This is the 493rd edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) usually appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the March 29 Green Spotlight. More than 26,765 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in this series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
Idontknowwhy writes—Anti science/climate group pushing B.S. to our kid's science teachers in massive propaganda effort: “The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank promoting public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, and free markets, has mailed 25,000 copies of its book ‘Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming’ and an accompanying explanatory DVD to science teachers across the United States. It plans to continue the campaign until all 200,000 K-12 science teachers in the country have a copy. [...] As Frontline reports: Accompanying the materials is a cover letter from Lennie Jarratt, project manager of Heartland’s Center for Transforming Education. He asks teachers to ‘consider the possibility’ that the science is not settled. ‘If that’s the case, then students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists,’ he writes. The letter also points teachers to an online guide to using the DVD in their classrooms. [...] These bastards are trying to go straight to the hand that rocks the cradle in an attempt to brainwash our children to maintain their environment destroying fossil fuel $$$$$$.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - it's allergy season, and thanks to Global Warming it's getting worse: “Pollen allergies follow the seasons, with trees in spring, grasses in summer and weeds in fall. So far, my biggest problem is with trees. Here’s what’s happening in the Pacific Northwest. Red Alders are the most common deciduous tree in the Pacific Northwest. Right now alders are loaded with catkins like the ones in the top photo. Each catkin has hundreds of male flowers which produce pollen when ripe, and there are thousands of catkins on each tree. Wind will blow the tiny pollen grains to female flowers, the small cone-like structures. Alders delay leafing out until after the pollen is dispersed, so the grains have a free pathway to other trees, unblocked by foliage. When the catkins are ripe, alders take on a pink hue from a distance. Those countless pollen grains waft around in the air and anyone sensitive to them can’t help breathing them in. Allergy symptoms are a response by our body to foreign substances.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
AuntieB writes—“The rabbits are multiplying. Last summer, we had a family meeting, and decided to have no more baby bunnies. Since we try to raise all of our own meat, we’ve had to learn to butcher. We raise rabbits, chickens, and a couple of pigs for meat. But we’ve started eating a lot less meat, and, while rabbit is a good lean meat, we like it only rarely now that we actually know each and every animal we eat. We’ve decided to eat meat once or twice a week, and so we didn’t need to have any more rabbit babies for a while. This decided, we put Maurice, our boy rabbit, in with his favorite girl rabbit, Poofy, the one who never did get pregnant in the three or so years we had her. The other two females (Sylvia and Bonnie) get along well, so they got to room together too. They like to cuddle. Poofy and Maurice had spent those three years trying to be in the same cage. Poofy would chew through her chicken wire and sit by Maurice’s pen. We’d reinforce her home only to have Maurice chew through his roof support to get out and into her cage. Sometimes they both would get out and have romantic weekends together until we could catch them both. They never left the chicken pasture, and they were fairly easy to catch— when they wanted to be caught. Poofy had ample opportunity to get pregnant, but it never took.”
Krotor writes—Warning to dog owners: a pleasant walk in nature may present a deadly threat to your pet: “Thanks to NPR, I just learned something shocking: lethal cyanide ‘bombs’ are sometimes used on public lands to eliminate coyotes but they can kill your pet dog just as readily. An Idaho teenager noticed something unusual almost completely buried in the ground while he was out walking near his family property with his dog. When he bent down to check it out, the item detonated, covering him and the dog with a fine powder.The boy ended up at the hospital but he survived. Sadly, his dog died. The device is an M44 cyanide device, sometimes called a ‘cyanide gun’ or ‘cyanide trap.’ Its primary use is to kill coyotes, foxes, and feral (wild) dogs, to prevent them from harming livestock like sheep and poultry. The device is buried flush with the soil with just the ‘business end’ of it exposed. That part is smeared with an attractant to lure in the target predators and when they bite or pull at it, the M44 erupts with a lethal dose of cyanide to the animal's face.”
old wobbly writes—Osprey Inspiration from SF Bay: “The first Ospreys of the season have come back to the nest on the old WW II crane. Our ospreys haven’t yet started to refurbish their nest here by our village on the Russian River. Most of our river Ospreys spend their winters in South America, but there are always a few pairs fishing the coast year round. We haven’t heard their distinctive sky-meow whistle, yet. Probably because the river’s still too muddy for fishin. Soon. Soon! The SF Bay pair on the crane star in their own spy camera — Live cam link: http://sfbayospreys.org/ Link to full East Bay Times article — http://sfbayospreys.org/”
6412093 writes—Stream Members Following Profile The Daily Bucket--Emotional Rescue: “One crazed afternoon, I rented a backhoe and dug out a 10 X 25 foot pond in our backyard. I put in a few dozen 7 @ $1.00 goldfish, and irises and lilies I dug up at the golf course where I work part time. The native Oregon tree frogs immediately utilized the pond for breeding. Herons preyed on the goldfish. [...] Then the bullfrogs came. After the bullfrogs invaded, the native tree frogs almost vanished from the Big Pond. One would still croak all year round from the waterfall. This year I saw a Tree frog egg sac in the Big Pond. They’re trying to re-colonize it. But I can see more bullfrogs swirling the Big Pond’s water. I move the egg sac to safety in the Frog Mitigation Area’s newest abode, Upper Pear Pond. The egg sacs are slippery, like mercury. They could escape a raccoon’s grasp.”
CorpFlunky writes—Life-saving fish going extinct: “Undiscovered species are exciting for biologists, not just because they often get to name them, but because the new species may have some immediate, practical benefit to humanity. Science readers know that humans get many of our best ideas from plants and animals, which is partly why we obsess over how bumblebees fly, geckos stick and dolphin echolocate. Maybe we can improve helicopters, adhesives and sonar, if we learn their secrets. Which brings us to the fang blenny, a tiny striped fish with a venom that acts like a powerful pain drug. Researchers are excited that the bite contains a natural pain killer that is chemically similar to a peptide found in humans. Maybe it will lead to a safer pain treatment without the side effects of opioids. Now some overly skeptical cynics on this site will say, ‘aha, it’s just a possibility, so the headline could be wrong!’ to which I respond, ‘nonsense’.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
AprilR writes—Heat and drought-stricken Hotlanta needs to “vote climate” and flip the 6th: “Early voting has begun in Georgia’s 6th Congressional district special election. If you’re voting for Democrat Jon Ossoff, you probably don’t need to be convinced that climate change is real and that we need to reduce our carbon emissions. But what if you have conservative 6th district family or friends who are on the fence about climate change? Maybe they’re getting worried about Georgia’s increasingly long and scorching summers. Or maybe they were alarmed by last fall’s wildfires, and the haze and odor that permeated metro-Atlanta. voteclimatega6.com is a handy website that addresses why Georgians should ‘vote climate’ in the 6th district election. The site is a fast read and easy to digest. It’s a high level view of how climate change is already affecting Georgia and its residents. If the candidates have an official position on climate change, it’s on the website. And if the candidates don’t, well, that’s noted, too. I’d say a lack of a statement on climate change is a statement in itself. It’s nice to see the candidates’ positions on climate change all in one place, on one page.”
John Crapper writes—Temperature Records Continue to be Set: “During February, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 41.2°F, 7.3°F above the 20th century average. This ranked as the second warmest February in the 123-year period of record. Nearly one-quarter of the U.S. was record warm in February. Only February 1954 was warmer for the nation at 41.4°F. Between December 2016 and February 2017, the average temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 35.9°F, 3.7°F above average, the sixth warmest winter on record. [...] So while the Donald keeps an ‘open mind’ while pursuing a policy of expanding the exploration and drilling of fossil fuels throughout the country and beyond while ignoring the consensus that climate change exists by 97% of the scientific community, the facts keep mounting up. So we must all continue to turn up the heat on our business and political leaders to confront this building nemesis to our security and way of life despite the President’s ‘head up his ass’ stance.