The Environmental Case for Hemp

what if i told you that cannabis real

impact on our society

isn’t going to be medical or

recreational it’s going to be industrial

every 60 seconds in the u.s we lose

three acres of farmland to climate

change and to urban sprawl

now in that same minute all over the

world 250 babies are born

and 105 people die now

each one of those new babies is going to

need food clothing and shelter for the

rest of their historically long lives

that’s about 72 years of the current

average now that’s a problem for us

because it means that our generation is

going to have to provide for more people

than ever before

with fewer natural resources than ever

before and we’re gonna have to figure

out how to do it in a way that doesn’t

make climate change even worse

which brings us to our current situation

if we expect to thrive in the future

not just as a country but as a species

then we have until 2050 to get the

entire global economy to

net zero emissions so we can keep

climate change under control and avoid

the worst of the warming

that is a single generation now for

reference u.s emissions actually did go

down in 2020 by

almost 10 percent which is awesome but

the only reason that happened really is

because the kova 19 pandemic has

essentially shut off our economy for the

last 12 months

that’s not a long-term strategy now as

we start to recover

we have to find ways to get our

emissions down by 10 percent

every single year if we’re going to keep

the situation in check

we are in the beginning stages of what

is without a doubt the biggest

environmental

economic and logistical challenge that

humanity has ever faced

and i want to take a second here and

just get away from the abstractions and

remind everybody

what failure to solve this problem

really looks like failure to achieve net

zero emissions on time

means that climate change just keeps on

getting worse possibly past the point of

no return

it means that tens of millions of people

possibly hundreds of millions of people

are going to die from starvation disease

and extreme weather events

it could mean that our kids inherit a

dangerously unstable world

where conflict and world war are back on

the menu it’s not hyperbole at all

to say that achieving that zero

emissions is the biggest issue of the

21st century and the greatest challenge

of our generation

but how can we fix our economic system

without

sacrificing the real progress that’s

been made how can we

decarbonize an economy addicted to

fossil fuels

without destroying it well the answer is

we can’t decarbonize it at least not

entirely

the problem with trying to take carbon

out of the picture altogether is that

it’s just

it’s just not practical yeah

decarbonization makes

sense in some places technologies like

wind and solar energy electric vehicles

these can significantly reduce our need

for fossil fuels but oil is used for a

lot more than just energy and transport

organic chemistry is based on carbon and

a lot of our best stuff

comes from the carbons that we find in

oil useful stuff things like

fertilizers and medicines plastics and

pretty much all of our chemicals so

unless we’re willing to forego modern

technology and just

lop a few decades off the global life

expectancy we can’t get rid of carbon

altogether

what we can do is transition from making

our stuff out of fossil-based carbon

sources like oil and gas

to using renewable carbon

now renewable carbon is a very simple

concept instead of adding more

and more and more carbon into the

atmosphere by extracting new fossil

fuels out of the ground

we can actually take the carbon that’s

already been emitted into the atmosphere

and recycle it using one of nature’s

oldest and most powerful tools

photosynthesis the growing of plants

instead of

digging our carbon out of the geosphere

we can actually grow it in the biosphere

using what’s already in the air

that way the net amount of carbon in the

system stays exactly the same

this is what carbon neutrality means the

equivalent to decarbonization in the

energy and transportation sectors

is for chemical and material industries

to transition from fossil-based carbon

sources

to renewable carbon sources this is

where industrial hemp comes in

now industrial hemp refers to the plant

cannabis sativa l

not that one this one and

this one and those ones and

this one you see cannabis is a lot like

dogs

there are hundreds of different breeds

of cannabis that we call

cultivars now like dog breeds these

cultivars have been

bred for specific purposes and they look

and behave very differently from each

other

you’ve probably heard about cbd at this

point which comes from high cannabinoid

cultivars

but you might not be aware of industrial

hemp or how the two differ

industrial hemp refers to cultivars that

have been bred specifically for their

fiber

these are plants that can grow up to 20

feet tall and look more like corn or

sugar cane than cannabis

hemp fiber is the strongest natural

fiber in the world but more importantly

it is incredibly versatile the reason

that hemp is such a big deal

is because it is one of the only

renewable resources we have

that can hold a candle to the

versatility of petroleum

there are more than 25 000 different

carbon neutral

low waste products that can be

manufactured out of hemp everything from

bioplastics and chemicals to

environmentally friendly building

materials and textiles

even advanced stuff like graphene and

super capacitors all of these can be

made affordably

and in an environmentally neutral way

out of hemp

to understand why that is why hemp is

such an ideal source of renewable carbon

we have to take a look at the carbon

cycle itself

now if high school was a long time ago

don’t worry we’re gonna do a quick recap

here

the carbon cycle is the process by which

