Feb 28 2011
Alum Richard Gee (’10) just sent me this link to a The Economist article and map about which countries are growning genetically modified crops. I wish we had more time to spend on GMOs, but with me out of town it was not meant to be this year. I’m not too concerned for you all [...]
Feb 24 2011
We just learned about soil degradation through Desertification, Salinization, Waterlogging, and Decreased Fertility. Desertification is exactly what it sounds like. It is when more fertile land is turned into desert mostly due to drought. Although, human activities such as convention tillage, overgrazing, and salinization contribute to desertification as well. Approximately 30% of crop land and [...]
Feb 24 2011
Hi guys, I hope you are enjoying King Corn while I am gone this week. The movie obviously focuses on industrialized corn crop production and the many issues it produces. But, the movie also touches on problems created when we feed all that corn to cows (who did not evolved to eat it) in industrial [...]
Feb 17 2011
To start off, we discussed various causes of degraded soil such as: Erosion Desertification Salinization Waterlogging Decreased Fertility When it comes to humans, overgrazing, deforestation, and cropland agriculture are the greatest threat we pose to soil quality. Farming requires the removal of the O Horizon so that the topsoil layer is exposed, but the loss of topsoil [...]
Feb 13 2011
1. Agriculture As the book says, we use 38% (small percentage, but not all can be used for farming because of ice and deserts and other areas that aren’t fit for farming) of the Earth’s surface area for agriculture. (The “most devastating activity to the environment.”) We mostly use the temperate regions for agriculture (prairies and [...]
