Tag Archives: year

Pesticides just got a whole lot smaller. Is that a good thing?

by FrancesBenoit Posted on January 22, 2015

Pesticides just got a whole lot smaller. Is that a good thing?

By on 22 Jan 2015commentsShare

Nanoparticles are basically the X-Men of the molecular world, in that they are unpredictable, elusive, and come in a dizzying array of forms.

So it should come as no surprise that scientists are now researching a new type of nanotechnology that could revolutionize modern farming: nanopesticides. (Cue: Ooo, ahh) Recent studies have suggested that the nano-scale pesticide droplets could offer a range of benefits including raising crop durability and persistence, while decreasing the amount of pesticide needed to cover the same amount of ground. But they’re also looking at the hefty potential for trouble: No one knows if the nanopesticide particles will seep into water systems, and, if they do, if they will harm non-pests like bees, fish, and even humans.

As we’ve written before, nanotechnology involves engineering particles that are tinier than the tiniest tiny. (More technically, we’re talking anything measured in billionths of a meter.) Scientists find this useful, since most substances behave much differently at that scale. Already, nanotechnology has changed the medical world, with nanoparticles used to purify water, protect against UV rays, and detect contamination.

The same could be true in farming. By shrinking the size of pesticide droplets down to nano-scale, scientists could help decrease overall pesticide use in U.S. agriculture. Which is a big thing — although we’ve come down a bit from the pesticide heyday of the 1980s, we still poured out 516 million pounds of pesticides in 2008 alone. Yipes. Here’s more on the potentially game-changing tech, from Modern Farmer:

By shrinking the size of individual nanopesticide droplets, there is broad consensus — from industry to academia to the Environmental Protection Agency — that the total amount of toxins sprayed on agricultural fields could be significantly reduced. Smaller droplets have a higher total surface area, which offers overall greater contact with crop pests. As well, these tiny particles can be engineered to better withstand degradation in the environment, offering longer-lasting protection than conventional pesticides.

Because many pesticides have been linked to birth defects, nerve damage, and cancer, scientists are pretty damn jazzed about the idea of using less of them.

But wait! Before we all lose our heads over the extreme tinification of agricultural chemicals — scientists still believe there could be a dark side to spraying our food and land with untested substances unknown to nature and immune to the usual kinds of breakdown (whaaa?! no way!).

So researchers across the world are slipping into lab coats and digging in. One project, led by Oregon State researcher Stacey Harper, is currently looking into how the compounds interact with their environment in “nano-sized ecosystems.” The research is still in its beginning stages, but the findings are slated to be published by the end of the year.

There is an obstacle and, surprise, it’s money. Scientists need more — more even than the $3.7 billion the the U.S. has invested through its National Nanotechnology Initiative to date — to assess fully the possible risks and rewards of nanotechnology.

Meanwhile, we giants here in the macro-world will continue enjoy the benefits of nanotechnology in our sunscreen, clean water, and scrumptious caramelly treats — even if invisible to us. As long as they don’t start manipulating magnets …

Source:
Everything You Need To Know About Nanopesticides

, Modern Farmer.

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Pesticides just got a whole lot smaller. Is that a good thing?

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Watch: Maggie Gyllenhaal Just Gave a Perfect Golden Globes Speech

by PenelopO37 Posted on January 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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Maggie Gyllenhaal is great. She just won the Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie Golden Globe for “The Honourable Woman.” Her speech was perfect.

“I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about the wealth of roles for powerful women in television lately. And when I look around the room at the women who are here and I think about the performances that I’ve watched this year what I see actually are women who are sometimes powerful and sometimes not, sometimes sexy, sometimes not, sometimes honorable, sometimes not, and what I think is new is the wealth of roles for actual women in television and in film. That’s what I think is revolutionary and evolutionary and it’s what’s turning me on.”

