Seven industrial agriculture myths

Phil Loring started writing articles on this theme for me in the Republic, but he hasn't finished the series yet. Now I find myself studying this same topic in my Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems class. The myths are those described in Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. They include:

1) Industrial agriculture will feed the world.
2) Industrial food is safe, healthy, and nutritious.
3) Industrial food is cheap.
4) Industrial agriculture is efficient.
5) Industrial agriculture offers more food choices to consumers.
6) Industrial agriculture benefits the environment and wildlife.
7) Biotechnology will solve all the problems of industrial agriculture.

The section on these myths in Fatal Harvest has been reprinted on Alternet; I've linked to them above, but here's the short rebuttal:

• Myth number one is a classic case of misdirection: it implies (as typically presented) that somehow the problem of hunger is one of a failure to produce enough food, and the answer is that industrial agriculture is the only means whereby we can produce sufficient food to feed all 7 billion of us (or the anticipated 9 billion by 2050). Actually, people go hungry because of politics, economic shenanigans, poverty, and landlessness. Industrial agriculture actually increases the incidence of hunger by raising the cost of farming (by a huge factor), by forcing farmers off their land, by focusing on high-profit export crops rather than food crops for local consumption. The World Bank and other international financial institutions have promoted policies that have supported industrial export agriculture, for example, and have caused hunger through free-market and globalization policies.

• Myth number two was thoroughly debunked for me by Food, Inc., although the movie didn't go into why this folderol is accepted. Part of the reason, as pointed out by the authors of Fatal Harvest, is that industrial food is very very consistent: it looks clean and wholesome. But looks can be deceiving: from the poisonous chemicals it's grown and treated with (as pointed out by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring) to the concentrated, empty junk of modern processed food (as described in Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock, and many other authors since), industrial food is really, really bad for you.

• Myth number three is something you can believe only if you ignore the staggering health, environmental, and human costs of industrial agriculture—a technique commonly known as "externalizing costs," and an everyday part of our modern economic thinking. It is, of course, insane to think that actual costs (not those that are mere ticks or sheafs of the paper/exchange medium) can simply be shunted aside and not counted. They show up, somewhere. It is monumentally selfish and dangerous to all of us for a few business owners to shove those costs upon us for their short-term gain. Industrial agriculture is very, very expensive, and that pleasantly consistent-looking food costs us a bundle, even if we don't pay it at the cash register. We pay for it at the doctor's, in the price of gas, in our taxes, in the length (or shortness) of our lives, in the moral cost of cruelty to animals and extinction of species and varieties, in the human cost of culture destruction, etc. Farming the old-fashioned way is a labor-intensive business, and industrial agriculture, being far more mechanized, thrust a whole lot of people out of work.

• Myth number four is partly a product of myth number three: industrial agriculture looks efficient if you don't have to count all the costs (such as destroyed, contaminated, eroded, lost topsoil, for example), and if you don't count the fact that agriculture is supposed to produce food, rather than a commodity. Industrial agriculture is very good at producing huge amounts of commodities on large amounts of land. It isn't very good at producing a lot of food per acre, though. Gardens, and small, diversified farms, are much more productive per acre. Even Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations simply outsource their land and other input needs to external sources. It really isn't a very efficient or good use of resources. (See this PDF report by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.)

• Steve Hannaford, in his book Market Domination! the impact of industry consolidation on competition, innovation, and consumer choice, thoroughly explores the phenomenon of pseudo-variety, and exploded myth number five in an article he wrote for the Republic about the problem, using beer as an example. Minor variations in content and major variations in packaging do not food differences make. Another particular problem is the disappearance of heirloom varieties of food plants. Food that can handle the conditions or requirements imposed by the industrial food system (such as long shipping distances, rough handling, uniformity of appearance and flavor, resistance to pesticides, fast growth, precisely timed harvest, etc.) loses the myriad choices that varieties adapted to a wide range of needs and microclimates offer. All those small, comparatively skinny chickens, for example, that lay small but tasty eggs and have small breasts and grow sort of slowly, but have a penchant for insect pests and chickweed. Soft-skinned tomatoes that bloom and ripen throughout the summer and have peculiar shapes and interesting stripes and spots. And so on. This variation is not adapted for industrial conditions, and so isn't sought. As smaller, diversified farms are forced out of business through land acquisition, fewer crops are grown, and more of only a few varieties. This has lead to disaster in the past and very likely will again if we keep to our present myopic course.

• Myth number six is a mix of chutzpah and nonsense. I was boggled when I heard this particular one, but a major part of this claim is that industrial agriculture is supposed to be more productive per acre than other forms of agriculture (such as organic or sustainable agriculture). I looked into this, however (some months ago, actually, before I took the class), and industrial agriculture is NOT more productive. Gardening and diversified farming are, in fact, far more productive of food. According to a new study by Jules Pretty, et al. in Environmental Science and Technology, "crop yields on farms in developing countries that used sustainable agriculture rose nearly 80% in four years." That alone doesn't refute the idea that industrial agriculture is more productive. An excellent and well-sourced article in Grist magazine reveals the truth: industrial agriculture requires massive inputs that degrade agricultural, environmental, and human systems in order to get high productivity for a limited number of foods. Industrial agriculture is comparatively sterile, and uses resources up, rather than building them up. It most decidedly does NOT benefit the environment.

• Myth number seven, that biotechnology will be, essentially, a panacea, really depends on how it is used and if its use doesn't simply cause more problems than it solves. Biotechnology as applied to food is typically used to a) patent varieties, b) create pesticide, herbicide, or disease resistance, c) create greater productivity in crops, or d) create genetic and cosmetic uniformity and/or predictability (in other words, to reduce biodiversity). Sometimes it adds nutritional value (as in "golden rice"). It creates industrial foods, crops or varieties that are adapted to industrial needs. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, has a Frequently Asked Questions page on agricultural biotechnology that provides quite the interesting contrast to the concerns I keep finding about biotech crops. While BIO answers concerns in a very even-handed tone, it does not address the basic assumptions about how agriculture should be conducted, and the philosophic underpinnings that differentiate agroecological principles from industrial ones. The site reiterates some of the basic assumptions about what the problems of agriculture are (such as, people are hungry because not enough food is grown, and biotech will help grow more food), rather than looking honestly at the results of our current agricultural system (such as inequitable distribution of food, hunger caused by poverty, farmers unable to grow food because they've been forced off their land by economic or political causes) and asking if they are really what we want or need—and then determining if biotechnology can address those needs. Another site, AgBioWorld, is even less connected to what the issues are, and is a good example of completely missing the point. This site does a lot of answering the more emotion-laden worries, the pig-in-a-poke or straw man arguments, rather than providing answers to genuine, fact-based concerns. Skipping through a plethora of articles and scholarly pieces on biotech, I did find one that talks about the issue of patent law and policy and their effect on how well (or if) biotechnology is used to benefit, say, poor small-scale farmers. It's an 87-page PDF, but talks about the unintended consequences of US patent law and policy on, among other things, researchers "applying biotechnology to the solution of developing-country food security problems."

