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California cold snaps farmers’ crops
California cold snaps farmers’ crops
Time for more predictably weird weather news! Sunny California, while still sunny, has been freezing this week. Temperatures statewide plunged to as much as 20 degrees F below normal, the lowest lows the state has seen in years.
The freezing overnight temps are seriously bad news for California farmers’ crops, especially the state’s $2 billion citrus industry, which accounts for most of the commercially available oranges and lemons in the U.S.
Strawberry and avocado farmers, too, “are having a lot of sleepless nights,” protecting crops with in-field heaters, coverings, fans, and water.
The cold snap has been a particular concern for citrus farmers across the state, who have been up all night since Thursday. There are $1 billion in oranges, lemons, tangerines and grapefruit still on trees in California, the nation’s largest producer of fresh citrus.
The year had been off to a good start, with a particularly flavorful crop of mandarins and good sugar content across the state …
“We were looking at a very profitable year,” said John Nelsen, president of California Citrus Mutual, an association of the state’s 3,900 citrus growers, the majority of which are family farmers.
But a cold snap can change that in hours. In January 2007, citrus growers lost 60% of the state’s crop to freezes. In 1998 it was 85%. The worst season in memory was the Christmas freeze of December 1990, when a week of temperatures in the teens defoliated the orchards, leading to a total loss for that season and the one after, Nelsen said.
Nothing like some weird weather to remind us how tenuous our centralized food system truly is! The delicious irony here is that a modest touch of cold weather actually regulates citrus sugars well, making better and more stable fruit. So enjoy the California clementines while you can — they may be freezing today, but soon they’ll be rotting on the vine.
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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League of Women Voters ad asks Obama for climate action
League of Women Voters ad asks Obama for climate action
The League of Women Voters hopes to politely intrude on President Obama’s last weekend in Hawaii via this full-page ad in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The ‘aina is part of our legacy, Mr. President, and yours. Climate change poses the greatest environmental challenge of our time. A recent report by the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) makes clear that the fish in our waters and the wildlife habitats in our highlands are threatened. Climate change endangers our very way of life. …
Mr. President, your legacy is our future. As you return to Washington, please use the authority you have as president to set standards for new and existing power plants under the Clean Air Act and protect our world. Please do what is pono.
I don’t know what some of those words mean.
Shortly before Christmas, the LWV also sent a letter to Obama to the same effect [PDF].
President Obama is known for his technological savvy, what with his Redditing and Twittering and campaign-winning. So I’m not sure that a letter is the best way to reach him. And I’m almost entirely confident that a newspaper ad is even worse. The LWV should instead have Snapchatted Obama (username: bigbho) and/or Flickr’d him.
Or something. I don’t know what those words mean either.
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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Holiday shopping is down, mall blight is up
Holiday shopping is down, mall blight is up
It seems a lot of Americans shifted the gift this holiday season. Early reports from retailers indicate this may well be the least shop-happy winter since the apocalyptic recession Christmas of 2008. And climate change sure isn’t helping.
Shares of retailers dropped sharply on Wednesday, helping drag broader indexes lower, as investors realized they were likely to be disappointed when companies start to report results in a few weeks’ time.
“The broad brush was Christmas wasn’t all that merry for retailers, and you have to ask what those margins look like if the top line didn’t meet their expectations,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group.
Growth was always expected to slow this season, though an improving employment picture and rising home values had helped mitigate the worst fears. But then Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast in late October, mild weather blunted sales of winter clothing and rising concern about the “fiscal cliff” became more of a reality, dragging down already-pessimistic forecasts.
(T-minus how long until someone rebrands swimsuits as a great climate collapse fashion choice?)
Stores stand to scoop up nearly a third of their annual sales over the holiday season, so this drop could be significant — but could it be enough to push us closer to a more lasting shifting of the gifts?
Sales may be down on the whole, but they’re also moving from the brick and mortar world to the digital, leaving us with empty, useless retail spaces and dead, blighted malls from coast to coast. According to Atlantic Cities, shopping mall vacancy rates are now hovering around twice what they were 10 years ago. The head of a leading commercial real estate firm said of these ghost malls, “I don’t think we’re overbuilt, I think we’re under-demolished.”
But we shouldn’t be knocking these places down! We should save the energy and resources that would otherwise be needed to demolish and rebuild, and instead creatively reuse retail space for community centers and social services. But not for shark aquariums though, please. Please.
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Obama doubles size of California marine sanctuary, adorable otters rejoice
Obama doubles size of California marine sanctuary, adorable otters rejoice
President Obama has proposed that more than 2,700 square miles off the coast of Northern California be added to the national marine sanctuary system, which would protect the area from oil and gas drilling permanently. It would be the biggest addition to the 40-year-old system in 20 years, doubling the total protected sanctuary area. The otters are so excited you guys.
