Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This morning, I turned on the radio to be greeted with the news that 60% of the species in my country are in decline…There was a five-minute discussion about this on the news programme before the agenda moved on to more important topics.
•My manifesto for rewilding the world •Decline in biodiversity of farmed plants, animals gathering pace •Ecology Lessons From the Cold War
It was an odd paradox that led author Michael Pollan to write a book about cooking: How was it, he wondered, that in an era when Americans were buying more and more pre-packaged, ready-to-eat food, they were spending more time watching programs about cooking on television?
•China agrees to impose carbon targets by 2016 •Warming to hit half of plants, a third of animals •Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? •Climate Denial’s Death Knell: 97 Percent of Peer-Reviewed Science Confirms Manmade Global Warming, Consensus Overwhelming •Climate disasters displace millions of people worldwide •For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change
Growing plants, particularly for food, and particularly in community, is a big part of the Transition experience and ethos. Many people in transition are active permaculturists. At the very least, most of us want to eat plants grown organically from good seed.
• An interesting post from Riverford’s Guy Watson about climate change and crops
• Hobby gardeners boost backyard biodiversity
• Huge scale of California pollination event
• Proposed law could deliver huge boost to urban agriculture in California
Researchers have discovered a significant flaw in large swaths of ecological research into the impact of logging on tropical forests: Scientists have been dramatically overestimating the damage done by loggers, skewing conservation strategies paid for by the donations of millions of environmentally minded citizens.
•Report questions long-term productivity of gas wells in Barnett Shale•Town Sued After Barring Debate on Gas Extraction at Meetings•PwC: Shale oil surge poses threat to renewables•Gas company targets protected Manú park in Peruvian Amazon•NY fracking decision faces further delay on health study
A few weeks before I left, John Michael Greer published a fictional story about America losing its hegemonic grip entitled How it could Happen. The opening…focused on a proxy war between China and the US in east Africa over oil rights following a discovery in Tanzania…I was on the lookout for evidence of its feasibility when I visited Kenya. I didn’t have to look far.
Today, the United States and Mexico signed a landmark agreement that will return vital flows to the lower Colorado River and its once-bountiful Delta and reconnect the river to its final destination, the Gulf of California.
As it has grown in numbers and technological might, the human race has become a force of geophysical proportion, on par with the asteroid that struck the Yucatan during the Cretaceous era, dethroning Tyrannosaurus rex. Extinction is final. Yet no species is immortal. Extinction has been part of evolution since life emerged on Earth.