In a blog post I found on www.brighthub.com, a few more "advantages" were listed:

• longer food shelf-life or availability (also known as the Twinkie phenomenon or the winter tomato)
• less constraint in number of croppings per year (again, not counting the true cost of using up the soil, water, etc.)
• greater availability of human labor (read: more unemployment)
• faster time to market (and what does it mean if the market is halfway around the world as opposed to down the road?)

Sustainable Table has a long list of concerns that deal in large measure with profound
philosophical and quality of life issues that are only partly addressed by the agricultural industry. It seems almost that holders of these two viewpoints are talking past each other rather than to each other.

Cross-posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Earlier posts in this series:

Farming systems and Food, Inc.

Financial finagling in food and sustainability
Food systems, policy, and foodsheds
Food systems and shizen
Sustainable food systems class

Financial finagling in food and sustainability

Week three of the Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems class proceeded on in fascinating detail. We've been talking about sustainability and the design of food and farm systems. Sustainability can be thought of as the interactions of cultural, economic, social, institutional, and energy components in a system that have positive effects on the present, without compromising the future. The design of such a system has an end of healthy ecosystems and healthy communities, creating wellbeing for people and their environment in both the short and long term. Cultural are distinguished from social components in that the former have to do with identity (traditions, value systems, language), while the latter have to do institutions and systems of organization (political structure, systems of control and distribution).

One of the topics that came up during the course of discussion was the food price spikes we're seeing lately and the resultant riots around the world. The professor handed out an article on this from the January 15 New Zealand Herald:

The food riots began in Algeria more than a week ago, and they are going to spread. During the last global food shortage, in 2008, there was serious rioting in Mexico, Indonesia and Egypt. We may expect to see that again, only more widespread.

The article talks about poverty, climate change, world population, global consumption patterns, floods, drought, imports, local crop failures. Interestingly, it does not talk about commodity speculation in grains and other foodstuffs. I recalled a story written for Harper's Magazine by Frederick Kaufman about the food riots of 2008 and what led up to them: he specifically focused on the role of companies like Goldman Sachs and the issue of commodities futures in wheat and corn in the food crisis. The title says it succinctly: "The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it." (PDF)

Investors were delighted to see the value of their venture increase, but the rising price of breakfast, lunch, and dinner did not align with the interests of those of us who eat.

I did a little searching on the web and found the letter from Steve Strongin on behalf of Goldman Sachs in response to the article, Kaufman's reply to that, and an interview with Kaufman by Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now!

The economics of sustainability has to do with full costing: what's known as the triple bottom line or the related integrated bottom line. We talked about economy of scale (Mike Emers of Rosie Creek Farm is helping to teach the class, and he spoke about this): maximizing your inputs (money, equipment, time, labor, etc.) for the most efficient and best levels of use for what you have—a balancing of costs and benefits. Each size of operation has an economy of scale that best suits it. Craig Gerlach brought up "neighboring," a term I hadn't heard before. This is a practice where neighbor farmers will work in common to help each other. For example, community harvesting: farmers in a particular local showing up at one farm to help harvest that farmer's fields, then moving on to the next farm in a given area, and so on, until all of their fields are harvested. Bringing in the harvest is an old tradition, as is barn-raising. Farmers may also share equipment.

in a food system, how do the local, regional, and global food systems link and interact? How do the scales of agriculture affect diversity in ecology, society, culture? We talked about the size of a farm affecting its ecological diversity: monoculture tends to be the rule on the extremely large farm. Gerlach hastened to point out that the modern industrial standard of monoculture and resource exploitation could be replaced with a restorative system, using organic and rotational methods, on the very large as well as the small farm, and that diversification of crops can be done over time as well as land area.

"Nature is the model."

This led us to talking about the plains vs. the prairie, and the idea of place-based development of breeds and farming methods. Gerlach mentioned the work of Wes Jackson, who became concerned about erosion of topsoil in the US (famously in the Dust Bowl of the thirties, but still continuing), and ended up founding an organization called The Land Institute. Most grains we use are annuals; we till the land, sow the seed, harvest the crop, and then plow under the stubble. The institute describes the situation and their mission this way:

No method for perpetuating agricultural productivity exists. Our goal is to improve the security of our food and fiber source by reducing soil erosion, decreasing dependency upon petroleum and natural gas, and relieving the agriculture-related chemical contamination of our land and water. Our specific research is an innovation for agriculture, using "nature as the measure" to develop mixed perennial grain crops as food for humans where farmers use nature as a standard or measure in making their agronomic decisions. Over 75 percent of human calories worldwide come from grains such as wheat and corn, but the production of these grains erodes ecological capital. Our research is directed toward the goal of having conservation as a consequence of agricultural production.

The classic documentary, The Plow that Broke the Plains, brought the problem of tilling and erosion to public attention in 1936. The sound is pretty bad on this, but it's an interesting piece.



"A healthy, well-integrated community needs to be integrated with its food," said Gerlach, and I agree. That means the consequences of agricultural economics has to be connected to the consequences of agriculture. Food, economics, human happiness: you can't rip off one sector without hurting the others.

Previous posts in this series:

Food systems, policy, and foodsheds
Food systems and shizen
Sustainable food systems class

Cross posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Food systems, policy, and foodsheds

The second week of my Comparative Food Systems class has readings in Anna Lappé's book, Diet for a Hot Planet, going over Hamm's seven principles for a healthy food system, reading an article by Jack Kloppenburg and others on the foodshed, an article on rural Alaska food systems by my professor, Craig Gerlach, and researching definitions of "food system." In the meantime, I've been working on the Alaska Food Policy Council's introductory paper on food policy and the Alaska food system, so these two projects dovetail quite nicely. It adds up to a lot of reading—interesting, definitely, but a lot of pages.

So, to start: Lappé makes the argument that not only is small-scale, diversified organic farming that caters to a local market sustainable and good for communities, this type of agriculture is climate-friendly because it: produces fewer comparative greenhouse gas emissions than industrial farming; requires less energy inputs from fossil fuels; improves the soil; and actually sequesters carbon in the soil rather than releasing it. Her description of the energy-intensiveness of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations is horrific—and never mind the inherent cruelty of them, she hasn't even gotten into that so far. She does talk about the unhealthiness of the modern diet in terms of the amount of processing food undergoes: highly processed foods, like Pringles or Pop-Tarts, use a huge amount of energy and resources—and they're just not that good for you.

