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Episode-1408- Listener Feedback for 8-19-14 — 51 Comments

  1. Can’t wait to listen! Wife just chased down the tree guys on the road for 2 dump trucks of cedar mulch.

  2. Welcome back from West Virginia.

    Very few would fault you if, for the next couple months, you took off one day a week from TSP to answer questions from the permaculture class – and then brought the pain the other four days out of the week.

  3. BEST…Feedback Show…TO DATE!!!! LOL As always, good information mixed in with common sence applications and preaching to the choir on about 90% of opinion (for me, anyway). However, the best parts of your shows are when you go off on a rant and/or make verbal descriptions of machinery. Today’s time line of printing machine noises were top notch funny! Literally laughed out loud and almost choked on my salad….

  4. Conflicted Monday response: If I’m down to my last firearm things have went very, very wrong for my family and I’d definitely be questioning myself on how it came to this.

    Since I’m out of food in the scenario, I can assume that there are few, if any, animals to hunt with the firearm. I could try and rob the people with the food but I have a feeling that karma would soon find me.

    I would try and trade the firearm for some food and some sort of fishing/trapping supplies so that I could at least try to feed my family for a little while longer.

  5. I’ve been enjoying TSP for a few years and joined the MSB a little bit back. To take advantage of one of the more underrated advantages of the MSB, I have been working forward from the very first episode.

    You mentioned today that you brought up global cooling in episode 138 “What if climate change means global cooling?” You actually first brought it up in Episode 13 (Jul 10, 2008) “The Individual Benefits of Green Energy” at the 2:20 mark.

    You said, “We have leading climatologists out there, folks, that say that we are ending a warming period as we speak and we are gonna go into a global cooling period again like we had in the 70’s. Not because of smog, not because of man, and not because of carbon or methane; but because the sun is changing its activity pattern and that is what it has done for the 4 billion+ years it’s been around. That’s what it going to continue to do and we have little effect on the direct climate change. I happen to believe that.

    It wasn’t a whole episode on the subject like ep 138, but just wanted to mention that you were right even earlier than you even said!

    • I bought a docking station off NewEgg the other day too with BitCoin. Really the key is PayPal when they integrate with BitCoin it will explode.

  6. Either the trip to the farm, or the six hours in the Admiral’s club–maybe a combination of the two–must have had an invigorating effect on you. You were in rare form in the show… And I’m only halfway through it.

    Coming from Austin, I’m tempted to say bring on the cooling! I realize systems of this mass and energy don’t quite turn on a dime, so when are we actually going to FEEL this change if it’s already started. I don’t remember the actual number, but last year we had about a hundred days over a hundred degreesF here. 20 years ago, it seems like the triple digit days were significantly fewer. Either that, or I was just significantly more heat tolerant in my college days.

    • When you look at this full decade compared to the last decade the current one is about one degree on average cooler. Now one degree doesn’t sound like much BUT it is the half the number UP that the global warming cult is freaking out about. Again this is an average. Not to mention this has been about the most mild summer in a long time across much of the US. We didn’t have any 100 degree days until August this year in north Texas, we usually get one or two at least in May, certainly a good amount in June and many in July.

      How about last years winter?

      Yes it has begun, when will it get here? This question is a product of a microwave society that thinks such things are highly noticeable and with sudden on set. What is currently being forecasted is a trend with major in impacts hitting us in about 10-15 years. With maximum impact in the early 2030s and the full time in a major cooling cycle of about 30 years, so you are looking at most of the impact from 2024-2054 again with the biggest peak in the 30s.

      Now will this happen this exact way? I don’t know but yes cooling has begun, but again warming and cooling have been SO HYPED that people don’t get what they mean. It simply means averages that are higher or lower then what we consider “normal”.

      Just remember back in 2008 when I started stating this we were told by 2012 THERE WOULD BE NO ICE SHEET IN THE NORTHERN POLE REGION AT ALL IN SUMMER MONTHS AND IT MIGHT NOT EVEN REFREEZE IN WINTER IF WE DIDN’T ACT NOW!

