Climate
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My $80 Thanksgiving Turkey
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Brouhaha Over Meat’s Impact on Climate
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The Meat Market's Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Kind of Local Food Movement that Eats Nettles and Ant Eggs?
Published September 20, 2009 @ 11:23AM PT
Urban foraging isn't quite as well known as urban farming, but it certainly counts as local food. David Craft is one such urban forager, who is profiled in the Boston Globe, explaining that half of his diet comes from foraged foods. He eats a lot of wild plants, helping local food growers by clearing weeds that are good for eating. A journalist recently tried a similar thing, managing to subsist of foraged food for only five days — eating nettles, ant eggs, wild carrots — before given up. Foraging isn't all that easy, it seems.
Jonathan Bloom writes about Wasted Food extensively on his blog, Wasted Food covering everything from the international provision of doggy bags to news that the National Restaurant Association (the good NRA) plans to get more serious about food donation. Good news considering that this is Food Action Month and that any sustainable food infrastructure must consider not just what we eat, but where the excess is, where the waste is, and where we're quite simply being too greedy.
[Photo credit: Diego Cuplo]
Monday Breakfast
Published August 10, 2009 @ 07:40AM PT
Raiding the internet fridge for your intellectual delectation ...
- There's a new documentary on Percy Schmeiser's battle with Monsanto, as noted by Charles Lemos, following the 2008 settlement where Monsanto agreed to pay cleanup costs for contaminating his fields.
- Jill Richardson was here in Philadelphia on her book tour last Thursday, the night I figured out something was really wrong with my foot, then she went to Lancaster, PA for the CSA goodness and then it was on to New York, NY.
- The Northeast's late blight hit Paula Crossfield's rooftop tomato garden, and she took the opportunity to talk about the unique financial problem the disease has posed for small farmers growing specialty crops.
- Sens. Boxer and Baucus are squaring off over who'll get to write the Senate version of the House climate bill, and agricultural, coal and oil interests are expected to have even more say over the results. Keith Good at the FarmPolicy blog leaves little hope in his DC squabble roundup that, in spite of the fact that the military is firmly convinced of the threat climate change poses to national security, that our legislators will actually shape up and give us the change we need.
- So, about meat and climate change ...
... But, what about the methane in all that cattle flatulence? Excess flatulence is also a function of an unnatural diet. If cattle flatulence on a natural grazing diet were a problem, heat would have been trapped a 1000 years ago when, for example, there were 70 million buffalo in North America not to mention innumerable deer, antelope, moose, elk, caribou, and so on all eating vegetation and in turn being eaten by native Americans, wolves, mountain lions, etc. Did the methane from their digestion and the nitrous oxide from their manure cause temperatures to rise then? Or could there be other contributing factors today resulting from industrial agriculture, factors that change natural processes, which are not being taken into account? It has long been known that when grasslands are chemically fertilized their productivity is increased but their plant diversity is diminished.
A recent study in the journal Rangelands (Vol. 31, #1, pp. 45 - 49) documents how that the diminished diversity from sowing only two or three grasses and legumes in modern pastures results in diminished availability of numerous secondary nutritional compounds, for example tannins from the minor pasture forbs, which are known to greatly reduce methane emissions. Could not the artificial fertilization of pastures greatly increase the NO2 from manure? Might not the increased phosphorus, nowhere near as abundant in natural systems, have modified digestibility? I am sure that future research will document other contributing factors of industrial agricultural practices on animal emissions. The fact is clear. It is not the livestock; it is the way they are raised. ...
Nation's Food Policy Pro-Pus, Pro-E. Coli, Pro-Bribery, Pro-GMOs
Published July 10, 2009 @ 05:19PM PT
Practices that were infuriating to me under Republicans have simply become disheartening under Democrats. I will explain.
Pro-Pus
So Michael Taylor, Monsanto's former lawyer and a fan of adding extra pus to the nation's milk supply by way of giving all our dairy cows chronic mastitis from rBST/rBGH, has indeed been hired to the newly created position of Deputy Commissioner of Food with the Food Safety Working Group at the FDA.
In theory, Taylor might not be as bad as all that, he shilled for rBST as a young, impressionable executive and he seems to have grown as a person.
