Comments ndunne has made

  • only human beings count...

    Don't worry Canis. I'm sure, when it comes to it, we'll start eating each other before we turn our attention to leaves and maggots and other less savory fare.On Bush admin removes independent scientific reviews from Endangered Species Act posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

  • nitrous oxide - compost

    Amazingdrx,

    You're somewhat off the mark here with your compost comment. Hot composting is generally an aerobic process, releasing carbon dioxide (through microbial respiration) but -- if the organic matter is nutritionally balanced -- not a whole lot of nitrous oxide or methane.

    You can find a factsheet on compost and GHGs on the website of the U.S. Composting Council, www.compostingcouncil.org.

    NJD

    On 'I was just reading an article in The New York Times by Michael Pollan about food' posted 1 year, 1 month ago 11 Responses

  • swheat scoop

    Been using the wheaty stuff for a number of years now. I've found that the amount of dried urine that needs to be scraped off the bottom of the box correlates negatively to the depth of the wheaty stuff in the box (i.e. more wheat equals less strenous scraping of coagulated feline pee!).

    You might also try rubbing a little olive oil (single estate, first press, extra virgin, of course!) on the inside of the kitty box when you do your main monthly cleaning. It helps prevent  the cementing of the urine-wheat compound to the sides of the boxOn A review of non-clay cat litters posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

  • a sustainable source of P

    Bonemeal.

    Once we crush the republicans in november, there'll be plenty of phosphorus to go around.

    Manures have a decent amount of P too, especially poultry manure. Not sure how sustainable manure is, though, unless it's coming from a sustainable farm.

    NJD

    On The costs of unsustainable agriculture posted 1 year, 5 months ago 31 Responses

  • yeah...some image

    The current Prius looks like a great big dorkbubble! And I can't be the only one who thinks that.

    I see mostly grannies driving them these days. And how far does your average granny go per day? Two miles round trip, from home to the church to the store and then back home again? Way to save the world, Toyota!

    Maybe the hip, sexy new 2009 redesign will be the key to our salvation.On Consumers shunning hefty hybrids posted 1 year, 6 months ago 8 Responses

  • sustainable ag

    I agree, Tom.

    But there are sustainability issues when it comes to organic farming too (whether small-scale or industrial). Many of the fertilizers/amendments approved for use on the organic farm (though unprocessed) are mined, non-renewable resources, including limestone, elemental sulfur, rock phosphate, greensand, granite meal, langbeinite, and gypsum.

    Then you have a host of organic byproducts -- such as bone meal, blood meal, fish meal -- from industries with questionable sustainability credentials (i.e. moo cowing and fishing).

    I know the (true) organic farmer's credo is zero-input agriculture -- creating a closed-loop, self-sustaining agro-ecosystem. But how many farmers are actually doing this successfully?

    NJD

    On One big corpration dominates the soon-to-be-prized potash market posted 1 year, 6 months ago 7 Responses

  • mockery of a sham

    Hi Canis,

    Sorry for mocking your sign-off line earlier in the thread. That was lazy ("wicked"?) of me. I didn't have the time to write a measured response, and thankfully LeProf was on hand to oblige.

    I don't really have much else to add to LeProf's eloquent rebuttal, except to say that your idea that ecologists come to some kind of "compromise" with animal rights folks over this issue seems misguided. Our planet's natural systems have been compromised enough. Where do we put the kangaroos once they've been rounded up? Transplant them to another natural area that is probably way over carrying capacity? Ship em to the zoo to be poked and prodded? Train them to perform in a Disney musical about how cute and cuddly and innocent and vulnerable all animals are -- except for the wicked large predators?

    Ecological meltdown caused by the human culling/killing of predators is not isolated to a few specific regions/habitats or a few "problem" herbivores -- see http://www.conbio.org/CIP/article10812.cfm.

