"The Stern report exposes the bankruptcy of the arguments of President Bush and some in Congress and industry that taking action on global warming will hurt the economy," said Alden Meyer, strategy and policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. "In fact, just the opposite is true -- it's the refusal to take serious action that poses the true risk to our future economic prosperity." [More]

1. Arguing over whether global warming is happening - then,
2. Arguing over whether people contribute/cause it - then
3. Arguing over whether it's a bad thing or not - then
4. Arguing over whether fixing it is worth the cost

• even more research (which of course they will have to jigger for the right answer)
  
• energy conservation
• water conservation
• resource management
• population control (not crazy about this one)
  

Proposition 204 asks voters to consider whether it is acceptable to use a 2- by 7-foot stall to house a 400-pound pregnant pig that is, eventually, headed for slaughter. And to decide whether that practice should be banned in Arizona, as it has been in Florida, Britain and the rest of the European Union in recent years.

Beyond that, it asks consumers to look within an industry that both sides of the campaign say has changed so dramatically in recent decades it is almost unrecognizable from the nostalgic image of the family farm. [More]

There is a law on the ballot in four states that says if I want to open a hog farm or a chemical plant next door to your house and you don't want me to do that, then YOU have to PAY ME not to -- you have to pay me ALL THE MONEY I MIGHT HAVE MADE. [More]

I don’t want to tempt fate by declaring that the tide is turning against the costly and interventionist federal agriculture programs, but there have been several critical (in both senses of the word) editorials and investigative series this year on farm subsidies. The voices protesting about farm programs seem to be getting louder.

It is encouraging to note the number and breadth of newspapers covering this subject. The LA Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Des Moines Register, the Denver Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel have all run editorials on farm programs this year. Let’s hope that the voices are heard, and that voters and their representatives start to demand change.

Recently, Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang sent a letter soliciting funds for the Republican Party's candidate for secretary of agriculture, Bill Northey. Lang's letter attacked the Democratic Party's candidate, Denise O'Brien, and misrepresented her position on animal agriculture in Iowa. Borrowing from John Edwards' remarks about George Bush in Iraq, I dare say it seems Lang's "proactive stupidity" will backfire.

As a 50-year member of the Iowa Farm Bureau, I strongly object to Lang's degrading letter, which was sent to a select group only. Lang's candidate supports "stay-the-course" agricultural policies, big business and continued state-government control of livestock farm locations.

Denise O'Brien supports sustainable agriculture and local zoning of livestock operations. She supports changes in policy that would help control the proliferation of large, confined animal operations. Her policies will make it possible for more people to raise livestock, not fewer. She will help save our rural communities and ensure quality of life for all citizens.

Denise O'Brien is a kind, compassionate and intelligent person who has run a very positive campaign, standing firm on her principles without mudslinging. O'Brien's principles will serve us well as secretary of agriculture.

Donna Winburn,
Grinnell

Apple picking is a cherished rite of fall, a wholesome and fun family outing, a throwback to a simpler time when people weren't so disconnected from the production of their sustenance. I look forward to it every year. It's also a wasteful scam. [More]

Interstate trades are the newest form of water marketing and are taking shape on the Colorado River where California and Nevada face water shortages and high costs for alternative supplies, while Arizona has cheap surplus water from the Central Arizona Project. A recent agreement between the states allows Arizona to market a portion of its Colorado River allotment to California and Nevada. Under the agreement, California and Nevada may store river water in Arizona's underground aquifers, banking it for the future. When either state needs water, it takes its share of the river plus some of Arizona's unused allotment. In return, Arizona pumps water from the aquifer with California and Nevada paying the pumping and storage cost plus a fixed rate for the water.

Nevada is expected to be the new bank's biggest customer because the state has experienced record growth in Las Vegas and holds a small share in the Colorado River. California, on the other hand, is showing little interest in the bank. For years, the state has benefitted from unused river allocations by upstream states. Currently, any water that is allocated to Arizona and Nevada, but unused by those states, runs downstream to California, which consumes nearly one million acre-feet per year of this unused water. With the bank in place, Arizona and Nevada can start charging California for that water or begin storing it.