      The arctic ice sheet is currently larger than it has been in decades. So yea, um there is that. I encourage everyone to watch this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c4XPVPJwBY

    • Awesome video link
      my take…when fascistic governments control settled science you get 97% of the lemmings running over the cliff. Permaculture NOT government is the answer. After watching that I think I will want to propagate a few more black locust seedlings or root cuttings. If the solar science is true the high BTU firewood will prove valuable…worse case I still get nitrogen fixing fence posts that provide excellent chop and drop mulch and/or nectar for awesome honey. The folly of Al Gore and the like will become more and more evident as time goes on.

  7. Jack- I might disagree with you about how much man influences climate change; but you are spot on the money about preparing for possible changes in climate in which ever direction, and however they may be caused.

    The mass-media global warming/cooling argument…. is folks arguing about what brand of truck is careering out-of-control towards them, instead of trying to figure out how to get out of it’s way……
    Either way, folks are making money out of the debate and climate of fear.

  8. Great show Jack, as always. Even where I work in the higher end of the mechanical design world I’ve seen lots of people replaced by “robots”. These are now in the 3D design software we use and I’ve designed some of them myself. Projects that used to take hundreds of man hours of calculations and the actual drafting work can now be done literally in seconds on the fly as I design. Adapt or become obsolete. http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

  9. Conflicted Monday response:
    If I am down to my last firearm then things have gone seriously wrong and I have made some bad decisions up to this point! This situation sounds like a worst case scenario and I am going to answer honestly. At this point my number one priority has solely become the survival of my family and every decision must be based on if it will improve or hurt the survivability of my family. Trading my last firearm for food is not going to work, it may give me a small amount of food for a short time, but thats it. Who is to say that once the trade is complete these people are not going to shoot my family and take the food back? Honestly if I am looking at my family knowing they are going to die if I do not do something to save them I am not going to rob the other family, I am going to shoot them, take their food and anything else they have of value, and possibly use them for food as well. This may sound awful and its not what I would want to do, but it is the best possible option to keep my family alive.

  10. Jack,
    FYI the “Back Yard Food Production” link goes to an expired domain. Thanks for all you do.

    • Ward – Did you see also the article on using dandelion root extract as a natural rubber replacement for tires? More mono-cropping to come, I’m sure, but at least they are looking at non-mainstream plants…

  11. It was the first I heard of Dark Winter or John Casey…. And I know you are not necessarily a proponent of all his ideas based on the show. But when you looked into his ideas, does he believe the Earth is already cooling, or will be cooling soon? I’m under the impression that it is warming currently (but am skeptical of my own impressions of course).

    Just wondering… Great Show!

  12. Jack,

    Is there a eastern red cedar that is invasive that is different than a juniper? I live in southeastern Oklahoma about an hour and a half from okc., and we have red cedars exploding everywhere. I cut down hundreds from my 30 acres about five years ago. The reason I am wondering if it’s a different tree is that you said the juniper coppices rapidly . These trees don’t coppice at all. Actually if you cut them flush to the ground you don’t worry about them much at all.

    Thanks !

    Rich

    • This is the problem with using common names, the “Eastern Red Cedar” isn’t a cedar, it is a juniper, it is Juniperus virginiana look it up.

      • We have the eastern red cedar (juniperus virginiana) here in Missouri also. You are correct that it is not tecnically a cedar it is a member of the cypress family which gives them rot resistant qualities.

        We use the cut trees for fence posts on the farm and I have cut tons of them. I personally have never had one coppace. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but I have yet to experience it.

    • I’m originally from eastern Oklahoma and we had lots of those as well. If memory serves me well, then I’d have to agree with you. Once they’re cut down, they’re done with.

  13. I actually struggle imagining a situation, barring some borderline scifi wholescale environmental destruction, that would leave me truly unable to provide at least life-sustaining amounts of food for my family.

