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Is sustainable agriculture possible in the Sahel?
With drought conditions chronic in the Sahel, many farmers give up trying to grow crops and head to towns and cities to find work. In Chad many go to the south or to Lake Chad where irrigation from the fast-shrinking lake is used to farm. But some agro-ecologists say governments, donors and farmers should not abandon agriculture in the Sahel, and despite being “very difficult”, with the right approaches, there is “huge potential” in natural regeneration, traditional irrigation methods, and simple alternatives such as crop diversification.
“The Sahel has enormous potential – this is a very marginal food-growing environment, so we are forced to learn how this natural system works. All we’re doing is looking for the clues in nature,” said Tony Rinauld, a research and development adviser on natural resources to World Vision Australia who worked in the Sahel for’ years, practicing agro-forestry, a traditional land-use system that combines trees or other woody perennials with crop and animal production.
The Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal regions in western Chad are chronically food insecure, and periodically experience acute malnutrition rates above the emergency threshold. According to NGOs, rates reached’ percent in Kanem earlier in 2012 and many families have already run out of food and are down to one or two goats.
Both regions are dotted with fertile oases, known as ‘wadis’, that have for years been left by their traditional ‘owners’ – the aristocrats, or ‘Sultanate’, and village chiefs – to grow little more than date palms, lemon and mango trees. Vegetables are systematically grown in just 100 of Kanem’s 500 wadis, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which runs a project with the European Union (EU) humanitarian funder, ECHO, to help the poorest families grow vegetables in 120 oases across Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal.
“Here [in Kanem] one crisis just flows into the next one… but we are trying to keep people here and to see how we can enlarge the wadis further,” said Abdul Karim, FAO’s food security head in Mao, the capital of Kanem.
Sultanates and village chiefs lend the oases to separate producer committees of men and women for 5 to 10 years, while FAO helps build a water point and provides the pump, gives farmers seeds and tools and trains them in market gardening.
Minder Mohamed Ali was guarding fields of lettuces, carrots, aubergines and onions in Aloum 2 wadi, 8 kilometers from Mao. “We eat some, we sell some of the vegetables – many farmers weren’t able to do much before this, as they have had no production this year,” he told IRIN.
“Now we see vegetables in the market every day,” the representative of the Sultanate in Mao, ni Alifeh Mahadi Alifey Mahlabtra, told IRIN. “It is also a motivation for people to do something… we will [probably] renew the contract in five years – we want people to get enough food,” he said. “Before, people here grew rice, now we are completely dependent on our wadis.”
With the right level of investment and the right approach, anything is possible, said Augustin Ilunga, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Mao, which has for decades been helping to keep severely malnourished children alive. “In a desert landscape like this, with climate change, it will take a lot of work to change… but with the right attitude it’s possible. Otherwise we’ll be here giving Plumpy’Nut [a highly nutritious foodstuff given to malnourished people] forever,” he told IRIN.
Ultimately, this project has worked only because land was made available to the very poorest groups, who ordinarily would not have had access to it, said Remy Courcier, Emergency coordinator at the FAO in the capital, N’djamena. “Land ownership and land rights are central to improving prospects in the Sahel.”
Courcier told IRIN that investors in Chad should follow other Sahelian examples. “Here in Chad not much has been done over the past 30 years, but in Niger there is lots of research into improved seed varieties, traditional irrigation, environmental protection such as controlling sandy dunes – we could use more of this.”
more at the linkWith drought conditions chronic in the Sahel, many farmers give up trying to grow... more-
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With deaf parents, Kambri Crews lived their pain, isolation (Video Interview)
2012 video interview with Kambri Crews, author of Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir, conducted by Mr. Media, Bob Andelman. http://www.mrmedia.com/?p=44482012 video interview with Kambri Crews, author of Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir,... more-
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Artificial glaciers water crops in Indian highlands
A remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by creating large masses of ice, or "artificial glaciers," to get through the dry spring months. (See a map of the region.)
Located on the western edge of the Tibetan plateau, the village of Skara in the Ladakh region of India is not a common tourist destination.
"It's beautiful, but really remote and difficult to get to," said Amy Higgins, a graduate student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies who worked on the artificial glacier project.
"A lot of people, when I met them in Delhi and I said I was going to Ladakh, they looked at me like I was going to the moon,” said Higgins, who is also a National Geographic grantee.
(Related: "Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water Supplies")
People in Skara and surrounding villages survive by growing crops such as barley for their own consumption and for sale in neighboring towns. In the past, water for the crops came from meltwater originating in glaciers high in the Himalaya.
But in recent decades, climate change has uncoupled glacial melt cycles in the Tibetan Plateau—which is warming up on average two degrees Celsius faster than the rest of the world—from the traditional agricultural season, causing water shortages in April and May when Ladakhis typically begin sowing seeds for the summer season. If the villagers don't sow during this critical window, there is no crop that year.
DIY "Glaciers"
One winter in the late 1980s, an engineer from Skara named Chewang Norphel came up with a possible solution to his village's problem while strolling around his backyard.
Norphel noticed that a small stream had frozen solid under the shade of a poplar grove, though it flowed freely elsewhere in his sunny yard. The reason for this, he realized, was that the flowing water was moving too quickly to freeze, while the sluggish trickle of water beneath the grove was not.