The two camps are divided between Europe and America on the one side and Asia on the other. But so far there has been no shouting, no bluster and no shooting. Nor have there been any threats, demands or accusations. On the contrary, there is an atmosphere of complete amiability wherever our politicians and business executives might travel in Asia. At airports in Beijing, Jakarta, Singapore and New Delhi red carpets lie ready, Western national anthems can be played flawlessly on cue -- and they even parry Western complaints about intellectual property theft, environmental damage and human rights abuses with a polite patience that can only be admired. The Asians are the friendliest conquerors the world has ever seen. [More]

1. Am I going to plant more corn next year than usual? Yes.
2. Am I reluctant to forward price that production even at prices I would have given my second-favorite power tool for just 4 months ago? Yes
3. Can I picture a scenario where prices don't keep going up and up and up? Nope
4. Can I make any money at current price offers? Yeah, a little (heh-heh)

The US - currently 68% of all cargo going to or from the United States passes through the Canal - will also "benefit enormously" from the enlargement, Quijano said, as it will free up congested US ports and railways.

He said that the canal's position on the main shipping route between the east coast of the US and rapidly growing Asian markets underpinned the decision to enlarge it. [More]

The big factor is the surge of exports from China to the US and even EU. Being able to move LNG will relieve some pressure on natural gas prices here in the US.

If we can get an LNG port built.

TERRE HAUTE — Construction could start as early as next year in northern Vermillion County on a new fuel ethanol plant that could produce 100 million gallons a year.

Colorado-based Renewable Agricultural Energy Inc. and the Vermillion County Economic Development Council announced Thursday their plans for the plant near Cayuga. [More]

One of the last experts to have seen Yongbyon in operation described to SPIEGEL what the situation was like at the end of 2002: "It's a massive site, with lots of very competent scientists -- on the one hand. But then there was a strange contradiction: We asked to see two buildings which we had not been allowed to inspect. After a great deal of hesitation the doors were opened. The scientists were using one hall to secretly distill Vodka. In the other they were producing cooking spoons out of aluminum. At the time, these things weren't available in North Korea. On the black market the goods could be sold, and provided an extra source of income for the scientists."

North Korea must be the only nuclear power in the world which is so poor that its top scientists are forced to spend their free time making kitchen utensils. It is not Kim Jong Il's megalomania nor his obsession with sovereignty which makes this regime so dangerous. Rather, it's the country's failures and weaknesses. [More]

The buildings all had plaster floors and timber frames, and most had a central hearth. Two, including a house possibly inhabited by a community chief or priest, were enclosed by ringed ditches, the largest measuring 131 feet across. Postholes indicate a wooden fence would have surrounded the smaller of the two structures.

"If the structure inside the large ditch was indeed a chief's house, this individual would have been living rather humbly like the rest of the population, since the building itself wouldn't have been elaborate," Thomas said. "It's like a humble house that was meant to be separated and secluded from the outside world." [More]

The more we know about ancient people, the more persistent some human charactersitics seesm to be. Much of what we think of as enlightenment may simply be fashion, not social evolution.

[via Neatorama]

In February 2002, I traveled to Pyongyang in an effort to locate my uncle. I never found him, but I spent about a week with the Workers' Party leaders, ranging from the chairman of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries to the then-ambassador to the Permanent Mission to the U.N., who repeatedly told me that their real enemy was not South Korea, with whom they are still technically at war, but the U.S., which, along with the Soviet Union, had drawn up the 38th Parallel in 1948 and perpetuated the war by isolating them through sanctions. They were mystified as to why the United States was allowed to have nuclear weapons when it was the only nation in history to have deployed them on civilians, never mind starting wars all over the world.

My most vivid impression of Pyongyang was that an entire generation must have been eradicated for such a place to exist. Nothing on their empty, energy-deprived streets indicated that anything prior existed. Every book, piece of artwork and building was either made by the Great Leader or about the Great Leader. Their only official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, was four pages long and consisted almost exclusively of praise for their Great Leader. Their state-controlled TV showed mostly undated footage of the Great Leader. Everywhere I went, music played in the background and the subject of the lyrics was inevitably the Great Leader. [More]

"(The goose-stepping) says that here we can train all these men to do something that is completely unnatural," says author David Schimmelpenninck, who chairs Brock University's history department. "When you see men goose-stepping, that is much more ominous and much more impressive in a perverse sort of way than when you see men marching as they normally would in most NATO armies. [More]

User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.

