EPA Silent As Dicamba Drift Rages On | Pesticide Action Network

I am reading Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" published in my year of birth 1962 and it sounds like she is writing about what is going on today. "When will they ever learn?".



Each year since Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant Xtend seeds have hit the market, farmers and rural communities have braced for record levels of pesticide drift. Even with this year’s late start to planting season, 2019 may see the highest number of dicamba drift incidents yet.

Long before Xtendimax was approved, dicamba was well-known as a particularly volatile chemical - it simply does not stay where it is put, no matter how it is applied. Early advocates warned of the damage this herbicide can and would do to off-target organisms.

Bayer, however, refuses to accept that its new star pesticide is a problem. Instead, the company is taking a page out of the “deny, deny, deny” corporate playbook, while blaming applicators for applying the product incorrectly.

From its inception, the Xtend crop system was bound to be a divisive disaster for all kinds of farmers. Herbicide resistance is just another instance of Monsanto (now Bayer) promising a short-sighted “solution” to a problem of its own creation. While farmers who don’t use the Xtend system are hit with dicamba drift, crop damage, and yield loss, Bayer is reaping the financial gains of an increase in acreage planted to dicamba-resistant soybeans.




Continue reading at: EPA Silent As Dicamba Drift Rages On | Pesticide Action Network

Due to Climate Change the Landscapes We Are Familiar With Are Disappearing

Agnes Anderson, doctoral student of the School of Natural Sciences and Health of Tallinn University, recently defended her doctoral dissertation, in which she explores how the changing climate and human influence change the aeolian coastal dune landscapes. The dissertation concluded that the coastal dune landscapes are losing their distinctive features and diversity due to those influences.
The most dynamic, fragile, and attractive part of the coastal zone is characterized by the aeolian coastal dune landscapes, which extend over a 200 km² area in Estonia. Their formation is mostly determined by climate, sediments, and vegetation, which affect the movement of sand and the formation of dunes.

This is Lõimastu beach in Estonia. Credit: Tallinn University

Due to Climate Change the Landscapes We Are Familiar With Are Disappearing

The 'no-buy' movement: could you give up buying clothes and beauty products? | Environment | The Guardian

With the fashion industry’s environmental impact under scrutiny, there’s a move to eschew new stuff and wear what you already own

Splashed out in the sales? Cashed in your Christmas gift cards? The average Briton spends more than £1,000 on new clothes and shoes each year, according to the statistics agency Eurostat – and many are shelling out much, much more. But with a focus now on the environmental impact of the fashion industry, some of the bloggers, vloggers and influencers who cut their teeth sharing details of an endless array of new clothes and products, are changing tack – enter the “no-buy” movement.

Will the ‘no-buy’ movement mark the end of ‘so last season’? Photograph: Radius Images/Alamy Stock Photo

The idea is simple: instead of buying new clothes or beauty products, you make a commitment to use the things you already own. Some people, such as the beauty blogger Hannah Louise Poston, sign up to a “no-buy year” – and document their progress in much the same way that they once tracked their purchases. Others pledge not to buy for a few weeks or months or opt for “low-buy” options with a strict spending cap. A subreddit thread named MakeupRehab, offering tips and support for those undertaking not to buy new products, now has more than 50,000 subscribers.
Continue reading at: The 'no-buy' movement: could you give up buying clothes and beauty products? | Environment | The Guardian

Threat to Democratic Decision Making: ‘Information Gerrymandering’

Threat to Democratic Decision Making: ‘Information Gerrymandering’

An introduction to the state of solar power in the U.S. » Yale Climate Connections

Though still a small contributor to the electricity supply, solar power already is revolutionizing how



U.S. consumers generate and consume electricity.

olar power offers enormous promise as a non-carbon-emitting energy resource. Yet in the U.S. today, less than 1% percent of our total energy supply – roughly 2.3% of our electricity – comes from the sun. Accelerating the shift to an economy substantially fueled by solar and other renewable energy resources will demand major policy changes at all levels of government. The technology, however, is largely at hand.


Photovoltaic array atop a parking garage, Arizona State University-Tempe. Solar power supplies nearly 50% of the peak daytime electric load at ASU’s four campuses and Research Park. (Photo credit: Philip Warburg)

A bit of solar power history

Through most of the 20th century, efforts to tap solar energy focused on the sun’s thermal properties. Commercially introduced in California in 1909, water-heating solar collectors achieved greater status in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo, when President Jimmy Carter installed a much-heralded solar array on the White House, producing hot water for its laundry and cafeteria.



The technology for reliably converting sunlight to electricity emerged from Bell Labs in the 1950s, but the expense of manufacturing photovoltaic, or PV, cells confined them to high-value uses such as remote radio transmission and the space program. It was only with a dramatic drop in the price of silicon PV cells, from $76 per watt in 1977 to a fraction of a dollar in recent years, that PV has come into widespread use.



Continue reading at: An introduction to the state of solar power in the U.S. » Yale Climate Connections

Climate Change Is Warming Europe Faster Than Expected

Climate change is increasing the number of days of extreme heat and decreasing the number of days of extreme cold in Europe, posing a risk for residents in the coming decades, according to a new study.

Temperatures in Europe have hit record highs this summer, passing 46.0 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in southern France. New research in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the number of summer days with extreme heat has tripled since 1950 and summers have become hotter overall, while the number of winter days with extreme cold decreased in frequency by at least half and winters have become warmer overall.

The new study finds parts of Europe are warming faster than climate models project.

This is a satellite image of the heat energy emitted from Europe during 25 July 2019 shows this summer’s highest extremes. Credit: Copernicus Sentinel data (2019) ESA – Copernicus Sentinel data (2019)

“Even at this regional scale over Europe, we can see that these trends are much larger than what we would expect from natural variability. That’s really a signal from climate change,” said Ruth Lorenz, a climate scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and lead author of the new study.

Continue reading at: Climate Change Is Warming Europe Faster Than Expected

Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns

Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns

Cattle grazing outside Sokoto, Nigeria, where large-scale farming is in conflict with local communities. CreditCreditLuis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The world’s land and water resources are being exploited at “unprecedented rates,” a new United Nations report warns, which combined with climate change is putting dire pressure on the ability of humanity to feed itself.
The report, prepared by more than 100 experts from 52 countries and released in summary form in Geneva on Thursday, found that the window to address the threat is closing rapidly. A half-billion people already live in places turning into desert, and soil is being lost between 10 and 100 times faster than it is forming, according to the report.
Climate change will make those threats even worse, as floods, drought, storms and other types of extreme weather threaten to disrupt, and over time shrink, the global food supply. Already, more than 10 percent of the world’s population remains undernourished, and some authors of the report warned in interviews that food shortages could lead to an increase in cross-border migration.
A particular danger is that food crises could develop on several continents at once, said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the lead authors of the report. “The potential risk of multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” she said. “All of these things are happening at the same time.”
Continue reading at: Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns