Weekly Invest: Newsletter
Each week I curate a newsletter for all my listeners that is comprised of articles that are of interest to the topics I talk about the podcast. This newsletter also brings national and international news about sustainability and climate change they may often get overlooked, forgotten about, or is unheard of to the community I serve.
Victory Gardening and COVID-19
During coronavirus lockdowns, gardens have served as an escape from feelings of alienation. Richard Bord/Getty Images
The impulse to garden in hard times has deep roots
From The Conversation: Jennifer Atkinson
The coronavirus pandemic has set off a global gardening boom.
In the early days of lockdown, seed suppliers were depleted of inventory and reported “unprecedented” demand. Within the U.S., the trend has been compared to World War II victory gardening, when Americans grew food at home to support the war effort and feed their families.
The analogy is surely convenient. But it reveals only one piece in a much bigger story about why people garden in hard times. Americans have long turned to the soil in moments of upheaval to manage anxieties and imagine alternatives. My research has even led me to see gardening as a hidden landscape of desire for belonging and connection; for contact with nature; and for creative expression and improved health.
Debbie Rudman shows off a baby daikon radish she grew in her home garden in Port Richmond. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
How to grow food in your garden and share it with people who need it
From WHYY: Catalina Jaramillo
Deborah Rudman started growing her own food 15 years ago. First at community gardens, where she learned all the basics. And then, after her Northern Liberties community garden was turned into condos, in the backyard of the Port Richmond house she and her husband bought and remodeled by hand.That garden now spans more than 2,000 square feet of land and encompasses a greenhouse they built and 20 raised beds. They grow all kinds of vegetables, several fruit trees and bees produce honey in a beehive. Neighbors and friends help farming on sunny days, but it’s eating all the produce where they most definitely need help.
Urban farmer Ali Greer inspects her crops at Avenue 33 Farm, a backyard urban farm in Los Angeles, California, on March 25, 2020. Greer and her partner, Eric Tomassini, say that demand for their produce and flowers is higher than ever through community-supported agriculture, despite restaurant demand for their produce decreasing during the coronavirus pandemic.
PHOTO BY ROBYN BECK / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
COVID-19 Sparks a Rebirth of the Local Farm Movement
From Yes! Magazine: Stephanie Hiller
Could this be the beginning of a new food economy?
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the future of the Cannard Family Farm—whose organic vegetables supplied a single Berkeley restaurant—was looking stark.
Ross Cannard is the son of an iconic leader in the local organic movement in California. “Iconoclastic,” Ross says with a chuckle. Bob Cannard built his 30-year career by rejecting organic certification in favor of his own “better than organic” breed of “natural process agriculture,” enriching the soil on his Green String Farm with crushed rock and compost.
He and his son have long sold the fruits of their labor to the famous restaurant Chez Panisse, where, since 1971, chef Alice Waters has pioneered an elegant cuisine based entirely on fresh, local foods straight from the farm.
The Ultimate List of Black Owned Farms & Food Gardens
From Shoppe Black
Black owned farms make up less than 2 percent of all farms in the United States.
According to a recent report, Black farmers lost 80 percent of their farmland from 1910 to 2007, often because they lacked access to loans or insurance needed to sustain their businesses.
The report mentions the “long and well-documented history of discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).”
It goes on to state that “The unequal administration of government farm support programs, crucial to protecting farmers from an inherently risky enterprise, has had a profound impact on rural communities of color.”
It is clear that that Black farmers need help now more than ever. We also need fresh produce they provide. Here is a list of Black owned farms and food gardens that you can support.
Richard Byma from By Acre farms in Sussex County, New Jersey, tends to his Holstein herd in 2007. PHOTO BY NEVILLE ELDER/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
These Small Dairy Farms Are a Model for a Resilient Food System
From Yes! Magazine: Andrew Carlson, Daniel Rubenstein, Simon Levin
Due to the coronavirus, dairy producers are dumping thousands of gallons of milk every day. But these New Jersey dairy farmers have a better system.
Cow’s milk is a major part of many Americans’ diets because it contains key vitamins and calcium. But milk consumption has suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other foods, including beef, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. Economic shutdowns have severely disrupted supply chains that move food from farm to fork.
