#us secretary of agriculture

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Tom Vilsack (D) United States Secretary of Agriculture

Of course Sec. Vilsack is getting "the dick", but American Farm Bureau Federation President, Zippy Duvall definitely gets a courtesy tap.

[indoorverticalfarmingnews]

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Highlights Commitment to Youth Development and Agricultural Markets in Georgia

Key Takeaways: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announces $145,000 in funding for Turn Around Columbus. Funding part of a $1.5 million grant to the University of Georgia’s Archway Partnership. Emphasis on creating new markets and revenue opportunities for urban and rural producers. Programs aim to support small and mid-sized producers, particularly in underserved communities. USDA initiatives…

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #36

September 27-October 4 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris have lead the federal response to Hurricane Helene. President Biden's leadership earned praise from the Republican Governors of South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia, as well as the Democratic Governor of North Carolina and local leaders. Thousands of federal workers are on the ground in effected communities having given out to date over 8 million meals, over 7 million letters of water. Both President Biden and Vice-President Harris have been on the ground in resent days meeting with effected families. During her trip to Georgia Vice-President Harris announced that the federal government will reimburse state and local government 100% of the costs from Hurricane Helene.

A strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association that briefly shut down ports on the East Cost and Gulf ended in a tentative deal. Both sides thanked Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for helping push the deal through. President Biden and Vice-President Harris had expressed solidarity with the works when the strike was announced and President Biden directed Secretary Buttigieg to take the lead in pressuring management to make a deal with the Longshoremen. The ILA got a 62% raise as part of the agreement.

Vice President Harris announced new actions to help those struggling with medical debt. This actions include new standards from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on debt collection. the CFPB plans on requiring debt collectors to confirm debts are valid and accurate before engaging in collection actions. As well as cracking down on debt collectors that collect on debt that is not owed by patients. Other actions included an announcement by the DoD that it was reducing pricing for civilians who get medical treatment at DoD hospitals and a track down on tax-exempt hospitals who are required by law to offer financial assistance but often do not. These steps come after Vice President Harris in June announced plans to remove medical debt from credit scores. Following the Vice President's call to action North Carolina moved forward a plan to eliminate medical debt for 2 million people in the state. President Biden's American Rescue Plan funds have been used by state and local Democrats to eliminate $7 billion dollars in medical debt.

The Department of Transportation announced $62 Billion in infrastructure funding for 2025. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by President Biden this will be $18 billion dollars more than was spent in 2021. The Biden-Harris Admin has helped support over 60,000 infrastructure projects across all 50 states, rebuilding roads and bridges, breaking ground on America's first high speed rail, updating ports and airports, and breaking high speed internet to rural communities.

The Department of Transportation announced $1 Billion dollars of investment in America's passenger rail future. This comes on top of $8.2 billion in investments announced in December 2023. The funds will help expand and modernize intercity passenger rail nationwide.

The Departments of Energy and Agriculture announced a $2.8 billion joint project to bring 100% carbon pollution-free energy to the rural midwest. The DoE is investing $1.5 billion into helping bring the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan back on-line. Shut down in 2022 plans to refit and reopen it to allow the plant to keep generating clean energy till 2051. Once back online the Palisades Nuclear Plant will help stop an anticipated 4.47 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, or 111 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime. The USDA is investing $1.3 billion in two rural electric cooperatives, Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy, which cover rural communities in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. This investment will help Wolverine and Hoosier connect to the Palisades Plant, reduce prices for customers, and reduce climate pollution, putting Wolverine Power on the path to be 100 percent carbon-free energy before 2030.

The Treasury and the IRS announced that 30 million Americans, across 24 states will qualify for free direct filing of their taxes in 2025. The IRS says that the average American spends $270 dollars and 13 hours filing their taxes. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by President Biden with Vice President Harris' tie breaking vote, Americans will be able to file their taxes quickly and for free directly with the IRS. Tax payers in Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming will in 2025 be able to use direct file.

The USDA announced $7.7 billion in funding for Climate-Smart Practices on Agricultural Lands. This represents the single biggest investment in these programs in USDA history. Since implementation began in 2023 this conservation assistance has helped over 28,500 farmers and ranchers apply conservation to 361 million acres of land.