From the San Jose Mercury News:
“This is a matter of economic common sense. Jobs and livelihoods hang in the balance,” [said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D)]. “No one is going to vacation on the Sonoma coast if they are looking at oil derricks.”
I like her logic, even though lots of people vacation along the California coast within view of all kinds of offshore drilling equipment. (Ahem, Santa Barbara.)
In recent months, Woolsey, who is retiring from Congress on Jan. 3, urged Obama to use his executive authority to create a new national monument along the scenic Sonoma coast. Obama, however, stopped short of creating a monument, opting instead to use the NOAA administrative process, which triggers public hearings in Northern California early next year, along with detailed environmental studies. It is expected to take up to two years to finalize …
“This is one of the crowning achievements of the coastal protection movement in California,” said Richard Charter, a senior fellow with the Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C. “This is a permanent ban on offshore drilling, forever, at a time when Congress has not been particularly interested in conservation.”
The Sierra Club said, “President Obama gave Californians and all Americans a tremendous gift today.” But this is particularly great news for nature, which would really prefer to do whatever the hell nature wants.
While Northern California’s coastal sea otters are poised to get an expanded sanctuary, earlier this week Southern California’s otters got some good news too. The federal government is officially abandoning its effort to keep otters near a remote island — an effort that resulted in most of the otters dying — and will now let them float free. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Trying to tell a marine mammal to stay on one side of an imaginary line across the water was a dumb idea,” said Steve Shimek, executive director of the Otter Project.
Shimek said the otters’ new freedom will help restore the coastal ecosystem of Southern California (near those offshore drilling operations, natch).
Otters are good for kelp forests. And kelp forests, called the “redwoods of the sea,” are home to hundreds of species valuable to a biologically diverse coastal ecosystem.
Things are looking up for this Christmas, Ma and Emmett Otter!
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Obama doubles size of California marine sanctuary, adorable otters rejoice
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Winter storm ‘Draco’ will solve, cause many problems
Winter storm ‘Draco’ will solve, cause many problems
I guess “draco” is the word for “dragon” in Latin. I didn’t know that, despite Mrs. Marino spending two years teaching me the language in high school. (We got to choose our own Latin names; I chose “Aesculapius,” because I was a dork.) (“Was.”)
Draco is also the name for the giant winter storm dropping snow over the Midwest. See if you can spot it on this map. If you know where the Midwest is, it should be easy.
This is good news, for a reason that you might not expect: It’s precipitation in a region desiccated by drought. As we mentioned last week, cities across the region have been setting new records for days without snow. A lot of those records are about to end.
From Weather Underground:
Blizzard warnings are posted over portions of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and snowfall amounts of up to a foot are expected in some of the affected regions. While the heavy snow will create dangerous travel conditions, the .5″ – 1.5″ of melted water equivalent from the the storm will provide welcome moisture for drought-parched areas of the Midwest. Though much of the moisture will stay locked up as snow for the rest of the year, runoff from the storm may help keep Lake Michigan and Huron from setting an all-time record low for the month of December, and may also keep the Mississippi River at St. Louis above the -5′ stage though the end of December.
That Mississippi River point is big; it has been at risk of having to halt shipping traffic due to low water levels. The storm also means that some areas may see a white Christmas, if the snow sticks around. (This latter point is less important than the Mississippi River.)
Draco’s wintry breath isn’t being felt everywhere. Washington, D.C., has been 7.5 degrees above normal on average so far this month. In Texas?
Lubbock, in west Texas, had a storm of its own.
So Draco is the exception for this warm, dry month. But none of that is the point of this article. The point of this article is: If you were going to name a potentially massive, powerful storm something, why on Earth would you choose Draco over Drago?
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay
Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay
It’s a salty Christmas miracle for Drakes Bay Oyster Company — albeit a temporary one.
The bivalve purveyor in Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco, was set to be dissolved at the end of the year: equipment dismantled, employees laid off, land vacated. This was the plan all along for the feds, who had issued a 40-year lease to the company with the intent of its expiration on Jan. 1, 2013, at which time the land would be returned to federal wilderness and cute scampering seals on the Point Reyes National Seashore.
After the Interior Department refused to extend the company’s lease for another 10 years, Drakes vowed to fight the decision and filed suit. Now it’s reached at least a temporary agreement with Interior. From the Marin Independent Journal:
Under the agreement, the oyster company which has long been a fixture in Point Reyes National Seashore may continue activities involving planting and growing new oysters in the water at Drakes Estero, avoiding layoffs of one-third of its 30 employees right before the holidays …
Under the agreement, the oyster company has withdrawn its request for a temporary restraining order and instead will file a motion for a preliminary injunction challenging [Interior Secretary Kenneth] Salazar’s decision.
