Progressive Wednesday

Plants are our friends.

It’s this kind of information that makes me glad I woke up in the morning, poured myself a cup of java (heavy on the cream), plopped myself down, and scanned through the day’s news, obscure and popular alike. Check it out:

The leaves of Aspilia africana, a plant used in African traditional medicine, can stop bleeding, block infection and speed wound healing, a new study from Nigeria confirms.

The leaves and flowers of A. Africana, a bristle-covered herb known as the “hemorrhage plant,” have been used to stanch bleeding, remove foreign bodies from the eyes, treat scorpion stings, and for several other purposes across the African continent.

I’m comforted, quite often, by science (you know, when people aren’t cloning goats, building a better thermonuclear bomb, or using their massive minds to concoct a tastier McBurger). The aforementioned information made my morning, quite frankly, and made me realize, yet again, how central to our lives the rest of the ecosystem is. We’re all part of one larger organism, and we’ve been given–by chance or by Divinity, depending on our beliefs–tools and cures, techniques and creations that we’ve barely tapped.

All this is to say, there’s more hope out there than the mainstream media will let us see with ease, and there’s more hope. And hope, my friends, might be the most progressive of emotions. Let’s not forget that, and let’s not lose it, despite the desires of the powerful few.

So let’s raise our collective mugs to Aspilia africana and to the scientists bringing it to the masses.

Hi-Tech Parks = Confused Poachers = Happy Nature

The problem of poachers is a constant, particularly in national parks located in the Republic of Congo, Costa Rica, The Galapagos Islands, and the Shavia Wildlife Refuge in Russia’s Altai Republic. So, those hired to protect the wildlife in those areas are going hi-tech.

According to a recent article The Economist, the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Congo is 4,200 square kilometers and has 14 park rangers. In the past year, they’ve caught no poachers. This isn’t because there’s no poaching. For example:

Last year poachers are estimated to have killed more than 23,000 African elephants. According to a study by the University of Washington, that is about one in 17 of the continent’s total.

So the good folks running the park are going to place special metal detectors and smoke detectors (poachers often smoke the meat) along trails and in trees. When a poacher trips a detector, a signal goes right to the rangers with exact coordinates. Many people in the Congo believe, quite strongly, in magic, and “local people will receive no explanation for the rangers’ new powers.” The hope is that this will both stop poachers in their tracks (or rather, the apes’, jaguars’ and elephants’ tracks) and discourage poaching in the first place.

So what can you do from the comfort of your computer? We’ll give you three:

1. Sign the pledge from Wild Aid and the Active Conservation Awareness Program, urging world leaders to do their part in putting an end to poaching. The ACAP is hoping to get 25 million signatures by 2008. Let’s be part of this effort.
2. Consider donating a measly five smackers to Wild Aid. All you’ve got to do is click this sentence. Just so you know they’re as legit as it gets, you can click right here to go to a National Geographic article on the organization. And you can listen to the executive director of Wild Aid on NPR by clicking here.
3. Tell a pal about Wild Aid. You can do this by clicking this sentence, or by clicking the “Share This” button at the bottom-left of this post. This is a very important action because Wild Aid “guarantee[s] that 100% of donations from the public go straight to the field,” so free marketing is the best marketing.
   

Picture clicked by this friend of pachyderms.

Not “for the birds” but “of the birds.”

Let’s rack this one up as “Not the Dandiest News for Our Avian Friends.” According to Live Science:

The populations of nearly two dozen common American birds – ” the fence-sitting meadowlark, the frenetic Rufous hummingbird and the whippoorwill with its haunting call – ” are half what they were 40 years ago, a new analysis found.

Twenty different common bird species – ” those with populations more than half a million and covering a wide range – ” have seen populations fall at least in half since 1967, according to a study by the National Audubon Society.

And why is this happening? The disapparance of ”grassy habitats” It probaby won’t come as a shock:

Many of the species in decline depend on open grassy habitats that are disappearing because of suburban sprawl. Climate change and invasive species are to blame, too.

But why is this so significant? Birds are central to the homeostasis of our ecosystems. They do all of the following and more:

• Spread the seeds of trees and grasses.
• Pollinate flowers.
• Eat dead animals, essentially cleaning the land.
• Gobble insects.
• Keep down the populations of mice, rabbits, and squirrels.

But aren’t they even more than that? They sing — what better way to wake in the morning? They’re gorgeous in flight, defying the laws of the landlocked, increasing the overall beauty of our already beautiful world. So we owe it to the birds, to the rest of the natural world, and to ourselves, to do something about this problem.

