Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains … and buries your car: You know how lots of people are worried that this year’s drought could turn the Midwest into another Dust Bowl? Don’t look now, but there’s a massive dust storm choking northern Oklahoma, to the point that it’s causing car accidents and forcing highways to be shut down. Associated Press
You’re getting warmer: Hot spring? Check. Scorching summer? Check. Warm fall? Check. … You see where we’re going with this. The latest long-term forecast is not good news for drought-ridden Western states hoping for some winter relief from the high heat and low rainfall. USA Today
Well, duh: TransCanada, the company trying to build the controversial new Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, had to shut down its other Keystone pipeline, which goes to Illinois and Oklahoma, this week -- for “possible safety reasons.” Considering all the safety concerns with transporting tar sands, maybe they should just leave it that way? Associated Press
(And, speaking of safety concerns about pipelines...)
Ire-on ore: Here’s an explanation for why scientists are so pissed off at the businessman who ran his own unauthorized geoengineering experiment by dumping 100 tons of iron dust into the Pacific and trying to “seed” the growth of plankton, which would absorb more global warming pollution from the atmosphere. Basically, their concern boils down to: he might have made things even worse. And since he didn’t use sound scientific methods, there’s no way to reliably measure the impact of his experiment, anyway. Know who’s not complaining, though? Pacific salmon, who like to eat the animals that eat plankton. Yummy, yummy plankton. New York Times
Smartest farmer in America?: Maybe. Joel Salatin, whose sustainable farming methods have been hailed by Michael Pollan and the documentary Food Inc., talks about the Founding Fathers, why agriculture requires sacrifice, the fallacy that sterility = safety, why farmers need to reduce their energy use, and how the best growers “choreograph a biological ballet of plants and animals.” Also, why most food today kinda sucks. The Sun
Get tough, Smokey Bear: How can we try to prevent future wildfires like the ones still raging across the West this year (see OnEarth’s in-depth fire coverage)? Increase fines for humans who spark them through negligence, for one thing. New York Times
Bacon, interrupted: An illustrated guide to the culinary crisis that will not end: the great bacon panic of 2012. Grist
Tips: @OnEarthMag (tag it #greenreads)
Image: Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas in 1935. Wikimedia Commons
