I’m confused (which is pretty much my natural state).

Before going any further, I have to admit that until I started paying attention to the research and development of alternative fuels with my two websites, I was paying little attention to environmental issues.

There’s no real excuse for that, so none is offered. A chance phone conversation with an old high school chum in the Midwest sparked my interest in ethanol and, eventually, the entire alternative fuels picture. That led to my establishing two websites: one a collection of links to news stories on research and development of alternative fuels; the other a podcast site covering the same topics. That’s when I first paid attention to the immensity of our environmental problems.

On April 1st of this year, a misunderstanding on my part led me to Green Options, and my eyes have been opened even further. And that has led to this state of not understanding the hostility some people have to cleaning up our environment.

What can it hurt to use less electricity, burn less gasoline by driving less, developing and using alternatives to fossil fuels, saving our forests, cleaning up our waterways and oceans? You and I know the drill here, so what can be so wrong that some local, state and federal lawmakers, to name only a few of a long list of dissenters, oppose our efforts? Do they have something to gain from our living in what is slowly becoming a toxic wasteland? Is it politics, money, power, a way to get noticed, or have they just been blind-sided by the promises of big industry and big profits? Maybe it’s a combination of all of that, but in any case, at the best, it's irresponsible.

A glaring case in point, the recent actions of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn(R). Even today, 45 years after Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, Coburn has said he would block a planned resolution commemorating the 100th anniversary of her birth, May 27, 1907. Coburn, on his website, continued to vilify Carson and her call for the sensible use of chemical pesticides, including DDT, which was used during WWII in the Pacific and Europe to eradicate malaria-bearing mosquitos. DDT usage was banned in many regions, including Africa, in the 1970's and 1980's. On his website release, Coburn blames Carson, 43 years after her death, for millions of deaths in Africa due to malaria, simply because of that ban on DDT.

Carson's biographer Linda Lear, in response to Coburn's actions, stated that "Rachel Carson never called for DDT ban", or that pesticides never be used. She simply advocated for the responsible use of synthetic chemical pesticides. The United States banned the use of DDT in 1972, but not the manufacture or export of the chemical. It has and is being used in many countries, including Africa as we said, with somewhat limited results especially on mosquitoes that carry infectious diseases like malaria. They adapted quickly and have become resistant to DDT. Yet Coburn continues to beat his anti-Carson malaria-death drum.

This continuing knee-jerk reaction to Silent Spring by chemical companies and some of our lawmakers confounds me, especially after all these years. Some have said her book so aroused public awareness of synthetic chemicals and their impact on our environment that public pressure resulted in establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Could that be part of the reason?

We've all witnessed the scorn heaped on the efforts of so-called “tree huggers”. Environmentalists have been branded as “nut cases”, and Al Gore has been accused of trying to create a panic with his movie An Inconvenient Truth. Some loudly proclaim that global warming is a myth, created by far left special interest groups. Interesting, isn’t it, that many of those naysayers represent a far right philosophy and special interest groups? Harry Nilsson said it best with his CD The Point: "Everyone has one". Environmentalists are "hugging trees", and industrialists are chopping them down.

On the matter of global warming, let's give mother earth her due: she too has moods. Our planet is, after all, a living thing, constantly evolving as it has since its fiery beginning. My purpose here is not to debate global warming or offer any conclusions: there's enough going around without my input.

It all comes back to the same thing: what’s wrong with doing some industrial-strength house cleaning? Who is threatened, and why is there so much hostility? Or is it not so much a case of threat, as it is something we seem to have a lot of in this country?

It reminds me of a panel from cartoonist Wiley Miller, who's Non Sequitur is one of my favorites. It portrays two men sitting in a bar, one with a drink in his hand and a dour look on his face. He's watching the TV set on the back bar, with a smiling news commentator displaying a large arrow pointing downward. Around a bend in the bar is another man, a big smile on his face, his hand clutching a mug of beer. He says, "Yeah, I used to get depressed watching the news, too. Then I discovered the miracle of apathy." Is this who we are?

It took more than 4-billion years to create this beautiful planet, and we've managed to trash it in slightly more than a century. We call it progress (and in some ways it is), but in our rush to have more as quickly as possible, we've ignored our moral obligation to provide responsible stewardship of our environment. It just may be that we are the only sentient life forms in the entire, limitless cosmos. What a shame it would be if we destroyed ourselves by depleting our home of its natural resources, and failing to clean up our messes. Life would flicker out, and no one would notice. Our world would be empty, spinning aimlessly in the black void, a remnant of our carelessness. Humanity would never have existed; there would be no legacy to pass on.

How very sad that would be.

Additional Resources:
Wikipedia: Rachel Carson
The Time 100: Rachel Carson
Senator Coburn (R-OK)

MYTH: The United States Government considers ALL strains of hemp as marijuana.

Facts: Partially true, although things are changing. For in its more than 8000 years of cultivation, hemp and its psychoactive drug Cannabis Sativa have been inextricably linked. The name marijuana is a recent moniker. It was first called K(a)N(a)B(a) (cannibas) in early Sumeria and in is referred to as hashish in the Middle East.

We’re not going to address the marijuana culture here and around the world in this article. Our focus is about hemp and it’s use as a biodegradable, highly versatile resource.

