#Pesticide degradation

[delta-remediation]

Effective Bioremediation Techniques: A Sustainable Solution for Environmental Cleanup

Bioremediation is a sustainable and cost-effective solution to environmental pollution, using living organisms such as bacteria and fungi to degrade pollutants into harmless compounds. There are various bioremediation techniques, including in situ (at the site of pollution) and ex situ (removing contaminants to treat elsewhere). Other methods include bioventing, biosparging, and use of bioreactors to promote the natural degradation of pollutants.

These techniques can handle a wide array of pollution types including petroleum, heavy metal, pesticide contamination, industrial waste, and landfill leachate. Benefits of bioremediation include its sustainability, cost-effectiveness, versatility, and non-invasiveness.

One company leading the way in bioremediation is Delta Remediation, based in Alberta, Canada. They specialize in applying these techniques to sites polluted with hydrocarbons, pesticides, and industrial waste, and have expanded their operations to Nigeria and Kenya.

Bioremediation thus offers a promising method for environmental cleanup, being both eco-friendly and adaptable to diverse environments. Companies like Delta Remediation are pioneering in this sector, making significant contributions to environmental health.

[mytapas2024]

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[cathkaesque]

The local population in countries that export bananas typically eat different varieties grown primarily by small farmers. The ones for the Americans and the Europeans, Cavendish variety bananas, are grown in huge, monoculture plantations that are susceptible to disease. The banana industry consumes more agrichemicals than any other in the world, asides from cotton. Most plantations will spend more on pesticides than on wages. Pesticides are sprayed by plane, 85% of which does not land on the bananas and instead lands on the homes of workers in the surrounding area and seeps into the groundwater. The results are cancers, stillbirths, and dead rivers.

The supermarkets dominate the banana trade and force the price of bananas down. Plantations resolve this issue by intensifying and degrading working conditions. Banana workers will work for up to 14 hours a day in tropical heat, without overtime pay, for 6 days a week. Their wages will not cover their cost of housing, food, and education for their children. On most plantations independent trade unions are, of course, suppressed. Contracts are insecure, or workers are hired through intermediaries, and troublemakers are not invited back.

Who benefits most from this arrangement? The export value of bananas is worth $8bn - the retail value of these bananas is worth $25bn. Here's a breakdown of who gets what from the sale of banana in the EU.

On average, the banana workers get between 5 and 9% of the total value, while the retailers capture between 36 to 43% of the value. So if you got a bunch of bananas at Tesco (the majority of UK bananas come from Costa Rica) for 95p, 6.65p would go to the banana workers, and 38p would go to Tesco.

Furthermore, when it comes to calculating a country's GDP (the total sum of the value of economic activity going on in a country, which is used to measure how rich or poor a country is, how fast its economy is 'growing' and therefore how valuable their currency is on the world market, how valuable its government bonds, its claim on resources internationally…etc), the worker wages, production, export numbers count towards the country producing the banana, while retail, ripening, tariffs, and shipping & import will count towards the importing country. A country like Costa Rica will participate has to participate in this arrangement as it needs ‘hard’ (i.e. Western) currencies in order to import essential commodities on the world market.

So for the example above of a bunch of Costa Rican bananas sold in a UK supermarket, 20.7p will be added to Costa Rica’s GDP while 74.3p will be added to the UK’s GDP. Therefore, the consumption of a banana in the UK will add more to the UK’s wealth than growing it will to Costa Rica’s. The same holds for Bangladeshi t-shirts, iPhones assembled in China, chocolate made with cocoa from Ghana…it’s the heart of how the capitalism of the ‘developed’ economy functions. Never ending consumption to fuel the appearance of wealth, fuelled by the exploitation of both land and people in the global south.

[herpsandbirds]

Rusty Patched Bumble bee? I'm kinda bummed that they havent been seen in my area for over two decades

ENDANGERED BUMBLEBEE:

Rusty -patched Bumblebee (Bombus affinis), family Apidae, found in the eastern U.S.

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.

Massive population declines ar due to overuse of pesticides, habitat degradation and loss, and pathogens.

This large bumblebee requires 3 different habitats for different life stages: nesting, foraging, and hibernation.