    To imply that wildlife/land managers are unaware (or don't have the courage to acknowledge) that humans caused the system imbalances in the first place is absurd. To imply that they are "wicked" or morally impoverished for adopting  what is probably the only management technique -- sad or unpleasant as it might be (not all culling involves direct killing) -- that will  successfully restore balance to an entire community of species is an insult to the compassionate people who chose this line of work.

    As for the word "wicked," it seems better suited (as you imply yourself) for use in discussions about the bible and fairy tales. On Australia military will kill hundreds of kangaroos posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses

  • yeah...and "wicked"

    What lexicon is that from?

    Alice in Wonderland? Bambi?

    Broccoli is my brother! So is curly kale! And all other forms of Brassica oleracea! Let us steam 'em up nice, and serve em with a juicy kangaroo filet.On Australia military will kill hundreds of kangaroos posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses

  • What about...what about...

    Vanilla Ice? One of the greatest recyclers of all time! He practically immortalized that riff by Queen/Bowie! Ding ding ding da-da ding ding!!!

    And let's not forget those powerful eco-lyrics: "'Cause my style's like a chemical spill..."

    I'm sure if Ice Baby was still touring today, he'd be using biodiesel in his pimpmobile and all-natural organic hair gel to elevate his majestic mop.

    But seriously, folks. Sheryl I-Crave-Media-Attention Crow? Ugh!
    Cloud Cult? Whaaaaaa? How about accessing a little institutional memory here!

    We could start perhaps with this song, by Bruce Cockburn, from around 20 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8CibAuvZM4

    Like Vanilla, he too had a marvelous coif.
    On 15 Green Musicians and Bands posted 1 year, 11 months ago 29 Responses

  • bruce cockburn - a tree falls

    Going back a few years...

    This is an "eco-song" with real credentials...i.e. not written by some opportunistic media slag...

    It's bloody good music too.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8CibAuvZM4

    Not sure about the Cockburn wardrobe, though.On From Booze to Boos posted 1 year, 12 months ago 5 Responses

  • cheryl squawk...

    I'm sorry...there's nothing this crow has done that doesn't suck...On From Booze to Boos posted 1 year, 12 months ago 5 Responses

  • grower coalition tagging "green" trees

    Check out this story from the AP today:

    http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/26/green.christma ...

    Some tree growers in Oregon have banded together to try to raise the environmental standards of the industry. The trees they certify/tag, though not organic, are grown under "greener" conditions.On On organic Christmas trees posted 2 years ago 20 Responses

  • wow jason!

    So you're an environmental economist...that means you yabber on about the environment while still operating within the flawed rubric of classical economics...

    I don't see how that helps anything.

    Ecological economics...that's another story.

    NJD

    On A review of Peter Barnes' Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons posted 2 years, 2 months ago 17 Responses

  • Nancy Sinatra's Boots

    Only scored a 79! What's with that?

    NJD

    On Calculate how walkable your home is posted 2 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses

  • ma-nure

    I like to think of GM and conventionally grown crops as crack addicts. To get those continuous "high" yields, higher and higher inputs of plant crack (ammonium nitrate and other chemical fertilizers) are needed.  

    Chemical fertilizers destroy the soil biota, and thus its natural nutrient-generating capacity; the more fertilizers you use, the more you need to fill the nutrient void you've created.

    Traditional and organic farming nurtures and harnesses soil biodiversity -- its food web -- and is thus more sustainable and higher yielding.  Especially in the long term.

    From what I've read, all things being equal (and they never are), hi-tech conventional and GM agriculture give you a slightly higher short-term yield than traditional/organic. But then again, that all depends on how you measure or compare the varying suite of inputs (the energetics of cowshit versus industrial agrochemicals, for example) and outputs (food quality, pollution, blah blah blah...).

    But if you're just buying and sowing Monsanto seed and can't afford all the other crap you need, it's no wonder your yield is 1/3 that of the green manure guys. Your crack-addict plants have gone cold turkey!

    Hmmm....plants that taste like turkey. Get to work on that one, Big Biotech!