Fortunately, the demise of North Korea is more likely to be drawn out. Robert Collins, a retired Army master sergeant and now a civilian area expert for the American military in South Korea, outlined for me seven phases of collapse in the North:

Phase One: resource depletion;

Phase Two: the failure to maintain infrastructure around the country because of resource depletion;

Phase Three: the rise of independent fiefs informally controlled by local party apparatchiks or warlords, along with widespread corruption to circumvent a failing central government;

Phase Four: the attempted suppression of these fiefs by the KFR once it feels that they have become powerful enough;

Phase Five: active resistance against the central government;

Phase Six: the fracture of the regime; and

Phase Seven: the formation of new national leadership.

North Korea probably reached Phase Four in the mid-1990s, but was saved by subsidies from China and South Korea, as well as by famine aid from the United States. It has now gone back to Phase Three.

The man, arrested earlier this year, was ax-cut-deep in a growing problem for America's farm belt: rural commodity theft, or "plaid-collar crime." From lush Hawaii to the Carolina plains, artichoke absconders, nut nappers, tree thieves, and even cattle rustlers are plucking, picking, hauling, and siphoning commodities from diesel to mangosteens at impressive rates. Loss is a familiar concept to a farmer. But such audacious heists have prompted many to go on the offensive to police America's wide-open spaces. [More]

Keep clear of the cat if you want baby girls. It sounds like the lamest of old wives' tales, but according to scientists women infected with a common cat parasite give birth to more sons than daughters.

The parasite, toxoplasma, infects around 15% of Britons, but up to 80% of the population in some countries. It is spread by contaminated cat faeces, but also lurks in uncooked pork and beef.

Researchers in the Czech Republic collected medical records from 1,803 newborn babies between 1996 and 2004 and checked them for information on the mothers and babies including gender, the number of previous pregnancies, and the mother's levels of toxoplasma antibodies.

They discovered that women whose antibody count was high - suggesting a substantial infection - had a much higher chance of having baby boys. In most populations the birth rate is around 51% boys, but women infected with toxoplasma had up to a 72% chance of a boy. Toxoplasma causes congenital defects in newborns and can trigger miscarriages, but a link with the gender of newborns has never been identified before. [More]

Treasurer Peter Costello warned Thursday that Australia's farm sector could be slipping into recession. Howard dismissed that claim on Friday, but said the drought would almost certainly affect Australia's gross domestic product, which has experienced unprecedented growth over the past 14 years.

"It will affect GDP growth. Just how much remains to be seen because it depends on the extent to which our booming economy in other areas can offset it," he told Melbourne's 3AW radio station. [More]

The paper, to be published today in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, says women with farming experience are 2.8 times more likely to develop the disease than non-farmers and that the agricultural link may linger long after a woman has gone on to other occupations. [More]

Ann Chambers, a professor of oncology at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, said it was a "good study" that should prompt further research. But Chambers, who specializes in breast cancer, said it was important to understand the association found in the study between cancer and farming does not necessarily mean there's a causal relationship between the two."The real danger that the public has in this sort of thing is that you see an association and then they think, `Aha, working on a farm causes cancer,'" she said. "And the study statistically can't say that. It says there is an association which warrants further study to understand what the cause is."

Farmers are using less chemical fertiliser on their land, figures released by a fertiliser manufacturers' research association show.

Fertiliser companies Ravensdown and Ballance sold about 13 percent less fertiliser during the 2005/06 financial year than the previous year, Fert Research's latest newsletter said.

This was the largest annual decrease since the government abolished fertiliser subsidies in the 1980s.

The companies said that over the last decade they had pumped millions of dollars into finding ways to make fertiliser use more sustainable and less damaging to the environment.

Of particular concern was the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and potassium that ran-off farmland into streams and rivers.

In part, the reduction was because more farmers were using nutrient budgets, which helped them see if they were using their chemicals efficiently, Fert Research technical director Hilton Furness said.

This self-imposed discipline will "significantly advance the cause of sustainable farming", whereas regulations will not, Dr Furness said. [More]

A handful of U.S. zoos, including ones in San Francisco and Chicago, have recently closed their elephant exhibits. Central Park and Prospect Park zoos, both in New York, stopped displaying elephants in the 1980s.

Last year, the Detroit Zoo in Michigan sent its aging and arthritic elephants—Winky, 52, and Wanda, 46—to a California sanctuary to live out their remaining years.