Lappé describes seven principles of a climate-friendly diet:

1. Reach for real food (food that has fewer ingredients and isn't processed or transmogrified a lot is likelier to be less climate-destructive)
2. Put plants on your plate (eat less meat—most modern meat is grain-fed, which is energy-intensive; if you eat meat, eat meat that is raised humanely and sustainably, because these practices, like grass-fed beef, produce less greenhouse gas emissions—grain-fed cattle produce more methane than grass-fed cattle!)
3. Don't panic, go organic (industrial chemicals require large energy inputs; nitrogen fertilizer produced through the Haber-Bosch process, for example—and then there's all those petrochemicals used for pesticides)
4. Lean toward local (less shipping, for one)
5. Finish your peas…the ice caps are melting (food waste is a waste of energy resources; institutional composting makes use of food waste and reduces land-fill emissions)
6. Send packaging packing (the throwaway society wastes humongous amounts of resources; I think we should institute a law like that in Germany, where the producer or seller of packing must take it back from whoever they sell it to. For example, the customer buys a box of chocolate, but returns the box to the store—the store has to take the box, no charge. Then the store can return their collected boxes to the supplier of the chocolate—and the supplier can't charge them. The cost to the retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers has reduced extra packaging dramatically in Germany. Lappé has not mentioned this law so far in my reading.)
7. DIY food (grow and cook your own food: better for you and lots less processing—and therefore lots less energy intensive)

Hamm's article, assigned last week, was also interesting but a bit less easy reading than Lappé's book. (My editorial eye kept twitching—he'd have had red ink all over his paper had I gotten to it before publication.) His operating principles for a healthy food system are that it would:

1. insure community food security for all residents
2. be community based
3. be locally integrated
4. be reasonably seasonal in nature
5. present primarily opportunities rather than problems
6. connect health across the layers of the system
7. be diverse

This is, of course, not at all what our current food system looks like. Our current food system is highly energy-intensive, unseasonal, deters connectivity between the different layers of the food system, is almost completely disassociated with local communities, is rarely distributed or minimally distributed within a community, and is rife with pseudo-diversity and ultra-processed crud disguised as foodoid items.

You can tell where I'm coming from, can't you?

A concise definition of "food system" comes from the San Francisco Food Alliance's 2005 San Francisco Collaborative Food System Assessment (PDF), which says

A food system describes the cycle of growing, distributing, eating and recycling our food, and all the factors that affect it.

Short and sweet! It's "all the factors" that are the hairy part, however: natural resources and environmental systems, social and cultural systems, political systems, economic systems, technology, research, education, etc. That encompasses a lot of things: disease, hunger, political will, costs, food safety, commodities trading, water rights, the Green Revolution, agribusiness, organic certification, heirloom seeds, and so on. This in turn brings up ideas like food democracy and equity, food sovereignty, fair trade, self-reliance, guerilla gardening, etc.

Kloppenberg's article, "Coming in to the Foodshed," takes the metaphor of the watershed and applies it to food. How does food move through the landscape, the community? One quote from it struck me:

Provided with an apparent cornucopia of continuously available foods, few consumers have much knowledge of the biological, social, or technical parameters and implications of food production in the global village.

Of course, much of the power of agribusiness ultimately depends on farmers and consumers not knowing. If we do not know, we do not act. And even if we do know, the physical and social distancing characteristics of the global food system may constrain our willingness to act when the locus of the needed action is distant or when we have no real sense of connection to the land or those on whose behalf we ought to act. Ultimately, distancing disempowers. Control passes to those who can act and are accustomed to act at a distance: the Philip Morrises, Monsantos, and ConAgras of the world.

(My emphasis added.) In short, it pays the big guys for the public to be uniformed or misinformed.

The thing that I am discovering about an examination of food systems and sustainable farming: food is political, and food politics are radical—because the nexus of the issue is about self-determination, freedom.

Kloppenberg, Hendrickson, and Stevenson go on (and bear in mind that this article was published 15 years ago) to talk about "foodshed work." They describe it so (again, my emphasis):

• A foodshed will be embedded in a moral economy that envelopes [sic] and conditions market forces. The global food system now operates according to allegedly "natural" rules of efficiency, utility maximization, competitiveness, and calculated self-interest. The historical extension of market relations has deeply eroded the obligations of mutuality, reciprocity, and equity that ought to characterize all elements of human interaction. Food production today is organized largely with the objective of producing a profit rather than with the purpose of feeding people. But human society has been and should remain more than a marketplace.
• Community Supported Agriculture also serves as an illustration of our expectation that the moral economy of a foodshed will be shaped and expressed principally through communities.…We imagine foodsheds as commensal communities that encompass sustainable relationships both between people (those who eat together) and between people and the land (obtaining food without damage). …[B]uilding the commensal community means establishment or recovery of social linkages beyond atomistic market relationships through the production, exchange, processing, and consumption of food. …Finally, the standards of a commensal community require respect and affection for the land and for other species. It is through food that humanity's most intimate and essential connections to the earth and to other creatures are expressed and consummated.
• The dominant dynamics of the global food system actively erode both moral economy and community. We agree with those who believe that this destructiveness is an inherent property of the system, and that what is needed is fundamental transformation rather than simple reform.

All this makes having a garden at home look like a revolutionary act. And maybe it is.

More later on Gerlach's article, "Rural Alaskan Food Systems: Problems, Prospects, and Policy Considerations," written for the Alaska Food Policy Council in August 2010.

See my previous posts on this course:

• Food systems and shizen
• Sustainable food systems class

Cross posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Sustainable food systems class

Well, I'm going back to school, or at least, I'm taking a course for credit. Craig Gerlach is teaching a course at UAF, Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems. This is a 400-level undergraduate class cross-listed in geography, natural resources management, and cross-cultural studies. As you may have surmised, I am very interested in food systems and agriculture and food issues these days, and when, in the course of my work for the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, Craig asked me to make a poster for the class, I decided that it sounded so interesting that I wanted to take it. Here's the description:

This exciting course explores the principles of food systems geography and food security, with cross-cultural examinations of dietary traditions, poverty, hunger, equity, and food access and distribution. What can be done about “real world” food, farming, and agricultural problems? Where is the contemporary agroecological system strong or weak with respect to restoration and renewability? How can we be better educated and more innovative in dealing with food production, distribution, access, and the promotion of ecosystem health? We will compare agricultural systems in the context of social, ecological, and economic sustainability. Alaska and other high-latitude food systems will be considered, including country food, wild game harvest, and rural to urban nutrition transition.

The booklist is pretty cool, too:

• Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture, by Miguel Altieri (1995)
• The World Is Not for Sale: Farmers Against Junk Food, by José Bové and François Dufour
• Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat, by Temra Costa (2010)
• The Fatal Harvest Reader, edited by Andrew Kimbrell (2002) [also, there's Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture]
• Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, by Anna Lappé (2010)
• Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine, by Gary Nabhan (2009—this one was reviewed very favorably by Phil Loring in The Ester Republic)
• In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan (2008—I have this one already, but haven't yet read it)
• Sex, Seeds, and Civilization: How the Hidden Life of Plants Has Changed Our World, by Peter Thompson and Stephen Harris (2010)

There are several other interesting texts on the syllabus.

I am a little intimidated about the work and reading load that this course will require to do right, but the topic is of such interest and is so pertinent to my job at the U that I am plunging on with it. I've decided that I will blog about the course as it goes along, too—it will be a good way to organize my thoughts and work for the class, I think.