carbon flows from the atmosphere

into plants and animals into the earth

and then back into the atmosphere

it is a key tool that the planet uses to

regulate its temperature

now ordinarily the carbon cycle is a

closed system it’s a zero-sum game

just as much carbon gets released into

the atmosphere as gets absorbed

plants take carbon dioxide out of the

atmosphere they release those oxygen

molecules

they store the carbon in the structure

of the plant itself and then either that

plant will eventually die

and release that carbon back into the

atmosphere through decomposition or

it’ll be consumed by an organism and

released in the form of

methane the problem is that human

activities have added so much extra

carbon to this cycle

that it has become completely out of

balance and now we have to find ways to

get rid of all that extra carbon in

order to mitigate the effects of climate

change

now the first thing we need to do here

is stop the bleeding we

can’t afford to keep adding more and

more and more carbon into the system

it’s not sustainable clearly

fossil-based carbon sources are not a

long-term solution

we have to build an emissions neutral

circular carbon economy as the basis for

most of our physical products and

materials

this is where hemp can play its role now

it might not be the lead role but it is

definitely in the running for best

supporting character

like every other plant in the world hemp

grows through photosynthesis

again it takes carbon dioxide out of the

atmosphere it releases the oxygen

it stores that carbon in the structure

of the plant in its fiber

but then instead of decomposing or

getting eaten we can actually turn that

plant into a product

when you see a product that’s been made

out of industrial hemp

say say a plastic spoon for example that

product was quite literally made by

taking carbon out of the atmosphere and

transforming it into something

useful this is why hemp products can be

carbon neutral

and if you do it right they can even be

carbon negative they can actually take

more carbon out of the atmosphere than

it takes to manufacture the materials

themselves now i need to be really

careful here because

no one’s doing that successfully at

scale yet but

even if these products don’t quite add

up to net carbon negativity it is still

a

huge improvement over the current system

we have because most of the carbon

savings that we’re talking about here

upwards of 70 come from not having to

drill

extract and refine oil in the first

place

now the other major benefit to hemp as a

natural resource is its ability to

reduce

deforestation there is no better carbon

capture technology yet invented than the

tree

and so long as we live in a world where

trees are worth more dead than alive

well solving the climate crisis is

probably going to remain

out of reach since 1990 the earth has

lost more than 320 million square acres

of forested land

that is an area slightly larger than the

entire country of south africa

so much forest is lost each year as a

matter of fact that if deforestation was

a country

it would rank third in the world for

carbon equivalent emissions

right after china and the u.s hemp can

help reduce deforestation by replacing a

number of timber products

in addition to the plant’s fiber the

core of the plant is made from this

woody material over here that we call

the herd

now if you think of yourself hey that

looks a lot like wood chips you’re right

it’s exactly like wood chips and it can

be used for any application that wood

chips are currently used for

it’s not normally used to replace load

bearing lumber but hemp can replace

trees as the primary source of paper and

pulp products

which make up more than 40 percent of

all timber consumption

every year we produce more than 400

million metric tons of paper

and it costs us more than a billion

trees

think about that a billion trees every

single year

these are trees that would otherwise be

left standing doing what trees do

eating up carbon and maintaining

biodiversity

but it doesn’t stop there hemp can

replace a whole swath of timber products

particleboard charcoal and flooring

these three categories alone

cost us more than 55 billion pounds of

wood annually

all of them can be manufactured

affordably and with the same quality

out of hemp anything wood can do

hemp can do cleaner in countries like

brazil where more than 20 percent of the

amazon rainforest has been destroyed due

to illegal logging

hemp replacing wood for charcoal alone

could save more than

hundred million trees

by replacing lumber products in a

carbon-neutral way with hemp

we can leave billions upon billions of

more trees standing to do what they do

best

sequester even more carbon now climate

change is a time-sensitive issue

it’s actually it’s actually the

time-sensitive issue

the sooner we can get to net zero

emissions the better our odds are of

getting out of the 21st century intact

one of the best arguments for industrial

hemp then is the speed with which it can

be

deployed this is a technology that we

already

understand for the most part and we can

bring it up to scale whenever we decide

that we want to

we can’t afford to wait around for

flying cars or

some vague miracle technology that we

might discover to save us

we need to take action now not in 10

years

not in five years not next year now

industrial hemp can help us wean the

economy off of fossil fuels

and onto a more renewable track

still it is important not to exaggerate

especially in my industry

industrial hemp has a lot of potential

but it’s not

a panacea okay hemp’s not gonna

solve the climate crisis all by itself

and it’s not a miracle crop

it’s another tool in our arsenal against

the biggest threat facing the world

today

hemp’s not gonna save the world but it

sure could help