Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/environment/page/18/)
After a successful pilot program in South Minneapolis and a Hennepin County resolution calling for it, Minneapolis residents may be able to participate in curbside organics waste recycling in about a year. At a presentation to the Transportation and Public Works Committee March 18 staff recommended a citywide program similar to the city’s organics pilot program.
“Why is climate change still a political and economic controversy” when it is no longer a scientific controversy? Patrick Hamilton of the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) answered that it’s still subject to the “disinformation campaign by those interested in maintaining the systems that we have.”He’s the director of the SMM’s Global Change Initiative, and he spoke to a full house at the Aster Café for the March 12 “Sip of Science” series that’s sponsored by the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics at the St. Anthony Falls (hydrology) Laboratory. Beyond the statistics, however alarming they might be, his message was to encourage people to make “adaptations” and demand “mitigations,” to decrease production of heat-trapping gases. Hamilton said if cities prepare to recover faster from climate disasters, they will be more competitive in the new world realities.Minnesotans’ insurance rates have been climbing since 2008; the state is now number three in the U.S. for losses from extreme weather. Continue Reading
Lao culture is filled with many legends about the rain. The guardian Nak found at most Lao American temples were believed to frolic in the celestial waters to bring rain to earth, and sculptures of the Buddha that are unique to Lao culture are the ones in the “Calling the Rain” position. Continue Reading
Environmentalists would like Minnesota farmers to plant more cover crops that enrich the soil as alternatives to corn and soy beans. Farmers want to run profitable operations. State funding is being proposed for the University of Minnesota to make those two aims compatible rather than mutually exclusive.
The collapse of honey bee populations isn’t just affecting the natural world, it’s also altering the consumer landscape. Shoppers at nurseries have become increasingly interested in plants that haven’t been treated with insecticides viewed as harmful to bees and other pollinators, Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul) on Wednesday told the House Agriculture Policy Committee.
Although I have not rented a room and slept there, the Jupiter International Hotel has been a “home away from home” during my time in Addis Ababa. I have found the staff, the atmosphere, the food and managers much more than pleasant. There is a hospitality that I have never experienced in any of the hotel chains I have patronized back in the States. I come to the lobby bar of the Jupiter 3 or 4 mornings per week to use their free Wi-Fi, have breakfast and when I work into the afternoon, lunch and drink or two. 🙂 Continue Reading
Bluestem Prairie’s neighbors here in Maynard are deeply concerned about our disappearing pollinators; it’s the one subject people talk most about, perhaps because the tiny town is a farming community–or because everybody agrees that we need to rescue our bees and butterfly populations. Continue Reading
When I walked off Air France’s stairwell onto the tarmac in Bamako, I took a deep breath in. I immediately noticed the intensity of the hot, dry air in an environment so unlike Minneapolis where I live. I recall the air having some familiarity,10 hours west of Minneapolis in the Bad Lands. Bamako’s air tightened my skin pores to preserve the moisture retained from sucking down water and ginger ale during my night flight in. It was hot and dry on a Tuesday Night – near 90 degrees at 10:00 p.m. This was a “more comfortable night” for the Malians, and foreigners who made Bamako their home. Lucky me, my feet touched the ground in late February… it was summertime. But as one woman put it, “there is summer, and then there is hell…” Come March, hell enters Bamako and remains until October.Located in the sub-Saharan region of Northern Africa, Bamako sits in the southwest part of the country and serves as Mali’s capital. Because of its location, the notion of climate resiliency was at the forefront of my mind. The idea of “resiliency” or “acclimation” in a changing world known to my indigenous Taino ancestors in the Americas began in 1492, introduced by the double heads of colonialism and capitalism. For indigenous peoples, this forced acclimation extends to present day.We’ve witnessed how a consolidated economy, concentrated in the hands of a very few, yields an unrelenting global military economic power achieved through colonialism. Continue Reading
The Southeast Como Improvement Association is not satisfied with how General Mills and local agencies have addressed the trichloroethylene, or TCE, vapor issue in the neighborhood.
In January, the Ely Timberjay broke the story that PolyMet’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) had a problem; its water flow modeling was flawed. Definitely a big problem when the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) seriously underestimated the amount of water available to transport pollutants. Perhaps a show-stopping problem; the DNR is not talking. The Tribes have been saying for years that water flow numbers were wrong.The DNR’s troubles have just begun. PolyMet’s SDEIS has yet another flaw. Continue Reading