Things to Read While I Bask in the Infinite Beauty of My Snowy Place…and Dig [Casaubon's Book]
Three feet and counting so far. The prediction for the "upper elevations" (that would be us) is that we could get another 1-2 feet before tomorrow night. So while I am lost in meditation of the stunning beauty that surrounds me and trying to locate my woodpile, our car and the dog, all of whom are largely encompassed and hidden by snow, I leave you with some alternate reading.
First of all, in the "deeply sorrowful things" category, Leila, who posted at ye olde blogge as "Bedouina" and "Leila" died this fall. I hadn't realized it - and I feel terrible that I did not realize. The last exchange we had was one in which rightly correcting me for saying something that (unintentionally, but that's no excuse) played into an ugly set of implications, and I thought that she had stopped reading my blog because was pissed at me. I missed her, and I wrote her an email to tell her she was right and apologize, but never heard back and thought she was still angry at me. Her cancer had been in remission, and it did not occur to me that she might be ill again. I'm so very grieved about her loss, and that I did not know. There is a memorial site here, if any of you have anything to add. I am so very sorry she's gone.
In other, less essential news:
Science Daily confirms that small scale polyculture will have to be a major focus of future investment and research into agriculture:
Have any of you truly thought about the human costs of these snowstorms? I'm not talking about the poor folk without power or the heart attacks and lost wages, but the true sufferers, the nigh-human (according to the supreme court) corporations that lost their private jets in the snow. Oh, the humanity!
Given the enormous quantity of snow falling everywhere, shouldn't you be stocked up? The Onion has a host of valuable suggestions for things that I may have missed, including:
- Gender-specific sex toy: Heavy snow accumulation will make roads impassible, and your weekly visit to a prostitute unlikely
- Tauntaun: When your best friend goes missing in the blizzard conditions, you'll need to use the carcass of this bipedal reptomammal to keep his body warm
Much as I do like snow and winter, I'm ready to be done by the beginning of March - so I'm trying not to scream with jealousy about what it looks like at the Matron's at Trapper Creek. I want that to be us, dammit!
Well, it probably will be spring in March here soon enough, since China says no way on emissions capping. Surprise!
In the "sorrowful things" category, Leila, who posted at ye olde blogge as "Bedouina" and "Leila" died this fall. I hadn't realized it - and I feel terrible that I did not realize. The last exchange we had was her, rightly correcting me for saying something that (unintentionally, but that's no excuse) played into an ugly stereotype, and I thought that she had stopped reading my blog because was pissed at me. I missed her, and I wrote her an email to tell her she was right and apologize, but never heard back and thought she was still angry at me. I'm so very grieved about her loss, and that I did not know.
Robyn at Adapting in Place offers some suggestions for people who think they may lose their jobs in the near future.
"I would strongly suggest finding all of the programs that are even vaguely applicable to your situation now--yes now--while you still have a job and an income. Consider this just another part of the "assume you'll be fired" scenario above. Speaking for my own state, there is a morass of programs available, complete with attendant paperwork, all of which is very difficult to sort through. Don't try to do this when you're on the edge of losing a job, or worse, have already lost one."
Risa offers suggestions for how to transform your existing lot to produce food
"Let's assume that you are a suburban homeowner with a typical lot, about eighty feet wide and a hundred feet deep, on level clay in a temperate latitude, with several trees and shrubs about the three-bedroom bungalow and along the driveway and carport. You have a rake, a hose, a lawnmower with a grasscatcher, and very little else with which to begin. And you're very nearly "underwater" with a massive mortgage, and so will not being moving "back to the land" any time soon."
"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress....but I repeat myself." It is possible, even likely that not all of my leadership is stupid. But the average IQ of House and Senate is brought down dramatically by the monumentally, stupendously, astonishingly stupid (and evil) Senator Inhofe.
On a cheerier note, Gene Logsdon thinks there's something fundamentally different about this back to the land movement and it is something good.
Grrl Scientist offers us the perfect gift - a postcard garden.
And best of all, Tom Philpott and the New York Times direct us to the idea of "Crop Mobbing" - how to start a farm with little but enthusiasm:
Yet youthful zeal to farm abides, and hasn't let up, as far as I can tell. This is a major asset to the sustainable food movement. As our nation's million or so active farmers nears retirement age, an emerging generation of landless farmers is rising.
One of the main challenges of the movement will be to help find them land and create the infrastructure needed to make farming a viable profession.
Meanwhile, all over the country, the kids are organizing themselves, teaming together, harnessing their energy and keeping the vision of a just and sustainable food system alive and moving forward.
One of the most vital such projects I know of is the Crop Mob in the North Carolina Triangle (Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill). I know many of the Mobbers--two of them were my neighbors in Carrboro when my girlfriend was working on a PhD at UNC.
