#AGRICULTURE

[cult-of-the-girl-offensive]

Rushing to try and establish industrial farms for livestock was one of the critical points of failure of the Soviet collectivization campaign. Not only did it foster peasant resistance, it also dramatically reduced the number of available draft animals (and the USSR did not have enough tractors to fill the shortfall, crippling agricultural production), and most of the collectivized livestock died of disease, which defeated the whole point of trying to create an industrial livestock system.

Source is The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933 (Vol. 5 of The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia) by R.W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft

anti-civ people are idiots, but also, it is true that industrial animal agriculture is responsible for the spread of disease, in the same way climate change is. the concentration of large numbers of animals in a small space, compounded by degraded hygiene and proximity to corpses, results in new viral vectors and opportunities for mutation. the two significant cases of this are during natural disasters such as wildfires and floods, and industrial farms

[nando161mando]

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[honkytonkdyke]

I NEED TO KNOW I HAVE TO PROVE SOMETHING

i'm using seen as you have been in the general vicinity of a cow outside of a vehicle (driving down a highway thing). cows are a very big part of my life but i live in the usamerican south so i want to know. HAVE YOU SEEN/INTERACTED WITH COWS

[ketyoulater]

[probablyasocialecologist]

The global food economy is massively inefficient. The need for standardized products means tons of edible food are destroyed or left to rot. This is one reason more than one-third of the global food supply is wasted or lost; for the U.S., the figure is closer to one-half. The logic of global trade results in massive quantities of identical products being simultaneously imported and exported—a needless waste of fossil fuels and an enormous addition to greenhouse gas emissions. In a typical year, for example, the U.S. imports more than 400,000 tons of potatoes and 1 million tons of beef while exporting almost the same tonnage. The same is true of many other food commodities and countries. The same logic leads to shipping foods worldwide simply to reduce labor costs for processing. Shrimp harvested off the coast of Scotland, for example, are shipped 6,000 miles to Thailand to be peeled, then shipped 6,000 miles back to the UK to be sold to consumers. The supposed efficiency of monocultural production is based on output per unit of labor, which is maximized by replacing jobs with chemical- and energy-intensive technology. Measured by output per acre, however—a far more relevant metric—smaller-scale farms are typically 8 to 20 times more productive.

5 November 2024

[webdiggerxxx]

palestine, 2012

[meriol-lehmann]

chemin champoux, saint-paul-de-joliette

[ancientsstudies]

Demeter

The roof of the cabin constructed of growing grass and has tomato vines growing on the walls.

[typhlonectes]

[bangtanghan]

flenserpostings

[reasonsforhope]

hey, how do you cope with people saying we only have a small amount of time left to stop the worst effects of climate change? no matter how hopeful and ok i am, that always sends me back into a spiral :(

A few different ways

1. The biggest one is that I do math. Because renewable energy is growing exponentially

Up until basically 2021 to now, all of the climate change models were based on the idea that our ability to handle climate change will grow linearly. But that's wrong: it's growing exponentially, most of all in the green energy sector. And we're finally starting to see proof of this - and that it's going to keep going.

And many types of climate change mitigation serve as multipliers for other types. Like building a big combo in a video game.

Change has been rapidly accelerating and I genuinely believe that it's going to happen much faster than anyone is currently predicting

2. A lot of the most exciting and groundbreaking things happening around climate change are happening in developing nations, so they're not on most people's radars.

But they will expand, as developing nations are widely undergoing a massive boom in infrastructure, development, and quality of life - and as they collaborate and communicate with each other in doing so

3. Every country, state, city, province, town, nonprofit, community, and movement is basically its own test case

We're going to figure out the best ways to handle things in a remarkably quick amount of time, because everyone is trying out solutions at once. Instead of doing 100 different studies on solutions in order, we get try out 100 (more like 10,000) different versions of different solutions simultaneously, and then figure out which ones worked best and why. The spread of solutions becomes infinitely faster, especially as more and more of the world gets access to the internet and other key infrastructure

4. There's a very real chance that many of the impacts of climate change will be reversible

Yeah, you read that right.

