I came across an article on intensive commercial horticulture in Organic Matters. It reflects much of what we’ve learned over the past decade of organic production in Ireland (a developed economy, with subsidised industrial farming and a consumer market generally interested in cheapness and uninterested in quality or source). Two main ideas which are relevant …
Continue reading The sad economics of growing vegetables
Category:5 Environment
Swimming in dwindling waters – Ethical Corp
Water resources: Efficiency and conservation – Swimming in dwindling waters As the planet’s once plentiful blue resource gets used up, companies are acting to secure supply and be more efficient users of water by Oliver Balch, Ethical Corp Kazakhstan’s mapmakers have their work cut out. No sooner do they chart the boundaries of the Aral …
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World in crisis …
We may be feeling the financial crisis, but the destruction of our planet is of greater concern. Thanks to Kevin Kallaugher of The Economist for showing us the reality:
Ecological crunch looming
Conservation groups have released a report showing that humanity is overconsuming natural capital and are pushing natural systems well beyond their limits. The report estimates a credit excess of a third (though we believe it to be greater). The consequences will be a failure of natural systems and then a failure of human systems and …
Continue reading Ecological crunch looming
The Day After Tomorrow is today …
The thickness of Arctic sea ice “plummeted” last winter, thinning by as much as one-fifth in some regions, satellite data has revealed. The team from University College London say that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice is decreasing. The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical …
Continue reading The Day After Tomorrow is today …
Climate change destroying nature.
Amphibian populations at Yellowstone, the world’s oldest national park, are in steep decline according to a major study reported in the journal PNAS. The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change. Visitors flock to Yellowstone to see …
Continue reading Climate change destroying nature.
World Food Day 2008
World Food Day 2008 provides an occasion to once again highlight the plight of 923 million undernourished people in the world. Most of them live in rural areas where their main source of income is the agricultural sector. Global warming and the biofuel boom are now threatening to push the number of hungry even higher …
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Alaskan village melting away …
It may be a small village at only 400 people (though still bigger than our local village of Ardattin), but it must hurt to feel your home melting away under your feet at climate volatility erodes your home. The Alaskan village of Newtok is melting away.
Too much hot air …
A cute little statistic The 23 million residents of the US state of Texas emit more carbon dioxide than the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa, which is 720 million people.
Financial meltdown dwarfed by economic destruction of nature.
While the collapse of credit markets around the world is bearing on our minds, and curtailing our consumption today, the destruction of the earth’s biosphere by humanity’s footprint is so massive and immediate that its effects will compound the economic dislocation now and be felt directly within a year. The global economy is losing more …
Continue reading Financial meltdown dwarfed by economic destruction of nature.