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Apparently, there are at least 6 billion tons of the above-mentioned Utah deposit in reserve, and another 5 billion or more tons of a similar deposit in Nevada. Both are being very gradually quarried, ground and distributed to farmers and gardeners, and to doctors and dentists who use it in pill form as food “supplements.” No doubt there are more than enough easily-accessible gravel materials in California already (California Division of Mines, 1957), but as an example, note that the Nevada deposit alone could provide the 100 million-acre land surface of California with 50 tons per acre of soil remineralization. Similar deposits, of glacial or other origin, are said to exist in Colorado, New Mexico, Imperial Valley of California, France, Germany, Africa, and perhaps many other parts of the world (Ambler Pennant, 1950).
There is not likely to be a shortage of accessible mixed rock anywhere in the world —
even the Sahara desert and Brazil are underlaid with till from ancient glaciations (John, 1980)
— only a shortage of environmentally constructive systems set up for quarrying, grinding, distributing and recycling the nutrients; and a lack of awareness of the need.
Soil Remineralization Past and Present
Concerned readers should be aware that at present there is virtually no “official” research being done on soil remineralization. An extensive computer search through the U.C.
Berkeley agricultural data base in December 1980 showed zero published research on the following as soil additions: gravel dust, gravel screenings, gravel crusher screenings, rock dust, loess, volcanic ash, basalt. This search covered a huge amount of published work over approximately the past decade. There has been a huge amount of research done on single element effects on plant and soil processes, on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and on measuring and intricately classifying the endless variations of demineralizing soil.
Apparently the last person prior to John Hamaker to publicly advocate remineralization was Julius Hensel in the late 1800’s. A few words on Hensel’s efforts may be enlightening here.
In the introduction to the re-published edition of Hensel’s Bread From Stones (from Health Research, 1977), Dr. Raymond Bernard explains that Hensel and his writings were heavily scorned and attacked by the chemical interests of the day, who supported Justus von Liebig’s doctrine of adding factory-acidulated nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium in concentrated form to the soil (Liebig, 1852). The “Stone Meal,” which a few companies in Europe had tried to produce, was forced off the market. Bread From Stones, which contained many testimonials to soil remineralization by the farmers who were actually using “Stone Meal” on their lands, was suppressed and even removed from libraries.
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Hensel had this to say about the attacks on the message he offered the world: The men interested in artificial manures, who thought that they had attended to the funeral of Stone Meal as a fertilizer have learned nothing from history, or have at least forgotten that every new truth has first to be killed and buried before it can celebrate its resurrection. Besides I do not stand as isolated as these people suppose, for I have the light of truth and knowledge on my side–
He who sights for truth and right
E’en alone, has strength and might.
Hensel continued:
What is lacking at present is that the manufacture of Stone Meal should be undertaken by men of scientific attainments who at the same time have sterling honesty, so as to make it certain that farmers will actually receive what is promised and what has proved itself to be so useful hitherto. I have received innumerable requests from farmers who asked for this mineral manure, but I had to answer them that with my advanced years I could not actively engage in this manufacture. The whole subject is of such immense importance for the common welfare that it is my wish to see this work placed into hands that are t.horoughly reliable. I but point the way for the benefit of the human race.
(Hensel, 1893, 1977)
Hensel also understood the important principle that Hamaker is now stressing, namely:
“that the fineness of the stamping or grinding and the most complete intermixture of the constituent parts are of the greatest importance for securing the greatest benefit of stone-meal fertilizing.” Much later, scientists M.L. Jackson and E. Truog demonstrated this principle well in their experiments and subsequent article, “Influence of Grinding Soil Minerals to Near Molecular Size on Their Solubility and Base Exchange Properties ” (Jackson and Truog, 1939).
Note that Hamaker has no use for solubility and base exchange, since the microorganisms extract the elements, and the natural mixture of elements is neutral (pH 7).
