Plus how to make it easier by optimizing your plot so you come out on top this season.
Not getting a whole lot of fruits and vegetables out of your garden? We get it: Optimizing your harvest can prove to be difficult from one year to the next, between weather conditions, garden space, and the ever-mysterious world of underground pests. Click through to see the most common problems of struggling gardeners plus helpful solutions so you can have your best harvest yet!
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A promising offshore wind energy project has languished on the East Coast for 15 years—and its enemies range from a Koch brother to the Kennedys.
In 2001, Jim Gordon, a Boston-based energy entrepreneur who played a critical role in the development of natural gas–fired power plants in the 1990s, was searching for a way to produce energy on the East Coast. Gordon recognized that dependence on Middle East oil was unsustainable, scientists and environmental activists were just starting to sound the alarm about climate change, and states were beginning to outline standards for renewable energy projects.
New England, densely populated and far from energy production, is one of the most expensive electricity markets in the country. Although the region lacks space on land for renewable energy production, it has one easily accessible, top-notch natural resource: a windy and relatively shallow ocean.
Gordon knew the Netherlands was generating renewable energy from wind turbines miles offshore, and “the New England coastline had similar geography and population density to Northern Europe, so offshore wind made sense,” he says. He began working on what would become the Cape Wind Energy Project in Nantucket Sound, off the Massachusetts shore.
Fifteen years later, bureaucratic obstacles, high costs, and wealthy Cape Cod residents hostile to a major renewable energy project near their homes plague the endeavor. Gordon is optimistic about the project, but some experts and analysts think Cape Wind may never break ground. Still, it has dramatically changed the landscape for offshore wind power in the United States. The story of the pioneering project underscores the difficulty of cultivating ambitious renewable energy sources and helps explain why more than 25 years after the first offshore wind farm was commissioned in Vindeby, Denmark, when offshore wind can meet 10 percent of Europe’s electricity demand, the United States is struggling to create a market for the resource.
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We already know that backyard gardens are great fun, that they can provide the freshest produce, and that gardening as a child has lasting effects—but what about their impact on the environment?
A researcher from the University of California, Santa Barbara, David Cleveland, set out to find exactly what sorts of environmental effects gardening can have. And his findings, published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, are bold: For every kilogram of vegetables you grow yourself, you’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2 kilograms, compared to buying from the store.
Of course, the findings get more complicated. The density of vegetables planted matters, because the greenhouse gas emissions were calculated by square meter. The use of grey water—not-dirty-but-not-clean-either water, like reused water from the shower or sink—can also have a big effect on the environmental output, too.
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MARILLO, Texas -- Four children died from gas poisoning believed to have been caused by a pesticide sprayed under their Amarillo home, officials say.
Amarillo Fire Department officials say other people who were in the home are “not out of the woods” yet.
Fire officials say a chemical reaction occurred when one person tried to wash off a pesticide that had been sprayed under the house. Poisonous Phosphine gas was released.
Capt. Larry Davis said in a statement Monday that crews responded to a medical call at the home about 5 a.m. One child died at the scene and three others died at a hospital. Officials didn’t release any identifying information, including the children’s ages.
Other family members and first responders are being treated.
Toxic Phosphine gas is produced when aluminum phosphide is mixed with water or moisture, CBS Amarillo affiliate KFDA reports. Aluminum phosphide is a dangerous “restricted-use pesticide,” and it’s used to kill mice, prairie dogs and gophers. A license is needed to buy it.
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Food security is on the United Nation’s agenda for decades. With the ever more risks, it is normal to want to know more about how to grow food. In this context, teaching kids how to grow food will do plenty of good things about stopping food waste and nurturing for a healthier future. A few people from Italy have come up with an interesting and clever method to achieve that. Their design of an innovative nursery school has granted them the AWR International Ideas Competition award. The “Nursery Fields Forever” reimagines how nursery schools would look like if the central concept of them were to be farming. A unique educational approach is born, perfectly combining nature and growing food into the curriculum. Check out the plans and designs to get a better picture.
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by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Under cover of the Christmas celebrations outgoing US President Obama has written the US' Anti-Propaganda Agency, in other words the American Ministry of Truth, into law.
The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, introduced by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, establishes the Global Engagement Center under the State Department which coordinates efforts to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United Sates national security interests."
Further, the law authorizes grants to non-governmental agencies to help "collect and store examples in print, online, and social media, disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda" directed at the US and its allies, as well as "counter efforts by foreign entities to use disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda to influence the policies and social and political stability" of the US and allied nations.
Those all-important laws have been smuggled into the NDAA and were signed on Christmas Eve by still President of the USA, B H Obama, with, basically, no public debate whatsoever.
Asides from the “Ministry of Truth” in that act also contained are the provisions for confiscation in time of national crisis of farms and market gardens and even the food supplies – and other provisions – that the people have stored up for themselves (and their families) if those are above the amounts recommended (stipulated) by government. For more on that read this article.
