Why organic food might be worth the price – ‘When you look at ecosystem services, organic agriculture really shines’

By Mandy Oaklander4  February 2016 (TIME) – The most infamous fact about organic food is that it’s expensive—about 47% more expensive, according to a recent analysis from Consumer Reports. But a new review study published in Nature Plants analyzed everything research currently knows about organic farming versus the conventional kind and found that organic offers […]

2015 algae bloom in Lake Erie is most severe on record

By Angela Fritz 12 November 2015 (Washington Post) – The algae in Lake Erie was more severe and more highly concentrated this summer than in any summer since NOAA began measuring the blooms in 2002. This year’s harmful green bloom was due to excessive Midwest rainfall in spring and summer, and the fertilizer that rain […]

Graph of the Day: Phosphorus emissions of world cities

18 November 2014 (Urban Water Blueprint) – Impacts on water quality are not limited to sedimentation rates. As watersheds are exploited for agricultural purposes, and as agriculture turns intensive, the use of fertilizers increases and more fertilizers end up in the water. The two most common nutrients that cause problems are excessive phosphorus and nitrogen, […]

The plight of New Zealand’s freshwater biodiversity – ‘We have to do something about the increasingly poor state of our rivers, lakes, and groundwater resources’

17 August 2015 (UNZ) – The majority of New Zealand’s freshwater species are disappearing. That’s the message of the Society for Conservation Biology’s new report, which two of New Zealand’s leading freshwater ecologists Massey University’s Dr Mike Joy and Professor Russell Death have contributed to. The ‘Diagnosis and Cure’ report on managing New Zealand freshwater […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of algae bloom in Lake Erie

By Kathryn Hansen4 August 2015 (NASA) – On July 28, 2015, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured these images of algal blooms around the Great Lakes. The bloom is visible as swirls of green in western Lake Erie (top) and in Lake St. Clair (bottom). Earlier in July, NOAA scientists predicted that […]

Vital rice crops wither in Southeast Asia – Water rationing enforced in almost a third of Thailand – ‘This year is worse than any other’

BANG PLA MA, Thailand, 9 July 2015 (AFP) – Ms Ranong Rachasing would normally be in her fields at this time of the year, toiling in ankle-deep water to make her rice paddies bloom through knowledge honed by years of cultivating Thailand’s most celebrated export. Now the wizened 57-year-old’s fields lie fallow, baking under a […]

Photo gallery: Algae bloom in Shangdong Province, July 2015

By David Sim 7 July 2015 (IBT) – Every summer, the Yellow Sea turns green as a thick carpet of algae covers the beaches of Shangdong Province, eastern China. People living in Qingdao and nearby coastal towns have grown accustomed to their beaches looking more like verdant meadows every July. Children play in a carpet […]

Floodwaters causing new Gulf of Mexico dead zone off Texas

By Rusty Surette18 June 2015 COLLEGE STATION (KBTX) – Record rainfall totals in many parts of Texas the past few weeks means a record amount of freshwater pouring into the Gulf of Mexico – as high as 10 times the normal rate – and that could lead to huge problems for marine life and commercial […]

Document shows Canadian government has been fully aware of tar sands dangers

By Jennifer Skene10 June 2015 (NRDC) – A document recently released under Canada’s access-to-information law reveals that Canadian government officials have been aware of the proliferation of contaminants associated with tar sands mining even as they continues to promote industry expansion with minimal regulation. The January 2015 briefing note, prepared for Natural Resources Minister Greg […]

We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it – ‘Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction’

By George Monbiot25 March 2015 (The Guardian) – Imagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re […]

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