A Consensus is Forming – Report on Soil Health Summit (July 18) By Elizabeth Henderson
“The era of soil health is dawning – that is the conclusion we heard from David Montgomery, keynote speaker at the New York Soil Health Summit, and the theme of his hot-off-the-presses book, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soils Back to Life. Organized by David W. Wolfe, Cornell Professor of Plant and Soil Ecology, the summit brought together 140 people to hear the latest developments underway in research, farming practices and policy related to building soil organic matter and increasing carbon in the soil. A major summit goal is to complete a “Road Map” that will set forth this information. The 39 organizations represented at the summit covered the full range from the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) to the Farm Bureau. The exciting news is that this broad spectrum of organizations, farmers, researchers and government agency staffers are coming to consensus about the critical importance of soil health and the need for a soil health program for our state.”
Keep up to date with current news and preparation for next legislative session from NOFA-NY and Slow Food USA.
“More than one-third of earth’s ice-free surface is devoted to agriculture, meaning that much of it is already managed intensively. Carbon farming’s fundamental conceit is that if we change how we treat this land, we could turn huge areas of the earth’s surface into a carbon sponge. Instead of relying solely on technology to remove greenhouse gases from the air, we could harness an ancient and natural process, photosynthesis, to pump carbon into what’s called the pedosphere, the thin skin of living soil at the earth’s surface. If adopted widely enough, such practices could, in theory, begin to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, nudging us toward a less perilous climate trajectory than our current one….The carbon-farming idea is gathering momentum at a time when national climate policy is backsliding. The Trump administration has reversed various Obama-era regulations meant to combat or adapt to climate change, including the Clean Power Plan, which required power plants to reduce their carbon emissions, and a rule instructing the federal government to consider sea-level rise and other effects of a changing climate when building new roads, bridges and other infrastructure.”
“In the absence of federal leadership on climate — and as emissions continue to rise globally, shrinking the time available to forestall worst-case outcomes — state and local governments (as well as nonprofits) have begun to look into carbon farming. Last year, Hawaii passed legislation meant to keep it aligned with the Paris agreement, which President Trump has said he will abandon; the state has also created a task force to research carbon farming. The New York State Assemblywoman, Didi Barrett, introduced legislation that would make tax credits available to farmers who increase soil carbon, presumably through methods like those employed by Darin Williams and Gabe Brown. A bill to educate farmers about soil has been proposed in Massachusetts. And in Maryland, legislation focused on soil health passed in 2017. Other carbon-farming projects are in the works in Colorado, Arizona and Montana.”
Read the full story from NY times here.
Temperatures Rise and Live Animals Raised for Meat-industry Continue to Suffer
The global demand for meat, or rather, the demand for live animal exports is on the rise, even though the heart-wrenching industry is faced with challenges from animal-rights activists, as well as a growing population of vegans and vegetarians. Still, animals are being moved huge distances across the planet’s surface everyday. “Horses from the US are packed on to transport trucks and sent to be slaughtered in Mexico. Pigs from Canada endure icy temperatures as they wait for long periods at the US frontier. Livestock from central Europe is trucked to the farthest reaches of Russia, where they are slaughtered, fattened or bred. Cows from Australia, Uruguay and Argentina are loaded on to ships and endure weeks-long trips to the Middle East….But the trade raises some uncomfortable ethical questions.” Read the full story from the Guardian here. Our current level of live-animal production for food is incredulous, and the treatment of these animals even more appalling.
Carcinogenic TCE (trichloroethylene) in Tap Water, Food Additives to Avoid and More
We know that there are chemicals that degrade our clean water supplies and ultimately, our lands, but what we need to know is what chemicals they are and where they are… TCE is a particularly harmful contaminant for children, with links to birth defects; damage to the brain, and the nervous, reproductive and immune systems; and increased risk of cancer. The amount of corporate money that funnels into our food system, and impacts vulnerable communities everywhere, has got to stop.
Regulations and mitigation by the government institutions intended to protect our public interests are severely lacking. Read the latest reports from Environmental Working Group here; highlighting latest discovery of carcinogenic toxins in our tap water, plastics/containers, and plenty more products, unfortunately.
MPR News: Report: Chemical found in drinking water of several Minn. communities
The Washington D.C.-based Environmental Working Group looked at data from 2010 though 2015, and found that the drinking water supplies in at least 15 Minnesota communities test positive for trichloroethylene, or TCE, though none exceed the federal limit of 5 parts per billion. Excerpt in MinnPost.
Take action to protect our NY drinking water today!
New EPA Administrator Acting Slowly but Surely to Rollback Regulations for Pollution Standards
Andrew Wheeler is reported to have slowed the process on a plan that Scott Pruitt endorsed (while still EPA Administrator, of course, with the support of Trump) to undercut Obama’s agenda to remediate Climate Change. More specifically, Pruitt signed off on rules which did not enforce any pollution standards for “glider” trucks; i.e. trucks with older and less efficient engines installed.
However, Wheeler is also reported to have written a memo essentially saying, ‘We’ll still proceed full steam ahead.’ It seems this EPA Administrator is looking to proceed with the same dirty agenda, however, more cautiously. “Mr. Wheeler has clashed with other top administration officials as the White House prepares to unveil one of Mr. Trump’s most consequential proposals, which would undo a major Obama-era environmental rule and let cars emit more planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions….Mr. Pruitt had signed off on the plan, but Mr. Wheeler fears that its legal and technical arguments are weak and that it will set up the Trump administration for an embarrassing courtroom loss, according to interviews with 11 people.” Read the full story from the NY Times here.
Since President Donald Trump first tweeted that he accepted Scott Pruitt’s resignation, the Sierra Club worked hard with members and volunteers to generate thousands of comments demanding that Pruitt be fired. Thus, as the Sierra Club exposed many of Pruitt’s scandals using the Freedom of Information Act, we find ourselves free from Pruitt. A win for many, yes, but the fight is just beginning!
Meet The Restaurateurs Fighting To Save The Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument
Nearly 20 years ago, business partners and best friends, Blake Spalding and her business partner, Jen Castle, founded Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah, on the edge of the then-newly designated Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument. They have been named as semifinalists for “Best Chef: Southwest” by the James Beard Foundation and not simply for their excellence in food. Now, they are “using their restaurant and its far-reaching customer base to rally support for preserving southern Utah’s threatened public lands. The restaurateurs have expressed their concern that the downsizing of the monument will adversely impact their business in a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners along with two other plaintiffs, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Conservation Lands Foundation.” Read the full story from NPR here.
