HEMP VS COTTON

A year or so ago I spoke at a natural fibres fair and made note of the facts about cotton. My inconvenient truths were not welcome, either by the cotton and bamboo merchants or by the press. Cotton is the world's largest crop, and is destroying the ecosystem. It is time we stopped it, but try to get the press to say anything! They don't like to. I almost succeeded with Drapers, a London based fashion and textile industry magazine, they listened and asked me to send in a letter, but then never published it. Over 90% of what they report, and advertise, has to do with cotton. So no surprise. Anyway, here is the letter they never published:

The Stones once painted the world black. Today, we are painting it green, which is the 'new black'. Do-gooders are dancing in the aisles, but are they in tune? They destroyed forests in Indonesia to plant palm oil; gave us low carbon bulbs full of mercury; ravaged the Amazon with soya; created chaos in India with jatropha, and; depleted water supplies by growing more cotton. This last issue I addressed on 18 May at the Fashion Made Fair, just after Katherine Hamnett signed cotton T shirts. Cotton, organic or otherwise, is water intensive. I poured out a pitcher of water for effect, and quoted Jeremy Smith of the Ecologist, who calculated that a hemp T shirt uses 2,800 litres of water less than a cotton one. Hemp, however, is eschewed by some. The good news is that hemp has arrived: Minawear is worn on prime time TV, Jilly Cholmondeley sheets are praised by the Independent, House of Hemp can scarce keep up with demand, Braintree occupies the flagship space in Camden Market, and THTC is de rigeur. Hemp attire is not Biblical sackcloth, and neither am I a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Similar observations are made by the aforementioned Smith and Cholmondeley, Louisa Pearson in Scotland on Sunday and Lucy Siegle in the Observer, who tackles Hamnett. We need to tune up to facts, however inconvenient they may be. For those wishing to repent of ignorant mistakes, there are coarse grades of hemp which make a good sackcloth; feel free to paint it black with organic ashes.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

But not enought to drink...such is the scenario. Here today and gone tomorrow. A story by Nathan Jafay in the Jewish Chronicle spells it out; water is at the lowest level on record. The Kinneret, known to most as the Sea of Galilee, the body of H2o on which Christ walked and the disciples fished, is about to go. It is the lowest fresh-water lake in the world, 33 x 13 miles. It provides a third of the country's water; the Talmud asserted that God chose it as his special delight. But the Knesset must not see eye to eye with the Creator; they have allowed it to be pumped to dangerous levels. Jafay points out that at the same time there has been an all-round failure top invest adequately in desalination plants (note comments to follow), which stands at a third of the target set by the government in 2002. Aquifers and wells have not been properly rehabilitated. Toilets are flushed with drinking water because rainwater harvesting is almost unheard of. There are virtually no public campaigns to save water. Now get this; agriculture uses 30% of water. Well, make the farming sector reinvest so that there is no net loss to the country. As Jafay notes, "exporting fruit and vegetables is akin to exporting water."

And what about cotton, one of the most water intensive plants in the world - even more water intensive if the trendy Katherine Hamnett crowd gets their expensive organic cotton shirts from an organic cotton plantation - how much water can the country afford to lose to this monocrop? Anti-Semites never had it so good; Israel is about to run dry of water because of this plant. And to add to irony, it is not Ahmadinejad who is behind this crazy policy, it is the likes of nice Jewish guy Philip Green who is benefitting from the misery of the cotton industry. But do you expect him to care for Israel? Mishling material I say; his name is an irony.

Israel desperately needs to get rid of cotton and conserve water. If it grows textiles, let it grow desert plants such as sisal, and less water intensive plants such as hemp. The former can be grown in the Negev, and the latter as well, if desalination plants are put in. These can be a by-product to the solar power industry - large towers full of water heated with mirrors. Salt water turned to steam, with fresh water as a by product. It is so simple it cannot be rebutted. And cheap too, glass and water. So what are we waiting for?

NOTES FROM THE

SEPTEMBER o8 ISSUE

OF THE ECOLOGIST

This month the Ecologist hails hemp, and much as I would like to start, and end with that, there are quite a number of other worthy articles that were more than just a good read. The first to catch my eye was a short piece on how the government has actively tried to play down the launch of ground-breaking legislation that could give local communities a direct say in how they are governed. The Sustainable Communities Act of 2007 was not even given a press release on the day it received royal assent. Sometimes the only way to get the government to work is to take it to court, and this is the subject of another short piece on Georgina Downs, who is doing just that. She is famous in the UK for acting against pesticide spraying. It seems that the French, however, are a bit ahead in terms of getting the government to act, as Sarkozy has launched the Mediterranean Solar Power Plan, which will set up mirrors to reflect sunlight into tanks that will heat water to drive turbines. This is a very efficient device, it loses only three percent of its energy in transport every 1,000 km. Even though this might not work for more northern nations, it would help these nations as the demand for other forms of energy would decrease, and we could have cheaper petrol.

