (despite decades of gold standard science to the contrary) THC is still “dangerous” enough to require government oversight and regulation.” Because the lies of “Reefer Madness” persist, the scale of production is being suppressed, and availability is being constricted.
As awareness grows about the unique and essential environmental services of Cannabis, a truly free market will eventually evolve infrastructural changes, in response to the influence of clean, inexpensive, hemp-based fuels. The most time efficient, globally distributed and cost-effective means of providing energy to billions of people, while healing the Earth, is in the stalk of the hemp plant.
Since Cannabis is the only crop that produces complete nutrition and sustainable biofuels from the same harvest, food security, nutrition and herbal therapeutic availability are vastly improved. The cellulose-rich stalks can be harvested and bio-digested to produce hydrogen, powering electrical generation. The seeds and leaves offer proteins, amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll and more.
‘Pioneer’ crop
Expansion of the arable base using a non-invasive “pioneer” crop that produces complete nutrition for man and animals; and sustainable energy, as it heals the air, water and soil, is essential in order to increase the carrying capacity of this planet. Unless this is done soon, population displacement and species extinction will continue to get worse.
All nations must coordinate a global agricultural campaign, repurposing their military forces from armies to farmers. The mission is to plant cannabis in every soil and climate condition to which it may be able to adapt. That would be the most logical way to achieve balanced atmospheric conditions, and essential resource distribution in the shortest span of time possible.
Whether mankind is capable of achieving the requisite polar shift in Cannabis value, from “illegal” to essential, will determine whether or not our children and grandchildren will survive on Earth, beyond the 21st century.
by HempingtonPost | Jan 22, 2020
Arizona’s budding hemp-growing industry is suffering growing pains as levels of THC that are too high force some farmers to destroy crops instead of harvesting them.
About 41% of the Arizona hemp plants tested for THC, the compound that gives marijuana its high, have failed, according to the Arizona Department of Agriculture’s Plant Services Division, which oversees the program.
Growers in other states around the country have had issues managing the THC content of hemp plants, with crops in Hawaii and Nebraska also testing too high, but not as much as in Arizona’s early months, the Arizona Republic reported.
Arizona began issuing hemp-growing licenses to farmers in 2019 and harvesting started later that year.
When lawmakers considered legalizing hemp growing, supporters predicted that the plant use to create CBD oil, rope and other products would an economic boon.
But growers face a challenge in managing crops because the hemp must be destroyed, not harvested, if the THC level is too high.
“At 40%, that’s off the charts,” Sully Sullivan, executive director of the Hemp Industry Trade Association of Arizona, said of the state’s THC findings. “I’m taken aback by that. That’s substantial.”
A Plant Services Division official official had a milder assessment.
“The failure rate is not unexpected based on anecdotal information from around the country regarding variable seed quality and genetic expression, for THC content, between the varieties planted,” Associate Director John Caravetta said in an email.
Arizona farmers began having the agriculture department test their hemp plants’s for THC levels before harvesting started in late 2019.
Dustin Shill, head farmer for Arizona Hemp Supply Co. which has 40 acres (16 hectares) in Yuma, said although his plants haven’t yet been tested by the department, he’s paid for weekly independent testing. His last batch of 10 tests cost $12,000.
“It’s a high-risk deal,” Shill said. “Right now, it’s just a shot in the dark really. It’s crazy.”
Not spending the money to test is too risky, he said, even though testing costs reduces profits.
“But if you don’t spend that money and go into it blind, you’re just rolling the dice. You got to know when to harvest,” Shill said.
“The THC and CBD go hand-in-hand,” he said. “When it’s going up, THC is going up, so it’s a fine line to determine when it’s ready.”
Ryan Treacy, founder and CEO of an Arizona lab that tests cannabis and hemp, said several factors may contribute to failed tests.
Treacy said that just because a seed for a plant worked in another part of the country does not mean it will adapt well to Arizona’s hot and dry climate.
“Stressed plants do crazy things,” he said, adding that the new environment may contribute to a plant having a higher THC level.
The state’s testing process could be another factor.
Despite the early issues, Shill said he is confident Arizona eventually will be one of the best places to grow hemp in the country.
“Arizona is going to dominate this,” Shill said. “It’s just once we get it all figured out.”
This story first appeared at 420 Intel
by HempingtonPost | Jan 16, 2020
As marijuana becomes legal across the country, a select few companies have come to dominate the market with some bad business practices. But Willie Nelson is trying to stop them.
Thirty-five years ago, as Willie was playing his music at Live Aid, a benefit concert for those affected by the famine in Ethiopia, he had the idea for a benefit concert that supports local farmers.
