“As the region has warmed since the 1980s, some of these species have added an extra generation during the summer for the first time on record in that location.
Among the 263 species already known to have a second or third generation there during toasty times, 190 have grown more likely to do so since 1980, Altermatt reports online December 22 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Only a rough third or so of all the species Altermatt reviewed show the capacity to breed more than once a year. What warming is probably doing for them, he speculates, is jolting the insects’ overwintering form into action early and also speeding up insect development. These head starts may allow time for a bonus generation before a non-temperature cue, autumnal day length, plays its role in shutting down insects for winter.
“From a pest perspective it’s an important issue,” says population ecologist Patrick Tobin based in Morgantown, W.Va., for the Forest Service Northern Research Station. Tobin has studied a warmth-related extra generation in a North American pest, the grape berry moth. He points out that an extra surge of attacking pests in the growing season means yet another headache, expense and round of damage for farmers.”
there is a false nostalgia for primitive agriculture, based on limited transportation and the arduous conversion of raw materials into comestible commodities. Rarely is it admitted, much less emphasized, that cheap, quick food — including its embodiment through our sometimes obnoxious agribusiness corporations — is the single most important advance in human history.
We were about to put our hands through a whole new type of hurt. I was soon tearing through more than 7,000 chicken breasts each night (I worked the graveyard shift), while nearby workers sliced up countless birds with knives and scissors. The massive plant was capable of killing and processing nearly 1.5 million birds a week, and the pace was as relentless as such numbers suggest. We often didn’t even have time to wipe bits of chicken flesh from our faces, and I took to popping ibuprofen during breaks to quell the swelling in my hands.
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One (worker) was unable to hold a glass of water; another had three surgeries on her wrists; a third had discovered, after a visit to the doctor, that her thumb joint had almost disappeared after twelve years of line work. She told me her doctor had taken a vein from her leg and wrapped it around her thumb in an attempt to replace the missing cartilage. “Everyone on the line had hand problems,” she said.
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When the government set the maximum line speed at poultry plants—currently it’s ninety-one birds a minute—it failed to take worker safety into consideration. Instead, the limit was determined by the US Department of Agriculture, based on food safety concerns. And here’s something even worse: in January the USDA proposed a new method for poultry inspection that would allow plants to run lines at 175 birds a minute. That’s nearly double the current limit.
The annual destruction of the Amazon rainforest is tallied every August and announced to a world sadly accustomed to the idea that its greatest tropical forest is being wiped off the face of the Earth. Invariably, the area of destruction is so large that the loss is expressed in terms of states or countries—a Vermont here, an Ireland there—roughly equivalent measures meant to make the scale of the catastrophe more readily apprehensible, as if all of us could say, for example, that this many Connecticuts make a Texas or that there are so many Switzerlands to a France. Oddly, the effect of the news seemed to be a lulling of concern, as if the Amazon could go on disappearing indefinitely, without ever actually doing so.
A vegetarian lays out the economic realities and environmental impacts of “sustainable” agriculture.
For all the strengths of these alternatives, however, they’re ultimately a poor substitute for industrial production. Although these smaller systems appear to be environmentally sustainable, considerable evidence suggests otherwise.
Grass-grazing cows emit considerably more methane than grain-fed cows. Pastured organic chickens have a 20 percent greater impact on global warming. It requires 2 to 20 acres to raise a cow on grass. If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs). A tract of land just larger than France has been carved out of the Brazilian rain forest and turned over to grazing cattle. Nothing about this is sustainable.
The issue is scale - we can’t have 100 million small farms for each household, and industrial agriculture is the only reasonable, viable, and therefore sustainable answer to human food needs. (Pretty please, before you send me angry msgs, I kindly ask you to read FAO’s “Ethical Issues in Food” and UM’s “Ethical Issues in Farming“(PDF). At least skim them, and think in terms of “scale.” Arguments for ethical treatment of ag animals are great. But the case for ethical treatment is not strong enough to eliminate the need for industrial scale farming).
One of my favorite tumblrs, fertilizermarkets posted this video on EPA regulations and Louisiana poultry growers. The issue is water quality and chicken poop. Basically, the EPA regulates water quality, among other things.
To do this, the source of any water pollution is identified, and measures are taken to mitigate the impacts to the water. Sources vary, from mall parking lots to toilet water to coal plants to chicken growers. In the video, poultry farmers learn that chicken poop is a potential source of water pollution and that they’re responsible for where the poop goes.
One problem is that American farmers generallydon’t like to be 100% responsible for their waste (send me your hate mail here). And this irresponsibility manifests in a general disdain for the EPA and other “big government regulations.”
Lobbyists fuel this problem by creating confusion and uncertainty in the minds of farmers and politicians that represent them (which is, to my mind, an unethical exploitation and mental spoilage of otherwise good American people).