Finally, what to eat while I dig:
One of Laila's best, her pumpkin tahini.
Into our purim baskets will go these nutella cupcakes.
Also, we're using up last year's lamb in this.
Sharon
An Open Letter to the Animal Liberation Front [The Primate Diaries]
My piece for The Huffington Post has just gone up concerning the latest incidents involving neuroscientist Dario Ringach and the targeting of his children by animal rights extremists. For more on this see Dr. Free-Ride, PZ, PalMD, Scicurious, MarkCC, Nick Anthis, Drugmonkey and Orac.
Dear ALF,
I address you not because your organization is directly behind these latest abuses, but because your organization is emblematic of the radical approach that some animal rights activists have been inspired to take. I want you to know that I support your goals at the same time that I oppose your tactics. Vivisection, or what in polite society is merely called animal experimentation, is a barbaric practice that has led to some necessary medical breakthroughs but has mostly served to profit multinational pharmaceutical and cosmetic corporations. I agree with the researchers who published in the British Medical Journal in 2004 that:
Clinicians and the public often consider it axiomatic that animal research has contributed to the treatment of human disease, yet little evidence is available to support this view.
I am also sympathetic to your frustration that, despite mounting evidence that little is gained from this research, its use continues and even grows. This is especially troubling where it comes to primate vivisection. When Jane Goodall wrote the forward to the 2006 report "Next of Kin" (pdf here), put out by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the European Council to End Animal Experiments, she had no more illusions about its use than I do:
Not only are many experiments on nonhuman primates unethical, many are unnecessary, and their results may be misleading. . . The evidence in the BUAV's report reveals the true level of suffering of many primates used in animal experimentation, and the scientific pitfalls of using primates to study human diseases and drugs.
Recipes for GE eggplant [Tomorrow's Table]
Eggplants are found in many colors: green, white, purple, yellow, even striped. They are shaped like cucumbers or apples. They are eaten in Italy as melanzane alla parmigiana, in France as ratatouille, and in the Middle East as baba ghanoush.
My husband Raoul usually grows Imperial Black Beauty, Rosa Bianca, and the hybrids Beatrice and Nadia. We cook them shortly after harvest:
Spicy Eggplant
2 Eggplants, diced into 1/2" cubes
3 tbsp Olive oil
1 Clove of garlic, smashed and chopped
1/2 tsp Chile flakes
1. Sauté smashed and chopped clove of garlic in the olive oil.
2. Add the chile flakes to the pan.
3. Add the eggplant to the pan, and sauté until the eggplant is very soft and
tender.
4. Add salt to taste.
Most of us love eggplant, but to find a true eggplant connoisseur, go to India.
In India, this fruit, closely related to tomato, is known as the "King of the vegetables". For Indians, eggplant (called Brinjal) is second only to potato in importance in the diet. It can be cooked with tomato, and seasoned with cumin, turmeric garlic and ginger (Bhurtha) or with cauliflower and potatoes in a spicy sauce (Aloo Gobhi Masala) or hundreds of other ways.
And Indians don't only eat eggplant, they grow it. A lot of it. Indians are second only to China in the amount of eggplant produced.
No wonder then, when the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), gave its go-ahead to the commercial cultivation of genetically engineered brinjal in October 2009, that the public took interest. After all, what would it mean for food and farming in India?
GE Brinjal is a transgenic eggplant that expresses gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. This variety was designed to give the plant resistance against insects like the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis). It was developed by Indian scientists at the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (MAHYCO).
The Fruit and shoot borer larvae feed inside the shoots and fruits, retarding the vegetative growth. In high pest pressure years, over 90% of the fruits can be infected, and yield reductions up to 60% have been reported.
Moderately infected fruits are often still marketed but are associated with significant price discounts.
Pesticides to control this insect account for a significant share of the total amounts of pesitcides used in India. At least two of the insecticides used on eggplant in India are legally banned in many other countries. Twenty-five percent of eggplant farmers have suffered personally from acute pesticide poisonings. This number does not include poisonings that affect hired farm laborers.
In Mahyco sponsored trials of eight Bt eggplant hybrids, a 42% reduction in pesticide usage was observed. Field experiments on these hybrids were also carried out by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, as part of the regulatory evaluation process (as far as I can tell, though, these results have not yet been published). These studies suggest that Bt eggplant would significantly reduce insecticide applications, increase effective yields and likely to bring about significant benefits for farmers' healths. Less spraying means fewer poisonings
Who benefits besides farmworkers? Simulations show that the aggregate economic surplus gains of Bt hybrids could be around US8 million per year. Consumers and Mayhco will also capture a large share of these gains.