350 ppm

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached about 383 parts per million. Our atmosphere is actually mostly nitrogen (78%), with a bit of oxygen (21%) and argon (1%) and a few other trace elements thrown in. Carbon dioxide, the fourth most prevalent gas, is really a very small percentage of the whole when compared to the three major gases: only .04%. But it packs a punch.

When Arctic ice melted so dramatically in the summer of 2007, scientists realized that global warming was no longer a future threat but a very present crisis. Within months our leading climatologists—especially the NASA team led by James Hansen—were giving us a stark new reality check. Above 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, they wrote, the atmosphere would begin to heat too much for us to have a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.”

—Bill McKibben, Yes! magazine

James Hansen warned President-Elect Obama that the current public policy approaches being taken were not working. In an interview in March in the Guardian, Hansen expressed heightened concern:

What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I'm not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we're running out of time.

We most certainly are. Today around the world there are demonstrations and events centered on this number. 350.org has organized an International Day of Climate Action today, with updates from around the world—including Fairbanks, Alaska.

Alas, our Congressional delegation doesn't get it. Lisa Murkowski, for example, doesn't want the Environmental Protection Agency regulating carbon dioxide from the major emitters: power plants, manufacturing plants, and the like. Or at least not yet. The problem, of course, is that climate change is not waiting. It's happening NOW, and the economy (saving it is the reason that keeps getting brought up for stalling) is going to get wrecked along with everything else if Congress doesn't act soon. Like yesterday.

And, according to this article in the Christian Science Monitor, the public in the US doesn't really get it either. Up here in Alaska, where we are experiencing the changes first-hand (I mean, what happened to October?), we are so focused on the oil drip that we can't see around it to diversify our economy, reduce our emissions, and get the hell away from our dependence on the fossil fuels that are destroying us.

Mike Musick meet and greet

Your intrepid blogger is here at the Golden Eagle, blogging live from the scene of a political fundraiser/gathering for Mike Musick, who is running for re-election to borough assembly. (The election is October 6.) Mike arrived a few minutes ago and is looking cheerful, chatting with Joe Thomas (that's state senator Joe) and Maggie Billington. I'm not close enough to eavesdrop, but I can step away from the computer and butt in on the conversation, I think. Northern River is tuning up for their next song--wait, they've started. Hoo! Great stuff. Beth is going to town on the fiddle.

Spoke briefly with Joe Thomas about the Ester library plans (new and improved).

So: who's here? Don DeWitt, Ray & Jill Cameron, JD Ragan, Nancy Burnham, Bob Grove, Charley Gray, Bob Siftar, Kate Billington, Jeff Stepp, Pete Bowers...Mike is out there mingling.

Aha. Mike Musick has just come over and I plan to query him on a few items (seeing as I didn't get to this for the Republic).

(Don DeWitt) Q. Have you heard about the plastic bag that dissolves in sunlight?

A. No. I'm not setting policy. I'm just working on setting up a recycling commission; I'm sure they'll they'll be happy to look into that.

(DeWitt and Musick discussed the relative merits of photodegradable plastic bags, on whether the degraded product--a powder after four months, according to DeWitt--is toxic or not)

This question related to the one I planned to ask him, as a Facebook user was curious about how he had voted on the plastic bag fee/tax ordinance and why.

Musick: I really wanted a grassroots, bottom-up recycling movement so I voted [against the ordinance] because I understand this community and that this would create a divisive situation...

[Musick said that he wanted to address the questioner directly about this (the bag ordinance and the fee). Mike has been instrumental in reviving the recycling commission (not yet officially voted on). I spoke with Layne St. John, a former assemblyman and chair of the Solid Waste Committee about this earlier--Hans and I ran into him and Janice at the Blue Loon earlier tonight where we had gone out to dinner. Layne described how the recycling commission/program idea has resurfaced over the years again and again but has never been able to stick. We talked about land fills, municipal composting, and methane gas reclamation from landfills, and the economics of recycling in such a small population base. I believe we need to get this thing in gear; shipping raw materials outside ends up being too expensive, but perhaps we can do the ol' value-added product thing.]

Okay, time to do a little mingling of my own. Will be back shortly.

We're screwed

Yep, that's what the headline reads in the New York Post. Well, the edition published by the Yes Men, that is. From the press release:

Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a "special edition" New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report. [74-page PDF]

Distributed by over 2000 volunteers throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has "less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet," adding that Copenhagen is a "once-in-a-generation opportunity."

Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts.

Climate change is no joke, folks, and it's stunts like these that are attempting to get through the massive cultural denial we have about it. Humor is often effective at reaching people so they can bear to think about a horrible thing—and maybe do something about it.

Alaska, like the city of New York, is actually looking at the effects of climate change, rather than pretending it's not happening. Alaska, of course, is already feeling the effects—the Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning at UAF has produced several reports and projections on climate and how things like hydropower projects, water availability, growing season length, and permafrost will be affected by it.

Possible location and industry for the first oceangoing arcology

Arcology: portmanteau of architecture and ecology. There's only one arcology in existence right now, that I know of: Arcosanti, a village in the Arizona desert. This was originally conceived by Paolo Soleri, who wrote Arcology: The City in the Image of Man.

It seems to me that the perfect location for the next arcology would be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex.



Numerous architects have experimented with the idea of a city-sized ship (or an artificial, ship-like island), although the floating city in as massive a form as envisioned by science fiction writers and visionary architects such as Soleri, Eugene Tsui, Jean Philippe Zoppini, and others has yet to be designed beyond the art concept stage. From Artect.net:

Despite increasing stresses on our existing societal structure and a world population rapidly growing to unsustainable levels, land based arcologies appear unlikely in the foreseeable future. The answer may reside with the remaining seventy percent of the Earth’s surface, our oceans. Ocean arcologies could utilize ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) or derive energy from the ocean’s perpetual motion to provide abundant pollution-free energy. Fresh water would be available via desalination. Despite the inherent dangers and high expense, the surface of Earth’s oceans are already littered with surprising structures from Sea Forts in the Thames Estuary to the famed remnants of Florida’s Stiltsville and of course the ubiquitous oil rig.

A few problems exist with dotting the oceans with cities like this, however, one of which is a lack of resources. Undersea mining, of course, is one way to deal with a lack of solid raw resources, but garbage pickup is another. And there's plenty of garbage out there. So, a city floating in its midst could harvest that resource, and thereby improve the health of the surrounding fisheries and the also the beaches of the world.

Sustainability is a big issue with cities like this, so renewable energy and urban agriculture--not to mention fresh water collection or distillation--are factors to consider. Vincent Callebaut is another architect looking at the feasibility of the oceangoing urban structure, as a response to climate change. The illustrations of his Lilypad city are beautiful and very interesting. Worth a look! He also has a concept for another type of floating island/cities.

