7 minute read
global briefs
Group Hug
Nations Band Together to Preserve One-Third of the Planet
While human activity has transformed 75 percent of the Earth’s surface and 66 percent of ocean ecosystems, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services determined in a 2019 assessment that approximately 1 million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, some in mere decades. In response to the crisis, more than 50 countries representing 30 percent of the world’s land-based biodiversity, 25 percent of its land-based carbon sinks, 28 percent of important areas of marine biodiversity and more than 30 percent of ocean carbon sinks have united as the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC 30x30), avowing to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.
The group announced its goal at the One Planet Summit for Biodiversity in January, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, along with the World Bank and the United Nations. “We call on all nations to join us,” Macron said in the video launching of the plan. Biologist E.O. Wilson has called for the “conservation moonshot” of protecting half of the land and the sea. Goals include preventing biodiversity loss, solving the climate crisis and preventing pandemics.
Wilderness Woes
National Wildlife Refuges are Overwhelmed and Understaffed
President Theodore Roosevelt designated Florida’s Pelican Island as the first unit of what would become the National Wildlife Refuge System in 1903 to shield brown pelicans from hunters. Now, the world’s largest set of 568 refuges, encompassing 95 million acres dedicated to preserving wildlife, is under pressure from increasing numbers of visitors, maintenance needs and chronic underfunding. The system has lost more than 700 staff positions since 2011, despite growing by 15 refuges. Managers of the system under the authority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) report that staff morale is low.
Local conservation nonprofits have stepped in with fundraising and volunteers, but the lack of resources throughout the refuge system is limiting its capacity to provide healthy habitat for birds and other wildlife. Essential infrastructure is crumbling and staff can’t provide the community outreach and visitor services they want to offer. The FWS oversees 25,000 structures and 14,000 roads, bridges and dams. Many of them have fallen into disrepair due to a lack of funding. Advocates claim that a remedy will require $900 million per year, while the system’s 2020 budget was only $502.4 million.
Outdoor Fun
Childhood Immunity Enhanced by Natural Environment
At the University of Helsinki, in Finland, a new project recorded in the journal Science Advances found that switching a child’s playground from gravel to natural forest floor could foster a better immune system within a month by exposing them to a greater variety of skin and gut bacteria. The researchers studied 75 children between 3 and 5 years of age at 10 daycare centers in two Finnish cities to see how a change in their playing environment altered their skin and gut microbiota, as well as immune markers in their blood.
Four centers turned their gravel playgrounds into fields of forest floor, soil and grasses, while three already had that setting. Three others kept their existing gravel playground. One month after the changes were made, scientists collected samples of skin, blood and feces from the children. In just a few weeks, microbiota of the children at the renovated daycare centers quickly shifted to become more like the microbiomes of children that attended centers that already had more natural play surfaces. The children at the renovated daycare centers developed a higher ratio of the anti-inflammatory proteins to pro-inflammatory proteins in their blood, indicating that their immune systems were in better shape.
Honest Ingredients
Protecting the Organic Marketplace
Global sales of organic products totaled $90 billion in 2017 according to the 2018 edition of the study The World of Organic Agriculture, published by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and Organics International. In the U.S., the figure is $50 billion, or 5 percent of all grocery store sales. Demand for organic products is increasing, more farmers cultivate organically, more land is certified organic and 178 countries report organic farming activities.
The challenge is to safeguard organic standards from large corporations that buy up organic brands and try to weaken U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requirements. This has led to an erosion of both organic standards and consumer trust in the organic labeling of products such as eggs, milk and grains.
To restore public trust, the Organic Consumers Association is committed to exposing the fraudulent players in the organic industry while fighting for stronger organic protections. At one time, states could develop their own rules for organic food production and processing. But in 1990, Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act, which created the National Organic Program and the National Organic Standards Board. Foods labeled USDA Organic are the gold standard for health and sustainability.
Buzz Kill
Honey Bees Have a Dirty Secret
Although honey bees symbolize prosperity, sustainability and environmentalism, and are vital to farmers, they also have a distressing effect on the environment—destabilizing natural ecosystems by competing with native bees. Thousands of beekeeping hobbyists and campaigns to save the bees provide honey bees much more media coverage than native pollinators. High densities of honey bee colonies increase competition with the native pollinators for forage, putting even more pressure on the wild species that are already in decline. Honey bees are extremely general foragers and monopolize floral resources, leading to exploitative competition where one species uses up a resource, not leaving enough to go around.
Sheila Colla, an assistant professor and conservation biologist at Toronto’s York University, tells Scientific American, “Beekeeping is for people; it’s not a conservation practice. People mistakenly think keeping honey bees, or helping honey bees, is somehow helping the native bees, which are at risk of extinction. The focus on neonics [pesticide] and honey bees has taken a ton of resources away from conserving wild pollinators from their most important threats.”
You Thought it was Safe to Opt-Out
Ironically, now that PG&E, Seattle City Light, Consumers Energy, DTE and other utilities is offering to disable the wireless RF function (for a hefty price) in their smart meters, we find that there’s yet another extremely critical problem with the meters. Just when you thought you had mastered all the esoteric acronyms such RF Mesh, 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz ZigBee, and all the problems with ‘smart’ meters, here’s one more: Switching-Mode Power Supply or SMPS. This new element in the ‘smart’ meter controversy deserves immediate full official A Smart Meter shielded with the Iron Maiden. and public attention. In our on-going investigation into why so-called ‘smart’ meters being installed by PG&E, DTE, Consumers Energy, Duke Energy and many utilities against rising public opposition are causing so many people to be sick, and so many problems with other electric and electronic equipment, we have been fortunate to obtain the advice of electrical engineers. On examination of typical meters, including ABB, GE, ITRON and Landis+Gyr, and many others they report that, in addition to its RF transmitter, each wireless digital meter also has a component called the ‘switching-mode power supply’ (SMPS) – switching power supply for short. Its function is to ‘step down’ the 240v alternating current (AC) coming in from the utility pole power lines to the 3.3 to 12 volts of direct current (DC) required to run the meter’s digital electronics which record the electricity usage data and send out the various RF transmissions. The SMPS function emits sharp spikes of millisecond bursts constantly, 24/7. The SMPS on the commonly used ITRON Openway model, for instance, which is within the smart meter models widely installed by PG&E and other utilities throughout their territory, has been measured to emit spikes of up to 50,000 Hz and higher. This constant pulsing of high frequencies, in addition to the RF function, is causing not only interference with other electric and electronic equipment in many homes with smart meters installed, but also is causing havoc with biological systems in its field of exposure. We created the Iron Maiden©® to aid our friends and neighbors to protect themselves from the pulsing RF signal coming from a Smart Meter. It is much more effective than the typical wire mesh meter guards. In our testing the RF signal is still significant when using these mesh meter guards. The metal mesh meter guard does reduce the RF a bit, but many of our customers still report feeling these RF effects. My wife and I got up this morning telling each other how well we slept! It has been typical for me to get up every hour to an hour and half and I have been blaming my old prostate. Last night I slept soundly for 6 hours straight! You aren’t just selling a beneficial product—you are helping people protect their health from smart meters, thank you DE Filters! –Wayne For more info and schedule your healthy home evaluation call 734-627-7610. Visit DEFiltersLLC.com. See Green Living Department Sponsor ad page 37.