After vociferous public protests, the Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, imposed a moratorium on the cultivation of Bt Brinjal. Ramesh stated that the moratorium will last "for as long as it is needed to establish public trust and confidence".
With such dramatic reductions in the use of insecticides and predicted clear benefits for farmers, consumers and the environment, why is there so much opposition?
For one thing, Mahyco is partly owned by the US multinational Monsanto. As far as I can tell from comments on my blog, noone seems to like multinational corporations unless they are run by Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Secondly there is concern that the diversity of eggplant will be reduced if most farmers plant the BT-Brinjal. This is a valid concern. After all, there are currently as many as 2,500 varieties of brinjals cultivated in India. The National Gene Bank in New Dehli has accessions for nearly 3,550. If the Bt Brinjal reduces costs and pesticide poisonings, most higher income farmers that can afford the hybrids will almost certainly adopt the new seed.
To address this concern, there is an interesting public-private partnership in the making that will allow for development of low cost open-pollinated varieties. This would make the GE eggplant more accessible to resource-poor farmers, who are less likely to buy the hybrids.
Thirdly some consumers worry that BT eggplant is not safe to eat despite the fact there has not been a single case of harm to humans or the environment from GE crops in over 10 years of cultivation.
As Sid notes on his blog, food safety may not be the main issue.
"In my opinion the opposition to Bt-Brinjal has much more to do with ideology, and has very little to do with public safety. In general food safety in India is very poor. Every year in India some 400,000 children below the age of five die from diarrhea caused by contaminated food and water. It is surreal to see activists raise worries about the remote possibility of someone in the distant future getting allergies and rashes from eating Bt-Brinjal, while being totally unconcerned about thousands of people dying every day from ordinary food and water contamination".
Former World Food Prize winner M.S. Swaminathan who has often advocated the use of biotechnology to address food shortages in the coming decades has said in an interview that the Indian government should use the extra time given by the moratorium to put in place a credible, effective, and transparent regulatory system for the benefit of India, and to conduct tests in a manner that earns the public trust.
This is a recipe we certainly need,
SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Report for 2/17-23/2010 [Eruptions]
The flu has retreated and I'm getting back on track. Huzzah!
I'll get back to the blog by posting this week's new USGS / Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcano Report. Looks like some interesting stuff in it ...
- Looks like there were some small eruptions from Oldoinyo Lengai in Tanzania. The volcano is one of the few (only active?) carbonatite volcanoes in the world, erupting a lava composed primarily of calcium carbonate and sodium minerals with very little silica. It leads to the odd lava that erupt black (and cool ~ 500C) and cool to white, making it one of the strangest places on Earth.
- El Reventador in Ecuador appeared to produce some ash and a thermal anomaly was detected as well.
- Russia's Kliuchevskoi produced strombolian eruptions along with some phreatic (water-interaction) explosions related to a lava flow.
- Back in Ecuador, Sangay produced an ash-and-steam plume that reached upwards of 7.6 km / 25,000 feet.
- The level 3 (of 4) alert at Talang in Indonesia was reduced to Level 2 as seismicity has steadily declined since February 2009.
How Do You ‘Euthanize’ A Six Ton Whale? [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]
tags: Tilikum, Tillikum, Tilly, Orcinus orca, Killer Whale, SeaWorld, Sea World, Orlando, Florida, whales, animals, news, behavior, streaming video
The latest word is that Tilikum will not be euthanized in retaliation for being associated with his third human death. Of course, if the SeaWorld officials did decide to euthanize him, this raises several problems, not the least of which are the publicity and the mechanics of carrying out this animal's demise.
This realist (me) has decided that SeaWorld avoided the "euthanization problem" in the case of Tilikum due to two reasons, and two reasons only: first, the public outrage would be beyond anything they could handle, deal with and recover (financially) from and second; how the hell do you kill a healthy 6-ton whale, and how do you dispose of its body before the neighbors file "quality of life" complaints with the local authorities?
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Hairy Crustaceous Substances in the Urine Revealed [The Primate Diaries]
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulip, Rembrandt (1632)I have been extremely ill this week which has prevented me from posting as often as I would have liked. However, I have been keeping up on the suggestions offered to explain the nearly 300-year-old medical mystery involving "hairy crustaceous substances" voided in a woman's urine. Of all the potential explanations for this phenomenon I think Quinn O. nailed it with his diagnosis of pilimiction as the result of a dermoid tumor. In doing a little research on this condition I discovered that this is caused when an abnormal growth develops that contains fully grown hairs, skin cells, sweat glands, even teeth or pieces of bone (see picture below). These usually develop in the ovaries and, in rare cases, they invade the bladder where the material is leaked into the urinary tract.