On three previous Wednesdays, we shared ways in which we can all be better stewards of the environment and help reduce our carbon footprints on the earth (see “Saving the Planet from the Comfort of Our Homes,”The Grandeur of Earth Day,” and “I See Trees of Green“). But here are three simple actions we can all take:

1. Plant vegetation native to your area that help common birds. The National Audubon Society has specific suggestions depending on where you live (just click right here).
2. Change your light bulbs. You read that right. Since global climate change is hurting common birds, just change your regular incandescent light bulbs and replace each of them with a compact florescent light bulb. They use 75% less energy than regular bulbs, which therefore reduces carbon emissions released when converting fossil fuels into electricity.
3. Sign this electronic letter to your Senators and Representatives to restore the protections of the Clean Water Act to include wetlands (just click right here). Please consider personalizing the letter a bit as these tend to work a bit better.

Let’s end a bit of interesting wisdom from aviator Charles Lindbergh, shortly before his death: “I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”

This Wednesday: Reviving Niagara

Problem:

The first years of my memory are of Niagara Falls. We lived on Orchard Parkway in a tiny second-floor house apartment. And as I grew up in the surrounding area, I learned to think of my hometown as the honeymoon and suicide capital of the world.

I grew up with daredevils risking life, limb, and the lives and limbs of their rescuers, by plummeting in various contraptions over the Horseshoe Falls. I saw news reports of poor fools who fell and drown to their deaths on kayaks and jet-skis as they tried to conquer the cataracts. I watched national television coverage of the lawsuits connected to Love Canal, a neighborhood that was the site of one of the worst toxic-waste-dumping scandals in American history.

My first job, as a bakery assistant, was in Niagara Falls at the headquarters of Di Camillo Bakery, a family business still thriving in this city. And I watched as department stores and jewelry stores and restaurants evaporated from Main Street, turning the road into an assortment of seedy bars, adult novelty stores, and boarded up buildings, each empty as the pockets of the homeless wandering the city. And I watched as the factories closed their doors, and added good, hard-working souls to the unemployment lines– ¦.

.

Make Progress:

But I also grew up next to a place where people teem to see one the natural wonders of the world. And I grew up in an area where my relatives worked the bluest-collar of jobs, but managed to put lasagna on the table (we're good Italian-Americans, after all). And I grew up where my grandfather landed after traveling the Atlantic to move to America, the same city where my father was raised and remained, the same city where my sister got married. And I grew up next to one of the marvels of electrical science, the Niagara Power Project.

And so I believe in this place. And I love this place. And it's time we all helped this treasure of not just New York, but of America, and not just of America, but of the world. We're ready, if you are, to make progress in Niagara Falls.

• Buy
• Sign
• Give
• E-mail
• Eat

- – - – -

Editor’s Note: Below you’ll find photos of some of our favorite locations in the city of Niagara Falls.

- – - – -

The Little Italy neighborhood and business district.

*

The genius that is the Niagara Power Project. To learn more about it, click here.

*

Di Camillo Bakery, where they make the best Italian bread you’ll ever eat.

*

The Niagara River in autumn (if it wasn’t obvious from, you know, the leaves).

Casualties of more than just global warming

As early as the summer of 2004, the results of many studies were reported to confirm what many scientists had predicted since the 1970s; polar bears were becoming one of the first casualties of global warming.

Polar bears live in the Arctic, mainly in Alaska and the northern parts of Canada. These marine mammals feed primarily on ringed seals. They use ice floats to feed, mate, and rest. Ice floats that are increasingly farther away. Global Warming has raised the temperature of the Canadian Arctic water by 4 degrees Celsius in the last 50 years, and as a result, polar bears have been drowning, unable to reach a large enough piece of ice.

Here are some other causes of polar bear die-off, in bullet point, for irony’s sake:

• Toxic chemicals such as DDT and PCB have been found in many polar bears, which cause birth defects and lower reproduction rates.
• Drilling for oil greatly affects polar bear habitats and the operation is expected to expand.
• Warmer temperatures have led to the collapse of birthing dens, killing the bears inside.
• Loss of hunting ground from global warming has led to the first observance of cannibalism among polar bears.
• In many countries there are high quotas for how many polar bears are allowed to be hunted.

This last one had me a bit miffed. It seems to me that with a threatened species the quota for hunting them should hover somewhere around zero. American laws prevent the hunting of these animals in Alaska. But, in a break from the norm, Canadian laws are a bit less progressive. So American trophy hunters cross the border into Canada, make their kill and bring it back home. And because of a major legal loophole, they can do this without breaking a single law.

