Nature for sale: “Privatizing America’s public campgrounds and jacking up national park fees to appease big business concessionaires and powerful corporate campaign donors is just the latest egregious attempt to rip public lands out of public hands,” said Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the watchdog conservation group Western Values Project, about the Trump administration’s “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee recommendation that national park campgrounds be privatized. (Photo of the Grand Canyon by Bradley Weber/Flickr)
CREDO Action: Here’s a frightening idea: Grand Canyon, sponsored by Coca-Cola. Yosemite, brought to you by McDonald’s. Acadia, a subsidiary of Aramark. Under a scheme hatched by former disgraced Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, that could be the eventual fate of America’s national parks. Reporters recently uncovered shady plans between the Interior Department and national park profiteers, the RV and hospitality industries, and enemies of public lands to privatize national park campgrounds, allow commercialized food trucks and other services at parks, limit benefits for seniors, increase prices, and expand infrastructure that could harm wildlife habitat. This plan would be a massive giveaway to corporate interests and Trump donors who stand to profit from national park privatization. Jerry Jacobs Jr., the billionaire chairman of Delaware North, a massive food service and concessionaire with deep interests in America’s national parks, sits on the “Made in America” committee, donated at least $167,700 to Trump and stands to make massive profits if the Interior Department follows through with this scheme. >>>Tell the Department of the Interior to stop the privatization of national parks.
Organic Consumers Association: Industrial ocean fish farms endanger both human and environmental health, yet the Trump administration is pushing for aggressive expansion of this dirty industry. Raising non-native and/or genetically modified fish in ocean water fish farms can disrupt natural ecosystems when the facilities spread disease to wild fish and release toxic, untreated fish waste and pharmaceutical drugs into the marine environment. Farmed fish also have more toxic chemicals, including pesticides and antibiotics, and contain fewer nutrients than wild-caught fish. >>>Urge Congress to support the “Keep Fin Fish Free Act” to ban industrial ocean fish farms.
Rainforest Rescue: Indonesia’s Tapanuli orangutan was only identified as a distinct species two years ago, and it is now on the list of the 25 most endangered primates, as a Chinese hydropower project threatens to destroy the tiny habitat of the remaining 800 apes. China’s state-owned Sinohydro Group plans to build a 510 MW hydroelectric dam in Batang Toru forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The dam’s reservoir would flood the heart of the orangutans’ habitat. Power lines and access roads—and the loggers and settlers that roads inevitably attract—would fragment the surrounding area, cutting individual populations of the reclusive apes off from one another. >>>Urge the Indonesian government to save the Tapanuli orangutan from extinction.
Cause for concern…
Point of no return? To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, humanity must keep global warming well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But according to a new report by the Universal Ecological Fund, the majority of the 184 Paris Agreement pledges are not up to the task. A separate recent study suggests that temperatures could even rise up to 7° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Last year, the Earth’s global surface temperature was the fourth warmest since 1880. (Image credit: NASA)
Open waters: A North Atlantic right whale mother and her calf. The species, which has been on the brink of extinction since the 1970s, has secured a major victory now that a federal judge has restored a ban on the use of gill nets in New England’s fisheries, helping to protect not only whales, but dolphins, seals, sea lions, turtles, sharks, seabirds and countless “non-target” fish from getting entangled in the dangerous fishing gear. (Photo credit: NOAA/Flickr)
“The interdependence of humans, animals, and the habitats we share form a triad of compassion on this beautiful blue-green planet Earth. This is indisputable. Without engaging in acts of compassion that consider each of these three aspects, we risk losing everything.” —Sarah C. Beasley
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.
Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
Industrial food vs. small farmers: Staff of the McEnroe Organic Farm, located in Millerton, New York, work a stall at the New Amsterdam Market in Manhattan. Organic farming associations across the nation have been supporting the community of farmers and conscious eaters for nearly five decades, but, as EFL contributor and Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York board member Elizabeth Henderson reports, “direct sales and [the organic] label are not enough to keep family-scale farms viable.” (Photo credit: istolethetv/Flickr)
World Animal Protection: Right now, there are more than 3,000 intelligent, social dolphins across the world suffering in captivity. They often look like they are smiling, but this is just the shape of their face. Captive dolphins are separated from their mothers far too young, confined in tanks hundreds of thousands of times smaller than their natural home and deprived of food so they can be trained. The multibillion-dollar captive dolphin industry wants you to think dolphins enjoy their confinement. They rely on a quirk of nature—the shape of a dolphin’s face—and years of misinformation. Captive dolphins are living miserable lives in the name of profit for dolphinariums and other venues, where every ticket sold prolongs a dolphin’s miserable existence. While many travel companies have stopped promoting this cruelty, Expedia Group is still selling tickets to these venues and profiting from this inhumane industry. >>>Urge Expedia to stop selling, offering or promoting any dolphin shows or experiences.
PETA UK: At the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, approximately 1,500 monkeys are used for breeding or experimentation at any one time. They’re often shaved, crudely tattooed, placed in restraint cages, and infected with debilitating diseases. Sometimes, after being sedated, these intelligent animals remain conscious during terrifying procedures, such as those in which tuberculosis bacteria are injected directly into their eyelids. Unable to escape, they’re helpless to defend themselves. Experiments on monkeys must stop now. The results of such studies aren’t even relevant to humans. >>>Urge the Dutch government to end the use of primates in experiments and to make the transition to humane science.