Over the next several years, Norphel worked to create an irrigation system that functioned using the same simple natural principle. The result has been Ladakh's artificial glaciers. Ten have been built to date.
To create the glaciers, Norphel and his team of engineers divert water from rivers into neighboring valleys that have been carefully penned in with rocks. This step usually takes place in the winter months of October through December. To slow the water down to a trickle, the diversion canals often take long meandering routes around mountainsides.
Once it arrives in the valley, the water freezes in a shallow layer in small pools. The process is repeated until the stacked layers of ice are several feet thick. If too much water is added too quickly, the result is a slushy pit. "It takes a lot of patience," Higgins said.
The largest artificial glacier created to date occupies an area of more than a square mile. Because the artificial glaciers sit at a much lower altitude than true glaciers, they melt sooner, in time for the villagers' spring planting.
(Related: "Video: Receding Himalaya Glaciers")
"You could do the same thing by building a big water reservoir," Higgins said, "but it would require a lot more materials, and the water would evaporate because there's so much sunshine. You would also have to worry about it getting contaminated."
Long-Term Peril
Peter Gleick is a water expert and president of the Pacific Institute research center in Oakland, California. Gleick, who was not involved in the project, called the artificial glaciers an innovative solution to the region’s increasingly difficult changes in climate.
"I think they're great and likely to play a role, at least in the short term, in helping some of these high-elevation villages deal with the very real and immediate changes to the melting glaciers in the Himalaya," he said.
Gleick worries, however, that in the long run, the gradual disappearance of high-elevation natural glaciers will make it increasingly difficult to create and maintain the artificial glaciers.
"I'm not optimistic that the [artificial glaciers] are going to be sustainable in the long run," he said.
Environmental chemist William Cooper, who also played no role in the project, called the artificial glacier project an “interesting and noble idea.”
“If he is able to actually store that much water as ice and release it later by natural processes, it’s a low-cost alternative to dams," said Cooper, director of the Urban Water Research Center at the University of California, Irvine.
More at the linkA remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by... more-
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Ecological kings of the jungle being toppled by drought, pests, and disease
The biggest trees in the world, known as the true ecological kings of the jungle, are dying off rapidly as roads, farms and settlements fragment forests and they come under prolonged attack from severe droughts and new pests and diseases.
Big trees may comprise less than 2% of the trees in any forest but they can contain 25% of the total biomass and are vital for the health of the whole forest. Credit: us-parks.com
Long-term studies in Amazonia, Africa and Central America show that while these botanical behemoths may have adapted successfully to centuries of storms, pests and short-term climatic extremes, they are counter-intuitively more vulnerable than other trees to today's threats.
"Fragmentation of the forests is now disproportionately affecting the big trees," said William Laurance, a research professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. "Not only do many more trees die near forest edges, but a higher proportion of the trees dying were the big trees.
"Their tall stature and relatively thick, inflexible trunks, may make them especially prone to uprooting and breakage near forest edges where wind turbulence is increased," Laurance said in this week's New Scientist magazine.
Big trees may comprise less than 2% of the trees in any forest but they can contain 25% of the total biomass and are vital for the health of whole forests because they seed large areas. "With their tall canopies basking in the sun, big trees capture vast amounts of energy. This allows them to produce massive crops of fruits, flowers and foliage that sustain much of animal life in the forests. Their canopies help moderate the local forest environment while their understory creates a unique habitat for other plants and animals," Laurance said.
"Only a small number of tree species have the genetic capacity to grow really big. To grow into giants, trees need good growing conditions, lots of time and the right place to establish their seedlings. Disrupt any one of these and you lose them."
In some parts of the world, Laurance said, populations of big trees are dwindling because their seedlings cannot survive or grow. "In southern India an aggressive shrub is invading the understorey of many forests, preventing seedlings from dropping on the floor. With no young trees to replace them, it's only a matter of time before most of the big trees disappear."
According to Laurance, it is not just the biggest trees in the world that are suffering, but also the biggest in their communities. Dutch elm disease killed off many of the stateliest trees in Britain in the 1960s and 70s, and new exotic organisms and bacterial infections, often brought in from other continents via garden centers, are threatening oak, ash and other species.
Longer lasting and more intense droughts, which are becoming more frequent in many tropical areas with climate change, are also taking their toll. Studies in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica suggest that big trees also suffer more in droughts than most other organisms.
"In rainforests droughts promote surface fires that burn through leaf litter on the forest floor. Larger trees were initially thought to survive these fires but, in fact, many die two to three years later. In cloud forests, big trees use their branches and crowns to rake the mist and capture water droplets. Global warming could push clouds up to higher elevations depriving them of sources of moisture," Laurance said.
"The danger is that the oldest, largest trees will progressively die off and not be replaced. Alarmingly, this might trigger a 'positive feedback' that could destabilize the climate: as older trees die, forests would release their stored carbon, prompting a vicious circle of further warming and forest shrinkage."
more at the linkThe biggest trees in the world, known as the true ecological kings of the jungle, are... more-
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Frat Boy At the Movies: The Grey
Tony D takes a look at the Grey starring Liam Neeson.-
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Olde Tyme Gamer: Teaching Science Takes Guts
Bobby teaches his daughter the only way he knows how.-
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Oceans have acidified more in the last 200 years than the previous 21,000 years
Man-made carbon emissions have acidified the world's oceans far beyond their natural levels, new research suggests.
