This morning I was out checking the orchard. I was putting some vegetable goop down gopher holes (old, fermented, mushy okra is God’s gift as a gopher deterrent) and happened to look up… and saw exactly why I work so hard at not poisoning the gophers.
I was so excited to see this beautiful bird. A belated solstice/ holiday present.
Bob
http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com
>http://netnebraska.org/article/news/989947/cheaper-easier-monitoring-could-hasten-water-clean br>
[quote] Decades-old systems of field tiling, which drain fields of excess water, keep crops from drowning. But they also concentrate nutrients in water flowing across the Midwest and into the Mississippi River. That’s contributed to a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an oxygen-starved area where marine critters die.br>
[endquote]
You know, BP did not cause the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. We did. Think about it!. But this is why I say technology can drag us out of the hole that we are digging for ourselves.
Bob
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, (except for Greece, New York,) or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (except for Muslims); or abridging the freedom of speech, (except reporters who refuse to reveal who supplied them with unauthorized leaks.) or of the press; (except if they have been supplied with unauthorized leaks.) or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Except the 99percent protestors who refused to go home when ordered to by the government and SWAT rumbled in) So sayeth the new First Amendment.
I’m talking to a friend the other day and she’s telling me how she and her daughter are watching a movie on dung beetles while eating. I really like them.
The other day with a group of outdoors people, I am showing some pictures of tiny, tiny, worms that I had taken under a microscope and one woman was so creeped out she couldn’t watch them.
90 thousand _tons_ of pesticides on our food should not only make us unable to watch a movie but it should make us gag.
If a Chemical Company had a vivid orange fluorescent product that had absolutely no side effects, 100% safe: or it had a product that had some iffy properties, caused some minor nerve damage in a small control group, but it was completely odorless and colorless, which do you think that they would market?
if you really think that big chemical companies have your best interest at heart remember that Cigarette commercial where 4 out of 5 doctors prefer camel cigarettes? If you’re too young to remember look it up.
And people someone was making money on running those ads.
Bob
So I hiked up to check the fairy shrimp habitat on a hilltop near my house this morning. Because after the rains, I figured that it might have some water in it :-)
By the way if you’re in California how much water did you collect? 50 gallons in a rain barrel or a thousand in a pond?
You should have seen me trying to get up and then back down the wet granite boulders without killing myself. But it was worth the trip! Bob http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com
It is amazing what people will put on themselves. And what companies will sell them. The chemicals below are found in hand sanitizers
On the Need and Speed of Regulating Triclosan and Triclocarban in the United States
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974611/#!po=0.308642
I just sent my post about permaculture in space and how I believe that technology is a good thing.
And then I run into this.
I do not believe that spraying, putting, spreading, smearing, toxins all over the place is forward thinking, nor a good use of technology. It is simply the chemical companies preying on our fear and paranoia of microorganisms. Fear of the unknown is not being a permaculturist.
SpaceX launches rocket 6 months after accident, then lands.
Well I don’t know whether this link will be good for everyone but certainly you can google the title and get a plethora of similar sites. I chose this one because it’s got the embedded link to the landing video.
I was talking to a fellow permaculture conspirator this morning and commented that December 21st 2015 was a great example of permaculture in space. I am NOT a Luddite. I believe that technology can drag us out of the hole we are digging. But I also recognize that technology has a cost to the earth.
All the toxic rocket fuel and all the money that could be used to improve conditions here on earth have a cost. And so those of us who believe in moving forward with technology need to be better stewards than the average Joe and Jane sitting around at home in front of Dancing with the Stars.
Permaculture is hard work! It is not easy! And yet the benefits do make life easier.
So why do I think that the latest rocket — roaring into the sky, burning tons of fuel, and putting toxic materials into the atmosphere — is a fantastic example of permaculture? It’s because the rocket booster came back down and landed! We are able to recycle what we used to just throw out. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of time, effort, money, and materials are now recycled.
It’s as if an entire city that was not recycling before has now started; yesterday. The ability to now do this recycling took a lot of time, effort, and money. It was freaking hard to land a 15 story rocket without it toppling over. But it also goes to show that Permaculture and caring about recycling can be profitable! And I would suggest that that “profit” is not always in money!
Woohoo!
Happy Holidays!
Bob http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35153795
Colistin resistance in bacteria is now in pigs in the UK (and other countries). I wonder why it showed up in animals first.
In addition, the problem with getting down to where you only have a single antibiotic to treat a particular infection is that some people will have adverse reactions to that one last antibiotic.
[Quote] Serious and occasionally fatal allergic reactions can occur in people treated with carbapenems.[15] Seizures are a dose-limiting toxicity for both imipenem and meropenem. [EndQuote]
All Permaculturists should try their best to not buy animal products that have been treated with antibiotics! Better yet become a vegetarian.