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Lamar Smith Presents: Climate Science Cirque du So-Lame: “No one thought that Lamar ‘my career has been funded by fossil fuels’ Smith was going to put on an unbiased hearing on climate science. After all, the minority Democrats on Smith’s House Committee on Science, Space, & Technology published a report this month titled ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ which details Smith’s ‘crusade to attempt to undermine and invalidate’ Tom Karl’s pause-buster study. (Yet Smith still can’t get NOAA’s name right!) Although little was said about Karl, yesterday’s House Science Committee hearing with Drs. Michael Mann, John Christy, Judith Curry and Roger Pielke Jr. was a quite a circus. Which is exactly why someone who’s been through Smith’s nonsense, Dr. David Titley, wrote for the Washington Post that scientists should boycott these biased hearings. That would be nice, if that meant that Smith would stop holding them. But since he shows no sign of slowing his inquisition, someone needs to show up to set the record straight and push back on all the denial packed into the hearing like so many clowns in a tiny car. And that’s exactly what Dr. Mann did, successfully walking the tight-rope between correcting other witnesses and coming off as a jerk.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Lamar Smith and Big Tobacco Present: Shill Advisory Boards and DisHONEST Science Act: “Wednesday was a busy one for everyone’s favorite fossil fuel-funded science inquisitor. Not only did Lamar Smith make an embarrassment of himself and the Science Committee by literally attacking Science Magazine, but afterward also went after EPA science with a pair of bills straight from the tobacco industry’s playbook. The first is called the HONEST act, because doublespeak is Lamar Smith’s native language. The bill claims to increase the transparency and accountability of EPA science by mandating studies be easily replicable and their data made fully public. But an EPA transition team member let slip to Emily Atkins how thoroughly it would prevent regulation: ‘Almost everything that has been done in the last 10, 11, 12 years would not pass the standards.’ By mandating the EPA only use studies with public data that can be reproduced by outside researchers, it essentially prevents the agency from using any study it doesn’t conduct itself. Because it would need to get permission to release private data, the EPA wouldn’t be allowed to use studies that, for example, track cancer rates around polluted sites.”
Pakalolo writes—Disconcerting - New Study Finds Greenland's Ice Caps Have Crossed The Tipping Point: “The Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht - IMAU, in a new finding reveals that the natural capacity of Greenland ice caps to contain and refreeze meltwater broke down around 1997, when – due to rising temperatures - the thick snow cover on the ice caps became completely saturated with refrozen meltwater. Since then, the rate of mass loss of the ice caps has accelerated and has become practically irreversible, the authors write in the article published today in Nature Communications. [...] The Researchers note that Greenland’s ice caps represent the largest ice masses on earth apart from the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. The ice caps around Greenland’s edges may lose one fifth to one quarter of their volume by the year 2100, which would add an extra 1 ½ inches of sea level rise.”
Pakalolo writes—Putin doesn't think Trump is silly on climate rollback. Mysterious Oil Co gets ok to drill in Crimea: “Irina Slav, a writer for Oil Price has an intriguing piece revealing a new company that has been awarded an oil and gas exploration in the Black Sea shelf. The news about this new company, Novye Proekty, was published by Kommersant. The Crimean sea shelf is named the Glubokaya block. It holds, per Irina Slav, reserves estimated in 2011 at 8.3 million tons of crude and 1.4 billion cu m of natural gas. She notes that the Crimean shelf with it’s treasure trove of fossil fuels is one of the reasons for the ‘annexation”’of Crimea by Vladimir Putin. Slav writes: What’s more interesting, however, is that Novye Proekty is a private company, and private companies are not allowed to explore for oil and gas in the Crimean shelf, TASS notes. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev opened the door for license-issuing for Crimea last year, but only state-owned companies were to be allowed through it. Yet, here this company is, awarded a 30-year license with the obligation to drill a well within the next eight years.”
poopdogcomedy writes—PA-Gov: Mini-Trump Scott Wagner (R) Actually Thinks Our 'Warm Bodies' May Be Causing Climate Change: “The stupid, it burns: Republican 2018 guv candidate Scott Wagner keynoted an event for natural gas advocates in Harrisburg on Tuesday, offering an ... ah ... novel explanation for the scientific phenomenon known as climate change: ‘I haven't been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year-you know the rotation of the earth,’ Wagner, a York County state senator, said, according to StateImpact Pennsylvania. ‘We're moving closer to the sun.’ He added, according to StateImpact's Katie Meyer, that, ‘We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can.’”
