Climate
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.)
Agriculture Killing Climate (Bill)
Published June 12, 2009 @ 06:49PM PT
Speaker Pelosi has apparently personally contacted Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) to secure his support for the climate bill:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) placed a call Wednesday night to her Agriculture Committee chairman, hoping to find out why he is holding up a climate change bill that she wants passed this summer.
Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who has made known that he has enough votes to derail the Speaker’s priority legislation if agricultural provisions aren’t changed, said he spoke with Pelosi “for a while” and that it was “cordial.”
“She’s not putting any pressure on me,” Peterson said. “She knows where I’m coming from.” ...
Where he's coming from ... hmm, where could that be? Over at OpenLeft, Chris Bowers asks Peterson to just name a price and get to the haggling:
... If what members of the Agriculture Committee want in order to pass climate change legislation is more money for farmers, why don't we just start handing out cash to farmers? Cash would be better than these credits, since it both gives the farmers the money they want but doesn't exempt them from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone wins.
Of course, in order to do this, the Agriculture Committee would first need to specific exactly how much cash they want directed to the farmer's in their districts. While it could be as high as $24 billion, that would still be a small price to pay for mitigating climate change. ...
As I've said before, I think it's less morally problematic than the bribes that are going to the coal companies for 'clean' coal research. Agriculture could, in theory, if not as commonly practiced, be a boon to the climate. Coal? Erm, no.
Peterson is at the least being honest, and not asking for something oxymoronic by nature. Still, as Tom Philpott notes, most of the money would go straight to Monsanto: by supporting chemical no-till farming made possible through the offices of their Roundup herbicide.
The best I'll say about the practice is that it may prevent erosion. Though again, slightly less problematic than paying off an industry that's steadily leveling the Appalachians.
Let the haggling begin, I suppose. The result is sure to be a mockery of science, as Peterson is allergic to the idea of independent EPA review of the carbon sequestration benefits of any approved practices, but science isn't the point. The Republican members of the committee don't even believe in that, Philpott says they used their time at the recent committee hearing mostly to deny anthropogenic global warming.
Why is it such a commonplace, acceptable thing for Congress to have whole committees packed with greedy, sometimes reprehensible, human beings? Who knows. But tell you what ...
Next time you want to ask for a raise, don't be embarassed to do it. Congress isn't.
(Photo credit: kimberlyfaye on Flickr.)
Did I Hear Someone Say 'Payoff'?
Published June 11, 2009 @ 03:27AM PT
Rep. Collin Peterson of the House Agriculture Committee wants to get his people paid from the climate bill, whether they deserve it or not. Like the coal industry, the agriculture industry would like their bribe, please, before they'll let us try saving the planet. Tom Philpott of Grist reports:
... Why would Monsanto and other agrichem firms be so interested in controlling how ag is treated by cap-and-trade? By generating payments to farmers who use their goods, these companies burnish their bottom lines and turn climate-change legislation into a revenue stream.
A case in point is a farming practice called “no-till.” In no-till systems, farmers plant directly into fields without plowing. One of the main reasons farmers plow is to control weeds. In a practice that has become known among critics as “chemical no-till,” farmers idle the the plow and rely on chemical herbicides for weed control.
... As a source of carbon sequestration, chemical no-till is a highly questionable practice. In a 2006 peer-reviewed paper [PDF] called “Tillage and soil carbon sequestration—what do we really know?,” a group of soil scientists led by John M. Baker of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service took a hard look at conventional no-till. They report: “Long-term, continuous gas exchange measurements have also been unable to detect C gain due to reduced tillage.” Translation: No-till doesn’t seem to sequester carbon. Their conclusion: “Though there are other good reasons to use conservation tillage, evidence that it promotes C sequestration is not compelling.” The report compelled climate expert and frequent Grist contributor Joe Romm to declare that no-till farming “does not save carbon and is not a carbon offset.” ...
During the discussions around 2007 Farm Bill hearings, there was an intense discussion among the House committee members, involving Peterson, where members strained to clarify that mentions of the word 'sustainable' in the legislation were in no way to be taken as synonymous with 'organic'. They were horrified by the very idea that the sustainability of doing exactly what they were currently doing might be questioned.
As Philpott notes, organic agriculture using cover crops and manure is the only method of agriculture that can be proven to increase carbon sequestration.
But Peterson doesn't want to hear about that. He wants the law to say that agriculture as practiced right now, with all its excess emissions and destruction of carbon-fixing soil biota, counts as an offset to existing industrial and transportation emissions. He's one of the many people who doesn't see the difference between 21st century organic farming and 19th century toil, steadfastly refusing to admit that the system of doing things that he loves is destroying the farms that he claims to champion.
Whether its global warming threatening crop productivity or large agribusinesses coming up with models that snatch all the profits from actual producers, agriculture's never been in so much trouble. Peterson wants to throw money at the problem without putting any effort or thought into rethinking how we got here so it doesn't happen again.
Shortsightedness FTW!
Climate Change and African Agriculture
Published June 05, 2009 @ 07:14AM PT
While climate change is sadly acidifying the seas and threatening the US' northeastern coastline, it's also threatening agriculture.
African agriculture is expected to be so hard hit that there are entire regions that may become unsuitable for growing crops because the effective yearly growing season is going to shrink to 90 days or less. These regions will have to convert to livestock agriculture and maize, Africa's favorite crop since it was introduced in the colonial era, will become impossible to cultivate in much of the continent.
Jasmin Melvyn of Reuters reports:
... Climate change could cost the African continent more farmland than the United States uses to plant its eight major field crops combined, according to a study published in the June issue of Environmental Science and Policy.
Farming on up to 1 million square kilometers (247 million acres) of land in Africa could subside by 2050 as climate change makes areas too hot and dry for growing crops, the study said.
The latest U.S. Agriculture Department data puts plantings of the eight major U.S. field crops combined at 246 million acres for the coming year. ...
Bringing livestock to these areas could be, given proper grazing management, a boon to African soils even now. Healthy grasslands are supposed to be grazed and depend on the process for nutrients and cultivation. Deliberate human management of livestock grazing can significantly improve soil health and restore its fertility and could be a counterbalance to global warming (full report here, paid access).
But what do you want to bet that what they'll get is grain-hungry CAFOs, instead of good extension advice about how to get the most out of grazing livestock?
Anyway, it puts a different perspective on the rush by wealthy countries to buy up farm land in Africa that I wrote about yesterday. These issues really are all tied together with our common fates, and as Benjamin Franklin once said, we can all hang together or we will all hang separately.
(Photo credit: International Rice Research Institute on Flickr.)
Light Supper by Hurricane Lamp
Published May 28, 2009 @ 03:59PM PT
Raiding the internet fridge for your intellectual delectation ...
- Why global warming means more killer storms.
- How gardeners can help food pantries with their surplus produce.
- The bisphenol A in polycarbonate containers "has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans."
- LaVidaLocavore: Dear The USDA, Wendell Berry is relatively harmless. As the food industry is now coming out in favor of safety regulations, it makes the effectiveness of those regulations immediately suspect.
- Civil Eats: Maybe cooptation of language doesn't have to be a one way street. A review of the diary of an urban farmer. Time vs. geography - a chef's meditation on local food.
- The Green Fork: An encouraging update on the success of Farm-To-School programs. The new movie, Fresh, by Ana Joanes, will hopefully make it vastly more difficult for the food industry to convince people that sustainable food advocates want to starve them.