Or grow your own food with your swimming pool water!
http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/index.php/pool-conversions/
Bob
I am going to post this in a Permaculture location because I believe that Permaculture is about living sustainably. And I don’t believe that living sustainably is focused on spending time and money and then using chemicals from petroleum and a lot of energy on producing food items that have little or no food value. I mean _really_?
I’m extremely lucky in my metabolism, yet I very much sympathize with people that have to worry about their weight, but I also think that while diet food is not sustainable I also think it is somewhat of a scam.
I also believe that Permaculture is about building community and as a community we need to share knowledge and ideas as much as possible.
Read the article and then come back here and I’ll tell you a fourth reason why calories today seem to have more of an effect on us…..
I would bet you a fair amount of money that low calorie foods are not actually low energy. And the reason for this is because the calorie designation is an industry and political pingpong ball. And has no connection with the net energy we receive from the food item.
Would you actually buy that diet food product if a serving had 500 calories instead of the hundred twenty five that was listed?
It is a well known fact that suppressing an animal’s microbial flora will cause it to gain weight faster. This is the reason behind so much antibiotics in the farmed animal system. It doesn’t keep them healthier. It simply makes them gain weight faster and thus they are more profitable.
The reason for this is somewhat convoluted in that our gut flora is very beneficial to us but they steal some of our food energy to live. Our biology has worked all this out over eons and we expend energy to keep our gut flora happy because they keep us happy. We eat for 0.30X10e14 individuals (+1) :-)
And as a quick aside this is what is completely disgusting about the Farm Lobby insisting that they need antibiotics to keep the animals healthy. By adding antibiotics to feed, they are actually making the animals more likely to be sick by suppressing their normal microbial flora. And also directly causing antibiotic-resistant microbes. And they do know this, but profit is a warm bedfellow.
We know very little about how our gut flora metabolizes the things we eat. We know that they _do_ we just don’t know _how_.
So …. What happens if we eat fake fat that _we_ don’t metabolize, but our microbes _can_ metabolize (Positive)? The answer is that the microbes use it for their energy source and don’t need to “steal” as much energy from us and thus we have more energy from the rest of what we have eaten other than the fake fat or fake sweatners.
So in this 1st case the net result is that the fake fat is pointless and is not reducing the total energy that we acquire from the total meal. =Fatter
Case 2: What happens if we eat fake fat/sweatners that make some of our microbes sick (negative)? The answer is the same for the animal antibiotic treatments. A suppressed bacterial population will not “steal” as much energy from us and thus we have more energy from what we have eaten other than the fake fat/sweatners. =Fatter
Case 3: What happens if we eat fake fat/sweatners that do not affect our microbes either way positive or negative? There is a lot of selection pressure for microbes to be able to use a food source and my belief is that in a couple of dozen generations [maybe a whole year for bacteria] one cell would figure out how to start using the fake fat/sweatner and it’s progeny would thus follow. This results in the same outcome as case1 but a whole year later =Fatter
I see no scenario where a diet food will work as desired by the consumer in the long term.
So I ask again, would you actually buy that diet food product if a serving had 500 calories instead of the hundred twenty five that was listed?
With all the diet foods on the market now the average person today probably eats a lot more food that they believe is low calorie then in the 70’s. I think the article in the link above is absolutely correct in it’s suggestions to stay away from certain toxic chemicals and drugs. I think those are wise, wise, suggestions. I would also suggest that the instant gratification of buying diet food is not in your best interest.
And one of the insidious things about Roundup is that it was originally described as an antibiotic and just like antibiotics in a cattle feed may also contribute to the human obesity epidemic. http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/lawsuit-accusing-monsanto-of-false-advertising/
If you have managed to plow through this I hope that you have some new insight and I wish you the best! Bob http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com
[Quote] The idea for L.A.’s shade balls came when a now-retired LADWP biologist learned about the application of “bird balls” in ponds along airfield runways. Airports have detention basins to collect stormwater runoff. As the ponds fill up, they attract birds. So airports float the balls on the ponds to keep the birds off. [EndQuote]
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-shade-balls-water-quality.html
1) I assume that the new reservoir covers will also be plastic. Oh good! Let’s put massive amounts of plastic into our drinking water supply. Hey all of you people using non plastic water contaners… pointless!
2) Excellent idea to destroy all of our native wetlands and then spend $millions to keep the wildlife away from any remaining water cause it is ours.
3) Hey let’s flood pesticide laden rice fields for ducks and aquatic birds and then spend millions to keep the birds away from (OUR!) lakes and streams. And we could put poisons in our water to keep the algae from growing. Since there is no point in just letting the algae grow. Cause letting the algae grow would remove any nutrient inflow from just letting the wildlife live near the water.
Sigh.
Can I ask the “biologist” in the above article to give their biology degree back?
