RSS Feed

Tag Archives: article

Solving for Pattern or, an Economy of Size

Posted on July 29, 2015 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I have been reading lately.  I have been reading a lot, lately….  I could not sleep last night.  An old article by Wendell Berry gave me thoughts to consider and apply to my own small business.

 

Solving for Pattern.  Written by Wendell Berry.  Chapter 9 in The Gift of the Land:  Further Essays Cultural & Agricultural.  North Point Press, 1981.  Originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm.

Wendell Berry is a farmer and an author.  His writing is thought provoking and disturbing, well written, easy to read and difficult to walk away from…

 

Wendell Berry has been on my reading list for a long time.  It is time for us to get to know him, now!  Solving for Pattern is a short article that poses questions and discusses the long term meaning of economy.  Not of economics.  Economy.  Economy of size.  Small businesses.  Small farms.

Questions…  I went back to university several years ago.  I thought I just wanted to take a few courses, make my evenings a little more interesting.  I discovered that I was learning to read in a way that I had not even considered possible.  I am still learning about reading but now, I am also reading to learn to ask questions.  Wendell Berry has been asking these questions for a long time.  His questions about patterns, economy, conservation, and healthy living are worth considering.

 

Further Readings (I have already started reading The Unsettling of America):

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America:  Culture & Agriculture.  1977.  Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1977.  This book is available in most libraries.  Read a review of this book here.

James George Frazer, The Golden Bough.  First published in 1890.  My edition was published in 1994 by Oxford University Press.  Available online, free, here.

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Agriculture, Anthropology, Being a Mature Student, Biology, Concilience, Economics, Education, Environment, Food, Geography, Geology, History, It's All Connected..., Nature, Political Science, Science, Sociology, Technology, Things that are Real, Water and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Water Rights & Environmental Damage

Posted on July 24, 2015 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I have been reading lately.  I have been reading a lot, lately….  I finished reading this article last night, on the bus on my way home from work.  Yes, I use public transit.  I gave up my personal gas pedal almost 3 years ago.

Water Rights and Environmental Damage:  An Enquiry into Stewardship in the Context of Abstraction Licensing Reform in England and Wales.  Written by Donald McGillivary.  Published by Environmental Law Review, Volume 15, 2013.  Pages 205-224.

Donald McGillivray, Professor of Environmental Law, University of Sussex, has a current publication list here.

I found this article doing a random search on water rights.  I was looking more towards Western Canada, where I live, but all information is good and this article is full of definitions that will probably help me in further reading.  And, bonus marks, Professor McGillivray’s writing is concise and clear.

Probably the most important things that I realized while reading this article was that the environment is not protected by stewardship rights or laws.  That the only time we really protect the environment is when there is an overlap of needs between someone holding water (or land) rights and the environment.  In other words, when it benefits someone to protect something, the environment is looked after.  Not something that I had not realized before but, seeing it in a published article is different.

 

A couple of ‘Further Readings’ (from the footnotes) that I made note of:

E.D. Elliot, ‘The Tragi-Comedy of the Commons: Evolutionary Biology, Economics and Environmental Law‘ (2001) 20 Viriginia Environmental Law Journal 17, pages 17-18.

C.P. Rodgers.  ‘Nature’s Place? Property Rights, Property Rules and Environmental Stewardship‘ (2009), Volume 68(3) Cambridge Law Journal 550.

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Agriculture, Anthropology, Being a Mature Student, Biology, Concilience, Economics, Education, Environment, Food, Geography, Geology, History, It's All Connected..., Nature, Political Science, Science, Sociology, Technology, Water and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Night Lights and Bird Environments…

Posted on November 28, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

This is a book I picked up at the local university library.  If your community/public library does not have this book for loan, you local university/college library might!  Most university and college libraries have community library cards that are free, some of these libraries charge for a card (it goes to a good cause!) and, you can always visit and take a look around.  Some of these places are absolutely amazing and they only begin with the book collection.  There are often other collections too….

~~~~~

Chapter:  Influences of Artifical Light on Marine Birds by William A. Montevecchi.

Book:  Ecological Consequences of Artifical Night Lighting.  Edited by Catherine Rich and Travis Longcore.

Published in:  2006

Published:  Island Press:  Washington, DC

Find more of William Montevecchi’s writing here  –  Publications Link

If the link does not work, please contact me and I will try to help you find a copy.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Here are some articles that I have found that might be of interest in a “connections” sort of way.  I hope that you might find them interesting too.

~~~~~

Article:  Ecological Responses to Climate Change in a Bird-Impacted High Arctic Pond (Nordaustlandet, Svalbard).  pdf

Author:  Jules M. Blais, Lynda E. Kimpe, Doninique McMahon, Bronwyn E. Keatley, Mark L. Mallory, Marianne S.V. Douglas, and John P. Smol.

Published in:  2005

Journal:  American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 309, No. 5733 (Jul. 15, 2005), page 445.

My copy was downloaded in November, 2014.  I found it here http://post.queensu.ca/~pearl/Blaisetal2005Science.pdf

~~~~~

Article:  Disturbance to a Foraging Seabird by Sea-Based Tourism:  Implications for Reserve Management in Marine Protected Areas.  pdf

Authors:  Alberto Velando and Ignacio Munilla.

Published in:  2011

Journal:  Biological Conservation, Vol. 144, pages 1167-1174.

My copy was downloaded in November, 2014.  I found it here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291551-6709/issues

Find more of Alberto Velando’s writing here  –  Publications List

Find more of Ignacio Munilla’s writing here  –  Publications List

~~~~~

Article:  Light-Induced Bird Strikes on Vessels in Southwest Greenland:  Technical Report No. 84, 2010.  pdf

Author:  Flemming R. Merkel

Translated by:  Soren Kristiansen

National Environmental Research Institute, Aarhus University Greenland Institute of National Resources.

