AlternativesMagazine

Drones are taking on deforestation and planting trees more efficiently than ever before. Currently, more than 6.5 billion trees are lost each year because of human activities--burning land to make way for livestock, harvesting wood, etc.--and natural disasters. Replanting efforts have accelerated in recent years and deforestation has slowed, but there's still a major gap between trees destroyed and trees planted. Throughout history, humanity has created a major tree deficit that will be hard to close.  In all, it's estimated that the global tree population has dropped 46% since the dawn of human civilization .  Typically, replanting is done by hand because trees require careful preparation to grow properly.  Human labor, of course, has limits and so replanting efforts tend to be modest.  A former NASA scientist realized that the current model would never close the deforestation deficit, so he devised a strategy to accelerate the process, and it depends on

We are constantly being told by companies such as Monsanto, that the pesticides used in more conventional farming are harmless, but this farmer disagrees. Farmer Jim Cochran decide to stop using pesticides and go 100% natural after he found he was being poisoned by the chemicals he was using on his crops.  Jim Cochran now runs the first large-scale organic strawberry farm, after quitting using pesticides 35 years ago. In 1981 Jim noticed a change when he started growing conventional strawberries, and using pesticides like everyone else did. He said  “My eyes started to water, and I started to get all jittery,” he went on. “I said ‘Oh boy, this is not good stuff…We have to get away from this stuff.” Jim now owns Swanton Berry Farm, that attracts many visitors due to it's organic status. Organic strawberry farms are extremely rare in the US. He now uses beneficial bugs, single row planting, crop rotations, and other classic techniques to help grow his strawberries, all methods whi

by PAUL FASSA   Allowing and encouraging domestic hemp cultivation would be a boon for small farmers, especially organic farmers. I’m talking only about industrial hemp, not medical cannabis/marijuana, which continues to prove its merits and gain acceptance. Industrial hemp’s use should be a no-brainer. But it’s a complex boondoggle of legal and bureaucratic nonsense even without THC, the molecule that leads to “Reefer Madness”. Industrial hemp commercial cultivation is legal in Canada. But the USA hemp industry was pushed to the side by government connected industry insiders whose monopolies were threatened when it appeared hemp may boom and compete for the very products of their monopolist concerns. Circa 1937, the hemp industry had been given a mechanical invention gift known as the decoricator machine was invented. It was a machine that was to hemp what the 19th Century cotton gin was. It replaced hand shredding of hemp to glean its fibers, fibers that could be used for textiles

Thermogram testing is a much safer way to early detect breast cancer than the more commonly used mammogram. The mammogram is widely regarded as the standard way to detect breast cancer but studies show it isn't all that safe, or even accurate. As women get older they are encouraged to get a mammogram test every one or two years in order to detect abnormal cancer cells, but many women don't know about a different method of testing, thermogram testing. Mammograms are considered very dangerous by some of the medical community, so dangerous in fact that they are said to promote the growth of cancer cells due to the large amount of radiation involved. A single mammogram can expose you to the same amount of radiation as 1,000 chest X-rays, put into some perspective that is equal to about 3 chest X-rays per day for a year. Cancer expert Dr. Samuel Epstein has said  “The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about