Stone Prairie Farm: Thrilling Evening and Foggy Morning

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

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Last night seems like a dream now. So where do I start? What do I remember?

This morning, as the sun slowly rose, the engulfing fog began to glow and my eyes opened to a dripping landscape, where coalescing dew slowly formed into earth-bound droplets from every plant leaf and flower around my head. The fog-muffled calls of birds were accompanied by the sound of these drips careening from upper leaves on the grape vines as I watched from my bed on our screen porch. On such mornings, my mind and the land are awash in this fog.

About the time I was preparing to go to bed last night, our dog, Willow, started pacing in circles from room to room. He sensed the low grumble of a distant thunderstorm well before I did and probably couldn’t decide which bed to hide under. Driven by his need to be with his pack-- me in this case-- he followed me out to the screen porch where I would do some reading and then, hopefully, simply fall asleep. I placed his white fabric “fuzzy bed” next to mine and settled in to read about managing our apple orchard. His unsettled behavior amplified as the storm flashed its way closer and finally arrived at Stone Prairie Farm. After a single attempt to push under my blankets, the flashes and cracks of lightning sent him into the house to hide under a real bed. I turned off my reading light and lay back to experience the show.

Nancy Gift: Mowing Meditation

Today's post is from Nancy Gift, an assistant professor of environmental studies and acting director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and a lawn full of weeds. She is the author of A Weed by Any Other Name: The Virtues of a Messy Lawn, or Learning to Love the Plants We Don't Plant.

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After over three full summers of using my reel mower, I have come to love the click-click-click and the flying clippings, the instant sound of kids' playing and birdsong when I stop for breath at the top of our backyard slope. I love the exercise of arms, core, and legs simultaneously, and have had visions of beginning a suburban biathalon, with the star event being mowing a mile-long course with a reel mower, following my nine-mile bike home from work.

But, despite my purchase of one of the premier brands – Brill – and despite my affections for it, it seems to be dead, with wheels turning but little corresponding mower action to match. I suspect the gears are stripped, but I am no mechanic, and I can't even seem to figure out how to break into the wheel machinery to check. I doubt many of these machines are used on as large a lot as ours – half an acre, minus gardens and house footprint – but I had always thought of them as indestructable, the kinds of machines which you find in an abandoned garage, oil a bit, and voila! Mow your way home to use them. Apparently my Brill is not that kind of reel mower.

Stone Prairie Farm: The Sights and Sounds of Late Springtime

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

Dreaming about Stone Prairie Farm. 7:30 am, Saturday, May 31, 2009

This week I've been in Gainesville Florida on a project and right now, this beautiful Saturday morning, I'm waylaid in the Atlanta airport hoping to get back sometime today to Milwaukee, and then drive the several hours back west to Stone Prairie Farm. Gainesville's live oaks and pendent, draping Spanish moss, a relative of pineapple (not a moss at all), and the old stalwart loblolly pines create such a different ambience than the open prairies at Stone Prairie farm. When we drove by fields, even plowed up farm fields, my eyes and spirits perked.

These views over the landscape were more familiar, more like home, and I dreamed about the farm. While I've only been gone a few days, I'm missing those rare idyllic spring days and evenings, where the wafting fragrances of blooming phlox fill the air and remind me of how comfortable it is before summer's heat and humidity sets in.

Thinking and writing is being disrupted: "Any standby passengers needing a seat assignment and a boarding pass please come to the gate D5 immediately for flight 435 to Milwaukee." Computer and brain shutdown and I race to the gate, to home, to Stone Prairie Farm.

Fred Pearce: Consumption Dwarfs Population As Main Environmental Threat

Today's post is by Fred Pearce, author of Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff. Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He is environment consultant for New Scientist magazine, and his other books include When The Rivers Run Dry and With Speed and Violence. This post originally appeared at Yale Environment 360 (e360.yale.edu).

It's the great taboo, I hear many environmentalists say. Population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, but we are afraid to discuss it.

It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument-- "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts?