Cause for concern…
Exxon knew: Student climate activists march in Washington, D.C., in November 2015, with signs admonishing ExxonMobil for its complicity in furthering the climate apocalypse. The company “says it supports a federal carbon tax and the Paris climate agreement,” reports EFL contributor Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Then why, after all these years, is the company still financing advocacy groups, think tanks, and business associations that reject the reality and seriousness of the climate crisis, as well as members of Congress who deny the science and oppose efforts to rein in carbon emissions?” (Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr)
Voice for the voiceless: More than 100 animal activists demonstrated outside City Hall in New York City on October 31, just before the city council passed a landmark package of legislation aimed at protecting animals, including a ban on foie gras, new restrictions on operating horse carriages on hot days and a ban on trafficking wild birds meant to protect the city’s pigeons from being captured and moved to Pennsylvania, the only state where cruel pigeon shoots are still legal. “To see the City Council grow in their empathy towards all animals, including ones raised on farms for food, is an incredible evolution to see,” said Allie Feldman Taylor, president of Voters for Animal Rights. (Photo credit: Reynard Loki)
“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature.” —Rachel Carson
Trump’s latest gift to Big Oil: The bald eagle is an Endangered Species Act success story. But now 20 states and New York City are suing the Trump administration for rollbacks to the nation’s bedrock conservation law—even as we are losing species at a rate faster than any time since the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. Trump’s revised rules—which make it more difficult to protect wildlife, particularly from climate change threats—“appear very likely to clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live,” The New York Times reports, even as a new poll shows that Americans would rather reduce oil and gas exploration than drill. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Animal Welfare Institute: Oregon, Washington, Idaho and several Native American tribes have applied to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to kill hundreds of California and Steller sea lions in the Columbia River basin. They say it’s necessary to kill them to save endangered and threatened salmon, but in fact the primary threat to the fish is degraded spawning habitat. The Columbia River and its tributaries abound with dams and culverts and other human-caused habitat damage. Killing sea lions is a diversion from these more important threats, whose solutions—particularly the strategic removal of some dams—are less politically palatable. Federal legislation was passed last year to allow this sea lion killing program—the first indiscriminate cull allowed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) since its passage in 1972. Even under this new MMPA amendment, however, these states and tribes must meet certain criteria before a cull can take place, and these standards are not being met. This cull should not move forward; if it does, the animals will literally die for nothing. >>>Submit a comment letter to NMFS before today’s deadline, urging NMFS to deny the application.
Rainforest Action Network: The Leuser Ecosystem in Indonesia is the only place on Earth where you can find elephants, tigers, rhinos and orangutans under the same forest canopy. But undercover investigations have exposed an illegal palm oil plantation responsible for destroying critical wildlife habitat in the sensitive ecosystem. This conflict palm oil has been traced to several leading food brands, including General Mills, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, Mondelēz, Mars, Hershey’s, Unilever and PepsiCo. These companies are not following their own “no deforestation” commitments and they still can’t guarantee deforestation-free palm oil in their products. >>>Tell these brands to cut ties to illegally produced conflict palm oil and stop the deforestation in the Leuser Ecosystem.
Cause for concern…
Hot planet: The Swan Lake wildfire rages through a stand of black spruce in a boreal forest in Alaska in June, part of another record-setting summer for wildfires around the world. “As many of these fires are occurring in remote areas, they may not pose a major threat to densely populated areas, but rural populations, particularly Indigenous groups, are being affected,” reports EFL contributor Robert Walker, president of the Population Institute. “The fires do not bode well for humanity’s future.” (Photo credit: National Wildfire Coordinating Group)
A better life: A rescued pig at Edgar’s Mission, a nonprofit farm sanctuary outside Melbourne, Australia, that cares for more than 300 rescued farm animals. “Public perception of animal cruelty, backed by mounting scientific evidence of the similarities between human and nonhuman animals, is helping to change hearts, minds and laws,” writes EFL contributor and animal activist Nina Jackel, founder and president of Lady Freethinker, an animal rights media nonprofit. “Just as we will evolve past racism, sexism, ageism and religious persecution, we will evolve past barbarism toward animals, too.” (Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals)
Burning for meat: This NASA satellite image shows numerous wildfires burning across the Amazon rainforest on August 11, 2019. The space agency began to detect heightened fire activity in the region in July. (Photo credit: NASA)
Mercy for Animals: The Amazon rainforest is burning. A cloud of smoke covered São Paulo, Brazil, shrouding the city in darkness for a day. What’s driving the rapid increase in fires? Experts point to the clearing of forest for farmland to raise cattle and grow soybeans to feed farmed animals. The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world and helps buffer against global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide—2 billion tons of it per year, holding a total of around 150–200 billion tons of carbon. When they burn, trees and plants release stored carbon. Destroying large blocks of rainforest accelerates climate change by releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The entire world will feel the effects of these fires, and we are all culpable for the destruction they cause. The United States is Brazil’s third-largest export market. In response to the fires, lawmakers in Congress recently introduced H.R. 4263, the Act for the Amazon Act, federal legislation calling for a prohibition on importing certain Brazilian products from industries linked to the fires. >>>Urge your representative to cosponsor H.R. 4263.
NRDC: Are you flushing Canada’s boreal forest, one of Earth’s greatest defenses against climate change, down the toilet? The majestic forest stores huge amounts of our climate-busting carbon pollution, but it’s being cut at a dizzying rate—much of it for toilet paper. Toilet paper brand Charmin uses absolutely no recycled paper in its toilet paper—just 100 percent virgin forest fiber from the boreal forest. This destroys its trees, hurts the livelihood of hundreds of Indigenous communities, and threatens the iconic boreal caribou, billions of songbirds, and other wildlife who call this ancient forest home. >>>Tell Procter & Gamble to make Charmin planet-safe.