It is perhaps a fascinating irony to note that Liebig, “father of chemical agriculture,”
recommended the use of (and himself sold) the simplistic N-P-K fertilizers, based on his analyses of plant tissue and ashes showing those three elements as “major constituents.” Had Liebig been able to utilize the advanced spectrographic or x-ray fluorescence analytical equipment of today, he would have discovered the 25 soil mineral elements so far proven to be essential for humans (Edell, 1979), plus virtually all the 90+ elements in his plants (Ermolenko, 1972). Then he too would likely have reached the obvious conclusion to add all the elements together as finely-ground rocks. This can also be inferred from his own words, from a later edition of his book: “By the deficiency or absence of one necessary constituent, all the others being present, the soil is rendered barren for all those crops to the life of which that one constituent is indispensable.” (Quoted from Russell’s Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, p. 13, emphasis Liebig’s.) On the other hand, since he had himself become engaged in peddling his “Liebig’s patent manure” (Russell, p. 12), perhaps he too would have ignored the evidence that multiple element deficiency and widespread malnutrition would be inevitable via chemical fertilizers. That he eventually did gain some realization of the ecological design of wholeness and balance we saw at the start of this chapter.
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T H E S U R V I V A L O F C I V I L I Z A T I O N
Since Hensel’s time, two other well-known agriculturists, J.I. Rodale and Sir Albert Howard, gave voice to their perceptions of the need to remineralize soils—yet their words apparently had little positive influence at the time. In 1948, Rodale published his enlightening book, The Healthy Hunzas, which revealed how the world’s healthiest people annually add to their soils the mixture of stones finely ground by the local Ultar glacier, together with the abundant organic matter produced by these highly-mineralized soils. (Little animal manure is added as the Hunzacuts keep few animals.) Rodale stressed the great value of adding the wide variety of rocks to soils in a “ground-up, flour-like form” by using the most efficient modern machinery (p. 100). He also pointed out the danger of adding unbalancing single-rock types, and concluded his chapter, “Rock Powders,” by giving major credit for the Hunzacuts’ outstanding health, longevity, and intelligence to the glacial rock powder, their provision for perpetual soil fertility and high-quality foods. Rodale was emphatic that we in the United States begin to utilize the billions of tons of rocks of all kinds, and apply them—the equivalent of the Hunza sediments—to our lands, in a powdered form.
Sir Albert Howard, often called the “father of organic agriculture,” also described the Hunzacuts in his 1947 book, The Soil and Health. He too observed the Hunza Valley’s glacial silt fertilizer, and the powerful evidence suggesting that—“to obtain the very best results we must replace simultaneously the organic and mineral portions of the soil.” (p. 177) Rejuvenation of Soil and Animal Life
In the published research work emerging from the universities and USDA laboratories there is, as noted, no conscious effort to learn how nature feeds the microorganisms who feed the plants (as documented by Krasilnikov, 1958; McLaren and Peterson, 1967; Jennings, 1963; Sanders et al, 1975; Marks and Kozlowski, 1973; Mori et al, 1977 and many others).
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Yet in 1959, and again in 1963, the USDA fertilizer laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland released articles strongly corroborating the fact that nature’s gravel dust methods do indeed work.
Cement kiln dust (noted in “Food, Energy, and Survival”), which is primarily derived from local gravels, was gathered for these studies from 20 cement manufacturers in Virginia, Maryland, New York, Iowa, Oregon, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, Tennessee, California, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Minnesota, Michigan, and Washington.
The authors of the articles, while they mention a number of the elements in the dust, think of it as a “liming” material rather than a broad-spectrum remineralization material.
Significantly, they observe: “Use of cement kiln dusts for soil liming is not a new idea, but it seems to have received little attention and the relative merits of the dust and of conventional liming materials have not been well studied. The large amount of dust potentially available and the distribution of cement plants throughout much of the humid regions, where the dust could be applied to the soil without shipping great distances, makes this byproduct of special interest.”
All the dusts were said to be about equal to each other as suppliers of calcium, and in comparisons with agricultural limestone (a single rock type) on yields of alfalfa, the cement kiln dusts “tended to be superior” to the limestone. Fortunately the researchers noted a few other elements in the rocks, concluding: “If applied at the rate of 4 tons the dusts would supply, on the average, 3 times the magnesium, 6 times the sulfur, 9 times the potassium (as soluble K) and, except for one dust that would supply only 9 times, 16 times the calcium removed in a typical 5-year rotation.” (Whittaker et al, 1959, 1963.) Note: The figures are based on the elements in chemically grown crops—not crops grown on mineralized soil.
Whether any farmers, foresters, doctors, or nutritionists were specifically informed of these studies is not known. Apparently no one at USDA’s Beltsville headquarters became very excited over the value of the rock dust for soil building and nutritional uplift, as another more recent article on cement dust in Science (Maugh, 1978) indicates.
