Tag Archives: organic

Summer School for Anchovies

by Myrna Posted on July 11, 2014

Oceanographers have noted a billion-strong anchovy swarm near Southern California, a remarkably large example of a fish gathering. View original: Summer School for Anchovies ; ;Related ArticlesEconomic Scene: Blueprints for Taming the Climate CrisisDot Earth Blog: The Good, the Bad and the Anthropocene (Age of Us)A California Oil Field Yields Another Prized Commodity ;

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Summer School for Anchovies

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Another climate crackdown from Obama’s EPA

by AntonieGarrard Posted on July 10, 2014

keeping it cool

Another climate crackdown from Obama’s EPA

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The Montreal Protocol, arguably the world’s most successful environmental treaty, rapidly reduced CFC use around the globe – and, in doing so, put us on the path to save the ozone layer from threatened annihilation. But the treaty had an unintended consequence. Many manufacturers switched from CFCs to HFCs, which we now know to be especially potent greenhouse gases.

So now we have to put out that fire. And on Thursday, the EPA took a major step toward doing just that, issuing new draft rules that would limit the use of the chemicals.

“EPA is proposing to modify the listings from acceptable to unacceptable for certain hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and HFC blends,” the agency wrote in a notice of proposed rulemaking. The rule would affect the manufacture of aerosol cans, fridges, air conditioners used in buildings and in vehicles, and other such devices where lower-risk alternatives are “available or potentially available.”

David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the move “marks another crucial step” by the Obama administration to curb climate change.

“With safer coolants and aerosols already on the market, we need to phase out the most damaging HFCs now,” Doniger said. “This will help curb dangerous climate warming, drive innovation in energy efficiency, and help fulfill our obligation to leave a better world for our children.”

Now, to convince India and other governments to do the same.


Source
Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: Change of Listing Status for Certain Substitutes under the Significant New Alternatives Policy Program, EPA
Replacing Damaging HFCs Helps Curb Climate Change, NRDC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Another climate crackdown from Obama’s EPA

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How hot will future summers be in your city?

by RochellCullen Posted on July 10, 2014

A little slice of Saudi Arabia right at home

How hot will future summers be in your city?

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Fancy spending a summer in Kuwait City? That’s what scientists project summers will resemble in Phoenix by the end of the century. And summertime temperatures in Boston are expected to rise 10 degrees by 2100, resembling current mid-year heat in North Miami Beach.

Thanks to this nifty new tool from Climate Central, you can not only find out what temperatures your city is expected to average by 2100 — you can compare that projected weather to current conditions in other metropolises.

The “1,001 Blistering Future Summers” interactive is based on global warming projections that assume the world takes little to no action to slow down climate change. But the nonprofit warns that even if greenhouse gas emissions are substantially reduced, such as through an energy revolution that replaces fossil fuel burning with solar panels and wind turbines, “U.S. cities are already locked into some amount of summer warming through the end of the century.” You might be feeling some of that warming already. Pass the ice cubes!


Source
1001 Blistering Future Summers, Climate Central

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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How hot will future summers be in your city?

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Heathens are still greener than Christians

by PercyBarbosa Posted on July 9, 2014

Cleanliness is next to godlessness?

Heathens are still greener than Christians

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Pope Francis issued a rousing lamentation about the “sin” of environmental destruction over the weekend. But is that message getting through to his Catholic flock? And are other Christians stepping up to protect God’s green earth?

Pacific Standard reminds us that “much has been written about the ‘greening’ of Christianity” during the past two decades. Indeed, much as been written about it right here at Grist. But writer Tom Jacobs points to new research published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion that found “no clear evidence of a greening of Christianity among rank-and-file Christians in the general public between 1993 and 2010.” From the Pacific Standard article:

A research team led by Michigan State University sociologist John Clements reports attitudes about the environment among American Christians have remained fundamentally unchanged between 1993, the year the “green Christianity” movement began, and 2010.

“The patterns of our results are quite similar to those from earlier decades, which documented that self-identified Christians identified with lower levels of environmental concern than did non-Christians and nonreligious individuals,” the researchers write ...

Expanding on a study they released last year, the researchers compared data from the 1993 and 2010 editions of the General Social Survey, an ongoing, large-scale measure of societal trends. They found that, at both points in time, self-identified Christians were less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors than other Americans.

Godspeed to all the green Christian activists out there. You’ve got a lot of converting to do.


Source
The ‘Greening’ of Christianity Is Not Actually Happening, Pacific Standard

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Heathens are still greener than Christians

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Environmental free-trade deal could help tar-sands producers

by FSDFreeman Posted on July 8, 2014

Wanna see a magic trick?

