Environment
Environment
Massive Kootenai National Forest Timber Sale Challenged by Conservation Groups
CounterPunch News Service: MISSOULA, MONTANA ... The Knotty Pine Project authorizes the logging of more than 5,000 acres with massive clearcuts — at least one the size of 170 football fields — and allows for more than 45 miles of roads to be constructed or rebuilt in crucial grizzly bear habitat. ... one more in a linked series of giant logging projects that would replace cool, wet forests with hot, dry clearcuts ... “Managers cannot replace mother nature with a chainsaw, and the best way to protect communities from fire is to focus work around homes, not log big trees miles away.”...
[ Visit Website ]
May 18, 2022, 12:41pm
Environment
Wildfire and Grazing in Nevada: More Livestock Will Only Make Things Worse
Adam Bronstein: As wildfires rage in the Sierra Nevada and all across the West with greater frequency and intensity ... we humans want to take action and fix the problem ... But instead of addressing the root cause of the problem – too many livestock overgrazing the range and spreading the flammable weed cheatgrass – the livestock industry is predictably peddling even more livestock grazing as a “solution” to the problem they caused in the first place ... Let’s start down the right path by giving Mother Nature some breathing room by removing invasive livestock from the arid West, and let the land and native vegetation communities begin to heal...
[ Visit Website ]
May 12, 2022, 11:54am
Environment
Another legal blow to Bayer in Roundup litigation
Carey Gillam: The U.S. Solicitor General on Tuesday dealt a blow to Monsanto owner Bayer AG, advising the U.S. Supreme Court that it should deny the company’s request for a review of a key Roundup cancer trial loss. ... Bayer has seen the Supreme Court as its last and best hope for putting a stop to the flood of lawsuits filed by tens of thousands of people claiming exposure to Roundup weed killing products caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). ... The brief from Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar states that “There is no sound reason for the Court to grant review...”
[ Visit Website ]
May 11, 2022, 11:38am
Environment
Adapting to Drought
Robert Hunziker: America’s western metropolises are thriving in the midst of the fiercest drought in over 1,000 years. ... Still, climate scientists wring their hands in despair over the failure of the corporate-controlled world to come to grips with climate change’s biggest bugaboo, which is too much fossil fuel emitting too much CO2 creating too much warmth that eventually brings on excessive heat. ... Ergo! Ecosystems fail! Droughts accelerate!...
[ Visit Website ]
May 4, 2022, 10:55am
Environment
Japan’s Toxic Dumping Faces Growing Protests
Robert Hunziker: The Japanese government’s decision one year ago to dump radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant storage tanks into the Pacific Ocean, starting in the spring of 2023, is facing increasing pressure to back off, especially in light of the facts that not only is it illegal but also morally reprehensible as well as a despicable disregard for the lifeblood of the ocean....
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 30, 2022, 11:58am
Environment
Clean energy is buried at the bottom of abandoned oil wells
Neel Dhanesha: Geothermal energy works on a simple premise: The Earth’s core is hot, and by drilling even just a few miles underground, we can tap into that practically unlimited heat source to generate energy for our homes and businesses ... And oil and gas wells, it turns out, happen to share many of the same characteristics as geothermal wells — namely that they are deep holes in the ground, with pipes that can bring fluids up to the surface. So, the DOE asks, why not repurpose them? ... awarding a total of $8.4 million to four projects across the country that will each try to tap into some of those old wells to extract geothermal energy rather than gas or oil...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 24, 2022, 12:32pm
Environment
10 Ecosystem Engineers That Create New Habitats
Autumn Spanne: Ecosystem engineers create conditions for other species to thrive in. ... Beavers: ... create habitats for insects, birds, bats, amphibians, turtles, and even larger animals like deer ... Elephants : ... pushing over trees and removing bark to feed on leaves, elephants sometimes transform forests into grassland habitats ... Arctic Fox: ... increases vegetation around the dens, creating greater plant diversity in patches that in turn attract animals like lemmings and reindeer ... Coral : ... create a physical structure that affects ocean currents, making opportunities for a great diversity of plants and animal species to thrive...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 22, 2022, 4:47pm
Environment
The Collapse of Industrial Farming
