Should we use HEMP???

Question

I know that we clear cut forest for paper (we also do it to build these nice suburban nations), and since forest absorb carbon from the atmosphere why can't we use hemp as a source for our paper. you can farm it just like cotton or any other plant. Would this help matters at all is my question or would having to use resources to farm it be more costly than cutting down forest? I know you can use hemp to make paper and other things and it could be quite affordable and reliable.

It's not to smoke dude!! I can't, I have a job!! I do know that you can use it for other purposes besides getting baked!!!

Just trying to lighten the mood in the Global Warming debate..

Tomcat: doesn't it take years to grow trees back to their full stage and at a rate that we cut.. i'm sure there is not a positive feedback when you compare the amount cut down to the amount replanted and how long it takes those replanted trees to reach their full potential.

Answer 1

Sorry dude. Global warming is a poor excuse for letting you smoke pot.

Answer 2

I have no idea what the US legality of hemp is, but I do know that other nations (including mine) grow and use hemp on a somewhat limited, but rapidly growing basis. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that legal issues may very well be a major reason why the US doesn't make more hemp products.

So far, in Canada at least, hemp hasn't outright replaced wood products, and I am guessing it's possible that won't happen at all. The forest industry can be environmentally friendly if it's managed properly, and so far hemp is one crop that is being used internationally to help boost the forest industry's sustainability.

You're correct; it does grow much faster, and that's something that's very appealing about hemp. A clear cut area of hemp can be replaced in a season. It's useful for paper, rope and clothing, among other things. Papermaking as a process though is much different than just cutting down trees and mulching them up. "Greener" processes can be used on wood OR on other sources though, and are being used. I'm going to stop my answer at this point though, as I'm not 100% sure about paper making practices as they apply on a global scale.

Answer 3

Ok....It's painfully obvious that a few here didn't pay attention during earth science class in middleschool.

Per acre, Industrial Hemp will produce 4 times the mass (over 20 years, the amount of time it takes a tree to reach maturity) than an acre of trees.

And to believe that "Evergreens" are the only "carbon eating wood producing trees" is just ignorant.

and to answer the"getting baked on Hemp" thing....
please....please read this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322135105.htm

To address your final statement,
"would having to use resources to farm it be more costly than cutting down forest?"

The cost of repairing the damage, of relentlessly cutting down oldgrowth forests is much higher. What will we do when our demand for wood based products exceeds supply?

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

This question came a day or two ago. It seems to me its a question of efficiency and environmental compromise.

For one thing, "the voice of reason" is wrong. Pulp also comes from real forests. I would know, I organize those types of harvests.

As far as efficiency and resources are concerned, any annual crop will consume annual resources. With a naturally regenerated forest, other than petroleum from wood removal (for my area, every 15 years or so), the "crop" consumes nothing but CO2 and sunlight. Hemp would consume petroleum during fiber removal, annually, as well as when the soil is tilled, and when its planted. In other words, one acre of forest land will be driven over or "worked", once every 15 years. An acre of hemp will be driven over 45 times in 15 years.
I don't doubt that putting a greater impute of energy into an agriculture system will beat the pants off of any naturally regenerated forest, but at what cost? Agriculture consumes more water and land than any other human activity in the world (see link below).

Ecology is the other consideration. How many people see fisher, martin, bobcats, moose, or beaver in a mono culture crop? I see these things at work often. And that land has been regularly harvested for lumber for over 100 years, without planting. How many types of plants will you see in a hemp field? 1, maybe with some weeds. A forest? Hundreds of thousands. Erosion? You guessed it, monoculture crops take home the prise again. Over the long term, even compared to clearcuts. After all, whats a harvested field of hemp? A clear cut, Every year until the end of time.

And I must interject about clearcuts. Clearcutting is not a tool for wood removal, its a regeneration method. Any forester or silviculturist can tell you this. Ask a logger to do a clearcut and one of two things will happen. Either A) he will cut all that is valuable and leave all the junk: leaving land not at all what most of us envision as a clearcut, or B) you will have to pay him MORE to do the extra work of removing those junk trees. And they are JUNK trees. They are undesirable products because they are genetically inferior to the desirable trees. Leaving them is called disgenic selection(commonly known as high grading). Its essentially reverse forest evolution, causing long term forest damage. And clearcutting is not suitable on every site, or every region of the world. In some parts of the west for example, water is a limiting factor in the successes of your regeneration. Even re-planting attempts in these areas can fail. In some parts of the east, where natural seed and water is abundant, Moose will continually brows seedlings and prevent any tree from growing more than 4 feet high (moose LOVE clearcuts, as do many rare birds). All these things must be considered before any timber harvest. More often than not (in the north east), only a portion of the timber (or fiber) is removed in one harvest.

Many forest owners are being certified, receiving a label much like an organic sticker at the farmers market. These certifications ensure the consumer that the products they buy are sustainable harvested in an environmentally sound way. You can buy paper, thats made from trees (that are not planted), endorsed by the rain forest alliance.

Sorry for the book.

Answer 5

you may easily knit hemp, so in case you be responsive to the thank you to knit, then you definately might make a hemp shirt in that trend! Hemp is surprisingly itchy, yet there are easily many varieties of hemp yarn that are very comfortable and are available in a sort of hues. sturdy success with that!

Answer 6

As far as cutting forest, no nation on the Earth manages forest better than the US. We plant more trees than any other nation. New trees sequester much more carbon than mature trees, so I think currently the US model on forestry management is a good model, I don't see hemp as being more effective than pine trees, because pine trees are evergreen, hence they grow all year long. And the pine trees provide wood, paper and many chemical products derived from the resin.

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Answer 7

You could try to lighten the mood - it's a bit hostile here.

I remember when I was a kid, people used hemp rope a lot. It was good for playground equipment, swings and eagle nests(you don't see them anymore). I don't know if anyone makes hemp rope anymore - just this nylon stuff which is much stronger,but not as soft.

Answer 8

Liberals use hemp everyday. The Clinton White House was one gigantic hemp party. Peace.

Answer 9

Yes we are doing it.
I mow the lawn with my horse
I only eat plants and animals that died of natural causes.
Never cook eat food raw or warmed in sun.
I drive a donkey cart to store
Wash clothes in creek by hand
dry the on rocks.
I only turn electric on for 1 hour a day.
take bath in creek or shower in rain.
Remodeling a cave to live in 50 degrees car battery for light.'
most of our clothes are hand woven out of hemp.
shoes for kids are made from leather road kill sandals and tires for bottom of shoes.
repaired old shopping cart for kids to collect empty soda cans.
Beds are old newspaper & tree Moss with hemp covering. furniture is made from logs and tree stumps.
Floor carpet is woven out of brightly colored plastic bags woven in circle.
My job is picking seed pine cones for forestry dept
This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. -- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Answer 10

We do not clear cut forest for paper. Pulp wood is grown as a crop, in farms, when the trees reach maturity, they are harvested and new trees are planted. Please listen, pulp wood does not come from forests, it comes from farms. Please stop spreading false information.