Compassion Over Killing: An undercover investigation at Cooke Aquaculture, an industrial Atlantic salmon hatchery in Bingham, Maine, that supplies to Martha Stewart’s new True North Seafood line, has revealed putrid conditions breeding disease and parasites, intensive crowding, and widespread cruelty to fish. The plight of fish often goes unseen and unheard, but this new exposé brings to light the dire lack of protection for millions of animals raised for food. Just as billions of land animals suffer inside factory farms, so too do farmed fish. And like land animals, fish have the ability to suffer and feel pain. >>>Tell Martha Stewart to cut ties with Cooke Aquaculture.
Cause for concern…
Rivers in retreat: A new study has found that groundwater pumping is depleting rivers and streams across the world, threatening water systems already stressed by global warming and overuse. The flow of the Colorado River (above, seen in Lake Powell, Utah) could be decreased by up to 20 percent by 2050 due to climate change alone. (Photo credit: Fred Moore/Flickr)
Putting a cap on it: California has passed a law that protects public land from Trump’s oil and gas development plans. The law, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday, sends a “clear message to Trump that we will fight to protect these beautiful lands for current and future generations,” said Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, who introduced it. (Photo credit: California Water Boards)
Water wars: Young ibises perch on a fallen log along Florida’s Santa Fe River, which supports a myriad of plants and animals—species that would be threatened by Nestlé’s water bottling plan. (Photo credit: anoldent/Flickr)
CREDO Action: Florida’s rivers and the plants and animals that rely on them are already facing multi-pronged threats from land development, pollution and climate change. Now the state’s Santa Fe River is facing a new threat. Nestlé is seeking to extract more than 1.1 million gallons of water a day from the river’s natural springs to sell as bottled water. The Santa Fe is home to the Suwannee moccasinshell, a freshwater mussel that is protected under the Endangered Species Act, and imperiled sturgeon have been found swimming its waters. Turtles, birds and other plant and animal species have called this river home for centuries. Allowing Nestlé to jeopardize the health of this already threatened river is ill-advised and irresponsible. >>>Urge the Suwannee River Water Management District to reject Nestlé’s bottling plan.
The Humane League: McDonald’s is a global giant, but when it comes to the treatment of chickens raised for its menu items, it is lagging behind. McDonald’s has released an inadequate animal welfare policy that fails to address several important welfare issues. Under current conditions, chickens in the company’s supply chain suffer from unnatural growth due to selective breeding and genetical manipulations, ammonia burns from toxic waste fumes, and debilitating injuries from being crippled by the weight of their own oversized bodies. As one of the world’s most influential companies, McDonald’s has the power to impact the entire food industry—as well as the lives of millions of suffering chickens. Instead, McDonald’s has chosen to mislead consumers with hollow promises that lack meaningful change. >>>Urge McDonald’s to stop purchasing abused chickens.
Animal Legal Defense Fund: Special Memories Zoo, a roadside zoo in Greenville, Wisconsin, has a well-documented history of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations. Endangered tigers, Tanya and Teagan, are just two of the more than 200 animals kept in horrible conditions at Special Memories Zoo. These tigers are confined in small, rusty cages, where they are not provided the basic necessities of clean water, food or straw. Witnesses observed the tigers’ water tanks full of algae, their food buckets infested with maggots and rancid meat, and the tigers’ straw left soiled and unchanged for months. The Animal Legal Defense Fund sent notice to Special Memories Zoo declaring an intent to sue the facility for keeping the tigers and other animals in squalid conditions that violate the Endangered Species Act, as well as state laws covering captive wild animals, animal cruelty and public nuisance. >>>Boycott Special Memories Zoo and other roadside zoos that profit by exploiting animals.
Cause for concern…
Danger lurking: A new study has found that pregnant women exposed to higher levels of the common chemical bisphenol A (BPA), used in the manufacturing of plastics, are more likely to bear children who suffer from wheezing and reduced lung capacity, challenging the U.S. Food & Drug administration’s position that it’s “safe at the current levels occurring in foods.” One of the most produced chemicals worldwide, the global BPA market is projected to reach 7.3 million tons by the end of 2023. (Photo credit: mali maeder/Pexels)
Plastic pickup: A floating device designed by Dutch scientists for the non-profit Ocean Cleanup has successfully retrieved plastic trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous collection of marine debris in the north central Pacific Ocean estimated to be at least the size of Texas. Nearly 13 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year. (Photo credit: Ocean Cleanup)
“The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.” —Barry Commoner
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.
Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
Tropical thinking: In this 1856 oil painting by Eduard Ender, Alexander von Humboldt is shown (left) with Aimé Bonpland, a French explorer and botanist, visiting the Amazon rainforest by the Casiquiare River. Armed with an array of scientific instruments, the pair were able to take many types of accurate measurements throughout their five-year expedition. (Image: Wikipedia)
As the world burns — and as kids sound the alarm — the original environmental scientist is worth revisiting.
By Erika Schelby, Independent Media Institute
Alexander von Humboldt was born on September 14, 1769. In his day, he was a globetrotting, convention-defying hero — one of the firstrecorded individuals to raise environmental concerns. To make him hip for a new generation, all it takes is a rediscovery of Humboldt by the young climate strikers across the globe. Their numbers are growing, their task is huge, and they are now urging adults to join them. Why let parents fiddle when the house burns? On May 22, grown-ups at the Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and The Guardian listened and launched Covering Climate Now, a project to encourage more coverage of climate change in the media. Bill Moyers, the keynote speaker, pointed out that from 2017 to 2018, major network coverage of climate issues fell 45 percent to a total of a mere 142 minutes. And on May 23, with her knack of being spot-on, 16-year-old climate activist and rising star Greta Thunberg promptly wrote of taking on the climate change challenge: “It’s humanity’s job.”