Watch, watch, watch:

Link:  

Watch: Maggie Gyllenhaal Just Gave a Perfect Golden Globes Speech

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Non-Chart of the Day: Where’s the Austerity?

by FrancescaGresha Posted on January 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Tyler Cowen passes along the following chart, a modified version of one Matt Yglesias used to show the trend of total government expenditures (federal + state + local) and declare “2014 is the year American austerity came to an end”:

This comes from Angus, who comments incredulously: “From this graph I concluded one of two things must be true depending on one’s definition of austerity. Either austerity means nominal cuts and we never had any of it, or austerity means cuts relative to trend and we are still savagely in its grasp.”

Oh come on. There’s an obvious third option. Let’s take a look at this chart done right:

This is real per-capita government expenditures (using 2014 dollars). I used CPI, but it looks the same no matter which inflation measure you prefer (PCE, GDP deflator, % of GDP, whatever).

Austerity is all about the trajectory of government spending, and this is what it looks like. You can argue about whether flat spending represents austerity, but a sustained decline counts in anyone’s book. The story here is simple: for a little while, in 2009 and 2010, stimulus spending partially offset state and local cuts, but by the end of 2010 the stimulus had run its course. From then on, the drop in government expenditures was steady and significant. It was also unprecedented. If you run this chart back for 50 years you’ll never see anything like it. In all previous recessions and their aftermaths, government spending rose.

Finally, in 2014, the spending decline stopped. Austerity was over, and now we’re even starting to see a small uptick in government spending. At the same time, the economy started to pick up.

This is not bulletproof evidence that austerity is bad for the economy, or that government spending helps it. But it’s certainly consistent with the hypothesis, and it’s really not hard to see.

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Non-Chart of the Day: Where’s the Austerity?

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Finally Some Good News About Clean Energy Investment

by DeannaColleano Posted on January 9, 2015

Mother Jones

Clean energy investment around the world is rebounding after a three-year decline, according to new figures released today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Globally, the total amount of clean energy investment jumped 16 percent in 2014, to $310 billion. That number is just shy of the record amount of investment set in 2011.

BNEF produces quarterly reports that track how much money governments and the private sector are pouring into wind, solar, biofuels and other green energy projects. In 2014, the United States enjoyed its biggest investments since 2012, but it was China that once again drove the numbers. China’s clean energy spending shot up 32 percent to a record $89.5 billion, cementing its place as the world’s top market for green investment. (You can get a sense of just how impressive Chinese investment is by peaking inside the the world’s biggest solar manufacturing factory, which is run by Chinese company Yingli.)

Solar is getting the lion’s share of investment around the world, according to the figures. Almost half the money spent on clean energy this year—just shy of $150 billion—was in the solar industry. Wind investment also reached record levels—$19.4 billion globally—thanks in part to offshore projects in Europe.

There was one darker patch in the numbers: Australia, where the government is trying to slash the country’s Renewable Energy Target, a policy that creates mandates for the amount of clean energy in the electricity mix. Bucking the global trend, investments there fell by 35 percent.

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Finally Some Good News About Clean Energy Investment

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BREAKING: President Obama Will Veto Congress’ Keystone XL Pipeline Bill

by VilmaHerrmann Posted on January 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama is planning to veto a bill that would force approval of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, according to the Associated Press:

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the president’s position hasn’t changed since November, when pipeline supporters in Congress last attempted to push through its approval—an effort that fell just one vote shy of the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. Obama was adamant then that approval for the pipeline come not from Congress, but from the State Department, which normally has jurisdiction over international infrastructure projects like this one. A final decision from State has been delayed pending the outcome of a Nebraska State Supreme Court case, expected sometime early this year, that could alter the pipeline’s route.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McDonnell and other Republicans have vowed to make passage of a new Keystone XL bill a top priority for the new year, and they seem prepared to move forward with a vote later this week. The bill is likely to pass. But the challenge for Republicans is to garner enough support from Democratic senators to achieve the 67 votes required to override a presidential veto. Yesterday, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters he had just 63 votes.

Even if Congress fails to override Obama’s veto, it still won’t be the end of what has become the flagship issue for US climate activists; the possibility remains that the State Department could still approve the project. But the Obama administration may be leaning against approval. In December, the president said the pipeline is “not even going to be a nominal benefit to US consumers.”