A worthwhile proposal

Nadine Winters introduced this ordinance on the 20th of August. It would provide for a voluntary program by retailers (of large size) in the borough to charge a small amount for "disposable" plastic bags which would then be used to support borough recycling programs. Just in case you didn't know, those plastic shopping bags are the source of a serious and deadly type of pollution/litter. Plastic refuse of all types is a big big problem these days--ever hear of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Los Angeles has enacted a ban on the bags which will take effect in 2010. Cities around the world--entire provinces and countries, even--are banning or penalizing the use of disposable bags.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough should follow through with this mild ordinance. It's a step in the right direction, and, while voluntary, will raise money to reduce litter and borough landfill expenses. PUblic commentary (and I think the vote on it) is on September 10. Contact the borough assembly to support it!

ORDINANCE NO. 2009 - 40

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 8 OF THE FNSB CODE OF ORDINANCES TO ESTABLISH A VOLUNTARY PROGRAM DESIGNED TO REDUCE THE USE OF PLASTIC BAGS, IMPOSE A FEE FOR CERTAIN PLASTIC BAGS PROVIDED TO CUSTOMERS BY LARGE RETAILERS AND ESTABLISH A LOCAL RECYCLING PROGRAM SPECIAL REVENUE FUND

WHEREAS, Fairbanks North Star Borough voters approved in 1993 a policy to encourage recycling, reuse and reduction of solid wastes generated in the Borough; and

WHEREAS, Americans use over 14 billion plastic bags a year; and

WHEREAS, Plastic bags do not biodegrade in landfills and reducing their use would provide available space at the landfill; and

WHEREAS; Collection and disposal have been estimated in some municipalities to cost up to 17 cents per plastic bag; and

WHEREAS, the Borough expends over $30,000 annually in litter pickup efforts, a third of which is estimated to be plastic bags; and

WHEREAS, regulation that discourages and decreases the use of disposable plastic bags in the Borough is in the best interests of the Borough; and

WHEREAS, the successful reduction of the number of disposable plastic bags entering the Borough’s solid waste stream, along with the integration of reusable bags and the increase in recycling of plastic bags, will help the Borough achieve the policy goal approved by voters.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE FAIRBANKS NORTH STAR BOROUGH ASSEMBLY;

Section 1. This ordinance is of a general and permanent nature and shall be codified.

Section 2. Chapter 8.12 of the FNSB Code of Ordinances is amended to add the following chapters:

8.12.037 Voluntary Program for Participating Retailers

A. Sellers using disposable plastic bags, that fall outside the definition of retail sellers, may on a voluntary basis, charge the disposable plastic bag fee imposed in this chapter. If the seller chooses to participate then the seller is subject to the requirements of this chapter.

B. Sellers of goods using disposable plastic bags who choose not to participate in charging the disposable plastic bag fee may also participate in the program by:

1. Making available recycling bins/canisters for plastic shopping bags.
2. Developing messages placed in highly visible areas that encourages and reminds shoppers to use reusable bags.
3. Making reusable bags available at a reasonable price.

8.12.038 Disposable plastic Bag Fee

A. Effective January 1, 2010, all retail sellers, as defined in this chapter, shall charge and collect a five cent ($0.05) fee for each disposable plastic bag provided to customers. The amount of the fee shall be stated separately on a sales receipt, invoice, or other record of sale. It shall be a violation of this section for any store subject to the requirements of this section to pay or otherwise reimburse a customer for any portion of this fee.

B. The retail store shall keep a record of the number of disposable plastic bags the retail seller has purchased, been provided with, or otherwise acquired, and a record of the amount paid for disposable bags subject to this section that are provided to, or sold to, retail consumers on a monthly basis.

C. The purpose of the fee established in this chapter is to regulate the generation of waste from disposable plastic bags by creating an economic incentive for customers to use reusable shopping bags.

D. On a monthly basis and as otherwise may be required by the Chief Financial Officer, all retail sellers required to collect the disposable plastic bag fee shall report and remit the total fees due to the Borough. Payments and receipts shall be reported on forms prescribed by the Borough’s Chief Financial Officer. The Chief Financial Officer is authorized to adopt rules for the administration, payment, collection and enforcement of the fee imposed in this chapter.

E. If a report or payment of any amounts due under this section are not received by the Chief Financial Officer on or before the due date, the Chief Financial Officer shall add a penalty calculated in the same manner as the penalty imposed under FNSB 3.58.090 as it now exists or as it may be amended except that it shall be calculated on the amount of fees due. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to deem any fees required under this chapter to be a tax.

8.12.039 Local recycling program special revenue fund

The local recycling program special revenue fund is hereby established. All funds received from the payment of the plastic bag fee shall be deposited into the local recycling program special revenue fund. Money in this account may be appropriated only to support Borough recycling efforts. Authorized expenditures from this fund, which may be expended by the Borough Mayor without further appropriation, are amounts used to support the voluntary program to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags and funds to make available to the public, for a reduced fee or free-of-charge, reusable shopping bags to the extent the Mayor determines that such programs will significantly reduce the costs associated with the recycling and disposal of plastic bags.

Section 3. Section 8.12. 021 Definitions is amended to add the following definitions (which shall be added by the clerk in alphabetical order).

“Retail seller” means any person or entity engaged in the business of offering and/or selling goods directly to a customer and that has annual gross sales of one million dollars or more in the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

“Disposable plastic bag” means a bag made of plastic to carry customer purchases from a store. It does not include: a compostable plastic bag; a bag used only to contain ice; bags used by customers inside stores to package bulk items such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, candy or small hardware items; bags used to contain or wrap frozen foods, meat or fish or flowers, or other items where dampness may be a problem; bags used to protect prepared foods or bakery goods; bags provided by pharmacists to contain prescription drugs; newspaper bags, door-hanger bags, laundry-dry cleaning bags, or bags sold in packages containing multiple bags intended for use as garbage, pet waste, or yard waste bags.

“Chief Financial Officer” means the Finance Director or any officer, agent or employee of the Borough designated to act on the Chief Financial Officer’s behalf.

Section 4. Effective Date. This ordinance shall be effective at 5:00 p.m. of the first Borough business day following its adoption.

Update on ocean acidification in Alaska waters

This came out on August 11 from the UAF Newsroom:

New findings show increased ocean acidification in Alaska waters

Fairbanks, Alaska—The same things that make Alaska’s marine waters among the most productive in the world may also make them the most vulnerable to ocean acidification. According to new findings by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist, Alaska’s oceans are becoming increasingly acidic, which could damage Alaska’s king crab and salmon fisheries.

This spring, chemical oceanographer Jeremy Mathis returned from a cruise armed with seawater samples collected from the depths of the Gulf of Alaska. When he tested the samples’ acidity in his lab, the results were more acidic than expected. They show that ocean acidification is likely more severe and is happening more rapidly in Alaska than in tropical waters. The results also matched his recent findings in the Chukchi and Bering Seas.