Finding a champion like Humboldt could be a joyous surprise for the young climate strikers. He has their back. He saw anthropogenic climate change coming more than 200 years ago. After all, he was the pioneering scientist who observed, documented and analyzed human-caused environmental damage in the early 1800s during his long journey of scientific exploration in Latin America. That’s when he blasted the methods of colonialism and warned about climate change caused by reckless deforestation and monoculture plantations. Back then, he investigated dried-up hillsides and the harm done by violent floods. He noted how once abundant water resources were wasted and fertile agricultural land grew barren. He saw things others overlooked.
It was at Lake Valencia in northern Venezuela where Humboldt developed his idea that humans were negatively impacting the climate. In his 1814 book, “Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctal Regions of the New Continent,” he wrote:
“When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America by the European planters, with an imprudent precipitation, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less abundant. The beds of the rivers remaining dry during a part of the year, are converted into torrents, whenever great rains fall on the heights. The sward and moss disappearing from the brush-wood on the sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded in their course: and instead of slowly augmenting the level of the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow during heavy showers the sides of the hills, bear down the loose soil, and form those sudden inundations that devastate the country.”
Humboldt came to search for and comprehend the unity of nature. He spoke up for the Earth and for social justice. We can learn from his battles for sustainable practices. Humboldt was an environmental scientist even before the words environment or ecology were coined (1827 and 1875, respectively).
Perhaps it is timely that kid-led, citizen-based, grassroots organizing, like the Sunrise Movement in the United States, the Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom and the global School Strike for Climate, have taken root in 2019, the year of Humboldt’s 250th birthday on September 14. Events, talks, conferences, exhibits, concerts, celebrations and the premiere of a musical “Humboldt!” are scheduled — but not so much here in the United States, where we remain force-fed and distracted by political burlesques. In contrast, the climate-striking school kids stayed focused. Each week on #FridaysForFuture,they walk out of their schools to demand a future. Other new groups have started their own activities. Big demonstrations are planned for September 20, just a few days after the festivities for Humboldt’s birthday are over.
Scientists tell us that humans have only 12 years left to reduce emissions and limit global warming to an increase of 1.5° Celsius before things get really grim. And research on the rapidly shrinking biodiversity shows evidence that one million species face extinction. The environmentalist David Attenborough said during a recent United Nations climate conference that we are facing the “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world.” Greta Thunberg also came straight to the point. Her comment on May 24, the day of the second global climate strike at 1,263 locations in 107 countries has only four words: “Activism works. So act.”
Humboldt represents the road not taken. He was a scientist who saw everything as interconnected. He called for good global stewardship and objected to the careless exploitation of resources. His warnings weren’t heeded. Soon a zeitgeist shift rushed things along on an opposing highway: toward massive development and depletion as if there were no tomorrow. So now it’s appropriate to recall that during the first decades of the 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt was the second-most famous person in the world after Napoleon. The books documenting his work were international bestsellers.
Road not taken: In this 1810 painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, Alexander von Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland meet near the foot of the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador. (Image: Wikipedia)
As part of his lecture series and later five-volume treatise, “Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe,” he gave more than 60 free and lengthy talks to thousands of people from all walks of life. Workers and members of the nobility, men and women, young and old listened to him, rapt. He did not live in an ivory tower. Here in the United States, folks also knew very well who he was and what he did. They named their towns, counties, mountains, forests, schools and parks after him. Today he is still a big deal, but not for the general public. Now he is known almost exclusively only among specialist academic Humboldtians across the globe. There are several active institutions: The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation is one of them. It has 29,000 members. They are scientists and scholars from all disciplines in 140 countries.
An outstanding communicator, Humboldt hand-wrote thousands of letters per year and built an extensive worldwide network with correspondents during his lifetime. This networking continues today, enhanced by the electronic media. This helps in keeping his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson alive and available on digital platforms.
In her book “The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America,”Laura Dassow Walls, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, tells a little story about John B. Floyd, U.S. Secretary of War, and how in 1858 he visited Humboldt in Berlin to pay his respects. An advance gift had been sent to the old man. It was a fine album with nine maps showing all the Humboldt place names in the U.S. There was also a letter. It said:
“Never can we forget the services you have rendered not only to us but to all the world. The name of Humboldt is not only a household word throughout our immense country, from the shores of the Atlantic to the waters of the Pacific, but we have honored ourselves by its use in many parts of our territory….”
Just as he finished reading this florid ode, the American guest was shown in. A bit of toning down was required. “I wish you to know,” joked Humboldt, “that I am a river about 350 miles long; I have many tributaries, not much timber, but I am full of fish.”
Full of fish. There are still fish in Nevada’s Humboldt River: stocked fish. These days the young fish are grown in hatcheries and put into the stream by humans for the pleasure of the sport-fishing community. Other locations named Humboldt will face serious challenges. In northern California, for example, research and vulnerability studies predict that several communities in beautiful Humboldt County will be washed over by tides on a daily basis. This area has the highest risks of sea-level rise on the extensive U.S. West Coast.
Yet on the upside is the potential for constructing offshore wind energy projects. The northern coastline has long been regarded as ideal, even unparalleled in the U.S., but the local water depth was too deep for wind turbine installations. Now the latest technologies of floating platforms offer solutions. And Humboldt Bay also has California’s only deep-water port north of San Francisco, which will be essential in providing the infrastructure for renewable energy resources.
The good news is that apparently we already have affordable technologies, techniques and the science that can help us to save the planet from becoming uninhabitable. It will be difficult and a long hard slog. Dealing with the tobacco industry was easy compared to the contests to come, and the stakes are higher than they have ever been.
