STEP NUMBER 1 TO REVERSING GLOBAL WARMING
We are all in this together – We can’t fight a problem unless we understand the problem. Awareness is the most important step in solving global warming. The tremendous consequences of not taking action and the realization we can actually solve this problem hopefully will spear people to take action.
We are all in this together and only together can we reverse the devastating trajectory we are on. We have a president elect who does not believe in global warming. This will make solving the problem more difficult. Those of us who understand must band together and rise up to the task. The future of our children and the next generation is at stake. We all need to do our part if we are going to reverse global warming. The problem we face is education. The people who inhabit our earth must understand the dire consequences global warming will create. We need to make changes to reverse this disastrous trend.
Mother Nature is a great teacher. Her language is universal and can be understood by everyone on earth. If we learn her ways we will learn the right way. I am a horticulturist who has grown plants for all of my life. I know how powerful nature’s voice is. I witness the miracles that she performs every day. From a tiny seed emerges the most beautiful inspiring flower. From an acorn grows the mighty oak and from the earth springs forth all of our food and the food our livestock, eat. We need to have nature as our ambassador to influence others so they will understand and take action. Her influence is universal. We need to preserve this beautiful earth for she is the source of all that we have. How we do this is the knot we must untangle. What I am sure of is that we have to find a way or face extinction.
There needs to be a combined effort. There are many ways to control global warming that may be beyond our control but there is one thing that all gardeners can do to help reduce global warming. We can garden organically. If we garden organically we can take the carbon out of the air and if we all do it we can reverse global warming. We need to change the way we farm, the way we garden and the way we think. The politicians have their own agenda and keep adding more carbon into the air. They do not make its priority to address the most important problem our world faces. We need to create an organic movement by the people of the earth to take carbon out of the air. Only if like-minded people rise to this task will we get it done.
It is important to look back into history and my generation’s transition into the chemical world. Before World War II we all gardened the organic way. Gardeners all had their special formulas adding a certain organic amendment which they felt led to their great success. Back then we were not faced with global warming. Vegetable gardens as well as flower gardens were the pride of the true gardeners. A running friend of mine had a grandfather who was born in Italy and lived several doors down the road from him in the Throgsneck section in Bronx, New York. As a kid he would take his bike and ride down to his Grandpa’s house and help him in his garden. This is where he developed his love for gardening. His Grandpa owned a small house with a small plot of land. On every inch of his ground was the most fantastic vegetable garden in the neighborhood. .Grandpa would brag about his tasty tomatoes, his delicious sweet red strawberries, his sweet corn, his huge cucumbers and his delicious potatoes. He would brag about the 0rganic amendments that he added to his soil which made him such a successful gardener. His vegetables were known to be tasty and nutrient rich. He collected manure at local stables, made his own rich compost and collected leaf mold from the surrounding woods. He knew that the quality of his crops came from the richness of his soil. ‘It is rich organic soil that makes the difference’ he would tell his grandson. He would ask him “did you ever see such a beautiful crop? Did you ever taste something so delicious?
My running friend planted grass in the front of his house and he proudly took care of it as a kid. It was one of the best lawns on the street. When his grandfather came over to visit he would yell “Are you guys crazy planting grass in the front of your house’ when you could be using this land to plant vegetables? What good is grass? All it does is costs you money while vegetables save you money”. In the old days gardeners would exchange their organic secretes while boasting of their accomplishments. Their best knowledge came from other gardeners. Today we are in the technological informational world and we seek our instant answers from our I phones instead of the gut feelings of working the soil in our gardens.
So what went wrong and created this cultural change? After World War II things changed in this country. The organic world disappeared and chemical technology took over. The seeds were sown set a long time ago. It was Abe Lincoln who, unbeknown to him planted the first seed in 1862 by setting up Federal and state funds to develop land grant institutions. The law authorized federal government to deed land to states for agriculture colleges most of which are now Universities. He formed the Department of Agriculture. What he set up was a path for professors, chemical suppliers and agricultural marketers to manipulate and control nature.
Abe Lincoln was a down to earth man who loved the earth and would have turned over in his grave if he had known the direction this action was going to take. He wanted to further organic farming for that was the only farming he knew. Once man thinks he is more powerful than nature he is going to lose the battle. Once man thinks he can control nature he has underestimated nature. Nature is powerful and has been around a lot longer than any of us. Nature has set up a system for us to follow. We can help it and enhance it but we can’t control it.