Robert Hunziker: The most upending event of the past 10,000 years is the advent of engineered food as fermentation farms displace factory farms. “We are on the Cusp of the Fastest, Deepest, Most Consequential Disruption of Agriculture in History.” ... Industrial farming, alongside global warming, ranks at the top of the list of existential risks this century ... Industrial farming is destroying the planet’s resources with clear-cutting as well as spewing tons upon tons of toxic chemicals ... The not-so-secret formula to better, tastier, cheaper, healthier, more prevalent food is the production of microorganisms...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 22, 2022, 4:25pm
Environment
Oil Development Is Changing the Rules of the Game for Wildlife
Tara Lohan: New research shows that oil drilling in Canada’s boreal forest is changing how wolves, caribou, bears and other species interact. ... The most glaring problem is a steep decline in boreal woodland caribou ... research published in 2020 showed that landscape changes like oil development and logging are ultimately responsible for caribou declines ... Clearings in the forest, the researchers found, function like predator highways and aid the wolves in their hunting ... “The industrial footprint changes the rules of the eternal game of hide-and-seek between predators and prey”...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 21, 2022, 12:17pm
Environment
From Rachel Carson to Monsanto: The Silence of Spring
Colin Todhunter: June 2022 marks 60 years since the publication of Rachel Carson’s iconic book Silent Spring. ... Carson documented the adverse impacts on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, which she said were ‘biocides’, killing much more than the pests that were targeted. ... also described some of the deleterious effects of these chemicals on human health ... She accused the agrochemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting the industry’s marketing claims without question. ... agrochemicals, especially Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup, have devastated the natural environment and have also led to spiralling rates of illness and disease...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 20, 2022, 11:57am
Environment
The gas station of the future isn’t a gas station
Rebecca Heilweil: As EVs hit the road, gas stations have to adapt their business model. ... While some gas stations have taken the leap and installed charging ports alongside their pumps, people tend to do the lion’s share of their EV charging at home. ... the gas station is increasingly unnecessary for some Americans ... Some private companies, for instance, are opening their own luxurious destinations with multiple charging stations. ... New innovations often make old technology obsolete. ... Now, after a century spent building complex infrastructure around gas-powered vehicles, another transition seems inevitable...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 13, 2022, 12:51pm
Environment
10 Reasons Why Hydropower Dams Are a False Climate Solution
Josh Klemm – Eugene Simonov: A river supports staggeringly rich biodiversity. One major way we negate rivers’ many benefits is by building dams. ... 1. Climate Change Is Making Dams Unreliable and Risky ... 2. Dams Produce Significant Amounts of Methane ... 3. Hydropower Climate Calculation Doesn’t Add Up ... 4. Hydropower Dams Are Falsely Marketed as a ‘Sustainable’ Climate Solution ... 5. Dam Projects Often Violate Human Rights...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 9, 2022, 12:43pm
Environment
On-Going Environmental Degradation is No Joke
George Ochenski: Environmental Integrity Project ... found “alarming results of water quality tests in all 50 states ... In a nation that drops more than $2 billion a day on the military, the excuse that “we can’t afford” to clean up our wastewater is ludicrous ... A huge and growing body of scientific studies finds that thinning and logging are ineffective at halting large wildfires and may actually increase wildfires ... future generations may well look back and say “not only didn’t they do what was vitally necessary, they did the opposite and made things worse”...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 6, 2022, 10:50am
Environment
Do Octopuses Have Emotions?
Mary Jo DiLonardo: Whether octopuses, squids, and crabs are sentient beings is the subject of ongoing research in animal emotions. ... "We think that, at this point, the best way to manage the problem of other minds when it comes to other animals is to accept animal feelings and emotions” ... “But it’s only after we accept that octopuses and other animals have emotions that we can begin to uncover the kinds of emotions they have.” ... “Animals having feelings that matter to them creates moral obligations for humans ...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 5, 2022, 3:57pm
Environment
Wood-Pellet Manufacturing in a Rainforest
Robert Hunziker: The wood-pellet industry has full-scale operations smack dab in the heart of British Columbia’s Inland Temperate Rainforest, the last rainforest of its kind in the North. ... burning pellets ‘is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels.’ ... The whole thing boils down to the obvious fact that burning things emits carbon quickly and regrowing things to sequester carbon takes a long time ...
[ Visit Website ]
Apr 2, 2022, 3:23pm
|
FountainofLight.net