Though adding insult to injury, Pennsylvania's Dennis Wolff is a finalist for Undersecretary of Food Safety. A willing and enthusiastic participant in Monsanto's campaign to prevent rBST-free labeling on milk, Wolff tried to sneak a 2008 ban on the labels under the noses of Pennsylvania citizens who were outraged and forced the governor to overturn the policy.
But really, two, TWO people appointed or being considered to head food safety in the Obama administration who opposed the public's right to know when their milk came from cows being treated with a hormone that gives them chronically inflamed and infected udders!?
(BTW, people would have heard about the bovine growth hormone controversy more widely as of the year 2000, perhaps, if Monsanto hadn't instigated the firing of two journalists who tried to expose rBST/rBGH for the carcinogenic, bovine mastitis-causing health disaster that it is. Though also, and this is funny, ha-ha, as part of the resolution of the ensuing litigation, a judge ruled that it wasn't illegal for a news station to lie. F*ers!)
So, I think we can safely say that there are those in our national food safety leadership who don't consider pus a worrying contaminant in the milk supply. Even if they don't hire Wolff, that this didn't immediately disqualify him, that they'd consider adding to the shame of hiring Taylor, is a mark of some serious concern.
Pro-E. coli
As reported, again at ObamaFoodorama, this is another of goals of the Obama administration's food policy:
The Fertilizer Divide
Published July 01, 2009 @ 12:19PM PT
While plant breeding has done its part, and irrigation a lion's share, in bringing global crop productivity up over this last century, synthetic and mineral fertilizers sealed the deal.
Plants need more than nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N-P-K), but an abundance of those three key, limiting nutrients will get them growing well, usually even if there are micronutrient deficiencies. So the prominent N-P-K listings on fertilizer bags are generally most crucial, and arguably the most critical of these is nitrogen.
While the Green Revolution is attributed in large part to hybrid crop varieties, these do poorly when not supplied with the abundant irrigation and nutrient resources provided through the industrial agriculture system. As much as the biotech industry claims to be overcoming these input requirements, they have yet to do so, and hope is not a plan.
Industrial agriculture uses fertilizer synthesized from natural gas, which is running into price and availability constraints similar to that found with other fossil fuels. Further, using nitrogen fertilizer in excess of what can be absorbed by plants and organisms residing in the soil are a significant source of water pollution and the formation of nitrous oxides, which are powerful greenhouse gases.
Now, a new study has quantified the global fertilizer use divide, with the not-too-surprising findings that industrialized countries use too much and African agriculture may be in need of a lot more. From the press release:
Beetles and Monoculture
Published June 30, 2009 @ 07:39PM PT
Julian Siddle of the BBC doesn't seem aware that a pine beetle infestation has already spread to the United States, devastating forests all the way into southern California, but nonetheless provided some interesting reporting on how Canada is addressing the pine beetle decimation of their forests and the environmental circumstances shaping their thinking on the matter:
... Cold winters usually kill off the beetle larvae, but the region has been warmer than usual in recent years.
... Without interference from man, mature lodge pole pine would be regularly destroyed by forest fires. But, [Staffan Lindgren, professor of entomology at the University of Northern British Columbia,] explained, the species has evolved to use fire to aid regeneration.
... The damage caused by the beetle, combined with the downturn in the demand for wood due to the global recession, has brought about a rethink on forest policy in British Columbia.
Mixed forests, rather than monocultures, are now seen as healthier both for the trees and other plant and animal life - even though a lack of uniformity makes them more difficult to harvest. ...
First, warming temperatures have helped pests proliferate. Not only would a sufficiently cold winter kill more beetles off, but as we've covered before, insect life cycles are governed by what are called degree days. That is, they need a certain minimum heat input within their tolerable range before they can progress to the next stage of their life or reproduce. It's a fascinating biological clock mechanism that allows them to be very responsive to limiting environmental constraints.
Second, the natural cycle of ecosystem renewal and regeneration has been disrupted without adequate replacement. Having spread ourselves out so widely, and having such rigorous fire supression knowledge, we left the trees without a means to clear out the competition and literal dead wood so that new, healthy seedlings could periodically get a decent chance to establish themselves.
Third, human ecosystem management techniques have decreased biodiversity. If even one pest organism can take advantage of a fatal flaw in the dominant species, the monoculture ecosystem can collapse.
Making ecosystems work properly is hard. We don't always understand all the necessary inputs and interactions.
