Category Archives: environment

EU approves import of 19 genetically modified organisms | News | DW.DE | 24.04.2015

No place to run or hide – corruption and self-delusion win out! The European Union’s executive body granted 10 new authorizations for genetically modified organisms (GMO) food or animal feed on Friday, including varieties of maize, soybean, cotton, and oilseed rape. The Commission also renewed licenses for seven GMO products and allowed the import of two types of carnation.

“All the GMO products approved today have been proved to be safe before their placing on the EU market,” the Commission said in a statement, explaining the products were tested by the European Food Safety Authority and that the authorizations are valid for 10 years.

The newly approved products are made by companies including US giants Monsanto and DuPont, and German firms Bayer and BASF.

via EU approves import of 19 genetically modified organisms | News | DW.DE | 24.04.2015.

Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes – NYTimes.com

Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.

The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.

The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that wastewater wells are causing the majority of the state’s earthquakes.

via Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes – NYTimes.com.

Bird Flu Confirmed at Iowa Farm With 5.3 Million Chickens – NYTimes.com

Bolding mine – how can you call this a farm? It is clearly a factory for producing chickens. And when you have that many birds in one place – how long would it take for disease to spread

Up to 5.3 million hens at an Iowa farm must be destroyed after the highly infectious and deadly bird flu virus was confirmed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday.

via Bird Flu Confirmed at Iowa Farm With 5.3 Million Chickens – NYTimes.com.

H5N2 strikes again in Iowa, Minnesota | CIDRAP

Who ships both turkey and chicken brooding eggs and chicks to Canada and US?

The H5N2 avian influenza virus has again widened its footprint, invading a large chicken farm in Iowa—the second outbreak in that state—and affecting two more turkey farms in Minnesota, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported today.

In addition, a highly pathogenic H5 virus has hit a chicken farm in Ontario near where H5N2 struck a turkey farm earlier this month, Canadian authorities reported over the weekend. They have not yet specified the virus subtype, but H5N2 seems likely.

via H5N2 strikes again in Iowa, Minnesota | CIDRAP.

▶ Buffy Sainte Marie – “I’m Going Home” – YouTube

Heaven isn’t so far away as people say

I got a home high in my heart

Heaven is right where I come from; I never throw it away

I know the place and I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

See up there, it’s not the same

They know your name

And I’m not ashamed to need it I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

You keep on knocking but

I’m not coming out of this state I’m in

I’m travellin’ right, I’m gonna get there soon

I’m standing up praying, I’m singing

Saying Heyo ha ha heyo ha hey ya

I know the way and I’m going home.

I’m going home

I’m going home

That’s where the heart can rest

The best is there

And only a fool would leave it. I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

I been around, I been to town

Hey, where you think I learned right from wrong

And I’m going home

I’m going home

via ▶ Buffy Sainte Marie – “I’m Going Home” – YouTube.

Study of isolated Amazonian tribe shows how modern life is changing human bodily bacteria – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A microbiota diversity decline may be linked to the increase in the past several decades of immunological and metabolic diseases such as asthma, allergies, diabetes and obesity, said Maria Dominguez-Bello, a professor of medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Centre.

The researchers analysed microbial samples from 34 of the 54 Yanomami villagers.

They were compared to a United States group, another Venezuelan Amazonian indigenous people, the Guahibo, and residents of rural Malawi in southern Africa.

Yanomami were found to have twice the number of microbe varieties of the US subjects and 30 to 40 per cent more diversity than the Malawians and Guahibo.

Some of the bacteria found in the Yanomami, but not in the others, offer beneficial effects like protecting against kidney stones.

The Yanomami are semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in their remote mountainous region.