The Department of Energy announced $1.5 billion in investments in transmission infrastructure to help ensure our grid is reliable and resilient. This will help support nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission lines across Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. These lines will bring 7,100 MW of new capacity and create 9,000 good paying union jobs. Studies find to keep up with growth and meet our climate goals of carbon free energy the US will need to triple the 2020 transmission capacity by 2050. This is an important step to meeting that goal.

[reasonsforhope]

"In an unprecedented step to preserve and maintain the most carbon-rich elements of U.S. forests in an era of climate change, President Joe Biden’s administration last week proposed to end commercially driven logging of old-growth trees in National Forests.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, issued a Notice of Intent to amend the land management plans of all 128 National Forests to prioritize old-growth conservation and recognize the oldest trees’ unique role in carbon storage. 

It would be the first nationwide amendment to forest plans in the 118-year history of the Forest Service, where local rangers typically have the final word on how to balance forests’ role in watershed, wildlife and recreation with the agency’s mandate to maintain a “sustained yield” of timber.

“Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource,” Vilsack said in a statement accompanying the notice. “This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape.”

But initial responses from both environmentalists and the logging industry suggest that the plan does not resolve the conflict between the Forest Service’s traditional role of administering the “products and services” of public lands—especially timber—and the challenges the agency now faces due to climate change. National Forests hold most of the nation’s mature and old-growth trees, and therefore, its greatest stores of forest carbon, but that resource is under growing pressure from wildfire, insects, disease and other impacts of warming.

Views could not be more polarized on how the National Forests should be managed in light of the growing risks.

National and local environmental advocates have been urging the Biden administration to adopt a new policy emphasizing preservation in National Forests, treating them as a strategic reserve of carbon. Although they praised the old-growth proposal as an “historic” step, they want to see protection extended to “mature” forests, those dominated by trees roughly 80 to 150 years old, which are a far larger portion of the National Forests. As old-growth trees are lost, which can happen rapidly due to megafires and other assaults, they argue that the Forest Service should be ensuring there are fully developed trees on the landscape to take their place...

The Biden administration’s new proposal seeks to take a middle ground, establishing protection for the oldest trees under its stewardship while allowing exceptions to reduce fuel hazards, protect public health and safety and other purposes. And the Forest Service is seeking public comment through Feb. 2 (Note: That's the official page for the proposed rule, but for some reason you can only submit comments through the forest service website - so do that here!) on the proposal as well as other steps needed to manage its lands to retain mature and old-growth forests over time, particularly in light of climate change.

If the Forest Service were to put in place nationwide protections for both mature and old-growth forests, it would close off most of the National Forests to logging. In an inventory concluded earlier this year in response to a Biden executive order, the Forest Service found that 24.7 million acres, or 17 percent, of its 144.3 million acres of forest are old-growth, while 68.1 million acres, or 47 percent, are mature."

-via Inside Climate News, December 20, 2023

-

Note: This proposed rule is current up for public comment! If you're in the US, you can go here to file an official comment telling the Biden administration how much you support this proposal - and that you think it should be extended to mature forests!

Official public comments really DO matter. You can leave a comment on this proposal here until February 2nd.

[mentally-quiet-spycrab]

Urgent update!

Stop HR9495!

Say NO to S.5384! (Stop the bill that Abolishes the Department of Education, and for Other Purposes)

Say NO to H.R. 9218! (Stop the bill that would allow Representatives to re-define what Biological Sex is)

Say NO to SB72! (Ref 1) (ref 2)

Tell Congress: Take action to prevent cuts to IRS funding in the end-of-year government funding bill! (HURRY BEFORE DECEMBER 20TH COMES!)

(PLEASE CHECK AND COPY THE LINKS HERE AND REBLOG/REPOST THEM ON A NEW POST TO KEEP IT TO RELEVANCE!)

Stop HR9495 by calling your Representatives and Senators!

Spread awareness about the Australian Social Media Ban!

Stop the DOGE Acts!

Stop 472472!

Keep fighting! Please spread the word on BlueSky, Reddit, Instagram, etc.!

Call and message Majority Office, Senate Democrats to help Impeach trump and prevent him from taking role of president!

REJECT Brooke Rollins for Secretary of Department of Agriculture!

Say NO to Congress’s plan to gut Medicaid for tax giveaways to the rich and corporations!

