EcoWarriorMe

I'd like to think that it can, but I have often wondered wether organic agriculture could feed everyone or whether we need more intensive agriculture. There are many environmental benefits to organic methods including reduced use of herbicides and pesticides such as neonicotinoids which are implicated in the decline of bee numbers. Another benefit is the greater diversity of vegetable varieties also associated with organic farming. This is for two reasons: to use varieties with greater natural resistance to pests and to use more flavoursome varieties to differentiate from non-organic produce.  A recent study of studies of yield from organic methods compared with so-called conventional methods has recently been published in Nature and reported here by the BBC. From the BBC report: The headline conclusion is pretty unequivocal; across the board, organic farming produces lower yields than conventional methods, by about 25%. For fruit, the difference is marginal, just a few percen...

I recently read an article which discussed how we could tackle the problem of the 800,000 tonnes of plastic bags thrown away each year in Europe, an average of 191 for every citizen of the European Union.  It highlighted the much smaller carbon footprint of disposable single use plastic carrier bags compared with alternatives.  Part of the article described re-using plastic bags as bin liners rather than using purpose made bin liners and it had a nifty graphic .  To a point, this makes sense but considering that many people use plastic bags for almost all of their domestic purchases, then to use every carrier bag once as a bin liner would require all that was bought to be disposed of in the bin.  I know that there is a lot of waste packaging in groceries but it does generally compact down to a smaller volume than the original (unless you live entirely on tinned produce) therefore assuming that all plastic bags are re-used in this way is stretching thin...

I grew up in a small(ish) town before moving to the big city to study then settle down. I still go back to the small town from time to time and I notice the changes, some I like but others I don't. I like the riverside park that has been extended and I dislike the creep of houses and shops in to the countryside on the periphery of town. But I do not live there. I have chosen not too, therefore I must accept the changes made by those who do. In the big city we have many amenities; why should the small town not have some too if the townsfolk want them? Unfortunately there are some that don't see the world that way. They move to the bright lights but they want the old place to remain as it was when they left, as they remember it. They will go to great lengths to keep it that way despite the desires of those living there to improve the place. Worse still are those who have never lived there but have some ancestral ties that they believe gives them the right to decide what is an...