                    HEMP AND THE ENVIRONMENT
                       by Lynn Osburn    copyright Oct., 1990


     The forests  of the world are disappearing at an alarming
rate; cut down to make everything from houses to toilet paper,
or simply  burned out  to make more pasture or farmland.  This
thoughtless and  wanton destruction  of the  world forests  is
causing changes  in the  climatic cycle  that may  permanently
alter the ecosystem as we know it.

     The   mechanisms   controlling   climatic   balance   are
incredibly complex.   Science  can only  speculate on how much
environmental damage  it will take to cause the climatic cycle
to become  irreversibly destabilized.   Scientists disagree on
the pathways an unstable global climate will take, but the end
result could  be an  Earth climate  similar to  Venus  --  air
hotter than  an oven, containing sulfur acids strong enough to
dissolve steel in a matter of hours.

     The scientific debate has given rise to the controversial
"greenhouse effect"  theory.   The greenhouse effect theory is
rooted in  the functioning of the global carbon dioxide cycle.
The carbon  dioxide cycle is a complex system with a multitude
of interactive  variables, but  it can  be reduced to a simple
relationship: the plants of the world absorb CO 2 from the air
and during  photosynthesis convert  it into  carbohydrates and
cell structure;  the  people  of  the  world  burn  fresh  and
fossilized plant  cell structures releasing CO 2 back into the
air.  Plant cell structure is called biomass.

     Humanity  is   burning  fossilized   biomass   to   power
civilization.   Fossilized biomass  fuels are  coal, petroleum
oils and  natural gas.   Burning them dumps more CO 2 into the
atmosphere than plant life can absorb because fossil fuels are
no longer  a part  of the  living CO  2 cycle.   Fossil  fuels
contain the  accumulated carbon removed by decaying plant life
from the  CO 2  cycle and climate system that existed over 160
million years  ago when  the earth was wetter and greener than
today.   When burned  the ancestral  carbon  in  fossil  fuels
injects a  CO 2  overdose into  the air that the sparser plant
life in this more arid eon cannot recycle.

     Our air  is becoming  saturated.  Carbon dioxide traps in
solar heat  that warms  the earth surface.  The excess heat is
normally reflected  through the  atmosphere back  into  space.
The  amount   of  solar   heat  held   in  the  atmosphere  is
proportional to  the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the
air.  Carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas, but it is
the most abundant one -- the one causing the most trouble.

     The only  way stop the CO 2 build-up in the atmosphere is
to cease  burning fossil  fuels.  This will also reduce levels
of another  greenhouse gas, methane. The most effective way to
remedy the excess accumulation of CO 2 is to plant more trees.

     Trees live  and grow  for centuries.   Every  year a tree
grows it  pulls more  CO 2 out of the air and converts it into
wood.   The excess CO 2 already present in the atmosphere from
burning fossil  fuels can  be removed  naturally  by  allowing
trees  to  convert  it  towood,  but  it  will  take  time  to
accomplish -- and lots of trees.

     World energy  production developed  using biomass  as the
prime raw  material.   The chemical engineering processes that
convert crude fossil fuel biomass into refined fuels will also
convert fresh  biomass into refined fuels.  In fact, the chief
processes,    destructive    distillation    and    fractional
distillation, were  originally employed  to convert  wood into
industrial fuels.   Wood  was replaced  by crude  fossil  fuel
resources early  on in the industrial revolution because large
deposits of  coal and oil lowered the cost of production.  Now
with dwindling  global petroleum  reserves, the cost of fossil
fuels will continue to rise.

     World  energy  production  must  return  to  using  fresh
biomass as  the raw material for all fuels currently made from
fossil biomass.   Fresh  biomass is  part of  the living  CO 2
cycle.   When plants  are harvested  then converted into fuels
and burned for energy, the CO 2 produced as the end product of
combustion  will be absorbed by the next year's biomass energy
crop during  its growth  -- provided  the energy  crop  is  an
annual plant.   Burning  fresh biomass  energy crops  will not
unbalance the CO 2 cycle.

     Tree farming is called sylva-culture.  Government reports
estimate that  one ton per acre per year can be harvested from
forests using  advanced sylvaculture  techniques.  This volume
is dismally  low and  at best  will barely  keep up  with  the
demand for  board lumber.   Sylvaculture should be implemented
in hardwood  forests to maintain sustainable lumber yields for
construction purposes:  a new  tree must  be planted for every
one harvested and no clear-cutting.

     About  seventy-five   years  ago  two  far  sighted  USDA
scientists realized  that at  the rate  American forests  were
being cut  down to  meet  the  increasing  demands  for  paper
products, our  forests would  become seriously depleted in the
near future.  That future is now.

     In 1916  the scientists  published the  results of  their
pulp paper  making tests  using agricultural  wastes from  the
hemp fiber  industry.   They found  hemp hurds,  the cellulose
rich material usually burned in the fields after the fiber was
removed from  the hemp  stalks, made  better paper  than  wood
pulp, with  less chemical  additives, and  hemp produced  more
than four times as much biomass per acre than trees.

     They had  done their jobs well and moved on to other work
fully expecting  the paper  industry to  gradually switch from
forest wood  pulp to using farm-grown hemp.  However, hemp was
hysterically condemned  as marijuana and outlawed twenty years
later just  as the  heavy machinery  was going on line to make
mass harvesting and separation of the hemp fiber from the pulp
economically competitive.

     Today we  desperately need  our  forests  to  filter  the
atmosphere clean  of excess  CO 2  before a runaway greenhouse
effect turns  Earth into  another Venus.   At the same time we
have to  stop burning  fossil fuels  and encourage  farmers to
grow biomass  crops on energy farms to replace fossil fuels so
no more excess CO 2 is unleashed into the already overburdened
air.   Just six  per cent  of  the  contiguous  United  States
devoted to  energy farming will supply all of our energy needs
currently provided by petroleum.  Hemp is the best energy crop
candidate for  America.   Hemp grows well in all fifty States.
Hemp is  a hearty  plant that  can be grown for energy on less
productive land,  so valuable  food  crop  land  need  not  be
sacrificed to  energy farming.  Hemp is the only plant capable
of becoming the national energy resource standard.

     For more  information about  hemp in  the environment and
the economy send five dollars to:

Access Unlimited
P.O. Box 1900
Frazier Park, Ca. 93225


References:
Environmental Chemistry by Stanley E. Manahan
USDA Bulletin no. 404
Progress in  Biomass Conversion  Vol. 1  by K. Sarkanen and D.
Tillman
Energy Farming in America by Lynn Osburn
Toward a Green Economy by Lynn Osburn
