Old 99 Farm, week of Dec 13 2015

Paris Climate Agreement signed Saturday Dec 12, 2015… By golly you are going to remember this day! A finally hopeful step to moving to a stable climate, economy and global ecosystem. Barely a first step but at least one that could send a signal to the global fossil fuel industry that it is in its sunset years. If you are invested in oil stocks I would start paying close attention to good advice about their future value.

Old 99 farm is focused on growing healthy food locally, as you know. On saturday a few 20somethings came for a visit, excited by what they had heard about us and permaculture ways. they wanted to know what they could do to support such ventures. So I made a few suggestions, like be willing to pay the price, eat in season, cook from scratch, look for local sources, learn to store food bought in season, etc.

We went on to the climate issues, (all these people were aware of the precipitous slope we are on for a liveable earth). Here are some quotes I dug up to give the flavour of that discussion.

Here’s one from Joe Romm, who was in Paris for the two weeks. (Romm is a major chronicler of the ongoing climate issue, with impressive credentials http://thinkprogress.org/person/joe/)

The economic and environmental implications of this deal for Americans are staggering. In the near term, it will unlock an accelerating multi-trillion-dollar shift in capital investment away from carbon-intensive coal and oil, which were the cornerstone of the first industrial revolution, into clean technologies like solar, wind, LED lighting, advanced batteries, and electric cars. It means far less harmful carbon pollution will be emitted in the coming years.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/12/3731236/paris-deal-fossil-fuels/

Albert Bates says in his post today at http://peaksurfer.blogspot.ca/2015/12/here-comes-sun.html

Once we apply honestly science-based Earth system sensitivity at equilibrium, excluding none of the feedbacks and forcings that we know of, we discover we passed the 2°C target in 1978. To hold at 2 degrees we would need to bring CO2 concentration down to 334 ppm, not increase it to 450 as the Paris Agreement contemplates.

Will voluntary pledges, revisited every five years starting in 2023 be enough to cut emissions and hold to the budget? It is the wrong question. That budget does not exist. Closer scrutiny of embedded systemic feedbacks reveal we’d blown though any possible atmospheric buffer zone by the 1970s and have just been piling on carbon up there every since.

The Guardian reports:

Throughout the week, campaigners have said the deal had to send a clear signal to global industry that the era of fossil fuels was ending. Scientists have seen the moment as career defining.

350.org Executive director, May Boeve said:

“This marks the end of the era of fossil fuels. There is no way to meet the targets laid out in this agreement without keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground. The text should send a clear signal to fossil fuel investors: divest now.

Bill McKibben said:

“Every government seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end and soon. But the power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text, which drags out the transition so far that endless climate damage will be done. Since pace is the crucial question now, activists must redouble our efforts to weaken that industry. This didn’t save the planet but it may have saved the chance of saving the planet.”

Yes we have vegetables, meats, eggs and more. See the attached list for details. Egg special is now over.

I have some tree seedlings as well: Oak, Locust and Chestnut, ready to plant now.