In some regions, acidity levels rose faster in the last two centuries than it did in the previous 21,000 years, a study from the University of Hawaii has shown. Ocean acidity makes it harder for organisms such as molluscs and coral to construct the protective layers they need to survive.
Measuring changes in ocean acidity is difficult because it varies naturally between seasons, years and regions. Scientists looked at changes in the saturation level of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate used to measure ocean acidification.
As seawater acidity rises, the saturation level of aragonite falls. Direct observations only date back 30 years, which is not long enough to reveal a meaningful trend. However the new research used simulations of ocean and climate conditions going back 21,000 years to the Last Glacial Maximum and forward in time to the end of the 21st century.
In several key coral reef regions aragonite saturation is already five times below its lowest pre-industrial range, according to the model. This translates to a decrease in overall calcification rates of corals and other shell-forming organisms of 15%, scientists at the university believe.
They fear calcification rates of some marine organisms could drop by more than 40% of their pre-industrial levels within the next 90 years.
Dr Tobias Friedrich, from the University of Hawaii, who led the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said: 'Any significant drop below the minimum level of aragonite to which the organisms have been exposed to for thousands of years and have successfully adapted will very likely stress them and their associated ecosystems.
'In some regions, the man-made rate of change in ocean acidity since the industrial revolution is 100 times greater than the natural rate of change between the Last Glacial Maximum and pre-industrial times.'
He added: 'When Earth started to warm 17,000 years ago, terminating the last glacial period, atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels rose from 190 parts per million (ppm) to 280 ppm over 6,000 years.
'Marine ecosystems had ample time to adjust. Now, for a similar rise in CO2 concentration to the present level of 392 ppm, the adjustment time is reduced to only 100 - 200 years.'
Co-author Professor Axel Timmermann, also from the University of Hawaii, said: 'Our results suggest that severe reductions are likely to occur in coral reef diversity, structural complexity and resilience by the middle of this century.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2090253/Oceans-acidified-200-years-did-previous-21-000-years-claims-new-climate-change-research.html#ixzz1kJIObunQMan-made carbon emissions have acidified the world's oceans far beyond their... more-
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How To Prepare For The Difficult Years Ahead
How should people prepare for the difficult years that are coming? I get asked about that a lot. Once people really examine the facts, it is not too hard to convince them that an economic collapse is coming. But once they accept that reality, most of them want to know what they can do to prepare themselves and their families for the hard times that are ahead. Well, the truth is that it does not have to be complicated. Many of the things discussed throughout this article are things that most of us should be doing anyway. Now is not the time to be splurging on luxuries or expensive vacations. Now is not the time to be going into large amounts of debt. Instead, we all need to get back to the basics and we all need to do what we can to become more independent of the system. Just remember what happened back in 2008. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and millions of Americans lost their homes. Now experts all over the globe are warning that another great financial crisis that could be just as bad as 2008 (or even worse) is coming. Those that don't take the time to prepare this time are not going to have any excuse.How should people prepare for the difficult years that are coming? I get asked about... more-
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Baby harp seals being drowned, crushed amid melting ice
Harp seal pups are taking a hit due to global warming, according to the first study of its kind.
Ice-busting storms and warmer waters fueled by rising temperatures are diminishing the ice cover that harp seals need to survive during their first vulnerable weeks of life.
Without thick, solid ice expanses, seal babies drown or are crushed by broken-up chunks of ice.
For the harp seals, "good ice is about 30 to 70 centimeters [12 to 28 inches] thick and covers 60 to 90 percent of the water," said marine biologist Garry Stenson, who works for Canada's Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and helps to monitor and assess harp seal populations.
But ice cover in the sub-Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean has declined about 6 percent per decade since the 1970s. (Read "The Big Thaw" in National Geographic magazine.)
And as climate change continues to degrade the amount of good ice, the average pup survival rate is likely to drop over the years, experts say.
"Some years, when there's poor ice in a given pupping ground, essentially all of the pups don't make it," said study leader David Johnston, a marine biologist at Duke University.
In 2007, for example, more than 75 percent of pups in Canada perished because of poor ice conditions—in 2010, almost none survived, Johnston said.
snip
Understanding Harp Seal Decline
To understand how climate variations are affecting sea ice—and how ice loss is affecting harp seal pups—Johnston and his team conducted three major studies, the first in 2005.
(See pictures of how climate change is changing the Arctic.)
The initial two studies examined the effects in Canada of the North Atlantic Oscillation—the difference between subtropical and polar atmospheric pressure, which pushes storms in the Northern Hemisphere to move from west to east.
The oscillation "basically governs the strength and track of storms, and sea ice formation and persistence across the entire North Atlantic," Johnston said. "We needed to understand shorter-term climate variation before looking at the long-term effects." (Take a water-and-climate change quiz.)
The third and most recent paper tied together variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation, long-term climate change, sea ice, and seal-pup death rates for the first time.
"It's really difficult to study this. There's a huge void of quantitative information about seal pup mortality," Johnston said. "So, we turned to the stranding record."
