Permaculture Blog

California’s rice farmers pride themselves on environmental stewardship, saying their flooded fields provide habitat for millions of ducks and geese in an era when traditional marshlands have largely disappeared.

Source: Rice-growing experiment will cut water use but subtract from habitat

Why do you think that the average person believes that flooding one of the most pesticide laden areas we’ve got will generate a beneficial habitat for birds that :
1 At best eat the very thing the pesticides kill? And thus have nothing to eat.
2 or worse, eat contaminated material and are poisoned by the pesticides in these areas?
3 or nest in, and expose their chicks to these pesticide laden areas?

So tell me again why flooding agricultural fields is providing habitat.

So I sent the above to the author of the article and he responded:

Ask the environmentalists. They seem very supportive of flooding fields for waterfowl habitat.

Oh what a great answer! Boy that’s really doing your research. And thinking outside the box. He must work for a newspaper that gets a lot of money from advertising housing and the like up in Sacramento. Wow I may be cynical but could the all the “environmentalists” just be duck hunters that want to raise ducks. And aren’t really worried about providing h a b i t a t for all the other Wetland birds and animals.

If we gave away thousands of acres of Old-growth Redwood forest to a developer that then clear cut it, planted a few twigs and seedlings in the ground somewhere else, and said “oh it’s exactly the same thing” we would be justifiably outraged. And yet our city planners giveaway our old growth wetlands to developers regularly.

Flooding a toxic Rice Field to create habitat is the same thing as sticking a couple of Redwood seedlings in the middle of a cornfield heavily sprayed with Roundup and saying “oh it replaces the Redwood Grove that we just clear cut.”

The reason that we accept this with old-growth marsh habitat is that we can’t _see_ what makes an old-growth Marsh.

And contrary to what the news media would like to have you swallow, an old stable marsh removes billions of mosquitoes from the environment. And without poisoning your kids. Think about where all those dragonfly and damselfly and their larvae live. Have you ever sat and watched a dragonfly larvae or a damselfly larvae just pig out on mosquito larvae? It is fascinating and highly amusing. It’s our backyards that produce mosquitoes because we poison all the predators in our yards with pesticides and in addition, provide no real aquatic habitat for them either.

A false advertising lawsuit accusing Monsanto of misleading customers about its weed killer Roundup was thrown out by a federal judge Tuesday January 12th 2016.

Source: Monsanto Weeds Out False Ad Suit Over Pesticide – Law360

Initially I was not going to bother posting the information below. It is just so pointless to me anymore.

But then I realized in looking at my website stats today how many people from other countries will read my blog and get this post.
France
Ukraine
China
Germany
Virgin Islands
Sweden
Canada
Netherlands
Thailand
Brazil
Mexico
Taiwan
Great Britain
Vietnam
Spain
South Korea
Hong Kong
And others!:-) Thank you! Permaculture is about community and you are my community!

And so I decided to post some information for them. America, its rivers, streams, and bays are probably hopelessly contaminated. But here are some thoughts for those of you who are a little smarter. Or just lucky enough to live in another country without Monsanto yet.

It is quite well known in the biological and particularly microbiological communities that suppressing an animals normal bacterial flora will cause increased weight gain for a given amount of food consumed. This is the reason antibiotics are widely used in the cattle industry.( http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/3-reasons-no-4-reasons-why-were-fatter-than-30-years-ago/ )

Monsanto’s glyphosate ingredient in Roundup targets an enzyme that is found in many plants — but also in many bacteria. The enzyme is not found in a persons’ individual human cells. Hence monsanto’s label statement “glyphosate targets an enzyme found in plants but not in people or their pets.”

There is not a competent biological expert living today that doesn’t recognize that our gut flora is absolutely required for our health and well-being and that the individual bacterial cells in us and on us outnumber our own cells virtually 30 to 1

Glyphosate targets and damages these microbial cells. It harms our normal microbial flora and (for the same reasons described in the cattle industry link above) it is likely to be a part of the US obesity problem. Many of our ongoing diabetic and obesity linked health problems are likely to be partly due to the glyphosate found in our food and even drinking water.

So Monsanto statement that it doesn’t hurt people or pets is an absolutely false labeling statement. And if all of Monsanto scientists are so incompetent as to not recognize the difference between ‘people’ and ‘human cells’, then they are not competent to provide quality data for regulation purposes either. It is simply false advertising.

The federal judge in the lawsuit above apparently accepted monsanto’s argument that since glyphosate does not target human cells that the label was not incorrect. The judge apparently does not or cannot comprehend, or doesn’t know enough law to realize that “people” and “human cells” are completely different legal entities. This judge’s logic seems to me like telling someone shot through the heart that they are not really dead because their liver is okay.

A living breathing person is the sum of all his or her parts, including individual homosapien cells, DNA, organs, brains, skin, _and microbial flora_.

And guess what all you pet lovers out there, glyphosate is toxic to your pets’ microbial flora as well.

Monsanto’s glyphosate weed killer _is_ toxic to both people and pets.

And if this link is true , it is toxic to individual human (and dog, and cat, and reptile, and bird, and goat, and horse, and all animal) cells as well.