    But, yes, IF there is truly no game, and IF my livestock has died off, and IF I can not grow food or our crops were lost and IF there was no one else who would take literally almost anything else in exchange for food then yes suppose I would trade the weapon for food to keep my family from starving.

    • See the problem there is Oz is just going to make its folks use bitcoin like cash.

  14. Conflicted Monday answer.

    Obviously, my family is doing poorly — no food, one firearm (I’m assuming some ammo) and nothing else of value to most people. What we’re doing is not working. Time to drastically change course.

    I’d offer to trade myself and my family instead of the gun. Yes, more or less offer to be a hired gun or low-wage workers. This might even involve marrying an attractive daughter off to some “chief”. Unpleasant and disturbing? Yes. But better than the alternatives, which are “starve tomorrow” or “starve today.”

  15. I’m standing in the orchard watering new trees by hand for hours today, catching up on podcasts when the printing press sound effect starts up. By the time you were doing the dot matrix printer noises, tears were rolling down my face I was laughing so hard. Thank you for lightening up a tedious morning.

  16. Your McDonald’s discussion brought back some old memories from when I used to work there as a kid. The evening rush after school and morning rush on the weekends was hard, mindless work but it taught me a lot. My buddy from school and I worked together and we were quickly running the place – literally. They made him a “manager” at 16 which was against corp policy but we were the best they had (I was only grabbing hours here and there to get the cash, I couldn’t stomach managing that place). The nights and I “managed”, it was like the McDonald’s you found on your way up to your place in Arkansas – the food was on a different level, service was awesome and everyone way happy. We did it by allowing people to have their dignity and not treating them like they were scum the way the daytime managers did. In all honesty though, if I ever opened up a McDonald’s, the first thing I would ask for is automated kiosks and fry machines.

  17. hey Hey HEY!
    That guy wasn’t a wwoofer! He was a visitor, and I thought he came with you!

      • The “Wwoofer” that was complaining about Hillary becoming President. That wasn’t a wwoofer. He was a visitor that showed up the same time you did. Just trying to stand up for us lowly wwoofers.

  18. Currently I’m building high tensile fence through over grown pasture/ cedar woods. While my climate is vastly different than Texas, I think cedars can provide benefits no mater the location. I have Fought the urge to clear all the cedar because:
    1) one of the first things my cattle do when moved to new pastures is use the cedars as a sort of scratching post.
    2) the cedars provide shade…important in Texas and Vermont.
    3) the cedars provide a nice microclimate, by blocking prevailing winds and a place to get out of the rain and snow. In Vermont this is commonly refered to as a deer yard.
    4) what cedar I have cut I just stacked in big piles on the property line.. the rabbit and bird populations around these areas has increased tremendously
    5) on the extremely sloped / shale ledge land of my pastures the cedars do a wonderful job of controlling erosion via water and rain

  19. my observations and interactions with cedar
    My cedar is Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) or ERC
    Living ERC contains significant amount of various terpenes, eucalyptol and camphor. This is why fresh cedar smells so good and will repel insects…think cedar chest. These compounds are very volatile and will off gas in cut wood. The rate which occurs will increase significantly when shredded to to increased surface area. Cedar mulch will lose its odor much faster than a fence post. I would consider using the mulch first in pathways for one to two years. But I have also used cedar branches in my woody beds in limited amounts without any obvious adverse effects. I consider them a slow release carbon source. I would consider mixing cedar mulch with other carbon sources (hardwoods/leaves/straw) in growing beds. Add in some forest leaf litter to inoculate the beds and you should be good. pH is another consideration if you add fresh shredded needles it will lower pH. Acid loving plants will be favored so whether or not this is a problem just depends.