Relatively cold tolerant, and sometimes found at higher elevations.

photographs: Larry Reis, Heather Holm, & Barbara C. Williams

[probablyasocialecologist]

Biodiversity loss in agriculture is a pressing threat to global food systems, reducing our ability to cope with climate change, environmental degradation, and nutritional challenges. Over the past century, about 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers have shifted toward high-yielding, genetically uniform crops. Today, just nine plant species account for 66% of global crop production, with rice, wheat, and maize alone providing more than 50% of the world’s plant-derived calories. This reliance on a narrow set of crops undermines food system resilience, leaving us vulnerable to pests, diseases, and climate extremes. It has also created a monocultural vulnerability reminiscent of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, when reliance on a single, genetically uniform crop led to catastrophic losses due to disease. Genetic diversity within and among species acts as a natural buffer against environmental changes. Different crop varieties respond differently to stressors, providing farmers with options to manage risks. When one crop fails, others can compensate, helping to safeguard harvests and livelihoods. However, as the diversity on our farms diminishes, farmers have fewer tools to adapt to the growing volatility brought on by climate change. Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and heat waves are becoming more severe, and monocultures are ill-equipped to withstand these shocks. The environmental impact of current agricultural practices further exacerbates biodiversity loss. Agriculture is responsible for about 90% of global deforestation and contributes substantially to habitat destruction, driving the extinction of countless species. Excessive use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides pollutes soils and waterways, disrupting ecosystems and degrading essential natural services such as pollination and soil fertility. Soil degradation now affects one-third of the world’s soils. In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is responsible for 80% of soil degradation on farmland, leading to reduced plant diversity because only the few species that can tolerate poor soil conditions survive. Moreover, the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers and livestock manure, particularly in regions such as Asia and Latin America, has disrupted natural nitrogen cycles, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions such as nitrous oxide and methane. These emissions not only drive climate change but also accelerate biodiversity loss by reducing the resilience and health of ecosystems. The decline of agricultural biodiversity also impacts human health. Diets worldwide have become increasingly homogeneous, dominated by a few staple crops that are energy-rich but nutrient-poor. Less than 200 species currently contribute to global food supplies, and this lack of variety has serious health consequences. Low dietary diversity is now a leading driver of diet-related deaths, with about 11 million premature deaths annually linked to unhealthy diets. The decline in biodiversity means that fewer nutrient-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are available, exacerbating malnutrition in all its forms, from undernutrition to obesity.

10 October 2024

[our-lady-of-the-forest]

Many Small Steps

This is the list written by Andrea Cohen-Kiener in her book "Claiming the Earth as Common Ground". It is her list of how to join the Ecology Action Alliance. There are no dues, or any requirements for membership other than to choose three things from the list to begin immediately, and to add one item from the list each week until you are living the most ecological lifestyle possible FOR YOU.

I highly recomend reading this book.

I will recycle whatever I can through my municipality.

I will buy snacks and other foods in degradable (paper) containers whenever possible

I will avoid buying/using clothes that require dry cleaning

I will choos food and other products in the most ecological packaging availible(Paper, cotton and glass as opposed to plastic).

I will not buy/use Styrofoam products

I will not buy/use aerosal cans.

I will start/expand my garden

I will reduce/eliminate toxic pesticides in my lawn and garden.

I will purchase clean, renewable energy through my electric utility (www.gocleanenergy.com)

I will join a gardening club.

I will establish a bartering relationship with a neighbor.

I wil set a radius (two blocks/two miles?) and make a commitment to walk everywhere I need to go within that radius.

I will choose one day a week to refrain from driving.

I will buy/repair/use a bicycle.

I will make a serious and sustained effort to carpool and combine driving errands.

I will prioritize my neighborhood merchants.

I will repair and reuse major appliances whenever possible.

I will donate or finds a use for items I no longer wish to use whenever possible.

I will patronize the used goods market whenever possible.

I will buy/utilize hand-powered appliances and tools whenever possible.

I will become an urban livestock keeper (bees, eggs, poultry).

I will copy this list and encourage one persona week to become a member of the Ecology Action Alliance.

I will reduce/eliminate toxic cleaning supplies and replace them with nonpoisonous cleaning supplies in my home/workplace.

I will make a sustained effort to turn off appliances and lights that are not in use.

I will encourage retailers and manufacturers to reduce/simplfy packaging material.

I will contract for a home energy audit (contact your utility company for details).

I will use natural light and ventilation (windows!) whenever possible.

I will use simple measures (massage, tea, rest) when dealing with common ailments.

I will ask friends to consider natural products and materials when choosing gifts for me.

I will bring my own cloth or paper bags for shopping trips.

I will eat the most wholesome and unadultered diet possible.

I will support bussinesses that promote environmental awareness.

I will join/contribute to an environmental group.

I will buy/use recycled paper whenever possible.

I will ask my grocer to carry local/organic produce.

I will ask my grocer to carry alternatives to Styrofoam products.

