Monday Mailing
Year 19 • Issue 33 13 May 2013 1. Bicycling Contributes $400 Million to Oregon Tourism, New Survey Says 2. How Neglecting Bees Could Endanger Humans 3. Op-Ed: The Problem with Walmart’s Hunger Games 4. What Plants Talk About 5. The Nonprofit Website Project Handbook 6. Monsanto Protests Scheduled in 36 Countries 7. The 10 Greatest US Public Markets That Met the Wrecking Ball 8. Chicken Diapers? Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines 9. Climate Tipping Point? Concentration of Carbon Dioxide Tops 400 ppm For First Time in Human History. 10. A Dream of Trees Aglow at Night 11. Funding Opportunities 1. Bicycling Contributes $400 Million to Oregon Tourism, New Survey Says Cycling's not just hip and healthy; it's becoming big business in Oregon, a new study shows. Recreational bicycle travel accounts for $400 million of Oregon's annual $9 billion tourism industry, according to the Oregon Bicycle Travel Survey, released Wednesday by the state's tourism agency, Travel Oregon.
Quote of the Week: "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." ~Beverly Sills Oregon Fast Fact #430: The western Oregon climate is very similar to that of the Burgundy region in France where the Pinot grape is from. Western Oregon has several wineries which produce Pinot Noir wine.
"We knew we had a real strong competitive advantage" for luring twowheeled tourists to the state, Scott West, chief strategy officer for Travel Oregon told a legislative panel. The survey proves it, he said. It's the first time the state has quantified spending on organized bike rides, races and other non-commuting trips. Additionally, they survey broke cycling activity down by region, and showed where the spinoff spending goes. To access the full story, click here. 2. How Neglecting Bees Could Endanger Humans If you are an almond farmer in the Central Valley of California, where 80 percent of the world’s production is grown, you had a problem earlier this spring. Chances are there weren’t enough bees to pollinate your trees. That’s because untold thousands of colonies — almost half of the 1.6 million commercial hives that almond growers depend on — failed to survive the winter, making this the worst season for beekeepers in anyone’s memory. And that is saying a lot, because bees have been faring increasingly poorly for years now. Much of this recent spike in bee mortality is attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious condition where all the worker bees in a colony simply fly off as a group and never make it back to the hive.
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