The Agricultural colleges in conjunction with the department of Agriculture decided we could solve the world hunger problem using cheap chemical fertilizers. Chemical companies had stock piles of chemical fertilizers left over from bomb making factories after World War II. As chemical fertilizers dominated and saturated the fertilizer market the chemical companies became very rich. They influenced the learning in our Agricultural colleges by paying for grants and stipends to prove the merit of their product. Scientific results proved their product’s worth and they received the backing of The Department of Agriculture and our great Agricultural Universities of which almost every state had one. The teaching process was based on these findings and the learning of the thousands of college students attending these universities was based on a chemical approach, mechanization, profit and manipulation of nature. All of these were in play while the preservation of our earth was being put at risk. Once man considers himself superior to nature he goes down a road where he will lose.
Our present way of thinking is the result of false teachings. We have unfortunately been brainwashed. Proof of how this way of thinking has influenced everything we do can be seen in many related professions. In the medical profession wonder drugs are usually chemical formulations created by large pharmaceutical companies to cure all of our ailments. They end up being prescribed by our doctors. This is where the money is and thus where the action is.
These products are advertised by rich chemical companies which have “statistically proven” the value of their product. Our thinking is formed product advertisements, corporate and college studies and testing procedures. I am not addressing any specific product what I am addressing is a culture that we are embracing. We revere our Doctors and the great education they received. I personally believe our medical profession should concentrate its resources on prevention rather than cures. If we prevent sickness we don’t have to cure it. I found if you grow healthy plants they are not prone to insect, disease or fungus problems. Plants and nature have taught me how to live my life.
The media, the informational world we live in has blinded us to many truths. We believe in everything they tell us. We love our professors and our land grant Universities. But we need to question the accuracy of their findings. There are always two sides to a story and we need to understand both to come up with a proper decision. Only when you finally have become part of the organic revolution will you understand nature’s side. We just have to look at what has happened to our food chain and the resulting poor health in our country. When you understand the natural way, you will look at things differently.
When I think about this tainted informational dilemma we face I always go back to my college days at Cornell where I went to learn Horticulture. I took turf management from Dr. Cornman, a very popular professor at Cornell. He took us to the turf fields and showed us experiments that proved that a high nitrogen fertilizer was the most beneficial for grass growth. He then discovered that chemical formulations that used higher nitrogen grew better grass. He was heralded in many publications for his great findings and the superior formulations that he developed for improved turf growth. His students were very proud of him. He was able to make great strides in our industry. The chemical companies paid him for the grant to perform these tests. The rich chemical companies got richer by publicizing these findings to the world and created a greater market for their product. These results resulted in better turf management practices. Everyone loved and admired Professor Dr. Cornman.
I was taught at a great land grant college how to grow great homeowner lawns. I, in turn, felt obligated to help my customers grow great lawns. I admired and loved Dr. Cornman and I was an advocate of his teachings and passed them on to my customers. After all, a beautiful lawn was a place where children could play, a dog could romp and one could navigate to other places in the yard. I brainwashed my customers the way my college professors brainwashed me. This is precisely the hand me down cultural problem our country faces
I became a great advocate of the famous 4 step chemical program which I now deplore. The heralded program is to apply a chemical pre-emergent for crabgrass control when the Forsythia is in bloom. A high nitrogen chemical fertilizer to get the grass off to a quick start in the spring, a chemical weed killer to kill emerging weeds in the spring. A chemical weed killer to kill existing weeds. A chemical insecticide to kill grubs, sod webworms and chinch bugs and a chemical fungicide to control fungus. I was encouraging home owners to pour chemical after chemical into their soils killing our food web and the microbes that work for us day and night in our soil. These programs worked and grew beautiful lawns. Home Gardeners followed these programs and billed their customers weekly. This is the thinking that prevails in today’s society of how to grow a great lawn. But what does it do to our environment?
I was never taught the organic way or nature’s way to grow a beautiful lawn. Never once was there a mention in my studies of all of the toxic substances we were adding to our soils or of the tremendous health consequences they were creating for us, our children or our animals. I was never taught how we could encourage a deep root system that could stand up better to drought. I was never taught how to grow an organic lawn which could become a superior lawn to a chemical lawn. Our learning institutions are influenced by profits of the big chemical companies. We focused on cures instead of prevention. This is the world most of us believe in because this is what we are taught to believe in.
