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Sharon Astyk on The Reality Report (Audio)
Jason Bradford, Global Public Media
Sharon is CSA farmer and writes prolifically at Casaubon’s Book. She is a regular contributor to Energy Bulletin and has two books in the works. Much of the interview is devoted to farming and agriculture. Subjects in the second half of the program include biofuels and re-ruralization.
(2 July 2007)
Boxer’s push to protect honeybees
Edward Epstein, SF Chronicle
They’re essential to state crops but are disappearing
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In addition to representing her 36 million human California constituents, Sen. Barbara Boxer wants to serve the nation’s billions and billions of hardworking honeybees.
U.S. populations of pollinating honeybees are mysteriously collapsing, and that could cause irreparable damage to crops worth billions of dollars a year across the nation. That in turn could mean higher food prices, and because all kinds of wildlife depend on pollinated plants for food, the decline of pollinators could spell trouble for other animals.
The cause of the decline — estimated to be as much as 25 percent of the honeybee population — is a matter of scientific debate. But it is mirrored by rapid population loss among such native pollinators as butterflies, bats, birds and bumblebees.
The condition has a fancy name, Colony Collapse Disorder, and has already drawn the attention of numerous state and federal agencies, scientific studies and farming and environmental groups.
Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and her bipartisan House and Senate allies want to authorize $89 million over five years for more research and grants to help reverse the decline, which is estimated to have cut the nation’s honeybee population by 25 percent in recent years.
(6 July 2007)
McDonald’s goes green – but not all customers are lovin’ it
Marianne Barriaux, Guardian
The global fast food chain, tired of being vilified, is hitting back with revamps, recycling and new menus
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McDonald’s is a company on a mission. Tired of being held up as an example of corporate evil and greed, the fast food chain has been hitting out at critics with a series of environmental and social initiatives designed to prove that it cares.
Not content with that, the company is also going through a full makeover, redesigning some of its restaurants in a way that it hopes will revitalise the sites and attract more customers.
On Monday, the group announced its latest initiative: to turn its spent cooking oil into biodiesel fuel to power its vans in the UK.
This is the latest in a series of environmental and health moves. Recently, for example, the group swapped over to non-hydrogenated cooking oil in its restaurants.
(5 July 2007)
