The Minnesota Environmental Partnership is proud to feature the following post as part of a series of columns as part of a Student Voices Series issues. This is part of a continuing collaboration with Macalester College’s Geography Department and its students. Contributed by Eliana Langer, Macalester student — Minnesota legislators are undoing decades of progress on renewable… Read more »
Posts Tagged: climate change
Crop Insurance: Good Enough for Monsanto-Good Enough for Sustainable Ag
From the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction department: In 2007, Monsanto talked the USDA’s Risk Management Agency into giving farmers a discount on crop insurance premiums if they planted the company’s triple-stacked GMO corn. Reportedly, some reviewers of the proposal raised concerns that the premium subsidy would unfairly benefit a single private company. But in the end, the USDA… Read more »
Climate Justice Now — It’s Our Time to Act
Join the conversation to hear from climate leaders about how combating climate change is a pathway to achieving a vision for families in the Twin Cities rooted in economic prosperity and healthy and safe communities. Performances By:Louis Alemayehu, Spoken Word ArtistMinneapolis High School for Recording Arts Green Team Please join the conversation #ACTONCLIMATE For more… Read more »
Climate, Clean Water, and Clean Energy
Minnesota is on a clean energy path that is bringing benefits to human health and our water, air, and natural resources. Minnesotans are seeing the evidence of changing climate trends in our own backyards. Hear from Paul Huttner, chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio and Dr. Mark Seeley, University of Minnesota climatologist and meteorologist. J…. Read more »
A Graphic View of Diversity’s Power
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a good infographic can be the equivalent of thousands of pounds of soil. That thought occurred to me recently while viewing the cool illustration below. Produced by scientists who are studying the effects of adding some targeted diversity to row-cropped fields in central Iowa, it tells… Read more »
Minnesota’s Climate Solutions
This is a public forum with Fresh Energy’s J. Drake Hamilton and Minnesota Conservation Federation’s Gary Botzek Minnesota is on a clean energy path, creating thousands of jobs while cutting carbon pollution. In 2014, we have exciting opportunities to help Minnesota continue its leadership in clean energy and climate solutions, protecting the health of… Read more »
Cover Crops: Insuring Against Disaster
Thanks to the recently passed 2014 Farm Bill, federally subsidized crop insurance is an even bigger player in determining what the landscape looks like. That’s troubling, considering that in recent years that impact has been mostly negative, since the program removes most of the risk associated with plowing up acres formerly considered too erosive, wet… Read more »
Flash Flood? Flash Drought? Time for a Little Slow Soil
The U.S Drought Monitor released its latest figures yesterday, verifying what we already knew: Minnesota is extremely dry. In fact, 55 percent of our state now falls under the “severe drought” or “moderate drought” category. Over 60 percent Minnesota’s subsoil moisture is “short” or “very short.” The National Drought Mitigation Center reported that in August… Read more »
The (Growing) High Price of an Unreformed Crop Insurance Program
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project Just when you think the facts and figures around federal subsidized crop insurance can’t get any more outlandish, new numbers emerge exposing the out-of-control spending and lack of accountability for this area of farm policy. Earlier this month, USDA released the most recent data on crop insurance costs. It’s… Read more »
Teaming with Soil Microbes (part 1)
On a crisp morning in September, North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown held two handfuls of soil and searched for signs of life—theoretically not a difficult task considering one teaspoon of humus contains more organisms than there are humans in the world. But many of the bacteria and invertebrates that lurk in the dark basement of… Read more »