The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
Ellen Brown
The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
Philip Steffan / CC BY 2.0
Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the cheapest and most
efficient way to tackle the climate crisis. So states a Guardian article,
citing a new analysis published in the journal Science. The author explains:
As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are
driving global heating. New research estimates that a worldwide planting
programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped
into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as
mind-blowing.
For skeptics who reject the global warming thesis, reforestation also
addresses the critical problems of mass species extinction and environmental
pollution, which are well-documented. A 2012 study from the University of
Michigan found that loss of biodiversity impacts ecosystems as much as does
climate change and pollution. Forests shelter plant and animal life in their
diverse forms, and trees remove air pollution by the interception of
particulate matter on plant surfaces and the absorption of gaseous
pollutants through the leaves.
The July analytical review in Science calculated how many additional trees
could be planted globally without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.
It found that there are 1.7 billion hectares (4.2 billion acres) of treeless
land on which 1.2 trillion native tree saplings would naturally grow. Using
the most efficient methods, 1 trillion trees could be restored for as little
as $300 billionless than 2% of the lower range of estimates for the Green
New Deal introduced by progressive Democrats in February.
The Guardian quoted Professor Tom Crowther at the Swiss university ETH
Zürich, who said, What blows my mind is the scale. I thought restoration
would be in the top 10, but it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of
the other climate change solutions proposed. He said it was also by far the
cheapest solution that has ever been proposed. The chief drawback of
reforestation as a solution to the climate crisis, as The Guardian piece
points out, is that trees grow slowly. The projected restoration could take
50 to 100 years to reach its full carbon sequestering potential.
A Faster, More Efficient Solution
Fortunately, as of December 2018, there is now a cheaper, faster and more
efficient alternativeone that was suppressed for nearly a century but was
legalized on a national scale when President Trump signed the Agriculture
Improvement Act of 2018.
This is the widespread cultivation of industrial hemp, the nonintoxicating
form of cannabis grown for fiber, cloth, oil, food and other purposes. Hemp
grows to 13 feet in 100 days, making it one of the fastest carbon
dioxide-to-biomass conversion tools available. Industrial hemp has been
proved to absorb more CO2 per hectare than any forest or commercial crop,
making it the ideal carbon sink. It can be grown on a wide scale on
nutrient-poor soils with very small amounts of water and no fertilizers.
Hemp products can promote biodiversity and reverse environmental pollution
by replacing petrochemical-based plastics, which are now being dumped into
the ocean at the rate of one garbage truck per minute. One million seabirds
die each year from ingesting plastic, and up to 90% have plastic in their
guts. Microplastic (resulting from the breakdown of larger pieces by
sunlight and waves) and microbeads (used in body washes and facial
cleansers) have been called the oceans smog. They absorb toxins in the
water, enter the food chain and ultimately wind up in humans. To avoid all
that, we can use plastic made from hemp, which is biodegradable and
nontoxic.
Other environmental toxins come from the textile industry, which is second
only to agriculture in the amount of pollution it creates and the voluminous
amounts of water it uses. Hemp can be grown with minimal water, and hemp
fabrics can be made without the use of toxic chemicals.
Environmental pollution from the burning of fossil fuels can also be
reversed with hemp, which is more efficient and environmentally friendly
than wheat and corn as a clean-burning biofuel.
Hemp cultivation also encourages biodiversity in the soil, by regenerating
farmland that has long been depleted from the use of toxic chemicals. It is
a weed and grows like one, ubiquitously, beating out other plants without
pesticides or herbicides; and its long taproot holds the soil, channeling
moisture deeper into it. Unlike most forestry projects, hemp can be grown on
existing agricultural land and included as part of a farms crop rotation,
with positive effects on the yields and the profits from subsequent crops.
A Self-Funding Solution
Hemp cultivation is profitable in many other waysso profitable that it is
effectively a self-funding solution to the environmental crisis. According
to a Forbes piece titled Industrial Hemp Is the Answer to Petrochemical
Dependency, crop yields from hemp can range from $20,000 to $50,000 per
acre. Its widespread cultivation can happen without government subsidies.
