Michael Patrick McCarty, PO Box 514, Silt, Colorado 81652
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Food Freedom!
The Backyard Provider
A Journal of Honest Food, Freedom, and The Natural World
“Curious if you have had more contact with the enforcement officer.”
No. Only that one time.
I’ve another issue: The tomatoes I planted at the earliest opportunity, produced three tomatoes, then went dormant and would not even grow. Finally after two months of nothing, they’ve started to grow and one has put out a load of blossoms. I think it was the relentless heat, even though I kept them watered.
I would have to agree. Our gardens and trees struggled the entire summer, no matter how much water we put on them. It’s been quite a year, all things considered.
Nice to meet ya in Paonia
Nice to meet you too. Perhaps we can have another brew when we come back for a visit.
Food Freedom!
I have yet to see the code enforcement officer concerning anything more, since I have complied with the notice.
However, there is a forum I am a member of (Intertel) that has posted this recent article:
The Global Doomsayers’ Ever-Changing Story
JUNE 15, 2012
online.wsj.com
In Rio next week, we’ll again be told the Earth is on the verge of collapse? but for new reasons.
Part of the preamble to Agenda 21, the action plan that came out of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, reads: “We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.”
In the 20 years since, something embarrassing has happened: a sharp decrease in poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy and a marked reduction in these global disparities. The conference that begins next week in Rio de Janeiro, on the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit, will nonetheless remain resolutely pessimistic about the planet’s ecosystems and their capacity to support human beings indefinitely if economic growth continues. The reasoning has changed over time, however.
The original claim, based on the influential 1972 best seller “The Limits to Growth,” by the Club of Rome, was that resources would have begun to run out by now. Instead supplies of minerals have increased, thanks to ingenuity, technology and demand.
Later the emphasis shifted to humankind’s “ecological footprint,” which, it was claimed, was exceeding the planet’s carrying capacity. But this, too, took a blow when the most thorough assessment of the world’s ecology, by Helmut Haberl of the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, found that people and their domestic animals were eating or damaging just 23.8% of the vegetation growing on land, and that in richer parts of the world they were enhancing the productivity of the remaining vegetation by almost as much through irrigation and fertilizer.
The Riocrats now have a new tack, which will dominate next week’s discussion: planetary boundaries. An influential paper in 2009 written by Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm University and 28 colleagues argued that there are nine thresholds, crossing any of which will trigger collapse of the Earth’s life support systems: land-use change, loss of biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus levels, water use, ocean acidification, climate change, ozone depletion, aerosol loading and chemical pollution.
The trouble with this approach, according to a new report by Linus Blomqvist, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute in San Francisco, is that, for six of these measures, “there are no global tipping points beyond which these ecological processes will begin to function in fundamentally different ways. Hence the setting of boundaries for these mechanisms is an arbitrary exercise.”
A good example is land-use change. The Rockstrom paper suggested that if human beings convert 15% of the land surface of the Earth to cropland, the world will pass a tipping point, because as marginal land gets exhausted, a small increment in food demand would produce an accelerating increase in cultivation. Currently we cultivate about 11.7% of the land. Yet there is no evidence that anything special happens at 15%. In the words of Steve Bass of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, “If anything, the opposite has probably been more true: Converting land for farming and for industry has clearly delivered a great deal of well-being.”
Furthermore, the use of synthetic fertilizer has kept that percentage lower than it would otherwise have been. The independent scholar Indur Goklany argues that, “had global agricultural productivity been frozen at its 1961 level, then the world would have needed over 3,435 million hectares (Mha) of cropland rather than 1,541 Mha actually used to produce as much food as it did in 2002.” That saved an area about as large as is set aside for conservation.
The “boundaries” approach needs to incorporate the possibility that, thanks to technology, fossil fuels and minerals, people are already living more lightly on the land than we did in the past.
A version of this article appeared June 16, 2012, on page C4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Global Doomsayers’ Ever-Changing Story.
(PS, the “Jesus” statue in Rio has been painted green for the “green” conference there…
Yes, the taste of curly dock raw is somewhat tart, like its got some vitamin C in it, and I cooked up a pot of the leaves. I thought it was alright, but my wife came into the kitchen and said “What are you cooking?” and I saud “Why” and she said “Cause it smells awful!”
I ate it anyway.