Even if the Federal Government approved cultivation of what’s termed “industrial hemp” today, most sources say it will take 10 to15 years before full-scale cultivation and commercialization of the crop is realized. Hemp is a complicated subject, and my first inclination was to write a series of blogs on the subject, but realized all that’s necessary are the basic facts. Below you’ll find links, scholarly and otherwise, to my sources.

There are dozens of species representing some 22 genera, and Cannabis sativa has emerged as the one multi-purpose plant, used primarily for fiber in the stem, and preparations from that fiber such as paper, textiles, construction, plastics, food, medicines and oil from the seeds. Of course, the third part of the Cannabis sativa equation is the intoxicating resin, (Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) or THC, secreted by epidermal glands, and that’s what gets a person high.

So, why aren’t we growing it America? Easy — you already know the answer: the Federal Government says ALL hemp is marijuana, and that’s the myth, almost.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, and refusing to grow the plant was against the law in the US during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its fiber was used to make sails and ropes for ships, paper for books and writing paper and clothing. The seeds have been used as food for centuries, and two 19th century famines in Australia saw hemp seed used for protein and it’s leaves for roughage.

You get the idea: this is one versatile natural resource, and our government calls it dangerous. How did all that start? I’ve researched dozens of verifiable sources and settled on some facts and, of course, some conspiracy theories.

Part of the reason apparently goes back to Mexico’s Pancho Villa, who relieved William Randolph Hearst of some 800,000 acres of prime timber he planned to use in the production of paper products. Hearst’s vilification of the Mexican people in his newspaper empire could well have come as a result of his loss.

Hearst, along with Lammont Dupont, Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller and the DuPont family were apparently alarmed by hemp’s ability to provide an alternative source for paper, fiber, plastic and more, which would threaten their growing empires. DuPont developed fuel additives and a process to make paper from wood pulp that proved to be less expensive than manufacture by hemp, along with synthetic products such as plastics and nylon. The problem with hemp at that time was the man-hours it took to harvest the crop to make it usable, but a man named George W Schlichten invented a machine called a decorticator, which shortened the harvesting process to such a degree that hemp became the best and most inexpensive material for making paper and other synthetic products. Development of the decorticator was believed to make Hearst’s vast timber reserves worthless, and DuPont’s synthetic petrochemicals would become less attractive. An alleged conspiracy was hatched to derail the development of hemp and destroy the decorticator. It worked, and the developer of the decorticator, George Schlichten, died a broken man, his patents expired and the machine scrapped.

Hearst’s nationwide newspaper chain launched an intensive propaganda campaign portraying hemp, or Cannabis, as a dangerous drug, turning "normal" (meaning "white") people into psychotic killers. Yes, race was a major part of that campaign, and racial slurs were directed especially at African-Americans and Mexicans. The campaign was successful, and when the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was brought to a vote, most people didn’t know that hemp and marijuana came from the same plant. As a matter of fact, most had no idea that the law would aid in destruction of the hemp industry, which is exactly what happened.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 imposed a levy of one dollar on everyone who buys, sells, raises, imports or in any way deals in the commercial use of marijuana. The hook was the penalty provisions of the act, which called for five years’ imprisonment and fines up to $2,000 or both for anyone not buying a Treasury Department tax stamp and dealing in marijuana.

The act says “The term ‘marihuana’ means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L, whether growing or not; the seeds thereof, the resin extracted from any part of such plant and every compound, manufacture, salt derivative, mixture or preparation of such plant…”. Hence our laws today say hemp is marijuana and it’s illegal.

According to Biomassive.org,

Thus, the Marijuana Tax Act and other similar tax policies in the years to come not only placed petrochemical and timber industries at the center of our country's physical and technological development, but as a result even shaped our very social, economic, and spatial structures. It converted a largely rural, agricultural nation into an urban, industrial one in a matter of a few decades.

So that’s where we stand today. While America sleeps at the wheel of hemp, other countries are cultivating and producing a wide variety of hemp products. Canada, The Netherlands, France and the UK are leading the world in hemp technology.

Research is ongoing in the US, Canada and European Union to breed of low THC plants, although none have at this point created a strain 100% free of THC. It’s said that in theory, low-THC strains do not completely solve the drug abuse problem because the other principal cannabinoid, CBD can be converted to use as a starting material for manufacturing THC. Experts at Purdue University say there are easier methods of synthesizing THC than by first extracting it from the non-drug strains.

The movement to legalize cultivation of industrial hemp in America is continuing. Just recently, legislators in the State of California passed a bill legalizing cultivation of hemp in the state. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, citing federal law which states all cannabis plants regardless of variety or THC content, are simply considered to be marijuana. And that’s a federally regulated schedule one controlled substance.

So yes, it is a myth that all hemp is marijuana, with the CDB caveat stated above. Will we ever see American farmers raising hemp legally? It would open up millions of acres of ground now deemed unsuitable for cultivation. Hemp could be used for development of an environmentally correct ethanol type fuel, or biodiesel, not to mention the plethora of environmentally safe products, but the infrastructure isn’t in place, and the feds are still adamant: hemp is marijuana.

Here are my sources, enjoy…

The Emperor Wears No Clothes
North American Industrial Hemp Council
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
DEA controlled substances act
Purdue University A New Crop with New Uses for North America
USDA Monoecious Hemp Breeding in the U.S.
Hemp History
The Threat to DuPont and Friends
Hemp History
Marijuana Timeline
Schlichten Papers