The world's population quadrupled to six billion people during the 20th century. It is still rising and may reach 9 billion by 2050. Yet for at least the past century, rising per-capita incomes have outstripped the rising head count several times over. And while incomes don't translate precisely into increased resource use and pollution, the correlation is distressingly strong.

Moreover, most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population.

By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world's people take the majority of the world's resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Take carbon dioxide emissions-- a measure of our impact on climate but also a surrogate for fossil fuel consumption. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world's richest half-billion people-- that's about 7 percent of the global population-- are responsible for 50 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions.

Although overconsumption has a profound effect on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of our high standard of living extend beyond turning up the temperature of the planet. For a wider perspective of humanity's effects on the planet's life support systems, the best available measure is the "ecological footprint," which estimates the area of land required to provide each of us with food, clothing, and other resources, as well as to soak up our pollution. This analysis has its methodological problems, but its comparisons between nations are firm enough to be useful.

Alexis Rizzuto: Sky Dance of the Woodcock

Today's post is from Alexis Rizzuto, an assistant editor at Beacon Press

Photo from Flickr by Paco Lyptic

David, a birding friend, called to say he knew of a spot where woodcocks were performing their spring mating dance. The woodcock is a short, stocky bird with a long bill and a dramatic way of courting. They hang out in fields where there is tall grass cover (their "singing grounds") and come out only after sunset for their rituals, making them very hard to photograph or video. The dance consists of spiraling up very high, careening down, and stopping short only a couple of feet from the ground. The prospect of witnessing this was enticing indeed, so my husband Alex, my mother and I signed on for the trip.

In preparation, David warned us that the area was known to be tick-infested, and we all wore knee socks pulled up over our pants-- except Alex. I also sported my impenetrable rubber wellies just to be sure. We set off through the Sudbury River Reservation, giving ourselves enough time for a bit of a walk before dusk. Along the way we saw curled fiddlehead ferns, the calligraphy of spring; watched blackbirds chase each other, swooping and banking in formation, their red epaulets flashing in tandem; and excavated tiny jaw and leg bones from an owl pellet. The pond we came upon had beaver written all over it. Drowned trees, check. Gnawed stumps, check. Huge lodge across the pond, check. I often see all these signs but had yet to see a beaver in the wild. The sunset turned the still water's surface gold, broken only the wake of something swimming just beneath. A loud slap! Beaver tail? There was the nose, then the face. Another slap and he dove again, the last we saw of him.

Dusk approaching, it was time to position ourselves for the show. David had been here with a group the week before and knew just where the woodcocks would be. He directed us to a spot on the edge of an open field, across from a patch of tall grass, and there we waited. The birds' call-- a distinctive, buzzy "peent"-- emanated from the cover. As it got darker, the peepers started their chorus and I thought, "Spring isn't silent yet." When a couple of bats flew overhead, I wanted to cheer them on for surviving the winter without succumbing to the fungal disease wiping out their populations.

The "peents" kept coming, but no birds emerged. After a while, we heard a new call, a maniacal twittering which I found out later is actually caused by air moving through their outer wing feathers. So they must have been priming their wings, working up their mojo to burst into the sky and show off for potential mates. Unfortunately, however, the mojo never reached critical mass, and eventually we had to find our way back to the car with flashlights. Not too disappointed though-- we did see the beaver.

Amy Seidl: Mother’s Day Flowers: A Sign of Our Changing Ecology?

Today's post is from Amy Seidl, author of Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World. Seidl has taught in the environmental studies programs at Middlebury College and the University of Vermont. She is currently a research scholar at Middlebury and associate director of the LivingFuture Foundation. She lives with her family in Huntington, Vermont, in a solar- and wind-powered home.

The celebration of Mother's Day isn't complete without flowers, bouquets of tulips and roses, clusters of violets and daffodils gripped in the fists of small children. Flowers capture the season, that time when we are relieved from winter and move decidedly into spring. Flowering azalea bushes, ephemeral wildflowers, and cultivated garden blossoms all confirm that the growing season is truly here.