Humboldt’s groundbreaking 1807 “Essay on the Geography of Plants” was published in a complete English-language translation for the first time in 2009 by the University of Chicago Press. As the publisher’s description tells us, the book covers “far more than its title implies. … [I]t represents the first articulation of an integrative ‘science of the earth.’” Walls calls it a work by “our first planetary thinker.” Those trying to find a trail “to the future should start with this book, Humboldt’s manifesto for the 21st century.” As a Humboldt fan, I agree.
Island life: Humboldt’s botanical drawing of Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, a flowering plant, was published in his work on Cuba. (Image: Wikipedia)
The 1807 essay is a powerful road map drawn by a prescient thinker, and it shows the author’s holistic understanding of the natural world:
I]t represents the first articulation of an integrative ‘science of the earth.’” Walls calls it a work by “our first planetary thinker.” Those trying to find a trail “to the future should start with this book, Humboldt’s manifesto for the 21st century.” As a Humboldt fan, I agree. The 1807 essay is a powerful road map drawn by a prescient thinker, and it shows the author’s holistic understanding of the natural world:
“Botanists usually direct their research towards objects that encompass only a very small part of their science. They are concerned almost exclusively with the discovery of new species of plants, the study of their external structure, their distinguishing characteristics, and the analogies that group them together into classes and families. …
“[I]t is no less important to understand the Geography of Plants, a science that up to now exists in name only, and yet is an essential part of general physics.
“This is the science that concerns itself with plants in their local association in the various climates. This science, as vast as its object, paints with a broad brush the immense space occupied by plants, from the regions of perpetual snows to the bottom of the ocean, and into the very interior of the earth, where there subsist in obscure caves some cryptogams that are as little known as the insects feeding upon them.”
Although no one knows if the climate strikers will stumble into Humboldt and his ideas, I hope they do.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.
Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
Rainforest rights: Activists gathered outside the Brazilian Consulate in San Francisco on June 21, 2019, urging Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to protect the Amazon and respect Indigenous rights. The private sector must also play a role. “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” wrote Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, in his annual letter to CEOs last year, calling for “sustainable, long-term growth.” He added, “Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.” These sentiments, however, are at odds with his firm’s practice. As the nonprofit AmazonWatch points out, “BlackRock’s portfolio includes many companies operating in the Amazon; companies whose operations both contribute to rainforest deforestation and run roughshod over the territorial rights, health and ways of life of the hundreds of indigenous peoples with unique languages and cultures who live in and rely on the rainforest for their livelihoods and wellbeing.” (Photo credit: Peg Hunter/Flickr)
Action Network: BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, has more money invested in the fossil fuel and agribusiness industries–the biggest drivers of climate change–than any other company in the world. That means that BlackRock’s portfolio constitutes a huge liability for putting the planet on a path towards runaway climate change. In fact, BlackRock contributes more to climate change than almost any other company on Earth. The Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous inhabitants are under acute threat from BlackRock, which is taking advantage of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s removal of environmental barriers to economic activities in the Amazon. And now they will have even more access to deforestation and destruction. Bolsonaro has advocated for the opening of new areas of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture and industry. As a result, BlackRock announced plans to expand its operations in Brazil after Bolsonaro was elected. Moves like this signal strong support for Bolsonaro, whose rhetoric is inspiring violence against Indigenous communities in the Amazon and beyond. As one of the largest investors in Brazil’s agribusiness industry, BlackRock could use its financial clout to curb, not encourage, further forest destruction. It should divest from companies that continue these destructive practices. >>>Urge BlackRock to stop financing Amazon destruction.
Care2: Trump’s main campaign goal of erecting a border wall along the U.S. Mexico border is not only unnecessary and a bad use of funds—it would also actively harm the environment. The walls that already exist along that border show us just how damaging a more expansive one would be. Borders are not real; they are imaginary lines created by humans to maintain power and hierarchies. Wildlife don’t care about which country says they own a certain piece of land: They live and travel where they need to. And because borders are so arbitrarily drawn with zero consideration for the environment, they wreak havoc on natural habitats. There are already some wall-like structures across the U.S.-Mexico border, and they are causing huge problems. For one thing, birds are literally getting stuck in the structures during migration, while other land-based creatures are hemmed in and prevented from moving around. And animals are not the only ones suffering. Water drainage, protected areas and more are not even being considered before these barriers are placed. >>>Tell the Trump administration that you oppose the border wall.
WWF: From beaches in Indonesia to the Arctic, plastic is choking our planet. Most plastic becomes trash after a single use. It has contaminated the soil, rivers and oceans. Eight million metric tons of plastic ends up in the oceans every year. They break down into tiny bits of microplastic, small enough to enter our food chain, along with other types of microplastics like those that are released when we wash our clothes. On average, we could be ingesting around five grams of plastic every week—the equivalent weight of a credit card. In fact, we could be consuming, on average, over 100,000 pieces of microplastic every year. That’s approximately 21 grams a month, just over 250 grams a year. Many of us are doing our bit to reduce plastic pollution, but it’s time that governments and businesses took responsibility too. >>>Urge world governments to introduce a global legally-binding agreement to stop plastics polluting our oceans.
Cause for concern…
Lungs on fire: A NASA satellite image take on August 21 shows smoke from the fires raging in in the Amazon basin that has created a shroud clearly visible across much of central South America. Environmental groups and scientists say the unusual number of wildfires blazing across the Brazilian rainforest were set by cattle ranchers and loggers seeking to clear the land, emboldened by the pro-business stance of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. “The vast majority of these fires are human-lit,” said Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organization Amazon Watch, pointing out that Amazon—called the “lungs of the planet” since it provides a fifth of the Earth’s oxygen—is fairly resistant to natural wildfires even during dry seasons due to its high humidity, unlike the arid bushland typical in Australia and California. Humanity’s taste for meat is a main driver for the destruction of the Amazon. According to the World Bank, cattle ranching is responsible for up to 91 percent of Amazon deforestation since 1970. Moreover, soybeans used for animal feed is one of the region’s primary crops.(Photo credit: NASA).