For the past few decades, groups of New England volunteers have walked their local beaches and reported dead, stranded seals. This gave Johnston and colleagues a measure of seal-pup deaths to compare with oscillation-affected sea ice.
Their results revealed that seal-pup deaths rose and fell with sea ice loss driven by fluctuations in the North Atlantic Oscillation, which are in turn caused by climate change.
"This is something we knew about awhile ago, but it's complicated," said the Canadian fisheries department's Stenson, who wasn't involved in Johnston's research.
Stenson added that Johnston and colleagues' analysis is "deeper than anyone has done in the past."
"We know that bad ice affects pup mortality, and that sea ice has been declining," Stenson said. "You have to account for that or you can't understand the population dynamics."
(Also see "Longest Polar Bear Swim Recorded-426 Miles Straight.")
Avoiding a Conservation "Train Wreck"
Though harp seals are not rare, Johnston and other researchers are concerned for the animal's future.
The new study adds to evidence that climate change, since the 1970s, has reduced the only birthing grounds that harp seal populations have ever known.
The harp seal's ability to weather long-term climatic changes in unknown, but it's not too late to avoid a "conservation train wreck," Johnston said.
"We should control what we can control. We can't control the reproductive biology of seals, or where and how ice forms in their breeding habitats from year to year," he said.
"What we can control is human behavior."
More at the linkHarp seal pups are taking a hit due to global warming, according to the first study of... more-
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Facing rising seas islanders call on their music
Stymied in global climate negotiations, three tiny Pacific nations plead for action through songs and dances
By Jennifer Weeks
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The applause was raucous, growing louder and faster as the beat accelerated.
A dozen dancers, arms stretched, torsos bare, pounded the stage in an increasing frenzy. They turned, swooped, slapped their thighs, swooped and turned again– birds hovering in the air, looking for something below – and shouting, "koburake!” or “rise up!" The audience exploded after each verse, thinking the performance over.
But the dance started up again, faster still.
The dancers had traveled more than 7,000 miles to perform for the crowd at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. They were singing of the frigate bird – an agile flier with a seven-foot wingspan that forages across the open ocean, returning to land only to roost or breed.
The performers on stage were part of a troupe of three dozen islanders from Kiribati and two other Pacific atolls, Tokelau and Tuvalu, touring the East and West coasts this fall.
Cloaked within the music was a message: Life on these islands centers on fishing and family ties. But climate change, driven by industrialized activities thousands of miles away, is intruding. Coastlines are eroding and sea level rise is pushing salt water into wells. Families that have lived in the same places for hundreds of years wonder how future generations will subsist.
No polished message
I didn't want a polished message. If you live on these islands, you are the spokespersons. - Judy Mitoma, tour organizer
The performers – fishermen, farmers, homemakers and students – tapped their culture and art to tell of their home and plight. The tour's title was also its message: Water is Rising. The goal was to share island culture with Americans and offer a deeply personal plea for action.
"Climate change is a survival issue for these people," said tour organizer Judy Mitoma, director of the University of California, Los Angeles' Center for Intercultural Performance and emeritus professor of dance. Mitoma has curated many cross-cultural performing-arts events in Asia and the Pacific. This project attracted her because it combined scientific and artistic themes, yet relied upon performers unversed in the science or politics of climate change.
"I didn't want ... a polished message," she said. "The point was that if you live on these islands, you are the spokespersons."
Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu, with a combined population of about 113,000, have pushed themselves to the forefront of the global climate debate. Two years ago, at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, Tuvalu's delegates brought the proceedings to a halt by arguing the Kyoto Protocol was fundamentally too weak to be used as a basis for negotiations.
Tokelau and Tuvalu both are gripped by drought; saltwater infusion has rendered many wells undrinkable, prompting New Zealand and the United States to airlift water to residents. In September, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon used a visit to Kiribati to spotlight risks climate change poses to island states, saying the nation was at "the front of the frontlines."
"Some indigenous cultures could literally disappear because of climate change," said Suzanne Benally, executive director of Cultural Survival, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. "Their lives are very entwined with their ecosystems, and they are feeling direct, immediate consequences."
More at the linkStymied in global climate negotiations, three tiny Pacific nations plead for action... more-
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Maine Farmer Heads Group Challenging Genetics Giant Monsanto
A fight to maintain consumer choice and farm independence has landed Maine farmer Jim Gerritsen on Utne Reader's list of "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World," published in the November/December edition of the magazine on newsstands now.
Organic seed potato farmer Jim Gerritsen heads a trade association that is suing chemical giant Monsanto. (photo: Charlotte Hedley ) Gerritsen, wife Megan, and their four children run the Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, which produces and sells organic seed potatoes to kitchen gardeners and market farmers in all 50 states. Gerritsen is also president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, and it was that role that led to the Utne recognition.
The nonprofit organization created a stir in food and farming communities when, with legal backing from the Public Patent Foundation, it filed a lawsuit in March against the chemical and biotechnology giant Monsanto. OSGATA has since been joined in the lawsuit by 82 other seed businesses, trade organizations and family farmers, which together represent more than 270,000 people.
