COVID-19 Threatens Indigenous People in Brazil as Deforestation in the Amazon Continues
The Karipuna people in the Brazilian Amazon are in isolation due to COVID-19, but the presence of loggers close to their villages is compromising their efforts to stay safe. The Karipuna Indigenous People’s Association (Apoika), Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), and Greenpeace Brasil have filed a joint complaint with the local federal prosecutor’s office. Multiple complaints by both Brazil and international agencies have been submitted in regards to relentless logging and land invasion in the Rondônia state where the Karipunia live. The current pandemic means the invasion of indigenous land is especially dangerous for the occupants of the land.
We are scared that one of these invaders will bring the virus inside our territory…Bolsonaro has told these people that it’s just a little flu and that they can go back to work.”
The Yanomami people in the Roraima state are experiencing the same threats. Illegal mining activity in the region has not ceased during the pandemic, and a 15-year-old Yanomami boy has died from the coronavirus.
Both the Amazon and the indigenous peoples who live there are vulnerable right now. Many native customs facilitate the spread of respiratory diseases. Other factors like poor sanitation, immune systems that are not used to contact with many modern diseases, and a lack of healthcare facilities will exacerbate the risk. Meanwhile, deforestation attempts have not slowed. Clearance rates are 10% higher this year than they were for the same period last year. In addition, deforestation figures for August 2019 to the end of March 2020 are twice the rate they were for August 2018 to the end of March 2019.
EPA Approves Probable Carcinogenic Herbicide For Soybean Use Without Proper Public Review
Isoxaflutole is a herbicide that’s manufactured and sold by BASF, the second-largest chemical producer in the world, under the name brand name Alite 27. It’s currently used on corn plants in 33 states, and the EPA has recently registered the use of the chemical on soybeans in 25 different states. This registration is the Environmental Protection Agency’s assurance that Isoxaflutole does what the label says it does and should not pose an unreasonable hazard to your health. Isoxaflutole is classified by the EPA as a probable human carcinogen, and it is phytotoxic to non-target aquatic and terrestrial plants and moderately toxic to freshwater fish.
The EPA requested public comment on the proposed registration decision and cited that feedback as a key factor in the organization’s decision to move forward with the registration. All fifty-four comments left during the public review period were positive, a show of overwhelmingly support for the use of Isoxaflutole on soybeans.
Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, says,
We’ve heard from farmers across the country about the importance of having new means available to combat economically-damaging weeds…We listened and believe this action balances the need to provide growers with the products necessary to continue to provide Americans with a safe and abundant food supply while ensuring our country’s endangered species are protected.”
The comments reviewed by the EPA did not include feedback from environmental groups and journalists. The EPA circumvented a critical part of the usual chemical approval process, opening the herbicide registration for public comment without notifying the Federal Register. The Federal Register notifies the press and environmental groups of significant rule changes and without this notice, the opponents of Isoxaflutole were unable to register their comments.
Nathan Donley is a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, a national, nonprofit conservation organization. He stated,
The press release caught everyone off guard. We were just waiting for the EPA to open the comment period, and we never saw it.”
This event happens once a year and is typically a tourist attraction, but India is under a stay-at-home order. Every year, the Forest Department creates hatcheries along the Indian coast. Authorities aren’t having to work as hard to protect the hatcheries from human intervention. Last year a cyclone severely damaged the hatcheries and the sea turtles were unable to reproduce at normal levels.
According to the Forest Department, over 70,000 Olive Ridleys arrived to take part in the unusual event of day-time mass nesting. Normally, throngs of people — tourists and locals — generally show up to watch the sea turtles and authorities have to deploy considerable resources to keep them away from the habitat.
While locals have been forbidden from gathering on the shoreline since last weekend because of the partial shutdown, 97 critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil.
According to Brazil’s Tamar conservation project, which protects sea turtles, hawksbills lay their eggs along the country’s north-eastern coast and are considered a critically endangered species.
They can grow up to 110cm in length, weigh 85kg and owe their Portuguese name, which translates as “comb turtles”, to the fact that their shells were once widely used to make combs and frames for glasses.
Turns out, Pandas prefer privacy when they’re doing it just like most of us humans!
The coronavirus has been good for Pandas. A pair in Hong Kong felt they finally got enough privacy to get it on.
Keepers at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park have reportedly been trying to get pandas Ying Ying and Le Le to mate naturally. It had been a decade-long failed effort until CoVID-19 shut down the zoo. Since January, staff say they have noticed changes in the panda’s behavior.
“Since late March, Ying Ying began spending more time playing in the water, while Le Le has been leaving scent-markings around his habitat and searching the area for Ying Ying’s scent,” reads a statement from the zoo.
Following this foreplay, Ocean Park proudly announced that the two pandas had succeeded in natural mating on Monday morning.
The Real Reason Stores Are Out Of Toilet Paper – A Theory of Increased Defecation
I did not stock up on toilet paper. I figured it would be back in stock after the panic subsided. But it’s not yet, and we’re down to our last two rolls. All of my eco-friendly sources are sold out. All of the terrible places, like Walmart and Amazon, are still sold out too.
Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other hygiene essentials started selling out weeks ago amid mounting concerns over coronavirus. Retailers and suppliers said we had nothing to worry about, that they’re churning out more product and cranking up inventory to meet the new demand. I read in more than one article that soon stores will have pallets of TP in the middle of the isles marked down 50% because there will be a gluttony of stock soon. While this may happen at some point, it’s not happening yet.
The thing suppliers did not account for is the increased demand for toilet paper for homes. Offices are empty, people are working and staying at home, and so, consequently, people are pooping at home.
If you’re desperate for toilet paper I recommend ordering some of that single-ply, super-cheap commercial toilet paper they have at offices that nobody likes. There’s plenty of that! Just search for “commercial bath tissue“. I plan on ordering some for rush delivery after I finish writing this article.
I have a theory that I don’t think others are considering.
I am the partial owner of Midtown Composting. We pickup 5-gallon buckets of food waste from people’s homes every week. And I’ve noticed a massive change in what we pick up.
You may have noticed the reports of stores being sold out of produce as well as the aforementioned products. And this coincides with what we see in our buckets that we pickup. The buckets are much more fill, and what fills these buckets has shifted from flowers, compostable to-go containers, and pizza crusts to bell pepper stems, orange peels, and lots of failed kitchen experiments.
In other words, people are cooking more, eating more produce, and I contend, consequently, that people are having more bowel movements!
I wish we would study the health and the bowel movement ease and frequency of the population before and after quarantine.
This article is a little facetious; I’m sure the increased elimination has less to do with low stock than the aforementioned reasons. But I also want to bring up a serious point: In a lot of ways, this is how we should be living! If we are to save our environment as we know it, this kind of economic shift should be step one. For our health and our environment, we should be working at home, eating at home, and driving at little as possible.
I also see a lot of people in the nicer areas walking their dogs, jogging, and outside playing with their kids. I saw more dads sitting outside on their lawns with their kids than I ever have seen before.
I hope you are doing everything you can to capitalize on this situation and help anyone else in need. This article does not mean to belittle or marginalize the hardships that many are experiencing through this pandemic. People are lonely, broke, and scared. Lots of people need help. Maybe just a phone call, maybe more. We may need to remain physically distant from people but we don’t have to be socially distant. I think this is a great time to check a few tasks off your bucket list (time to write a book?), see how you can help someone in need, and consider how we can live with less of an environmental impact and better health from now on.
Is going vegan the best thing for the environment?
Animal agriculture is the second-largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, making up 42% of all emissions after fossil fuels. More people than ever before are cutting back on their meat and dairy consumption, advocating for things like “Meatless Monday” and “Veganuary”, while vegan and vegetarian diets are becoming more and more popular.
This begs the question, what would happen if the entire world went vegan? What does that mean not only for the environment but for our health?
The Case For Going Vegan
On average, producing a pound of beef requires upwards of 1,800 gallons of water. Similarly, a gallon of milk requires 2000 gallons of water to produce. However, only around 900 gallons of water are used during the production process for a gallon of almond milk. Studies show that anywhere from 40-50% of the water used in the United States is used for animal agriculture. A vegan diet, on average, requires 300 gallons of water a day compared to a meat-eating diet requiring 4,000 gallons of water a day. In addition to the massive amounts of water, studies show than anywhere between 30 and 50% of Earth’s habitable land is used for animal agriculture (this includes crops grown to feed livestock). Research shows that if everyone went vegan we could reduce global farmland by as much as 75%, and on an individual level, going vegan could reduce your carbon footprint by 73%.
There are several problems with the animal agriculture industry. Animals are commonly packed together in tight spaces without room to move around. Due to their close living quarters, animals are sick or prone to sickness and are often preemptively pumped full of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is an epidemic in our country currently with 80% of all our antibiotics being given to animals. CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) Animals are usually injected with animal growth hormones and fed diets designed to increase their size, so they produce as much meat as possible. For years “cage-free” or “free-range” products have been marketed as a better, more humane alternative but in reality, these terms have little to no regulation and oftentimes these animals are still stored in inhumane environments.
Problems With Going Vegan
Many popular vegan foods are not as healthy as advertised. Take the “Impossible burger” for example. The Impossible Burger is a processed “veggie burger” well known for its’s meat-like texture, however, the burger is made with GMO’s and has tested positive for Glyphosate, “…levels of glyphosate were 11x that of the Beyond Meat burger.”
Being vegan doesn’t necessarily mean you’re eating healthily. You can chow down on junk food – and miss out on vital nutrients – whether you eat meat or not. For example, vegan diets are naturally low in calcium, vitamin D, iron, vitamin B12, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids.
It’s a common misconception that going vegan is healthier than eating meat; there are lots of “junk food vegans.” But a vegan who eats processed foods daily would benefit from switching to a diet of unprocessed foods with locally sourced grass-fed organic beef.
