Rawesome Shutdown: The War on Food Freedom

by Shiva Rose
Huffington Post
8/9/11

"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson.

It always seemed preposterous to me that we have to continuously fight to maintain our reproductive rights, but now the government has decided they are going to determine what we eat, as well. What if I don't want to consume packaged food riddled with antibiotics? What if I don't want to shop at Whole Foods, where they produce the main staples? What if I refuse to shop at Trader Joes where the source of their food is Monsanto based agro business? What if I want to give my children fresh, unpasteurized milk from a grass-fed cow so they have all the incredible enzymes and vitamins that was the way nature intended? The government is now wanting to dictate how and what I feed my family, which seems as undemocratic as telling me I have no right to choose what happens with my reproductive decisions.

This week, Rawesome, a legal food club in Venice, California, was illegally shut down by a Multi-agency armed unit and over thousands of dollars worth of fresh food and produce destroyed. The SWAT style, helmet wearing, gun carrying enforcement agents came rushing in as if they were seizing heroin or dealing with gangsters.

Instead, in their ridiculous theatrical act, they dumped gallons of pure, unpasteurized milk and took possession of organic coconuts. (Really? Coconuts? Can't our tax dollars be spent on attacking real criminals and destroying drugs?) The owner of Rawesome, James Stewart, was then arrested and charged with a bail of $123, 000. Along with Stewart, Sharon Palmer of Healthy Family Farms was also arrested with a ridiculous bail amount. Palmer's farm is a sustainable; pasture-based farming operation where they raise all the animals from birth. They do not feed their animal's corn or soy or dose them with antibiotics. This is the criminal our tax dollars is putting behind bars.

For the last couple of years I have barely walked into a traditional grocery store. Yes, I visit one for some basic goods and household products, but generally I get my food for the week at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market for fresh organic produce, and then at Rawesome for milk, cheese, butter, oils, meats, eggs, snacks, treats, nuts, juices, nut milks, yogurt, kiefer, ghee and so much more. Since I have been feeding my daughters unpasteurized products, we have not caught one cold or flu bug. All the health issues that used to plague me for years have dissipated.

I not only feel better than ever, but I also feel good about knowing where my food comes from, and from supporting a community of farmers that I respect. Now my comforting nourishing routine has been shattered in a violent, illegal way. The question is, why is our government so fearful of these farmers and products? Are the dairy lobbyists behind these violent actions? Is Whole Foods? In the brilliant documentary Farmageddon, Kristin Canty exposes how the government has been targeting small, local, family owned farms instead of focusing on food safety.

These arrests were on charges of criminal conspiracy stemming from illegal sales of unpasteurized goat milk and cheese. The arrests are a result of a year-long sting. While it's legal to manufacture and sell unpasteurized dairy products in California, licenses are required. So in essence the government has spent our dollars to plan an undercover sting action and arrest these folks because they may have sold some cheese to a non-coop member? Why go through all of this trouble unless someone is truly worried and afraid. Perhaps they know that there is a massive, determined, passionate movement afoot that may someday jeopardize the corrupt and insidious agro businesses.

Just this week, Mother Jones published a piece about how a resistant bacteria has infiltrated the meat sources here in the U.S. Also this week there have been deaths in California from salmonella tainted turkey meat. This is all a result of the over-use of antibiotics in the agro farms: "The U.S. meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year." In Europe, this has been banned and in Sweden it has been banned for 20 years, but here we continue to raise our animals with corn, soy and antibiotics. If enough of us get smart and start consuming grass-fed animals, the agro business will lose profits. Is this what is fueling the shut down of family owned natural farms?

I am truly devastated by the Rawesome shut down. It should be my choice how I feed my family, not the government's. I am furious that I will have to purchase pure, nourishing, enzyme rich food on the sly, somehow as if I was buying contraband drugs. I am disgusted that they believe we are "terrorists" for wanting control of our food source. I want my tax dollars to be spent on finding ways to really protect us from mainstream poison found in the meat and dairy. I refuse to give my children the bleached water they like to call milk that is inhumanely dragged out of corn-fed cattle udders. Perhaps I will have to find my own farm and produce my own food source. Perhaps we all need to take control of our health and fight for food freedom.

More from Shiva Rose at thelocalrose.com.

The Eight Principles of Successful Water Harvesting

1. Begin with long and thoughtful observation.
Use all your senses to see where the water flows and how. What is working, what is not? Build on what works.

2. Start at the top (highpoint) of your watershed and work your way down.
Water travels downhill, so collect water at your high points for more immediate infiltration and easy gravity-fed distribution. Start at the top where there is less volume and velocity of water.