Demand Congress that they Need to Safeguard Our Democracy! They must passes new federal legislation strengthening protections for voting rights and preventing election subversion! (Donations)

Resist Trump and Vance! Help Democrats TAKE BACK Congress and defend democracy! (WITH DONATIONS)

Help End the Age of Plastics: Global Plastics Treaty Now! (DONATE)

Help Bend the Arc reach $15,000 in donations to help resist Trump!

Help us DEFEND public education from the Trump/Vance administration! (With donations)

Protect public education and defend democracy!

Ireland must keep supporting Syrian refugees! Please sign Petition! (URGENT!)

Donate to Casa to help Defend Immigrants!

(NOTE: Please Repost or Reblog. Just likes alone don't really do much.)

[goingontomorrow]

Update on LGBT Information Removals from U.S. Government Websites

It has been observed that references to "LGBTQIA+" and similar acronyms have been shortened to "LGB" on several U.S. government websites. However, some agencies, such as the National Archives and the National Library of Medicine, appear unaffected.

When government agencies remove web pages, the standard procedure is to use a tool called Pagefreeze, which archives the content while indicating that the page is no longer actively maintained.

Pagefreeze Information: Pagefreeze for Government

Example of a site with Pagefreeze: Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Rule to Strengthen Protections for Youth in the Child Welfare System – HHS

The Children’s Bureau within the Administration for Children & Families has taken the approach of marking pages as archived rather than removing them entirely:

LGBTQIA2S+ Resources – Administration for Children & Families

Pages That Are Still Active

National Archives Title: LGBTQIA+ Research Resources URL: https://www.archives.gov/research/lgbt/lgbtqia

National Library of Medicine Title: The Role of Public Health in Ensuring LGBT+ Health Equity URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4689648/

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Title: Support for the LGBTQI+ Community URL: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-support/how-to-cope/support-for-lgbtqi-community

Library of Congress Title: LGBTQ+ Pride Month Resources URL: https://www.loc.gov/lgbt-pride-month/resources/

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Title: LGBTQ+ Veteran Care URL: https://www.patientcare.va.gov/LGBT/index.asp

National Park Service Title: LGBTQ Heritage Initiative URL: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?parkID=442&projectID=53065

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Title: LGBTQI+ Competency Training Resources URL: https://www.hhs.gov/programs/topic-sites/lgbtqi/enhanced-resources/competency-training/index.html

Pages That Have Been Removed (With User Created Archive Links)

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Title: Protecting the Rights of LGBTQI+ People Removed URL: https://www.hhs.gov/ocr/lgbtqi/index.html Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Title: LGBTQI+ Health & Well-being Removed URL: https://www.hhs.gov/programs/topic-sites/lgbtqi/index.html Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Department of State Title: Global Equality Fund Removed URL: https://www.state.gov/global-equality-fund Archived Version: Wayback Machine

Youth.gov Title: LGBT Youth Resources Removed URL: https://youth.gov/federal-links/lgbt-youth-resources Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Title: HUD LGBTQI+ Resources Removed URL: https://www.hud.gov/lgbtqi Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Department of Justice Title: LGBTQI+ Working Group Removed URL: https://www.justice.gov/crt/lgbtqi-working-group Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Title: LGBTQ+ Special Emphasis Program Removed URL: https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/general-information/staff-offices/office-assistant-secretary-civil-rights/special-emphasis-programs/lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-and-queer-lgbtq-program Archived Version: Wayback Machine

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Title: Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth Removed URL: https://www.cdc.gov/youth-safe-environments/communication-resources/index.html Archived Version: Wayback Machine

U.S. Census Bureau Title: LGBT Adults Report Anxiety, Depression at All Ages Removed URL: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/12/lgbt-adults-report-anxiety-depression-at-all-ages.html Archived Version: Wayback Machine

Notable Change in Terminology

The U.S. Department of State has a webpage titled "LGB Travelers", which previously included broader LGBTQ+ information but now only references "LGB."

URL: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations/lgb.html

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump’s first-week strategy: ‘Flood the zone.’ Repeat.

It was all part of a plan to begin with a bang and follow a detailed policy blueprint, although key administrative posts remained stuck in a hiring bottleneck and many of his directives lacked immediate effect.

“This was a vast effort to think through the executive actions. We’ve had four years, and this is what you see.”

