Ecojustice - Katrina is All About Environmental Justice; Monday eKos Earthship

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.

Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.

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Tonight's editor: ellinorianne

Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 97

All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.

continued at Daily Kos....

Macca's Meatless Monday...Besame Barcelona

by beach babe in fl

In this weekly series we have been discussing the benefits of a vegetarian diet including: better health, animal rights, food safety, frugal living, global food crisis and the huge contribution of meat production to climate change/depletion of resources

Nitrous oxide is about 300 and methane about 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly methane and nitrous oxide, have increased steadily. In 2005 they accounted for 14 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

By 2055 the emissions  of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture could be cut by more than eighty percent, researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research find

continued at Daily Kos....

Rodents, maggots and steaming piles of hypocrisy at egg farms

by Deep Harm

Today, the FDA issued inspection reports on the two egg farms involved in a recall of half a billion eggs for salmonella contamination, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms.  Conditions were, shall we say, less than optimal.  

The inspectors found manure piles up to 8 feet high, holding doors open and giving wildlife access. "Wildlife" included live rodents, wild birds and a plague of flies, live and dead, including their larvae (maggots).  "Additional problems included overflowing manure pits, improper worker sanitation and wild birds [a potential source of avian influenza] roosting around feed bins," reports the New York Times.

The investigators also found salmonella bacteria in chicken feed and in barn and walkway areas, and in water used to wash eggs at a Hillandale facility.  It isn't clear, yet, which came first:  the salmonella or the egg.

continued at Daily Kos....

Coral Reefs Dying from Climate Change

by rebb

an earlier version was previously posted at intlawgrrls.com

As an avid diver, I wanted to cry when I read last week's announcement from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)  that coral reefs off the coast of Indonesia are being devastated by unusually warm sea waters. In what is being called "one of the most rapid and destructive coral bleaching events on record" large swaths of coral off the coast of Sumatra have died.

A world without coral reefs is too horrible to contemplate.  Not only would our destruction of coral reefs completely violate whatever social contract exists between generations, it would leave the world a sadder, uglier, and much poorer place.  We have to stop spewing carbon!!

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Judge quashes VA AG's subpoena of UVA/Michael Mann

by seesdifferent

The University of Virginia was given a was given a subpoena by VA Attorney General Cuccinelli, who wanted to investigate/imtimidate climate scientist Michael Mann (he of "hockey stick" fame) for possible fraud. The subpoena has now been quashed for lack of evidence.  

Judge Paul Peatross Jr. ruled that while the Virginia attorney general could investigate state grants awarded to scientists, Cuccinelli and his staff failed to demonstrate that such an investigation was warranted in this case. "The nature of the conduct is not stated so that any reasonable person could glean what Dr. Mann did to violate the statute," the judge wrote. "... The Court...understands the controversy regarding Dr. Mann’s work on the issue of global warming. However, it is not clear what he did that was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia."

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Science Tidbits

by possum

The time is here once again.  Time to gather around and take a well deserved hiatus from all the politics of the day.  Science talk is here.  New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world.  Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world.  Today's tidbits include an ancient galaxy is still producing stars, a bug with bifocals, a 200-fold boost in fuel cell efficiency, "spintronics" offers possible next generation computers, biosynthetic corneas, and the North American continent is a layer cake.  Pull up that beach chair and relax.  There is plenty of room for everyone.  Settle in for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.

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Celosia: Nature’s Prettiest Vegetable

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

You may know it as that pretty ornamental flower in your garden, but did you know that Celosia could also be a delicious snack? This beautiful plant with flame-like flowers is actually a common and important food in parts of tropical Africa, its original home

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Broken food chains

by Steve Masover

I wrote in late May  about industrial food production, as an exemplar of a general thesis  that complexity breeds collapse. And here we go again: news in the U.S.  press this week skews heavily toward eggs contaminated with salmonella.  Not just one or two eggs. We're talking "recall of a half-billion eggs from two mega-farms in Iowa" according to Friday's San Francisco Chronicle.

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 97

by Gulf Watchers

Please rec the new Mothership #98 here. This one has expired.
The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #346 - Watching and Waiting - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight / Tomtech

Rules of the Road

• We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
• Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
• Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

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