|
Climate Change 
Wed Mar 18, 2009 at 11:46:08 AM PDT
|
|
If you are looking for a reason to contact Washington today to demand action to cap carbon and other greenhouse pollution, here are several:
this following excerpt is from Foot-in-the-mouth RNC Chairman Michael Steele, guest-hosting Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio show, March 6, 2009:
"We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long."
Poor Michael Steele! As king Theoden said in LOTR II "Is this all they have?"
I'm sure astute posters here know why Greenland was named as such. And Iceland. Duh!
Cross-posted on the Big Orange!
|
|
There's More...
:: (2
Comments, 317 words in story)
|
|
Sat Feb 14, 2009 at 17:44:04 PM PST
|
(We should do everything to promote the palm oil scam. - promoted by Asinus Asinum Fricat)
In Part 1, I introduced you to the palm oil crisis and talked about how it is affecting orangutans. In the poll, I also called for a "boycott." However, that may have been the wrong move on my part.
If you're interested - particularly if you didn't read Party 1 when I posted it - please read on to learn about how a seemingly harmless vegetable oil that is in one out of ten consumer products is one of the most destructive forces on our planet today.
|
|
There's More...
:: (5
Comments, 1207 words in story)
|
|
Thu Jan 15, 2009 at 11:21:08 AM PST
|
While writing a Bleeding Heartland post on highlights from Tom Vilsack's confirmation hearing, I dug up a 2001 report by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, called Food, Fuel and Freeways. Excerpt from the executive summary:
A food mile is the distance food travels from where it is grown or raised to where it is ultimately purchased by the consumer or end-user. A Weighted Average Source Distance (WASD) can be used to calculate a single distance figure that combines information on the distances from producers to consumers and amount of food product transported. U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service produce arrival data from the Chicago, Illinois terminal market were examined for 1981, 1989, and 1998, and a WASD was calculated for arrivals by truck within the continental United States for each year. Produce arriving by truck traveled an average distance of 1,518 miles to reach Chicago in 1998, a 22 percent increase over the 1,245 miles traveled in 1981.
A WASD was calculated for a sampling of data from three Iowa local food projects where farmers sold to institutional markets such as hospitals, restaurants, and conference centers. The food traveled an average of 44.6 miles to reach its destination, compared with an estimated 1,546 miles if these food items had arrived from conventional national sources.
Would there be transportation fuel savings and reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions if more food were produced and distributed in local and regional food systems? To answer this question, we calculated fuel use and CO2 emissions to transport 10 percent of the estimated total Iowa per capita consumption of 28 fresh produce items for three different food systems. A number of assumptions were used regarding production origin, distance traveled, load capacity, and fuel economy to make the calculations. The goal was for each of the three systems to transport 10 percent by weight of the estimated Iowa per capita consumption of these produce items from farm to point of sale.
The conventional system represented an integrated retail/wholesale buying system where national sources supply Iowa with produce using large semitrailer trucks. The Iowa-based regional system involved a scenario modeled after an existing Iowa-based distribution infrastructure. In this scenario a cooperating network of Iowa farmers would supply produce to Iowa retailers and wholesalers using large semitrailer and midsize trucks. The local system represented farmers who market directly to consumers through community supported agriculture (CSA) enterprises and farmers markets, or through institutional markets such as restaurants, hospitals, and conference centers. This system used small light trucks.
The conventional system used 4 to 17 times more fuel than the Iowa-based regional and local systems, depending on the system and truck type. The same conventional system released from 5 to 17 times more CO2 from the burning of this fuel than the Iowa-based regional and local systems.
Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual savings ranging from 280 to 346 thousand gallons of fuel, depending on the system and truck type. The high end of this fuel reduction would be equivalent to the average annual diesel fuel use of 108 Iowa farms. Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual reduction in CO2 emissions ranging from 6.7 to 7.9 million pounds, depending on the system and truck type.
Does anyone know if this kind of research has been done in other states, or for the country as a whole?
At Vilsack's confirmation hearing, he said (among other things) that he wants to make global warming a priority, and he wants to promote local foods.
