If You Were At All Thinking of BioFuels...

I've long held negative opinions about the "biofuel" boom. The only answer to our energy problems is efficiency, not changing "forms" from one fuel to another. Some forms are more efficient, yes -but what we really need to tackle is how much we use. This, in my opinion, is the only place we can make real progress. Taking energy from one form and converting it to another on a large scale always creates unwelcome by-products . We need to focus on using less energy, or on creating tools (cars, appliances, trains) that require less energy and do more. This is the one sure way of reducing pollution. I often think of the old farmstead with its water-pumping windmill. What of locally-produced electricity? If our home-systems required less energy to do the same work, we could generate locally with much greater success.

Check out this post from the Organic Consumer Association on the Ethanol Scam. It can't possibly say it all, but its a nudge.

The EPA Gardens

Walking alongside the Mall while in DC last week I noticed these signs describing rain gardens. They were sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, whose headquarters they decorate.


Apparently the gardening method the signs describe is demonstrated right before our eyes. Now I'll admit, I'm no fan of this administration's EPA and so I want to be hard on them. It is early spring after all, so the fact that there are little to no plants in the demonstration rain garden should not be made too much of. Hey, they're trying right?

How easy will it be to find plants that like both drought and flood as the sign describes? The image appears to represent a coneflower and maybe a baptisia or some kind of sage, perhaps. Hard to say exactly. A list of plants useful in this flood/drought environment would have been useful.

Could identification tags on the ground where these happy plants may be lying dormant have been useful? The patch of brown mulch I did see didn't exactly inspire me to plant a rain garden.

The average yearly rainfall in DC is about 39 inches. DC's downtown mall area is low lying, so collection of water from all those rooftops is a good idea. But downtown DC has a manicured landscape, heavy on the concrete, evergreen shrubbery, magnolia and cherry trees. Most of DC's runoff goes to the city sewer system, then into the Potomac River.