In what category does Georgia rank highest
Guess first, then look (no peeking)…. Continue reading
We like our beaver pond, but the beavers are a bit too ambitious.
Here’s how they operate.
Haemig PD (2012) Ecology of the Beaver. ECOLOGY.INFO 13,
The forest beside the stream also changes after beaver occupation.
When beavers cut down trees for food and for building their dams and
lodges, they select the species of trees that they prefer, and leave
other tree species standing. Consequently, after many years, the
forest beside a beaver pond is usually dominated by different tree
species than it was before beaver occupation, and in the gaps where
the beavers removed trees, bushes and saplings now grow and with
them the animal species that live in the early stages of forest
regeneration (Barnes and Dibble 1986; Johnston and Naiman 1990;
Pastor and Naiman 1992; Donkor et al. 2000). In addition, when the
beaver pond is formed by the dam, water floods and covers the roots
of trees that formerly stood along the stream bank. These flooded
trees die because the standing water prevents their roots from
getting air….In Wyoming, a survey showed that owners of private lands believed
that they benefited from beaver engineering because Continue reading
It rained six inches here when the
tornado went through.
That rain refilled the cypress swamp, and revived thousands
of frogs that had been slumbering in the mud.
Panning around their habitat,
you can’t see them, but you can hear them.
Here’s
a playlist:
Quantum physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva
foresees The Future of Food, in three parts.
There are only two applications that have been commercialized
in these twenty years of genetic engineering.
One is to make seeds more resilient to herbicides,
which means you get to spread more Roundup,
you get to spread more Glysophate,
and you get to spread more poison.
Not a very desirable trait in farming systems.
Especially since what Monsanto will call weeds
are ultimately sources of food.
It gets even better from there.
These are illusions that are being marketed
in order for people to hand over the power to decide what we eat
to a handful of corporations.
Vandana Shiva is the keynote speaker at the
Georgia Organics conference in Savannah, 11-12 March 2011.
There’s still time to sign up!
Here’s Part 1:
Camano Island is NW of Everett, Washington, and this article is from 2002,
responding to an article in the local paper there. -jsq
Commentary
A Call for Skepticism
by Steven K. Roberts
Camano IslandIf ever we needed a demonstration that the fundamental flaw in many
arguments is a lack of discrimination regarding information sources,
we have it in the Nels Konnerup article, “Toxicology 101 Defended,”
in the March 26 issue of the S/C News.The author makes a “plea for cogent thought, rather than a visceral
reaction to the use of pesticides and herbicides,” and cites a number of
references “authored by highly qualified and respected scientists.” So
far, so good.But just for fun, I spent a few minutes researching some of these sources
to see if I could determine the affiliations and biases of their authors.
The promise of Roundup:
“No tilling, just seed, spray, and harvest.”
Adriana Alvarez, who lives next door to an Argentinia GM soy field, says:
“They came from this side and sprayed the entire field.
Here he turns, spraying all the time.”
The farmer was wearing a mask.
That’s more than no-till farmers around here do.
Interesting statistic that in Argentina
soy production increased
35-fold between
1996 and 2003
while Roundup use increased
56 times.
And eventually it doesn’t work at all, because it breeds resistant weeds.
In Georgia it took only ten years to produce
mutant pigweed
that not just Roundup but not even paraquat can kill.
Many farmers are realizing that
it’s cheaper, more effective, and more profitable to plow the weed under
in the fall and plant a winter cover crop.
Even mutant weeds are not resistant to cold steel.
The documentary points out many products in German stores that
include GM soy.
In Argentina, it’s even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.
They interview
Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:
“The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here.
If you look closely you can see one brain.
Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin.”
Monsanto refused an interview,
responding in writing:
“Monsanto is convinced of the safety and usefullness of its products
and its contribution to efficacious agriculture.”
As Dr. Carrasco
has been known to say:
“Son hipócritas, cipayos de las corporaciones, pero tienen miedo.
Saben que no pueden tapar el sol con la mano.”“They are hypocrites, those corporate lackeys, but they are afraid.
They know they can’t cover the sun with their hand.”
The documentarians interviewed
Gilles-Eric Seralini in Caen, France.
“To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose.
A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field.
Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate,
for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup.”
Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe.
Seralini
says:
“Transgenics are toxic for human health.”
