Oxitec’s dye-marked Oxi513A male mosquitoes ready for release in Brazil.
Courtesy Oxitec Ltd.
KEY WEST, Fla. — In late October, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Department of Agriculture tested insecticidal aerial spraying techniques over a warfare range in Jacksonville, Fla. The purpose: to evaluate how to lower populations of the blood-feeding Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits dengue fever.
Oxitec’s dye-marked Oxi513A male mosquitoes ready for release in Brazil.
Courtesy Oxitec Ltd.
KEY WEST, Fla. — In late October, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Department of Agriculture tested insecticidal aerial spraying techniques over a warfare range in Jacksonville, Fla. The purpose: to evaluate how to lower populations of the blood-feeding Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits dengue fever.
I lived in Anchorage for 10 years and spent much of that time climbing in and on the spine of the state, the Alaska Range. Three times I stood atop the mountain the Athabaskans call Denali, “the great one.” During that decade, I mountaineered for more than half a year on that magnificent state’s highest peaks. It was there that I took in my own insignificance while living amid rock and ice, sleeping atop glaciers that creaked and moaned as they slowly ground their way toward lower elevations.
A coalition of Oregon organic farmers has beaten Monsanto—the corporate agriculture giant—in a landmark federal lawsuit that will make national waves by the way that their rural county banned the use of genetically modified seeds.
On Friday, Mark D. Clarke, a federal magistrate judge, dismissed a legal challenge brought by commercial farmers who use Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa seeds. The non-organic farms sought to overturn a 2014 ordinance passed by Jackson County voters that banned the use of such seed stock, claiming that the anti-GMO ordinance violated their right to farm.
However Judge Clarke concluded that exactly the opposite was the case. He held that the county's no-GMO seed ordinance could take effect next week, citing earlier state legislation that protected commercial farms—in this case organic farmers—from harm from other commercial enterprises, such as the commercial farms whose GMO-laced alfalfa pollen gets carried by the wind and can't be stopped from tainting organic crops.
Dr. Ramon Seidler, a retired senior scientist from the US Environmental Protection Agency, has become a leading spokesperson against genetically modified foods and the increasing use of pesticides with GM crops. He actively supported Oregon’s GMO labeling initiative, Measure 92, which was narrowly defeated last fall.
Dr. Seidler’s criticism of GMOs is noteworthy because during his career at the EPA he studied the impacts of genetically modified organisms on the environment. He and his fellow researchers developed methods to evaluate and predict the survival, multiplication, gene exchange, effects, and dispersal of GMOs. He published papers on these topics.
What happens when one courageous attorney and a few citizens try to take down Monsanto? The MSM doesn’t cover it, for starters.
Efforts to publicize aclass action lawsuit against Monsantofor false advertising its best-selling herbicide Roundup filed in Los Angeles County Court on April 20, 2015 have been rejected by almost every mainstream media outlet.
It’s no different than Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC refusing to cover the DARK ACT, which wouldgive Monsanto legal immunityand disallow states to demand GMO labeling.
What happens when one courageous attorney and a few citizens try to take down Monsanto? The MSM doesn’t cover it, for starters.
Efforts to publicize a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for false advertising it’s best-selling herbicide Roundup filed in Los Angeles County Court on April 20, 2015 have been rejected by almost every mainstream media outlet.
It’s no different than Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC refusing to cover the DARK ACT which would give Monsanto legal immunity and disallow states to demand GMO
labeling.
You would think that coverage of something the whole world wants to see – the first step toward the successful downfall of Monsanto –would be a hot news item; a newsworthy tidbit that every paper, radio station, and blog would want to spread across their pages with double bold headlines. But wait. . . just six corporations own ALL of the media in America, so there isn’t much luck there.
Emissions from Natural Gas Wells May Travel Far Downwind
APRIL 30, 2015
Contacts:
Faye Levine 301-405-0379
Lee Tune 301-405-4679
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Emissions linked to hydraulic fracturing, the method of drilling for natural gas commonly known as “fracking,” can be detected hundreds of miles away in states that that forbid or strictly control the practice, according to a UMD study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. The study is among the latest data presented in the ongoing debate over fracking’s long-term effects on the environment.
The team used years’ worth of hourly measurements from photochemical assessment monitoring stations (PAMS) in the Baltimore, Md., and Washington, D.C., areas to identify the sources of organic carbons in the region’s air. Starting in 2010, the data didn’t seem to make sense.
Zion National Park. Photo credit: Joe Parks / Flickr
The U.S. currently has 59 national parks, protecting more than 210,000 square miles of land with several more public lands being preserved on state and local levels. Very few national parks are large enough to contain ecosystems. Problems such as greenhouse gases,climate change, industrial fumes, the extent of land development and their environmental impacts were not envisioned when most of their borders were first enacted
The physical boundaries of these public lands are not enough to protect their ecosystems from exterior influences. The National Parks are not islands. They have intimate connections to our lives. They are sources of clean air, clean water and untouched forests that thousands of species, including our own, depend on. New studies reveal that our public lands are too fragmented and small to sufficiently protect the biodiversity of the U.S.
Tom Pennington—Getty ImagesA herd of longhorn cattle stand as wildfire rages near on September 1, 2011 in Graford, Texas
Researchers say the bacteria are capable of "traveling for long distances"
A new study says the DNA from antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in American cattle yards has becomeairborne, creating a new pathway by which such bacteria can potentially spread to humans and hinder treatment of life-threatening infections.
Researchers gathered airborne particulate matter (PM) from around 10 commercial cattle yards within a 200 mile radius of Lubbock, Texas over a period of six-months. They found the air downwind of the yards contained antibiotics, bacteria and a “significantly greater” number of microbial communities containing antibiotic-resistant genes. That’s according to the study to be published in next month’s issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
“To our knowledge, this study is among the first to detect and quantify antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes…associated with airborne PM emitted from beef cattle feed yards,” said the authors, who are researchers in environmental toxicology at Texas Tech University and at a testing lab in Lubbock.
