I've been thinking about all the things that are going on around us, and a
lot of those things bother me. There's tons of debate about whether or not
the greenhouse effect is in fact happening, but most of the facts point to
yes. We're obviously running out of fossil fuels. The US economy is in
decline. Our forests are getting cut down all over the world every day for
pulp to make paper, etc. And it doesn't seem like anybody cares. That is,
the people that do don't really have the pull to make things happen, and the
people that can make things happen are making too much money ruining our
planet.
The twist is that the solution to almost all our problems has been around
for hundreds of years. Just imagine for a moment if there were an annually
renewable resource that could provide the overall majority of the world's
paper and textiles, meet all the world's transportation, industrial and home
energy needs, and simultaneously reduce pollution, rebuild the soil and
clean the atmosphere. Now stop imagining, cause there is.
The preceding was paraphrased from a book my father recently turned me on
to, titled "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" ISBN 1-878125-02-8
The book is a thoroughly researched summary of the history of cannabis
through the centuries. I know what you're thinking to yourself now...
'great, someone else trying to push to legalize pot' but I've only read a
few chapters in so far, and I've been amazed by the uses of hemp.
According to this, if only 6% of the entire US (hemp will grow successfully
in ALL 50 states) were used to produce hemp, only as an energy crop, it
would be able to produce 75 quadrillion billion (75 x 10^24) BTUs.
Because hemp isn't a fossil fuel, while it's growing it will be converting
all the CO2 that is a result of burning fuel back into O2 (fossil fuels
create co2 from burning, but never create any o2 being dead fossilized
minerals)
<continued>
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~Jon
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