Though we do know of a few surefire ways to break an ecosystem, some of which we might be directly or indirectly responsible for. Global warming and the monoculture are our fault, and these stressors give an opportunistic organism like the pine beetle the chance to take over and do its worst.
In this case, it's why the western portion of North America is increasingly covered in large stands of dead kindling. In the case of our artificial agricultural ecosystems, it's why when a pest develops resistance to whatever method we're using to combat it, it can devastate food production across a wide region.
Hard to create, easier to destroy. It's going to be true of any complex system, and certainly the living systems we depend on for life support. Though we can learn to interact positively with our environment, we tamper at our peril.
(Photo credit: tomsaint11 on Flickr.)
Collin Peterson, Congress in Denial
Published June 23, 2009 @ 02:24PM PT
Collin Peterson may be the only person in politics who believes in global warming and is thrilled about its prospects for agriculture. Ahem. That this suggests, as Brad Johnson points out over at the Wonkroom, that he doesn't actually believe in it must remain in the realm of conjecture for now.
But seriously, Peterson said, "We’ve just had the biggest floods and coldest winters we’ve ever had. They’re saying to us [that climate change is] going to be a big problem because it’s going to be warmer than it usually is; my farmers are going to say that’s a good thing since they’ll be able to grow more corn."
Are there actually any farmers who are pro-flood and drought? That question sort of answers itself. As further noted at the Wonkroom:
The report Peterson dismissed as being good news for farmers also shows that if no action is taken to halt global warming, the U.S. grain belt could see one to two months of heat waves over 100°F and two to three months of heat waves over 90°F by the end of the century. Corn, by the way, “will fail to reproduce at temperatures above 95°F.”
Chris Bowers amply described the political situation around Peterson's hold up of the climate bill, which got around 300 pages added to the still-fluid legislation.
Peterson's getting information in hearings and political backing from people like American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman, who thinks the only agricultural implications of climate change are higher energy costs.
Pres. Clinton: Carbon Offsets Should be Monitored by EPA, not USDA
Published June 16, 2009 @ 03:11PM PT
If today is a Clinton-themed day, well, the photo should explain why. Yesterday I was able to join a group of progressive blogger types in a meeting with former President Bill Clinton at his Harlem offices.
(I'm at the center left, black jacket, short blonde hair. My partner Chris Bowers is just behind me to the right. Two people to the left of me is Deanna Zandt, also with short blonde hair and wearing a fetching tie, of the Hightower Lowdown and GRITtv - she's the proud owner of the camera used for our group photo. Between Deanna and I, in the orange jacket, is nyceve, who wrote today about Clinton's comments on healthcare at the meeting. We are surrounded by an incredibly cool group of progressive bloggers whom I admit that I was as excited to meet in person as Clinton himself.)
From Chris' post on the event - I didn't get a chance to ask my question, but he got one in for both of us - comes this report on the Agriculture Committee's footstamping over the climate bill:
... In regards to the committee's attempts to have the USDA determine who receives carbon offset credits, President Clinton said that "too many carbon offsets have nothing to do with agriculture" for the USDA to become the appropriate regulatory agency. He added that "it's not the right thing to do. Keep it in the EPA."
President Clinton did note that Chairman Peterson, like many of the Democrats on the committee, comes from a conservative and rural district. However, making the USDA the regulatory authority is something that "not even the coal industry" would support. ...
Right now, Rep. Waxman is in negotiations with Peterson, who may have 35-40 Democratic votes he can whip against the bill, and we'll probably hear this week what the outcome is.
Finding some money for agriculture in this bill, I don't necessarily mind. But stripping the EPA of regulatory authority to determine the effectiveness of carbon offsets? Please, no. It's not fitting. Not when a technical abstract submitted to the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in 2007 describes USDA's soil carbon measurement methods (mandated by Congress, btw) as, "invasive, costly, and ... time and labor intensive," and when the research the USDA relies on may often be significantly corrupted by corporate sponsorship.
I don't support all aspects of the current climate change bill, but I definitely don't support making its oversight provisions even suckier. That seems self-defeating.
[Update: Brad Johnson further details Peterson's anti-science approach to asking for unregulated agricultural subsidies at The Wonkroom.]
(Photo credit: Deanna Zandt, aka, randomdeanna on Flickr.)