—Steve Bannon

A known white nationalist was behind most of Trump's executive orders.

According to the above Washington Post article:

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller led policy preparations during the transition and personally drafted or coordinated most of the executive orders Trump signed Monday evening, according to White House officials. Miller did not respond to requests for comment. [emphasis added]

Trump's Project 2025 lie enabled him to be elected.

It is now abundantly clear that Trump was elected fraudulently because he lied about his knowledge of, association with, and even his attitude towards Project 2025. If it were not for that lie, there is a good chance that those on the fence who finally decided to vote for Trump would not have done so.

According to The Washington Post:

Many of the [White House] actions overlapped detailed preparations by right-wing think tanks, including the policy blueprint Project 2025. Out of 52 presidential directives (excluding pardons and appointments) that Trump signed by Friday, 28 contained language resembling text published as part of Project 2025, according to a Washington Post analysis. They include withdrawing from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Accord. Trump rescinded a Biden administration executive order creating a gender-focused advisory council and a 1965 executive order on contracting discrimination that were specifically identified in Project 2025. [emphasis added] Similarly, the new administration started firing senior civil servants citing career officials using a legal theory gaining popularity among right-wing lawyers and advocated in Project 2025. The firing notices cited the president’s inherent power under the U.S. Constitution rather than any specific legal authority. [emphasis added]

Russel Vought's Center for Renewing America, and Brooke Rollins's America First Policy Institute also guided the design of Trump's policy agenda.

According to The Washington Post:

“It’s called Project 2025, but it’s bigger than that,” [Steve] Bannon said, crediting Miller for the ambitious policy agenda along with budget director nominee Russell Vought’s Center for Renewing America and agriculture secretary nominee Brooke Rollins’s America First Policy Institute. “This was a vast effort to think through the executive actions. We’ve had four years, and this is what you see.” [emphasis added]

This is a gift 🎁 link that eliminates the paywall, so you can read the entire article. I encourage you to do so.

[chillinglikeashilling]

A brief and incomplete list of the questions that I imagine Evan asked himself once Sam started talking at the top of the episode:

John Connor?

The former Secretary of Agriculture? Everyone seems to know who she's referencing.

Is Sam telling us they're a boy? Is Sam's new name going to be John Connor?

Is Sam/John coming out to us the key to changing magic forever?

If Sam/John is coming out to us what are the things I can say that are the most supportive of their transition while also getting to the root of how this is linked to changing magic forever?

Is someone taking advantage of this beautiful moment of Sam/John (possibly) coming out to us to sneak attack the group? Because if they are I'm going to kill them.

Tinkerbell is somehow now involved so I guess maybe John Connor is a character? Note to self: clarify with group after I get this guy.

[ledesaid]

Mars #1

"William, read the first paragraph aloud."

╔╩╦═╬═╩╦═╩╦═╩╬╩═╦═╩═╦═╩═╦

"Yes"

Everyone turns to look at him.

"The International Space Station was the first place from where the large asteroid that hit Earth thirty-six hours later could be seen."

The teacher let Billy sit down.

"Very well, children. Does anyone know what were the first actions humanity attempted?"

Two hands were raised.

"Go ahead, Conner."

"Superman tried to stop the asteroid and fragmented it into thirteen parts."

"Very well, Timothy, tell us more..."

"The global economy collapsed simultaneously, agriculture stopped due to the thick layers of ash that blocked the sun and-"

"William Batson!, continue."

The sound of Billy's chair dragging across the floor made Billy look away in shame. He didn't expect to be caught drawing again.

"And... and the humanity moved to Mars."

The class ended faster than expected.

Such were the days for Billy. His ten years were filled with monotony. For almost all the children in the colony, actually.

Tim: "Were you drawing again, Billy?"

Billy: "Yes, I'm almost done with my suit."

His friends looked over his shoulders. A colorful variation of the exploration suits.

Conner: "I prefer the mining suits..."

Tim: "I prefer the black supervision suits."

Billy: "Did you manage to convince Jason to let us go to the Wayne hangar?"

Tim: "Well... Didn't I promise?"

Billy and Conner gave the smallest one a couple of pats on the shoulders.

If all went well, they could escape tonight to take a walk in the underground tunnels and return before they got caught.

There was only one thing left in their plan.

