However, to say that we should not use energy sources like biomass or industrial hemp biomass in particular, to replace the existing system because people would keep on destroying the environment, is to overlook several factors:

1) sociology of change: people change by degrees as practical measures become known to them and then available to them. As long as class inequalities exist, this does not happen naturally, a fact capitalists and communists of state control have long used to their advantage in acquiring land, food, resources and labor to their liking. The cost to civilization, however, has been exploitation and oppression, so that only a small elite can make far more wealth than they really need to be happy.

2) were the correct commodities being used, even if enmasse, this does not guarantee that permaculture would be automatically excluded from the sustainability model Fritz has devised. Any
“net energy” gains would be a major step forward, assuming that we could find a way to mobilize people to communicate effectively enough to make changes in living patterns and consumer demands in an orderly and fair trade way. I personally do not think any one think tank or “guru” can come up with the entirely correct model, and that a national “solar roundtable” and lots of localized “hemp roundtables” could be used more effectively in the network part of the model. Or would it fit into the other categories? All of them? The ideal commodity would do so, and in doing so then meet all the needs of all species on Earth and real progress could then proceed. Hemp alone, is not likely to be that commodity – as many analysts have pointed out to this industrial hemp activist – but it may be the very best form of biomass for energy, food, fiber, oil, and industrial cellulose since hemp is the one plant most available to the largest number of people on Earth, whether they live in very cold or very hot climates. This is what sets hemp apart from all other sustainability crops – if it is grown by polycropping methods, that is, grown with native trees, grasses, and plants in any number of “layering” models.

Sociology tells us that humans are by nature competitive higher primates. The great competitive need of humans could be satisfied simply by plugging indigenous peoples and moderns both into systems of gaming in which we could compete to see what works and what doesn’t work to produce the “super crop commodity”, rather than to go to countless wars and kill one another.

The global availability of hemp then, must be the central problem for certain capitalist institutions that do not wish people to look for methods of sustainability which do not include monetarism, class society, automotive civilization, rampant greed & selfishness, massive corporate profits, etc… however, just to use a better, cheaper, cleaner fuel would be an improvement, in my estimation, for humanity and the Earth, giving humanity and nature a temporary reprive, at least until education, the human communications system, and improved consensus skills can bring all the sustainability elements to the table. It seems to this writer, that all groups of people and species have something to bring to the table, the question is how and when? Once we answer these questions we can shape a free and truly fair trade for all nations and all species on Earth. This is not likely to occur until humans know what the Veil of Illusion is and how to dismantle it, and in this regard, solve the problem of feeding the entire human population with nutritious food. It is difficult to solve most of our other most pressing problems, including those of renewable energy production and creating a sustainable environment, until we free the all animals from the burden of feeding only one species of higher primate.

_ Victor Humphrey, Springfield, Missouri

I would like to interject here also and quickly say that if any readers of this site would like to help nudge the political will forward, please visit http://www.powerswitch.org.uk (a peak oil specific awareness raising and lobbying organisation) and http://www.simpol.org (a larger, more encompassing movement).