This is the same Monsanto that
made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows.
The same Monsanto that
was convicted by the French Supreme Court of lying about leaving the soil clean.
The same Monsanto that
was fined $2.5 million by the U.S. EPA for
selling genetically modified cotton seeds without labeling them as such.
Who should you believe?
A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception,
or scientists who say that GM crops
cause liver and kidney damage in animals,
according to research using Monsanto’s own data.
The Roundup-spraying farmer said:
Roundup, mas algo! mas algo!
Roundup, more and more!
It’s time to say:
Ya basta!
Enough already!
-jsq
PS: Credits to
the German TV consumer series ‘plus minus’:
Bericht
D. Flintz
M. Rauck
Kamera
J. Fenske
C. Kültür
J. Midú
Schnitt
H. Bischoff
E. Elsner
GM toxic soy in animal feed broadcast
(© WDR) by
Detlef Flintz and Mathias Rauck.
Translation and highlighting provided by TraceConsult.
Broadcast Tue, 08 Feb. 2011 | 9:50 PM.
According to
Americas Program Report:
A study released by an Argentine scientist earlier this year reports that
glyphosate, patented by Monsanto under the name “Round Up,” causes birth
defects when applied in doses much lower than what is commonly used in
soy fields.The study was directed by a leading embryologist, Dr. Andres Carrasco,
a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. In his
office in the nation’s top medical school, Dr. Carrasco shows me the
results of the study, pulling out photos of birth defects in the embryos
of frog amphibians exposed to glyphosate. The frog embryos grown in petri
dishes in the photos looked like something from a futuristic horror
film, creatures with visible defects—one eye the size of the head,
spinal cord deformations, and kidneys that are not fully developed.“We injected the amphibian embryo cells with glyphosate diluted to
a concentration 1,500 times [less] than what is used commercially
and we allowed the amphibians to grow in strictly controlled
conditions.” Dr. Carrasco reports that the embryos survived from a
fertilized egg state until the tadpole stage, but developed obvious
defects which would compromise their ability to live in their normal
habitats.
Why should Argentina care?
The Valdosta Daily Times caught me working on being tactful.
Matt Flumerfelt’s
writeup actually conflates two different county commission meetings, but gets the gist right:
The fate of the tree canopies lining the rural road were thought to hang in the balance. Several residents spoke in favor of the paving, citing dangerous conditions along the road during periods of stormy weather.
John and Gretchen Quarterman, whose ancestors lent their name to the country lane, led the fight to preserve the road in its original pristine dirt-road condition.
The forest along Quarterman Road is “a scrap of the longleaf fire forest that used to grow from southern Virginia to eastern Texas,” said John Quarterman following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This forest has been here since the last ice age.”Quarterman Road, pre-paving, was the kind of dirt road down which Huckleberry Finn might be envisioned skipping barefoot with a fishing rod projecting over one shoulder.
It was the kind of road near which Thoreau might have planted a cabin.
“Many people don’t know that a longleaf pine forest has more species diversity than anything outside a tropical rain forest,” Quarterman said. “In our woods, we have five species of blueberries, …
Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.
The rest of the story is on the VDT web pages.
More pictures of the event in the previous blog entry.
For pictures of what lives in the forest, see
longleaf burning
gopher tortoises,
snakes,
frogs,
bees and butterflies,
spiders and scorpion,
and
raccoon,
and beautyberry, pokeberry,
passion flower, pond lily, ginger lily, Treat’s rain lily (native only to south Georgia, north Florida, and a bit of Alabama), thistle, sycamore, palmetto, mushrooms,
lantana, magnolia, grapes, yellow jessamine, dogwood, and native wild azaleas.
The VDT has a good picture of Gretchen cutting the ribbon.
But it’s not over just because one road project is completed:
“More people around the county seem to be paying attention these days. Commissioners tell us that already another road in the county has had its canopy saved during paving, and the commission has promised residents of Coppage Road that if their road is paved, their canopy will be saved. Commissioners even seem to like the idea of recognizing canopy roads as a feature of quality of life for residents of the county and for visitors.”
We have a forest. The county just has roads.
Now let’s go see what they’re doing to the rest of our roads. And schools, and waste management, and biofuels, and industry….
If you’d like to help, please contact the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