According to the Defenders of Wildlife:

From 2002-2005, a total of 298 requests were made by US citizens to import sport hunted polar bear trophies from Canada. Of these, 252 – a staggering 85 percent – were issued.

So they’ve started to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make it illegal to import polar bear trophies. Please take 30 seconds to add your signature. We can’t stop Canada from allowing this hunting, but we can stop Americans from bringing them home.

We can debate the ethical and constitutional aspects of hunting and gun control, but I think most of us can come to an agreement when it comes to killing an endangered animal for the purpose of decoration, can’t we?

The Grandeur of Earth Day

Problem:

Earth Day is April 22, and recognizing and reacting to this day couldn't be more important. Why? Because the planet, as we know it, is dying, its heart is slowly stopping, and we needn't look farther than a mirror to see who's to blame.

But we're powerful. We're creative and resourceful and brilliant: lest we forget, we landed on the moon, we invent and reinvent language, we split the atom, we adopt forgotten children as our own. Most importantly, we are, at our core, good. And like metaphoric doctors with a metaphoric defibrillator, it's shocking how quickly we can bring the planet back to life.

.

Make Progress:

Eventually, the bugs — blasted things that they are — are going to take over the planet. Our species is going to cease being. At Progressive Wednesday, we'd like to put that headstone for humanity off for as long as possible.

Much like our bodies, which regulate themselves to maintain homeostasis, the planet is one giant organism. Rain, bees, and rabbits help plants grow and reproduce. The plants help oxygenate the air, reduce greenhouse gases, and help protect glaciers and icecaps, the largest reservoirs of freshwater on the planet. Rivers thrive, so the fish thrive, so the bears thrive. Right now in a city near you, cats are killing rats. And the rats– ¦ well, we've got no idea what they do except keep alleys company. Let's just say that the interconnectivity of all species of life is a bit mind-boggling and that biodiversity lies at the core of this connectivity. We think it's safe to say humans don't even completely understand its importance.

To liberally quote the 19th Century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

.

[But] all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

.

And for all this, nature is never spent.

Nature is never spent. There's hope, my peeps. And because at our best we're stewards of the environment, it's time to right this ship of ours a bit. That's how we celebrate Earth Day around these here parts. That's how we celebrate our planet's unfathomable grandeur: we protect it.

• Earth
• Animals
• Air
• Water
• Plants

Organic eggs, organic arugula, organic education

Because of the increasing (and rightful) popularity of organic produce, organic agriculture educational programs are finally sprouting up (sorry about the pun) in the United States. According to an article in Alternatives Journal reprinted in the Utne Reader, the first full-fledged U.S.-based major in this field of study was started in 2006 at Washington State University, becoming only the second university to offer such a program in North America (the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, was the first).

Since many of the students taking on this degree are newbies to traditional farming and gardening, there’s a need for more experiential learning.

At the University of Guelph:

The program is tapping commercial organic farmers to help students get the experience they need through the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training (CRAFT) program. This group of farms, though not officially connected to the university, have pooled their collective knowledge to give interns a more diverse experience: different farms, different farmers, different techniques.

According to E. Ann Clark, a professor in the Canadian program:

These students tend to have a social as well as a biophysical interest in farming, so they see farming in a broader societal context. It tends to be the more activist-type students who are willing to make such a profound change. Because it is a big change, from being a nonfarmer to becoming a farmer.

Too often, America seems to take Canada’s lead, but we’re glad we at least have a model of a more progressive culture to literally look up to, and it’s encouraging and satisfying to see citizens of the world taking activism into their professional lives.

In 2002 at the Washington State University, “50 faculty and staff…were involved in organic research and education projects,” and graduate students there are working on theses dealing with orchard productivity, organic wheat production, income risk assessment, the use of composted tea to help with plant growth, the use of compost from mint distilleries, and “Entomopathogenic Nematode Efficacy against Colorado Potato Beetle under Organic and Conventional Fertility.” We have no clue what that last one means, but it sounds important. Why? Because we like potatoes.

The success of any large-scale progressive shift is typically dependent on some combination of three factors more than any others: economics, education, and ethics. Now that companies are seeing an increased demand for organic foodstuffs, the education must follow in order for the movement to grow and sustain itself in the long term. In particular, we believe this will help prevent factory farming from taking the lead, allowing small farmers to reap the financial benefits.

P.S. Lest we forget, we’re now going to root for the Cougars every chance we get, and we’ll think of them as we pour organic milk over our morning Fruit Loops. I’m seriously considering getting a t-shirt. Yes, I know, this might seem over-the-top, but I’m an over-the-top kind of guy, ok?

Arugula photo c/o this veggie lover.