I wil lobby political representatives to make the enviorment a priority.

I will petition my civic groups (school, business, congregation) to conserve, recycle and consume responsibly.

I will enjoy moments outside each day.

I will learn about the vegetation and wildlife in my area.

I will study and be a resource for my community for one aspect od the enviornmental agenda (solid waste, conservation, the charitable network, ecology legislation, whole foods, alternative healing, etc.).

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Guardian:

Governments risk another decade of failure on biodiversity loss, due to the slow implementation of an international agreement to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, experts have warned.

Less than two years ago, the world reached a historic agreement at the Cop15 summit in Montreal to stop the human-caused destruction of life on our planet. The deal included targets to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade (30x30), reform $500bn (then £410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and begin restoring 30% of the planet’s degraded ecosystems.

But as country representatives dig into their second week of negotiations at Cop16 in Cali, Colombia – their first meeting since Montreal – alarm is growing at the lack of concrete progress on any of the major targets they agreed upon. An increasing number of indicators show that governments are not on track. They still need to protect an area of land equivalent to the combined size of Brazil and Australia, and an expanse of sea larger than the Indian Ocean to meet the headline 30x30 target, according to a new UN report.

Weak progress on funding for nature and almost no progress on subsidy reform have also frustrated observers. At the time of publication, 158 countries are yet to submit formal plans on how they are going to meet the targets, according to Carbon Brief, missing their deadline this month ahead of the biodiversity summit in Cali, where governments are not likely to set a new deadline.

The world has never met a target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems. Amid growing scientific warnings about the state of life on Earth, there has been a major push to make sure this decade is different, and that governments comply with targets designed to prevent wildlife extinctions, such as cuts to pesticides use and pollution.

Leading figures in conservation and science have raised concerns about the progress governments are making towards the targets in Cali. Martin Harper, CEO of Birdlife International, said meaningful action on commitments was vital.

“We cannot accept inaction as the new normal. This means more action to bolster efforts to recover threatened species, to protect and restore more land, fresh water and sea, and to transform our food, energy and industrial systems. We have five years to raise hundreds of billions of dollars. If we don’t see it materialise, I dread to think where we will be in 2030,” he said

[tzifron]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a major influencer and funder of agricultural development in Africa, with little accountability or transparency. Leading experts in food security and many groups in Africa and around the world have critiqued the foundation’s push to expand high-cost, high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture in Africa. Critics say this approach is exacerbating hunger, worsening inequality and entrenching corporate power in the world’s hungriest region.

This fact sheet links to reports and news articles documenting these concerns.

[...]

What are the main critiques of Gates Foundation’s agricultural program?

The Gates Foundation’s flagship agricultural program, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA, which recently rebranded to remove the term “green revolution” from its name), works to transition farmers away from traditional seeds and crops to patented seeds, fossil-fuel based fertilizers and other inputs to grow commodity crops for the global market. The foundation says its goal is to “boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa… so they can lift themselves and their families out of hunger and poverty.” The strategy is modeled on the Indian “green revolution” that boosted production of staple crops but also left a legacy of structural inequity and escalating debt for farmers that contributed to massive mobilizations of peasant farmers in India.

Critics have said the green revolution is a failed approach for poverty reduction that has created more problems than it has solved; these include environmental degradation, growing pesticide use, reduced diversity of food crops, and increased corporate control over food systems. Several recent research reports provide evidence that Gates-led agricultural interventions in Africa have failed to help small farmers. Critics say the programs may even be worsening hunger and malnutrition in Southern Africa.

[fatehbaz]

The Clear Lake hitch (Lavinia exilicauda chi) is a rare endemic species of minnow living only in the Clear Lake watershed of northern California, a fish that was once a “symbol of abundance” for Indigenous people. In December 2022, the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Robinson Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake ask for immediate emergency protection of the hitch. The fish is in danger of extinction as the last observed successful breeding for the species was in 2017, and the creatures only have a six-year-long lifespan. US land management agencies say hitch numbers have “fallen to near zero.” However, in the past, there were millions of hitch in the watershed each year, and the fish was important to Indigenous food systems. Local “entrepreneurs” prefer to protect the introduced non-native bass, which voraciously preys on the endangered hitch. Clear Lake hosts dozens of bass tournaments each year, events large enough to attract international visitors. There is a past-time tradition (”hitching”) of children beating the hitch to death with baseball bats in the springtime as the hitch gather in streams to try to spawn. The hitch is also threatened by pesticides, runoff, and overuse of water for the region’s prominent local vineyards. The hitch is referred to as a “trash fish,” and some feel that this insults the importance of the fish to Pomo people.

