The Green Stuff(ed)

Everyone knows that the world is stuffed, thanks mainly to the Baby Boomers. Curse them…and their progeny!!

It's tough to work out a solution to the myriad probems facing our planet, even for the experts. Some bright sparks recently thought they could kill two Big Bad Birds with one green stone by producing petrol substitutes with biofuels – thereby solving the world's energy crisis AND global warming. Hurrah!

Only problem is, the use of arable land to produce crops for biofuels has created a global food crisis, and apparently produces more carbon dioxide than it saves. Hurr…ahhh...

If only there was a crop that could create biofuel, but which doesn't take up land and resources that could be used to grow food, and which wouldn't create more greenhouse gases.

Wait a minute! I seem to remember a plant from my University days that fits the bill. What was it? Femp? Dr. Shemp? Bringoutthegemp?

That's right!!! Everyone's favourite weed: Hemp!

In those aforementioned Uni days, I helped organise a 'Hemp Week', dedicated to education about this miracle plant. I don't smoke myself, and there was very little in the Week about the recreational benefits of Hemp (although it was co-organised with the Mullers and Packers...), but it was back then, over ten years ago, that I first learnt that hemp could be used to make fuel.

However, an advantage that hemp has over, say, corn is that hemp is literally a weed. This means there is no need to carefully cultivate a crop, nor to allocate good land, or spend lots of time, money, and effort, for it.

Apparently this hemp – industrial hemp – doesn’t have much, if any, of the active component – THC – that gives marijuana smokers their high. But even if it did, wouldn’t growing lots of a weed that can save the planet beat growing lots of, for example, opium (yes, I’m looking at you, entire country of Afghanistan) or, say, everyone dying from climate change, even if it does lead to lots of Cheech and Chong jokes?

Hemp and marijuana get a bad rap these days, but time was that everyone was into growing it.

I’m going from memory here (of course, that’s what blogging is all about – facts aren’t as important as passion (and links)), but I’m fairly certain that George Washington grew hemp, and I think it was, like, compulsory during one or both of the world wars – see, for example, “Hemp for Victory”. The sails and ropes of sailing ships like those in the First Fleet were often made from hemp. It really was a Wonder Plant TM. Also, getting back to fuel, Henry Ford apparently intended for his new-fangled car contraption to be powered by a hemp-based fuel. Quoting from the article that sparked this rant:

“Stage one of the story dates back to the dawn of modern transport and the invention of the internal combustion engine. When Rudolf Diesel invented the engine that bears his name, he designed it to run on peanut oil. When Henry Ford designed the first mass-produced car, the Model T, he intended it to run on ethanol derived from two of America's most abundant crops, corn (maize) and hemp.”

But the conspiracy theory is that the DuPont corporation patented a process for making nylon out of petroleum products in the 1930’s, and successfully lobbied to have marijuana, and then, by association, hemp, made illegal, due to the competition the naturally growing and easily available Wonder Plant TM provided to Du Pont’s synthetic products. And a reasonable conspiracy theory it is, I think, too.

While on the point of the illegality of hemp et al, I can’t help but refer to Bill Hicks’ magnificent tirade about this issue, and his observation that “Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?”

Yes, Bill, it does. RIP, brother.

So, whaddaya say? How-about-it?!?! Ready to be a smelly hippy and jump on the “Let’s all grow hemp and save the world” bandwagon?

If you are, here’s a flyer: http://www.hemp4fuel.com/hemp4fuel.pdf

Changing the world, one rant/flyer at a time.