Latest Articles
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‘Green empire’ like ‘military intelligence’
Sustainability is not compatible with empire.
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Direct and value-added marketing in the farm bill
This is the last installment of a five-part series of farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. For additional information about the status of sustainable agriculture priorities in the House and Senate versions of the farm bill, please check out SAC's farm bill progress chart.
Farm Bill "conference" negotiations are underway at the staff level. Please call your Senators and Representative today and tell them what you want to see in the final Farm Bill!
Increasing consumer demand for healthy, sustainably-produced food and agricultural products from local and regional markets has great potential to improve farm income. However, tremendous challenges stand in the way of producers satisfying these consumer preferences, in part because federal policies and programs have been slow to respond.
A number of grassroots farmer and consumer organizations have been working to ensure that the final farm bill includes increased funding for direct market and value-added enterprise opportunities, and the removal of the prohibition on interstate sale of meat products processed in state-inspected plants. Greater federal support for these programs in the 2008 Farm Bill will help a larger number of consumers access good food and allow more producers to stay on the land.
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Floatovoltaics
Land is -- and will always be -- expensive. Which is why someone should take this, and combine it with this. They could even sell the electricity back to DWR, whic uses an incredible amount of it to pump LA's drinking water up and over the Tehachapis. And if DWR would allow project developers to monetize the water savings from avoided evaporative loss, project economics would be even better.
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Clinton and Romney win in Nevada; McCain wins in South Carolina
Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama to win the Democratic caucuses in Nevada on Saturday, getting 51 percent of the vote compared to Obama’s 45 (and John Edwards‘ dismal 4). The economy was the top concern among Nevada voters surveyed, but the environment may have played a role too. Clinton tried to gain an edge in […]
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Your weekend in caucuses
CNN is calling Nevada for Clinton and Romney. South Carolina is still going, but early reports tell of a Huckabee surge. UPDATE: NYT sez of Nevada: Clinton 51, Obama 45, Edwards 4 (ouch); Romney 53, Paul 13, McCain 13, Thompson 8, Huckabee 8, Giuliani 5 (ouch). UPDATE: Buzz has it that Clinton won by overwhelming […]
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Coal front group pouring millions into targeted disinformation campaign
Speaking of reasons climate legislation is going to be impossible this year: It’s good to see the Washington Post pick up on the coal industry’s massive lobbying effort. The focus is Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), which we’ve discussed before. WaPo’s Steven Mufson uncovered a few details. Right now, ABEC is spending $1.3 million […]
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Sonar gets presidential pardon, seas more violent
Citing national security, President Bush exempted the U.S. Navy from a judge's order to cease sonar use in areas frequented by marine mammals ...
... the National Marine Fisheries Service said that the Atlantic white marlin did not meet requirements to be included on the Endangered Species List ...
... a report by the U.K. Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership found that seas around the U.K. were becoming more violent, thanks to rising water levels and increased carbon dioxide ...
... a Japanese whaling ship detained two activists that were accused of throwing acid and illegally boarding their vessel ...
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Ecosystems are nonlinear
Here's a disturbing study that seems to mimic nothing so much as my mother-in-law's theory that small brownie pieces cut from the edge of the remaining mass of brownies left in the pan ("the efficient frontier," an economist might call it) don't have calories, because each little tiny mini-slice hardly changes the amount of brownie left at all.
On the one hand, the example cited is not particularly objectionable: Researchers claim to have found a mangrove where you can remove 20% of it with little reduction in flood control capacity -- meaning you can use that 20% for factory farmed shrimp and such.
The attitude of this article is in sharp contrast with that of Aldo Leopold and others, who would suggest that recognizing nonlinearity is a good first step, but that wisdom, or even an approximation of it, doesn't begin until you recognize that this ...
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Friday music blogging: Ha Ha Tonka
Growing up in the South, I was pretty keen to reject everything connected to the culture, which I viewed — even before I’d seen any alternatives — as closed-minded and mean. Sadly, a lot of babies got tossed out with the bathwater (oh, the posts I could write). Among them, southern rock music of the […]