Excerpts below from: Louis Sahagun of Los Angeles Times. “As a sacred minnow nears extinction, Native Americans of Clear Lake call for bold plan.” As published at Phys.org. 6 December 2022.

---

Spring runs of a large minnow numbering in the millions have nourished Pomo Indians since they first made their home alongside Northern California’s Clear Lake more than 400 generations ago. The Clear Lake hitch glinted like silver dollars as they headed up the lake’s tributaries to spawn, a reliable squirming crop of plenty, steeped in history [...].

In all that time, the hitch’s domain, about 110 miles northwest of Sacramento, had never suffered the degradation of recent years.

Now, with a growing sense of sorrow, if not anger, the Pomo Indian tribes of Clear Lake are watching the symbol of abundance and security they call chi dwindle into extinction.

---

On Monday [December 2022], they took the rare and drastic step of urging Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to use her emergency powers and invoke the federal Endangered Species Act on behalf of the Clear Lake hitch. “Bringing the chi back will require a bold plan of action devised by people with the power to move mountains,” said Ron Montez, tribal historic preservation officer for the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. 

“I have almost zero confidence in state or federal officials to save the chi and our way of life,” Montez, 72, said. [...]

The Clear Lake hitch was designated as a threatened species under California’s Endangered Species Act in 2014. Since then, however, its numbers have fallen to near zero, according to recent surveys. 

Some causes of the hitch’s decline, however, seem extraordinarily difficult to fix: prolonged drought, mercury contamination, gravel mining, an overtaxed water distribution system, pesticides and runoff from vineyards [...], and predatory nonnative game fish. [...]

---

The 2023 spring spawning season is crucial for the continued survival of the Clear Lake hitch, scientists say. That’s because the last observed successful spawning was in 2017. “Hitch have a six-year life span,” said Meg Townsend, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. [...]

---

But until its fate is known for certain, Michael Fris, a field supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency is unlikely to list the hitch on an emergency basis. [...] That kind of talk prompted the Center for Biological Diversity, together with the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Robinson Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake to take their request for emergency listing to Haaland.

All involved agree that seeking intervention under the federal Endangered Species Act is an act of desperation. Only two species have been emergency-listed as federally endangered over the last 20 years: the Miami blue butterfly in 2011 and Nevada’s Dixie Valley toad earlier this year. [...]

---

The hitch is a 12-inch-long minnow found only in and around the oldest, largest and perhaps most polluted and wildfire-prone watershed in California. In 2020, the Lake County region was charred by six of the 20 largest wildfires in state history. [...]

It’s been the poor luck of the hitch to require adequate stream flows in February, March and April to trek from the lake to spawning beds at the same time agricultural interests need water to defrost their vineyards.

---

“An emergency listing would force people to consider alternatives to the way water is used in this region,” said Sarah Ryan, environmental director for the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians.

Beyond water flows, the prospect of emergency-listing the hitch raises other economically significant issues connected to the lake’s food chain: Zooplankton are eaten by shad, crayfish and hitch, which are favored by monster catfish and largemouth bass.

Clear Lake entrepreneurs host dozens of professional bass tournaments each year that are supported by contestants from around the world.

The most popular lures in local tackle shops are hitch replicas that cost up to $180 each. Other lures are made to resemble juvenile hitch and sold under a slogan that some people feel mocks the creature’s cultural importance to Pomo people: “The All-American Trash Fish.”

Over at [C.O.], a sporting goods store on the southern end of the lake, old-timers still talk about how local kids had a tradition of “hitching,” beating hitch to death with baseball bats for fun as they ascended streams to spawn in spring. 

They also grumble over the thought of new special protections for a nongame fish disrupting human pastimes for any reason [...].

"The reason our bass grow so big is that they love to eat hitch," mused [D.B.], owner of [C.O.]. "So, when customers ask me, 'Where can I catch the biggest bass of my life?' " he added, "I send them to places hitch hang out in."

---

That kind of banter and lore suggests that unless government agencies yield to Native American concerns, they are headed for a showdown of complicated and competing values.

“The way some people ridicule hitch makes me wonder what they think about the folks who eat them,” lamented Robert Geary, cultural resources director for the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake. [...]

---

At the heart of the matter is that Pomo people [...] did not consider their native attitudes and lifestyles to be an expendable price of living in America.

Yet, their modern history is told mostly through economic hardship, rip-offs, massacres and environmental destruction.

---

Headline, image, caption, and text by: Louis Sahagun of Los Angeles Times. “As a sacred minnow nears extinction, Native Americans of Clear Lake call for bold plan.” As published at Phys.org. 6 December 2022. [First paragraph in this post added by me.]