Walter Einenkel writes—Look no further: PA Republican comes up with the single dumbest theory for climate change: “Pennsylvania Republican state Sen. Scott Wagner was out in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as the keynote speaker for a natural gas advocacy event. The gubernatorial hopeful wanted everyone to know that while he is no scientist, he was also a terrible science student. ‘I haven’t been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year–you know the rotation of the earth,’ Wagner said. ‘We’re moving closer to the sun.’ He added, ‘We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can.’ [...] I must have really hit my head on something there when I fell off my chair because I thought for a second that a grown adult was telling a room filled with other adults that climate change and global warming is happening because the earth is moving closer to the sun and there are more people with bodies at 98 degrees.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—Restore the Delta to Join Rep. Nunes Protests in Fresno Today: “Restore the Delta activists will join with concerned citizens today in a protest of Representative Devin Nunes at the Ag Lenders Society of California annual meeting, 5080 N Blackstone Ave, in Fresno. The demonstration will start at noon. As chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nunes has recently been at the center of a political firestorm in Washington, DC over his ability to objectively investigate a probe of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 campaign and the murky web of contacts between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. Nunes was a member of the executive committee leading President-elect Trump's Presidential Transition Team. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta said, ‘Most Americans are just learning how easily misstatements roll off Congressman Nunes' tongue. But this is nothing new to Californians. For years, Nunes has made misstatements about the causes of California drought. He has pitted Fresno-area farmers against commercial fishermen by failing to admit that Northern California's economy is predicated on a healthy San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. Nunes is a climate change denialist and he believes that his campaign contributors - big corporate ag - deserve all the available water in California at the expense of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary.’”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Dan Bacher writes—CDP Chairman John Burton: 'Donald Trump has switched his attention to f.....g up our environment': “California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton today issued a statement expressing how he feels about the Trump administration’s environmental protection rollbacks: ‘Since he failed in his efforts to screw millions out of their health care, Donald Trump has switched his attention to fucking up our environment and the air we breath.’ I’ve come across thousands of press releases from a variety of organizations on an array of issues in recent years, but this is the first one I've seen yet that used the f-bomb. Is this the beginning of a trend?”
accumbens writes—Trump’s First GDP Report Will Be Marred By Something He Says Doesn’t Exist: “President Donald Trump’s first GDP report will be marred by something that he has at various times said doesn’t exist: climate change. Early Friday, the Commerce Department released the latest data on consumer spending. The number wasn’t great: up just 0.1% in February, or down by the same magnitude when inflation is counted. But look at what consumers aren’t spending money on. Household utilities spending dropped 2% in February, and 2017 household utilities spending is down about 7% from fourth-quarter levels. That’s not a surprise. It was the second-warmest February in 123 years. The December-through-February period was the second warmest on record, trailing only the prior year.”
TRADE AND ECO-RELATED FOREIGN POLICY
ban nock writes—Global Trade Is Really Really Bad for All Kinds of Pollution: “We import a ton of crap, most of which is unneeded, and all of which causes a ton of pollution. Three and a half to four percent of global warming emissions if you believe Wiki, and I do. Lately imports and the loss of jobs associated with imports have been a topic politically. According to an AP story I read at VOA, global trade is also bad for the environment. They figure an additional quarter million deaths just from the pollution of the maritime shipping. Producing more goods locally would change where deaths occur and potentially reduce overall deaths — if local emissions rules are tighter. Bringing back manufacturing to the United States, as President Donald Trump and politicians from both parties want, would bring more air pollution deaths to the U.S., but reduce deaths worldwide because pollution laws are stricter, Davis and others said.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Walter Einenkel writes—Remember when Rep. Chaffetz said he was withdrawing that bill to sell off public lands? He lied: “Back in the beginning of February, America’s more craven version of Renfield, Utah’s Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, proposed a bill that would allow him and other Republicans to sell off public lands. The blowback from Republicans and Democrats alike made Rep. Chaffetz stand up on two feet and backpedal, saying he was withdrawing the bill, having listened to his constituents. It seemed too good to be true, since Rep. Jason Chaffetz is a truly craven person. Well, it seems it was too good to be true. [...] If you cannot read that screengrab, you can look for yourself and see what a giant slap in the face of the American people actually looks like in practice. Rep. Chaffetz told the public he was ‘withdrawing’ his bill on February 2. Eight days later the bill was referred to a subcommittee. Here’s a refresher on H.R. 621: To direct the Secretary of the Interior to sell certain Federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, previously identified as suitable for disposal, and for other purposes.”