Love your writing Mike. Its very entertaining plus oodles of good information. Please add me to your blog……Kathie
Hi Kathie,
Thanks for saying so. Miss Ya, Luv ya,
Mike and Seraina
Agenda 21 has come to my town. Code enforcement knocked on my door and told me that I cannot grow any more food in any area in the front of my house. The corn I grew on the south side against the street for the past 5 years (I live on a corner lot) I cannot grow there anymore. The garlic patch I have planted every year for the last 10 years has to go.
Hello Ralph,
I would like to hear more about this. Curious where you live, and what code they say you are violating.
I would say that most people are not aware of how this has been happening across the country.
From Thornton Colorado:
I have been a target of code enforcement due to a nasty (perfectionist) neighbor. Not only does he complain to the city about my property, but he participates in trashing my property; he throws his weeds, cut branches and barbeque ashes and cat litter and his pet feces over the fence into my yard. Nice guy huh? For the past two years, he trespassed and planted grass seed in my corn garden. (Try telling the difference between corn sprouts and new grass seedling?!?!
Anyway, the city code enforcer showed up this year. The only real offense I had was a dead volunteer sapling that died and I had to remove it. Adding to that the weeds (taller grass) growing along the fence/ I had mowed the yard and waited a few days to get the weeds done because I had to get my weed eater going. I needed gas and new line and a day off work. So the officer wrote up a “courtesy notice” to fix these two things and gave a deadline date. As this was being written up, the officer verbally stated that homeowners could not grow vegetable gardens in the front yard. only flower gardens or grass. Vegetables and food plants had to be either in the backyard or on the sides behind the front. She said this was a recently enacted code. I went online to the city code enforcement site and there was no such thing written (yet). I still have the garlic patch in the front, and if confronted by this new recent code as a violation again, I am going to inquire when this code was adopted and if it was this year, then I am going to plead the grandfather clause. Garlic, as all bulbs are, planted in the fall and some are two-year plants (the flowering type planted by seed). I also have grown garlic every year for the last ten years, (in the front yard). They will harvest near the fourth of July. Ironically, I have an APPLE tree (food) in the front, covering two-thirds of the front of the house. I also have giant sunflowers that are volunteers that sprout from seed dropped from last year. So I intend to plant more sunFLOWERS in the front and I will keep you posted if any more develops from all this. I’d also like to plant Curly Dock, since it grows wild around these parts, but the code enforement would probably call them weeds. The leaves are large and cook like spinach, or raw in salads.
Hello Ralph,
It is painful to hear this. I would like to see the ordinance on this. They like to bluff and obfuscate with half truths. Ask to see the code, in writing. That ususally stops them in their tracks, because they know that there is none.
Please keep us posted on further events. Also, have you eaten the curly dock before?
HA! When I found a nice specimen of Curly Dock at my son’s house, I picked the best leaves and took them home. A few days later, I washed them off and put them on to boil. The taste of the leves when raw is a bit of a sour or tart taste. After they were boiling a bit, my wife walked in to the kitchen and said: “What are you cooking?!?” asked: “Why?” She replied: “Because it smells terrible!” Well, I ate it anyway, and the flavor was similar to spinach, with a bit of tart flavor added. I finished the whole bunch, and I’m still alive to tell the story. I haven’t heard a word from Code enforcement since that last note. But I’ll keep yuo posted if I do. I’ve harvested a bowl full of red potatoes from the few plants that were dead and dying. Most of the larger ones are still growing. But the large ear indian cor I’ve planted seems to not have any ears. A few stalks have tassels, but no ears. Next to them are some Japanese Hulless popcorn and they have several ears. The three varieties of tomatoes are a complete loss. They are in the same place as before, which produced great tomatoes for 4 years, but this early summer was exceptionally warm/hot, and though I kept them watered they haven’t grown in size any amount to speak of. I’m trying a few last ditch efforts to fertilize, hopig there’s still time for some recovery.
Hello Ralph,
Hope you are well. Curious if you have had more contact with the enforcement officer.
Makes me sad that people can be so unconscious, but what I have learned from it all, is to try and be more conscious and push myself to forgive and move forward in a direction I may have missed. Thank you for your stories that I have read and more to come.
Keep looking that evil in the face and laugh. Spirit will prevail. Keep your heart thankful and forgiving. We are on your side.
After reading your blog and this site, I want to go to Peach Valley and live. Is there any opportunities for living and working in the area? I have been growing many different items, particularly gourmet popcorn for the last 4 years, non GMO of course. It is a yellow variety of strawberry popcorn. I also have flowering garlic every year, and tomatoes, potatoes and red giant beets.