3. Start small and simple.
Work at the human scale so you can build and repair everything. Many small strategies are far more effective than one big one when you are trying to infiltrate water into the soil.

4. Slow, spread, and infiltrate the flow of water.
Rather than having water run erosively off the land’s surface, encourage it to stick around, “walk” around, and infiltrate into the soil. Slow it, spread it, sink it.

5. Always plan an overflow route, and manage that overflow as a resource.
Always have an overflow route for the water in times of extra heavy rains, and where possible, use the overflow as a resource.

6. Maximize living and organic groundcover.
Create a living sponge so the harvested water is used to create more resources, while the soil’s ability to infiltrate and hold water steadily improves.

7. Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by “stacking functions.”
Get your water harvesting strategies to do more than hold water. Berms can double as high-and-dry raised paths. Plantings can be placed to cool buildings in summer. Vegetation can be selected to provide food.

8. Continually reassess your system: the “feedback loop.”
Observe how your work affects the site, beginning again with the first principle. Make any needed changes, using the principles to guide you.

Principles 2, 4, 5, and 6 are based on those developed and promoted by PELUM, the Participatory Ecological Land-Use Management association of east and southern Africa. Principles 1, 3, 7, and 8 are based on my own experiences and insights gained from other water harvesters.

These principles are the core of successful water harvesting. They apply equally to the conceptualization, design, and implementation of all water-harvesting landscapes. You must integrate all principles, not just your favorites, to realize a site’s full potential. Used together, these principles greatly enhance success, dramatically reduce mistakes, and enable you to adapt and integrate a range of strategies to meet site needs. While the principles remain constant, the strategies you use to achieve them will vary with each unique site.

For a thorough introductory description of water-harvesting principles and additional ethics see Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1 (Rainsource Press, 2006).

Source: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky on Why America Can't Tackle Climate Change (Video)

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York
treehugger.com
02.10.11

Image: cloud2013, Flickr, CC

Noam Chomsky has a big ol' brain, and over the years, he's devoted it to revolutionizing linguistics, pushing the boundaries of analytic philosophy, formulating trenchant political theory, and pissing off establishment figures. Whether or not you agree with his politics, there's no denying that he's a sharp fella. Which is why it's well worth watching his take on why the United States has thus far failed to tackle climate change:

Yes, I know YouTube lists the running time as 20+ minutes, but to get the climate-related part, you only need to listen to the first few. Much of this has been said before -- that vested interests have been successful in confusing the American public by bombarding them with misinformation from various sources, that the media's failure in covering the climate story is twofold, and that the interests that combat climate action have institutional prerogatives to do so -- but Chomsky pulls it together so well, it could serve as a crash course on the roots of climate denial.

There's a bunch of interesting commentary on labor, health care, and the outsourcing of jobs -- even green ones -- that fills the second chapter of the vid, so if you have some time, it's worth a peek as well.

More on America and Climate Change
33 US Generals & Admirals Say " Climate Change is Threatening National Security"
How Climate Change Could Destroy America

How many trees are needed to make a given amount of paper?

According to the USDA, each year 20,000,000 (million) trees taking up 5,000,000 acres of "natural" forest is cut down to produce 27,000 tons of paper for the publishing industry. Also consider the loss in nature's ability to cleanse the air we breathe as well as its contribution to global climate.

Here are some of the hard facts; some alternative solutions to a thorny problem; and some simple, inexpensive and inspiring ways each of us can help. We’ll start with

THE BAD NEWS

• The most diverse forests in North America, which are in the Southern United States, contain the largest paper producing region in the world.
• 20 million trees, or 5 million acres of natural forest, are cut down to make 27,000 tons of wood pulp used for the production of paper.
• Of the global wood harvest, 42% goes to paper production.
• The global production of pulp, paper and publishing is expected to increase 77% by the year 2020.
• The United States is claimed to have 6 times the per capita consumption of paper over the world average.
• The paper industry is the third highest emitter of industrial greenhouse gases to the air in the world, and the fifth highest emitter of industrial toxic waste to water.
• The planet is exposed to 250,000 metric tons of toxic pollutants from paper manufacturers each year.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

1. Tree Farms

• Replacing natural forest with tree farms creates a relatively reliable source of wood pulp, but reduces by 90% the number of species contained in a natural forest.
• The conversion of forests to tree farms leads to a radical loss of freshwater, air quality, soil cohesion and animal, insect, bird and plant species.
• Rural communities in and around these tree farms and their paper mills tend to be degraded economically and socially.
• South American “paper forests,” as they are called, are expected to grow 70% by the year 2012.

2. Recycled Paper

Paul Hawken, co-founder of the Green Press Initiative has said that if all books were printed on recycled paper, the act of publishing and reading would begin to heal our forests and promote sustainable economic activity.

