ABC Organic Gardener – March 2021
English | 93 pages | pdf | 113.23 MB
Welcome at ABC Organic Gardener Magazine March 2021 issue
There have been a mass of books written about climate change over the years. Even though it is the number one challenge facing humanity, it is very easy to get overwhelmed and despairing and ignore any new writings.
But I always like to be surprised, and a new book by commentator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki – Dr Karl’s Little Book of Climate Change Science – does just that. I was expecting lots of dramatic facts (which it does have), and succinct, digestible research on the most effective ways to tackle it (this too), but I was not expecting Dr Karl to get stuck into the fossil fuel industry with such vehemence right from the start.
We have written about how the fossil fuel industry knew about climate change way back and knew that burning fossil fuels would lead to trouble, but it’s great to see someone with such popular appeal laying out the whole horrible story so clearly and graphically, and pointing a very big finger of blame at them for deliberately holding our fight against climate change back more than three decades! I love his time line tracing the development of climate science. Reaching 1896, he describes how scientist Svante Arrhenius, after tens of thousands of calculations – all done by hand – concluded that human activity was making the Earth’s atmosphere warmer. Dr Karl writes: “In 1906, he fine-tuned his work, predicting: ‘Any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the Earth’s surface by 4°C.’ This was impressively close to current predictions.”
The big thing Arrhenius got wrong was how long it would take us to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide by 50 percent – a level of extreme danger. He predicted 3000 years. Alarmingly, it has taken us a mere 120 years to lift levels to 40 percent. Many oil and gas companies are still at work slowing down action. In the US, some cities wishing to move to renewable energy (such as Texas) have quickly found their plans attacked and/or scaled back due to the influence of local gas companies. Read an extract from Dr Karl’s book on page 65.
This Magazine issue we also have an in-depth feature on mushroom foraging by Helen McKerral that looks at the amazing array of fungi we can eat and how to do that safely (page 32). Meanwhile, Karen Sutherland looks at the world of indoor plants (page 40) – how to keep the plants fresh and healthy and some top choices. Jessamy Miller, following on from her heritage poultry breeds article last issue, looks at other rare animal breeds and their incredible value (page 77).
On the food growing front, Paul West provides a comprehensive guide to growing carrots, with so many colours, shapes and flavours to choose from (page 26) , while garlic expert Penny Woodward gets down to the basics of growing your own garlic (page 20).
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