#planet-killers

"We observe that web tracking increases data transmission up to 21% annually per user which further increases GHG emissions. We found that the total emissions are up to 10.76 Mt of CO2eq which is comparable to many aspects of the modern life such as meat consumption, aviation and transportation and even cryptocurrency mining."

He thinks it\’s \’commonsense\’ that free range birds are more likely to contract the virus because they have more exposure to wild water birds.

\”If you have commercial poultry free ranging and they come into contact with these wild water fowl, wild…

Russian authorities on Wednesday charged five Greenpeace activists – a Briton, a Brazilian, a Finn, a Russian and a US-Swedish citizen – with piracy for protesting against Arctic oil drilling. Another 25 Greenpeace protesters are awaiting charges.

via Rus…

How so? If the bug (bacteria) talked about in the attached article, manages to figure out how to bypass the last remaining drug that can treat it - then an advance from hospital to hospital and country to country could be rather rapid because of air travel patterns. What does that mean - a number of people who might otherwise survive treatment for another life threatening disease will die from a bacterial infection they contract while in treatment. The natural system is working its way to overcome our overuse of anti-bacterial drugs in food, water, and in industrialized mammal, avian, and marine agriculture.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Ringing the Warning Bell: Colistin-Resistant Klebsiella

Maryn McKenna

In all the latest bad news about bacteria becoming highly resistant — through carbapenem resistance, or the “Indian supergene” NDM-1 — there has been one hopeful thread: All of the organisms have remained susceptible to one very old, little-used drug called colistin.

That might be about to change. Which would be very, very bad news.

To recap: A resistance factor is spreading that leaves very serious infections treatable by only a single remaining drug, one which is acknowledged not to be perfect. The more a drug is used, the faster resistance against it develops. Especially for Gram-negative infections, there are no new drugs in the pipeline.

Read more at www.wired.com

In short - integrated agriculture supports self-sustaining use of all organic materials. Industrialize the process to maximize profit/yield by adding massive amounts anti-bacterial drugs to the process and you grow drug resistant bacteria and superbugs that - well read on how good intentions and bad science in service to profit could end up killing us. Chinese shrimp on the barbie or at Red Lobster - those shrimp are grown are grown in ponds fertilized by untreated chicken manure - bird flu anyone?

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Drug Resistance in Food — Coming from Aquaculture?

Maryn McKenna

Salmonella Kentucky ST198, it is much more drug-resistant than the US Heidelberg outbreak, and it has been spreading since 2002 from Egypt and north Africa through Europe, and has now been identified in the United States. Its primary vector appears to be chicken meat.

The authors are especially concerned about farms that practice what’s called “integrated aquaculture,” in which chicken litter and manure are used to fertilize ponds in which fish are grown, and waste from the ponds is harvested and used as poultry feed.

Read more at www.wired.com

Forget that pistachios are not native to Australia. The lesson is - you plant genetically uniform (aka GMO or monopoly Monsanto seeds) plants, you risk huge, massive, really big crop failure. 50% down and half of those inedible - those are big numbers. What would the result be if 50-75% of the world's alfalfa, wheat, rice, or oat crop failed in one season? Can you imagine at least 1 billion dying of hunger and another billion or so from war, revolution, and genocide? OK, OK. I know. You want to go back to watching your reruns of Seinfeld.

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Australia Pistachio Disaster Hints at Agricultural Breakdown

The culprit was anthracnose, a fungal disease best known for infecting mangoes. It raced through the industry, resulting in a harvest some 50 percent smaller than expected — and half of that was inedible.

“The wide cultivation of genetically uniform plant populations fosters rapid evolution among the pathogens,” said Scot Nelson, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii. “Because of this greed, new pathogens or newly reported host-pathogen combinations arise almost daily around the world.”

Read more at www.wired.com

What you see wash up on the beach has to represent only a fraction of marine life being exterminated by the aftermath of bile released by BP into the Gulf of Mexico. If you look at a map of the drilling platforms in the Gulf, you have to ask - what have they been thinking. And you might get to - What have I been thinking? - about the price earth pays for me driving instead of walking a half mile to buy a soda and a bag of chips to save yourself "time and effort."

Amplify’d from switchboard.nrdc.org

Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents

Even 13 dead turtles is an unusually high number in March. In the past three years, NMFS reports no turtles were stranded in Mississippi until the beginning of April. The only other Gulf state to report a rise in on-shore turtle deaths this year is Texas with 48, more than twice the number counted in 2009--the year before the BP oil blowout. That year, the total number of on-shore turtle deaths in the Gulf shot up to 248, nearly five times the number from the previous year.

All five turtle species found in the gulf are endangered or threatened, including the Kemp Ridleys and the Loggerheads often seen near shore.

“I’m really mad. I’m finding dead turtles, birds, giant fish and other animals all over the beach. No one comes by to clean them up right away and people come down here and let their kids play next to them. And the water looks like chicken broth.”

So far this year, at least 134 dolphins have been found stranded along the Gulf coast, about four times the average number.

Read more at switchboard.nrdc.org