Anyway, the result is entrenched denial in its most brilliant form. And to me, it’s a fascinating artifact of American culture - to be both ‘personally responsible for self-actions’ yet eschew accountability when those responsibilities are not being met. Amazing to think about. This video follows standard journalistic tropes by showing “both sides” of the story. Good stuff.
Kristen Oaks shows us what #poultry growers can do to avoid a federal citation and fine due to new #EPA #regulations. This Week in Louisiana Agriculture.
(Sorry for the brutal pictures, but the Palm Oil and forest industries and a corrupt Indonesian government are screwing things up. By the thousands, orangutans are being killed to grow palm oil crops, a product used in crackers and candy.)
“Filmmaker’s heart-wrenching documentary shows tragic final hours of orangutan’s life as her rainforest home is ruthlessly destroyed
Lying on her back helpless and dying, Green the female orangutan is a picture of sadness as she faces her final hours.
The tragic female ape has been confined to a mattress inside a shack after her rainforest home was logged and burned to the ground through ruthless deforestation.
She clutches at her pillow and sits lifelessly on her mattress, defenceless as the lush Indonesian ecosystem she called home is destroyed, leaving her homeless.”
Mr Rouxel’s incredibly moving film aims to show how the timber, pulp and paper and palm oil industries, along with general consumerism, are combining to ravage natural resources worldwide.
The footage of Green’s final days and hours is interspersed with shots of trees being hacked down in Sumatra, Indonesia, along with shots of the wood products which result from the widespread deforestation.”
Palm oil is delicious. It’s used in crackers and candy. It’s a plant that’s grown in tropical areas, mostly Indonesia. Rainforests are burned down to make room to plant the crop. Tens of thousands of animals are killed by the burning. This short video shows the impacts of palm oil production on orangutans. It’s one of three tough-to-stomach documentaries on rainforest destruction.
WARNING: This video is brutal and raw. Guys, I am not messing around here. Parts are extremely graphic.
Her name is GREEN, she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong to her. She is a female orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film is an emotional journey with GREEN’s final days. With no narration, it is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity. We watch the effects of consumerism and are faced with our personal accountability in the loss of the world’s rainforest treasures.
“Forest fires and land clearing by palm oil firms could kill off within weeks about 200 orangutans in a forest in western Indonesia, an environmental group said on Wednesday.
The orangutans, part of a population of around 6,600 on Sumatra island, used to live in a lush forest and peatland region called Rawa Tripa on the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province. But more than two-thirds of the area has been divided up into palm oil concessions, said the Coalition to Save Tripa.
Graham Usher, a member of the coalition and a landscape protection specialist, said satellite images showed forest fires had been burning in Tripa since last week, and if allowed to continue they could wipe out orangutans already forced onto the edge of remaining forests.
“If there is any prolonged dry spell, which is quite likely, there’s a very good chance that the whole piece of forest and everything in it, so that’s orangutans, sun bears, tigers, and all the other protected species in it, will disappear in a few weeks and will be gone permanently,” he told a news conference.
The palm oil industry has expanded to make Indonesia the world’s top producer and exporter of the edible oil, used to make good ranging from cooking oil and biodiesel to biscuits and soap to feed growing Asian consumer demand.
Deforestation has threatened animals like the Sumatran tiger and Javan rhino and pushed up carbon dioxide emissions. The Bali tiger and the Java tiger have disappeared in the last 70 years.
A two-year moratorium on new permits to clear primary forests came into effect in Indonesia last year, part of a $1 billion deal with Norway to cut emissions and slow expansion of plantations. But the moratorium was breached in Aceh on its first days, an environmental group has said.
The last Aceh permit for palm oil was issued by former Aceh governor Irwandi Yusuf in August last year to PT Kallista Alam, prompting environmental group Walhi to file a legal suit against Yusuf. A court verdict is expected next week.”
Sumatran Orangutan: “It is no longer several years away, but just a few months or even weeks before this iconic creature disappears” Hundreds of orangutans are believed to have died in fires deliberately lit by palm oil companies in the last few weeks. Conservationists say the rare Sumatran orangutan could now be wiped out within weeks.
What is "Climate Adaptation"? Adaptation is not about carbon, greenhouse gases, or energy. It's about lowering risks from environmental impacts caused by climate change. Adaptation is the sweet-spot between environmental policy, climate science, land-use, and engineering. When the sea-level rises, we build wall or move the buildings. We build levees to protect homes from floods; manage forests to prevent wildfires and droughts; build smarter, stronger infrastructure for long-term economic resilience; and prepare public health officials for increased rates of pests and diseases from rising temperatures. So, adaptation is less Al Gore "save the planet" and more Bob the Builder "fix all the things!".