Hardly any magazine is without some coverage of the US presidential race, the Ecologist's contribution to this is a piece by Joss Garman who debunks the green claims of McCain. Not that anyone thought he was that green to begin with. Last time this year Mark Anslow interviewed the US Green presidential candidate, Cynthia Mckinney, who needs no fig leaf to be green - she was in fact cooking up hemp porridge when he arrived. Obama seems to be Garman's choice, and I can only roll my eyes thinking about the damage this political neophyte would do in every way to the nation and the world. I do not look forward to an Obamanation or a McCainnation.

Another issue with US overtones is peak oil, which Richard Heinberg, author of Peak Everything, weighs in on. "Reducing oil dependency is seen as a matter of economic survival", he asserts. Tell that to the Obama and McCain.

Pat Thomas, the editor, spills the beans on soya. This plant is a monster, but like cotton, it has a devout following and criticising it is frowned upon. The people who promote it all wear green fig leaves and hang out at vegan fairs and left wing rallies, so they must be really good people, right? No way. They are exploiting a certain image and the good intentions of their fellow vegans to sell them a crop that is for the most part GM modified and full of phytates which block the uptake of essential minerals in the intestines. In addition, it inhibits enzymes, messes with our red blood cells, contains isoflavones which can disrupt homone function and often contains aluminium as the acid wash/alkaline wash processes used takes place in aluminium pots which leech this metal into the soya. Yummie! But try to tell that to the vegan high priests who are turning the temple into a market place. Oh, and one more thing, the soya cultivation is destroying the rain forest. But stopping zealots with facts is just about impossible. I will try on Sunday, 7 September when I talk at the Vegan Fest in Kensington, but I may just get thrown out. The money changers like to keep the show going and inconvenient fact finders are brushed aside.

A few pages down there is another article on the US, this one about the nation at war, with moths. It seems just like a deja vu; California is spraying tons of harmful pesticides made by a pesticide company that gave lots of money to the powers that be. Schwarzenegger and his team are making money this time. Where is his green fig leaf? Surely not to be found in a hemp field, as he vetoed the state hemp initiatives twice. Since hemp is a crop that does not use a lot of pesticides, maybe it was in the financial interests of these companies. This article, by Clare Robinson, is a must read for anyone in that state. It will go much further than any by the LA Times etc.

Bringing this back to the UK, an excellent piece on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) which are proving themselves to be cost efficient. Ed Hamer, the author, is himself a farmer in Devon. There is also mention of the certification process, which has been a somewhat of a hoax, or another way to raise money by self appointed green gurus who take lots of cash to fly around the world and stay in luxury hotels. In reality this excludes a lot of very deserving small businesses and favours those who pay thousands for their kosher certificate. Another UKcentric piece takes us to Sussex, where Louise Amos revives the art of 'close shepherding', which has the advantage of reviving eroded heathland.

And then on to hemp...with an essay by Laura Sevier. She begins by telling us how she has the "Real Eco Bags are Made from Hemp" 100% organic hemp bag with her everywhere she goes, so this woman is no mercenary freelancer just trying to fill up pages. She then goes on to give the basic information, on which there is no need to enter at large upon here, and then onto a number f UK based companies. Although the article tends to focus a bit too much on BioRegional, which is not in the hemp business and did not produce much, if at all, from their fields, much due to a lack of having researched the subject, it deserves much credit for having mention of a number of the more productive enterprises in the field of hemp, such as House of Hemp, which produces some really colourful and tactile womens apparel. Too many reporters go for the hemp as sackcloth story and get it all wrong. And another fault of reporters is to shy away from the 'activist' brigade in hemp. Were it not for the 'activists' hemp would not even be legal in the UK, and there would be no story. At present Henry Braham, a wealthy Londoner who drives a large 4x4, is trying to cash in on hemp and has made it known that he only wants a certain mainstream type of blogger and reporter - he has specifically discriminated against those who are 'too political'; or, perhaps, those who know a thing or two about hemp and would ask him inconvenient question like what kind of defoliant he uses on his plants and if the seeds are hot or cold pressed. He is NOT mentioned in the Ecologist article, despite his wealth, or the fact that he has his oil in Tesco (not a fact to be proud of). But one might argue he is green indeed; or at least his 4x4 is, a fact pointed out with comic effect in the 2004 Telegraph.

