Hemp and Climate Change: The Ultimate Duo
There has not been a day when despair and anxiety has not overwhelmed my body because of climate change, a particular darkness that is familiar and not a stranger to my life, to my existence. For a long time, my sense of justice has tormented my consciousness, because the Earth – this blue marble where intention, coincidence, and life flourishes – contains my entire existence and then some, and yet, we, as a collective, continuously disrespect and dishonor our Mother Earth. She has given us everything we could have ever asked for because abundance is the motto, but we exploit, pollute, and pillage the Earth for a litany of reasons – almost all of which boil down to profit and greed. While the individual has power in self-determining their life, the individual is not and cannot be responsible for Earth’s restoration. It would be unfair to ask the individual to assume agency and responsibility in addressing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions being released in the atmosphere, because we already know how Industry is guilty of killing the Earth. The inability for the individual to transform dire circumstances and the continuation of Industry in destroying our Earth brings me agony as I can feel the little amount of hope inside of me gradually slip away. And who wants to be a person without hope? Not me.
Higher SelfMade, a healing entity, is my attempt to reclaim Justified Hope. Higher SelfMade – as a mindful organization composed of human beings – aims to reclaim hope by being part of the movement to farm more hemp plants. We didn’t hear much about hemp, because it was made illegal to grow in the 20th century for its connection to marijuana, but the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp and thus CBD. Today, farmers are able to cultivate hemp; consumers are able to enjoy hemp products; and people can now use hemp to fight climate change. We live in a very complicated world with complex problems, and while complex problems oftentimes demand and necessitate complex solutions, the solution to climate change can be relatively simple – plant more hemp trees. This is the motivating logic of Higher SelfMade. This one idea of planting more trees, a singular premise, is sufficient to explain everything in this company’s development. Planting more hemp is not the end-all-be-all solution to climate change, but it is without a doubt part of the solution. Planting trees in general is not a new concept ~ it has been around the block more than once, but the biggest issues are the cost and time in planting trees. Hemp, in contrast, is cost-effective and grows fast. Hemp absorbs large amounts of carbon and transports this carbon back into the soil, which is perfect because the problem with climate change is that we have too much CO2 in the atmosphere and not enough carbon in our soil. Growing as tall as 13 feet in 100 days, hemp is one of the fastest converters of carbon-to-biomass making it the ideal carbon sink.[1] According to the National Hemp Association, “it’s already been shown that hemp plants can absorb more carbon dioxide per hectare than any commercial or forest crop.”[2] The more hemp trees we can plant, the more carbon dioxide we can take from the air and put into the Earth.
How does Higher SelfMade fit into the equation? Higher SelfMade is a wellness hub with a specialized focus on CBD. We hope to be part of the change in consumer tastes in preferring hemp products over non-hemp products. In doing so, we are trying to spread awareness of the merits of hemp derived products, because we believe that this mindfulness will increase the demand for hemp products. We specifically want more people to use hemp in their daily lives because there is a positive and significant relationship between the demand for CBD and the amount of hemp trees being planted. If more people are interested in consuming CBD products, more hemp plants will need to be farmed, and if more hemp plants are farmed, more carbon can be sequestered in a significant way, which is one of our end goals. Higher SelfMade wants more hemp trees to be planted, and we work toward that goal by raising and meeting the demand for hemp products, such as CBD.
Kind Regards,
Sage D. Young
[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/cheapest-way-save-planet-grows-like-weed/5684658
[2] https://nationalhempassociation.org/hemp-our-solution-to-the-climate-change/