A hearing is set for Jan. 25 on the injunction.
Everyone loves them some seals, even in molting season (this is saying a lot, seals), and many environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, other usual suspects — support closing the farm, citing the importance of pure wilderness. But many other environmentalists support letting it stay, and their voices have grown stronger over the past couple of weeks. Writes Earth Island Journal editor Jason Marks:
Wilderness is all too rare (and becoming rarer) and we need more places that aren’t stamped with humanity’s insignia.
But Drake’s Estero is not that place. Having followed this controversy for years — and having spent several spells living in Point Reyes Station, the hamlet at the edge of the park — I strongly believe the oyster farm should stay.
It seems to me the debate over the ecological impact of Drakes Bay Oyster Company is all backwards. The issue isn’t whether shellfish farming is compatible with the ideal of wilderness. Rather, it’s whether a wilderness is compatible with the pastoral landscape that surrounds Drake’s Estero …
A National Academies of Science report from 2009 said the data on oyster farm-related harbor seal disturbance was so thin that it “cannot be used to infer cause and effect,” and called for “a more detailed assessment.” A professor from UC-Davis who reviewed the Park Service’s draft environmental impact study on the oyster farm removal observed that “impacts of oyster aquaculture on birds are speculative and unsupported by peer-reviewed publications.”
Some locals say the feds even took their comments out of context, misrepresenting them as being against the farm when they support it. One kayak touring company said paddling in the estero has only gotten more pleasant in recent years, under Drakes’ new ownership. “Not only have they cleaned and improved the physical location but they offer an educational and historical component that enhances our client’s experience of the area.” The kayakers also said they rely on the farmers for potential emergency rescue.
In the meanwhile, Drakes is still farming and harvesting per usual, and open for business. And if you’re feeling crafty, you can hit up its massive piles of castoff oyster shells and DIY one of these very eco-friendly holiday trees.
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Bringing back chestnut trees could fight climate change and give us tasty treats
Bringing back chestnut trees could fight climate change and give us tasty treats
When Nat King Cole first recorded “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” in 1946, American giant chestnut trees had been nearly wiped out by a foreign fungus. Billions of native trees were felled by the disease. If you want to roast those sweet babies over an open fire this holiday season, they’ll likely be of the imported-from-China variety.
A hundred years ago, it was a very different scene, NPR reports:
The American chestnut was king of the forest. One of every four hardwoods in the eastern woodlands was a chestnut. They grew so tall — up to 100 feet — they were called the redwoods of the east.
By the mid-20th century they were “pretty much obliterated,” and now the only seasonal street-food treats are those crusty sugared peanuts. An American tragedy.
Efforts to revitalize the country’s chestnut stock have been ongoing for decades, but they’re not just aimed at holiday treats (because researchers have other crazy priorities).
Why is it so important to bring back the chestnut tree? Advocates say the trees were critical to the economy of rural communities and the ecology of the forests. Some even say chestnuts can help with global warming.
“Some” being scientists, like the ones who penned a 2009 Purdue University study on new hybrid chestnut trees and their carbon-fighting superpowers.
“Maintaining or increasing forest cover has been identified as an important way to slow climate change,” said [associate professor of forestry Douglass] Jacobs, whose paper was published in the June issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management. “The American chestnut is an incredibly fast-growing tree. Generally the faster a tree grows, the more carbon it is able to sequester. And when these trees are harvested and processed, the carbon can be stored in the hardwood products for decades, maybe longer.”
Over the last several years, we’ve been importing more foreign chestnuts, but we’re also growing more of them at home. American growers have been planting and cultivating a variety of chestnut trees, from European-Japanese hybrids to blight-resistant Chinese varieties. They’re creating new stock and marketing it with new products aimed at the health-conscious. From NPR’s The Salt blog:
Many growers hand harvest to serve a niche, regional market, but they hope to modernize with grabbing tools called nut wizards and vacuum and all-in-one self-propelling harvesting systems. On the processing side, anti-microbial treatments help improve chestnut’s short shelf life. “It’s like an apple, if you leave them on a table they’ll go crummy,” says Dan Guyer, an engineer at [Michigan State University] who’s experimenting with X-ray chestnut sorting technology.
And then there are new marketing strategies. Chestnut flour is aimed at the gluten free crowd, but there’s also chestnut honey and beer. MSU helped develop peeled-frozen chestnut packs, hoping to appeal to the shopper on the go.
In Missouri, [University of Missouri forestry professor Michael] Gold likens it to selling a novel exotic fruit in U.S. markets for the first time: “We see our role as the catalyst in developing what we call the ‘new’ chestnut, as a new crop for American palates.”
Who needs an open fire when you can warm up with chestnut brew?
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Bringing back chestnut trees could fight climate change and give us tasty treats