Some studies indicate that we could improve the environment by going vegan, but that human health would suffer. Vegans are often nutrient deficient in B12’s, Iron, Omega-3’s a and other nutrients found in meat and dairy products.
Fair Trade Issues
You may be surprised to know that many of your favorite vegan foods are leaving behind a larger negative impact than originally thought. Foods such as cashews, avocados, bananas, and chocolate have many fair trade issues associated with them. Additionally, many popular vegan foods leave behind a significant carbon footprint during manufacturing and transit. In fact, in some cases, foods shipped across the world leaves behind a larger carbon footprint than buying meat locally and sustainably.
Avocado imports have doubled over the last decade, with more than 2.2 billion pounds of avocados imported in 2018. The U.S gets 87% of avocado imports from Mexico, however many of the people in Mexico can’t afford to buy avocados because of the high demand in the U.S. Producing one pound of avocados uses 72 gallons of water. Over 20,000 hectares of land are converted into avocado farmland each year, including land which is designated for the Monarch Butterfly biosphere reserve. In addition to all the environmental impacts, criminal gangs have taken to stealing avocados and taking over farms when things slow down in the drug trafficking business.
Cashews are one of the most popular nuts in America and are popular amongst vegans due to their texture, flavor, and protein content. Cashews are commonly made into vegan cheese and other similar vegan dairy alternatives. India produces 60% of the Cashews the world consumes, however in India they are considered a luxury, so much so that workers are often checked to make sure they are not smuggling cashews outside of factories. Factory workers often suffer back and joint pain and have a difficult time-saving money due to low wages and were only recently allowed restroom breaks while working. Additionally, during the deshelling process workers suffer chemical burns to the skin and often are not provided with proper supplies to protect their skin and often times cannot afford to buy supplies themselves.
The Case For Omnivores Eating
Instead of getting rid of meat altogether, studies show that alternative practices such as regenerative agriculture may actually be the key to fixing the problem. The goal of regenerative agriculture is achieving a carbon negative footprint, through carbon sequestration by a variety of different methods such as no-tilling, or minimum tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, and providing their pasture-raised animals with healthy and diverse diets. In some studies, regenerative agriculture is shown to leave less of a carbon footprint than meatless alternatives such as the impossible burger.
Regenerative Agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services.
Studies show that cows can help with carbon sequestration through proper grazing. Plants absorb CO2, and then CO2 is pushed through the roots into the ground and stored there. When animals (mainly cows) are able to graze on the land enough to promote healthy plant growth but not so much that they kill the plants, more carbon is sequestered through the earth thus making cattle that are raised in regenerative agriculture settings, carbon-neutral and in some cases carbon negative.
Look for meat that is “Pastured” or “pasture-raised”, this is meat that has been raised in a pasture, and best emulates natural behaviors. Pasture-raised animals can also help contribute to healthy soil, through animal waste and regenerative agriculture. When buying meat look for antibiotic-free meat labeled Organic, or raised without antibiotics. These are the only labels promising antibiotic-free meat. Shop for beef that is grass-fed and avoid beef that is grass-fed grain-finished. Grain finished beef is beef that is fed a lot of grain in a short amount of time to fatten them up. Animals that are fed proper diets are better for your health. Buy meat that is sourced locally from smaller-scale farms. You’ll find that the animals are generally treated better promoting natural habits and behaviors in the animals, your carbon footprint will be lessened, and you’ll have the opportunity to support small and local businesses.
Just like in humans, grain-fed animals have an extremely high amount of inflammation. This inflammation leads to a high amount of inflammatory omega-6 fats in the tissues of the animals, and these fats are transferred to us when we eat them. When animals eat the things they are supposed to, like grass, clovers, shrubs, and other colorful things, (how many colorful grains can you think of?) they end up with a much higher level and density of nutrients.
Can going vegan help reduce your carbon footprint? The simple answer is, yes, it can. To do it right, eat unprocessed whole foods, and reap the biggest benefit both for your health and for the climate. On a global scale, many studies show that the best thing we can do right now is to grow our own food if possible, shop for local food, radically reduce meat intake, and eat sustainable meat.
Microplastics have been found in every single species of sea turtle, and a new study published in Current Biology suggests that smell could be an explanation for that. Plastics in the water become host to multiple organisms, including plankton. Plankton emit large amounts of dimethyl sulfide, which is an organic compound that a number of marine animals rely on to find food. Sea turtles use their keen sense of smell to locate this compound, and that may be leading the turtles to consume more plastics.
According to Matthew Savoca, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station and one of the study’s authors…
I’ve heard numerous times that animals just eat plastic because they don’t know any better…What this type of research shows is that there are really complex evolutionary mechanisms that govern how animals are finding food.”
Scientists previously hypothesized that sea turtles consumed plastics because floating bags resembled jellyfish, but that theory doesn’t account for their consumption of other plastics. These plastics block the turtles’ intestinal tract, negatively impacting digestion, and potentially causing the turtle to go into septic shock.