The lawsuit questions the validity of Monsanto's patents on genetically modified seeds, and seeks protection from patent-infringement lawsuits for the plaintiffs should their crops become contaminated with Monsanto's transgenic crops.
"The viewpoint of Monsanto is that (in such a situation) we have their technology, even though we don't want it and it has zero value in the organic market," Gerritsen said. "We think they should keep their pollution on their side of the fence."
Laws prohibit certified organic crops from containing genetically modified ingredients, and Monsanto's patents prohibit farmers from growing its seeds unless purchased from the company. Yet pollen doesn't heed certification or patent laws, and regularly drifts from transgenic crops to contaminate nearby non-genetically altered ones.
To add insult to injury, Monsanto has a reputation for suing or threatening to sue farmers for patent infringement in cases involving its genetically altered seeds, action reported in numerous media outlets as wide ranging as the Columbia Daily Tribune, CBS News and the New York Times.
Despite this well documented legal tactic, Monsanto spokesperson Thomas Helscher stated in an email: "Monsanto has never sued and has publicly committed to not sue farmers over the inadvertent presence of biotechnology traits in their fields. The company does not and will not pursue legal action against a farmer where patented seed or traits are found in that farmer's field as a result of unintentional means."
"Inadvertent" and "unintentional" are the key words here, but for farmers to prove that Monsanto's transgenic seeds are unwanted invaders in a court of law is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. A 2005 report from the Center for Food Safety, an organic-food and sustainable agriculture advocacy group, contends that Monsanto had at that time filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers. The report also contends that the corporation employed 75 people armed with a budget of $10 million devoted "solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers."
Pre-trial motions are still being filed in the lawsuit brought by OSGATA, with the most recent from Monsanto asking that the lawsuit be dismissed.
Helscher said the motion to dismiss results from the corporation's pledge to not sue farmers "where patented seed or traits are found in that farmer's field as a result of inadvertent means. Accordingly, there is no real controversy between parties and the OSGATA case should be dismissed."
Gerritsen views Monsanto's statements as part of a disinformation campaign designed to prolong the lawsuit.
"What they typically try to do is drag out lawsuits as long as they can, hoping the plaintiffs will run out of funding," Gerritsen said. He is confident OSGATA has the resources necessary to pursue this lawsuit for years, if necessary.
Unlike open pollinated crops such as corn and canola, which have suffered from widespread contamination by genetically modified seeds, potatoes remain relatively safe, Gerritsen said.
Monsanto developed multiple strains of transgenic potatoes in the 1990s under the name New Leaf. However, when major food companies such as McCain, which operates a french fry processing plant in Easton, and McDonald's rejected genetically-modified potatoes, Monsanto was forced to pull its transgenic strains off the market.
Gerritsen said the lawsuit will also seek to clarify what he sees as Monsanto's contradictory stance on its genetically modified seeds.
When arguing against labeling of transgenic food, Monsanto and other biotech companies claim that genetically modified seeds are substantially equivalent to traditional seeds. However, when seeking patents, the same companies claim the insertion of foreign genes creates unique seeds deserving of patent protection.
"Which is it?" Gerritsen asked. "It's one or other, but it can't be both. Is it the same? Or is it different?"
All genetically modified seeds are designed to do something different from the original seed. This can mean the modified seed will produce increased quantities of a particular substance inherent to the plant, manufacture chemicals foreign to the original plant, or withstand heavy applications of herbicides and pesticides manufactured by the same corporation seeking the seed patent.
snip
Citing the revolving door between corporations (including Monsanto) and the government agencies which purport to regulate them, Gerritsen said, "we basically have a dysfunctional government. The Occupy Wall Street concept is to try to give power back to the people."
In the same vein, the lawsuit against Monsanto seeks to restore the power of citizens and farmers to choose food free from genetically modified organisms.A fight to maintain consumer choice and farm independence has landed Maine farmer Jim... more-
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Traditional/Indigenous culture helps with climate change adaptation: report
Governments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge -- generated over thousands of years -- that could protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to climate change, says a briefing published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development. [paper attached here]
It urges negotiators at the UN climate change conference in Durban later this month to give stronger support to traditional knowledge and address the threats posed by commercial agriculture and intellectual property rights.
The paper includes case studies from Bolivia, China and Kenya that show traditional knowledge and local farming systems have proved vital in adapting to the climatic changes that farmers there face.
This includes using local plants to control pests, choosing traditional crop varieties that tolerate extreme conditions such as droughts and floods, planting a diversity of crops to hedge bets against uncertain futures, breeding new varieties based on quality traits, and having systems in place to protect biological diversity and share seeds within and between communities.
But the paper warns that government policies tend to overlook such knowledge and fail to protect farmers' rights to grow traditional crops, benefit from their use and access markets.
“Policies, subsidies, research and intellectual property rights promote a few modern commercial varieties and intensive agriculture at the expense of traditional crops and practices,” says the paper's lead author Krystyna Swiderska, a senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development.
“This is perverse as it forces countries and communities to depend on an ever decreasing variety of crops and threatens with extinction the knowledge and biological diversity that form the foundations of resilience.”
The paper says that while modern agriculture and varieties may increase productivity, environmental stress and climatic variability mean the survival of poor farmers depends on more resilient and readily available traditional varieties.