Publisher:  Pinngortitaleriffik, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.

Publication Date:  November 2010.

My copy was downloaded in October, 2014.  I found it here http://www.natur.gl

Find more of Flemming Merkel’s writing here  –  Publications List

~~~~~

Article:  Reducing the Ecological Consequences of Night-Time Light Pollution:  Options and Developments.  pdf

Authors:  Kevin J. Gaston, Thomas W. Davies, Jonathan Bennie, and John Hopkins.

Published in:  2012

Journal:  Journal of Applied Ecology, Vol. 144, pages 1167-1174.

My copy was downloaded in November, 2014.  I found it here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546378/

Find more of Kevin Gaston’s writing here  –  Publications List

Find more of Thomas Davies’s writing here  –  Publications List

Find more of Jonathan Bennie’s writing here  –  Publications List

~~~~~

If any of these links do not work, please contact me and I will try to help you find the article or book that you are looking for.

~~~~~

If you find any broken links on this blog, please leave a comment or send me a note so that it can be repaired.  Thank  you….

Leave a comment

Posted in Biology, Concilience, Economics, Environment, Food, It's All Connected..., Nature, Ornithology, Science and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Links to Two Articles on Molecular Cell Biology – Yes, I do read this stuff….

Posted on November 26, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I am placing the link information for these articles here with the thought that easier access to articles such as this will encourage reading (or, maybe in this case curiosity) and open discussion.  This is also an open invitation for you to write a precis on this article (or, any other article that you find necessary or interesting)….

Once you actually get into reading articles like these ones, they are not nearly as intimidating as they could be!  This particular article even gives you some of the trickier definitions in the marginalia.

You can find more Biochemistry articles here.

~~~~~

Article:  Versatility of the Mitochondrial Protein Import Machinery.

Authors:  Nikolaus Pfanner (Publications List) and Andreas Geissler.

Published in:  2001

Journal:  Nature Reviews, Molecular Cell Biology, Volume 2, May 2001, pages 339 – 349.

My copy was downloaded in November, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access Geissler%20and%20Pfanner.pdf

If any of the links do not work, please send a note or leave a comment and I will try to help.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Article:  The Versatility and Universality of Calcium Signalling.

Authors:  Michael J. Berridge (Publications), Peter Lipp and Martin D. Bootman

Published in:  2000

Journal:  Nature Reviews, Molecular Cell Biology.  Volume 1, October 2000, pages 11 – 21.

My copy was downloaded in November, 2014.  I found it here http://web1.johnshopkins.edu/csl/academics/580427/rsc/580427_4_calciumsignalingreview_032106.pdf

Publications Lists for the Authors:

  • Michael J. Berridge  –  Link
  • Peter Lipp  –  Link
  • Martin D. Bootman  –  Link

If any of the links do not work, please send a note or leave a comment and I will try to help.

~~~~~

If you find any broken links on this blog, please leave a comment or send me a note so that it can be repaired.  Thank  you….

Leave a comment

Posted in Biology, Concilience, It's All Connected..., Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Nature, Science, Things that are Real and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

A (Non-Earth Shattering) Precis on Ancient Rice Agriculture

Posted on September 20, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I have a favourite subject at school, archaeology.  I don’t see the digging up of artifacts as a means to an end and by this I mean:  identify, catalogue, store or display, move on….  I do mean that I believe we can combine the knowledge we gain about what was happening a million years ago, a thousand years ago, yesterday — and use our insights to discover who we are today and where we are going.

I have written a precis.  I write very short summaries when I am doing research papers for the classes I take at the local polytechnic. This one was partially written as I studied for a final exam.  I have finished it to place it here.

 

Anping, P., 1998. Notes on New Advancements and Revelations in the Agricultural Archaeology of Early Rice Domestication in the Dongting Lake Region. Antiquity 72, 878-885.

 

My Precis

Ancient grains of rice found in Liyang Plain archaeological sites reveal to us that rice agriculture may have developed quickly in this region and concurrently with other, nearby sites.

 

My Precis Expanded:

The Liyang Plain lies to the north of Dongting Lake and includes the Li River and the associated lake and tributary system. The area has abundant rainfall and sunshine which result in favourable geographical and environmental conditions for humans and agriculture.

The archaeological site of Pengtoushan was uncovered in 1988 and Bashidang was discovered soon after. Six excavations in the Bashidang have revealed Neolithic sites that yielded rice kernels as well as other plant and animal remains. Prof. Zhang Wenru of the Chinese Agricultural University was invited to do a preliminary assessment of the Bashidang rice and three major characteristics of the Bashidang rice as a ‘small grain ancient rice’ were identified.

Findings in these sites show that the population dates from early Paleolithic until Neolithic periods with domesticated and wild rice remains dating to 10,000 B.P. Rice culture developed here very quickly, possibly with the aid of good environmental and climate conditions that encouraged population growth in the area.

 

I found the original article here:

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=e96e7ff0-7e78-418a-811f-5470a5cba853%40sessionmgr110&hid=123&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=1460047

If you have any trouble locating the article please contact me or, call your local college or university library for assistance.

 

Please leave a comment.  Whether you agree or disagree with what I have understood from this article, your thoughts are of interest to me.  All published articles are, or should be, available to everyone.  Sometimes it takes a bit of effort…

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Agriculture, Anthropology, Archaeology, Concilience, Food, It's All Connected..., Literature, Things that are Real and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.