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazilian singer Leonardo accused of having slave-like conditions on one of his farms

One of Brazil’s most iconic musicians, country singer Leonardo, is embroiled in a scandal involving the use of slave labor at one of his farms in the state of Goiás. The Ministry of Labor has included the artist’s name on its “dirty list” of employers who keep people working in conditions akin to modern-day slavery.

During an inspection of the property, federal authorities discovered six workers, including a 17-year-old, living and laboring under extremely degrading conditions. Located in the town of Jussara, the “Talismã” farm spans over 1,000 hectares and is valued at R$60 million (USD10.5 million).

Throughout his career, Leonardo  – whose real name is Emival Eterno da Costa – has expanded into the livestock and agriculture business. The farm in question is dedicated to raising cattle and horses. In addition to space designated for raising livestock, the farm also houses an extensive leisure structure for the artist’s family and friends, with volleyball courts, a swimming pool, and a large lake that surrounds the main residence of the farm and where it is possible to go jet-skiing.

In stark contrast to the luxury of the farm’s social spaces, the workers’ accommodations were found in a dire state. The house in which they stayed was dilapidated, lacked potable water, and had no proper sanitation. Inspectors reported that the workers slept on makeshift beds fashioned from wooden planks and pesticide barrels, while the quarters were infested with insects and bats, and reeked of a foul odor.

Continue reading.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Biotechnology and the future of humanity

Biocide or Genocide?

The high cost of chemical and mechanical inputs and expensive new seed varieties favours large farmers over small; they are bankrupted, lose their land and end up either in the huge and squalid shanty towns and slums that surround so many majority world cities or as agricultural labourers on big farms or plantations. Here they may be one of the over 40,000 ‘Third World’ farm workers killed each year as a result of contact with agro-chemicals. A 1994 UN report estimated 1,000,000 people a year are made ill as a result of over- exposure to agro-chemicals. The increasing use of animal products as well as leading to the misery, waste and pollution of factory farming is also responsible for the erosion of biodiversity and peoples livelihoods in the majority world. For example almost all of Central America’s lowland and lower montane rainforest has been cleared or severely degraded mainly in order to raise cattle for export. The crops most grown under ‘Green Revolution’ and GM regimes of industrial food production are maize and soya, not for human consumption but for animal feed. Small scale organic farming systems based around plants and supporting the producers directly are being destroyed in favour of chemical soaked monocultures to feed the farm animals necessary to feed the animal product heavy global food economy.

Because ‘pests’ and ‘weeds’ can rapidly become immune to herbicides and biocides chemicals don’t even do what they say they do; pesticide use in the US increased by 500% between 1950–1986 yet estimated crop loss due to pests was 20%, exactly the same as in 1950. The damage done by the production and use of biocides and artificial fertilisers is almost unimaginable. Pesticide pollution of the natural world (air, water & soil) is one of the major reasons for the staggering loss of biodiversity (estimated at a loss of 30,000 species a year) we are witnessing as the world is slowly turned into a huge agro-chemical-industrial facility. Pesticide and artificial fertiliser pollution, along with other petro-chemical forms of pollution and increased exposure to radiation, are responsible for massive rates of cancer and birth abnormalities. Then there are the ‘accidents’ which show the system’s inhumanity even more clearly: such as the 1984 explosion at Union Carbide’s insecticide factory in Bhopal, India which left 3,000 dead and 20,000 permanently disabled. Or the less well-publicised events in Iraq in 1971–1972 when large quantities of wheat seed that had been treated with anti-fungus compounds containing mercury were ‘accidentally’ baked into bread. 6,000 neurologically deranged people were admitted to hospital and at least 452 died. Corporate propagandists would have us believe that these are unfortunate side effects of a beneficial technology we desperately need to ‘feed the world. Yet, as anyone who takes the trouble to find out the facts must be aware, the world produces more food than is necessary to feed the human population and the reasons people go hungry are landlessness, poverty, and social dislocation caused by capitalist oppression and war.

[headspace-hotel]

Many people, especially USAmericans, are very resistant to knowing the plants and living according to the ways of the plants. They lash out with a mix of arrogance and fear: "Don't you know what bad things would happen if we lived a different way? There is a REASON for living this way. Would you have us go Back—backward to the time without vaccines or antibiotics????"

Ah, yes, the two immutable categories that all proposals for change fit into: Backward Change and Forward Change! Either we must invent a a futuristic, entirely new solution with SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY that further industrializes and increases the productivity of our world, or we must give up vaccines and antibiotics and become starving illiterate medieval peasants.