Except that all this is changing. As the planet warms and weather conditions change, flowering plants are responding. Lilacs, perhaps the floral archetype of the feminine, are blooming up to two weeks earlier than in the 1960s. Native plants like phlox, columbine, and milkweed flower earlier in the Wisconsin woods where Aldo Leopold first recorded their timing, a pattern that others are seeing across America's natural landscapes. Fruit trees are responding too and in January 2007 apple trees bloomed in Boston's Public Garden after a record-breaking warm December.

What does this mean for Mother's Day? What is the connection? First, because the celebration is strongly tied to season we have the opportunity to see the signs of this phenomenon in our everyday, local landscapes. We just need to take a look. Second, climate change is altering everything about life; ecosystems are entering flux as species respond to changing conditions, the risk of extinction has grown immeasurably, and humans and their built environments are threatened by extreme events they are not prepared for. Who better to demand that we stop global warming than the mothers, the givers and protectors of life? Who better to promote a future founded on clean energy, clean water, and healthy ecosystems? Who better to illuminate that not only the Arctic but our backyards are changing? Who better to say it with flowers?    

Sustainable Cities: A Radical Urban Approach

Today's post is a guest blog from Scott Kellogg, co-author (with Stacy Pettigrew) of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, recently published by South End Press. Scott and Stacy are co-founders of Austin, Texas' Rhizome Collective, a non-profit urban sustainability project. Toolbox is a culmination of eight years of research and experimentation at Rhizome. In addition, they are the organizers and teachers of R.U.S.T.-- The Radical Urban Sustainability Training.

In the near future, humanity will be challenged by the converging trends of energy depletion and climate change. It will be necessary for us to transition into a culture that consumes drastically less, and to shift away from the paradigm of perpetual material growth. As part of this transition, the means for securing food, water, energy, and waste management must be re-localized into people's home communities. As currently more than 50% of the world's population lives in urban areas, it will be critical to make our cities more sustainable.

As more and more often the word "sustainability" is being used as a marketing term, we are attempting to bring it back to its truer, original meaning: to live in such a way that the resources available to us today will be available also to an indefinite number of future human generations. This desire led us to create the Rhizome Collective in Austin Texas in 2000. The Rhizome was an old warehouse building that was converted into a demonstration site for urban sustainability, and a home base for numerous social work and activist organizations. On display were numerous ecologically designed systems that the public was invited to come and interact with and learn from.

Stone Prairie Farm: Green, the Truly Happy Color

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

Prescribed burned lands at Stone Prairie Farm were under a state of prolonged blackness, not just at night, but also during the day. After the burning in March, cold weather has encouraged little growth of even the cool season plants that usually grow quickly from the blackened landscape. This year, rather than the normal annual landscape metamorphosis from black to lime green and then darker green as plant leaves and stems mature, the black faded to gray and green just didn't budge from the earth.

That is, at least, until this week, particularly today; after several days of warm drizzle, living plants have returned. They have jumped skyward, in a few short days, to make up for the several weeks of suspense. And with this green comes other life.

Spring Arrives at Stone Prairie Farm: Time to Burn the Prairie

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

The flocks of sprinting robins bulleting across the sky criss-crossed the seemingly less focused red winged black birds with their slower bounding flight. Today, a cacophony of bird calls has startled the landscape from the near silence and sleepiness of winter. Birds are everywhere, momentarily landing, then departing as the edgiest or most eager in the flock again takes wing. An amazing energy prevails, with the whipping south wind bowing last years' standing prairie grass stems, clouds quickly moving east, imparting a dappled pattern of light and shadow on the prairie.

Today was the last day of Applied Ecological Services, Inc., annual corporate meetings, a gathering of 150 staff where, to break the ice, frog calls and cheering competitions preceded the business of hearing of the company's performance over the last year and a rally for the times ahead. To get this many pyromaniacs together would normally be a liability, but to those us of doing ecosystem restoration, it's a blessing. At the meeting I planted the bug. "Sure looks like a good day to do a prescribed burn of the prairie at Stone Prairie Farm," I said in the ear of Aaron, one of the fire crew bosses. And just like the high school game, post office, word came around in the affirmative minutes later.

