Environmental Health News is always full of interesting stories, and a quiet Sunday like today is no exception.
Although climate change is the big, bad issue that's getting ever more attention, it's definitely not the only problem we're facing. Soil scientists and geologists have been trying to get more attention for the fact that we're using up the lifeblood of civilization, at a rate 10 to 20 times faster than it's replenished, our soil. Scientists working on how to boost fertility and even make soil from scratch are doing important work without most of us even realizing we've got a problem.
Another increasingly worrying problem is the amount of chemicals we've poured into our environment. Suspecting there's a problem, getting funding for research are only the easiest part of the battle in remedying chemical mis-steps. The real challenge is overcoming financial interests to cut down on chemicals. Philip Landriga has worked to expose the health impacts, particularly on children, of lead, pesticides and other chemicals in the environment. He has seen up close how vested interests work from within scientific and government organizations to keep their businesses from being upset by new laws designed to protect human health. I recently saw a blogger talking about the plastic water bottle uproar and referring to how the U.S. government (FDA) doesn't see BPA as a serious threat (which is based on two studies, vs. over 100 that say the chemical is a problem). Considering the government (EPA) has sat idly by while pesticides are recklessly tested on the poor, I don't place much stock in what they say. Unfortunately it's just one example of many, in a pattern of behaviour that's common across departments.
Linking the two above topics, there's a story about the unexpected impact of pesticides in soils once adjacent land was flooded in an attempt to create wetlands to clean up Lake Apopka. Two things stick out about this piece. One is the deadly impact for wildlife from these pesticides:
The first try at converting the farmland into marsh failed in 1998. It killed more than 1,000 eagles, storks, pelicans and other birds that ate fish which had become toxic with pesticides seeping out of the soil.
and the other is how we hope to "get rid of" the pesticides by plowing them (admittedly very
deep) under, before re-flooding the land. Your average person doesn't generally consider the chemicals in products, on our food, in our gardens, but there are whole fields and industries dedicated to how to get rid of these harmful chemicals, and it is far from easy. Plants can be used (there's an article on Environmental Health News today about using mushrooms for this purpose), but then there is the matter of what to do with the plants. The town in Europe where I lived for several years was home to an industrial soil cleaning business (and boy, did it stink). Sometimes there's no option but to dig up the land and move it somewhere else to be cleaned or isolated, or merely put somewhere else so that the land it was taking up can be used for something else. In this case, that option was too expensive, thus the plow (hand-made, crazily powerful, and when stuck requires a posse off tractors to pull it out).Finally, on a personal note, I've received a couple of hits to the website from people seeking information on how to grow tea. I had considered this in the past, and obviously posted about it, but I also recently took another look. It turns out the tea plant is quite the tree or shrub, depending on variety. I can't quite figure out how I can bring it indoors during winter when eventually it gets to be so big. But, you can still grow mint and chamomile and make tea from them if you've only got a little space. Sphere: Related Content