• Currently, recycled paper represents less than 8% of the entire printing and writing market, because publishers claim it is not cost effective. However, market pricing analysis shows that switching from virgin fibers to 100% post-consumer recycled paper would equal an increase of about 20 cents per book. Many readers polled claimed a willingness to spend an extra dollar for books printed on recycled paper.
• It takes an estimated one ton of recycled stock to make one ton of paper, while it takes an estimated two to three and half tons of virgin trees to make that same ton of paper.
• One ton of recycled paper can save the equivalent of 24 trees of 40 foot height, 6 to 8 inch diameter.
• One ton of recycled paper can save the equivalent of 7000 gallons of water; 60 pounds of air pollution; and 4100 killowatt hours of electricity.

3. Alternative, annual crops used for papermaking

Kenaf, which grows well in the Southeastern US, has a 3 to 5 times greater yield than the Southern pines which grow in the same region. Related to the hibiscus, it is originally an African plant which can grow up to 14 feet tall in under five months.

• Industrial hemp, related to, but not the same plant as, marijuana grows up to 16 feet tall in 4 months, producing an estimated 10 tons an acre. It is not (yet) legal in the US.
• Straw, the agricultural residue of a multitude of plants, goes underutilized every year in the US by an estimated 150 tons.
• Visit http://www.lucidskies.com/paper.html for more information.
  

How Can I Help?

SIMPLE WAYS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

First of all, live your life as if everything was interconnected, everything was alive and everything was a miracle.

• Spend time in the woods.
• Support tree planting groups, like TreePeople; Trees for the Future; and American Forests
• Support paper recycling efforts: Green Press Initiative; Environmental Paper Network (a consortium of environmental groups)
• Learn about alternative fibers
• Make conscious lifestyle changes
• Plant a tree, either by donating to one of the tree-planting organizations, or in your own town.
  

About Carolyn North

Photo by Susan Wilson

Carolyn North is a writer, healer and social activist whose latest book, ECSTATIC RELATIONS, A Memoir of Love has prompted this action to collaborate with TreePeople to protect the forests that are sacrificed daily for the printing of her books, and all the books we all read.

Long an advocate of healthy forests, she has worked at the Manitou Forest Sanctuary in southern Vermont, and also built the first permitted load-bearing, rice strawbale house in this country, in Northern California.

To learn more about her work – including her 8 published books – visit her website at: http://www.healingimprovisations.net

About Tree People

TreePeople has planted over 2 million trees in the Los Angeles area since 1973 in its work to help nature heal our cities. Having one of the nation's largest environmental education programs, TreePeople offers sustainable solutions to urban ecosytem problems including water, air quality, energy conservation and flood prevention. Originally started by teenagers, it is one of the most innovative, comprehensive and people-friendly environmental groups in the United States.

Publishers, authors and readers are invited to join Carolyn North and TreePeople to mitigate the impact on the environment in the following ways:

A donation of $25 will plant a tree and provide a 1-year membership to TreePeople. $100 will plant a grove of 5 trees

DONATE ONLINE at http://treepeople.org/

Source: http://www.ecstaticrelations.com/booksintotrees/

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There is no simple answer to these questions, and all calculations can be no better than "ballpark estimates."

Many people have heard the statistic that "a ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees." The "17 trees" number was popularized by Conservatree when it was a paper distributor, based on a report to Congress in the 1970s. It was calculated for newsprint, which is made in a totally different papermaking process from office and printing papers. But it was the best number anyone had, so it became the number everyone used to calculate number of trees saved by recycled paper, or number of trees cut to make virgin paper, no matter what type of paper they were talking about.

Paper is made from a mix of types of trees. Some are hardwood, some are softwood. In addition, some are tall, some old, some wide, some young, some thin. Many of the "trees" used to make paper are just chips and sawdust.

So how can one talk about a "typical tree"? And do numbers calculated 30 years ago still apply to today's much more efficient paper industry?

We decided it was time to update these numbers, so Conservatree has tracked down some ways to make ballpark estimates more reliable than in the past.

CONSIDERATIONS IN CALCULATING TREES TO PAPER

What kind of paper are you talking about?

Paper made in a "mechanical" or "groundwood" process (e.g. newsprint, telephone directories, base sheet for low-cost coated magazine and catalog papers)

uses trees about twice as efficiently as

paper made in the "kraft" or "freesheet" process (e.g. office and printing papers, letterhead, business cards, copy paper, base sheet for higher-quality coated magazine and catalog papers, advertising papers, offset papers).

Is the paper "coated" or "uncoated"?

