GEOLOGY WITH JEFF SIMPSON
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Study finds washing effectively removes lead from vegetables grown in urban soil

9/1/2022

 
Urban gardens offer many benefits for individual health, communities, and ecosystems. They promote sustainable agriculture, reduce food transportation costs, and reduce water runoff. However, urban gardeners also face several challenges, one of which is dealing with contaminants like lead. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage multiple organ systems. "It is incredibly important to know if urban gardeners are being exposed to lead when they consume their produce," says Sara Perl Egendorf, a researcher at Cornell University. - Phys.Org

Droughts hit cattle ranchers hard – and that could make beef more expensive

9/1/2022

 
Supermarket shoppers are seeing something unusual these days: discounts in the meat department. Steak prices have fallen in each of the last three months even as the cost of chicken, pork and most other groceries has gone up. But bargains in the butcher case are likely to be temporary. Severe drought is forcing some cattle ranchers to slaughter livestock early. That's producing a glut of beef in the short term, but it's also likely to lead to higher prices in the future. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 60% of the nation's cattle are affected by drought, including Brady Blackett's herd of angus cattle, which graze in the high desert of south central Utah. - NPR
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'Forever chemicals' destroyed by simple new method

8/21/2022

 
PFAS, a group of manufactured chemicals commonly used since the 1940s, are called "forever chemicals" for a reason. Bacteria can't eat them; fire can't incinerate them; and water can't dilute them. And, if these toxic chemicals are buried, they leach into surrounding soil, becoming a persistent problem for generations to come. Now, Northwestern University chemists have done the seemingly impossible. Using low temperatures and inexpensive, common reagents, the research team developed a process that causes two major classes of PFAS compounds to fall apart, leaving behind only benign end products. - Phys.org
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Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline New Study Finds

2/17/2022

 
Ethanol made from corn grown across millions of acres of American farmland has become the country’s premier renewable fuel, touted as a low-carbon alternative to traditional gasoline and a key component of the country’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But a new study, published this week, finds that corn-based ethanol may actually be worse for the climate than fossil-based gasoline, and has other environmental downsides. “We thought and hoped it would be a climate solution and reduce and replace our reliance on gasoline,” said Tyler Lark, a researcher with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and lead author of the study. “It turns out to be no better for the climate than the gasoline it aims to replace and comes with all kinds of other impacts.” - Inside Climate News

US poultry giant Tyson using land ‘twice the size of New Jersey’ for animal feed

2/10/2022

 
Corporate consolidation—in which mergers and acquisitions of smaller companies lead to fewer, larger companies—has been a trend for decades in areas ranging from retail to technology. This consolidation gives some corporations outsize power, a consequence President Biden addressed in his 2021 executive order seeking to curb the “excessive concentration of industry”  The food and agriculture sector is no exception to this troubling trend, and the consequences can be far-reaching. For example, recent research has shown that the nation's largest meat and poultry producer, Tyson Foods (Statista 2022), has monopoly-like power that threatens the health, safety, and well-being of chicken farmers, workers, and communities in numerous ways (Boehm 2021a). Another recent study showed how corporate consolidation in the US food system has increased food prices and decreased food access . - UCS
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How to Feed the World Without Destroying the Planet

8/17/2021

 
Agriculture already uses almost half of the world’s vegetated land. It consumes 90 percent of all the water used by humanity and generates one-quarter of the annual global emissions that are causing global warming. And yet of the seven billion people living today, 820 million are undernourished because they don’t have access to—or can’t afford—an adequate diet.  “We have to produce 30 percent more food on the same land area, stop deforestation, [and] cut carbon emissions for food production by two-thirds,” says Waite in an interview.  All of that must be done while reducing poverty levels and the loss of natural habitat, preventing freshwater depletion, and cutting pollution as well as other environmental impacts of farming.​- National Geographic
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A mega-dairy is transforming Arizona’s aquifer and farming lifestyles

8/13/2021

 
Nobody knows how many wells have dried up in Sunizona, let alone the entire Willcox Basin, which covers 1,911 square miles in Arizona’s southeast corner, near the New Mexico border. But between 2014 and 2019, records from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) show that around 20 wells in the Sunizona area were deepened after drying up. In the entire basin during that time, records show that 57 wells were deepened, but interviews and anecdotal accounts place the number at more than 100.- High Country News

Right: Thousands of dairy cows crowd the Coronado Dairy’s feedlot in the Kansas Settlement area near Sunizona, Arizona. - Roberto (Bear) Guerra / High Country News
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    GeoNews

    This is a way to share science-based info from reliable sources. Click the source link after text to read more. Use this Google Doc or this Google Slides template to summarize an article. An occasional podcast featuring news and topic experts will be included.
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