    ERC is a early successional species in a natural system. It requires full sun but can quickly “invade” disturbed areas. Without further disturbance in nature hardwood trees will eventually overtake the fast grow cedars and shade them out. On my property cedars are being naturally being replaced by a wide variety of hardwood species. Oaks, hickories, maples, ash, dogwood and beech are growing next to what is left of the cedar forest with no obvious adverse effects. Do nothing and in a couple generations this may happen to your property as well. Probably don’t want to wait for that so consider planting a variety of trees and cover crops to speed up the process.
    In nature rich living soil occurs under a layer of ERC needles so given time I would expect the same. Bottom line IMO no worries if used in moderation and over time.

  20. Since fossil fuels are harder to come by, why is not more attention placed on hemp fuel and oil? If we are to “look to our future” why are we not looking at our past? It always tells you pretty much everything you need to know….like Ford’s car ran on hemp fuel and oil…and so can ours. Easy to grow, GREAT rotation crop!! Google: Audubon Legalize It for tons more info on what this amazing plant can do! And it’s not a picky plant. In a world of problems, this plant has thousands of solutions.

    • Hemp is a better biofuel then corn for sure. Less inputs and similar yields of fuel per acre. Hemp bio diesel is not cost effective the oil is worth too much to burn it.

      Hemp ethanol is a viable fuel but with out subsidies (which corn has and should not) you are looking at 3-4 dollars a gallon at BEST CASE SCENARIO for producing it.

      It won’t make enough to get us off fossil fuels at all, not even really close. It is one of many steps in the sort of right direction.

      The real truth is oil seed radish and sunflower growing in larger quantities and moving to a diesel dominant vehicle world is likely to do more. There are a few farms that are almost 100% self sufficient including growing their fuel, most do it with sunflower.

      By the way both Kentucky and Colorado have now set up things so their farmers can grow hemp. They have pretty much told the feds to pound sand.

      The real future of industrial hemp is fuel from waste products and food from seed. It is one of the only truly valid forms of vegetable protein for healthy human consumption and much more practical to grow then Quinoa and Amaranth which are really the only other two options.

  21. My friend Hope worked at a McDonalds for several years while going to college. She lived at home so she could pay for college as she went. Hope was happy. I knew the McDonalds she worked at was a s-hole place to be with a revolving door of employees. I asked her how she could be so happy working there. Her answer? Because she chose to be. She CHOSE to be happy. It wasn’t forever, she had a schedule that worked out for her, she had customers who loved her. I told her she should change her last name to “Prevails”. lol

  22. On the history segment, I guess no one else has commented.

    It is definitely true about some of the fundamentalists and their views on revelation, however it seems civilization is always on the brink either close or far off of some kind of crisis. That seems to make the Book of Revelation to speak in a kind of universal language, and it does speak of a kind of golden age in the future when the wrongs of the world will be corrected and good will prevail, but of the war, pestilence, deception, and corruption that will ensue before then.

    Also, the Book of Daniel was probably written around 160 BC and it is very similar to Revelation in many ways. Jesus alludes to the book of Daniel saying “when you see the desolation mentioned in Daniel, know that the end is near”.
    Daniel also has a vision of a beast the same as in Revelation ..

    It is also important to note that much of the theme of the old testament prophets that preceeded the Christian area was about the coming destruction of Jerusalem due to decadence, corruption and the like followed by the messiah who will restore the city or similar themes.

    Also, Orthodox Jews who do not believe in Jesus still believe in a future messiah who will bring peace to the world. These beliefs are based on the same pre christian prophetic texts.

    I once was heavily involved in a kabbalistic online message board where quite a few orthodox Jews frequented and one such individual, even though he was not Christian had great respect for the book of Revelation because of it’s kabbalistic symbolism, numerology and so on.

  23. I can SO relate to the McDonalds differences. There is a McDonalds near the Kansas City VA that my wife is afraid to visit because of the neighborhood its in, but ever since the first time I went there and the staff was pleasant and friendly and my breakfast sandwich not only looked exactly like it did on the picture but also tasted amazing for McDonalds food, I go out of my way to visit that one and resist stopping at others because I have found the taste and experience just isn’t the same.