It's good to see a journalist avoid these flashy wide boys and give credit where credit is due. The people Sevier features have all made real contributions to the industry, including Bobby Pugh of the Hemp Shop, who designed the aforementioned hemp bag (see related posts on this site by clicking on tags for Anya Hindmarch, hemp bag). A number of hemp businesses are featured in a photo essay which includes: The Hemp Trading Co., Green Stationery, The Hemp Store, The Hemp Shop, Braintree, Sativa Bags, Pukka Herbs, Hemp Garden, Innocent Oils, The Natural Store, Howies, Enamore, Inbi-Hemp, Green Fibres, Whitaker Publising, and Green Kickers.

If I might make some small criticism of the article, it would be to note that the assertion "hemp...needs to be laid on the ground to allow the natural fungi and bacteria to loosen and separate the bast fibres from the woody core..." is misleading. Sevier is quoting BioRegional a few lines down, and I assume this comes from them? Hemp is much more suited to other forms of retting, and again, such discussion can be found on this blog. Nice people that they are, hemp is not their field, though they raised some fields of hemp once (which they have not done much with). It all seems to have gone to Katherine Hamnett who made a rather, may I say, uninspired jacket out of it all and has done nothing with it since. Flashy, but not what we need. I say the activists, anoraks and real scientists who spend their time perfecting the hemp movement are what we need, not 4x4 driving media types and cotton loving fashionistas.

We do need real media coverage, and may I say the Ecologist and Laura Sevier get my vote here. Not for nothing are they known as the leading environmental magazine. The Goldsmiths and their crew have worked hard over the years to bring us cutting edge and very accurate articles. They cover ground which others fear to tread. This is real journalism, and we'd all like to see more of it. Thank you Ecologist for all your support over the years, we hope to see more articles on hemp, many of us who have read this present one are hoping that the next one will be on hemp food.

