Monoculture
http://blog.sustainablog.org/monoculture-agriculture/ Overview: Monocultures have been around for thousands of years, and in fact they were prohibited in Hebrew Scriptures. Polycultures were done to improve resilience in the agriculture system, and crop rotations were performed to ease the stress on the soil and added nutrients to the soil. With the advent of industrial agriculture new methods … Read more
Oh my-cology! How shrooms will save the planet
A Jerry Garcia look-a-like proposes a solution to save the planet by using fungi, specifically Mycelium. He surveys the history of the fungi and speaks to its ability to both precede all other forms of life on earth and outlive all other species after a catastrophe (asteroid, volcano, oil spill, all other causes of mass … Read more
Pine Beetle Outbreak: Rocky Mountain National Park
This documentary on Rocky Mountain National Park, gives a very good overview about the current outbreak of the Mountain Pine Beetle. He explains that historically outbreaks of this insect are normal, but not at the current scale. He describes this outbreak of the Pine Beetle as the perfect storm, because of warmer winters and hotter … Read more
Biodiversity begins with a B
An interesting video targeted towards younger audiences:
Mountain Pine Beetle: Perspectives and Policies [Begin story here]
Geography 4335 Creative Project This is the first of several blog posts that three students at the University of Colorado Denver have begun as a class creative-research project. The goal of these posts are to provide the viewer with an opportunity to hear from a key stakeholder in the Mountain Pine Beetle situation in the … Read more
Red Herrings, Pollen, and Biodiversity
Biodiversity is not an economic issue, but a red herring when you run out of real arguments… [An ecological service] is another non-economic red herring. What is an ecological service? Protecting a watershed is ridiculous. –Jerry Abboud, Executive Director of Coalition of Off Highway Vehicles Colorado (COHVCO) The Rhetoric of Nature Deficit Disorder With 80% … Read more
Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign: Contesting and Defining Wilderness in Colorado’s Central Rocky Mountains
[This is an abridged version of a research paper for an Environmental Policy class at the University of Colorado Denver] What’s the controversial issue? Throughout the last few years, there have been heated and contentious debates regarding the type of landscapes that the Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign (HGWC) proposes to preserve as Wilderness. The landscapes … Read more
Endangered Species Act: Numbers, Facts, and Defining Success
Posted by sainteterre on October 31, 2011 · Leave a Comment
Despite a strong bi-partisan agreement that environmental protection is in fact economically and socially important, a major issue we’re now faced with is how to evaluate the success of existing publicly funded environmental programs–such as the Endangered Species Act–in the midst of economic turmoil. Over the weekend I read budget proposals and press releases from … Read more
Filed under Review & Commentary · Tagged with Biodiversity, Environment, ENVS 1342, essay, political