ENERGY
Fossil Fuels
NostroDanus writes—[Satire] Text of Trump's Clean Coal Speech (translated from Trumpese): “With today’s executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations. My order won’t kill jobs, it will kill people. Which will create more jobs. For undertakers. Win-win. It’s fabulous. (Applause.) And, by the way, regulations not only in this industry, but in every industry. We're doing them by the thousands, every industry. And we're going to have safety, we're going to have clean water, we're going to have clear air. The clean water and clean air will only be in the CEO boardrooms, but we’ll have it! And finally, we are returning power to the states -- where that power belongs. States and local communities know what is best for them. Except when it comes to bathrooms, then we tell them what to do. My action today is the latest in a series of steps to create American jobs and to grow my, er, America’s, wealth. We’ve already created a half a million new jobs in the first two jobs reports of my administration. Those reports that were fake under Obama but are real under me. Unless they’re bad under me then they’re fake again, or Obama’s fault.”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
Dan Bacher writes—Breaking: Native American and Environmental Groups Sue Over Trump's Keystone XL Pipeline Permit: “The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and North Coast Rivers Alliance (NCRA) filed suit in Federal District Court in Great Falls, Montana on Monday, March 27, challenging the Presidential Permit issued by President Trump allowing construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. IEN’s and NCRA’s Complaint challenging the State Department’s approval of a Presidential Permit for the KXL Pipeline is available here: http://www.ienearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Complaint_for_Declaratory_and_Injunctive_Relief.pdf Stephan Volker, attorney for IEN and NCRA, filed the suit, according to a news release from the two organizations. The suit alleges that the State Department's Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (‘FSEIS’) ‘fails to (1) provide a detailed and independent Project purpose and need, (2) analyze all reasonable alternatives to the Project, (3) study the Project's transboundary effects, (4) disclose and fully analyze many of the Project's adverse environmental impacts, (5) formulate adequate mitigation measures, and (6) respond adequately to comments. In addition, the FSEIS was irredeemably tainted because it was prepared by Environmental Resource Management (“ERM”), a company with a substantial conflict of interest. The suit also alleges that Trump’s permit violates the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act,’ according to the group.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Six groups sue Trump's administration to halt construction on Keystone XL pipeline: “The Hill is reporting that six green groups have sued the Trump administration for approving permits to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada down through Texas. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Montana, the groups contend Trump’s State Department used out-of-date environmental information to approve the pipeline.When Trump issued a presidential permit last week allowing Keystone to cross the U.S.-Canada border, opponents said the project needed to go through a new environmental review before it could actually move forward.”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
Walter Einenkel writes—The Department of Energy has banned the use of terms 'climate change' and 'emissions reduction': “According to Politico, The Energy Department’s international climate office has banned the use of the phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘Paris Agreement’ and ‘emissions reduction’ in any written communications or during briefings. Employees of DOE’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy learned of the ban at a meeting Tuesday, the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order at EPA headquarters to reverse most of former President Barack Obama's climate regulatory initiatives. Officials at the State Department and in other DOE offices said they had not been given a banned words list, but they had started avoiding climate-related terms in their memos and briefings given the new administration's direction on climate change. [...] A DOE spokeswoman denied there had been a new directive. ‘No words or phrases have been banned for this office or anyone in the department,’ said DOE spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler. Another DOE source in a different office said that although there had been no formal instructions about climate-related language in their office there was a general sense that it's better to avoid certain hot-button terms in favor of words like ‘jobs’ and ‘infrastructure.’”
wonkydonkey writes—Reaction to Trump's canceling Obama's Climate Change regulations (with poll!); “Reaction was swift today as news of Trump’s roll back of Obama’s signature environmental regulations, designed to create a clean energy future and combat global warming, traveled to all corners of our rapidly overheating planet. [...] The Japanese response unleashed their anger over Trump’s action where they felt the message would be most effectively heard. To avoid creating an international incident, which would have resulted had they delivered their message in Washington, the Japanese chose instead to target their displeasure somewhere closer to Trump’s heart. In the hope of breaking through the bubble of ‘alternative’ facts which makes Trump impervious to the reality shared by the other nine billion people on the planet, the Japanese message was delivered forcefully and succinctly. Said the Japanese representative, Mr. Gojira, ‘If Trump acts to destroy the one place, the one planet, we all call home, just to bring back a few doomed coal mining jobs, we felt the only fitting response was to ensure that he too no longer has a place to call home’.”
peacemonger writes—No, Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not supposed to protect polluters from the air: “Scott: here is how this works. If capitalism has anything, it has capital. And it has lawyers, and it can advocate for itself. So you don’t have to do that job. Your job is to defend the air. And the water. And the forests. And the soil. I promise that if you do anything that gets in the way of economic growth, then capitalism will defend itself. And if capitalism vigorously defends itself (it will) and you vigorously defend the environment (will you?) then we will achieve balance.”