PARTIAL OBSERVER

Nick Davies of the Guardian wrote movingly of the sister paper in a chapter in his book Flat Earth News; he titled it "The Blinded Observer." It is a litany of sins of the worst kind, and one wonders how anyone can still go out and buy this paper, taking part in the destruction of millions of trees each year to produce this pulp of fiction and fantasy.
By chance, I came across a leftover copy of the Observer Magazine in the launderette. On the cover is the new trendy model who wants everyone to think she is green indeed, so her first name is Eco, just in case one does not get the message. Everything seems to be named green or eco these days, and Katherine "E" Hamnett seems to be leading this trend. She is of course featured in this, I will get to Hamnett in just a bit.
Going page by page one finds incredible irony, it makes one want to scream. After flipping over the cover, we see a picture of the rejected mayor Ken Livingstone with a bicycle held over his head. It is not green, but red, as in Red Ken. But we get the graphic, Ken is supposed to be an eco-warrior. One might just note there are reasons he lost the election, one of which may be that he never listened as the pigeons he starved got sick and became a threat to public health. Flipping overleaf, we then find a double spread for a large car, the kind that takes up precious parking space, the kind that Ken in one of his brighter moments wanted to tax to death. One wonders then if he notices the juxtaposition of him and his red bike with the sleek silver coloured monster he sought to restrict. Previously I noted on this very blog the hypocrisy of these 'lefty-greeny' papers printing so many of these ads, and briefly, Media Watch and George Monbiot made some noise; obviously, no one noticed.
One does not have to flip many pages before another double page spread for yet another leviathan comes to light, this time for a Hyundai 4x4. And it is justified by having some award, maybe for the least polluting 4x4. Who gives these awards?Maybe it is Lucy Siegle, who is giving them out on the next page. Yes, the same Lucy Siegle who called me one night after somebody gave out my number without permission. After protesting, too much methinks, that she really was not so much in support of cotton, and that she read my blog every day and was delighted with my book, I took off some comments made about her, even though my eyewitness stands by his tesimony and pointed me to others who were there and could back up his story. After asking Siegle to back herself up about her claim that she too takes some issue with cotton and Kathine "E" Hamnett, I got the feeling I had fallen for a high pitched con job. Soft hearted bloke I can be, but not a total fool, so the time has come to call her bluff. If she reads this every day, then let her respond - weeks have gone by and she has failed to susbstantiate her claims as I asked. She can post a comment here; but how many times have we written in to the Observer and been ignored when we presented evidence about hemp and Omega 3 oil, hemp and its value as biofuel, hemp and its place in fashion? Not once. So allowing an Observer reporter to reply on my furom is in effect turning the other cheek.
Back to turning pages, I find no evidence at all that Lucy Siegle was honest with me. The awards seem to feature more and more cotton. And the way they work is that companies with lots of money can advertise in such papers and get to the attention of the reader, who in turn votes - based thereby on the amount of money a firm has to attract attention. Observer readers vote for Observer advertisers, like, doh. Turning yet another page in this sham popularity contest for rich kids, we see another toy for them - a Mercedes Benz. So far not one ad for a G Wiz or even a red bike. Just lots of expensice gas guzzlers which use up our resources and drive up the price of a barrel, causing massive economic hardship. Thank you very much indeed Lucy Siegle and the Observer.
And who is Lucy Siegle's pick of eco-politician? Red Ken, pictured on p. 23 with a bottle of champagne. Some of the winners though totally deserve their prize, and I am glad to see common sense prevailed with Tanya Ewing and her wireless Ewgeco, an instrument that measures energy consumption. But where is The Hemp Shop - which Woody Harrelson praised as the best stocked hemp shop he had ever seen - has Lucy Siegle seen it once or even mentioned it? Or Pure Sativa, which manufactures really strong and well designed luggage here in London? Or the exquisite multi-coloured creations of House of Hemp? Most or all of the fashion and textile coverage is on cotton, but then we get to some really good reporting on this once we get past Lucy Siegle. Dan McDougall gives us a fact only article on this weed's growth in Egypt, where child labour is the norm. A large part of this labour involves picking bollworms, and this takes place in the heat of the day. These plants are often drenched in pesticides, and no surprise that "accurate health studies are thin on the ground here."
The children often get no school, only the lash on the back from a foreman. But for all the hard work, there is less and less money. Part of this is due to US subsidies to US cotton farmers, which has occasioned a sharp drop in prices causing Egyptian farmers to lose money in a season. There is also the problem of cotton being overcultivated so there is a glut at times on the market, and whilst I make many arguments against cotton farming, economic reasons alone ought to bring common sense to the equation. McDougall rightly informs us "cotton has a long and chequered history." This history is not getting any better - it went from one form of slavery to another. Now that we have GM crops, the farmers are at the mercy of the seed companies, and I will not enter at large upon so well known a subject here as my readers, Lucy Siegle and Katherine "E" Hamnett included, must already know well the horrors of this.
The article is excellent, but again the strange juxtaposition of a 4x4 add lends an eerie sense of hypocrisy to this. McDougall goes on to talk about food riots, such as the ones in Haiti, but then tells us that there were similar or worse such disturbances in Egypt - at least 60 dead. One source of friction is water use from the Nile, and cotton is thirsty. In a hot country it is a greedy plant like the monster plant in Little Shop of Horrors. This of course causes "economic hardship and growing resentment in the west." Quoting Hamdi Wabid, he writes: "It is becoming apparent that cotton is not an economical crop. Now it's just hurting people - and perhaps most tellingly the environment - badly, and many families are going under."
What the article does not tell us is what to do to change this. A crop that does not attract bollworms and many other pests that cotton does, one which uses less water and can be grown for many uses - that is a solution. I would like to present not only the dark clouds but also the bright sunshine, but it is going to take people like Siegle and Hamnett to take on board facts and not just go and support more cotton farming. OK, Hamnett claims hers is organic, but in reality this uses even more water, and how do we get the bollworms and other insects off ths organic plants? Do we whip these kids to work harder and explain that it is better because it is getting written up in the Observer with lots of trendy people?
Turning the page again, I am face to face with a Lexus, its sleek black body coming out of a background of grey clouds. This is what drives the Observer, and I am sure Lucy Siegle, and the board of directors, are not unaware. Overleaf is brighter, an image of the blonde haired blue eyed Eco Herzigova - whose name I did in green just in case anyone does not notice that she is ECO - which one might just dare to question as she is advertising lots of cotton dresses and has ties to Al Gore. Oh she is happy indeed, probably not thinking at all about how much the cotton attire is depleting the water. Just stick an organic label on it and it's kosher, kind of like a Michael Sophocles chicken. And they are not cheap, a white cotton shirt worn by Eco goes for £314 at Harvey Nichols. And the Stella McCartney floral dress (I can only imagine a whore who smokes organic crack wearing it) goes for £645 at Matches. Page after page of this woman with the happy clappy organic smile has made me indeed depressed. But a good story about a family that went off grid for a month does have substance, and I am glad to see their more sensible faces, not the silly grins from Eco. Then it gets better, Dan Pearson talks sensibly about gardening in London. Here is someone with more than just a smile to get by - he studied at Kew, spent a year at Jerusalem Botanic Garden, worked with Miriam Rothschild, and toiled away in NY on the Lower East Side, where, incidentally, I spent my years, correcting my teacher's spelling at PS 64. Old habits die hard.
Sadly, however, a flip of the page takes me away from such a good bit of botanical ruminations back to the world of Gossypium promotion. A spread with the "top 5 Ethical outfits" looks suspiciously like an infomercial for the top 5 spenders in "eco"-fashion advertising - and these top 5 ethical outfits are not cheap. A sleeveless dress by Peopletree goes for £165 - it is black, quite suitable or a funeral, though cut above the knees. And of course, there is a Katherine "E" Hamnett T shirt, grey with a large slogan in block letters - this goes for £40. Cotton, of course. There is no hemp on this page. In fact there is no hemp at all in this 'ethical' issue. American Apparel, another spender on the ad scene is here, and Stella McCartney is ubiquitous - three out of five of the shoes are her creations - no price given, dare we ask?
Next page spread features Jocelyn Whipple, who does not mention hemp - even though she worked at hemp company for years in LA and is betrothed to Dru Lawson of The Hemp Trading Co. Or was it edited out?
Then on to Katherine "E" Hamnett and her £40 T shirts. Am I being too cynical, or is she ripping us off? Either she is making a killing on profits or else organic cotton is just not feasible. By the way, she reminds me of that very authoritarian teacher at PS 64 whose spelling I used to correct. Few people like it when I do that, but if we are going to have food to eat and not just trends to enthuse over, we need such hardcore reality. Nice to make expensive organic cotton outfits and then give them lots of awards in these lefty papers, but we need water - we need food - we need facts. And there are not being heard when I am nice, so I have to shout and hope someone hears. Mr. Nice Guy gets taken advantage of by the likes of Lucy Siegle, so no more of this game. It has to be reality, and I am not hampered by 4x4 companies, American Apparel, happy clappy organic crack smokers or any other nonsense. This blog is for the fact, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts. If you do not like what I say, and you have facts, then by all means, speak up - comment is free, as the Guardian and Observer like to tell us.
At present the press is working hard to keep the likes of me out of discussion, they prefer the rich and famous who keep wearing cotton. There are those in the press who are on the ball - Andrew Gilligan, Genevieve Roberts, Nat Hentoff, plenty of people who have done a good job, but this pseudo eco brigade is not among them.

