I noticed this gopher because the dogs kept yipping and running over to where she was. She eventually crawled off into the underbrush and went under, as you can see.
The pictures were taken with a wireless Ethernet camera, recorded by software run out of crontab every minute. The recording ends when it started to rain and I took the camera in.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 September 2009.
For example, French scientists, Drs. Seralini and Benacour, have published a number of scientific papers about the harmful effects of Roundup and its ingredients on human embryonic and placental cells. A Swedish scientific team lead by Dr. Akerman published an epidemiological study disclosing that exposure to glyphosate is a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr. Busbee – an American scientist – demonstrated alterations in estrogen-regulated genes after exposure to dilute concentrations of glyphosate.
Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Sralini report in
Chem. Res. Toxicol., 2009, 22 (1), pp 97–105 about
Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells:
We have evaluated the toxicity of four glyphosate (G)-based herbicides in Roundup (R) formulations, from 105 times dilutions, on three different human cell types. This dilution level is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed. The formulations have been compared to G alone and with its main metabolite AMPA or with one known adjuvant of R formulations, POEA. HUVEC primary neonate umbilical cord vein cells have been tested with 293 embryonic kidney and JEG3 placental cell lines. All R formulations cause total cell death within 24 h, through an inhibition of the mitochondrial succinate dehydrogenase activity, and necrosis, by release of cytosolic adenylate kinase measuring membrane damage.And it gets even better:
The deleterious effects are not proportional to G concentrations but rather depend on the nature of the adjuvants. AMPA and POEA separately and synergistically damage cell membranes like R but at different concentrations. Their mixtures are generally even more harmful with G. In conclusion, the R adjuvants like POEA change human cell permeability and amplify toxicity induced already by G, through apoptosis and necrosis. The real threshold of G toxicity must take into account the presence of adjuvants but also G metabolism and time-amplified effects or bioaccumulation.Glysophate makes other chemicals even more toxic, and remember Glysophate doesn’t break down rapidly and tends to accumulate in organisms. Organisms such as you and your children.
According to
Americas Program Report:
A study released by an Argentine scientist earlier this year reports that glyphosate, patented by Monsanto under the name “Round Up,” causes birth defects when applied in doses much lower than what is commonly used in soy fields.Why should Argentina care? Continue readingThe study was directed by a leading embryologist, Dr. Andres Carrasco, a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. In his office in the nation’s top medical school, Dr. Carrasco shows me the results of the study, pulling out photos of birth defects in the embryos of frog amphibians exposed to glyphosate. The frog embryos grown in petri dishes in the photos looked like something from a futuristic horror film, creatures with visible defects—one eye the size of the head, spinal cord deformations, and kidneys that are not fully developed.
“We injected the amphibian embryo cells with glyphosate diluted to a concentration 1,500 times [less] than what is used commercially and we allowed the amphibians to grow in strictly controlled conditions.” Dr. Carrasco reports that the embryos survived from a fertilized egg state until the tadpole stage, but developed obvious defects which would compromise their ability to live in their normal habitats.
Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), a turtle, not a tortoise, yet it lives on land:
According to the Davidson College Herpetology Lab:
The most widespread subspecies is simply known as the eastern box turtle (T. carolina carolina). This turtle ranges along the entire east coast of the United States from Massachusetts to northern Florida, as far west as the Mississippi River, and north to the Great Lakes. Although this subspecies is highly variable in coloration, it is often more brightly colored than the other subspecies and almost always has four claws on the hind feet.
This one appears to be a male (flattened shell, yellow eyes). Continue reading
A canopy road, in Georgia, with no curbs or gutters. Sure, it doesn’t go anywhere. Neither does Quarterman Road.
Thanks to Bob Clouston for the pointer.
The Valdosta Daily Times caught me working on being tactful.
Matt Flumerfelt’s writeup actually conflates two different county commission meetings, but gets the gist right:
The fate of the tree canopies lining the rural road were thought to hang in the balance. Several residents spoke in favor of the paving, citing dangerous conditions along the road during periods of stormy weather.Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.John and Gretchen Quarterman, whose ancestors lent their name to the country lane, led the fight to preserve the road in its original pristine dirt-road condition.
The forest along Quarterman Road is “a scrap of the longleaf fire forest that used to grow from southern Virginia to eastern Texas,” said John Quarterman following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This forest has been here since the last ice age.”
Quarterman Road, pre-paving, was the kind of dirt road down which Huckleberry Finn might be envisioned skipping barefoot with a fishing rod projecting over one shoulder.
It was the kind of road near which Thoreau might have planted a cabin.
“Many people don’t know that a longleaf pine forest has more species diversity than anything outside a tropical rain forest,” Quarterman said. “In our woods, we have five species of blueberries, …
The rest of the story is on the VDT web pages.
More pictures of the event in the previous blog entry.
For pictures of what lives in the forest, see longleaf burning gopher tortoises, snakes, frogs, bees and butterflies, spiders and scorpion, and raccoon, and beautyberry, pokeberry, passion flower, pond lily, ginger lily, Treat’s rain lily (native only to south Georgia, north Florida, and a bit of Alabama), thistle, sycamore, palmetto, mushrooms, lantana, magnolia, grapes, yellow jessamine, dogwood, and native wild azaleas.
The VDT has a good picture of Gretchen cutting the ribbon.
But it’s not over just because one road project is completed:
“More people around the county seem to be paying attention these days. Commissioners tell us that already another road in the county has had its canopy saved during paving, and the commission has promised residents of Coppage Road that if their road is paved, their canopy will be saved. Commissioners even seem to like the idea of recognizing canopy roads as a feature of quality of life for residents of the county and for visitors.”
We have a forest. The county just has roads.
Now let’s go see what they’re doing to the rest of our roads. And schools, and waste management, and biofuels, and industry…. If you’d like to help, please contact the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.High fructose corn syrup treated like nicotine: it could happen.When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system — everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches — will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn’t really ever had before.
AGRIBUSINESS dominates the agriculture committees of Congress, and has swatted away most efforts at reform. But what happens when the health insurance industry realizes that our system of farm subsidies makes junk food cheap, and fresh produce dear, and thus contributes to obesity and Type 2 diabetes? It will promptly get involved in the fight over the farm bill — which is to say, the industry will begin buying seats on those agriculture committees and demanding that the next bill be written with the interests of the public health more firmly in mind.
In the same way much of the health insurance industry threw its weight behind the campaign against smoking, we can expect it to support, and perhaps even help pay for, public education efforts like New York City’s bold new ad campaign against drinking soda.
Before that, the crowd assembling: Continue reading
The ribbon cutting is 10AM tomorrow, Thursday, 10 September 2009, at the north end of the north canopy. If you like trees, come see the ones we’ve got left.
From Hahira go east on 122, right on Hambrick Road, right on Quarterman Road, pass the subdivision and the fields, and you’ll see people.
More pictures on flickr.
Many of you helped Save Our Canopy Road. Well, we weren’t entirely successful, as you can see. Many of the trees in the canopies are gone, and all the trees on the right of way elsewhere on the road are gone. But we did at least save some of the canopy trees. Continue reading