“The Fatted Calf (II): The Concrete Truth About Beef” explains that some Georgia cattle ranchers “on impulse” dumped some of the cement kiln dust they were using on their soils into their cattle feed. When the “astonished” ranchers reported to Beltsville that the cattle grew unexpectedly fast, USDA researchers Wheeler and Oltjen were “skeptical.” Still, they tried feeding 7 steers a control diet; 7 others the same with 3.5 percent cement kiln dust. They were quite surprised to discover, that after 112 days, that the dust-fed animals had gained 28
percent more weight than those on the control diet, while at the same time consuming 21
percent less feed.
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T H E S U R V I V A L O F C I V I L I Z A T I O N
Analyses revealed that the extra weight was “all meat” of a higher quality than the controls, and these dust-fed animals were described as being “quite healthy.” The article goes on to report how the dust, “a calcium-rich mixture of minerals,” gave similar results with a second group of 32 steers, 60 lambs, and groups of laboratory rats. USDA’s Mr. Wheeler speculates that “some element” may be responsible, or perhaps “the small size of the particles” is the key.
Perhaps one day the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center will stumble upon the dust’s value for growing bigger and healthier soil organism populations, crops, forests—even a fading human race. Someone, perhaps the U.S. Congress, should probably inform them immediately, however. John Hamaker and this writer have tried at length to communicate with many USDA people, including the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, the Chief of the Forest Service, and the Director of the Science and Education Administration, Anson Bertrand. A scheduled meeting of this writer and Dr. Bertrand to discuss “Food, Energy, and Survival,” in January 1980, was cancelled by Dr. Bertrand at the last minute for undisclosed reasons.
This is the same Anson Bertrand who, according to the USDA news release in June 1979,
“has assembled a crew of experts he calls the ‘Coordinating Team for Organic Farming.’ ”
This news release concludes by saying:
Many conventional farmers question whether organic farming can produce enough food to feed the millions of people who must be fed in modern times.
Has new knowledge already boosted the productive power of organic farming?
“We’ll find out,” said Bertrand. “When the facts are in, we’ll use them to develop a program or policy recommendations for Assistant Agriculture Secretary Rupert Cutler and Secretary Bob Bergland. If it appears reasonable to do so, we may suggest additional redirection of research, education, and funding.”
The fact is, the “Team for Organic Farming” crew of experts were specifically informed at least four times of the basic facts and potentials of soil remineralization; that there was indeed “new” knowledge that has greatly boosted the productive power of organic or any kind of farming. Invitations to visit Hamaker’s soil and crops were ignored. A representative
“brush-off” response to John Hamaker’s many letters to USDA people said, in part:
“Although we very much appreciate your interest and concern, we cannot agree that the measures you propose are practical ones for improving soil fertility. . . . The fertilizer value of many kinds of rocks is nil. For all but a few kinds of rocks the fertilizer value is so low that it is impractical to grind them to improve soil fertility.” (From Frank Carlisle, Jr., Administrator, Soil Conservation Service).
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John Hamaker’s perspective may well be brought in again at this point, by quoting from two of his letters to former Vice President Walter Mondale. One letter, regarding Rupert Cutler’s idea to start more research on organic techniques, said this: Organic techniques have been researched up one side and down the other without results. The reason is that the name of the game is feeding microorganisms. It should surprise no one (but surprises everyone) to find that the best food for growing microorganisms consists of those things readily available all over the earth. The money spent on conservation has been wasted because no one can conserve the soil and water but the microorganisms. Mr.
Cutler won’t be worth his salary until he starts feeding the microorganisms. He could learn more from my four and one-third acre corn plot than he could from a thousand organic farms.
The other letter, also pertinent to this consideration, said this: Dear Sir:
Enclosed is a copy of the response of my government to two papers. One paper proved that cancer, malnutrition, and the threat of starvation and glaciation can be eliminated. The other showed a demonstration of the process.
Meanwhile, under the brilliant guidance of the USDA and its Soil Conservation Service, the Plains States are flying east on the wind.
The arrogant ignorance of bureaucrats is going to come to an end. Either the Carter-Mondale Administration will end it or the laws of nature will do it.
One way we live, the other way we die. And if you people don’t act damned fast, there won’t be an option.
