“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”
-Rachel Carson

March is National Woman’s History Month, and this year Rachel Carson is being honored.  Carson, of course, is the scientist who in 1962 wrote Silent Spring, the “classic that launched the environmental movement”, exposing the devastating effects of the chemical DDT on bird populations.  This bestseller led to the banning of DDT, the creation of the Clean Water Act, and the forming of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Those of us who choose to eat organic foods have Rachel Carson to thank for exposing the potential dangers of pesticides.

To celebrate Carson’s legacy, 100 screenings of the newly released movie, “A Sense of Wonder”, will be held nationwide.  This movie chronicles the last year of Carson’s life, as she battled cancer and worked to present her message to Congress and the American public.

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Here comes more dour empirical data.

Ongoing deforestation in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia has been further linked to the rising demand for biofuels, according to speakers at a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):

“If reduced U.S. soybean production results in a parallel increase in Brazilian soybean production, a potential net release of 1,800 to 9,100 Tg (trillion grams) of CO2-equivalents of greenhouse gas emissions due to land-use change is possible,” [Michael Coe of Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts] wrote in a summary of his talk. That is equivalent to more than 9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Let’s just hope someone has that cellulosic biofuel breakthrough we’re all hoping for.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A bill introduced by assemblyman Wesley Chesbro (D-Arcata) aims to reduce waste, litter, and greenhouse gases and create thousands of green jobs. The California Product Stewardship Act, AB 283, also would tackle the front end of product life cycles by incentivizing producers to design products and packaging that are less toxic, more durable, reusable, recyclable and/or biodegradable.

Chesbro, the chair of the Assembly’s Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, says:

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Hilarides Dairy, in California, has converted a pair of big rigs (18-wheelers) to run on biomethane produced from cow manure. The effort is thought to be the nation’s first trucks powered by chow chips.

Hilarides plans to use manure produced by 10,000 cows, generating 226,000 cubic feet of biomethane daily — enough to reduce the company’s daily diesel fuel consumption by 650 gallons.

Source: Wired

Photo: 10-4 Magazine

Thanks to a freedom of information request by justice spokesman David Howarth, police have revealed a list of 2,000 items confiscated from protesters at the Climate Camp protest at England’s Kingsnorth coal plant last August.

A clown outfit, children’s crayons, soap, books, tents, bicycle helmets, and other seemingly random items were deemed “potentially harmful” by police at the scene.

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Leading scientists call foul in the use of kids aged 6 to 10 as subjects in genetically modified foods trials, claiming a severe breach of medical ethics, specifically the Nuremberg code.

“We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects.”

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