Every human practice anywhere on Earth that has declined, stopped, or become displaced by another practice, was clearly objectively worse than whatever replaced it. You see, the only possible reason a way of life could decline or disappear is that it sucked and had it coming anyway!!! Pre-industrial human history is worthless except as a cautionary tale about how miserable we would all be without *checks notes* factories, fossil fuels and colonialism. Obviously!

Anyway, who do you think benefits from the idea that pesticide-dependent, corporate-controlled industrialized monoculture farming liberates us all from spending our short, painful lives as filthy, miserable peasants toiling in the fields?

First of all, I think it's silly to act like farming is a uniquely awful way to live. I can't believe I have to say this, but the awful part of being a medieval peasant was the oppression and poverty, not the fact that harvesting wheat is a lot of work and cows are stinky. Same goes for farm labor in the modern USA: the bad part is that most people working farms are undocumented migrant workers that are getting treated like garbage and who can't complain about it because their boss will rat them out to ICE.

Work is just work. Any work has dignity when the people doing it are paid properly and not being abused. Abuse and human trafficking is rampant in agriculture, but industrialization and consolidation of small farms into gigantic corporate owned farms sure as hell isn't making it better.

Is working on a farm somehow more miserable than working in a factory, a fast food restaurant, or a retail store? Give me a break. "At least I'm not doing physical labor in the sun," you say, at your job where you're forced to stand on concrete for 8 hours and develop chronic pain by age 24.

When you read about small farmers going out of business because of huge corporations, none of them are going "Yay! Now that Giant Corporation has swallowed up all the farms in the area, we can all enjoy the luxurious privileges of the industrial era, like working RETAIL!" What you do see a lot of is farmers bitterly grieving the loss of their way of life.

And also, the fact is, sustainable forms of polyculture farming that create a functional ecosystem made up of many different useful and edible plants are actually way MORE efficient at producing food than a monoculture. The reason we don't do it as much, is that it can't be industrialized where everything is harvested with machines.

Some places folks are starting to get the idea and planting two crops together in alternating rows, letting the mutualistic relationship between plants boost the yields of both, but indigenous people in many parts of the world have been doing this stuff basically forever. I read about a style of agroforestry from Central America that has TWENTY crops all together on the same field.

Our modern system of farming is necessary for feeding the world? Bullshit! Our technology is very powerful and useful, but our harmful monocultures, dangerous pesticides, and wasteful usage of land and resources are making the system very inefficient and severely degrading nature's ability to provide for us.

What is needed, is a SYNTHESIS of the power and insights of technology and science, with the ancient wisdom and knowledge gained by closely and carefully observing Nature. We do not need to reject one, to embrace the other! They should be friends!

Our system thinks land is only used for one thing at a time. Even our science often thinks this way. A corn field has the purpose of producing corn, and no other purpose, so all other plants in the corn must be killed, and it must be a monoculture of only corn.

But this means that the symbiosis between different plants that help each other is destroyed, so we must pollute the earth with fertilizers that wash into bodies of water and cause eutrophication, where algae explode in number and turn the water to green goo. Nature always has variety and diversity with many plants sharing the same space. It supports much more animal life (we are animals!) this way. The Three Sisters" are the perfect example of mutualism between plants being used in an agricultural environment. The planting of corn, beans, and squash together has been traditionally used clear across the North American continent.

And in North America, the weeds we have here are mostly edible plants too. Some of them were even domesticated themselves! Imagine a garden where every weed that pops up is also an edible or otherwise useful crop, and therefore a welcomed friend! So when weeds like Amaranth and Sunflower pop up in your field, that should not be a cause for alarm, but rather the system of symbiosis working as it should.

A field of one single crop is limited in how much it can produce, because one crop fits into a single niche in what should be a whole ecosystem, and worse, it requires artificial inputs to make up for what the rest of the plant community would normally provide. The field with twenty crops does not produce the same amount as the monoculture field divided in twenty ways, but instead produces much more while being a habitat for wild animals, because each plant has its own niche.

[mytapas2024]

Dragon FruitJam– Natural Products - MyTapas

Savor the exotic taste of Organic Dragon Fruit Jam from MyTapas! Made with pure organic dragon fruit, it’s a delicious and nutritious spread for bread & pastries. Order now at dayasevaltd@gmail.com.

[mariacallous]

Humans have long sullied the Arctic with industrial development—mining operations, oil and gas exploration, military bases. That’s contaminated the landscape with a bevy of toxicants, including radiological material, heavy metals, insecticides, and fuels. That nastiness was often intentionally buried in frozen ground known as permafrost. In theory, as long as that ground remained frozen, the pollutants would stay locked away.

