Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360

Landscape change between 1992 and 2015. White reflects little change. Darker shades reflect the greatest rate of change in each category. CREDIT: TOMASZ STEPINSKI/UC

A new map that stitches together 24 years of satellite observations provides a detailed look at striking changes in land use and widespread environmental degradation. According to the map, 22 percent of Earth’s habitable surface has been significantly altered since 1992, primarily from agricultural-driven deforestation.

“We already knew about deforestation or wetland loss or increasing urbanization,” said Tomasz Stepinski, a geographer at the University of Cincinnati and a co-author of the new map. “But now we can see exactly where all of that is happening… What makes this so depressing is that it’s examining a timescale that is shorter than our lifetime.”

The map illustrates widespread losses of wetlands in the Southeastern United States; the rapid disappearance of the Aral Sea, which “dried up in the 1990s after farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan diverted its tributaries for cotton fields,” a press release explained; deforestation in the tropics; and the expansion of the Sahara Desert…

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Can we feed 10 billion people on organic farming alone? | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian

In 1971, then US Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz uttered these unsympathetic words: “Before we go back to organic agriculture in this country, somebody must decide which 50 million Americans we are going to let starve or go hungry.” Since then, critics have continued to argue that organic agriculture is inefficient, requiring more land than conventional agriculture to yield the same amount of food. Proponents have countered that increasing research could reduce the yield gap, and organic agriculture generates environmental, health and socioeconomic benefits that can’t be found with conventional farming.

The flower petals and the labels represent different sustainability metrics that compare organic farming with conventional farming. They illustrate that organic systems can better balance the four areas of sustainability: production (orange), environment (blue), economics (red) and social wellbeing (green). Illustration: John Reganold and Jonathan Wachter

Organic agriculture occupies only 1% of global agricultural land, making it a relatively untapped resource for one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: producing enough food for a population that could reach 10 billion by 2050, without the extensive deforestation and harm to the wider environment.

That’s the conclusion my doctoral student Jonathan Wachter and I reached in reviewing 40 years of science and hundreds of scientific studies comparing the long term prospects of organic and conventional farming. The study, Organic Agriculture in the 21st Century, published in Nature Plants, is the first to compare organic and conventional agriculture across the four main metrics of sustainability identified by the US National Academy of Sciences: be productive, economically profitable, environmentally sound and socially just. Like a chair, for a farm to be sustainable, it needs to be stable, with all four legs being managed so they are in balance...

more: Can we feed 10 billion people on organic farming alone? | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian 

Tyson Foods Dumps More Pollution Into Waterways Each Year Than Exxon

As shareholders of Tyson Foods, Inc. prepare to vote on a resolution that would require the food giant to institute a “water stewardship” policy, new data shows the company regularly dumps a higher volume of pollution into waterways than companies like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical.

The Environment America analysis shows Tyson and its subsidiaries released 104 million pounds of pollution to surface waters from 2010 to 2014, nearly seven times the volume of surface water discharges by Exxon during those years...

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U.S. Right to Know Calls for Investigation of Monsanto Cover up, Harassment of USDA Scientists | Sorry, Monsanto. The Science Is on Our Side, Not Yours

U.S. Right to Know sent letters today to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Committees, and to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, requesting an investigation of a possible cover up for Monsanto, and whether USDA scientists are being harassed when their work runs counter to the interests of the agrichemical industry.

more: USRTK Calls for Investigation of Monsanto Cover up, Harassment of USDA Scientists


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Sorry, Monsanto. The Science Is on Our Side, Not Yours: Here are just a few examples of the latest reports, articles and books exposing the dangers of GMOs, Big Ag’s toxic chemicals and evidence of a decades-long cover-up to keep consumers in the dark.

SIGN THE PETITON TO BAN ROUNDUP

OCA: Tell the EPA: Ban Monsanto’s Cancer-Causing Roundup Herbicide

Stop Pesticide Poisonings - Earthjustice

We're taking on powerful pesticide and agricultural industries—and we need your help.

Every year, 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to the fields growing foods that we eat.

And those applying the pesticides are the hardest hit by these toxic chemicals. The men, women and children who harvest our nation's food have one of the highest rates of chemical exposures among all U.S. workers. In fact, tens of thousands of pesticide poisonings happen each year to these workers.

Take action now to help stop these toxic pesticide poisonings.

Stop Pesticide Poisonings - Earthjustice