It all happened so fast that Susan and I missed most of the prairie burn. Like the speeding birds, this spring tradition of burning the prairies, the big flames and immersion in the sweet smoke, lured 20-30 staff to the farm. When I arrived nearly an hour later, I parked and looked over the farm from a promontory. I could see the yellow flames spiking and billows of white smoke emanating behind each yellow Nomex-suited person as they walked across the prairie dripping fire from a red drip torch. The migrating birds were popping out of the smoke and haze, like jets on final approach do when the stratus clouds hang low over the airport.

The Turning To Warmth on Stone Prairie Farm

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

I noticed the difference in the first rays of the rising sun that 5th February: a definite brighter yellow morning glow, the appearance of warmth even though it was only seven degrees Fahrenheit, and something else that spoke of a turning point. I wasn't the only creature at Stone Prairie Farm cognitive to this event. The chickadees, at the bird feeder for the first time since late fall, were calling. They spurted parts of their normal songs, seeming like first-time vocalists practicing a few lines over and over.

The sunlight soaked the land, once released by the horizon to our side of the earth. Then I knew, before listening to any weather reporting on the radio, today was going to be different. Today the snow drifts would shudder and slump, water would ooze from beneath their slumping forms like the melting of butter, and the land’s whiteness of several months would flow from the land to the streams, to the ground to replenish water supplies, and evaporate back to the atmosphere. The passing thought--expect foggy mornings--was interrupted by a proclamation for the fish in Spring creek: expect a surge of cold clear water. Incoming!

Then I became preoccupied with the morning rush to chores, off to my office and work. During the perfunctory morning dog walk, Willow ran between the shadows and the glowing light as he crisscrossed behind prairie grass clumps and shrubs, looking for the perfect spots and sniffing the scents of the nightly wildlife movements. The rabbits in particular. For a gray haired muzzled dog, there was a little more spring in his step. He too appeared to notice or feel something in the cold morning air.

Happy Birthday, Darwin

Today's post is from Claire Hope Cummings, an environmental lawyer, journalist, and author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.

Charles Robert Darwin was born 200 years ago today. Thomas Jefferson was in the White House and life was slower and much quieter. The sounds of the natural world could still be heard in daily life.

Now we live with the constant hum of engines and the ringing and beeping of electronics. We may have advanced technologically, but have we progressed in our ideas about the role of science in society? What would Darwin think if he knew the same old arguments over science and religion were still raging?

Over the last few decades, in the United States especially, religious conservatives have successfully denied the fact of evolution and forced science classes in public schools to teach it as a theory and offer creationism as the alternative.

A study by Jon Miller of Michigan State University surveyed 32 European countries and found that "the U.S. is the only country in which [the teaching of evolution] has been politicized." Miller began examining American ideas on evolution in 1985. At that time, only 45 percent of Americans accepted the basic idea of evolution. By 2005, that number had declined to 40 percent. (You can read about the study in this New Scientist article. The original article is available by subscription only here.)

Miller says that religious fundamentalism, poor science education in our schools, and partisan politics have resulted in more Americans denying evolution than ever. Just last month, the Texas Board of Education, the largest and most influential textbook purchaser in the nation, finally dropped its 20 year mandate that science teachers include a critique of evolution in their curriculum. Still, 7 of the 15 seats on the board are held by conservatives who vow to keep pushing their agenda.

Darwin, of course, would recognize this old argument. But he would probably see it as it is, a false dichotomy. His writing gave due respect to both nature and his religious beliefs. He might be surprised that so many of us now, especially those of us who think we have accomplished so much in taming the natural world, still think we need to choose.

Stone Prairie Farm is in Deep Freeze Mode

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm.

This morning at first light, our dog Willow walked out the front door nonchalantly, as though he expected warm spring weather outside. Not so on a mid-January day in Wisconsin. Before the front half of his lanky body was out, his back half was already trying to scramble back into the warmth of the farm house.