Ask for permission.

Billy had to talk to Professor Tawny and avoid his very sharp gaze.

Conner had to call his father's secretary and that would be it.

Tim: "Guys, I'll see you in the projector room at six, remember, we only have three hours to make it."

Needless to say, the three kids got lost in the tunnels and had to be rescued by a Green Lantern.

You guessed it right if you thought they were punished. Everyone except Conner. For some reason, his father seemed very happy to use their adventure as a reason to bother Wayne Enterprises.

--------------------

Art - type of suits - click

Part 2

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Missoula Current News:

A environmental coalition urged the U.S. Forest Service to ban the use of so-called cyanide bombs in national forests on Wednesday, arguing that the traps continue to inhumanely kill endangered animals and humans.

The petition comes nearly a year after the Bureau of Land Management issued a ban in November 2023, also at the behest of the environmental coalition headed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Predator Defense along with more than 60 other conservation groups.

The M-44 devices, spring-loaded ejectors are staked in the ground at surface level with a sodium cyanide capsule loaded, and can be baited to attract predators, like coyotes and certain fox species.

When triggered, the spring ejects a lethal dose of cyanide into the biting animal’s mouth, killing the animal within one to five minutes.

In a statement announcing the petition, Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense said that the ban is necessary to bring an end to decades of wrongful human and wildlife deaths.

“M-44s are indiscriminate devices that can never be used safely,” Fahy said. “I’ve worked with victims of M-44s for over 30 years and know firsthand that the federal government has no justification for attempting to ‘manage’ native predators with a device that kills and poisons endangered species, wildlife, dogs and humans — especially on our shared public forest lands.”

According to the conservationists, the agency has continued authorizing the device’s use despite public opposition but has not been used on Forest Service lands since 2021, per an April letter from Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack to Democratic Representative Jared Huffman.

A Forest Service spokesperson confirmed that Vilsack’s statement remains accurate but did not comment further on the petition.

With a ban in place, the agency would be unable to resume authorizing use of the device without public involvement, the conservationists argued.

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Tom Vilsack (D) United States Secretary of Agriculture

[thatswhywelovegermany]

October 9, 1989: The day the dictatorial GDR regime broke

Throughout the 1980s, discontent among the population of the GDR about the economical and political situation kept growing. Nonetheless, the ruling party SED (Socialist Union Party of Germany) upheld its role as the only governing part of the state, continuing the process of the "socialist revolution" in the state. People started protesting against oppression of dissidents.

The situation became explosive after the rigged local elections on May 7, 1989. People didn't have the choice between multiple options. Instead, there was only one list of the "National Front", which was automatically counted as "yes" as soon as the ballot was dropped into the urn. The only way to vote "no" was to strike all entries in the list through with a straight line. Although this was a tedious proces that could easily be traced by the Stasi officers in the polling stations, many people made use of this way of voting "no". For the first time, citizens gathered in the polling stations to observe the process of counting. Althouth this was explicitly allowed by law (§ 37 of the voting act), access was denied in almost all cases. Nonetheless, members of the church documented electoral fraud and made it public. This led to the first protests, which the Stasi and regular police forced tried to quench. Around the same time, a mass exodus through neighboring countries to West Germany started.

These protests attracted more and more people. In many cases, the demonstrations started after peace prayers in the protestant churches throughout the country. But still, the oppressive system of the state held the upper hand. On October 7, 1989, the police forces, workers' militia, and Stasi arrested thousands of protesters in Leipzig and arrested them in horse stables on the grounds of the agricultural fair.

This led pastor Christoph Wonneberger to publish a plea for non-violence, which was agreed to by some SED secretaries read out loud over the city's public announcement system (by Leipzig's Gewandhaus Orchestra's conductor Kurt Masur) and during the peace prayers. On October 9, 1989, the situation was tense as approx. 130,000 people took to the streets, marching past the Stasi central. A massive presence of state forces was also present, and people feared a "Chinese solution", referring to the violent Tiananmen Square massacre earlier that year. However, the plea for non-violence by the power of its wording kept both protesters and state forces from violent actions and the protests ended peacefully and without any arrests.