Investment in research, development and incentives would speed the process,
but market forces will propel these transformations even if Congress fails
to act. All farmers need for incentive is a market for the products, which
hemp legalization has provided. Due to the crops century-long suppression,
the infrastructure to capitalize on its diverse uses still needs to be
developed, but the infrastructure should come with the newly opened markets.
Hemp can break our dependency on petrochemicals, not only for fuel but for
plastics, textiles, construction materials and much more. It has actually
been grown for industrial and medicinal purposes for millennia, and today it
is legally grown for industrial use in hundreds of countries outside the
U.S.
Just after the nationwide ban established by the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937,
an article in Popular Mechanics claimed it was a billion-dollar crop (the
equivalent of about $16 billion today), useful in 25,000 products ranging
from dynamite to cellophane. New uses continue to be found, including
eliminating smog from fuels, creating a cleaner energy source that can
replace nuclear power, removing radioactive water from the soil and
providing a very nutritious food source for humans and animals. Cannabidiol
(CBD), a nonpsychoactive derivative of hemp, has recently been shown to help
curb opioid addiction, now a national epidemic.
Hemp can also help save our shrinking forests by eliminating the need to
clear-cut them for paper pulp. One acre planted in hemp produces as much
pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, according to the USDA; and unlike trees, hemp
can be harvested two or three times a year. Hemp paper is also finer,
stronger and lasts longer than wood-based paper. Benjamin Franklins paper
mill used hemp. Until 1883, it was one of the largest agricultural crops
(some say the largest), and 8090% of all paper in the world was made from
it. It was also the material from which most fabric, soap, fuel and fiber
were made; and it was an essential resource for any country with a shipping
industry, since sails were made from it. In early America, growing hemp was
considered so important that it was illegal for farmers not to grow it. Hemp
was legal tender from 1631 until the early 1800s, and taxes could even be
paid with it.
Banned by the Competition?
The competitive threat to other industries of this supremely useful plant
may have been a chief driver of its apparently groundless criminalization in
the 1930s. Hemp is not marijuana and is so low in psychoactive components
that it cannot produce a marijuana high. It was banned for nearly a
century simply because it was in the same plant species as marijuana.
Cannabis came under attack in the 1930s in all its forms. Why? Hemp competed
not only with the lumber industry but with the oil, cotton, petrochemical
and pharmaceutical industries. Many have speculated that it was suppressed
by these powerful competitors.
William Randolf Hearst, the newspaper mogul, owned vast tracts of forest
land, which he intended to use for making wood-pulp paper. Cheap hemp-based
paper would make his forest investments a major money loser. Hearst was a
master of yellow journalism, and a favorite target of his editorials was
reefer madness. He was allied with the DuPont Corporation, which provided
the chemicals to bleach and process the wood pulp used in the paper-making
process. DuPont was also ready to introduce petroleum-based fibers such as
nylon, and hemp fabrics competed with that new market.
In fact, hemp products threatened the entire petroleum industry. Henry Ford
first designed his cars to run on alcohol from biofuels, but the
criminalization of both alcohol and hemp forced him to switch to the
dirtier, less efficient fossil fuels that dominate the industry today. A
biofuel-based infrastructure would create a completely decentralized power
grid, eliminating the giant monopolistic power companies. Communities could
provide their own energy using easily renewable plants.
None of this is news. Hemp historians have been writing about the crops
myriad uses and its senseless prohibition for decades. (See The Emperor
Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, 1992 and Hemp for Victory: A Global
Warming Solution by Richard Davis, 2009.)
What is news is that hemp cultivation is finally legal across the country.
The time is short to save the planet and its vanishing diversity of species.
Rather than engaging in endless debates over carbon taxes and Silicon Valley
style technological fixes, we need to be regenerating our soils, our forests
and our oceans with natures own plant solutions.
Ellen Brown
Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Instit