Arctic birds have moved in, pushed ahead by the Alberta clipper’s very strong cold front to become our winter birds in southern Wisconsin. Snow buntings and tree sparrows, have replaced the ever present cardinals, blue jays, song sparrows and other common freeloaders at the bird feeder. Some are foraging vigorously, landing on stalks and attempting to shake out the few remaining plant seeds from the prairies plant stems.

It’s very cold today, and is supposed to continue for the entire week. It’s during these cold winter days when the howl of the wind and swirl of snow covers over the life and vibrancy of the dormant insects and plant life below. It’s also really snowy—nearly 40 inches now cover the ground, and another four inches are coming in tonight.

Monday Media Roundup: Bill Ayers in the NY Times, Awards, TreeHugger Radio

Bill Ayers spoke for himself on the op-ed pages of the New York Times this past weekend.

Kai Wright's Drifting Toward Love was selected as an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. A profile of Wright ran his past weekend in Edge Boston.

John Hanson Mitchell's The Paradise of All These Parts was selected as one of 2008's most memorable books by the Boston Globe.

TreeHugger Radio ran the first of a two-part interview with Fred Pearce about his new book, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner. Last week in the Guardian, Pearce examined what Coca-Cola's claims of becoming "water-neutral" really mean.

Obamanomics for the Missing Class

Today's post is from Victor Tan Chen, co-author (with Katherine S. Newman) of The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America and the founding editor and president of INTHEFRAY Magazine. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Newsday and the Minority Law Journal, and in the book Chutes and Ladders. He is a Harvard doctoral candidate in sociology and social policy.

Now that Barack Obama has won the presidency, and the Democrats have broadened their majorities in Congress, the picture looks a little less bleak for the country's poor and near poor families.

In policies ranging from taxes to health care, from housing to job creation, Obamanomics will likely provide some welcome relief from the status quo of the last eight years, during which the ranks of low-income households grew. In 2000, 29.2 percent of the population, or 81 million Americans, lived on household incomes of less than twice the poverty line. In 2007, 30.5 percent of the country, or 91 million Americans, fell into this bottom category of poor and near poor households.

In our book The Missing Class, Katherine Newman and I looked at the situation of near poor families at the end of last decade and the beginning of this decade. Rates of poverty and near poverty were steadily falling from their peaks in the early 1990s. Americas economy was roaring. But as we described in our book, even in those boom years near poor families were struggling mightily to find quality health care, housing, and education for their children.

Now that another downturn is upon us, the economic fortunes of the less well-off look far worse. And having just approved a massive infusion of government money to prop up the country's floundering banks, the federal government — even with a progressive president at the helm — will find its options even more limited than is usually the case during recession times, as half-a-trillion-dollar budget deficits feed interest rate rises and worsen the market malaise.

Factory Farms, Dirty Water, and the Bible: Part Two

Today's blog post is part two of two (part one is here) by Mark Winne about the environmental and social impact of factory dairy farming. Winne is the author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty.

This is part two of a two-part story. Read part one here.

The Power and the Politics of Big Dairy

Nothing gets as big as the dairy industry in New Mexico without political support and the strategic exercise of economic power.  The hardhat adorned photo of New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson, proudly displayed by the New Mexico Dairy Producers Association at statewide agricultural expositions, breaking ground at the Clovis cheese plant is testimony to political support for the industry. In the words of Cindy Padilla, [former] Director of the Water and Waste Management Division of the NM Environment Department (NMED), the state agency responsible for issuing and monitoring dairy wastewater discharge permits, "our agency must balance the need for economic development with environmental protection."  The question, however, is precisely where is that balance.