This was the first time the GDR authorities gave in to the masses of protesters. The word spread, and protests sprang up in more and more cities throughout the country, leading to state leader Erich Honecker's demise on October 18 and culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which ultimately led to the German reunification.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #22

June 7-14 2024

Vice-President Harris announced that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving to remove medical debt for people's credit score. This move will improve the credit rating of 15 million Americans. Millions of Americans struggling with debt from medical expenses can't get approved for a loan for a car, to start a small business or buy a home. The new rule will improve credit scores by an average of 20 points and lead to 22,000 additional mortgages being approved every year. This comes on top of efforts by the Biden Administration to buy up and forgive medical debt. Through money in the American Rescue Plan $7 billion dollars of medical debt will be forgiven by the end of 2026. To date state and local governments have used ARP funds to buy up and forgive the debt of 3 million Americans and counting.

The EPA, Department of Agriculture, and FDA announced a joint "National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics". The Strategy aimed to cut food waste by 50% by 2030. Currently 24% of municipal solid waste in landfills is food waste, and food waste accounts for 58% of methane emissions from landfills roughly the green house gas emissions of 60 coal-fired power plants every year. This connects to $200 million the EPA already has invested in recycling, the largest investment in recycling by the federal government in 30 years. The average American family loses $1,500 ever year in spoiled food, and the strategy through better labeling, packaging, and education hopes to save people money and reduce hunger as well as the environmental impact.

President Biden signed with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy a ten-year US-Ukraine Security Agreement. The Agreement is aimed at helping Ukraine win the war against Russia, as well as help Ukraine meet the standards it will have to be ready for EU and NATO memberships. President Biden also spearheaded efforts at the G7 meeting to secure $50 billion for Ukraine from the 7 top economic nations.

HHS announced $500 million for the development of new non-injection vaccines against Covid. The money is part of Project NextGen a $5 billion program to accelerate and streamline new Covid vaccines and treatments. The investment announced this week will support a clinical trial of 10,000 people testing a vaccine in pill form. It's also supporting two vaccines administered as nasal sprays that are in earlier stages of development. The government hopes that break throughs in non-needle based vaccines for Covid might be applied to other vaccinations thus making vaccines more widely available and more easily administered.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $404 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the region. This brings the total invested by the Biden administration in the Palestinians to $1.8 billion since taking office, over $600 million since the war started in October 2023. The money will focus on safe drinking water, health care, protection, education, shelter, and psychosocial support.

The Department of the Interior announced $142 million for drought resilience and boosting water supplies. The funding will provide about 40,000 acre-feet of annual recycled water, enough to support more than 160,000 people a year. It's funding water recycling programs in California, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada and Texas. It's also supporting 4 water desalination projects in Southern California. Desalination is proving to be an important tool used by countries with limited freshwater.

President Biden took the lead at the G7 on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a global program to connect the developing world to investment in its infrastructure from the G7 nations. So far the US has invested $40 billion into the program with a goal of $200 billion by 2027. The G7 overall plans on $600 billion by 2027. There has been heavy investment in the Lobito Corridor, an economic zone that runs from Angola, through the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Zambia, the PGI has helped connect the 3 nations by rail allowing land locked Zambia and largely landlocked DRC access Angolan ports. The PGI also is investing in a $900 million solar farm in Angola. The PGI got a $5 billion dollar investment from Microsoft aimed at expanding digital access in Kenya, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The PGI's bold vision is to connect Africa and the Indian Ocean region economically through rail and transportation link as well as boost greener economic growth in the developing world and bring developing nations on-line.

[reasonsforhope]

"Mexico’s government recently announced the creation of 20 new protected areas across 12 states and two coastal areas in the country, covering roughly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres). This follows a series of budget cuts to the nation’s environmental agencies.

Officials introduced four new national parks, four “flora and fauna protection areas,” seven sanctuaries, two biosphere reserves and three “natural resources protection areas” under the protection of the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP).

“This is a commendable step toward biodiversity conservation and environmental protection,” said Gina Chacón, director of the Wildland Network’s public policy program in Mexico. She told Mongabay these new areas will help preserve the country’s rich ecosystems, foster sustainable practices and protect a broad range of important species and habitats. Though some environmental and Indigenous groups are wary the budget cuts could hinder efforts to conserve these areas.