No longer. An alarming new paper in the journal Nature Communications estimates that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are splayed across Arctic permafrost regions, with 3,500 to 5,200 in areas that’ll be affected by thawing soils before the end of the century. The region is already warming rapidly, more than four times faster than the rest of the planet. And that estimated number of sites is likely low, the scientists warn, because thaw might dramatically accelerate in some places. 

As permafrost degrades, it collapses, releasing buried contaminants that flow out in the melted ice. The ground sinks—often spectacularly and rapidly—dragging down aboveground infrastructure like fuel tanks and pipelines. Indeed, that was the suspected cause of a 2020 environmental disaster in Norilsk, Russia, in which 17,000 tons of oil leaked from a collapsed tank.

“The assumption is that permafrost is a hydrological barrier, and it will remain there forever,” says permafrost researcher Moritz Langer, of the Alfred Wegener Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, lead author of the new paper. “That was the assumption for all of these very old sites—especially from the ‘70s, ‘80s, up until the ‘90s—when climate warming and the problem of permafrost thaw was not really on the radar of most people.”

Langer and his colleagues found that 70 percent of these sites are in Russia, with others across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Some facilities are abandoned and difficult to access and clean up. Others are still operational, and producing yet more toxicants to leak into the environment. (The new paper doesn’t distinguish, though, exactly which sites are which.) As the Arctic warms, expect industrial and military development to creep farther north, adding more contaminants while putting more people in contact with them. And the mushier the soil gets, the harder it will be to use heavy equipment to clean up the messes.

“This idea that somehow we have, functionally, a number of potential Superfund sites that were completely unknown until this paper, but could be mobilizing into the Arctic and potentially international environment, is pretty terrifying,” says Kimberley R. Miner, a climate scientist who studies permafrost contamination at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory but wasn’t involved in the new paper. “To see them take that idea and apply it to actual maps and get actual sites, with permafrost disturbance underneath, was so mind-blowing to me.”

Existing sites are already plagued by a slew of environmental troubles. Oil leaks come from both wells and from pipelines. Radioactive material is buried around military bases. Pesticides like DDT are packed in barrels, then buried. Mining operations are notorious for emitting heavy metals like mercury; other sites are full of arsenic, lead, and other highly toxic elements and compounds. Trucks and heavy machinery carry liquid fuels like diesel, which are prone to spill. 

Once the ground is no longer frozen enough to form a barrier, those contaminants will seep into rivers and ponds, corrupting highly sensitive ecosystems. “This, we think, could also be a dangerous situation for people living up in the high north,” says Langer, as the contaminants mix with drinking water.

That water will eventually empty into the ocean and ride elsewhere on currents. Toxicants can also get airborne: Indeed, the Arctic is already dusted with lead from burning leaded gasoline. Mercury, too, could escape mining operations by taking to water and air. “Mercury that came from the burning of coal and fossil fuels from a century or two centuries ago is still cycling through our biosphere,” says Kevin Schaefer, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies permafrost contaminants but wasn’t involved in the new paper.

Human activity in the Arctic only exacerbates the thaw. Dark-colored roads absorb the sun’s energy, heating the soil. Digging up dirt and tossing it on top of snow darkens the whiteness that would normally bounce light off the landscape. Vehicle tires chew up the soil. “You already have rapidly changing environmental conditions,” says George Washington University climate scientist Dmitry Streletskiy, who studies permafrost but wasn’t involved in the new paper. “But then, of course, on top of those rapid changes, you have concentrated human presence—you have industry and infrastructure. So those are really focal points, where you in many ways amplify those changes associated with climate."

Oh, and the giant new Willow drilling project in Alaska that the Biden administration just approved? That’ll be on permafrost too. “Think about what it takes to establish a pipeline,” says Miner. “You're going to need a road. You're going to have people walking in and out, trampling the permafrost. All of that is going to lead to increased thaw and increased potential for contamination and disturbances to the very fragile tundra landscape. So it's just impacts upon impacts upon impacts.”

This new paper only considered gradual permafrost thaw. But permafrost can collapse much more rapidly, digging holes known as thermokarst. As ice becomes liquid water, it loses volume, forming a crater in which microbes produce the highly potent greenhouse gas methane. This further warms the atmosphere and accelerates permafrost thaw—a gnarly climatic feedback loop.

