Our food supply comes from an environmentally unsustainable system that is going to unravel
Unless we change course, the US agricultural system could collapse
Our food supply comes from an environmentally unsustainable system that is going to unravel
www.theguardian.com/…
the Sierra snowpack has shown an overall declining trend for decades – most dramatically during the great California drought of 2012-2016 – and it will dwindle further over the next several decades as the climate warms, a growing body of research suggests. A 2018 paper by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers articulates the alarming consensus: a “future of consistent low-to-no snowpack” for the Sierra Nevada, the irrigation jewel of our vegetable patch.
Even as snowmelt gushing from the mountains dwindles, the Central Valley farming behemoth gets ever more ravenous for irrigation water, switching from annual crops that can be fallowed in dry years to almond and pistachio groves, which require huge upfront investments and need to be watered every year. As a result, farm operations are increasingly resorting to tapping the water beneath them. Between 2002 and 2017, a period including two massive droughts, farmers siphoned enough water from the valley’s aquifers to fill Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain three times.
www.theguardian.com/...
Republicans want to open pristine Alaska wilderness to logging. It's a tragedy
The Tongass forest sequesters 3m tons of C02 annually, the equivalent of removing 650,000 gas-burning cars off the roads every year
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just as creating a sane climate policy requires the rise of a social movement to negate the power of the fossil fuel lobby, a better agricultural regime will require a direct political challenge to big agribusiness.
US colonial-settler agriculture transformed this ecological niche, a land mass 1.5 times the size of California, into a factory churning out just two crops – corn and soybeans.
This kind of agriculture fouls water as a matter of course. Since corn and soybeans are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, the vast majority of corn-belt farmland lies bare for the winter months, leaving the ground naked when storms hit. These deluges pummel bare topsoil and send it – and the agrochemicals and manure farmers apply to it – cascading off farms and into streams and creeks that flow into rivers, lakes and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. But there’s another problem with subjecting the land to the same two crops every year: loss of the region’s precious black topsoil. According to research by the soil scientist Rick Cruse, Iowa – and much of the surrounding corn belt – is losing soil at a rate 16 times the pace of natural replenishment.
Again, climate change is a driver. Today’s farmers encounter a weather regime radically different from that of their grandparents: more intense off-season storms, and thus ever-heavier pressure on the soil. If global greenhouse gases continue rising, the region faces a 40% increase in precipitation by the late 21st century, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. The soil that makes one of the globe’s most important growing regions so productive is vanishing before our eyes, degrading a crucial food production region at the very time when climate change and global population growth call for building resilience.www.theguardian.com/...
Climate justice and food justice are, in fact, the same fight – the struggle to beat back corporate dominance and make the world livable for everyone.
Save the Planet:
*Turn out the lights *Don't waste water *Avoid creating nighttime light pollution *Avoid burning wood (or other things), as wood fires are both pollutant and carcinogenic *Don't use harmful pesticides *Limit your use of cars and planes (if possible) *Don't use gas powered vehicles *Take out grass and put in a garden or pond (or xeriscape ) *Mow, blow, and whack with electric *Plant for the animals (bees, birds etc) *Plant a tree *Don't micro manage yards, go wilder *Try to use solar *Take a trolley or train *Use energy efficient products or products that work on clean fuels *Reduce dependence on non-biodegradable items* Walk or carpool *Turn down the heat or AC *Reuse items- give to Goodwill or Craig's list rather than dumping *Ride bikes instead of using cars *Cut down or cease eating meat *Use reusable carry bags for groceries not their plastic; second choice, paper bags *Compost *Save the bees *Be an insect friend *Be informed *Write your representative *Elect pro-environment candidates and demand action *Support the Green New Deal *Sign petitions *Get involved *March *Blog about the environment *Tell a friend!