The fiber in a coated paper (most often used for magazines and catalogs, with a clay coating that may be glossy or matte, or other finishes) may be only a little more than 50% of the entire sheet, because the clay coating makes up so much of the weight of the paper.

As a ballpark estimate, you can use .64 as the fiber estimate for coated papers compared to the entire weight of the sheet. (Fiber estimate calculation by Alliance for Environmental Innovation)

So how many trees would make a ton of paper?

Claudia Thompson, in her book Recycled Papers: The Essential Guide (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), reports on an estimate calculated by Tom Soder, then a graduate student in the Pulp and Paper Technology Program at the University of Maine. He calculated that, based on a mixture of softwoods and hardwoods 40 feet tall and 6-8 inches in diameter, it would take a rough average of 24 trees to produce a ton of printing and writing paper, using the kraft chemical (freesheet) pulping process.

If we assume that the groundwood process is about twice as efficient in using trees, then we can estimate that it takes about 12 trees to make a ton of groundwood and newsprint. (The number will vary somewhat because there often is more fiber in newsprint than in office paper, and there are several different ways of making this type of paper.)

SOME TYPICAL CALCULATIONS

1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees

1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees

A "pallet" of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#) contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore,

1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses .6 trees

1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets

1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly!)

1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36)

1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogs) uses nearly 8 trees (7.68)

How do you calculate how many trees are saved by using recycled paper?

(1) Multiply the number of trees needed to make a ton of the kind of paper you're talking about (groundwood or freesheet), then

(2) multiply by the percent recycled content in the paper.

For example,

1 ton (40 cartons) of 30% postconsumer content copier paper saves 7.2 trees

1 ton of 50% postconsumer content copier paper saves 12 trees.

Source: http://www.conservatree.org/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml

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Number of trees for BOOKS:

U.S.: 30 million per year

Number of tress for NEWSPAPERS (and magazines):

U.S.: 90 million per year

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Number of trees per magazine:

"A standard sized tree, if there is such a thing (10-15m tall, 1-1.5 m circumference) can make enough pulp for 8000-13000 sheets of paper.

If your magazine has say, 100 sheets, that's 80-130 magazines per tree. Your magazine might take .0075-.0125 trees."

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Number of trees to produce PHONEBOOKS:

Did you know that up to 5 million trees are cut down each year to create the white pages phone book and that only 22% of recipients recycle when disposing of them which equates to 165,000 tons of waste in landfills? In addition, almost 75% of consumers are completely unaware of the environmental and financial impact in printing, delivering and recycling these books. Given that you likely use online directories, social networks and mobile phone applications to find the contact information you need, it simply does not make sense to have the white pages phone books forcefully delivered to us every year.

Source: http://www.banthephonebook.org/

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Green Press Initiative? Green Press Initiative (GPI) is a non-profit program which takes a collaborative approach towards working with publishers, printers, paper manufacturers and others in the book and newspaper industries to minimize social and environmental impacts, including impacts on endangered forests, impacts on climate change, and impacts on communities where paper fiber is sourced. When was GPI founded? GPI was founded in 2001. Initially the focus was entirely on the book industry, however, the program was expanded to include the newspaper industry in 2007. What are the impacts of the paper industry and books/newspapers? The entire paper industry, when accounting for forest carbon loss, emits nearly 750 million tons of C02 equivalent annually – nearly 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of over 136 million cars. The U.S. book and newspaper industries combined require the harvest of 125 million trees each year and emit over 40 million metric tons of CO2 annually; equivalent to the annual CO2 emmissions of 7.3 million cars. Impacts on Endangered Forests: Each year the U.S book industry uses approximately 30 million trees, and the U.S. newspaper industry consumes 95 million trees. Many of these trees are from old growth and endangered forests, and the demand for paper is encouraging the practice of converting natural forests into single species tree plantations that support only a fraction of the biodiversity. Impacts on Climate Change The paper industry is the fourth largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and books and newspapers release greenhouse gases thought their lifecycles. Globally, scientist estimate that deforestation is responsible for 25% of human caused greenhouse gases. When trees are cut to make paper, not only do they cease to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, but greenhouse gases are released to the atmosphere when plant material not used makes paper decays or is burned as a source of power at the mill. As a result of these emissions and those associated with soil disturbances at the site of harvest, even trees are replanted, it can take up to 25 years for a newly planted forest to stop being a net emitter of greenhouse gases, and hundreds of years before they store the same amount of carbon as an undisturbed forest. GPI worked to complete the first ever Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report for the U.S. book industry. It was the first comprehensive carbon footprint analysis of a publishing sector and is being used as a model in other paper sectors. This assessment found that the entire book industry, through all steps of production, retail, and publishing activities, emits a net 8.85 pounds per book. Impacts on Communities In Canada, Indonesia, Brazil and many other countries throughout the world, people who rely on forests for their livelihood have been severely impacted by the paper industry. From the destruction of forests needed to survive to some being forced from their land, the paper industry has disrupted the way of life for these communities. What is the Book Industry Treatise on Environmentally Responsible Publishing? The Book Industry Treatise on Environmentally Responsible Publishing is an industry-developed declaration of meaningful environmental goals and timelines for industry transformation. It spurred the adoption of environmental paper policies with nearly 200 publishers and printers, following the guidelines in the Treatise What are the benefits of recycled paper? Each ton of recycled fiber that replaces a ton of virgin fiber saves 17-24 mature trees and up to 7.5 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions. Also, recycling keeps paper out of landfills, which at current levels makes up 26% of landfills. The degradation produces methane a greenhouse gas with 23 times the heat trapping capacity of carbon dioxide and landfills are the source of 34% of methane releases—the single largest source in the U.S. What are the benefits of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified papers? Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper ensures that the fiber to make paper does not originate from Endangered Forests or areas of social conflict. They work to keep natural and biodiverse forests from being converted to single-species tree farms after harvest and integrate the concerns of indigenous and local communities into forest plans and assessments. What progress has been achieved in recent years? GPI’s consistent education and advocacy work have also spurred the development of environmental paper policies from over 180 book publishers – approximately 42% of market-share in the U.S. book sector. This has resulted in a six fold increase in recycled fiber use-- representative of a reduction of over approximately 1.4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions (equivalent to over 250,000 cars/yr) and nearly 3 million trees per year We’ve helped to advance the development of nearly 30 new eco-paper grades, including recycled, postconsumer recycled and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) fiber content and supported a cut in price premiums by 50%, and there are now 31 U.S. and Canadian printers serving U.S. publishers are now stocking environmental grades in-house. Source: http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/about/faq.htm