“It is because of famers' intimate knowledge of nature that traditional farming practices have persisted for thousands of years and overcome climatic threats,” adds Swiderska.
“To sweep away all of that knowledge and the biological diversity it relates to in favour of a limited set of modern seed varieties means putting the private interests of commercial seed corporations ahead of the public interest of sustaining food and agriculture.”
More at the linkGovernments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge -- generated over thousands of... more-
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The Prepper Movement: Why Are Millions Of Preppers Feverishly Preparing For The End Of The World As We Know It?
In America today, there are millions of "preppers" that are working feverishly to get prepared for what they fear is going to happen to America. There is a very good chance that some of your neighbors or co-workers may be preppers. You may even have noticed that some of your relatives and friends have been storing up food and have been trying to convince you that we are on the verge of "the end of the world as we know it". A lot of preppers like to keep their preparations quiet, but everyone agrees that the prepper movement is growing. Some estimate that there are four million preppers in the United States today. Others claim that there are a lot more than that. In any event, there are certainly a lot of preppers out there. So exactly what are all these preppers so busy preparing for?In America today, there are millions of "preppers" that are working... more-
- Revelation1217
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- 7 months ago
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Surviving dead end jobs: Viral Video Film School
Do you want to be a viral video superstar and do you have a boring dead end job? Brett Erlich has a lesson about workers who do amazingly boring tasks...amazingly.
"Viral Video Film School" has been a recurring segment on Current TV since 2006. In each episode of VVFS, Professor Brett Erlich teaches you valuable skills in the discipline of viral video making. So sit down, take notes, and try not to piss him off. For more Brett: watch Current TV, visit http://current.com/vvfs, or follow him @BrettErlich.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, features the very best in commentary andinformation programming. Home to the newly launched "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," as well as the celebrated documentary series "Vanguard," Current is dedicated to providing insightful analysis of important issues -- and digging deep into real stories to uncover how they affect real people. Current shines a light where other networks won't dare and boldly explores provocative subjects - opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with our viewers. Current creates the commentary and delivers the independent, unexpected point-of-view our viewers want and need to hear. On air and on all platforms, Current is media that matters.
Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 60 million households in the US through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155). Viewers can also find Current online at http://current.com.Do you want to be a viral video superstar and do you have a boring dead end job?... more-
- Brett_Erlich
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- 8 months ago
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Shotgun Survival Story - Ross Capicchioni - The Berrics (VIDEO)
Choose your friends wisely... what an amazing story of survival .. Ross Capicchioni tells a compelling story of survival after being shot by a "friend" with a shotgun three times in the arm, chest and head in Detroit. Pronounced dead...survives beyond and back.
The Berrics.Choose your friends wisely... what an amazing story of survival .. Ross Capicchioni... more-
- dryeraser
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- 8 months ago
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Real journalism: Dan Rather reports on CCD and neonicotinoids
Full video report at the link
Last week, after many months of the kind of deep journalism that has become all too rare, Dan Rather’s investigative team aired a hard-hitting piece that lays bare the policy failures behind Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and zeros in on neonicotinoid pesticides. You can see the episode here.
The problem in five words? “The chemical companies do the testing.” To quote a key passage of this piece:
Rather: “The chemical companies do the testing?”
Beekeeper Steve Ellis: “Yes, they design the tests, they conduct the tests and they pay for the tests.”
Rather: “Not the EPA?”
Ellis: “Not the EPA.”
The politics behind how we regulate pesticides in the U.S. has a long history that runs deep. Yet this fact is simple: chemical companies test their own products for safety. And it should be a scandal.
More at the linkFull video report at the link Last week, after many months of the kind of deep... more-
- JanforGore
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- 8 months ago
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- 25 comments
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Dealing with climate change by reviving ancient Andean agriculture
Ancient Andean crops and farming methods are revived as Peruvians struggle to deal with the effects of climate change.
Story from PRI's The World. Listen to audio above for full report.
To get to some of Peru's most remote Andean communities, you head out over pockmarked dirt roads from a small town already 10,000 feet up. Up – up – up — past llamas and alpacas and sheep and cows. The vegetation thins out and the air becomes even thinner. Your lungs clamor for oxygen and you're offered coca leaves to help adjust to the altitude.
And then, after four hypnotic hours, you've arrived – at a patch of sparse farmland near the town of Pomacocha, at 13,000 feet an outpost at pretty much the upper limits of agriculture.
For centuries, Pomacocha's thousand or so residents have grown corn in the fertile valleys below the town and potatoes on slopes that push against the sky above, fed by seasonal rains and glacial streams.
But climate change is hitting the high Andes hard. Temperature and precipitation swings are becoming more extreme, the glaciers are shrinking fast, and a tough place to farm is becoming even tougher.
So to help them deal with an uncertain future, residents are looking back in time—to before the arrival of Europeans.
From a field of brown soil, Pomacocha resident Mariano Ccaccya unearths a small, pink potato—a huaña, one of the first to be grown here in decades. The huaña is the native potato in this part of Peru, but Ccaccya says it had fallen out of favor in recent decades and was about to disappear.
Huaña are bitter, Ccaccya says, and it takes a lot of work to make them palatable. But he says there are good reasons to grow them in times of increasing uncertainty.