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The hidden face codes of fish [Not Exactly Rocket Science]
Take a look at these two fish. At first glance, they seem incredibly similar but in fact, they belong to two separate species. The one on the top is an Ambon damselfish (Pomacentrus amboinensis) and the one on the bottom is a lemon damselfish (P.moluccensis). If the distinction is hard for us to grasp, it's because we're not looking with the right eyes. The fish have a secret communication channel that's hidden to us. To hack into it, we need to look at the fish under an ultraviolet lamp.
The glare of a UV light reveals that the even yellow colours of the damselfishes' faces are actually streaked with complex patterns. These masks are like facial fingerprints. They are the key to telling one species from another and they may even allow the fishes to distinguish between individuals, just as we humans recognise friends and family from their facial features.
Ulrike Siebeck from the University of Queensland deciphered these visual codes by relying on the fact that damselfish are unusually aggressive towards members of their own species. These potential competitors must be seen off by charges and bites.
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Amateur Video of Tilikum Moments Before Killing His Trainer [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]
tags: Tilikum, Tillikum, Tilly, Orcinus orca, Killer Whale, SeaWorld, Sea World, Orlando, Florida, whales, animals, news, behavior, streaming video
Sea World officials say Dawn Brancheau was pulled into the tank by the adult male orca, Tilikum (also spelled "Tillikum"). Witnesses say she was in the tank and was dragged underwater by her ponytail by the whale.
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NOFA and NESEA [Casaubon's Book]
Just a reminder that if you are in the relevant parts of New England, I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations there. First, a week from Saturday, on March 6, I'll be at the NOFA NH annual Winter Conference in Concord New Hampshire all day. I'm both giving the keynote talk about food security and making a place at the table, and also giving a workshop for teens, older kids and their parents about making sustainable living a family affair. There are more than 40 workshops, including some amazing ones. Dave Jacke, Michael Phillips, David Yarrow and a host of other wonderful people will be there. (A friend of mine observed "Wow, Vermont NOFA got Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and New Hampshire got...you? I mean I'm sure you'll be great..." I cracked up and thanked him for his faith in me 
.) Registration info is at the link above - I'm looking forward to meeting many of you there!
The following Tuesday, March 9 from 6-8pm I'll be in Boston at the NESEA Building Energy Conference at the Seaport World Trade Center, appearing in their annual public forum with representatives of the Affordable Comfort Institute and Transition USA to talk about where we go from here in making a viable future. The panel discussion is free and open to the public. Again, I hope I'll meet some of you there!
Sharon
Growing In Sacks, Pots and Whatever You’ve Got [Casaubon's Book]
In a recent previous post "Do You Have to Grow Food" I pointed out that the impact of urban gardening is vastly greater, in the aggregate, than most people believe. We tend to think that little gardens here and there make no difference, but in fact, they add up rapidly. Consider the impact of US Victory Gardens in WWII, for example - in 1944, US Victory gardens, which averaged only about 350 square feet, grew fully half the produce for the US. That is, home gardeners grew as much produce as all the vegetable farms in the US at the time. While it may seem, intuitively that small gardens don't matter, they do.
They particularly matter in places where it is hard to get adequate food or nutrition - in the Global South where billions struggle just to get enough food- and also in food desert urban areas, where much of the food come from convenience stores and other sources that provide little fresh, unprocessed food. Here, the problem is not too few calories, but too little nutritional value in those calories. And in both places, small gardens are part of the answer. We know how important small scale production is - it has been documented in hundreds of studies, and recently UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon reaffirmed the importance of small scale production to world food security.
The sack garden, which is simply a low cost form of container garden, is getting some real attention as a potential source of high-nutrition foods for people in the developing world, and it is just as applicable here. This Scitezen article by William Van Cotthem advocates that NGOs and relief organizations institute sack garden training, because it can be done at minimal cost, with substantial potential to increase nutrition.. The same goes for urban dwellers who may believe they cannot garden because of contaminated soil, lack of space, or physical disabilities.
What can you really grow in containers? Well, a lot, actually. Using homemade self-watering containers, my friend Pat Meadows, disabled and in her 60s, reported growing hundreds of pounds of vegetables one year entirely in containers made from plastic storage bins. Other people I know use scavenged food buckets and styrofoam fish coolers.
I have 27 acres, and I still use containers for a substantial number of plants. I began as a container garden, growing on balconies in third and fourth floor walk-up apartments, where every ounce of soil was hauled up to be planted in scavenged containers. My housemates, husband and I ate a lot of food from those containers. I know what can be done in urban setting with minimal inputs - and those who can least access or afford the ingredients for fresh food are usually those who need them the most. Containers make gardening accessible to those who don't have land, money or the physical ability to get down in the dirt, and they represent the beginnings of a democratic garden access.
Sharon