Environmental free-trade deal could help tar-sands producers

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Negotiations began Tuesday at the World Trade Organization on a free-trade agreement that would free “environmental goods” from the shackles of tariffs and other protectionist measures. Such measures have been put in place around the world to protect domestic manufacturing industries and jobs from cheaper imports. They can increase the price of the products compared with, say, if they were all made in Vietnamese sweatshops.

The WTO talks in Geneva are a big deal — they involve the United States, China, the European Union, and 11 other countries. They could affect $1 trillion worth of trade every year.

So why aren’t environmentalists shouting, “Hallelujah?”

Because it’s a ruse.

“These negotiations are less about protecting the environment than they are about expanding free trade,” Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program, told Grist. “Of course we support the increased use of, and trade in, environmentally beneficial products. But we have really serious concerns about the approach that the World Trade Organization is taking.”

The definition of “environmental goods” is being touted by much of the media as including wind turbine components and catalytic converters for controlling air pollution. But the list of goods that could be covered by the agreement, which was initially developed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, is far longer, and more sinister, than that. It includes products that have precious little to do with the environment — and some that can actually be used by industries that harm the environment.

Examples from the list include waste incinerators, which burn trash to produce electricity — and, in doing so, can pollute air and water with poisonous byproducts. The list also includes steam generators, which are used by coal and nuclear power plants. And it includes centrifuges, which are not only used for water purification but also by tar-sands oil producers.

Even if the list of products were whittled back to include only those that can truly benefit the environment, there are serious questions over whether such an agreement would be a good thing. Consider that American environmentalists, including 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace USA, and the Sierra Club, have been defending India’s protectionist solar rules, calling on the U.S. to drop its WTO complaint against them. The U.S. Trade Representative is irked that India is requiring many of the solar panels used for its ambitious clean-energy expansion plans to be produced domestically. Those rules are useful, however, in spurring the growth of a local and sustainable green-collar economy in an impoverished nation.

And, then, there’s the questionable role of the WTO in guiding the talks.

“We have concerns about putting this approach of liberalizing environmental goods under the thumb of the World Trade Organization, which is an institution that does not have a good track record on the environment,” Solomon said.

She would prefer to see such talks overseen by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is guiding climate negotiations that could culminate next year in a new international climate treaty. Or, she said, any number of other international groups or mechanisms — virtually anything but the WTO.


Source
Trade Talks on $1 Trillion in Environmental Goods, Associated Press

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Environmental free-trade deal could help tar-sands producers

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Oil companies try to weasel out of California’s cap-and-trade program

by MilagroBryson Posted on July 8, 2014

Will gas get a free pass?

Oil companies try to weasel out of California’s cap-and-trade program

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Like climate change, California’s cap-and-trade program is an evolving and growing beast. Since its official launch last year, power plants, cement producers, glass manufacturers, and some other heavy industries operating in the Golden State have been required to reduce carbon emissions and pay for the privilege of polluting the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases. In January of 2015, the program is due to expand to affect suppliers of natural gas and motor fuels, helping to further slow global warming and raise billions more dollars for climate and environmental programs.

But, whoa, hold up there, you crazy Left Coasters. Including gasoline in the program would slightly raise gas prices and provide financial support for alternatives, such as electric-vehicle charging stations and solar panels. And that’s the last thing Big Oil and its pals want.

ClimateWire reports that oil companies and big business groups have been pushing state lawmakers to exempt gasoline from the cap-and-trade program, pointing out that Californian motorists would be burdened with increased prices at gas pumps. And it seems that some lawmakers have been listening carefully. Last week, Assemblymember Henry Perea (D) amended legislation in such a way as to exempt motor fuels from the program for an additional three years.

“The cap-and-trade system should not be used to raise billions of dollars in new state funds at the expense of consumers who are struggling to get back on their feet after the recession,” Perea said in a press release.

Environmentalists and other lawmakers quickly cried foul over the climate-fouling maneuver. From the ClimateWire article:

A group of 32 Legislature members in response sent [Gov. Jerry] Brown a letter supporting keeping fuels in cap and trade.

“California’s most disadvantaged communities … are already bearing the brunt of the impacts” of warming including “a historic drought, wildfires of unprecedented strength and 12 million people breathing air that does not meet federal health standards,” the letter said. “These impacts result in tens of billions of dollars annually in health and economic losses, while every dollar a Californian spends on gasoline creates one-sixteenth as many jobs as a dollar spent on other goods and services.” …

“Assemblymember Henry Perea’s bill to stall the inclusion of transportation fuels under California’s cap-and-trade program is an eleventh-hour effort to appease Big Oil interests at the expense of his own constituents and all Californians,” said Derek Walker, associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund’s U.S. climate and energy program.

He added that “oil companies are standing in the way of innovation by frivolously exhausting every option to block popular policies to fight climate change and protect Californians’ health.”