Mass tree deaths prompt fears of Amazon 'climate tipping point'

Scientists fear billions of tree deaths caused by 2010 drought could see vast forest turn from carbon sink to carbon source

Aerial view of a drought-affected area within the Amazon basin in Manaus, Brazil. Photograph: Rodrigo Baleia/LatinContent/Getty Images

Billions of trees died in the record drought that struck the Amazon in 2010, raising fears that the vast forest is on the verge of a tipping point, where it will stop absorbing greenhouse gas emissions and instead increase them.

The dense forests of the Amazon soak up more than one-quarter of the world's atmospheric carbon, making it a critically important buffer against global warming. But if the Amazon switches from a carbon sink to a carbon source that prompts further droughts and mass tree deaths, such a feedback loop could cause runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences.

"Put starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world's largest forest," said tropical forest expert Simon Lewis, at the University of Leeds, and who led the research published today in the journal Science. Lewis was careful to note that significant scientific uncertainties remain and that the 2010 and 2005 drought – thought then to be of once-a-century severity – might yet be explained by natural climate variation.

"We can't just wait and see because there is no going back," he said. "We won't know we have passed the point where the Amazon turns from a sink to a source until afterwards, when it will be too late."

Alex Bowen, from the London School of Economics and Political Science's Grantham research institute on climate change, said huge emissions of carbon from the Amazon would make it even harder to keep global greenhouse gases at a low enough level to avoid dangerous climate change. "It therefore makes it even more important for there to be strong and urgent reductions in man-made emissions."

The revelation of mass tree deaths in the Amazon is a major blow to efforts to reduce the destruction of the world's forests by loggers, one of the biggest sources of global carbon emissions. The use of satellite imagery by Brazilian law enforcement teams has drastically cut deforestation rates and replanting in Asia had slowed the net loss. Financial deals to protect forests were one of the few areas on which some progress was made at the 2010 UN climate talks in Cancún.

The 2010 Amazonian drought led to the declaration of states-of-emergencies and the lowest ever level of the major tributary, the Rio Negro. Lewis, with colleagues in Brazil, examined satellite-derived rainfall measurements and found that the 2010 drought was even worse than the very severe 2005 drought, affecting a 60% wider area and with an even harsher dry season.

On the ground, the researchers have 126 one-hectare plots spread across the Amazon, in which every single tree is tagged and monitored. After 2005, they counted how many trees had died and worked out how much carbon would be pumped into the atmosphere as the wood rotted. In addition, the reduced growth of the water-stressed trees means the forest failed to absorb the 1.5bn tonnes of carbon that it would in a normal year.

Applying the same principles to the 2010 drought, they estimated that 8 billion tonnes of CO₂ will be released - more than the entire 7.7bn tonnes emitted in 2009 by China, the biggest polluting nation in the world. This estimate does not include forest fires, which release carbon and increase in dry years.