This post has been updated.

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BREAKING: President Obama Will Veto Congress’ Keystone XL Pipeline Bill

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Anchorage, Alaska, is so hot right now

by FSZLazarots Posted on January 5, 2015

Baked Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska, is so hot right now

By on 5 Jan 2015commentsShare

If you’ve ever met an Alaskan, you know talking about disappeared sea ice and dead polar bears might get yawns or a semi-concerned shrugs. But try telling her that she’ll need to put wheels on her dog sled, or that her nordic team is now cross-country track, and you’re angling for a punch in the mouth.

Mouthguards, everyone: 2014 was one of the warmest years on record for America’s wintriest state. It was also the warmest for the Bering Sea and Anchorage’s warmest since 1926. In fact, for the first time in recorded history, the temperature never dropped below zero in Anchorage for a whole calendar year.

So with skis stuck in closets and White Christmas dreams dashed (see video above), Alaskans have more reason than ever to pay attention to climate change. From the LA Times:

“To me, the fact that Anchorage won’t dip below zero degrees in calendar year 2014 is just one more signal — as if we needed another one — of a rapidly changing climate,” said Andrew Hartsig, director of the Ocean Conservancy’s Arctic program.

Hartsig said Anchorage’s comparatively balmy weather is consistent with other long-term trends, including diminishing summer sea ice and increasing sea surface temperatures.

“These are definitely red flags that are very consistent with climate change,” said Chris Krenz, senior scientist at Oceana, an international conservation group. “These are anomalies … that show our climate system is off-kilter.”

But Alaska’s hyper-variable weather conditions mean the climate connection isn’t a straight one:

James E. Overland, a research oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, […] argues that Alaska’s very cool heat wave is not evidence of climate change but rather the next stage in a long-term weather pattern that began with six years of warming in the Bering Sea and southern Alaska, followed by six cold years.

“This year, then, was the breakdown of the string of cold years,” Overland said. “What all the scientists are wondering now [is]: Is this just one warm year? Could we flip back to a cold sequence again, or is this the start of a warm sequence? … We don’t know, and it makes a big difference.”

Over at Andy Revkin’s DotEarth, scientist Mike McCracken argues that current weather extremes may offer a preview of new norms under advanced climate change:

Such large variations of the climate likely won’t occur every year over the next few decades given the limited global warming to date, but it would seem likely such conditions will occur more and more frequently as global warming continues, disrupting both social systems and ecosystems.

Of course, concerns about a warmer Alaska extend beyond mushier mushing. Alaska’s valuable pollock (McD’s Filet-o-Fish to you) stocks are threatened by too-warm waters, and even oil companies bemoan their inability to move around Alaska’s vast, roadless interior without reliably packed snow and frozen muskeg. We’d point out the irony in that last one, but we’ve misplaced our Alaska-sized neon irony sign.

Source:
Alaska’s toasty temperatures in 2014 worry observers

, L.A. Times.

While Much of the U.S. Shivers, Alaskan Fourth Graders Bemoan a Warm, Snowless December on YouTube

, New York Times.

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Anchorage, Alaska, is so hot right now

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Iowa to Democrats: Please, Please Have a Real Race So We Can Get Lots of Your Money

by HarryPartlow Posted on January 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last night I noticed a Wall Street Journal piece about Iowa Democrats being slow to “rally” around Hillary Clinton, but I only read the first couple of paragraphs before I got bored. Today, Ed Kilgore tells me I quit too soon. If I had read to the bottom, I would have learned that this phenomenon probably has nothing really to do with a desire for a more populist candidate:

State Democratic officials also want a contested race because that boosts the party apparatus and fundraising….“When we have these candidates out here running for office, we invite them to county dinners and the numbers swell at these events,” said Tom Henderson, chairman of Democratic Party in Polk County, which includes Des Moines. “So it is a great, great service for the Democratic Party to have these candidates running for office.”

