Green Mission News – May 2024
Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare
A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.
Despite Recent Headlines, Urban Farming Is Not a Climate Villain
In this week’s Field Report, we explore media coverage of a climate study on growing food in cities. Plus: food system impacts of the Key Bridge collapse, a new approach to rice farming, and more.
https://civileats.com/2024/04/03/despite-recent-headlines-urban-farming-is-not-a-climate-villain/
In highly urbanized Japan, city farmers are key to achieving organic goal
Sounds Right Recognizes Nature as Musician, With Royalties Going to Environmental Causes
https://www.ecowatch.com/sounds-right-nature-musician-royalties-conservation.html
Top 10 U.S. cities for eco-conscious living—they’re almost all on the West Coast
‘Regenerative economics to revolutionise urban development’
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1180647-regenerative-economics-to-revolutionise-urban-development
Religious Beliefs That Science Has Debunked (But People Still Cling To)
Greater Good: The Economic Case for More Local, Resilient,
and Equitable Food Systems
https://goodfoodpurchasing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Greater-Good-Jobs-Study-Report_FINAL.pdf
Minnesota’s Alt-Meat Revolution: For some, regenerative agriculture and land-use diversity is the future
Some are betting on plant-based proteins as a sustainable way to help feed a growing world population. Others believe regenerative agriculture and diversity on the land represent the future.
The meat industry’s war on wildlife
Your taxes fund an obscure government program that kills millions of wild animals to benefit Big Ag.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24138394/usda-wildlife-services-livestock-meat-animals
Billions of cicadas are about to emerge from underground in a rare double-brood convergence
Megadrought forces end to sugarcane farming in parched Texas borderland
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/30/texas-sugarcane-farming
New PBS Documentary Focuses on a More Hopeful Future
Wallach is a futurist who has been investigating our planet for years, trying to determine “what does a flourishing society look like on a thriving ecologically-sound planet Earth.”
https://www.ecowatch.com/brief-history-of-the-future-pbs-wallach-interview-ecowatch.html
New EU nature law will fail without farmers, scientists warn
Open letter calls for green policies that empower farmers, after months of protests jeopardise future of flagship biodiversity deal
20 Books Redefining Our Relationship with Food and the Planet this Spring
More climate-warming methane leaks into the atmosphere than ever gets reported – here’s how satellites can find the leaks and avoid wasting a valuable resource
A Philosopher’s Guide to an Ethical Diet: A Conversation With Peter Singer
https://www.ecowatch.com/peter-singer-interview-ecowatch.html
Report: U.S. Banks ‘Sabotaging’ Climate Targets by Financing Meat & Dairy Corporations
Bull in the Climate Shop: Industrial livestock financing sabotages major U.S. banks’ climate commitments
https://www.ecowatch.com/banks-climate-targets-meat-dairy-financing-impacts.html
Despite Official Vote, the Evidence of the Anthropocene Is Clear
When a governing body of the International Union of Geological Sciences voted down a proposal to name a new epoch in Earth’s history, it ignored conclusive evidence that for the first time, a single species — humans — has fundamentally altered the planet.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/anthropocene-denied
Solomon Islands Tribes Sell Carbon Credits, Not Their Trees
In a South Pacific nation ravaged by logging, several tribes joined together to sell “high integrity” carbon credits on international markets. The project not only preserves their highly biodiverse rainforest, but it funnels life-changing income to Indigenous landowners.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/solomon-islands-sirebe-carbon-credits
Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
Florida growers eye agroecology solution to devastating citrus disease
Mexico Is Right to Reject GMO Tortillas
https://foodtank.com/news/2024/04/mexico-is-right-to-reject-gmo-tortillas/
Seven countries now generate 100% of their electricity from renewable energy
Scientists say we have reached an ‘irreversible tipping point’ that will see fossil fuels phased out
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/renewable-energy-solar-climate-targets-b2529461.html
‘They just make you happy’: the Queensland farmers who took a chance on a million sunflowers
Battling drought, Jenny and Russell Jenner tore out their failing crops. Could fields of sunflowers for selfies save their Queensland farm?
How the SmartFlower mimics sunflowers to produce clean solar energy
https://www.businessinsider.com/smartflower-mimics-sunflowers-solar-energy-2018-10
What Does Milk Do for Babies?
Human nutrition begins with milk, but the wondrous biofluid does much more than feed babies. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with molecular nutritionist Elizabeth Johnson about her research into the impact of human milk on a healthy microbiome.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-milk-do-for-babies-20240425/
Green Roofs Are Great. Blue-Green Roofs Are Even Better
Amsterdam is experimenting with roofs that not only grow plants but capture water for a building’s residents. Welcome to the squeezable sponge city of tomorrow.
https://www.wired.com/story/blue-green-roofs-amsterdam-resilio-climate-adaptation-sponge-cities/
Moving climate interest to action
https://ensia.com/notable/climate-change-action-politics-petition-donation-volunteer-global-warming/
We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized
Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked. Now they need to fall — fast.
https://www.vox.com/climate/24139383/climate-change-peak-greenhouse-gas-emissions-action
Ecologists Struggle to Get a Grip on ‘Keystone Species’
More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been pronounced “keystones” in their ecosystems. Has the powerful metaphor lost its mathematical meaning?
https://www.quantamagazine.org/ecologists-struggle-to-get-a-grip-on-keystone-species-20240424/
Guardian Essential poll: voters back Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan while overestimating cost of renewables
Results highlight the difficulties government faces in selling energy transition to sceptical public
Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming
Degrowth Is the Only Sane Survival Plan
https://tomdispatch.com/eco-collapse-hasnt-happened-yet-but-you-can-see-it-coming/
Waste Deep
How Tyson Foods Pollutes US Waterways and Which States Bear the Brunt