"The Amazon is such a big area that even a small shift [in conditions] there can have a global impact," said Lewis.

Lewis said that two such severe droughts in the Amazon within five years was highly unusual, but that a natural variation in climate over decade-long periods cannot yet be ruled out. The driving factor of the annual weather patterns is the warmth of the sea in the Atlantic. He said increasing droughts in the Amazon are found in some climate models, including the sophisticated model used by the Hadley centre. This means the 2005 and 2010 droughts are consistent with the idea that global warming will cause more droughts in future, emit more carbon, and potentially lead to runaway climate change. "The greenhouse gases we have already emitted may mean there are several more droughts in the pipeline," he said.

Lewis said that the 2010 drought killed "in the low billions of trees", in addition to the roughly 4 billion trees that die on average in a normal year across the Amazon. The researchers are now trying to raise £500,000 in emergency funding to revisit the plots in the Amazon and gather further data.

Brazilian scientist Paulo Brando, from the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), and co-leader of the research said: "We will not know exactly how many trees were killed until we can complete forest measurements on the ground. It could be that many of the drought-susceptible trees were killed off in 2005. Or the first drought may have weakened a large number of trees so increasing the number dying in 2010."

Brando added: "Our results should be seen as an initial estimate. The emissions estimates do not include those from forest fires, which spread over extensive areas of the Amazon during hot and dry years and release large amounts of carbon."

Note: The original version of this article incorrectly reported the amount of carbon Lewis's team estimated would be released in 2010 as 8.5 billion tonnes of CO₂: the actual figure is 8bn.

Climate tipping points

Scientists know from the geological record that the Earth's climate can change rapidly. They have identified a number of potential tipping points where relatively small amounts of global warming caused by human activities could cause large changes in climate. Some tipping points, like the losses to the Amazon forests, involve positive feedback loops and could lead to runaway climate change.

Arctic ice cap: The white ice cap is good at reflecting the Sun's warming light back into space. But when it melts, the dark ocean uncovered absorbs this heat. This leads to more melting, and so on.

Tundra: The high north is warming particularly fast, melting the permafrost that has locked up vast amounts of carbon in soils for thousands of years. Bacteria digesting the unfrozen soils generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leading to more warming.

Gas hydrates: Also involving methane, this tipping point involves huge reservoirs of methane frozen on or just below the ocean floor. The methane-water crystals are close to their melting point and highly unstable. A huge release could be triggered by a little warming.

West Antarctic ice sheet: Some scientists think this enormous ice sheet, much of which is below sea level, is vulnerable to small amounts of warming. If it all eventually melted, sea level would rise by six metres.


• Amazon 'could shrink by 85% due to climate change'
• Rate of tree deaths in western US 'rising due to climate change'

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This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 19.00 GMT on Thursday 3 February 2011. A version appeared on p26 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Friday 4 February 2011. It was last modified at 18.33 GMT on Tuesday 8 February 2011.

No Yard? Here's How You Can Still Make and Use Compost No yard? No problem.

By Colleen Vanderlinden
Wed Jan 19, 2011 09:30

Reducing food waste is simple for those of us with a yard -- just toss any fruit and veggie scraps out on the compost pile, and repeat until, soon, there is enough rich, crumbly compost to toss onto our garden beds.

But what if you're an apartment dweller, with no yard, no balcony, no outdoor space to speak of to call your own?

Composting is still a great option for you apartment-dwellers out there. It will take a bit of creativity, but it's entirely possible that you can reduce your total food waste to nearly zero, depending on how many of these options you're willing to use and the size of your household.

Small Space Composting Option #1: Worm Bin

People are sometimes hesitant to get into vermicomposting because they worry about either A) the worms escaping and slithering all over their kitchen floor, or B) odors. Neither one are all that common, actually, and are unlikely to happen if you spend some time maintaining your worm bin. Worms will only try to escape if they're starving, too dry, drowning, or (rarely) if something nearby (such as a refrigerator or dishwasher) causes frequent vibrations, which can irritate them. If you keep them fed, and moist, you're unlikely to have any problems.

And worm bins don't have to be great big boxy affairs, either. You can vermicompost, right under your kitchen sink, in a five gallon bucket from the home center. Make sure you get one with a lid, and follow these tips for making a bucket worm bin.

Wondering what to add to your worm bin? Just about any non-meat, non-dairy, not-greasy food you have on hand. Fruit and vegetable peels, leftover cooked veggies, rice, or plain pasta, coffee grounds, tea bags -- all of it can go into your worm bin. While there are some foods worms aren't fond of, in general, they're not too picky.

You can order worms online. How many you'll need depends on how much food waste you have. One pound of worms can handle 1/2 pound of food scraps per day.

Small Space Composting Option #2: Bokashi

There are many items you really shouldn't put in a worm bin: meat, dairy, cooked foods with sauces and dressings -- but you can use Bokashi to compost these items. Bokashi is a popular composting method in Asia, and is seeing more popularity now in the U.S. and Canada. It is, essentially, a fermentation method. You add your food to a bucket (which fits perfectly under a sink or in a corner) cover it with Bokashi bran (a mix of grains and microbes that will cause the fermentation process) and repeat. Once your bucket is full, you set it aside for a few weeks, upon which it is fully fermented and no longer harbors any harmful pathogens. If you have a yard, you can simply add the fermented bucket contents to a compost pile, or bury it right in the garden. If you don't have a yard, see option #3, below.

Small Space Composting Option #3: Bokashi Plus a Worm Bin

If you're doing all of your composting indoors, there's good news: red wigglers (and other worms, but red wigglers are the most common vermicomposting worm) LOVE the fermented contents of Bokashi buckets. Once your Bokashi bucket is done sitting and fermenting, give your worms a bit of the mixture every day, and they will break it down in no time.

Using Finished Vermicompost

OK, so you've done all of this indoor vermicomposting, and now, you have rich, dark vermicompost and vermicastings. What do you do with it?

* Add a bit to the surface of your houseplants' potting soil. It is a very safe, natural fertilizer.
* Add vermicastings to potting soil or seed starting mixes.
* Add them to your community garden plot, if you have one.
* Donate them to a community garden, school garden, or garden club.
* Do some guerilla soil improvement -- add your vermicompost to public plantings to help them grow stronger.
* Offer them up on Craigslist. Chances are good that you won't have them for long.
* Sell them. Lots of people sell vermicompost on sites like eBay and Etsy.

If you're determined to reduce the amount of waste you produce, and turn food waste into something really useful, these ideas are definitely worth considering. Happy composting!

The EDV-1 From Daiwa: The Ultimate Post-Apocalyptic Expanding Container House

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.19.11

Design & Architecture (prefab)

Images Credit Daiwa

Cameron Sinclair is so going to want 10,000 of these amazing robotic shipping container sized instant houses. EDV stands for Emergency Disaster Vehicles, but it is really a pushbutton house that leaves Adam Kalkin in its wake. It is actually rather clever; the lower level has all the complicated plumbing and hardware, while the upper level slides up to provide open space.

In just four minutes, the stabilizer feet pop out and the top pops up, providing comfortable space above and a kitchen, bathroom, office below. Also includes 2 Kilowatts of photovoltaics on the roof, hydrogen fuel cells, water vapour condenser for water, and what appears to be a composting toilet.

Daiwa has some experience in the field; they built 14,772 units after an earthquake in 1995. Those units have since been shipped around the world.

Really, I don't understand Kate Stohr of Architecture for Humanity. She tells Wired that For emergency shelter in the first few days after a disaster, the tent is a proven solution." Clearly she has never seen this movie, particularly the first two minutes, sort of Roland Emmerich meets Cameron Sinclair, who orders his fleet of helicopters into action, screaming "faster, faster, they need us!" They put the pedal to the metal and faster than the speed of sound, housing is delivered to those in need. Amazing. Daiwa, via CrunchGear

More emergency housing:
Red+Housing Emergency Housing by OBRA Architects
Gimme Shelter: Designing for Disaster
Are Shipping Containers An Answer For Haiti Housing?

Shocking Mass Animal Deaths Around The World

Just a few weeks into 2011, and it's already a tough year for the animal kingdom: Mass deaths of blackbirds, spot fish, sardines, croakers, doves, and other creatures are going mostly unexplained in regions all over the world (as this helpful Google Map points out).

But these population injuries aren't entirely uncommon: From beached whales and dead penguins to massive fish kills and threatened manatees, 2010 had its share of bad news, too.

Often these events are blamed on temperature change, human activity, or natural causes, but in many of the cases we've included here, we may never know exactly what caused massive destruction on these fragile populations.

Image: Google Maps

Image: Inquistr

Birds Dying Around the World

Bird deaths have been getting most of the attention lately, as reports of thousands of birds dropping out of these sky have come in from the United States, Sweden, New Zealand, and other countries worldwide.

On New Year's Eve, 2,000 blackbirds died in Arkansas; similar deaths in Louisiana and Kentucky followed.

Sweden reported 50 dead birds a few days later, and 100 more dead blackbirds were found in New Zealand. Current thinking is that the birds were victims of physical trauma -- which could mean anything from a lightening strike or hail to fireworks that frightened the birds into colliding with each other.

