Environment & Climate
The Organic Revolution: Change the System, Not the Climate
What if there were an organic technology that could cut greenhouse emissions in half and literally suck down and sequester carbon dioxide in living soil - bringing the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm - the level scientists warn us we must acheive in order to avert a climate catastrophe?
Cook Organic, Not the Planet. Boycott Factory-Farmed Foods.
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In an acclaimed new book being launched Wednesday in London, American public interest attorney Steven Druker reveals how the US government and leading scientific institutions have systematically misrepresented the facts about GMOs and the scientific research that casts doubt on their safety.
The book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, features a foreword by the renowned primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, hailing it as “without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 years”.
Read morewar on gmos
Since when is the safety of genetically modified food considered “settled science” on a par with the reality of evolution? That was the question that jumped to mind when I saw the cover of the March 2015 National Geographic and the lead article, “Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?”
The cover title: “The War on Science.” The image: a movie set of a fake moon landing. Superimposed: a list of irrational battles being waged by “science doubters” against an implied scientific consensus:
“Climate change does not exist.”
“Evolution never happened.”
Read moreAltrazine
LONDON — Syngenta, a Swiss chemicals company, produces one of America’s most popular herbicides. It is called atrazine, and 73.7 million pounds of the chemical compound were applied in the United States in 2013. It was used on more than half of all corn crops, two-thirds of sorghum and up to 90 percent of sugar cane.
But Syngenta cannot sell atrazine to farms in its own backyard.
Even though the European Union banned atrazine over a decade ago, the company has long insisted that the pesticide was not banned.
Read morepoison spring valllianatos
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts,” Richard Feynman famously declared in 1966. Ever quick to challenge accepted wisdom, he distinguished the laudable ignorance of science, forever seeking unattainable certainties, from the dangerous ignorance of experts who professed such certainty.
Twenty years later, he would drop a rubber ring into a glass of ice water to show a panel of clueless rocket experts how willful ignorance of basic temperature effects likely caused the Challenger shuttle disaster
Read moredead whale
A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.
“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
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Many consumers and food activists use social media platforms to stay informed and engage in important debates about the future of our food system. But increasing corporate influence in these spaces requires us to differentiate fact from spin as we encounter hundreds of posts and tweets per day. Big Ag’s attempts to shape social media debates expose its fear of criticism from a growing food movement demanding corporate transparency, regulation, and sustainable alternatives to industrial agriculture.
Read morescience
San Joaquin Valley row-crop growers should be allowed the benefits of so-called "cap-and-trade," according to new research from U.C. Agricultural and Natural Resources.
Long-term research by UCANR has documented the capacity for farmland in the San Joaquin Valley managed with certain conservation practices to sequester carbon, results that could give farmers a seat at the carbon trading table. The study was published this month in the Agronomy Journal.
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Iowa’s largest water utility is threatening to sue three rural counties for allowing excess farm chemicals to contaminate drinking water, a dispute that is triggering a wider debate over the best way for Midwestern states to stop pollution from fertilizer runoff.
The Des Moines Water Works’ action is being closely followed by environmental advocates and could have far-reaching implications for states like Minnesota that have battled similar threats to drinking water.
Read morens salmon virus
A broad-based coalition is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to halt proposed changes to federal aquaculture regulations, warning they could damage the environment and existing businesses.
The proposed amendments to the federal Fisheries Act would exempt the aquaculture industry from provisions that "prohibit the release of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish."
Coalition members are worried the changes will result in pesticides routinely being dumped into the Bay of Fundy and remove Environment Canada's role in aquaculture activities, said spokeswoman
Read morenuclear complex
The discovery of over 16,000 cracks in two Belgian reactor vessels may have global implications for nuclear safety, says the country's nuclear safety chief. He and independent experts are calling for the immediate checks of nuclear reactor vessels worldwide.
Thousands of cracks have been found in the steel reactor pressure vessels in nuclear reactors Doel 3 and Tihange 2 in Belgium - vessels contain highly radioactive nuclear fuel cores.
The failure of these components can cause catastrophic nuclear accidents with massive release of radiation.
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