The newly protected areas will preserve habitat and ecologically important marine areas for various species, including whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), Mexican prairie dogs (Cynomys mexicanus) and jaguars (Panthera onca). They will also help safeguard ecologically important coral reefs and areas of cultural significance to Indigenous communities.

Bajos del Norte, a new national park in the Gulf of Mexico, is the largest new protected area, covering 1,304,114 hectares (3,222,535 acres), almost nine times the size of Mexico City. The area is important to the more than 3,000 families that belong to fishing communities on the Yucatán coast. It is also one of the main grouper fish (Epinephelinae) reproduction sites in the Gulf of Mexico and will safeguard threatened species, such as the rocky star coral (Orbicella annularis) and the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Joaquín Núñez Medrano, the secretary of the UEFAHG or Union of Forestry and Agricultural Ejidos Hermenegildo Galeana A.C. (Unión de Ejidos Forestales y Agropecuarios Hermenegildo Galeana), lives in an ejido — a type of communally owned land used for agriculture and forestry purposes — called Cordòn Grande in Sierra Grande of Guerrero, along the Pacific Coast. For more than 10 years, Medrano’s community has monitored species such as the jaguar and sustainably managed the ejido’s natural resources, without government assistance.

But now, the ejido has been designated a protected area in this latest round of decrees, as it falls inside part of the new Sierra Tecuani reserve. “The goal is to strengthen what we have already been doing but with support to do it much better,” he told Mongabay.

The second- and third-largest newly protected areas are Sierra Tecuani, a 348,140-hectare (860,272-acre) biosphere reserve threatened by illegal logging, forest fires and land use changes, and the Semidesierto Zacatecas Flora and Fauna Protection Area, which is important for the recovery of the Mexican prairie dog.

The state of Oaxaca is where the government created the most new protected areas, numbering three: the 90-hectare (222-acre) Playa Morro Ayuta Sanctuary, the 56-hectare (138-acre) Barra de la Cruz-Playa Grande Sanctuary and the 261-hectare (645-acre) Playa Cahuitán Sanctuary. Other protected areas were created in the states of Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Campeche, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Chiapas, Colima, Durango, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Guerrero and the State of Mexico...

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has protected more areas than any previous administration, with a total of 43 new areas across 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres). But Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), which works to safeguard the environment, has become severely cash-strapped throughout his six-year term.

SEMARNAT is one of many sectors in Mexico undergoing funding cuts. In recent years, Obrador’s government has implemented a series of strict austerity measures to free up more money for other areas like pensions and wages, boosting the leader’s popularity among citizens, particularly the working-class. Judicial workers, health services and academia have also had their budgets slashed in 2024...

Juan Bezaury-Creel, the director of the organization Fundación BD BioDiversidad Mexicana, said a protected area is better than no protected area because, once a decree is formalized, the government has a duty to protect it. However, this puts “huge pressure on existing personnel because they have to take care of more surface area with less resources,” he told Mongabay.

“The personnel from CONANP are heroic,” he said. “They are putting their lives on the line many times with little budget and little help.”"

-via Mongabay, January 25, 2024

[probablyasocialecologist]

“We are seeing a growing interest in cork as a sustainable material,” says Rui Novais, a materials expert at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. “Compared with materials like polyurethane foam [used for thermal insulation], products made with cork require less energy and produce less CO2 emissions.” The cork oak’s thick bark adapted to defend the tree from fire, making it a powerful insulating material that’s been used to shield fuel tanks on NASA spacecraft and electric car batteries. It’s also resistant to water and oil, and can withstand compression while retaining springiness. “It’s an extraordinary, renewable and biodegradable material,” says Novais. “It’s also very durable. It has been demonstrated that cork products remain virtually unchanged for more than 50 years.” Part of the carbon absorbed by cork oak trees is transferred to cork products, which can be used for long periods, repurposed and recycled. Several studies found that cork is carbon negative, meaning it can store more carbon than what is required to produce it. When cork planks are trimmed and punched to form natural cork stoppers, the leftovers are ground into granules and pressed together to form cork sheets or blocks. “Even cork dust is used to produce energy,” says João Rui Ferreira, secretary general of the Portuguese Cork Association. “It feeds the industry’s boilers and powers some of the production.”

[...]