Sisters-in-arms: Lakota Elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where she founded Sacred Stone Camp, one of the grassroots resistance camps fighting against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This past June, Allard joined fellow Sacred Stone Village residents who made the five-hour drive from Standing Rock to join the first annual Sovereign Sisters Gathering in Black Hills, South Dakota, which brought together women and their allies to oppose to the current industrialized, extractive model with the development of a new economic vision. This new model, writes Tracy L. Barnett in YES! Magazine, is one in which “Indigenous women reclaim and reassert their sovereignty over themselves, their food systems, and their economies.” (Dark Sevier/Flickr)
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” —Chris Maser, “Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest” (Oregon State University Press, 2001)
Let them eat cake: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the United States, giving low-income individuals and families access to food via an Electronic Benefits Transfer card to make purchases in retail food stores. But now the Trump administration wants to cut “broad-based categorical eligibility” (BBCE), which allows states to expand access to qualified individuals and families. “By eliminating it, the administration is effectively creating a benefits cliff, where a parent’s small raise at work—or a modest amount of savings—could end up disqualifying a family from SNAP entirely,” writes Karen Dolan on Marketwatch. “That leaves them poorer for getting a raise or saving money, or else puts them at risk of their food aid falling through the bureaucratic cracks. … On moral grounds, it’s indefensible.” (Photo credit: Delaware Agriculture/Flickr)
CREDO: SNAP is one of the most effective and efficient ways to reduce poverty and boost the economy from the bottom. Currently, states have the leeway to allow people to access SNAP benefits (i.e., food stamps) while still building up some small savings for the future. But President Trump’s Department of Agriculture has a new proposal that would eliminate that flexibility and rip SNAP benefits away from more than 3 million people who rely on them for food security. In addition to robbing families and single adults of food security, changing who is eligible for SNAP benefits would also take school lunches off the trays of more than 500,000 children. This is unacceptable. >>>Tell the Department of Agriculture: Don’t cut SNAP benefits.
Humane Society of the United States: Shark populations are in crisis due to the global trade in shark fins. Every year, fins from as many as 73 million sharks are traded throughout the world to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup. To provide these fins, fishermen often engage in shark finning—a horrific practice in which they cut off sharks’ fins, then toss the mutilated animals back into the ocean where they drown, bleed to death, or are eaten alive by other fish. The shark fin trade has also played a major role in the steep decline of shark species worldwide, some populations of which have dropped by as much as 90 percent in recent decades. Although shark finning is prohibited in American waters, the U.S. still has a bustling market for shark fins. Consumers in most states can buy them, and the U.S. is one of the world’s top importers of shark fins as well as a transit point for international shark fin shipments. That means the U.S. contributes to shark finning and dwindling shark populations elsewhere in the world. The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737 and S. 877, will help reduce this trade by prohibiting the import, export, possession, trade and distribution of shark fins and products containing shark fins—saving these animals from a devastating fate. >>>Urge your representatives and senators to support H.R. 737 and S. 877 to stop the trade of shark fins in the United States.
Care2: Foie gras, which is French for “fatty liver,” involves force-feeding restrained ducks, or geese, by shoving metal pipes down their throats multiple times a day, called gavage, and pumping them full of grain, or corn and fat, which leads to acute hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease. As a result, ducks suffer from malfunctioning livers that are ten times their normal size, among other health problems that leave many unable to even breathe normally, or just stand and move around. Fortunately, the practice is considered so inhumane that it’s already been banned in a dozen countries, while several others have a ban on force-feeding. Now, New York City may be next to act. Following a major win in California with the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the state’s ban, Councilwoman Carlina Rivera has just introduced a bill that would ban the sale of foie gras in New York City over concerns about the cruelty involved in its production. If it’s passed, anyone found breaking the law will be facing fines of up to $1,000, up to a year in jail, or both. >>>Urge the NYC Council to ban foie gras.
Cause for concern…
Alarming air: A third of new annual cases of childhood asthma in Europe are caused by air pollution, according to a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. The researchers also concluded that up to 11 percent of those cases could be prevented each year if European countries complied with air guidelines set by the World Health Organization. More than 63 million children across Europe suffer from asthma, the most common chronic disease in children. “Largely, these impacts are preventable and there are numerous policy measures which can reduce the ambient levels of, and children’s exposures to, outdoor air pollution,” said Haneen Khreis, lead author of the study and an associated researcher at the Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy, and Health at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. “We can and should do something about it.” (Photo credit: Bread for the World/Flickr)
Soil matters: There are numerous ways that conventional agriculture is destructive, illogical and inhumane. Monoculture reuses the same soil, leading to plant diseases. The indiscriminate use of pesticides poisons the waterways, wildlife and causes brain damage in children. Animals on factory farms are cruelly confined and experience immense suffering. Now a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unveils the opinion of a panel of 100 scientists: Our broken food system is responsible for 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are causing rampant global warming. Scaling up organic farming should be a part of the solution and can play a bigger role in food production. As EFL contributor Elizabeth Henderson points out in an op-ed in Truthout, “Organic farming has brought environmental benefits—healthier soils, freedom from toxic pesticides and herbicides—to 6.5 million acres in the U.S.,” adding that National Organic Program standards “require outdoor access for livestock, grass for ruminants and dirt for scratching for poultry.” (Photo credit: Brian Boucheron/Flickr)
The EFL article “10 Ways Andrew Wheeler Has Decimated EPA Protections in Just One Year,” by Elliott Negin (Truthout, July 11, 2019), incorrectly stated that “the design improvements automakers have made so far to meet the [fuel efficiency] standards have already saved drivers more than $86 trillion at the pump since 2012.” The correct figure is $86 billion. Sorry. It has been corrected. Thanks to EFL reader RexBC from Dallas for letting us know.