Ccaccya, who's the local head of a nonprofit group that's leading an effort to revive ancient Andean crops, says huañas can be stored for two or three years, more than four times as long as most other potatoes. Ccaccya's colleague Adripino Jayo says huañas also resist frost, hail, extreme rain and drought.
"It's very, very strong," Jayo says. "Now that we're in the crisis of climate change, it's worth recovering these potatoes."
Others think so too. Jayo and Ccaccya's organization, Cusichaca Andina, recently won a grant from the World Bank to further its efforts to promote a variety of resilient ancient Andean crops, including quinoa, amaranth, and different types of potatoes and squashes.
But changing what's grown here is only part of the plan. Cusichaca Andina is also looking to the past to try to change how crops are grown.
On a steep slope in a valley about two hours from the potato fields, Jayo pulls away a stand of brush to reveal an overgrown rock wall. He says the stones are part of a long-abandoned system of agricultural terraces, built into Peru's mountains by the Incas more than 500 years ago.
Terraces like these once blanketed thousands of square miles of the Andes, and were described in the 17th century book The Royal Commentaries of the Incas, by Garcilaso de la Vega.
"They built level terraces on the mountains and hillsides, wherever the soil was good," De la Vega wrote. "And these are to be seen today in Cusco and in the whole of Peru."
Just a small fraction of the terraces are still used today. After the European conquest, Spanish crops and agricultural systems largely displaced traditional ones.
But here in Pomacocha, old terraces are being restored, and new ones are being built.
Ccaccya says they have a lot of benefits. The terraces help channel water for irrigation while avoiding erosion. They can hold water for months, which is crucial in a place with only intermittent access to water. And plants grown on them are more productive, he says.
Cusichaca Andina is also working on reviving another ancient technology for holding and transporting scarce water—Incan irrigation systems that Garcilaso de la Vega called "extraordinary."
"The Cisterns, or Conservatories, were about twelve foot deep, in channels made of hewn stone," de la Vega wrote, "and rammed in with earth so hard, that no water could pass between… But the Spaniards little regarded the convenience of these works, but rather out of a scornful and disdaining humor, have suffered them unto ruin, beyond all recovery."
Centuries later, the digging and hammering of a handful of men near Pomacocha suggests that the ruin of the Incan irrigation channels was perhaps not quite beyond all recovery. The workers are chiseling and lining up stones along a long-abandoned canal once used to divert water from a nearby spring.
"It's always been here," Jayo says, pointing at the stone canal. "It's probably from pre-Incan times, but it's still useful for irrigation, with a little help."
Cusichaca Andina and other groups in the Andes have recovered these and other ancient agricultural treasures through a combination of archaeology and exploring local traditions. And they're teaching communities throughout the Peruvian high Andes how to rebuild and use them, along with other ancient agricultural techniques.
It's all part of an effort to increase the resilience and food security.
But the leaders of Cusichaca Andina realize they can only make a small dent in a vast need. Jayo says the Peruvian government has a big role to play as well.
"We see the difficulties in the national context," Jayo says. He says the group wants politicians in Lima to apply what it's doing across all of the Andes.
So far national politicians haven't picked up that slack.
But the work here may have relevance to mountainous regions beyond Peru. For instance Cusichaca Andina's founder, British archaeologist Ann Kendall, recently traveled to China. The world's largest country faces huge challenges from climate change and water shortages. And it also happens to have its own system of ancient mountain terraces that Kendall thinks may just be waiting to be revived.
Read the rest of this story and view a slideshow of Pomacocha farmers on The World website.
more at the link.Ancient Andean crops and farming methods are revived as Peruvians struggle to deal... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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Changing our global approach to farming is the key to survival
EXTRACTS: "We have tried to have ever more efficient farming, with fewer people, more machines and a greater dependency on pesticides, fertilisers, GM crops and energy, using 10 kilocalories to produce 1 kilocalorie. But that is only possible if there is cheap oil. The system is basically bankrupt." - Hans Herren, Co-Chair of the IAASTD
Dr Herren was dismissive of the concept of "sustainable intensification", the alternative view of food security with food production at its heart, championed by the UK Government-commissioned Foresight report. He described it as "an excuse to sneak in GMOs and to continue with business as usual".
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CropWorld Global 2011: Changing our global approach to farming
Alistair Driver
Farmers Guardian, 1 September 2011
http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/arable/cropworld-global-2011-changing-our-global-approach-to-farming/41304.article
SOCIETY has gone 'properly wrong' in the way it produces and consumes food, according to Hans Herren.
Dr Herren, a renowned scientist and international development expert, is on a mission to promote what he insists is a better alternative to the current global 'industrial' food production system, which he describes as 'bankrupt'.
He is a leading advocate of agroecology, a holistic farming model based on organic principles, where food is produced by small family farms using green methods which nourish soils for future generations.
"We have tried to have more efficient farming, with fewer people, more machines and a greater dependency on pesticides, fertilisers, GM crops and energy, using 10 kilocalories to produce one kilocalorie. But that is only possible if there is cheap oil," said Dr Herren.
"The system basically is bankrupt, which is why we need to change it to a more modern, advanced system, which will create energy, rather than consume it, and is not dependent on fossil energy, but more on people and better science."