“It seems like everywhere we look in Alaska’s coastal oceans, we see signs of increased ocean acidification,” said Mathis.

Often referred to as the “sister problem to climate change,” ocean acidification is a term to describe increasing acidity in the world’s oceans. The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. As the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, seawater becomes more acidic. Scientists estimate that the ocean is 25 percent more acidic today than it was 300 years ago.

“The increasing acidification of Alaska waters could have a destructive effect on all of our commercial fisheries. This is a problem that we have to think about in terms of the next decade instead of the next century,” said Mathis.

The ocean contains minerals that organisms like oysters and crabs use to build their shells. Ocean acidification makes it more difficult to build shells, and in some cases the water can become acidic enough to break down existing shells. Mathis’ recent research in the Gulf of Alaska uncovered multiple sites where the concentrations of shell-building minerals were so low that shellfish and other organisms in the region would be unable to build strong shells.

“We’re not saying that crab shells are going to start dissolving, but these organisms have adapted their physiology to a certain range of acidity. Early results have shown that when some species of crabs and fish are exposed to more acidic water, certain stress hormones increase and their metabolism slows down. If they are spending energy responding to acidity changes, then that energy is diverted away from growth, foraging and reproduction,” said Mathis.

Another organism that could be affected by ocean acidification is the tiny pteropod, also known as a sea butterfly or swimming sea snail. The pteropod is at the base of the food chain and makes up nearly half of the pink salmon’s diet. A 10 percent decrease in the population of pteropods could mean a 20 percent decrease in an adult salmon’s body weight.

“This is a case where we see ocean acidification having an indirect effect on a commercially viable species by reducing its food supply,” said Mathis.

The cold waters and broad, shallow continental shelves around Alaska’s coast could be accelerating the process of ocean acidification in the North, Mathis said. Cold water can hold more gas than warmer water, which means that the frigid waters off Alaska’s coasts can absorb more carbon dioxide. The shallow waters of Alaska’s continental shelves also retain more carbon dioxide because there is less mixing of seawater from deeper ocean waters.

Ask any coastal Alaskan and they will tell you that Alaska’s waters are teeming with biological life, from tiny plankton to humpback whales. All of these animals use oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. Mathis and other scientists call this the “biological pump.”

“We are blessed with highly productive coastal areas that support vast commercial fisheries, but this productivity acts like a pump, absorbing more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” said Mathis. “Because of this, the acidity of Alaska’s coastal seas will continue to increase, and likely accelerate, over the next decade.”

Mathis said that it is still unclear what the full range of effects of ocean acidification will be, but that it is a clear threat to Alaska’s commercial fisheries and subsistence communities.

“We need to give our policy makers and industry managers information and forecasts on ocean acidification in Alaska so they can make decisions that will keep our fisheries viable,” said Mathis. “Ecosystems in Alaska are going to take a hit from ocean acidification. Right now, we don’t know how they are going to respond.”

CONTACT: Carin Stephens, public information officer, at 907-322-8730, or via e-mail at stephens@sfos.uaf.edu. Jeremy Mathis, assistant professor of oceanography, at 907-474-5926, or via e-mail at jmathis@sfos.uaf.edu.

ON THE WEB: www.sfos.uaf.edu/oa

This is a followup from a story about a year ago, and one from a day later in which a speaker, Richard Feely, came to UAF to discuss ocean acidification. And the doofuses still don't get just how dangerous our situation is.

On the question of being a nuke-free zone

Memory is a tricky thing. In 2003, three resolutions were introduced to the Ester Community Association at the spring meeting. They were published in the Republic and a poll conducted during the Fourth of July Picnic, where they were overwhelmingly approved by poll participants. However, the actual vote on them did not take place until the fall meeting, at which point two of the three were withdrawn and the one remaining, on making Ester a PATRIOT Act-free zone, was passed.

So when Mike Musick spoke at the GVEA meeting recently (fourth video in the member comments), saying that Reeves' plan to install a modular nuclear power generator might require a bit of discussion with the community association because Ester had declared itself a nuclear-free zone, he was only partly correct. Although the formal resolution was introduced and a public poll conducted, the resolution itself was not passed.

Mark Simpson referred to these resolutions as "hare-brained" in his August 2003 piece in the Republic, "Assemblies and Agendas," but now we are faced with the actual possibility of nuclear power in our neighborhood. Mark's main issue was with what he saw as the politicization of the ECA:

You see, it’s not the anti-PATRIOT Act stance I’m disgusted with—it’s the hijacking of an honorable, useful, apolitical association of people to fulfill the aims of some short-sighted political activists. It puts the ECA on a level with the Berkeley City Council, forever passing wacky pronouncements, rather than the Peace Corps, actively engaged in bettering lives. The ECA could host a forum, a debate, or a “teach-in,” or rent its hall to others to do so, but it best serves its members by remaining above the fray.

I saw the no-nukes resolution then not as a political issue, but as a health and safety issue, and I still do. And now is when having our community on record about it in the form of a resolution would have been a good thing.

The few people I've spoken with out here or conversed with via Facebook about the nuclear power plant aren't taking it seriously. They seem to see it as a quack idea with no real merit. However, two other commentators at the GVEA meeting besides Musick spoke about it, and they seemed to be taking it quite seriously. (The first spoke in favor of it, the second pointed out the hazards of it.) I think it's a mistake not to treat this as a genuine possibility. From what I've read, the Hyperion power plant would be an order of magnitude of improvement over the large-scale types that are causing such problems around Fort Greely [PDF] (not to mention the big headline-grabbers like Chernobyl).

Even if Reeves decides the price tag is too steep, the fact remains: small-scale nuclear power is fast becoming the Next Big Thing, despite the ever-present and apparently intrinsic drawback to this kind of power: mind-bogglingly long-lasting deadliness. It is becoming cheaper, more accessible, and more tempting to communities across the world as a power resource, and Reeves won't be the last Alaskan to think about it as a reasonable option.

Note: Bill Stringer wrote a letter to the editor in yesterday's News-Miner about the waste heat problem a small generator might cause. In the comments, it is quite clear that there are many people who see nuclear power as a feasible option for Alaska. A few useful links in the comments include:

New Commercial Reactor Designs, a list from the Energy Information Administration of the US government;

"Galena Electric Power—A Situational Analysis," the draft final report prepared for the Department of Energy by ISER and dated Dec. 15, 2004;

and a list of civilian nuclear accidents from Wikipedia.

Reeves wants to do WHAT!?, or, nuclear power for Ester

Oh good god.

Found this first on Fairbanks Open Radio, and now in an article by Dermot Cole in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: John Reeves has applied for a permit to install a portable nuclear power plant on a 4-acre lot near Ester. He makes the following nonsensical claims: that nuclear energy is the "cleanest, safest, cheapest form of energy available" (um, yeah, when it's 93 million miles away).

Before I get into the details of this, here's the date for the public hearing on the permitting:

Tuesday, May 19, 7 pm, FNSB Planning Commission. You can e-mail the entire commission at planning@co.fairbanks.ak.us.