Kilgore explains further:

You have to appreciate that candidates in both parties for state and local office in Iowa (and to a lesser extent, in other early states) are accustomed to enjoying the benefit of world-class mailing lists, state-of-the-art campaign infrastructures, and top-shelf campaign staffers from all over the country. These goodies come to them courtesy of presidential candidates, proto-presidential candidates, people who want to work on presidential campaigns, and people who want to influence presidential campaigns. This is why Iowans so fiercely protect their first-in-the-nation-caucus status, and also why they hate uncontested presidential nomination contests. So of course they don’t want HRC to win without a challenge.

Roger that. In any case, talk is cheap right now. My guess is that everything changes once HRC actually announces her candidacy. When that happens, I’ll bet everyone starts rallying just fine. Iowa Democrats might be eager for their quadrennial infusion of money and pandering, but not so eager that they want to risk being caught on the losing side. Once the pressure is on to become an early HRC supporter or else spend the rest of the year on the Clinton shit list, well, I have a feeling an awful lot of early supporters are suddenly going to come out of the woodwork. We’ll see.

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Iowa to Democrats: Please, Please Have a Real Race So We Can Get Lots of Your Money

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2014 Was the Year We Finally Started to Do Something About Climate Change

by ElisaXLWGh Posted on December 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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2014 was a big year for climate news, good and bad. In June, the Obama administration took its biggest step yet in the fight against global warming by introducing regulations to limit greenhouse gases from existing power plants. And while there was plenty of anti-science rhetoric and opposition to climate action (no, the polar vortex does not disprove climate change), the year came to a dramatic end with at least three landmark climate-related stories: In September, hundreds of thousands of protesters around the world marched to demand climate action. November’s historic deal between the US and China to curb greenhouse emissions breathed new life into international climate negotiations. And finally, after a series of last-minute compromises, leaders from nearly 200 countries produced the Lima Accord, which, for the first time, calls on all nations to develop plans to limit their emissions. All eyes are now on Paris, where next year world leaders will meet in an attempt to work out a major global warming deal.

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2014 Was the Year We Finally Started to Do Something About Climate Change

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Chart of the Day: War on Christmas Continues to Take a Drubbing

by JoeannR90dydqr Posted on December 26, 2014

Mother Jones

With the Christmas season now officially closed, I figured everyone would appreciate a final update on how our troops performed this year in the War on Christmas™. And since my Wikipedia entry insists that this blog is known for “original statistical and graphical analysis,” that’s what you’re going to get.

So then: the chart below is a Google Ngram showing the popularity of Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays. I’m sorry to report that contrary to suggestions from certain quarters, Happy Holidays has been taking a terrific and sustained beating ever since the mid-70s. I took the liberty of extending the trendline based on an extensive personal sampling of popular music and TV shows, and I’m afraid the results were devastating: 2014 was yet another year of Happy Holidays getting its ass kicked. In 1975 we were behind by 2 x 10-5 percentage points. Today we’re behind by 5 x 10-5 percentage points, and falling farther behind every year.

I know this might be discouraging news to some of you, but buck up, urban liberals! Happy Holidays is still doing better than the Lakers, the Bears, and the Knicks. Just wait ’til next year.

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Chart of the Day: War on Christmas Continues to Take a Drubbing

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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

by JacquesBroome Posted on December 22, 2014

Mother Jones

I’m going to keep things simple this year: Mother Jones is great! You already know that if you subscribe to the magazine (which you should) or if you read this blog. But no single source of funding can support what we do, so we rely on multiple sources. And you guessed it: one of them is reader donations.

So if you want to support our great journalism….

Or you just want to support this blog….

Or, hell, if you just want to say thank you to MoJo for providing me with much-needed health insurance this year….

Then how about making a year-end contribution? Small amounts are fine. Large amounts are even better! You can use PayPal or a credit card. Every little bit helps. So thanks for another year of reading my rants and raves, and thanks in advance for whatever donation you can afford. Here are the details:

Click here to pay via credit card.

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Click here if you want to get someone a gift subscription.

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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

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