LET THEM EAT CAKE

Have you heard the latest in humanitarian news? The starving are to be fed the left over pressing from cotton seeds, known as seed cake. This way the cotton industry can keep right on rolling, the biofuel idiots who do not know what they are doing can use food crops for fuel, instead of using exisiting waste parts, and Robert Mugabe can get the Noble Peace Prize. We thought that he was 86'd from Europe, but no, they let the beast in to a hunger summit, maybe just to strike a note of irony. Not that much was needed to strike such a note, as the delegates were already gulping down veal and white wine, along with prawns served in vol-au-vents stuffed with pumpkin puree. Wonder where all the food came from and what the farmers who produced it made, but that may not have been an issue on the table.

The UN delegates who attended heard from Ban Ki-Moon that we were about to face food riots worldwide. Production, Ki-Moon warned, needed to increase 50% by 2030 in order to feed everyone. Not sure Mugabe was keen to hear any of this. When his highness did speak, at least one person had the guts to do the right thing and snub his talk - International Secretary Douglas Alexander. Well done mate.

UK MP Gordon Brown and Spanish MP Jose Zapatero weighed in with a remark about how the "world cannot afford to fail" on increasing food production, but neither of them really made any difference by outlining what exactly was to be done.

Since they left that to others to do, let me take up the slack here. We need to appropriate more land to food production. On a planet where only 4.5% of the land is arable, this needs real effort - and chopping down forests is not my recommendation. If we look at the way we are using land, we can make some intelligent changes, and this is a simple exercise. What do we grow lots of but do not use for food? Cotton. This is one of the world's most damaging crops, especially waterwise, and we need to change - but we are hampered both by large companies and petty do-gooders who have fallen in love with cotton. From Robert Mugabe to Katherine Hamnett you will find a common denominator - they are both wearing cotton. Everyone seems to love cotton - and why not, when both the right wing and the left wing press promote this thing to death? For instance, the latest issue of the Observer Magazine hands out all kinds of ethical awards to cotton companies - mostly owned the rich and famous (who can in turn afford to advertise in the Observer)! Money runs things just as much in the left as in the right, and previous posts on this blog have made much mentions of who is advertising in the Guardian, Observer, Independent, etc. OK, a little noise was made by Media Watch and George Monbiot echoed the noise, but the game went on.