Hyperion Power Generation, the company Reeves would like to work with, is creating small, self-contained modular power plants, rather like the Toshiba company's proposed modular power plant for Galena. (As of last year, this power plant was still scheduled for permitting approval with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.)

Hyperion's modules are smaller than Toshiba's by quite a bit (only about two meters cubed) and use no weapons-grade material. Here's how the Guardian describes them:

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory.

Let's see: "clean".

The biggest problem with nuclear power is the waste, both mining waste and power industry waste. The Star (Toronto) describes the problem succinctly:

The fact is the units would still produce nuclear-fuel waste – a football-sized amount for each reactor – and while it would be collected by Hyperion and managed at a central location, a large part of the population believes it immoral to create and leave behind highly toxic waste for future generations.

Can a company like Hyperion be trusted to transport, collect and manage this waste from potentially thousands of sites?

And will Hyperion be around for thousands of years to look after its mess? Will the governments of the countries in which these potential sites are to be located be stable enough to properly regulate the nuclear industry and plants within their borders, again, for thousands of years?

To claim that they are "greenhouse gas-emission free" is nonsensical, just as it is for anything these days. Transporting the module back and forth every 7 to 10 years is going to require something in the way of fuel, and there is no industrial equipment manufactured today that doesn't rely on fossil fuels somewhere in its creation. Mining uranium, of course, has its own set of problems above and beyond greenhouse gas emissions (the uranium mining industry has a lousy health and safety record).

Side note to Alaska's political bloggers: any of you recall the Elim student protest and Palin's mining plans for the Seward Peninsula? The student blog doesn't appear to have been updated since September 2007, but there's some more news items that showed up in 2008. Northwest Alaska isn't he only place that needs to be thinking about this question, though: Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan is described as Ucore Uranium's "flagship property".

[I really don't get why Palin is so pro-mining and so unfriendly toward renewable industries like fishing (which bring in more money than mining!).]

"Safest":

I'm not sure what these companies think they are doing, trying to sell nuclear power plants to people in a state riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and flooding rivers. I read a ludicrous claim somewhere (can't find it now...) that because an item is buried, it would be safe from earthquake. Um, what? the earth moves, and not just on the surface—down for miles! And radioactive material, if it gets loose, is decidedly unsafe. In any quanitity.

There are a couple of big advantages that these small modular-type power generators have over the traditional sort of nuclear power plant. One of them is no mechanical systems: no moving parts, nothing to break down and cause havoc thereby. The other is that the expense in building and maintaining them is considerably less than with a big plant. The uranium hydride used as fuel is far less nasty than the fuel typically used in nuclear power plants. And it's not going to be useful for people intending to make their own nuclear weapons.

Now let's address "cheapest."

Typical large-scale nuclear power has been heavily subsidized. There's no way it could compete with oil, coal, wind. solar, geothermal--any other method. It's the most expensive form of power generation out there, excepting maybe using a gadzillion mice on excercise wheels...and most estimates of cost never even touch the expense of guarding the waste properly from 260,000 years...mostly because the plan is to bury it in the ground and forget about it. The mini-nuke option is cheaper, by a lot, but it still doesn't address this long-term problem and expense.

I'm wondering. The borough didn't have any zoning plans for wireless phone transmitter towers, so they popped up all over and caused a fuss. I'm betting they don't have any zoning in place regarding nuclear power plants, either.

More on pollock, trawling, salmon, and money

John Enge recently posted a column on Alaska Report, "Science vs. Barons of the Fish Business:"

It is apparent that the two trawl fisheries mentioned above [Neah Bay, Washington, and the Bering Sea] are not conducive to family fishermen, subsistence and sport users, the many other species of fish in the ocean, or the coastal communities. The problem is that these giant factory trawlers, and many independent trawlers fishing for shore plants with 'legal rights to process a certain % of the total catch,' don't mind snuffing out all other species of sea life. The big fishery in the Bering Sea is the pollock fishery, prosecuted by mid-water trawlers. That would seem to be a safe way to fish. Just scoop up the schools of pollock, leaving plenty behind for replenishment of the stocks. (Except that half the pollock fishery is right before propogation and the pollock never get to sow the seeds of the next generation.)

…Many times, the electronics are indicating the wrong kind of fish; fish that they are not permitted by law to keep. So down goes the nets and up comes millions of pounds of squid, king salmon, chum salmon, halibut, herring and anything else that lives in proximity to the pollock. It's not like they all live in separate apartments. You clean out one apartment and you get a mixed bag of occupants. Remember, the trawl nets are like pulling a football field-sized sieve sideways through the water, with everything in that amount of space for miles squeezed into a 'sock' on the end of the net. (I won't even go into bottom trawling where Oregon State University researchers found that it extinguishes 30% of the species complex where they have been.)

According to the Marine Stewardship Council, the Alaska pollock fishery is seeking recertification as a sustainable fishery. There is a lot of money in pollock, especially in sustainably fished pollock, and some serious drivers in the purchasing end of the business. For example, McDonald's:

McDonald's purchases more than 18,000 metric tons, or 43.2 million pounds, of fish a year for its popular Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Filet-O-Fish is made with pollock, a whitefish that lives in the cold waters off the coasts of Alaska and eastern Russia. The Marine Stewardship Council has certified U.S. Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska pollock fisheries as models for sustainable fisheries management, but many retailers and foodservice operators still use whitefish from other fisheries that are less sustainable and traceable.

McDonald's is very interested in obtaining fish from sustainable sources, providing an economic incentive for fisheries to obtain certification of sustainability. But is that level of sustainability certified by the MSC sufficiently sustainable? or is it just better than no certification at all? or, as Thomas Royer asks, is it really only a myth?

Fisheries are generally classified as a sustainable resource on the assumption that they can be maintained for future generations. However, studies have demonstrated man's ability to deplete major fisheries since the Middle Ages.

A recent book, "The Unnatural History of the Sea" by Callum Roberts, traces the destruction of fish populations from the estuaries of England after 1000 AD to the most recent demise of orange roughy off New Zealand. It has been estimated that 90 percent of large fish have now been depleted.

Will the Bering Sea pollock fishery continue to decline? Is it already too late?

An Anchorage Daily News article last summer points to the decline in the pollock fishery, which certainly doesn't sound like it's very sustainable. One interesting thing that Callum brings up, and that is discussed at the Progressive Policy Institute, is that of subsidies "to help keep catch levels up." These subsidies to build boats were in vogue until around 2004. There is a whole blog on the subject, in fact. Among the interesting recent posts are:

• WTO beaten by the Marine Stewardship Council
• US: fisheries subsidies and advice to President Obama on fisheries policy
• US: $170 million subsidies for commercial fishers of salmon in the West Coast
• USA: fisheries subsidies and WTO Trade Policy Review
• The pain of high fuel prices: US Senators introduce a bill proposing fuel subsidies for fishermen

Sustainability codes, of course, are only as good as their policy—and compliance.