Under the provisions of the U.S. Clean Water Act a prospective dairy operator in New Mexico must first obtain a wastewater discharge permit from the NMED. The evaluation of the application is based solely on the conditions at the proposed site of the dairy farm and representations made by the applicant. The NMED does not evaluate conditions in the surrounding area such as the number of dairy farms already in existence, the proximity of those farms to that of the permit applicant, or the total impact that a certain number of farms could have on the public's health or environment.  In fact, according to Ms. Padilla, there is no upward limit on the number of permits the department can issue, which means the number of dairy farms is only limited by the amount of land and water rights dairymen can purchase.

Air quality oversight fares even worse. In spite of the concerns raised by residents of Curry and Roosevelt counties, including the high rates of asthma, the NMED does not monitor air quality anywhere in New Mexico except in the state's southern-most region. According to department spokesman, John Goldstein, "we have no plans to monitor air quality in dairy areas at this time."

Factory Farms, Dirty Water, and the Bible: Part One

Today's blog post is part one of two (part two is here) by Mark Winne about the environmental and social impact of factory dairy farming. Winne is the author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty.

Just an hour west of Texas, the gentle swells of New Mexico's high plains calm to a pancake flat sea of grass. Crossing into Curry and Roosevelt counties at the state's eastern edge, the empty landscape, broken only by the occasional grain elevator and abandoned village, quickly gives way to a discomfiting motion. Strung out along the highway's edge in a nearly unbroken chain are cow pens filled with thousands of black and white Holsteins slithering in the summer heat like giant schools of beached eels.

Got milk? Eat Taco Bell cheese? Slurp Yoplait yogurt? Chances are pretty good this is where the main ingredient comes from. Curry and Roosevelt counties now enjoy the dubious distinction of being at the heart of the Great American West's dairy industrial complex. With barely 20,000 dairy animals in 1992, the two counties now feed, milk, and clean up after 120,000 cows at 58 operating dairy farms, a number that by all accounts will double in a few short years. And to sop up all this milk (only 30% is used for fluid consumption), Curry County is now home to North America's largest cheese plant, which extrudes a Velveeta-like product at the rate of one truckload per hour.

What do these many farms do to a place? At four tons of manure per cow annually, 120,000 cows produce as much excrement as the city of Los Angeles. The odor in the surrounding communities is bad enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon, and the hordes of flies stop outdoor picnics before the potato salad is uncovered. Besides being a nuisance, the winged insects are also disease vectors for a variety of bacteria-related illnesses. They may be one reason why Curry County's asthma rate is three times higher than New Mexico's statewide average.

But the dairy industry's most problematic contribution is not easily seen or sniffed. Since large dairy farms – labeled by the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – and milk processing facilities use more of the region's limited water supply than other users, they present a serious threat to the counties' main water source, the Ogallala Aquifer. And at the same time that the industry is sucking the ground dry, nitrates from the manure are finding their way back into the ground water in such concentrations as to alarm public health workers and state officials.

A Green Bailout

Today's post is from Van Jones, founder and president of Green For All, a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. The Green Collar Economy, published by HarperOne, is his first book. Jones blogs regularly on politics, the environment, and economics at Huffington Post.

Maybe the Wall Street bailout package is a good idea.

But the only thing I know for sure is this: even if we avert a total economic meltdown, we will still be in a recession. Millions of Americans still will be without jobs -- or in real fear of losing their job. Worse, we will still be dependent on dirty fuels like oil and coal, which are draining our monetary resources and cooking the planet.

The Earth and everyday people will still be suffering.

At this point, I am willing to concede that Wall Street and the big bankers need some propping up. But while we are at it, we should find a way to bail out the little people -- and the planet, too.

So how about a green bailout -- to help both? We already took an important step in that direction. Perhaps the only thing in the whole bailout package that is inarguably good is the support for the U.S. clean energy sector.

Link Roundup: Welcome to New Readers, Rev. Forrest Church, Divorce as a Health Care Strategy

In the run-up to tonight's Vice Presidential debate, which will be hosted by Gwen Ifill, we're seeing an slight uptick in traffic from conservative blogs linking to her cousin Sherrilyn Ifill's post on The Relevance of Nooses and Lynching in the Age of Obama. For those of you who clicked through to read the entire post, then stuck around to see what else we talk about here, welcome.