Milk provides a compelling case study. Before the pandemic, the U.S. dairy industry was already struggling with low milk prices, rising debt, the U.S.-China trade war, widespread depression and stress among farmers, and limited rural access to mental health services. More farmers are calling it quits and, in uncommon but growing cases, committing suicide.
Photo Credit: Grist / Noam Galai / Getty Images
What’s the more climate-conscious diet: Plant-based or place-based?
From Grist: Eve Andrews
“Let’s quickly break down some of the major environmental impacts associated with your diet. There is water usage, which should be considered relative to local water resources; is your lettuce coming from California’s drought-stricken Salinas Valley (probably) or a perpetually damp corner of British Columbia? There is the impact of toxic runoff, most famously from the waste produced by livestock, but also from operations that use a lot of conventional pesticides and fertilizers. There is the impact of pesticide sprays, like the now-banned DDT, on the people who live downwind of the fields. There is soil degradation versus sequestration; is the farmer you’re getting produce or meat from destroying soil’s ability to chomp up carbon (that’s the technical term), or improving it? And, of course, there are the greenhouse gases produced by growing, harvesting, processing, and transporting the food you eat.”
Doctor Eugenio Scannavino Netto, one of the creators of the Health and Happiness Project (PSA), at the seed bank. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian
'Either we change or we die': the radical farming project in the Amazon
From The Guardian: Dom Phillips
A growing movement for sustainable agriculture in Brazil has taken on new urgency with the coronavirus pandemic
The cumaru trees could have been planted elsewhere in this Amazon reserve, where they had better chances of flourishing. Instead, they were planted in harsh, sandy soil in the dry savannah that breaks up the forest. Jack beans, guandu peas and other crops were planted in straw around them with cut savannah grass, for moisture and compost. “We call it the cradle,” says agronomist Alailson Rêgo. “It protects them.”
The hope is that if these Amazon-native trees – whose seeds can be used in cosmetics – thrive on this sandy soil and a nearby patch of deforested, burned land, they can regenerate abandoned pasture elsewhere. In the Amazon, more land is cleared for cattle than anything else. It’s easier enough to clear – chop down a few trees, light a few fires. But restoring the forest? Bringing back the life and the greenness? That is far, far harder.
Emissions and Energy
In Siberia in late May, thawing permafrost caused an oil-storage tank to collapse, leading to the largest oil spill ever to occur in the Russian Arctic.Photograph by Irina Yarinskaya / AFP / Getty
A Disastrous Summer in the Arctic
From The New Yorker: Carolyn Kormann
The remote Siberian town of Verkhoyansk, three thousand miles east of Moscow and six miles north of the Arctic Circle, has long held the record, with another Siberian town, for the coldest inhabited place in the world. The record was set in 1892, when the temperature dropped to ninety below zero Fahrenheit, although these days winter temperatures are noticeably milder, hovering around fifty below. Last Saturday, Verkhoyansk claimed a new record: the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, with an observation of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit—the same temperature was recorded that day in Las Vegas. Miami has only hit a hundred degrees once since 1896. “This has been an unusually hot spring in Siberia,” Randy Cerveny, the World Meteorological Organization’s rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, said. “The coinciding lack of underlying snow in the region, combined with over-all global temperature increases, undoubtedly helped play a critical role in causing this extreme.” Siberia, in other words, is in the midst of an astonishing and historic heat wave.
A report by Beyond Zero Emissions has found hastening the shift to zero greenhouse gas emissions could help Australia recover from the recession. Composite: Carly Earl
Australia could create hundreds of thousands of jobs by accelerating shift to zero emissions – report
From The Guardian: Adam Morton
Decarbonising the economy by investing in renewable energy, clean buildings, clean transport and manufacturing could help fight the recession
Hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created in Australia by hurrying the shift to zero greenhouse gas emissions, a study backed by business and investment leaders has found.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates 835,000 jobs have been lostsince the coronavirus pandemic shutdown began in March. A report by Beyond Zero Emissions, an energy and climate change thinktank, says practical projects to decarbonise the economy could create 1.78m “job years” over the next five years – on average, 355,000 people in work each year – while modernising Australian industry.
Called the “million jobs plan”, it says further stimulus measures needed to fight the Covid-19 recession are “a unique opportunity to lay the foundations for a globally competitive Australian economy fit for 21st century challenges”.