So when we are in desperate need, do not expect these papers to give a damn except anything other than their hip and trendy image. They print on the trees grown in the Third World, and exhort us to use cotton and lots of it. Getting mention of a real solution is just not happening. In the meantime, people starve while reporters get paid for worthless stories.

But let me not just pick on cotton, when other crops are just as vile - I turn my guns next on tobacco, a plant that Thomas Jefferson warned against. Jefferson, a farmer himself, advised that we grow hemp. Tobacco might be grown in limited quantities for real quality cigars, but to just raise a crop to burn here there and everywhere is criminal. Lots of people think they are cool if they waste their money on this, but in reality they are causing land that could be used for food to be used for greedy tobacco companies. And while they burn up this weed, they are causing a rise in food prices. But tobacco is one of America's four largest industries, right up there with the arms industry. No one would need to suffer if tobacco were phased down to a minimum, as then Americans, many of them poor Kentuckians who are abused by the tobacco companies, would then grow food, which is becoming so much more of a luxury.

Growing hemp and other plants which produce food and biomass for ethanol is the sensible way to go. It does not take a genuis to figure this out. It takes lots of peopke to take action though, maybe there is some journalists out there who wants to take a look at this and do some reporting?

Many things that seem like they are complex are in fact simple, but the press gives out so much misinformation and prints excuses. For instance, recently there seemed to be a 'breakthrough' here when it was reported that there was the possibility of phasing out the ubiquitous plastics milk container used in the UK. People in North and South America are probably laughing! Of course there is, you use a waxed card square container which is easy to fold up and recycle. Doh. But the UK press acted as if some genius inventor was thinking of this and it would be a packaging miracle. Then nothing happened. Since then, about 6 billion of these plastic containers have been used. The truth is the press ignores people like me when we show them prima facie evidence.

And I suspect that they will give lots more space to Robert Mugabe, Kate Moss, Katherine Hamnett and others who support cotton. For those of use with not such short memories, the press did in fact support Robert Mugabe - especially the left wing press - they thought that Ian Smith was a terrible fascist. But there are starving masses in Zimbabwe who would love to have him back. Unfortunately, all they can look forward to is some more noise and no action, and of course, lots of cotton seed cake.

RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE

These last two days have been full of action, ever since I poured out my pitcher of water and went thirsty at the brewery to make the point that cotton cultivation is a danger to Homo sapiens.

I did get a call from a female of the species who was not happy with one of my statements, and after hearing her out, I decided she did have a fair point and ammended the previous post. Lucy Siegle of the Observer was the caller, and we ended up having quite an amicable conversation after she made her initial request. It turns out she is quite on board with a number of my points, and has herself taken Katherine Hamnett and the greenwash brigade to task. She wanted to make it clear that she was not some happy clappy hippy going along with all the eco fig leaves, and I was glad to hear that. I await the publication of her next book, and of course, I expect there will be lots about hemp in it - after all Siegle hangs out with natural born hempster Woody Harrelson.

There was an irony in my being willing to listen to anyone from the Observer, as this is the paper that printed allegations about a friend of mine, Dr. Nick Kollerstrom. Their very own Nick Cohen reported that Kollerstrom was preaching Nazi doctrine and harrassing people. Whilst some of Dr. Kollerstrom's views might not be welcome in Orthodox circles, he is no Nazi, in fact, he is the quintessential peacenik, eats Challah bread in his home, and has Jewish friends - one of whom started a blog (click here to see) to defend Kollerstrom, even if the author does not agree with all of his conclusions. Whilst the Jewish Chronicle did go to the trouble to call Kollerstrom and talk to him and find out that a lot of the noise on the net was false, the Observer made no such effort. Instead, it took the word of some bloggers who do not even use their real names! What a load of nonsense. Further, it refused him right of reply. One might think that the Observer has the budget to check their stories and make a local phone call once in a while.

They do when they feel themselves misrepresented, and fair enough if there is some question about any statements I make, I am not using an assumed name like the Rachel 'Norths' and Johnny 'Voids'. I am easy to contact, just ask MI5...for which I am not working, but would like to work if they pay lots of money and let me spend all my time with beautiful women sipping martinis and saving the world every episode from over the top nutters most of whom are trust fund babies on crack.