Reeces Pieces writes—Trump “Disses” Mother Nature and She Gets Angry – Alan Singer’s Latest Huffington Post: “We should have known that Donald Trump’s disrespect for women would extend to Planet Earth. After all, Earth is governed by Mother Nature. This week Donald Trump signed executive orders undermining the 2015 international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions that causes global warming. With the stroke of his pen, denial of climate change and of scientific evidence became the official policy of the United States. As an initial step the federal agency that is supposed to provide environmental protection will stop enforcing requirements that prevent coal-fueled power plants from spewing carbon and other toxic waste into the atmosphere.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
Bone Saw writes—DIY Action on Climate Change: “Let me get this out of the way first: I AM NOT TRYING TO TURN YOU VEGAN. I do, however, believe that when people become more conscious of how their food choices impact the environment they tend to adjust their eating habits. The tl;dr version of this diary is to just go on Netflix and watch Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret. It’s a 91-minute investment that will leave you looking at the world a little differently, and that’s a good thing. In a nutshell, a massive (and almost completely hidden) part of the world’s ecosystem is now organized around the production of meat for human consumption. Keeping this going requires designating the bulk of our crops as animal feed as well as ongoing deforestation to generate new grazing land. This creates a double whammy of destroying plants that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while breeding and harvesting billions of methane-producing livestock. This is a one-two punch of greenhouse gas emissions.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
mwChicago04 writes—Chinese Stripping US Top-Soil for Export: “As most of us who follow these things closely know, Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, will arrive in the United States (Mar A Lago if you call that the US) early next week for a first meeting with the Dumpster. Although I am sure there will be gold plated spoons and caviar for the visit, I think it is supremely important for us to know about what China is doing behind the scenes. Specifically, how China is STEALING from the the American farmer their most precious asset: American Top Soil. Just after midnight GMT, Asian markets hit near panic levels as Chinese speculators snapped up July delivery futures for Iowa Sweet Loam (a particulary nutrient-rich topsoil found only in the Midwest). Analysts from major trading firms such as Goldman Sachs are perplexed as to why the Chinese are essentially trying to corner the market in Loess-based derivatives. Initial reaction from analysts is that dry winds off the Gobi Desert kicked up toward the end of March and have begun to deplete the soil moisture content in the western regions of China. With China becoming a net importer of agricultural commodities just this year, the political ramifications of not feeding their people would be severe - think North Korea. As we all know, the Chinese will not let that happen.”
AuntieB writes—You can garden without a garden. DK Preppers --11: “Food is a big part of prepping. We store food, we can food, and many of us grow food. But what can you do if you don’t have a garden? This post is all about ways to grow what you can, where you can, using what is freely available around us. And don’t let anyone tell you that growing just a little isn’t worth it. Home grown herbs can add a big flavor boost to your foods. Home grown greens and salads, especially during an emergency situation where your diet is limited, can add vital nutrition, and keep food boredom at bay. Also, if you have plans to grow some of your own food in an prolonged emergency situation, you need to get to know plants, soil, sunlight and water now. Practicing on containers now will give you practical knowledge that will be invaluable later when you do have a garden in the future. These tips range from using recycled materials to be basically free, to DIY options that take a little time and money, and maybe some tool know-how. I’m hoping there is something here that nearly everyone, of every ability can try.”
Kishik writes—Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol 13.13: Gardening in White: “wtf… it’s Spring. How can this happen? Up to the neck in white??!!!”
MISCELLANY
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: natural history collection told to get out or be destroyed: “Millions of specimens in a research collection have low value for the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) and must find a new home or be destroyed. This includes 6 million fish and 500,000 plant specimens that Vice President for Academic Affairs Eric Pani says are not worth maintaining. In addition to evicting the collection, no new public displays will be established in the Museum. The specimens and museum are being displaced so that ULM’s Brown Stadium can be expanded for the track team. [...] Budget woes for natural history collections aren’t new. I wrote an Herbaria Ode and Obituary in 2015 reporting on the troubles such collections face from budget cuts and from the lack of curators. Nevertheless, scientists still depend on these specimens for their research. Although some specimens are being digitized and available online, others (such as fish and insect collections) are not easily maintained digitally. Plus, DNA samples and other data is only available from the actual specimen.”