While Carlisle babbles about the impracticability of grinding the mixed rocks of the top layers of the earth’s crust, a local gravel pit operator is investing in grinding equipment because the President of the Organic Growers of Michigan asked him to supply dust. Such small efforts across the land by very practical people are going on, but without the help of government in mobilizing and hugely accelerating these efforts, we will never be able to hold the dry western soils against wind erosion or the wet eastern soils against water erosion, nor can we get control of the destructive winds, tornadoes, droughts, blizzards, and floods. This country must mobilize and lead the whole world in an effort to save it. And it must be done now.
Sincerely,
John D. Hamaker
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A final note. The above-mentioned Science article on cement kiln rock dust provided another bit of immediately valuable information. It said that 30 million kilograms (66 million pounds or 33,000 tons) are readily available from cement kilns, in the U.S. alone, each day.
Therefore at an application rate of 3 tons per acre, for example, 11,000 acres per day could be somewhat remineralized with this “waste material” alone. When we look at the ongoing process of forest die-off in the next chapters, it will be apparent how crucially important such immediately available materials may be, should we choose to try to save the forests.
T H E S U R V I V A L O F C I V I L I Z A T I O N
Chapter 3
Worldwide Starvation by 1990
3
Introduction
“Worldwide Starvation By 1990” was originally published in January of 1980, revised in the summer of 1980, and appeared in Acres, USA (October, 1980) and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Bulletin (Vol. 5, No. 4, 1980). The paper has been widely distributed to people in many fields, including most of the 1980 U.S. Congress, the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Forest Service, and many others. Also it was given as part of a presentation of the same title at the “First Global Conference on the Future” held in Toronto in July 1980.
“Worldwide Starvation By 1990” is a concise explanation, now documented by solid evidence, of the degenerative forest changes known to occur during the interglacial-to-glacial transition period. Sufficient evidence revealing the soil based causes of this dying-out period, and of obvious signs that we are well into it, will be considered following this paper.
The U.S. government’s The Global 2000 Report to the President, mentioned herein and purported to “serve as the foundation of our longer term planning” (Jimmy Carter), deserves some specific consideration. That may wait until the “Perspective” on Chapter 6, “The Glacial Process and the End of the Food Supply.”
NOTE:
NOTE:
Glaciation is an acceleration of the normal
A U.N. report estimates that by the year 2000,
31%
380
process of using evaporated water to carry
90% of the agricultural land and two-thirds of
1995
excessive heat energy from warm zones to cold
the forests will be destroyed in the tropics.
380 ppm
zones. The greenhouse effect of an increase in
atmospheric CO2 is to increase cloud cover over
Temperate zone forests and crops will be
370
polar latitudes. The clouds have a cooling effect
destroyed by disease, insects, drought, wind,
as well as providing the snow for glaciation.
and fire.
The energy is dissipated in arctic space.
Glaciation occurs whenever the soil minerals
By 1990 the 50 to 100 mph winds of 1980 will
360
left by the last glacial period are used up and
increase to 100 mph and up.
the plant life can no longer regulate the CO2 by
22%
growing faster in response to an increase in
For these and other reasons agriculture and
1990
CO2 in the air. Forests are the major factor in
industry will be so crippled that the effect
350
CO
354 ppm
2 control.
of man on the CO2 curve will be nullified
FOR SURVIVAL
and the rise in CO2 will take place as a
IN ATMOSPHERE
result of uncontrolled forest fires.
18%
2
1985
340
342 ppm
15.5%
1980
330
335 ppm
Ice Age begins.
Hawaiian weather
320
station has recorded
1700 1800 1900 2000
CO2 since 1958.
8.25%
PARTS PER MILLION CO
Average CO2 (290– ppm) during interglacial
314 ppm
310
period. CO2 fluctuates about 10 ppm above and
below average with volcanism of 100 year cycle
CIVILIZATION WILL BE DEAD BY 1990—
4.75%
of tectonic systems.
Unless we stop the increase of atmospheric CO2 by:
1. Remineralizing the surface of the earth.
300
2. Stopping the use of fossil fuels and the destruction of
1940, 304 ppm, 4.75%
forests.
increase over 290 ppm.
WE MUST DO THESE THINGS IN 6 TO 8 YEARS.
2901890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Fig. 3.1 Parts per million CO2 in Atmosphere, original Hamaker CO2 curve projection 3
Worldwide Starvation by 1990
For 10 years I have been warning that the world’s soils are running out of minerals and that glaciation must inevitably follow. Now there is hard evidence that the temperate zone will become a part of the subarctic zone in approximately 15 years. Somewhere in that time period we will stop eating.
