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RT @britesprite: Pesticides double the risk of Parkinsons http://dld.bz/Pe4b #agriculture #health // wow, rather scary

agriculture via:packrati.us health

A new report by the Green Scissors Campaign details some $200 billion worth of yearly US government subsidies that the coalition says are "wasteful to taxpayers, harmful to the environment and bad for consumers." Green Scissors 2010 [PDF] covers four broad areas in which these subsidies occur-- energy, agriculture and biofuels, infrastructure, and public lands.

Green Scissors Campaign greennumbers subsidies energy agriculture biofuels infrastructure public lands

In this paper, Patrick Déry applies Hubbert's methods to a very special non-renewable resource - phosphorus - a nutrient essential for agriculture.

In the literature, estimates before we "run out" of phosphorus range from 50 to 130 years. This date is conveniently far enough in the future so that immediate action does not seem necessary. However, as we know from peak oil analysis, trouble begins not when we "run out" of a resource, but when production peaks. From that point onward, the resource becomes more difficult to extract and more expensive

peak phosphorus phosphorus agriculture

Around the world, amphibian populations are in decline, and scientists have not been able to figure out why. Now a study of leopard frogs in Pennsylvania has identified a possible culprit, and the ramifications are troubling, according to a Penn State ecologist.

Research conducted primarily at Penn State's Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs in the summer of 2007 — described in a recently published article in the journal Nature — suggests that chemical pollution can increase often-deadly trematode (parasitic flatworm) infections in a declining amphibian species.

amphibian frog agriculture atrazine phosphate