Speaking of beautiful women, which I am in very much in search of, one poster on Sunday took such issue with my speech at the Black Eagle that she insinuated I was a misogynist; big mistake, I like women! There is a certain crowd that will label you a Nazi, a misogynist, or anything else that comes to mind when they do not have a real argument against you, or need to submit some rubbish to an editor to make deadline...it's called 'churnalism', as Nick Davies points out in Flat Earth News.

The poster, Janet from another planet, decided to tell us she worked for a hemp company that got lots of good liberal press, but then left a link to a cotton company. She also did not give a surname and could not be contacted. Funny, I've never heard of a Janet in the hemp industry. I would like to know more about this person, but I doubt we end up saving the world together at the end of a two hour adventure in which I get to wear black tie even while jumping out of aeroplanes.

So I am off to do other things now, like writing to MI5 to suggest that Bond wear hemp, and tell them the bad guys this time are some eco warriors who are in reality trustiferians gone bad. Their plan is to destroy the world by growing palm oil, soya, jatropha and cotton because they are not getting enough attention from Mummy and Daddy who are telling them to take a bath and get a real job. Bond will get no quantum of solace from this lot I assure you.

THIRST AT THE BREWERY

Today the Hemp for Victory tour headed for Brick Lane in East London, where Fashion Made Fair was in its last day. The Black Eagle Brewery was the location, just a stone's throw, incidentally, from Fashion Street. New faces, familiar faces, overall it was a good networking day. Green Knickers was the first stop - like many hemp based manufacturers, it is based in London - St. Julians Farm Road in SE27. Next to their stand was Goodone which uses recycled clothing, including offcuts from The Hemp Trading Co., whose CEO Gav Lawson was on hand. Jenny Ambrose from Enamore was having another successful day, sharing a booth with Equa, which is a shop in London that sells hemp and other natural fibre clothing.

Katherine Hamnett came at noon, dressed in black, to sell her white T shirts which contain not a shred of hemp, made as they are of cotton. After the appearance of the dark clad one I went on stage with my hemp material and a pitcher of water, from which I poured a glass, and then emptied it onto the floor. This, I noted, is what happens when we buy cotton. Then, after some words on the cultivation of hemp, peeling fibres from the stalks I had in hand from the BioRegional Harvest in Essex, the talk went on, with the jar of water intermittently emptied, to illustrate what goes on when we buy cotton. We are destroying the world with frivolous do-gooder ideas, but it feels good, and it makes the journalists go wild. Oh how they love to promote our cotton loving charade - and how some go so far as to degrade hemp because they are stupid.

This is all rather blunt, whether written on a blog or spoken to an audience. It would be easily defused, however, if it were not correct. Not one person could rebut these facts then, not one person has posted a comment in rebuttal on this blog over the years, and not one journalist has penned a riposte. The hacks do mutter under a bit their breath, and one audience member told us stories of their own abuse at the hands of journalists who did not want to hear so far as to criticism. Louisa Pearson of the Scotland on Sunday earlier this year wrote that hemp was the fibre to use, not cotton, and this did not sit well with some of her colleagues, including those at the liberal press which sells out to cotton and SUVs.

By the end of my talk the jar was empty, and I was thirsty; but the water was gone. And this is what has happened in lands where cotton has been grown, but, let's face it, the press gang do not suffer as a result. They can promote the Katherine Hamnett cotton picking crew and make an easy pay cheque. But not for long, as the water is finite, and lack of it is leading to war. Already the Aral Sea is down to less than 50% of its capacity due to cotton cultivation, and other waterways are similarly under threat. But does this matter to Katherine Hamnett? She is cool in the eyes of many - but let them go and live in Central Asia and it won't be long before they are tired of T shirt signings and other stunts designed to promote this pest crop.

Another aspect of cotton cultivation is that textiles made from it wear out sooner than hemp - but this keeps the likes of Sir Phillip Green and Hamnett in business. It also keeps up pressure to use arable land, which comprises but 4-5% of the earth's surface, for threads - mostly consumed by Westerners who do not realise what a farce this is. They do not face the reality of food scarcity, they are not involved in food riots which have gripped other nations so badly these last few months. They do not think for a second about minimising the land used for textile production, as long as they can feel cool and look sexy they think everything is OK. And to add to the irony of this, we label cotton 'organic' and then charge more for what took more water from the farmers. What would Katherine Hamnett say to these facts? Maybe she can quote Marie Antoinette; "let them eat cake."

That is the attitude in the journalistic circles in the West. Food riots are not their problem, and as many journalists have told me, not without annoyance at my persistent warnings on these issues, their job is only to report the events. Like vultures, they profit at others' loss.

