Christopher Wright and Michael Wimberly of South Dakota State University in Brookings analysed satellite images of five states in the western corn belt. They found that 530,000 hectares of grassland disappeared under blankets of maize and soya beans between 2006 and 2011. The rate was fastest in South Dakota and Iowa, with as much as 5 per cent of pasture becoming cropland each year.
The trend is being driven by rising demand for the crops, partly through incentives to use them as fuels instead of food.
The switch from meadows to crops is causing a crash in populations of ground-nesting birds. One of the US’s most important breeding grounds for wildfowl, an area called the Prairie Pothole Region, is also at risk, with South Dakota’s crop fields now within 100 metres of the wetlands. “Half of North American ducks breed here,” says Wright.
Related: The conclusions deal a blow to what are known as cellulosic biofuel…
Hmmm… and yet Ducks Unlimited has been an active participant in the anti-oil and global warming/climate change propaganda wars.
Every time some warmie on the internet says that we need to do something now, because there isn’t time to wait for all of the facts to be known, I remind them of biofuels.
Isn’t that what caused the Dustbowl?
another Bwahhahahah moment.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
Asian particulate pollution affecting global climate.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/asian-pollution-affecting-global-climate-084456500.html
The hilarious history of ‘climate tipping points’
Thomas Lifson
The UN is trying to scare us into believing we have only 15 years left. It looks ridiculous doing so, considering all the similar declarations that have come and gone.
A brief history of “climate tipping point” declarations discloses that the only scary hot air comes from warmist blowhards.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/04/the_hilarious_history_of_climate_tipping_points.html#.U1TiZT19684.twitter
Did removing lead from petrol [gasoline] spark a decline in crime?
“Lead is a very potent neurotoxin,” says Gesch. “It has a range of effects on the brain that have been demonstrated through hundreds of different biological studies. Lead alters the formation of the brain. It reduces the grey matter in areas responsible for things such as impulse control and executive functioning – meaning thinking and planning.”
“Unless someone is telling us that the brain is not involved in decision-making then lead has to be relevant to crime”
In other words – lead poisoning leads to bad decisions. The lead theorists say the poison has a time-lag effect which could not be understood until recently.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74298000/gif/_74298891_lead_crime_gra624.gif
In other words – lead poisoning leads to bad decisions.
Gee, that’s odd, the eras when lead was used also corresponds to the greatest advances in the human condition. Obviously lead caused that as well.
On the upside, ethanol has been a real boon for the small engine industry.
The museum in Winnipeg would serve us all better if it portrayed,
the endless devastation of socialist policies on Humanity along with Nature.
We could call it the Socialist museum of inhumanity.
From the Caspian Sea to bird blenders the left has made one blunder after another.
Not only ecologically, but every sphere of human existence.
Detroit of course being the visual expression of where the lefts madness ends.
As well as mass graves.
Now this. Not that I think this can go on for long.
At first, Dr. Gallo said, he and the other researchers, including Thomas Junk, a chemist, and Rakesh K. Bajpai, a chemical engineer, did not intend to make biodiesel from alligators. The alligators — or more precisely, alligator farmers — came to them. “Some local entrepreneurs in Lafayette do a lot of alligator farming,” he said.
The reptiles are slaughtered for their hides and for food, and alligator meat is a common sight on menus in parts of the South. But the farmers had to pay to discard the rest of the animals, including the fat, which Dr. Gallo estimated makes up about 10 percent of an alligator’s weight. “They have this enormous amount of waste,” he said. “And they didn’t know what to do with it.”
Dr. Gallo said he did not know much about alligator fat when the project started. But that changed when the farmers began supplying the researchers with 50-pound frozen blocks of it.
The researchers made biodiesel in small batches in the lab, cutting up the fat tissue first and heating it in a microwave to remove most of the moisture. Heating this rendered fat with an alkaline compound and methanol — a common production method — resulted in the chained hydrocarbons that are characteristic of biodiesel. Analysis showed that the gator-based product met almost all of the technical specifications for fuel-grade biodiesel.
By some estimates, about 15 million pounds of alligator fat is discarded each year. While that may seem like a lot, it is little compared with the amount of wasted fat from the beef, pork and chicken industries, and from renderers who produce lower-quality fat from dead farm animals and other sources.
Still, because alligator fat is available at little or no cost, even a relatively small biodiesel operation could be viable, Dr. Gallo said. Animal fats are byproducts, so using them would help address concerns about growing soy and other crops for biodiesel when they might better be used for food.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/researchers-study-producing-biodiesel-from-alligators.html?_r=0
Each and every one of the so called Green Solutions are a freaking joke..they simply cannot be utilized in an industrial manner such as major Hydro and Nuclear.
Wind is such a complete given the multitude of issues, least of which there is no practical way to store said generated energy.
Solar is similar in that vast stretches of arable land is covered with panels to produce electricity..strangely enough, it doesn’t work at night…when in many cases you need it.
Bio-Fuels well, you just read it here..takes more energy to make it than what it can produce once converted to fuel.
And Each and every one of these so called solutions brought to you by the ECO-ZOMBIES has required Government subsidy to even break even. That would be Taxpayer Dollars – you n me.
The only way in my mind is NUCLEAR. And to that extent, I continually promote Thorium liquid salt reactor technology.
No need to be situated near water
No toxic waste
No way to make bombs
No lack of Fuel worldwide.
Where the F is the problem in this eh.??
Bio-Fuels well, you just read it here..takes more energy to make it than what it can produce once converted to fuel.
The biodiesel I make from used fryer oil doesn’t take “more energy to make it than what it can produce once converted to fuel”. In fact it provides me with a 30% savings compared with pump diesel. Growing food for fuel is ridiculous, however using waste materials for fuel is quite different. Most people wouldn’t understand that, it doesn’t fit with their blind propaganda.