Will it take a while? Yes. But we're mostly talking a few decades to a few centuries, which is NOTHING in geological history terms.

We have more proof than ever of just how resilient nature is. Major rivers are being restored from dried up or dead to thriving ecosystems in under a decade. Life bounces back so fast when we let it.

I know there's a lot of skepticism about carbon capture and carbon removal. That's reasonable, some of those projects are definitely bs (mostly the ones run by gas companies, involving carbon credits, and/or trying to pump CO2 thousands of feet underground)

But there's very real potential for carbon removal through restoring ecosystems and regenerative agriculture

The research into carbon removal has also just exploded in the past three years, so there are almost certainly more and better technologies to come

There's also some promising developments in industrial carbon removal, especially this process of harvesting atmospheric CO2 and other air pollution to make baking soda and other industrially useful chemicals

As we take carbon out of the air in larger amounts, less heat will be trapped in the atmosphere

If less heat is trapped in the atmosphere, then the planet will start to cool down

If the planet starts to cool down, a lot of things will stabilize again. And they'll probably start to stabilize pretty quickly

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - November 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Agrivoltaics for sustainable food, energy and water management in East Africa

“[… C]ertain crops […] thrived under the partial shade provided by solar panels. The shade also helped to reduce water loss through evaporation, leading to more efficient water usage. Additionally, rainwater harvested from the panels could be used to supplement irrigation needs.”

2. The world’s largest wildlife crossing is now standing in California

“The structure crosses a 10-lane freeway and has been built to help protect all sorts of wildlife[….] And it’s not just for fauna: some 5,000 plants grown from seed collected within a five-mile radius have been nurtured in two specially created nurseries. The bridge will be topped with wildflowers, shrubs and native grasses that will also benefit insect populations.”

3. Judge rules the military must cover gender-affirming surgery for members' dependents

“[Judge] Torresen found that [gender-affirming] surgery is indeed medically necessary and that the Defense Department had not shown that any important governmental interest was advanced by denying the coverage.”

4. Social Media Can Boost Caracal Conservation

“The team found that searches on the species doubled after the project [using “social media to educate about the caracal”] launched. […] ”The research demonstrates how a public interest in urban ecology and the global phenomenon of ‘cats on the internet’… can be harnessed to leverage conservation action.””

5. US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice

“[T]he National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches. [… W]orkers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion.”

6. Study links grazing with plant phenology and abundance

“In general, plants where caribou or muskoxen were present experienced earlier green-up and greater abundance later in the growing season. “We're used to thinking of the timing of plant availability as impacting the productivity of grazing animals, but not the reverse," Post said.”

7. Frog populations once decimated by disease mount a major comeback

“"These results provide a rare example of how reintroduction of resistant individuals can allow the landscape-scale recovery of disease-impacted species, and have broad implications for amphibians and many other taxa that are threatened with extinction by novel pathogens."”

8. California Announces Special Session To Protect Trans People

“Newsom’s directive is clear: safeguard reproductive healthcare, support immigrants, and shield LGBTQ+ people from what is viewed as existential threats to civil rights and democratic norms. […] California has a unique opportunity to set the blueprint for other states in resisting a Trump administration[….]”

9. When ‘OK, Boomer’ Means ‘Let’s Go Protest’

“Youth activists across the country recognize the efforts of their eco-minded predecessors and welcome them as mentors, role models, and collaborators in their battle against the climate crisis. […] “The idea that Boomers don’t care, he said, is “just misinformation.””

10. How Aussie Waste Warriors are Redirecting Excess Food to Those in Need

“A growing movement is working to reduce perfectly good food going to waste by redirecting it to homes and charities. [… C]haritable organisations [… are] transforming fresh produce that would otherwise have gone to waste into millions of cooked, nutritious meals for people in need each year.”

November 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[divine-nonchalance]

Making Desert Land Fertile with Water Bunds

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Méthode de nouage de corde utilisé en agriculture afin d'éviter toutes blessures aux végétaux