Dr Herren, originally from Switzerland, co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology, (IAASTD), a three-year project involving more than 400 experts from across the world.
Its 2008 report called for a radical overhaul of the way the world produces food to 'better serve the poor and hungry'. It demanded a shift away from the 'focus on production alone' and a greater emphasis on methods which conserve natural resources, backed up by trade and subsidy reforms and investment in science, education and training.
Report findings
Dr Herren described it as 'the mother of all reports on agriculture on a global and human scale', but admitted being disappointed about how little its findings had been implemented globally.
Dr Herren, who spent 27 years in Africa researching pest management and sustainable production, continues to promote agroecology through the US-based Millennium Institute, of which he has been president since 2005.
He said the key to future food security was not to use more inputs to produce more food per hectare, but to rely on techniques backed by 'solid science and agronomy - such as crop rotation with legumes and green manure, a cover crop grown to add nutrients to the soil - 'to enable the land to regenerate'.
But he also claimed it had been shown in experiments and in the field these farming methods can 'double, treble or even quadruple' yields in Africa.
He added: "Agroecology will produce food which is affordable because more people will be working, so they can actually afford it.
"We need to support small-scale and family farms, where more people get employed. We have 1.5 billion people who have no job. We really have to see all this in an inter-linked system."
He refuted the suggestion that, while agroecology may have merits in developing countries, where prevailing yields were relatively low and labour was abundant, it was unrealistic and idealistic to imagine it taking over in developed nations.
Instead, he insisted productivity levels could be maintained in developed countries if agroecology displaced intensive farming.
“It has been shown in the US that organic agriculture actually produces equally good yields as traditional agriculture,” he said. “But when there is drought or a flood, organic produces more as it is more resilient. There is no question we can deliver.”
The catch is that increased crop rotation would require a change in the way food is consumed. “You can’t disassociate consumption from production. In a rotation where you have more legumes someone has to eat those beans.”
He added people in urban-centric nations such as the UK and US would return to the land if agriculture became a ‘better and more rewarding job’ through greater investment, better prices for food and a reappraisal of farmers’ importance. “We need to look up to the farmer and down to the professor,” he said.
Lacking support
Dr Herren blamed the lack of wider support for this model of food security partly on what he claimed was a misconception of what it represented.
“We need to dispel this idea that agroecology is a back-breaking, low-yielding process and that we want to go back to grandfather’s agriculture. Actually, agroecology has a lot of science in it and a lot of knowledge,” he said.EXTRACTS: "We have tried to have ever more efficient farming, with fewer people,... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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- 40 comments
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With no end to drought in sight, "every farmer will feel the effects of climate change"
The driest 10-month period on record for Texas has devastated the state and its crops. The National Weather Service warned Monday:
THERE IS LITTLE TO SUGGEST ANY END TO THE DROUGHT
Every state — along with much of Asia — has been hit by record temperatures this summer. And thanks in large part to extreme weather around the globe, food prices are stuck at record levels, causing hardship for tens of millions:
Dr. Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, emailed TP Green, that while Gov. Perry may deny climate science:
There are dozens of credible atmospheric scientists in Texas at institutions like Rice, UT, and Texas A&M, and I can confidently say that none agree with Gov. Perry’s views on the science of climate change. This is a particularly unfortunate situation given the hellish drought that Texas is now experiencing, and which climate change is almost certainly making worse.
Global warming is certainly making the drought hotter, which creates a vicious cycle, since the higher temps dry out the earth, but the drier it gets, the hotter its gets, as the NWS explains below.
Yet, the dots aren’t being connected for the public by and large. “In Coverage of Extreme Weather, Media Downplay Climate Change” as a Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting analysis recently concluded.
Indeed, I just saw NBC Evening News tonight, which explained that we are seeing record food prices and that extreme weather is a major contributor, but had no mention whatsoever of climate change.
The dividing line between good climate reporting and bad climate reporting is almost always whether the reporter talked to real climate scientists. Typically, the more a reporter talks to, the better the story.
That’s a key reason why ABC News has been one of the few major media outlets to explain the connection between extreme weather and global warming (see links below). And they did so last night. Indeed, they went beyond the connection between global warming and extreme weather to the key climate impact on crops and food prices:
Great quote by climatologist Heidi Cullen, “When you crank up the heat, when you globally warm the planet, you’re going to see more extreme events.”
Governor Rick Perry, who failed to stop the drought with his prayer proclamation, yesterday dismissed any worries about the impact of the drought on Texas, saying “we’ll be fine. As my dad says, it’ll rain. It always does.“ He is not only unaware of the recent climate studies warning of permanent drought in the region (see literature here), but also the stunning warning from National Weather Service that there is no end in sight to the drought:
More at the link.The driest 10-month period on record for Texas has devastated the state and its crops.... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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- 35 comments
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"Heatwave 2011" Denial Crock of the Week
A cavalcade of phonies, liars and as the narrator states, "self serving well funded" people who care not for this planet or any of us but only their own agendas. This is indeed a planetary emergency and people need to know it and see this reality over and over again in order to begin NOW to do what is necessary to save our future. And the first step in doing that is exposing the frauds!A cavalcade of phonies, liars and as the narrator states, "self serving well... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 10 months ago
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- 6 comments
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