Parting thought…
“Almost every single major environmental problem could be solved by a global shift toward plant-based eating.” —James Cameron, foreword to “Food Is the Solution: What to Eat to Save the World,” by Matthew Prescott (Flatiron Books, 2018)
George, we hardly knew ye: On January 1, George, a 14-year-old snail who was the last known representative of his species, Achatinella apexfulva, died. For years, George (not pictured above) had been in the care of wildlife biologist David Sischo and his team at the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. For more than a decade, scientists searched for a mate to save the species, but were unsuccessful. National Geographic called George’s loss “emblematic of the loss of native Hawaiian mollusks.” But as a rare case of being the subject of a vigil that counted down the days to the extinction of a species in real time, George is emblematic of the global extinction crisis known as the Sixth Extinction: the sixth time in the history of life on Earth that global fauna has undergone a major population collapse, only this time it’s caused by human activity like deforestation, mining and greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Red List of Threatened Species, which is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than 28,000 species are threatened with extinction—more than a fourth of all assessed species. (Photo credit: Pixabay/Pexels)
Care2: Our planet is losing species at a rate faster than any time since the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth 65 million years ago. And yet in the face of this extinction crisis, Republicans in the U.S. Congress are working to dismantle the law that gives species on the brink a fighting chance. In the last 10 years, more than 300 bills have been introduced that take aim at the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the vast majority by Republican legislators. They’ve attempted to limit authorities from listing new endangered species based on the economic costs of protecting that given species, and whether or not it is native to the U.S. They’ve even tried to force wildlife experts to get Congress’s permission for every single listing decision. The ESA is an environmental success story. It’s helped save wolves, crocodiles, whooping cranes and many more species from annihilation. In the face of climate change and human development putting more species at risk, we need to strengthen—not weaken—every tool we have to fight back. >>>Urge Republican lawmakers to oppose any bill that weakens the Endangered Species Act.
Pacific Environment: Our oceans are drowning in plastic. Around the world, it suffocates sea turtles, starves seabirds, destroys marine habitat, and clogs local rivers. In fact, we’re on track to have more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans. Zero waste grassroots campaigners have promoted the concept of zero waste in Vietnam, which helped inspire Vietnam’s prime minister to commit to banning single-use plastic nationwide by 2025. But if we’re going to win the battle against the plastic pollution crisis, we have to fight it at home, too. The U.S. produces more waste per person than any other country in the world, and instead of working to stem the tide of pollution, American plastic manufacturers want to dramatically increase production over the next decade. Over 270 organizations from across the country are demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency do its job and stop Big Plastic from polluting our oceans and communities. >>>Urge the EPA to protect communities and oceans from the rising tide of plastic pollution.
Fur Free Minneapolis: The fur trade is a brutal industry where millions of animals such as foxes, minks, rabbits, dogs, cats, raccoons, and chinchillas are killed every year. Most of these animals are raised on fur farms, where they are confined to a life of misery in cages that are barely bigger than their bodies. They live through intense stress and engage in psychotic behaviors like repetitive pacing, self-mutilation and cannibalism. These animals endure this life only to be killed in some of the most inhumane ways. They are electrocuted and stunned, and some are still alive as they are beaten and skinned. They are submitted to this suffering solely for the sake of their fur. Fur farms pollute our water systems with phosphorus, causing algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle, which in turn leads to the death of fish and plants and reduces the use of the water for human purposes such as consumption and swimming. Fur farms also use at least four times the amount of resources (water and feed) as farms producing plant-based fabrics. In this day of countless eco and animal-friendly fabrics, there is no need for this violent industry. >>>Urge the Minneapolis City Council to pass an ordinance that bans the sale of new fur products within the city.
Cause for concern…
Exxon under fire: Protesters in Washington, D.C., take part in the Global Climate March, held in cities across 175 nations in November 2015. Last year, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a case against ExxonMobil, accusing America’s largest oil company of defrauding investors by understating the impact that government-led greenhouse gas emission reductions would have on its business. Last week, Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York Supreme Court sided with the prosecutors’ assertion that ExxonMobil was attempting to discourage witnesses from testifying by making “unreasonable” and extensive requests for documents from the witnesses. The oil giant “can’t go on a gigantic, burdensome fishing expedition to exhume hundreds or thousands of documents that have no relevance to the issues in this case,” said Justice Ostrager. “We must do what we can to stand up to the industry bent on prioritizing its profits over global survival,” writes Patti Lynn, the executive director of the nonprofit Corporate Accountability, in a recent EFL op-ed on Truthout. “Right now, we have a tremendous opportunity to go on the offensive at the state level—and investigations by attorneys general are critical to this.” (Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr)
A helping moo: In a recent article for The New York Times, Elisa Mala investigates “cow cuddling,” a practice in which people interact with the bovines by brushing or petting them, and even having chats. “The experience is similar to equine therapy, with one game-changing difference: Horses tend to stand, but cows spontaneously lie down in the grass while chewing their cud, allowing humans to get even more up close and personal by joining on the ground and offering a warm embrace,” she writes. As the use of emotional support animals grows, some researchers are proposing a standard assessment for certifications. Dr. Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist, points out that, just like pets, some emotional support animals “would rather be doing something else and enjoy more freedom,” underscoring the importance of meeting the animal’s unique needs and well-being. “I’m all in favor of people using nonhuman animals of many different species for emotional support if it works for them and the animal.” (Photo credit: Kat Jayne/Pexels)
Monsanto’s milk? A new study by the Center for Environmental Health found over 90 percent of families tested had glyphosate in their bodies. The main ingredient in Monsanto’s popular weedkiller, which the World Health Organization classifies as a probable carcinogen, glyphosate has also been found in 80 percent of breast milk samples in a recent study conducted in Urucui, Brazil, a region where soybean farms are sprayed with the herbicide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a review of glyphosate and is accepting public comments until September 3, 2019. (Photo credit: Rawpixels/Pexels)
Organic Consumers Association: Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is the most widely used herbicide in the world. Its residues are found in water and soil. It’s sprayed along roadsides, sidewalks, parks and playgrounds, gardens, and on school grounds. Testing shows a variety of foods contain glyphosate. It has been detected in the urine of the majority of people who have submitted samples for testing, and has been found in breast milk. Not only does it damage the placenta, it crosses the placenta, which may result in birth defects. In March 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, based on numerous scientific studies linking glyphosate to a range of cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, renal cancers, skin cancers and pancreatic cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently reviewing glyphosate and is accepting public comments until September 3, 2019. >>>Urge the EPA to ban glyphosate.