Similar efforts to delay cap-and-trade for transportation fuels have been defeated in the past, and there’s a good chance that this legislation will fail too, after lawmakers return from a month-long recess. After all, slowing down cap-and-trade rules is no way to slow down the growth of global temperatures.


Source
Business groups, lawmakers accelerate drive to keep fuels out of Calif. cap-and-trade program, ClimateWire

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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The Maker’s Diet Revolution – Jordan Rubin

by Myrna Posted on July 6, 2014

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Maker’s Diet Revolution
The 10 Day Diet to Lose Weight and Detoxify Your Body, Mind and Spirit
Jordan Rubin

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: December 17, 2013

Publisher: Destiny Image

Seller: Destiny Image Publishers


The Maker's Diet Revolution is the long awaited sequel to The Maker's Diet that Jordan Rubin’s fans are ready for. Jordan will share everything he has learned in the years since he wrote The Maker's Diet, including: Health and Diet Tips Why our nation's food supply is compromised The importance of organic foods Choosing the best water sources Raising healthy children, healing chronic illnesses and much more! His Popular Health Myths and Truths Jordan Rubin is a renowned natural health expert and NYT Best-selling author of The Maker's Diet.

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The Maker’s Diet Revolution – Jordan Rubin

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Happy first birthday, U.S. Climate Action Plan!

by MammieIeaypafa Posted on June 26, 2014

It’s just a baby

Happy first birthday, U.S. Climate Action Plan!

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Anthropogenic climate change is as old as a tortoise – it’s been more than a century since our fossil-fuel pollution started raising temperatures and melting snow and ice. Global action to temper climate change is considerably younger. It hasn’t been a quarter of a century since the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change was launched to help thrash out global climate treaties.

And here in the U.S., climate action is little more than a disoriented baby. It has been exactly one year since President Barack Obama unveiled his Climate Action Plan, circumventing Congress and setting 75 goals for reducing carbon pollution, bracing for the impacts of climate change, and leading international climate efforts.

Since then, as the administration notes in a progress report, it has proposed carbon pollution rules for new and existing power plants, ramped up efforts to use federal land for renewable energy projects, leased out federal waters for a planned wind farm, published an overdue National Climate Assessment, embarked on an effort to reduce methane pollution, and proposed a $1 billion climate adaptation fund. Meanwhile, Obama and other Democrats and their progressive allies have begun a campaign of ridiculing Republicans on their climate-change denialism, using the issue as a wedge.

None of which has made much of a dent in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, which the U.S. lamely aims to reduce by just 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. But, hey, climate action in the U.S. is just a baby! Here’s how the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions assesses Obama’s efforts so far in a new report:

One year after its launch, the administration has made significant progress toward achieving many of the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, but overall, the record has been mixed. The plan demonstrates a commitment toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and is important to meeting the U.S. goal of reducing emissions 17 percent by 2020, especially in the absence of congressional action. If progress in the first year is mirrored in future years, the United States could achieve its emission reduction goal. However, additional actions must be undertaken or completed before success can be assured.

In other words, if climate action continues to be nurtured in the U.S., it could grow into something that could make a meaningful difference — the type of wild-eyed adolescent capable of busting heads and taking out the trash.

One of the most effective ways of nurturing climate action here would be to replace much of Congress with lawmakers who actually care about climate change, like the nation’s mayors. Getting rid of all those fossil fuel–friendly climate skeptics and deniers would allow federal laws to be passed and funds appropriated to help tackle global warming, beyond the kinds of federal regulations that Obama can implement on his own.

“One of the main premises behind the climate action plan is it has required no new money and no congressional action,” Dan Weiss, director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress, told Bloomberg BNA. “[T]hat also means some important things can’t happen.”


Source
President Obama’s Climate Action Plan Progress Report, White House
One Year Into Obama’s Climate Action Plan, Limits on Executive Actions Remain Obvious, Bloomberg BNA
President Obama’s Climate Action Plan: One Year Later, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Happy first birthday, U.S. Climate Action Plan!

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Everything we know about neonic pesticides is awful

by PrincesFelician Posted on June 25, 2014

Bee-ware!

Everything we know about neonic pesticides is awful

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Neonicotinoid pesticides are great at killing insect pests, which helps to explain the dramatic rise in their use during the past 20 years. They’re popular because they are systemic pesticides — they don’t just get sprayed onto plant surfaces. They can be applied to seeds, roots, and soil, becoming incorporated into a growing plant, turning it into poison for any bugs that might munch upon it.

But using neonics to control pests is like using a hand grenade to thwart a bank robbery.

Which is why the European Union has banned the use of many of them – and why environmentalists are suing the U.S. EPA to do the same.

