All posts by Trevor Larkum

Climate Change Impact in Africa (Image: iPhoto)

Another Terrible Consequence Of Antibiotics In Farm Animals

In case you weren’t already convinced that overuse of antibiotics in livestock is a bad, bad, bad idea — a recent study offers a new reason to scale back on them: climate change.

Climate Change Impact in Africa (Image: iPhoto)
Climate Change Impact in Africa (Image: iPhoto)

An international research team found that dung from cattle treated with a commonly used antibiotic gave off a little less than double the amount of methane of antibiotic-free dung. Their work was published Thursday in the science journal Proceedings Of the Royal Society B.

Scientists tested dung from 10 cows. Five of the cows received a three-day course of broad-spectrum antibiotic tetracycline, and five received none, Phys.org reports. Researchers then measured the dung’s outputs of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and found that the antibiotic course “consistently increased methane emissions.” Right now, the researchers aren’t sure exactly why the antibiotics have this effect.

Scientists also found that the antibiotics changed the types of microorganisms living within dung beetles that fed on the dung. That finding is important because it indicates that giving livestock antibiotics can affect other wildlife and not just the “target animal,” lead author Tobin Hammer told The Huffington Post in an email.

“In this case, dung beetle size and numbers were not affected — which is good, because these beetles are ecologically important,” Hammer said. However, it’s possible the drugs could influence the beetles in other ways that researchers didn’t examine, like behavior. He added that more work is needed to determine the various ways that different types of antibiotics could affect different animal species.

The new research comes after decades of experts warning that mass antibiotic use in livestock can and does lead to “superbugs” — bacteria that are totally resistant to antibiotics. As early as 1976, a Tufts University researcher found that when chickens received tetracycline, both the chickens and the farm workers handling them developed tetracycline-resistant bacteria within only a week.

Read more: Huffington Post

This Dutch town will grow its own food, live off-grid, and handle its own waste

It’s no secret that today’s aggressive agricultural techniques can take a heavy toll on the environment, both on the land used for crops and livestock, and in the surrounding atmosphere.

Architectural drawing of pilot project (Image: Effekt)
Architectural drawing of pilot project (Image: Effekt)

But a new vision of a more sustainable ‘integrated neighbourhood’ community is being implemented in the Netherlands, with the first of a series of high-tech farm villages set to be completed next year. The project, being built just outside of Amsterdam, is the brainchild of California-based developer ReGen Villages, and after its pilot community is finished in 2017, the company plans to bring the concept to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.

Of course, communal farms aren’t exactly a new idea, with communities like the Amish people and more recent kinds of farming collectives having long lived off the grid. But we’re not talking about another attempt to recreate simple, pastoral living here.

ReGen Villages wants to harness the power of today’s technology to create “off-grid capable neighbourhoods” that provide the comforts of a regular modern lifestyle, but which are entirely self-reliant and sustainable: growing their own food, generating their own energy, managing waste locally, and recycling water.

“We’re really looking at starting off as the Tesla of eco-villages,” ReGen Villages CEO James Ehrlich told Adele Peters at Fast Company. “We are redefining residential real-estate development by creating these regenerative neighbourhoods, looking at first these greenfield pieces of farmland where we can produce more organic food, more clean water, more clean energy, and mitigate more waste than if we just left that land to grow organic food or do permaculture there.”

Read more: Science Alert

Nissan Leaf

New Nissan Leaf fuel included July 2016


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