And Monsanto, in my opinion, if you do sloppy half-a$$ed research, ignore, and even vilify evidence that your research was half-a$$ed, and then you label a product falsely, you are financially responsible for the results. Just my 2¢

If there is any Karmic justice in the world this judge with a brilliant legal mind is consuming a lot of GMO foodstuff.

But to my friends in other countries reading this; my best to you all :-)

It’s no surprise that the “Big 6” Big Ag firms that make GE (GMO) seeds also make pesticides to go along with them.

Source: A Despicable Ploy by Monsanto and Other Biotech Giants Increased U.S. Pesticide Use by Over 500 Million Pounds in Just 5 Years

In 2011 alone, GMO crops used 20 percent more pesticides on average than non-GMO crops.

Californians please do not put red eared sliders, bull frogs, or gambusia (aka mosquitofish) in your pond. They are _not_ California pond critters. The first two will eat the native chorus frogs and ducklings. gambusia will eat the chorus frog tadpoles, dragonfly larvae, damselfly larvae, and pretty much everything that really does eat mosquito larvae.

gambusia are simply not appropriate for a pond. And I just had a client who put a few in and now wants to catch them and remove them all because they are harassing the Goldfish and Koi and making them hide. It has been night and day since she put the mosquitofish in. Previously the koi were always out, friendly, and eating well. Now they are hiding and not even coming out for food.

June 19 2016
Close to the longest day of the year. The most sunlight of the year. And look at this pool2pond.

It is also hot! But I am sure that this client is cool in their pool2pond.

From this: a couple of months ago.

And another picture of before….

Pool X: Wohooooo the Polaris is working well. I am going to have to add a small modification though. The pool water itself has gone completely non-toxic and my little test critters are now starting to do just fine. Now I’ll be able to start adding plants and more complex critters.

Pool Y: I have now started this one and the water unfortunately is still too toxic for some natives. I will comment again that: an owner comes out to find a little chorus frog or a slender salamander floating in the pool and they say awwww the poor thing, it drowned. And I cringe, and think, it didn’t drown it’s an _aquatic_ animal. They are poisoned by the chlorine. And the chlorine in this pool is entirely municipal (drinking water). People that own aquariums have known for many years that you can’t just fill up an aquarium and put fish in because the water is too toxic. And you are _drinking_ it. 😜 This particular pool is collecting rainwater from the roof and they were able to collect a fair amount of water with the last rains.

Bob
www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

My clients send me this kind of email.

Bob

www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

Sent from my iPhone

Source: Hungry Minnow Run Amok?

Their suspicions were raised when they examined the stomachs of 36 mosquito fish netted from a stream near Los Angeles and found that 65% contained tadpoles, while just 56% had mosquito larvae. They then tested the fish’s prey preference in the wild and in the laboratory by setting up in-stream tanks and tabletop tubs stocked with minnows, Pacific treefrog tadpoles, and mosquito larvae. Even when the tanks were swarming with larvae, the minnows went for the tadpoles.

The authors of the above article were Lee Kats and Jeff Goodsell of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

Dr. Katz …

hopes the results will convince California officials to reconsider their policy of handing out the fish to anyone who asks. “Twenty years from now,” he says, “we are going to look at this practice and say: ‘What were we thinking?’ “

I have developed in over 20 years, an ecologically devised system that destroys the mosquito larvae eggs and doesn’t hurt native dragonflies, damselflies or frogs.

Mosquito fish destroy dragonfly and damselfly larvae also. Yet in my experience vector control officials are absolutely sure that they are right and that they know without question that introducing mosquito fish is the only way to control mosquitoes.

West LA vector control employees will even go around and put mosquito fish in ponds that have posted notices not to put mosquito fish in.

So you have to be vigilant but natural systems provide habitats for all sorts of creatures that we care about. Especially the Pacific chorus frog.

Best
Bob

Source:http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2016/02/26/longstanding-hillary-clinton-ties-to

Her biotech/agribusiness ties began during the 1980s as a Rose Law firm lawyer. Monsanto and Tyson Foods were clients.
During her years as first lady in the 1990s, she supported harmful to health genetically modified foods and ingredients – while banning them from White House menus.

As Obama’s secretary of state, she heavily pressured other countries to use and import GMOs. US taxpayer money continues promoting them worldwide, ignoring food safety.

Monsanto gave the Clinton Foundation up to a million dollars – dirty money buying influence. Last year, she hired former Monsanto lobbyist Jerry Crawford to run her campaign.

She hired a former Monsanto lobbyist to run her campaign. She didn’t hire somebody off the street. She hired somebody she knew a lot about. She’s been a lawyer all her life and she was confident in this Monsanto lobbyist to run her campaign.
Hmmmmmmmm is it just possible we have let Monsanto buy our science through our politicians.

He points to two suspensions.The government says he traveled without approval, behaved unprofessionally.

Source: Was a USDA scientist muzzled because of his bee research?

I especially suggest that you read the end. Has Monsanto’s money and contributions to our politicians purchased our science? Monsanto gave the Clinton Foundation up to a million dollars.

Wow I bet you a lot of the 99%ers would like to have a million dollars to just give away to a foundation for no reason. Oh wait maybe there was a reason.