Industrial Agriculture, an Extraction Industry Like Fossil Fuels, a Growing Driver of Climate Change.

On his farm in southwestern Iowa, Seth Watkins plants several different crops and raises cattle.

"I can see the impact of the changing climate," Seth
 Watkins said. "I know, in the immediate, I've got to
manage the issue. In the long term, it means doing
 something to slow down the problem."

He controls erosion and water pollution by leaving some land permanently covered in native grass. He grazes his cattle on pasture, and he sows cover crops to hold the fertile soil in place during the harsh Midwestern winters.

Watkins' farm is a patchwork of diversity—and his fields mark it as an outlier.

His practices don't sound radical, but Watkins is a bit of a renegade. He's among a small contingent of farmers in the region who are holding out against a decades-long trend of consolidation and expansion in American agriculture.

Watkins does this in part because he farms with climate change in mind.

Read the story from Inside Climate News by Georgina Gustin - “Industrial Agriculture, an Extraction Industry Like Fossil Fuels, a Growing Driver of Climate Change.”

Your asthma puffer is probably contributing to climate change, but there’s a better alternative.

I breathe all the way out. There’s a quiet puff of gas from my inhaler, and I breathe all the way in. I hold my breath for a few seconds and the medicine is where it needs to be: in my lungs.

There is an environmentally friendly option. 

Many readers with asthma or other lung disease will recognise this ritual. But I suspect few will connect it with climate change. Until recently, neither did I.

In asthma, there is narrowing of the airways that carry air into and out of our lungs. The lining of the airways becomes swollen, muscles around the airways contract, and mucus is produced. All these changes make it hard to breathe out.

The most commonly used medicines in asthma are delivered by inhalation. Inhaling gets the medicines straight to the airways, speeding and maximising their local effects, and minimising side effects elsewhere compared to, say, swallowing tablets.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Senior Lecturer in General Practice at the University of Western Australia, Brett Montgomery - “Your asthma puffer is probably contributing to climate change, but there’s a better alternative.”