I grew up in a greenhouse operation that my father built and started. He was one of the top growers of his time. He learned his trade in Germany studying in Dresden, the flower capital of the world. He learned his trade when the organic approach was the only approach. He learned the strength of any plant was in the soil it was grown in. Soil was the most important consideration in growing a healthy plant. This was a lesson my father never forgot and he always insisted on mixing his own soil even though the industry suggested peat-lite soil mixes were the way to go. He took great pride in blending together a great recipe of organics to grow his plants in. Our customers saw the great plants he grew and wanted to purchase the soil he grew them in. So we had to hand package it. People who used it had great success and spread the word and people would travel great distances to purchase my father’s great soil. They would ask him what he put into it and he would reply everything but the kitchen sink.
My father was taught the organic way to grow plants. After learning his trade he immigrated to this country from Germany to find a better life. He loved the USA and the opportunities it afforded him. In 1944 he had saved up enough money by working 2 jobs to buy a small greenhouse operation in Scarsdale New York. He worked hard 7 days a week to build up a large greenhouse and Garden Center operation. At the time there were a lot of greenhouse and Garden Center operations all making a good living in the area. Cooperative extension was the educational arm of the New York state land grant Agricultural University. In New York it was Cornell University but each state had its own Land grant Agricultural University and had a similar set up.
Cornell offered short courses to educate the Agricultural community. Cooperative extension signed up growers to attend these courses and set up bus transportation to take them to Cornell University where they could be educated in the latest growing methods and informed of the latest experiments and test findings. The nice part was it brought together local growers who spent a week together developing a comraderie relationship. My father just like many of the other growers was a European immigrant who wanted to become part of the American dream and its educational system. This unfortunately was another way our land grant colleges encouraged the chemical growing methods instituted by our Agricultural colleges. This was another way our society became brainwashed to following programs that would add to global warming. My father was trained the organic way and became a proponent of the chemical way. My father taught me most of what I know but here he taught me wrong.
I bring you these examples for this is the learning curve that I was subjected to. This is the learning curve that all of us in Agriculture were subjected to after World War II. Had we all followed an organic approach we could have slowed down or reversed global warming. I went to an agricultural college to get a good education. I think thousands of students had similar experiences. They went out in leadership positions and taught thousands of others the wrong way. We need to understand a problem if we are going to fix a problem. We need to understand the ramifications when we go against Mother Nature.
I switched to an organic approach because of what youth and nature taught me. Every Friday night I would zip up into my large rubberized suit, my long rubber gloves, my deep Rubber boots and my protective masks to spray our large range of greenhouses. Every week there was always a problem cropping up that needed to be addressed. I kept insects and diseases under control but I came down with prostate cancer which the Doctors attributed to all the chemicals I had sprayed. My actions contributed to global warming. Once I switched to the organic approach I helped reduce global warming. I realized that by myself this was inconsequential to the overall effect. But if we could create awareness and get everyone to switch to the natural approach this would be tremendously beneficial. Despite man’s pollution of the air the earth could heal itself. This to me is one of the great discoveries of our time.
Rhodale Institute, today’s leader in the organic movement came up with some amazing research. The white paper they wrote was entitled ‘Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change’. A down to earth solution to Global Warming. The white paper states that “We could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term ‘regenerative organic agriculture.” Nature’s process is called photosynthesis utilizing CO2 and converting it into oxygen.
If we all get on the band wagon we can reverse global warming by letting nature do the work for us. Not only are large organic farms important but every homeowner’s property, our parks, our school grounds, our Golf courses and our cities and towns. Every piece of land can aid in reversing Global Warming if we follow an organic program. Keep chemical fertilizers, toxic herbicides, insecticides and fungicides out of our soils. Go organic and follow a natural approach in the fight to reverse global warming.
We must realize we are all in this together and only together can we make a difference. I am not sure how we get the word out but I know it is imperative that we do. I know switching to an organic approach is a simple switch homeowners can make. It is a more difficult switch that farmers have to make because they are so entrenched in the chemical way of farming. I am convinced it will have to be the pressure of the consuming public that will cause them to change.
This is step number one in the 12 Steps to Reverse Global Warming. Read on and join the movement.