The pesticides don’t just affect pest species. Most prominently, they affect bees and butterflies, which are poisoned when they gather pollen and nectar. But neonics’ negative impacts go far beyond pollinators. They kill all manner of animals and affect all kinds of ecosystems. They’re giving rise to Silent Spring 2.0.

“It’s just a matter of time before somebody can point to major species declines that can be linked to these compounds,” said Pierre Mineau, a Canadian pesticide ecotoxicologist. “Bees have been the focus for the last three or four years, but it’s a lot broader than that.”

Mineua contributed to an epic assessment of the ecological impacts of neonics, known as the Worldwide Integrated Assessment, in which 29 scientists jointly examined more than 800 peer-reviewed papers spanning five years. Their findings are being published in installments in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research, beginning last week with a paper coauthored by Mineua that details impacts on vertebrate animals, including fish and lizards. Here’s a summary of highlights:

Overview

Neonics can remain in the soil for months — sometimes for years. As they break down, they form some compounds that are even more toxic than the original pesticide. Because of these long-lasting ecological impacts, traditional measures of pesticide toxicity fall short of describing the widespread damages caused by neonics. In some cases, neonics can be 10,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT.

Ecosystem impacts

Noenics don’t stay where they are sprayed or applied. They can be found in soils, sedimentation, waterways, groundwater, and plants far away from farms and manicured gardens. They can interfere with a wide range of ecosystem functions, including nutrient cycling, food production, biological pest control, and pollination services. Of course, the animals that are worst affected are those that visit farmlands — and water-dwelling species that live downstream from farms.

Land-dwelling bugs

Everything from ants to earthworms can be affected, absorbing the poisons into their tiny bodies from dust in the air, through tainted water, and directly from plants.

Pollinators

Pollinators, including bees, butterflies, birds, and bats, are “highly vulnerable” to the pesticides. Not only do they drink poisoned nectar and eat poisoned pollen, but they can also be exposed to the pesticides through water and the air. This jeopardizes the ability of plants to reproduce, and the impacts can reverberate through ecosystems.

Aquatic invertebrates

Crabs, snails, and water fleas are among the water-dwelling species that can be exposed to the pesticides through the water in which they live. High concentrations of the pesticides found in waterways have reduced population sizes and diversity. The insecticides can affect the animals’ feeding behavior, growth rates, and movement.

Birds and other animals

Birds eat crop seeds treated with pesticides. Reptile numbers have dropped because the pesticides kill off their insect prey. And fish downstream from farms literally swim in the poison.

Knowledge gaps

Still, despite their prevalence, there’s a scary amount that we don’t know about these insecticides. The toxicity of neonics to most species has never been measured. For example, just four of the 25,000 known species of bees have been subjected to toxicity tests involving the pesticides.

And that’s not all

That’s just the ecosystem impacts of the poisons — the review doesn’t even deal with the effects of these insecticides on farmers or on those who eat farmed goods.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Everything we know about neonic pesticides is awful

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Big Food is already suing Vermont over its GMO labeling law

by LottieLangston Posted on June 13, 2014

Genetically engineered lawsuit

Big Food is already suing Vermont over its GMO labeling law

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A Vermont law that will require manufacturers to label foods containing genetically modified ingredients won’t take effect for another two years, but industry groups are already attacking it in court.

Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) signed the bill on May 8, and a lawsuit against it landed on Thursday of this week, just 35 days later.

The suit was filed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association, and National Association of Manufacturers. It argues that the labeling law exceeds Vermont’s authority under the U.S. Constitution, and that it would be “difficult, if not impossible,” for the groups’ members to comply with the requirements by the mid-2016 deadline.

“The State is compelling manufacturers to convey messages they do not want to convey, and prohibiting manufacturers from describing their products in terms of their choosing, without anything close to a sufficient justification,” states the 22-page complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court. “The State is forcing the costs of this experiment on out-of-state companies and citizens to which it is not politically accountable, and is undermining and impeding the federal government’s interest in uniform, nationwide standards for food labeling.”

The labeling law explicitly anticipates such a challenge, and establishes a legal defense fund. Attorney General William Sorrell told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday that he hadn’t yet reviewed the complaint, but that his office had already been “gearing up” for what is sure to be a “heck of a fight.”

The state won’t have to fight it alone. Organic producers and consumer groups are rushing to provide legal support. The Organic Consumers Association, for example, promptly fired off an email blast on Thursday asking its supporters to donate money to help the nonprofit defend Vermont’s law, and to push other states to introduce similar rules. The final ruling will influence whether states across the country — including Maine and Connecticut, which have passed similar laws during the past year, albeit with some caveats – can be free to impose their own GMO labeling laws in the absence of federal leadership on the issue.


Source
Trade groups sue VT over GMO labeling law, Burlington Free Press

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Big Food is already suing Vermont over its GMO labeling law

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