© 2017
Going veggie would cut global food emissions by two thirds and save millions of lives – new study
Eating more fruit and vegetables and cutting back on red and processed meat will make you healthier. That’s obvious enough. But as chickens and cows themselves eat food and burn off their own energy, meat is a also major driver of climate change. Going veggie can drastically reduce your carbon footprint.
This is all at a personal level. What about when you multiply such changes by 7 billion people, and factor in a growing population?
In our latest research, colleagues and I estimate that changes towards more plant-based diets in line with the WHO’s global dietary guidelines could avert 5m-8m deaths per year by 2050. This represents a 6-10% reduction in global mortality.
Food-related greenhouse gas emissions would also be cut by more than two thirds. In all, these dietary changes would have a value to society of more than US$1 trillion – even as much as US$30 trillion. That’s up to a tenth of the likely global GDP in 2050. Our results are published in the journal PNAS.
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OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment? The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two of its Working Group reports at the end of last month (WGI and WGIII), and their short discussion of biofuels has ignited a fierce debate as to whether they’re of any environmental benefit at all.
The IPCC was quite diplomatic in its discussion, saying “Biofuels have direct, fuel‐cycle GHG emissions that are typically 30–90% lower than those for gasoline or diesel fuels. However, since for some biofuels indirect emissions—including from land use change—can lead to greater total emissions than when using petroleum products, policy support needs to be considered on a case by case basis” (IPCC 2014 Chapter 8).
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by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Basically the meaning is – the true one – that the movement, the party, is always right to fight against capitalism and imperialism, against injustices and for the right of the proletariat. That does not, however, mean that the movement, the party, can do no wrong on other levels; far from it.
Comrade Lenin himself warned against the notion of the party knowing always best at all times, against this notion of infallibility, when he urged self-criticism and the acceptance of criticism by the working class. He also said that a failure to do so could lead to the downfall of the party and the revolution itself, in so many words.
His prophecy, alas, has come true. Because the parties of the working class in the socialist bloc, whether the SED or the CPSU, and others, did not heed the old Comrade's advice about self-criticism and accepting valid criticism from the working class, they and the socialist system in those places ended up run against a wall.
The party is not always right, bar in what was said in the second paragraph. In all other aspects the party, or whatever kind of movement of the proletariat, must be open to criticism and be prepared to accept such criticism, where valid, and act accordingly. Critics must not be called and treated as dissidents and enemies of the class, the movement, and country; they are the guardians, to some extent.
When the party, the movement, is open to criticism and suggestions for improvement, and prepared to accept and act upon those, then you do not get a counterrevolution, because the party, the movement, is then carried by the majority of the people. At least not a counterrevolution from within those that are part of the movement.
Refusing to accept valid criticism, and even more so criticism as regards to excesses and such, the party alienates its followers and to some extent the proletarian movement as a whole, who will then try to find other ways to change the things that are going wrong.
The problem in that instance, though, is as we have seen that a legitimate protest movement becomes, by being infiltrated and highjacked by agents of the class enemy, a counterrevolution. It may never have set out to be that way but can easily end up that way.
He who presents valid criticism, highlights wrongdoings and worse, offers improvement suggestions, and much more, is not the enemy, he or she is, in fact, a valuable friend and comrade, and should be encouraged rather than discouraged or worse still persecuted as an enemy of the party and the people.
The party, the movement, and its “leaders”, are no infallible, and neither is the Pope. And when the message, so to speak, of the party being always right is used to cement power for some people in leadership then it is not just being misused but it becomes a dangerous thing. Without self-criticism and acceptance of valid criticism from the outside death will occur. The people should rule the party, the movement, and not the party, the movement, the people.
© 2017
Ineos to conduct seismic survey for shale gas and could be working within 200m of the 1,000-year-old tree Major Oak, documents reveal
The latest battleground for the future of fracking in Britain looks set to be Sherwood Forest, the legendary home of folk hero Robin Hood and now the target of a seismic survey by Ineos.
The chemical multinational, which relocated its headquarters back to the UK last month, appears to have agreed terms with the Forestry commission to start burying charges and spend up to two years using “thumper trucks” or vibroseis machines to search for shale gas.
Campaigners have called on the government to block any possible fracking and protect the forest.
According to documents obtained under freedom of information request by Friends of the Earth, Ineos could be working within 200 metres of the Major Oak, a 1,000-year old tree that in folklore sheltered Robin Hood and his merry men.
Commercial fracking has yet to start in Britain, although Ineos and other firms have obtained licences from the government for shale gas exploration. The technology has been deeply controversial since tests conducted by Cuadrilla in 2011 caused earth tremors near Blackpool, but fracking operations are expected to restart in five wells in Yorkshire and Lancashire later this year.
A small protest camp has been established at Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, at one of the wells where gas firm Third Energy has been given permission to start fracking.
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