A report by G. Woillard in the English science magazine Nature (10/18/79) draws a grim picture from a study of pollen in the mud of a lake bottom in South Vosges, France. At the start of a number of past glacial periods, the vegetation changed from temperate zone trees to subarctic needle-bearing trees in a period of 150 years ± 75 years. The change was one of gradual deterioration until the last 20 years. During the last 20 years the type of vegetation completely changed.
The 150-year death of the temperate zone vegetation recorded in the French lake mud corresponds exactly with a curve showing the annual percent increase of carbon dioxide over the interglacial level. The gradual increase in the rate of destruction of the forests corresponds to the rate of increase of carbon dioxide. The curve was drawn simply by extending the actually-recorded Mauna Loa Curve backward to the middle of the last century and forward to the year 1995 in a smooth curve with an increasing rate of change with respect to time (Fig. 3.1). By 1995 the rate of increase is so great each year that it is pointless to extend the curve farther.
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At what point on the curve does the 20-year collapse of temperate zone vegetation begin?
Why does the collapse occur so quickly? We already have the answer to these questions.
The mechanism of change in the interglacial forests involves several factors.
The process of deterioration starts with malnutrition about 150 years ahead of the collapse. Malnutrition results from the depletion of the minerals deposited by the last glacial period. The available minerals decrease in quantity to the point where enzyme systems no longer function vigorously. Disease spreads through the forests and they begin to die out.
The problem starts with the soil microorganisms. As the quantity of available elements decreases, the soil’s organism population must decrease. One hundred and fifty years ago a virgin soil may have had 25 tons per acre of organisms; today’s soils generally have less than 5 tons per acre. The importance of the soil microorganisms is that their protoplasm compounds are the source of the cell protoplasm of every other living thing on Earth.
A simple key to awareness of the mineral shortage is the easily-measured property of acidity of soil, water, and precipitation. If acidity goes up, it is because the mineral supply has become too weak in acid-soluble basic elements for the microorganisms to maintain a neutral soil in which they can thrive. It is the needle-bearing trees which can best survive the increasing acidity and reduced availability of protoplasm, because the needles have smaller mineral requirements and far fewer cells to fill with protoplasm. Unlike the broadleaved trees, these conifers can live with only the top branches green while the resin prevents (for a time) rot from quickly penetrating the trunk from the dead lower branches.
Needle-bearing trees have taken over from much of our worn-out one-time crop (and deciduous forest) soils. Other such soils are kept in production by periodic applications of agricultural limestone. However, the large quantity of basic elements available from limestone is not matched by an availability of other elements from the silicate rocks, because neither the acids of chemical agriculture nor those from acidic rain can dissolve the silicate.
The result is specific element shortage, resulting in malnutrition and death.
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When the tropical forests are dead and gone, the very badly depleted mineral supply will support very little life until glacial gravel dust borne on very high winds has remineralized the soil to start the process of plant growth. Temperate zone forests are those which will grow in the cooler equatorial atmosphere of the glacial period. They will begin the process of removing the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bringing the carbon back to earth to renew life on earth.
There have been numerous reports of crop damage due to acidic rains. Many lakes in the Northeast have become so acidic that no life can exist in them. Lewis and Grant ( Science, 1/11/80) report some frightening statistics. On the Colorado section of the Continental Divide where there is very little industrial pollution in the direction of the prevailing wind, the pH of all precipitation dropped from 5.43 to 4.63 in just three years. Neutral is pH 7.0. The precipitation was already acidic three years ago, and it increased in acidity by .8 of a point on the pH scale in just three years. Since the CO curve is almost vertical at the year 1995, we 2
can go back 20 years to 1975 for the start of the 20-year critical period and not be off by more than a few years. The pH then must have been about 6.
Temperate zone vegetation (including crops) can not grow on acidic soils. The large numbers of dead and dying trees in our forests is directly attributable to the increasing acidity of the soils and decreasing quantities of available elements. Dead forests burn easily with a hot fire which oxidizes large quantities of atmospheric nitrogen. Lewis and Grant found that the oxides of nitrogen were dominant in the acidic precipitation. The more trees die and burn, the more the soils become acidified and the more trees must die. There are also a number of mildly acidic gases released from burning wood. These, plus the acidic gases from volcanism, are nature’s way of bringing on glaciation. Man’s fossil fuel fires are a big factor in the destruction. Logically, the 20 years for the change in vegetation should be much less because of industrial pollu