It would be helpful to have real numbers, like the kind in the Food, Fuel and Freeways report, showing that we could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by X amount if we eat Y percent more food that has been produced locally.
This is especially important if we don't want ethanol and biodiesel to dominate the discussion on how our agriculture policy can be oriented to reduce global warming.
|
|
Discuss
:: (7
Comments)
|
|
Tue Dec 23, 2008 at 13:41:12 PM PST
|
(Thanks Kacie for a great diary! - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Ethanol is the solution to our dependence on foreign oil, right? Maybe according to some Midwestern senators and corporate agriculture advocates, but the ethanol-as-savior myth has been convincingly deflated recently. The United Nations reported that the year of 2007 saw an additional 75 million people worldwide plunged into hunger and food insecurity. The world crisis has been blamed on a number of factors, one of the foremost being the rapid conversion of agricultural land from food production to fuel production. Even the World Bank, one of the biggest proponents of biofuels and globalized industrial agricultural, admitted that increased ethanol production is a major cause of the global food crisis that gets deeper and affects more people every day.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 282 words in story)
|
|
|
|
Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 10:23:23 AM PDT
|
|
Much has happened in the last two months, some of which has not been reported in the MSM. Well, it doesn't surprise me as most of the important stuff, like water scarcity, makes bad copy: consider the following. One-third of Spain is threatened by desertification, water levels in Greece are dangerously low, over 46 million Americans are exposed to drinking water laced with meds, San Diego residents to tighten their water belts as U.S. faces era of water scarcity, and the world will require 55% more food by 2030, increasing the demand for irrigation which already accounts for 70% of all freshwater used by humans.
And even McCain jumps on the bandwagon calling for a conservative ethic in water management! Yeah, right, everything he touches turns to a changing position, so don't hold your breath. McCain should be renamed McVane, he blows where the wind goes.
And water flowed on Mars longer than thought.
Cross-posted on the Big Orange.
|
|
There's More...
:: (5
Comments, 692 words in story)
|
|
Sun Sep 07, 2008 at 08:08:40 AM PDT
|
|
Of course all of us here and at other concerned food sites knew this a long, long time ago, and it's nice to get the odd nod even though it's a tad late.
The 68-year-old Indian economist, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, who is a vegetarian, said diet change was important in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental problems associated with rearing cattle and other animals.
'Give up meat for one day (per week) initially, and decrease it from there. In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity.'
BTW, Pachauri is due to give a speech in London on Monday under the title: 'Global Warning: the impact of meat production and consumption on climate change'.
|
|
There's More...
:: (1
Comments, 330 words in story)
|
|
Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 13:23:29 PM PDT
|
|
Senator Inhofe,
This may come as a surprise to you but over here in Europe we are worried sick about climate change. It doesn't seem to concern you as your position does not seem to have budged from your speech given on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003: "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" to this from your latest rant, on July 22 last month:
More and more prominent scientists continue to speak out and dissent from man made global warming. In June, the Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever, declared himself a "skeptic" and said "global warming has become a new religion."
Cross-posted on DKos.
|
|
There's More...
:: (3
Comments, 277 words in story)
|
|
Sun Aug 10, 2008 at 13:23:24 PM PDT
|
|
Hat tip to Anna Lappe for calling attention to this! The USDA announced a 45-day comment period ending September 19, 2008 about their report on climate change.
From the Federal Register:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is a member of the United States Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and has undertaken research on issues related to climate change and natural resources over the past two decades. USDA recently prepared a major scientific assessment of the effects of climate change on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the United States for the CCSP. USDA is requesting input from the public on its effort to prepare a Strategic Plan for Climate Change Research, Education, and Extension.
I'll read their report and give more info on this blog in the near future, but you don't have to wait for me to do that. If you've got time read the report (PDF alert)!
Send your comments to:
Eleanor Rollings
Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Extension
USDA
Jamie L. Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW.
Washington, DC 20250
Eleanor.rollings@usda.gov
202-720-1542
(You can also contact her for more information.)
|
|
Discuss
:: (1
Comments)
|
|
|
|
|
|