"Just as polar bears don't thrive in a hot climate, Asian elephants shouldn't live in small groups without many acres to roam," Detroit Zoo director Ron Kagan said at the time.

"They clearly shouldn't have to suffer the winters of the North."

What's more, animal activists are pushing hard to get zoos—most recently those in Los Angeles, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.—to close their elephant exhibits, arguing that captive environments do not meet the animals' physical or behavioral needs. [More]

They are also obvious examples of evolving attitudes concerning animal treatment that may ripple through the livestock industry. It seems likely that more sympathic animals like cows will be the focus of animal defense advocates first, but even chickens have their sympathizers.

Today, in our schools, the manual trades are given little honor. The egalitarian worry that has always attended tracking students into “college prep” and “vocational ed” is overlaid with another: the fear that acquiring a specific skill set means that one’s life is determined. In college, by contrast, many students don’t learn anything of particular application; college is the ticket to an open future. Craftsmanship entails learning to do one thing really well, while the ideal of the new economy is to be able to learn new things, celebrating potential rather than achievement. Somehow, every worker in the cutting-edge workplace is now supposed to act like an “intrapreneur,” that is, to be actively involved in the continuous redefinition of his own job. Shop class presents an image of stasis that runs directly counter to what Richard Sennett identifies as “a key element in the new economy’s idealized self: the capacity to surrender, to give up possession of an established reality.” This stance toward “established reality,” which can only be called psychedelic, is best not indulged around a table saw. It is dissatisfied with what Arendt calls the “reality and reliability” of the world. It is a strange sort of ideal, attractive only to a peculiar sort of self—gratuitous ontological insecurity is no fun for most people. [More of a superb essay]

Neither one is my bet. Most of these Jules Verne fantasies get no further than a URL. But these two dudes—Bruce Jones, the personal submarine designer, and German architect Joachim Hauser—have the look of serious contenders. Jones just announced that a private Fijiian island will be the home of his new undersea resort, called Poseidon (suite rendered at left). It was originally to be built somewhere in the Bahamas. Hauser, meanwhile, has a much bigger-scale project under construction in Dubai, called Hydropolis, where you can build anything as along as you pay for it and you have the blessing (and money) of the crown prince, which apparently Hauser does.

You, of course, are the baby boomers. And judging by a recent Globe and Mail/Strategic Counsel poll, you are either the most optimistic generation ever to walk the Earth or the most self-deluded. [More]

But today, while weather and leisure remain important, retirees are telling builders, developers and researchers that they are looking primarily for what Mr. Lydens has found in Mount Airy: a community where they can make friends and connections quickly, whether it's a small town or a walkable neighborhood in a big city. A close second and third on the priority lists: a home that's near grandchildren, and a setting where one can indulge a post-work passion, such as a second career, a newly adopted sport or even, for a growing number of people, farming.

• Industrial producers - farmers using large equipment and technology to produce food, fuel and fiber.
• Agarain producers - smaller farms using far less technology and making conscious choices to sell into a specialized food market such as CSA.
• Hobby/lifestyle farms supported by retirement funds, off-farm income, security and quality of life desires.

• When did Sunday become The Busiest Political Day of the Week?
• It's not that I can't remember very well any more - it's just I have so many similar memories to differentiate. Starting harvest, I remembered combine stuff from 2-5 years ago, not last year. The result was thinking my yield monitor was probably OK, when it was badly out of calibration. Nothing is more deflating than adjusting yields down.
• Do your hair and nails really continue to grow after death? (Halloween special)
• What if FarmAid happened and nobody could remember it?
• Is it me or has Brazil been less competitive since Lula became president? Should we be rooting for him to be re-elected?

FISH farms are responsible for the deaths of up to 95% of young wild salmon migrating out to sea, according to a new report.

Concentrations of sea lice are 30,000 times higher around fish farms in coastal waters than in deep waters. The new research warns that young wild salmon are dying after swimming through plumes of lice from infected fish farms. [More]

Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, ``One small step for a man ...'' in the version he transmitted to NASA's Mission Control. Without the missing ``a,'' Armstrong essentially said, ``One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind.''

The famous astronaut has maintained he intended to say it properly and believes he did. Thanks to some high-tech sound-editing software, computer programmer Peter Shann Ford might have proved Armstrong right.