Or you might have come here from Galleycat, where Ron Hogan said something nice about us again this week. We're happy to see you, too!

Good Reading Elsewhere:

"After two or three poignant farewell sermons, I'm almost embarrassed this morning to be seen in public upright." Rev. Forrest Church was featured in a moving story about last weekend's sermon at the Unitarian Church of All Souls. Rev. Church posted on Beacon Broadside in July about his book Love & Death.

Sara Robinson does some myth debunking regarding the Community Reinvestment Act and the subprime crisis. (Link via Susan Campbell's Fear, Itself blog at the Hartford Courant).

"Neither of us wanted a divorce. We thought we'd be soulmates, forever and forever. But we couldn't afford to go to doctor any more and couldn't afford medication." Long-married couples divorce in order to get necessary health care. 

"Polar bears, Priuses and Ph.D.s aren't going to do it alone." Green-collar dynamo Van Jones in Time on how green jobs can save the economy and the earth.

Recent Beacon Broadside Posts:

Weathering the Storm: Keeping Some Control in a Financial Crisis by Nan Mooney

Books Still Burn Here by Christopher Finan

The Unetane Tokef: A Jewish Model for Collective Responsibility by Danya Ruttenberg

From the Director: Remembering Robert Giroux by Helene Atwan 

Link Roundup: Student Loans, Funding Locally-Owned Markets, Cow Gas

Kathryn Joyce (whose book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement will be released by Beacon this winter) compares the candidacy of Sarah Palin to the biblical story of Esther.

The student loan credit crunch may just be a "convenient" distraction for lenders who would like to keep attention away from predatory lending practices, says Alan Collinge, author of The Student Loan Scam.

On Democracy Now!, David Bacon, author of Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, discusses how aggressive tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes some undocumented immigrants too afraid to evacuate in the face of dangerous hurricanes.

The state of Pennsylvania brings fresh, healthy food to underserved populations with a grant-funding program for locally-owned grocery stores in low-income communities.

A special diet can help reduce cow methane emissions (which is to say "bovine flatulence") and thus reduce the impact of cattle farming on global warming.

Quotable Link Roundup: Obama, Reverse Graffiti, Climate Change

"To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators." Helen Benedict on why soldiers rape.

"To us sofa slouchers, these teen Olympians are heroes. But they have the nation's pediatricians on edge." A Baltimore Sun op-ed by Mark Hyman about young athletes. Also check out Hyman answering questions about how to be a good sports parent.

"I awoke still weeping, my first real tears for him - and for me, his jailor, his judge, his son." Kelley Bulkeley, author of American Dreamers, analyzes the dreams of Barack Obama.

"[T]he artist's weapons are cleaning materials and … the enemy is the elements: wind, rain, pollution and decay." The Environmental Graffiti blog, in a convergence of title and topic.

"They're being asked now to tighten their belts, and there simply aren't any notches left, so that I think what we're going to see is people going into a huge amount of debt." Nan Mooney, author of Not Keeping Up With Our Parents, on NewsHour (available in transcript, audio or video).

"At the nation's extreme western edge, sitting over 2500 miles from the U.S. mainland, Kauians are as vulnerable to high food and energy costs as a people can be." At the Slow Food Nation blog, Mark Winne highlights the special challenges faced by a Hawaiian food bank.

"There's historical truth, which I don't discount at all, and there is, co-existing with it, a deeper truth about what it is to be a person and what it is to live your life in alignment with the sacred." Danya Ruttenberg, author of Surprised by God, at the Cultural Criticism and Beauty Tips blog.

Related Beacon Broadside posts:

Helen Benedict on female veterans.

Mark Hyman talking about Debbie Phelps, mother of Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian in history.

Kelly Bulkeley telling Americans to get more sleep, and dissecting dreams of the presidential candidates (posts one and two).

Nan Mooney discussing how economic equality is hurting the middle class.

Mark Winne about high food prices and the food gap between the rich and the impoverished.