A firefighter pauses at the $2013 Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park, August-September 2013 (Calfire photo on facebook). President Obama released the federal budget for 2015 last week. Overall, it involves the lowest deficit ($514 billion) of his five-year tenure in office and restores some funding cut in last year’s sequester. Parts of the new
If you must postpone a holiday feast, keep it fresh and safe! (Gavin St. Ours, Flickr creative commons). Whatever your menu, you always need to watch out when guests are late or don’t arrive how you preserve the freshness and safety of your special feast. Let’s assume you’re serving a standard holiday meal: turkey, gravy,
Everyone’s thinking about the U.S. government shutdown. American media have chosen to dramatize a health official’s suggestion that children with cancer will not be able to receive advanced clinical treatments because funds are unavailable. But the kids with cancer are only a sideshow. The most frightening health effects concern the entire nation, and by extension,
A shocking number of bird species are becoming endangered and/or going extinct all over the world. Next to amphibians, our feathered friends — often viewed as agricultural “pests” — are perhaps suffering most from an existential triple threat: climate change impacts, land use changes, and habitat destruction (all inter-related impacts), though some, such as red-winged
We got tens of thousands of views last year on a few posts about mass bird deaths (mostly in Arkansas) and what possibly caused the deaths of these birds. There were many possible explanations. I read countless articles on the matter, and many more comments. While many ideas were put forward, none were definitive.
Cartoonist’s note: This is not how the conversation went–but a guy can dream.
Read Tom Philpott’s article on Grist, for more information on Monsanto’s latest victory: USDA moves to let Monsanto perform its own environmental impact studies on GMOs
The Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice have teamed up to file a lawsuit against the USDA for their approval of GM alfalfa.
From the last day or so, other than what we’ve covered, here are some top global warming and environmental politics stories: Monsanto and the USDA, Sittin’ in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G OK, maybe not the best way to start this, but it is almost Valentine’s Day & that did get your attention. The USDA recently approved
(From our sister site, Red Green and Blue) The US Department of Agriculture continues its unprecedented give-away to big agriculture monster Monsanto and its Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds. On Friday, while the media was preoccupied with the Superbowl and Egypt’s rioting, the USDA quietly announced it was deregulating Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets – despite a court
US Ag Secretary, Tom Vilsack tells us to eat more natural foods a few days after fully deregulating GMO alfalfa…I’m confused. Confused as well? Read the links below and try to figure out this mess. From The New York Times: Government’s Dietary Advice: Eat Less From Elephant Journal: The USDA caves to Monsanto. What now?
The UN’s Millennium Development Goal of ending global under-nourishment by 2015 will not be met, but a new set of “mega” initiatives are being implemented to achieve more efficient delivery of “research outputs” to speed agricultural development.
Much has been said in opposition to the cap and trade climate legislation that is currently on the Senate’s plate. Opponents have argued repeatedly that the legislation will do nothing but increase the cost of energy, which will force companies send jobs over seas, where labor is cheaper, in order to keep up with production demands. Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) even went as far as to call the Waxman-Markey Bill “a pig in a poke.”
Over a hundred conservation, wildlife, and animal welfare groups have sent a letter to incoming Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to rethink the often cruel practice of “lethal control” of wildlife by the USDA. The coalition contends that animals are killed through such means as shooting from airplanes and helicopters, poisoning, gassing dens,
The USDA has confiscated Ned, a severely underweight male elephant from circus trainer Lance Ramos, aka Lancelot Kollman. Only the second elephant to have been confiscated by the USDA, Ned was taken from Ramos for failure to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and was placed with The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.