But Bob Geldof, the organizer of Live Aid at the time, thought that his proposal was a “crass, stupid, and nationalistic” conflation of the two issues. As Willie listened to him downplay the importance of farmers affected by a drought, bankruptcy, and a corporate takeover of the industry, it only solidified his desire to start his own concert, thus Farm Aid was born.
In their first year, Farm Aid included artists such as Johnny Cash and B.B. King and raised over $9 million for down-and-out American farmers.
“We were losing like 300 farmers a week” to suicide, Nelson recalls. “[But] things are a little better now. People have started thinking about buying and growing sustainably.”
Since Farm Aid began, a paradigm shift has occurred. People are now talking about sustainable agriculture, permaculture, and organic food, and the likes of Big Tobacco, Big Agriculture, and Big Biotech have become stains on American identity.
Willie Nelson was as much a player in this cultural shift as anybody, but he knows that the battle isn’t over yet. In recent years, Willie has set his sights on something very near and dear to him, marijuana.
As a life-long marijuana smoker, Willie Nelson has a deep concern about the way that cannabis is grown and distributed. Out of this passion for weed came the start-up company Willies Reserve, a company started by Willie and investor Andrew Davison that seeks to bring social responsibility into the pot market.
“I really believe in the environmental aspect of this. It’s a great way to revitalize small farms, and I want to make sure that any product we grow is as clean as we can make it and that, wherever possible, we’re trying to lower the environmental impact of our operations.’” – Andrew Davidson on Willie Nelson’s response to his proposal.
The legalization movement was founded on the values of justice, liberty, and health. Many people, often disproportionately black, have been thrown in jail for victimless crimes relating to cannabis. Although marijuana is now legal to smoke in many places, it is not always legal to grow or sell. In order to do so, you must get a medical permit, or a cannabis business license respectively, in which the government is handing out very few.
“It looks a lot like the concentration of capital that we have seen with Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco. I think that’s problematic for cannabis-law reformers, because it plays into our opposition’s strongest argument.” – Alison Holcomb, drafter of the original cannabis legalization law in Washington State
Big Pot has also begun using harmful pesticides, none of which cannabis activists and consumers ever desired to smoke. Prior to legalization, black market growers typically would not use any pesticides because the quantity of plants tended to be low.
“But when you’re investing millions of dollars in a large cultivation center, you can bet they are not going to take the risk of their crop getting wiped out by mold or mildew or insects.” – Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Oddly enough, there are no chemicals approved for use on the cannabis plant. This tends to mean however, that companies are using whichever chemicals they want without much oversight. These chemicals include Avid, Floramite, myclobutanil, and imidacloprid, which professor of entomology at Colorado State University Whitney Cranshaw claims actually develops more mites on the plants.
To make matters worse, labels such as “clean” and “natural” have a striking resemblance to the Big Food term “all natural,” in that there are few regulatory requirements resulting in meaningless labeling used solely to market products as less dangerous than they actually are.
Although Willie Nelson has recently announced his retirement as a weed smoker, he is still in charge of his company and is rumored to take edibles frequently. However, he has stated before that he “[doesn’t] like edibles that much.”
“I had a bad experience the first time I did it. This was 50 years ago. I ate a bunch of cookies, and I lay there all night thinking the flesh was falling off my bones.” – Willie Nelson
Willie’s Reserve empowers local farmers by allowing them the Willie Nelson branding in exchange for particular rules they must follow, such as restrictions on pesticide use and that they must be small companies. This ensures quality weed and empowers small businesses seeking to compete with the big names like Privateer Holdings and Diego Pellicer.
“They [consumers] want to know where the product comes from, they want to know it’s clean and cared for, they want to know it was local grown and that it has a connection to their community.” – Andrew Davidson
Willie has another enemy in the pot industry, GMO Marijuana. In one of the biggest moves to consolidate power in the cannabis industry to date, Bayer and Monsanto are maneuvering to take over the cannabis industry with genetically modified strains, which you can only grow if you have a license from the company.
“These problems could have been fixed on the first day, but you have a lot of bureaucracy and bullshit, a lot of big corporations. So that’s what we’re up against. They’re trying to monopolize it all. That’s horseshit. That ain’t right, and we’ll do everything we can to keep that from happening.” – Willie Nelson
Phillip Schneider is 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.
by HempingtonPost | Jan 13, 2020
This story is originally from RXLeaf.com
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.
National Geographic reports that plastic kills millions of marine and land animals every year. Experts have found that we are all consuming microplastics. The effects of these microplastics in the food supply may cause damage to our digestive and reproductive systems and eventually lead to an early death.