“It really is a unique opportunity to contact communities with this ancient lifestyle,” said Oscar Noya, a researcher with the Amazonic Centre for Research and Control of Tropical Diseases in Venezuela who visited the villagers.

via Study of isolated Amazonian tribe shows how modern life is changing human bodily bacteria – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Waves Like Mountains: Viral Nature Photos in the Age of Climate Change — BagNews

These nature photos by Australian photographer, Ray Collins, have been circulating widely on Twitter and Reddit. Here’s a collection at BoredPanda. What’s so distinct about these waves is that they almost appear solid, as if they were mountains. The article explains their power and interest in terms of their ability to capture the “raw, majestic, natural power of the sea.” But, could there be more at play here?

I think these photos are particularly powerful because they reflect “the inconvenient truth” that we can no longer trust what’s “natural.” Isn’t the ocean rising here and other bodies of water receding there, so much so that it’s pushing the lines? And, how much and how fast is the altered course of the environment reshaping how much we can trust it? Majesty notwithstanding, makes these photos so powerful (to me, at least, and I assume, to a much larger undercurrent) is how much more indeterminate nature, and our perception of nature, has become.

via Waves Like Mountains: Viral Nature Photos in the Age of Climate Change — BagNews.

Role of wild birds in US H5N2 outbreaks questioned | CIDRAP

Wild bird chase? {Lots of people would like to deflect  blame from industrialized poultry farming and role of people – about time someone said – whoa – how about some science?}

But not so fast, say experts like David Stallknecht, PhD, of the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and Michele Carstensen, PhD, wildlife health program supervisor in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). They point out, among other things, that migratory birds don’t migrate from west to east or from north to south in late winter.

“This could all have been from wild birds—nobody can say it’s impossible,” said Stallknecht. “But we do need some proof. . . . People seem to be willing to accept things without a whole lot of proof.”

He said it is unknown how the H5N8 strain that gave rise to H5N2 reached North America. Noting that the H5N2 outbreaks in British Columbia marked the “index case” or first appearance of the virus, he said, “How much proof do we have of wild bird involvement with that virus in North America? None.”

Referring to the mixing of H5N8 with North American viruses, he said, “Why do we make the jump to wild ducks to explain this? Reassortment could also occur in a backyard flock of domestic ducks after a more direct introduction [of H5N8] via people.” He suggested that travelers could possibly have brought the virus to Canada from Asia.

He cautioned that this is “pure speculation,” but added that the idea that wild birds introduced the parental H5N8 virus to North America is also speculative. “It is based on circumstantial evidence that is rapidly becoming accepted dogma.”

Carstensen said the notion that wild birds could have brought the H5N2 virus from Minnesota to Missouri is “beyond me. . . . They [migratory birds] go from south to north this time of year.” Arkansas and Kansas, on the other hand, are close enough to migratory-bird wintering grounds to make a connection with wild birds more plausible, she added.

There could be “totally different causes” for the outbreaks in Minnesota and the more southerly states, Carstensen suggested.

via Role of wild birds in US H5N2 outbreaks questioned | CIDRAP.

Shell’s Battle for Seattle | Earthjustice

The Port’s entry into the lease with Foss Maritime to open Terminal 5 to Shell’s Arctic drilling convoy was made in February without public proceedings or an environmental review.  Not only did the rental agreement violate the Port of Seattle’s long-range plans and its shoreline permit, which designate Terminal 5 as a cargo terminal, but it broke state law and the port’s own rules.

That’s where Earthjustice comes in.

Earthjustice is representing Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, the Sierra Club, Washington Environmental Council and Seattle Audubon Society in a legal fight to vacate the lease. The groups and local residents have pressed the port to rescind the lease and to invest in sustainable jobs that reflect the community’s values and air prospective terminal lessees in public.

via Shell’s Battle for Seattle | Earthjustice.

Avian Flu Diary: APHIS: H5N2 Detected In Backyard Flock In Kansas

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza (HPAI) in a backyard chicken and duck flock in Leavenworth County, Kansas. This is the first finding of HPAI in the Central flyway. CDC considers the risk to people from these HPAI H5 infections in wild birds, backyard flocks and commercial poultry, to be low. No human infections with the virus have been detected at this time.

via Avian Flu Diary: APHIS: H5N2 Detected In Backyard Flock In Kansas.