A call to protect much more land and sea from human encroachment

Science X 

Riding Mtn. Nat'l. Park - Manitoba, Canada. A PinP photo.

A new paper in the journal Science strongly supports establishment of many more land and sea areas as protected sites. Failure to do so, the editorial warns, chillingly, could spell doom for many species, including our own! More here.

"You ain't seen nothing yet!" Environmentalists fear Hurricane Florence will again flood Carolinas' many livestock operations, bringing catastrophic pollution.

by Larry Powell

Almost 750 thousand turkeys (shown here) and some 100 thousand hogs,
were lost in catastrophic flooding in North Carolina during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. 
Dave Gatley FEMA

It's an all-too-familiar story.

Given past history, chances are good that Florence will once again turn waterways in the Carolinas - home to hundreds of huge swine and poultry barns and waste lagoons, into a toxic mess of feces, urine and animal remains. It happened when Hurricane Floyd struck in 1999 and Mathew stormed in in 2016.  Even tho they were smaller storms than Florence is now, Mathew and Floyd left their marks, too. According to "The New Food Economy," 14 lagoons flooded and millions of animals died during Mathew. Environmental groups such as The Waterkeeper Alliance, documented what they called "fields of filth" left behind, as seen here. Floyd's toll was also devastating. (See photo, above.)

North Carolina's livestock produce more than 90 billion kilograms of "wet waste" annually.

Despite these seemingly catastrophic scenarios, the hog industry is still putting on a brave, if not contradictory face. The North Carolina Pork Council maintains that waste lagoons are rarely "overtopped" in floods because they are intentionally built on high ground, with berms protecting them. And, it adds, many people just "don't understand this."

This picture, posted on the Council's own website, seems to show
neither berms nor high ground!
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Please also read:

"In Hogs We Trust," a critique of Manitoba's runaway pork industry.

Part 1V - The Health and environmental costs of an expanded hog industry.

New report: over half the world's raptors have declining populations

BirdLife

International

A ferruginous? hawk in Manitoba, Canada.
A PinP photo.

We interview our Chief Scientist, Stuart Butchart, about a newly published paper: State of the World’s Raptors: What threats this iconic group of birds face, and what we can do to help. More here.

Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit.

The Washington Post

Hurricane Florence. A NASA photo.

With depressingly ironic timing, the Trump administration has recently announced a plan to roll back federal rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the main component in natural gas. When it comes to extreme weather, Mr. Trump is complicit. More here.

Global hunger continues to rise, new UN report says

World Food Programme

A woman receives food rations at a refugee camp in Kenya. Kate Holt/AusAID

Progress made in the past decade has been reversed, with climate extremes such as droughts and floods identified as a main cause. More here.

A Season of Smoke

Please also read: "Time to Wake up & Smell the Smoke!"

ASF - a deadly hog disease - has now been confirmed on Romania’s largest pig farm: 140,000 pigs culled

PIG PROGRESS

The virus was confirmed on the farm, which consists of 3 adjacent properties in the southern county of Braila, Romania after water samples were sent to the authorities. Story here.
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In Hogs We Trust - a critique of Manitoba's runaway hog industry.
Part 111 - From Malaysia to Manitoba - the global magnitude of livestock diseases.

Wildfires make their own weather, and that matters for fire management

ScienceNews

A wildfire on the Ashcroft reserve in B.C, 2017. Shawn Cahill.

New prediction tools zero in on how blazes throw embers and make weather that fans the flames. Story here.

No record yields for potatoes on the Canadian Prairies this year!

Western Producer

A potato harvester at work in southern Manitoba. A PinP photo.

The hot, dry weather Western Canada experienced this summer, is blamed. Story here.

One of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded was set off three years ago by a melting glacier

The Washington Post

A rare and extreme tsunami ripped across an Alaskan fjord three years ago after 180 million tons of mountain rock fell into the water, driving a devastating wave that stripped shorelines of trees and reached heights greater than 600 feet, a large team of scientists documented on Thursday. The October 2015 cataclysm in Taan Fiord in southeastern Alaska appears to have been the fourth-highest tsunami recorded in the past century, and its origins — linked to the retreat of a glacier — suggest that it’s the kind of event we may see more often because of a warming climate.The new study even bluntly calls it a “hazard occasioned by climate change.” Story here.

Drug-resistant microbes could threaten future global economy, low income countries in particular

Journal Club

A microbiologist examines the growth of a bacterial culture. 
A U.S. Food & Drug Administration photo. 

Antimicrobial resistance is not only a major public health threat, but also an economic one, according to researchers at The World Bank. Their new study, published in the journal World Development, suggests that an increase in drug-resistant microbes could cause millions more people to fall into extreme poverty within the next few decades. “Nobody has estimated the poverty effects before,” says study author Karen Thierfelder, an economics professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and consultant for The World Bank. “We’d like to make more people aware of the problem.” More here.

Also Read: "In Hogs We Trust."  

A critique of Manitoba’s “runaway” hog industry.

Part 1 - Antibiotic Overuse.