Care2: Bumblebees have suffered immensely in the 21st century. Since the 1990s, scientists estimate that 90 percent of the bumblebee population has been lost. Many factors have contributed to their decline, but chief among them is that bumblebee habitat has dropped by 87 percent. Yet despite these shocking numbers, it took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) until 2017 to add the rusty patched bumblebee to the Endangered Species List. It was supposed to be a new beginning. But since then, USFWS has missed its legal deadlines to protect bumblebee habitat. When the agency was granted an extension, it missed the new deadline, too. Among the most important pollinators, bumblebees are essential to keeping our environment healthy and keeping people fed. We need them to keep our crops growing and sustain healthy environments. Bumblebees help keep us alive. The least we can do is hold our government accountable to do what is required to save them. >>>Urge USFWS to take immediate action to protect bumblebee habitat and save these critical pollinators from extinction.
Lady Freethinker: In a devastating assault on protected whale populations, Japan announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and has resumed killing whales commercially as of July 1, 2019. The slaughter of the whales is brutal and horrific. Whalers attack them with a harpoon loaded with explosives. When it makes contact with the animal, shrapnel is propelled into their bodies and the prongs of the harpoon spread open to stop the whale from escaping. Death is slow and excruciating. Japan has continued to kill whales under the guise of scientific research over the last 30 years. This year, 122 of 333 minke whales murdered for “research” were pregnant and 53 were youths. Japan plans to hunt minke, sei and Bryde’s whales along the Pacific coast, devastating these protected species. >>>Urge the Japanese government to reverse their cruel and short-sighted decision to bring back commercial whale hunting.
Cause for concern…
Hold your breath: Just as the Trump administration is rolling back clean air rules, a new study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that more than 30,000 deaths have been linked to unhealthy air quality in the United States over the past 20 years. Adding to the concern is the report’s conclusion that even places considered “safe” can still experience increased mortality rates. “We’ve known for some time that these particles can be deadly,” Majid Ezzati from Imperial’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, referring to PM2.5, atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers—30 times smaller than the width of a human hair. “This study suggests even at seemingly low concentrations—mostly below current limits—they still cause tens of thousands of deaths.” (Photo credit: SD-Pictures/Pixabay)
Stand up and be counted: An estimated 200,000 people joined the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2017, to protest President Trump’s anti-environment policies. The capital was one of 300 locations across the nation that participated in the action. Now, organizers of global climate strikes scheduled for September 20th and 27th in more than 150 countries are hoping for a massive turnout. “Young people have been leading here,” said climate activist Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental nonprofit 350.org, “but now it’s the job of the rest of us to back them up.” (Photo credit: Justice & Witness Ministries/Flickr)
Change agent: In his latest book, “Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, 2018, 2nd ed.), Joseph Romm, founding editor of the blog Climate Progress, argues that energy conservation has the potential to be the largest source of reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG). He asks, “For the majority of the biggest GHG emitters in the world, especially those in the developed countries, how many energy-intensive activities we do every week and every year are truly vital, something we could not live without? How big a house is vital? How much driving discretionary? How much flying? These are not questions that can be easily answered today.” Romm wonders about how motivated people will be in 2030 to change their emitting ways, “as it becomes more and more painfully clear that not changing behavior will have catastrophic impacts for billions of people, including their own children and grandchildren.”
Ticking time bomb: Investigative reporter Mary Beth Pfeiffer started writing about Lyme disease in 2012 for Poughkeepsie Journal, but as she soon found out, it “proved to be a story far beyond what I’d envisioned … a minefield of controversy with patients caught in the middle.” In her recent book, “Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change” (Island Press, 2018), Pfeiffer sheds new light on another creeping menace of a warming world. “[W]hile Lyme is firmly rooted in thousands of locales, it is surely not confined there are climate changes, ticks move, and cases mount,” she writes, pointing out that the disease is found in at least 30 countries and yields up to 400,000 new cases each year in the U.S. alone. “Lyme disease is moving, breaking out, spreading like an epidemic.”
Keeping it simple: In her book “Simple Acts to Save Our Planet: 500 Ways to Make a Difference” (Simon and Schuster, 2018), Michelle Neff makes the case that “little acts really do add up to big change,” offering a reminder that big global scourges like plastic trash and food waste are just the cumulative effects of small bad decisions made by billions of people every single day. Neff, a writer for the environmental website One Green Planet, offers many easy ways to reduce our personal impact on the planet, from obvious techniques like buying detergent and dish soap in boxes instead of plastic bottles, to more innovative ideas, like creating rain gardens, which help to reduce stormwater runoff and prevent pollutants from entering local streams and lakes.
Parting thought…
“To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.” —Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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