Photo: hart_curt/Creative Commons

Whales in New Zealand

New Zealand is dangerous territory for the pilot whales that pass by the island during breeding season each year.

Last winter, 168 of the massive mammals were found stranded on beaches and couldn't be rescued (though conservation workers were able to save 76 other beached whales in the region).

In 2003, 160 whales died in the same region -- though biologists are still unable to say exactly why the area is so treacherous.

Photo: China Daily

Penguins in Brazil

It's not unusual for residents of Sao Paulo, Brazil, to find a few dead penguins on their beaches in the summer: It's migrating season for the Magellans, and there are always a few that don't survive the trip.

But last summer, officials found "an absurdly high number" of the birds dead on their beaches: nearly 500 (the usual annual count is around 10).

While many of the birds were found with empty stomachs, indicating starvation as a cause of death, the cause of the starvation remains a mystery.

Photo: elisfanclub/Creative Commons

Fish Near the Gulf of Mexico

The long-term effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are still coming to light, but two massive fish kills shortly after the spill in nearby regions put environmentalists on guard.

TreeHugger's Brian Merchant captured these images of dead catfish littering the beaches of Dauphin Island, Alabama, in May 2010; though he says that the fish wash up on those beaches for other reasons -- like disease, and fishing -- the numbers this year were higher than usual.

And in September, countless sea creatures of varying kinds -- including pogies, redfish, shrimp, eel, crabs, and more -- were found clogging a section of the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

Though initial reports pointed to the oil spill as the culprit, later research showed that the fish were the victims of a deadly combination of low tides and unseasonably warm waters.

Photo: Brian Merchant

Fish in Maryland and Massachusetts

Fish in the Atlantic can be just as susceptible to the warming waters as their fellow swimmers in the south, though -- as illustrated by two major fish kills in the northern U.S. that occurred within four months of each other.

In August, residents of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, called attention to thousands of Menhaden fish that were washing up on beaches; local marine fisheries explained that the Menhadens are especially "sensitive to environmental changes," and gave the cause of death as "lack of oxygen due to warmer waters."

Then, in early January, 2 million adult spot fish died in the Chesapeake Bay, where record lows of 36 degrees in December caused "cold-water stress" that the fish couldn't overcome. (The region had seen similar die-offs before: 15 million fish in 1976 and another in 1980.)

Photo: Baltimore Sun

Devil Crabs in England

Within the first week of 2011, officials in Kent, England, reported that devil crabs were washing up on the coastline in massive numbers.

While the crabs were the major invaders -- The Mirror estimated that 40,000 dead Devil Crabs made up the bulk of the influx -- they weren't alone.

Other sea life, including starfish, lobsters, anemones, and sponges, were spotted on the beaches, too. Here, though, experts blamed temperature change for the mass death, pinning it to "hypothermia after the UK's coldest December in 120 years."

Screenshot: BBC

Sardines in Brazil

On December 30, the fishing industry in Parana, Brazil, ground to a halt as more than 100 tons of dead sardine, croaker, and catfish began landing on its beaches.

Initial reports pointed to an "environmental imbalance" or to a chemical spill that could have affected the fish population -- and Planet Green points out that a naturally-occurring ocean event, like a toxic algae bloom, or the results of human activities (especially bottom trawling) could have the same end result.

Photo: rockyeda/Creative Commons

Manatees in Florida

Fish aren't the only creatures threatened by a change in water temperature: For a group of manatees in the Gulf of Mexico, unusually cold weather is a dangerous thing.

Last year, more than 100 manatees washed up on the shores of South Florida in the first three weeks of January alone -- officials blamed that death toll on chilly waters.

This year, the BBC reports that 300 manatees have fled the cool currents for the warmth of discharge canals at Big Bend Power Station in Tampa, Florida.

Photo: USFWS/Southeast/Creative Commons

Doves in Italy

Residents of Faenza, Italy, have been faced with the deaths of far more than two turtle doves: 1,000 of the birds have been found dead in the village in the last few days.

The birds were all found with blue stains on their beaks; scientists' current theory is that the birds stuffed themselves with sunflower seeds from an industrial site and "suffered from indigestion that led to their death." The blue stains, they say, are a result of a lack of oxygen that's a warning sign for altitude sickness.

More Weird Animal Phenomenons
Weird Ways Global Warming is Changing Animal Populations
Strange Animals that Glow in the Dark
Mass Animal Deaths Around the World

Photo: Mostly Dans/Creative Commons

Source:
TreeHugger.com
By Blythe Copeland, Great Neck, New York
on January 11, 2011
http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2011/01/shocking-mass-animal-deaths-around-the-world.php?page=1