Adding yet more peril is that as the Arctic warms, wildfires are proliferating. If one sweeps through a contaminated site, it’ll send up plumes of toxicant-laden smoke. That will in turn exacerbate the thaw: Scientists have previously calculated that in north Alaska, thermokarst formation has accelerated by 60 percent since 1950, thanks to wildfires.

In other words, Langer says, their paper’s projection is “pretty conservative.” Some of the sites might thaw even earlier.

Permafrost is already deforming communities in the far north. Airport runways are sinking, roads are wrinkling, and buildings are crumbling. “It's no longer some ambiguous thing that might happen in the future—it's happening today, even as we speak,” says Schaefer. “If this infrastructure becomes damaged because of thawing permafrost, it's extremely expensive and extremely difficult to resolve. These areas are very remote. You can only do things in certain times of the year, mainly the summer.” 

If thermokarst opens a hole in your runway, for instance, it might cut off surrounding communities that rely on supplies brought in by plane. And if you can’t fly, you can’t get out of many places around the Arctic. “It's not like the Lower 48—if I don't make it to Denver, I'll fly to Colorado Springs,” says Schaefer. “These are all really key infrastructure, and it's really difficult to build and maintain.”

But this new paper is at least a step toward localizing the problem, directing governments to where cleanup might be required. Early scientific sleuthing like this is a start, but a fix will take putting a lot of boots on increasingly soggy ground. “In order to manage something, you have to measure it,” says Miner. The next step would take a massive push—one like the US Environmental Protection Agency began in the 1980s to clean up Superfund sites. But with such a patchwork of nations and corporations responsible for the mess, it’s not clear when—or if—that work would start.

[renthony]

In which Ren goes on a textile rant.

Going to get in a fight with whoever does the listings for Jo-Ann Fabrics, because why the HELL is a listing for "natural linen" actually for a fabric that contains 50% RAYON. I had to scroll halfway down the goddamn page to find a 100% linen, despite that being what I searched for in the first place.

(I know it's because linen-weave fabrics get called linen even when they're not 100% flax, but I think that's a ridiculous practice that we should stop fuckin' doing. I am looking for PROPER FUCKING LINEN, not fake shit!! God damn it!!!!!)

Fucking rayon. I hate rayon. Everyone's convinced it's "natural" and it's fucking not (it's actually classified as "semi-synthetic"), and in 2014 it made up 56.9% of fibers found in deep-ocean environments. Improvements have been made since then, but I still fucking hate rayon based solely on the fact that marketing has deceived everyone into thinking it's more environmentally-friendly than it is.

It's like...how everyone thinks, oh, bamboo fabric is made of natural materials, so it must be all good! But then they ignore how much fucking processing you have to do to bamboo, and how much water it takes.

That's not even getting into cotton manufacturing. The rates of water consumption and pesticide use in cotton farming are fucking obscene, and cotton is right up there with rayon in how much of it winds up in the ocean. Cotton doesn't degrade quickly at all, and while I wouldn't call it as destructive as some all-synthetic fabric, I still don't like how much people think "oh, it's natural, so it must not have a big environmental impact."

The marketing around "natural fibers" is so fucking deceptive in general. Just because the fiber is natural doesn't mean the manufacturing is inherently sustainable. I'd hate rayon a lot less if there wasn't so much "ohhh, but it's NATURAL! Please ignore how much chemical processing we have to do to the fibers!"

I'm not inherently opposed to polymers and synthetic materials. It is fully possible to produce sustainable polymers, and polymer science is making incredible breakthroughs every day. I genuinely hope that we can continue to push the field into new sustainable directions.

It really is the marketing of semi-synthetic and heavily-processed fibers as "natural fabrics" that pisses me off. At least things like spandex and nylon aren't trying to convince me that they're natural and oh-so-sustainable when I know goddamn full well that they're not.

[kingdrawcse]

Chemistry behind nerve agent, Sarin

Sarin, a nerve agent discovered in 1938 by German researchers as a byproduct of pesticide development, was named after the first letter of the four researchers' surnames.

Post-World War II, it gained global production. Codenamed GB by the U.S. military and P-35 by the Soviet Union, Sarin belongs to the G-class nerve agents and is about 26 times more toxic than cyanide. It has the highest volatility among nerve agents, entering the body through skin, eyes, inhalation, or ingestion.

By inhibiting acetylcholinesterase, it disrupts the nervous system, causing muscle paralysis and asphyxiation. Sarin's slow degradation in the body leads to cumulative toxicity. Immediate treatment with antimuscarinic atropine, oxime, and artificial respiration is crucial for survival. Beyond the battlefield, Sarin has been involved in numerous terror incidents.