Nonsustainable industry practice: stupid wanton waste

This extremely pertinent question was posted on Fiery Blazing Handbasket, and picked up by Kodiak Konfidential, but it's just too barbed a point not to repeat once again:

Does anyone else find it odd that the Bering Sea pollock trawlers can catch and discard as bycatch over 100,000 king salmon per year while the small, community-based fishing effort has to shut down? That we haven't even managed to let enough kings by on the Yukon to meet our treaty obligation to the Canadians?

All so Americans can eat cheap fish sticks?

It's real stupidity, and corruption in action, that's what it is. Bycatch waste has got to be the stupidest shortsighted cut-off-your-nose practice in the fishing industry. It costs fisherfolk a lot of effort, time, money, and bad press--but it's the bottom trawlers and big industrial-size factory fishing boats and nets that do the real damage. "Bycatch" is dead dolphins in the tuna harvest (finally got some protections there, after a long, long fight), king salmon in the pollack harvest, dead sea turtles, dead sharks, dead birds, and so on and so on....and it's a HUGE problem. According to Global Chefs magazine, something like 25% of all fisheries catch is wasted.

Bycatch.org has a database of bycatch reduction methods, and NOAA has a whole Fisheries Feature devoted to the issue.

But, as Global Chefs and others point out, consumer action can have quite an effect. And it's the big fleets and megacorps, not the little Yukon River villages, that do the most damage.

Here's an interesting article from March 1999 from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations on the management issues regarding sustainability, with a good bit of background on the present problems.

Planning and the Tower of Power

The News-Miner has a story today on the proposed Parks Ridge Alaska DigiTel cell phone tower:

Public planners at the Fairbanks North Star Borough said the tower would be “out of character” in the rural neighborhood. The borough’s planning commission unanimously agreed Tuesday night to deny GCI’s request for special, “conditional use” permission to build.

Luke Hopkins is working on zoning rules regarding towers like this.

While it hasn't been discussed in the articles about the cell phone tower, there have been concerns raised in the comments on them about the health effects of cell phones and cell phone transmission towers. Mostly, the commentators dismiss the two or three people talking about this (among them Doug Yates) as kooks, but looking through Google Scholar and the National Cancer Institute, it's pretty clear that the jury is still out—and the idea that cell phones could pose a long-term danger is most definitely not a kooky one. Many respected researchers are investigating the topic.

The problem is not a new one, really: the question of electrosmog and cell phone tower siting was the subject of an international conference held in Salzburg, Austria, back in 2000.

Recycling Task Force meeting on Friday

Just got this reminder from from the RTF:

Recycling Task Force Meeting
Friday, November 7th, 4:30-6:30 pm
FNSB Assembly Chambers

The topic of tomorrow's meeting will be LOGISTICS - Item 4 from the following list identified during previous RTF meetings:

The following five categories were identified by the RTF as specific areas for the RTF to make recommendations:

• Coordinate Stakeholders
  
• School District
  
• Borough Government
  
• Military
  
• City Government
  
• Commercial and Private Industry
  
• State Government
  
• Federal Government
  
• Recycling Task Force
  

Recyclable Materials

• Glass
  
• Paper
  
• Tires
  
• Electronic
  
• Plastic
  
• Aluminum
  
• Compost
  
• Other metals
  

Education/Communication

• Education
  
• Public Will
  
• Packaging
  
• Transportation
  
• Philosophy
  

Logistics

• Collections
  
• Bailer
  
• Labor
  
• Location/Recyling Center
  
• Transportation
  
• Transfer Sites
  

Business Plan

• Financial Incentives
  
• Marketing Products
  
• Legislative Action
  

Logistics: in other words, How-To.

More on ocean acidification

This is the topic of the moment, apparently. The university is hosting a talk on carbon dioxide in the seas, featuring Richard Feely, chemical oceanographer with NOAA. Here's the press release from UAF:

One of the world's preeminent experts on ocean acidification will visit Fairbanks next week and hold a public lecture on the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean.

Richard Feely is an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

The public lecture will be held at 7:00 pm, Wednesday, September 24, at the Princess Riverside Lodge in Fairbanks.

According to Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer at UAF's School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, Feely has been a leading expert on ocean acidification for at least twenty years.

In his abstract for the talk, Feely says that today's record high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are the "direct result of the industrial and agricultural activities of humans over the past two centuries."

Feely adds that carbon dioxide levels are "now higher than experienced on Earth for at least the last 800,000 years." Feely believes that these levels will continue to rise.

Feely will discuss the short and long term implications of ocean acidification on marine mammals, fish species and the economies that depend on the world's marine resources.

"Ocean acidification is probably the most imminent threat to the oceans today," said Mathis. He adds that ocean acidification is particularly harmful in Alaska, where cooler waters can speed up the rate of acidification.

Cruising the net, I found a blog all about the problem.

Yup. End times--but only because assholes like Bush won't do anything about it, or, like Palin, sue to prevent protections from being put in place. We HAVE A CHOICE. We can let the world go to hell, or we can clean up after ourselves. Too many religious fruitcakes seem to want to make it go to hell. Don't think the gods, assuming they're out there, will think too kindly of that.

Ocean acidification in Alaska

Just found this. The Alaska Center for Climate Assessment & Policy is sponsoring a teleconference on ocean acidification:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008; 10:00-11:00am Alaska Local Time
CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE OCEAN: ACIDIFICATION BY ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
Jeff Short, Auke Bay Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service

The surface layer of the world's oceans have been acidified by 30% in the last 60 years due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Continued unconstrained CO2 emissions may triple ocean acidity by 2100. Such a fundamental and abrupt geochemical shift has significant impacts on marine life, including possible mass extinctions. Cool temperatures and upwelling make Alaskan coastal waters among the most vulnerable to acidification effects, which already threaten shellfish and corals. Many additional, more subtle effects are likely but difficult to predict. Join us for this teleconference to learn more about the implications of ocean acidification for Alaska.

Here's the instructions for participation.

Eat local week

Cracked up when I saw Alaska Grown's farmer "ad": "Local farmer seeks tasty relationship."



The farmer in their ad looks a heck of a lot like a miner to me, but the idea is pretty dang cool. There is a concerted effort across the state to get people to eat locally. It's great. Alaska Grown doesn't list the Ester market on their farmers market page, though.

If you can't redact 'em, eliminate 'em

Ah, yes, ol' George just keeps coming up with those doozies. Remember the scandal when it was revealed that Bush administration officials were redacting the scientific reports on the environment, etc., to conform to what the administration wanted? Politicization of science and perversion of editing á la Stalin--check out the 138-page report (PDF).

Well, now, Bush has proposed simply eliminating the scientific review process for the Endangered Species Act altogether. Much simpler. As reported by the Washington Post:

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

But Sarah Palin ought to like this travesty:

The new rules would also limit the impact of the administration's decision in May to list the polar bear as threatened with extinction because of shrinking sea ice.

Isn't this just loverly?