Most of the cork produced in Portugal grows in the gently undulating hills and plains in the south of the country, in an ancient agroforestry system known as montado. This savannah-like ecosystem combines cork, holm oaks and olive trees with pastures, grazing livestock, crops and fallows. “The soil in southern Portugal is very poor, there is very little rain and temperatures are very high in the summer,” says Teresa Pinto-Correia, a professor at the University of Évora in Portugal specializing in rural landscapes and agricultural systems. “But this kind of system is productive even when resources are scarce and conditions are difficult.” For centuries, locals have preserved the montado because cork provided landowners with a source of income. This mosaic of habitats supports hundreds of species, including the Iberian lynx, the world’s most endangered wildcat, and the threatened Imperial eagle. One of the world’s oldest known cork oak trees, planted in 1783 in Águas de Moura, is known as “the whistler” because so many birds visit its large sprawling branches. Iberian pigs feed on acorns and goats graze the interwoven pastures. Interspersing cork oak trees with animals and crops can boost production and biodiversity, but also build soil, control erosion, retain water, combat desertification and sequester carbon, says Pinto-Correia.

[1americanconservative]

@markeatsmeat

Wow. Joel Salatin, a farmer and regenerative agriculture advocate, has been offered a position within the USDA. He will advise Thomas Massie who’s agreed to be Secretary of Agriculture. Here’s the full message posted to his website today: “The deplorables and garbage people won again.  Can you believe it?  I've been contacted by the Trump transition team to hold some sort of position within the USDA and have accepted one of the six "Advisor to the Secretary" spots.  My favorite congressman, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, has agreed to go in as Secretary of Agriculture. He's been the sponsor of the PRIME ACT, which, if pushed through, would be the biggest shot across the bow of the entrenched industrial meat processing system we've seen in a century.  Let liberty ring.  Wouldn't that be a change of fortune for Big Ag?  If RFK Jr. goes in as Sec. of Health and Human Services, everything will be inverted.  Talk about the coolest turn about.  He'd be the boss of the Faucis and Francis Collins--the whole covid anti-science crowd.  Wouldn't that be a change of fortune for Big Pharma?   And if Elon Musk goes in as a Government Waste Czar, do you think he could possibly find something?    Here's an interesting tidbit.  All the income taxes in the U.S. are $2 trillion a year.  Government spending and borrowing are so out of control that if we eliminated $2 trillion from the budget, it would only set us back to 2020.  Does anyone think returning to government spending in 2020 would destroy things?  Of course not.  So all we have to do is cut federal spending to 2020 levels and we can eliminate income tax.  Period.  Done.  How would that make you feel? Most people don't know enough history to know that the federal government was to be financed entirely from tariffs and excise taxes.  In fact, as a nation we operated just fine for nearly 150 years without an income tax.  The only president who eliminated the national debt was Andrew Jackson, and he did it by eliminating the second bank of the U.S.  Nearly 100 years later we got the third bank, known as the Federal Reserve, plus the income tax.  During that time, tariffs averaged 40-50 percent.  After the income tax, tariffs dropped to an average of about 7 percent, where they remain today.  If we went back to 40 percent, like we had for nearly 150 years, we would bring production home and free our citizens from impoverishing taxes.  Dear folks, this is a watershed moment to take a creative and serious look at the sacred cows in our nation and fry some serious burgers. We don't know history.  We don't know liberty.  We don't know earthworms or aquifers or immune systems.  I'm hoping this election is an opening to discovery.  Perhaps we could even figure out how to put negative occurrences like jails, pollution, and cancer on the nation's balance sheet, as a liability rather than an asset (Gross Domestic Product--more jails?  wonderful, pour more concrete and make more jobs).   Perhaps we'll eliminate federal involvement in education, from kindergarten to college.  Make every teacher accountable to performance.  Eliminate ALL federal intervention in the food system, in farming, in energy.  The Constitution (read it) doesn't allow for any of this and it's time to examine all of it.  Shut down foreign military bases; bring them all home.  Stop ALL foreign aid, from USAID to military aid.  Sell stuff is fine; giving it isn't.  I think whatever taxes we pay should be able to be designated to certain departments.  That way we the people could support or defund departments directly.  The reason we have K street is because all our freedoms are for sale.  Eliminate government manipulation and the lobbyists all go home.  These are simple things.  Let's do it.” https://thelunaticfarmer.com/blog/11/6/2024/celebration?format=amp