    Anyway, wiscidea, I believe most green manures (cover crops that are grown exclusively to increase fertility, rather than also as a soil erosion measure) are winter annuals, sown in summer and then tilled into the soil the following spring. But I'm no expert.

    As for native, prairie-friendly nitrogen fixers, maybe Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed susan) would be a good companion planting for your veggies. Not sure about native cover crops.

    NJD

    On A new study puts the old canard to rest posted 2 years, 4 months ago 50 Responses

  • Okay, don't free the ALB

    Erik,

    It's not "alien-hating" that's going on here. It's more about us being uncomfortable with the wholesale changes humans are bringing about in natural systems, systems that we still have only a very rudimentary understanding of.

    Bringing charges of racism into the debate is unhelpful, not to mention old hat (Michael Pollan may a royal ass of himself in the New York Times about a decade ago peddling the same kind of unscientific postmodernist PC crap). Many of our beautiful North American natives are invasive species in other countries. In the plant world, for instance, Monterey Pine is disrupting moist eucalypt forests in Australia; late goldenrod and giant goldenrod are fouling up meadows and conservation areas the length and breadth of continental Europe. The list goes on.

    Most invasive species are accidental villains, transplanted by humans out of their evolutionary and ecological contexts into new environments where, for any number of reasons, they run amok. So, in one sense, they are innocent, unwitting accomplices to our crimes. Nonetheless, the important point is that serious ecological invaders do rewire ecosystems and generally leave them biologically impoverished in the bargain.

    So the hydrilla study found that native plant species diversity increased over a period of 17 years. The authors claim that this is a "long-term" study. Rubbish. Just cos Nirvana were top of the pops back when the research began   doesn't make it anywhere near long term. Naturescence also pointed out other flaws in the metrics of the study.

    To be fair, though, other researchers have found that some biological invasions have resulted in an increase in local species diversity. See the current issue of Conservation Magazine for an interesting if half-baked round-table discussion of this subject by a small panel of experts:

    http://www.conbio.org/CIP/article82ali.cfm

    But if you read the fine print, you'll find that the measure of diversity being used by the apologist crowd -- species richness -- is very crude and uninformative. Sure, if you add new species to an ecosystem, the number will increase. But species richness tells us nothing about relative abundance and what's really happening on the ground.

    And, of course, the very important point they do concede is that biological invasions are causing global diversity to go down. This is why the wait-and-see approach is irresponsible. Yes, many invaders are disturbance-adapted species that are "only doing their thing" in response to humans mucking everything up. But it's the same small coterie of organisms doing their thing all around the world. It's leading to large-scale homogenization of the planet's ecosystems, and ultimately a loss of global biotic resilience.

    Now, hands up anyone who wants that.

    As for there being a strong central reactionary core movement against invasives in this country? Where is it exactly? We have pretty much zero regulation of what's coming in and going out of this country. It's countries like Australia and New Zealand, which have felt the full force of serious invaders over the last century or so, that have the taken the more precautionary "guilty until proven innocent" approach.

    In the case of invasive species, we need to be less tolerant, not more so.

    NJD

    On They may not all be bad. posted 2 years, 5 months ago 82 Responses

  • Alien-beetle-phobia

    Amnesty for the Asian Longhorned Beetle!

    The poor little super-destructive tree-muncher has been in quarantine in New York City since 1996! Held captive by well-meaning but clearly racist Parks Department folks.

    Free ALB now!

    NJD

    On They may not all be bad. posted 2 years, 5 months ago 82 Responses

  • gmo crop rotation...

    Rotate the DR and the GR crop varieties? Kind of defeats the purpose of having a soulless hi-tech monoculture.

    NJD

    NJD

    On Pesticide efficacy is decreasing posted 2 years, 6 months ago 22 Responses

  • you know what it looks like...

    Perhaps the Oscar folks are suggesting these "sculptures" be used to plug up certain greenhouse gas emissions. Wink wink, nudge nudge...

    How big are those babies anyway?

    NJD

    On Things are getting strange up in Hollywood posted 2 years, 9 months ago 6 Responses