Kurai steppe and Chuya river on North-Chui ridge background. Altai mountains, Russia. Aerial drone panoramic picture. GETTY
The Arctic Circle Hit 100°F Saturday, Its Hottest Temperature Ever
From Forbes: Trevor Nace
This past weekend, a small Russian town in the Arctic Circle hit a scorching temperature, 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. While the temperature has to be verified by experts, if it stands, it will be the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle.
The small Russian town of Verkhoyansk is known for its brutally cold winters and is one of the coldest towns on Earth. However, temperatures in recent months have skyrocketed double digits above average temperatures.
The average high temperature in Verkhoyansk in June is 68°F, meaning this record day was over 30 degrees hotter than average. For reference, the coldest month of the year Verkhoyansk is January where the high is, on average, -44°F. Yes, you read that correct, negative 44 degrees Fahrenheit is the average high temperature in January.
Fracking Trailblazer Chesapeake Energy Files for Bankruptcy
From The Wall Street Journal: Rebecca Elliot
Oklahoma City-based company was once the second-largest U.S. gas producer
Chesapeake Energy Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday as an oil- and gas-price rout stoked by the coronavirus pandemic proved to be the final blow for a shale-drilling pioneer long hamstrung by debt.
Chesapeake is the latest debt-laden U.S. oil and gas producer to file for bankruptcy, as a coronavirus-induced economic slowdown saps demand for fossil fuels. More than 200 shale companies may file for bankruptcy over the next two years if oil and gas prices stay around current levels, analysts say.
Three-year-old Skylar Sowatsky protests drilling at a rally in Butler County in 2012. Skylar’s mother Kim McEvoy said once gas drilling began, her water turned gray and cloudy. And in the spring of 2012, her well was running dry. Susan Phillips/StateImpactPA
Pa. grand jury report on fracking: DEP failed to protect public health
From State Impact Pennsylvania: Susan Phillips and Reid Frazier
Grand jury makes proposals on regulation, oversight of fracking industry
A Pennsylvania grand jury report two years in the making slammed the Department of Environmental Protection for failing to protect the public from the health effects of fracking.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who sent investigators across the state to investigate the industry, announced the findings at a press conference Thursday in Harrisburg. The grand jury said the risk of fracking should fall on the industry and on regulators but DEP “did not take sufficient action in response to the fracking boom.”
“It’s the government’s job to set and enforce the ground rules that protect the public interest,” Shapiro said. “Through multiple administrations, they failed.”
At one point, Shapiro held up a jar of brown well water that he said came from a resident whose water had been contaminated. He told stories of testimony from residents who complained of dead livestock, nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.
“Greencons” are a new political alliance for an uncertain age
From The Economist
Conservatives and climate activists, once political opposites, are joining forces
THE FORMATION of Ireland’s new government on June 27th, after 140 days of haggling, brings to office a novel coalition. Not only will the old rivals of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael ally for the first time since the Irish civil war roughly a century ago, but the two parties of the centre-right will join forces with the 29-year-old Green Party. Under the new taoiseach, Micheal Martin, the coalition is promising a green new deal that would slash carbon emissions by 7% a year. Though still rare, once-improbable alliances of climate activists and conservatives are becoming increasingly fashionable in Europe. The covid-19 pandemic could well foster more such coalitions.
“Greencon” alliances are for now marriages of convenience, born of the fragmentation of European politics that is forcing parties of all stripes to contemplate new partnerships. There are areas on which greens and conservatives are unlikely ever to agree, notably defence and foreign policy. Nonetheless both sides have done a lot of evolving in recent years. And the pandemic is painting the political landscape an ever deeper shade of green, which politicians of the centre-right are as eager to exploit.
Getty Images
Climate change: Ireland on the verge of its 'greenest government ever'
From The BBC: Matt McGrath
Ireland stands on the brink of putting climate change at the heart of its government if Green Party members vote in favour of a new coalition.
The new administration plans to ban fracked gas imports from the US, make steep cuts in emissions and end new drilling for oil and gas. Agreed in talks with two larger parties, the plan now needs the support of two thirds of Green members. But there is opposition, with some saying it is not progressive enough.
The results of voting are expected on Friday evening.
Ireland's reputation as a clean and green country has been tarnished in recent years by the inability of successive governments to tackle carbon emissions.