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 now legal in Australia, 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 once hailed the 1907 innovation of synthetic plastic as a solution to a wide range of problems. However, it has now become an unmanageable problem in and of 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 hemp plastic.
However, because 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 this 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!
Written By: Vishal Vivek. This originally appeared at PSBiz.net.
by HempingtonPost | Dec 14, 2019
United States regulators say hemp businesses should not be treated with any more suspicion than other bank customers.
The number of banks in the United States willing to lend to hemp producers can be counted on one hand. That is about to change.
Federal and state bank regulators announced Tuesday that they were scrapping a burdensome requirement that banks said kept them away from the hemp business. Banks will no longer have to treat their hemp customers as suspicious and file reams of paperwork to anti-money-laundering authorities for each interaction.
The change could provide a major boost to a niche product that began its own legalization process last year.
“Banking has been an ongoing problem,” said Erica McBride Stark, the executive director of the National Hemp Association, a trade group for growers. “So this actually should be quite helpful.”
Hemp products are made from the same plants that produce marijuana, but they are cultivated to have far less tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that produces a “high” when ingested. The plants’ stalks can be woven into fabric and their seeds processed into oils used in food, but they cannot be made into drugs.
Even so, federal law long considered hemp to be as forbidden as cocaine and heroin. But with the legalization of marijuana spreading across the country — 33 states have legalized the drug for medical use and 11 states will allow sales for recreational use by January — lawmakers in Washington decided to do away with the designation for its milder sibling.
Last year Congress legalized hemp as a crop and directed the Agriculture Department to start regulating hemp production. It took the agency almost a year to devise rules for the industry, but once they were released, on Oct. 31, bank regulators prepared to take action. Tuesday’s statement, from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Company and other state and federal regulators, informs banks that they can now treat hemp producers like other customers, as long as the companies can prove they’re following licensing requirements.
The restrictions on the industry had held back even Ms. Stark’s organization, a nonprofit that does not actually produce hemp. The trade group had problems getting basic services because banks were worried that it could be receiving proceeds from a crime when it collected its members’ dues.
The Agriculture Department rule change on its own did not help. “They understood that hemp was removed from the federal Controlled Substances Act but because of the paperwork that was involved, a lot of them were just like, yeah, it’s just not worth it,” she said.
Rob Nichols, the president of the American Bankers Association, a trade group, said his members had been pushing for the change for some time.
Last month, the association surveyed 1,800 agriculture-focused banks in the country and found that almost half had gotten questions from their farmer-customers about whether they would still do business with them if they started growing hemp.
“We appreciate the steps regulators have taken today to clarify regulatory expectations for banks, and we look forward to working with them as they develop additional guidance,” Mr. Nichols said.
While the change will help businesses making clothes and other hemp products, it does not affect the legal marijuana businesses dealing with the same problems. The federal government still considers marijuana to be illegal, and even local banks have been too worried about getting in trouble to deal with them.
But banks large and small have come together to support a bill in Congress, the SAFE Banking Act, that would legalize marijuana banking by stipulating that the proceeds of a state-sanctioned marijuana business would not be considered illegal under federal anti-money-laundering laws.
The House of Representatives passed a version of the bill, and the banking industry is pushing the Senate to take it up. If it were to become law, it would let banks dive into a lucrative new industry that has been plagued by security concerns and is desperate for even the most basic services, like checking accounts and credit card processing.
Even though banks have been slow to embrace the cannabis industry, investors have been geared up to profit from it. Analysts tracking publicly traded companies have added pot producers to their portfolios, in order to help investors decide where best to maximize their exposure to the industry. Ultrarich venture capitalists have begun to treat pot businesses like tech start-ups.
Banks have been the buzzkills. When Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize marijuana two years ago, American banks warned their Uruguayan counterparts that they would cut them off if they provided services to pharmacies selling the drug. Banks in Canada, where marijuana has been legal for the past year, are still worried about doing business with pot producers in case it causes them problems south of the border.
Still, it wasn’t clear on Tuesday that the change to hemp regulations would immediately influence bankers’ attitudes. Bankers will still have to study up on the complicated licensing requirements that states and the Agriculture Department have devised for hemp growers.
In the meantime, hemp growers’ hopes might still be dashed. Ms. Stark said she had heard Wells Fargo was considering offering banking services to hemp businesses, but a Wells Fargo spokesman said the bank was taking no such steps.
This story first appeared at The New York Times.
Emily Flitter covers banking and Wall Street. Before joining The Times in 2017, she spent eight years at Reuters, writing about politics, financial crimes and the environment. @FlitterOnFraud