Much to the credit of my listeners, my points were heard, and I had a good talk with them afterwards. If there were any journalists in the crowd, maybe I will be pilloried in the press tomorrow - but who cares, I was stabbed by crack dealers and paedophiles in NY when I spoke up, and threatened by pickpockets when I stopped their work. They are no worse than the idiot churnalists who support the likes of Hamnett - in fact, they do more harm than crack dealers since crack does not deplete the water supplies, it does not take diminish our food supply. Not that I want them around either.

One interesting contact was Uscha Pohl, editor of VERY and very-eco.com. We have both lived in NYC, and she updated me on the latest in recycling in the Big Apple: there is no recycling, Mayor Bloomberg just decided to hell with that; as a major player in the press, he is also not in support of hemp. Not surprising that lots of cotton is worn in his city, and that people who have money fill entire apartments with clothes, thus putting a burden on the land, which means that some people will have to starve to death in order to make way for land apportioned to cotton production.

What does the future hold? Do the men take the lead and oust the pests so that we use our land intelligently to produce for our needs, or do idiots hacks and greedy clothing manufacturers gang up with the drug dealers, paedophiles and pickpockets whom I so despised? We cannot be silent and also be real men. The world is under threat from cotton - which is by far the world's most cultivated textile crop - 1m acres alone in California - and this threat needs be addressed. I will be calling on journalists to act - with a view to naming and shaming all those who do not - and this includes the do-gooder but know-nothing hacks who promote whatever has the most money for PR.

BIRDS, BEES, GM CROPS AND

COTTON PICKING FACTS

Two issues commonly discussed on this site are GM crops and bees, even if they are a bit peripheral to hemp. Both issues are also discussed in the Summer 2007 issue of Science in Society. Dr Mae Wan-Ho weighs in on both, along with notes on the birds, including the hempophilic sparrows. Katherine Hamnett talks about cotton pesticides.

Dr Ho, a physicist, discusses the universal harmony that molecules have with each other, and in turn, the harmony that organs in the same body will therefore also have. In an article titled "Quantum Jazz, the Tao of Biology", she talks about this phenomenon in the terms of the 'liquid crystalline continuum.'

Poetically she notes: "Quantum jazz is the music of the organism dancing life into being, with every single cell, every molecule and atom taking part, emitting light and sound with wavelengths of nanometres to metres in kilometres; spanning a musical range of 70 octaves, each improvising spontaneously and freely, yet keeping in tune and in step with the whole."

Wow! I wish my high school science courses were that inspiring. Maybe they make these classes boring so people do not later in life grasp the necessary science to challenge the large companies that are trying to run our lives. Dr Ho, along with Prof Joe Cummins, goes on to speak of GM crops, with a note on GM maize 59122 being found not safe. Opposite that in the magazine is another note on GM maize, this one about MON 863, which French scientists have found to be toxic...Zut alors, quel surpris.

As to bees, this is the issue in which the report about the mobile phones placed in hives in Landau proved that they cause bees to vacate the hives. Along with bees, she speaks of birds, two subjects to which I did pay attention to in my boring 8th grade science class. Of the aves she notes that mobile phones are causing breeding and reproduction failures, specifically in House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) and, somewhat appropriately, White Storks (Ciconia ciconia).

Hamnett picks on cotton, telling us that 3 million cases of pesticide poisoning are reported each year by WHO. I bet they forgot to mention that in the Dow Chemical and Monsanto shareholder reports. They might also have forgotten to mention the facts that 20-90 kg of pesticdes are used per hectare on cotton plantations in Uzbekistan, which has caused 90% of the land to be contaminated. DDT and lindane blow around the region, causing cancer to the inhabitants. 43 million tonnes of pesticide-laden dust. Central Asians have the highest incidence of throat cancer in the world.

Hamnett only briefly touches, however, on the fact that cotton depletes the water, and that the Aral Sea has lost most of its volume, which means that agriculture in the region is a mess, and that migrating birds do not show up. Hamnett then promotes her own brand of 'organic cotton' as if this were some kind of answer. "It's not about choosing something else, it's about choosing the right cotton." So it's OK to destroy other people's water if you are a fashion guru sticking an organic label on the stuff. What about hemp? Oh, that's hard work for people like her, she once wore a hemp outfit from hemp made in the UK, but decided it was easier to perpetrate the cotton industry and make lots of money. However, the article was illuminating from the point of view of all the pesticide problems that cotton occasions. Too bad, though, that she and so many other gurus do not care to point to the long run solution of hemp cultivation.