In fact, agriculture is not the “number one driver” of the rural economy, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Agriculture (including forestry, fisheries, and hunting) ranks fifth in earnings out of seven rural economic sectors tracked by the BEA. Agriculture ranks sixth out of seven sectors in the number of jobs it provides in rural America. [node:read-more:link]
The most recent CDC report on the growing problem of antibiotic resistant microbes was published in 2014, entitled Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the U.S., 2013. The study states, “Antimicrobial resistance is one of our most serious health threats. Infections from resistant bacteria are now too common, and some pathogens have even become resistant to multiple types or classes of antibiotics. [node:read-more:link]
After an unusually intense heat wave, downpour or drought, Noah Diffenbaugh and his research group inevitably receive phone calls and emails asking whether human-caused climate change played a role."The question is being asked by the general public and by people trying to make decisions about how to manage the risks of a changing climate," said Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. [node:read-more:link]
About 190 million screw flies later, South Florida appears to be free of the flesh-eating pest that threatened to wipe out the planet’s last remaining herd of tiny Key deer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will release its final sterile fly to combat an infestation confirmed in September, which marked the first outbreak in the continental U.S. in three decades. [node:read-more:link]
The estimated 3,000 to 4,000 snow geese that perished in December 2016 in the Berkeley Pit’s toxic water died of both heavy metals and sulfuric acid, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Ryan Moehring. The necropsy report does not make the findings clear, stating only that lesions in the stomach, intestines, and throats were severe and “suggestive of chemical tissue damage induced by a corrosive substance.”Copper and zinc, both of which were found inside the birds’ stomachs, could have been the cause or a contributing factor in the lesions, according to the report. [node:read-more:link]
Consumers are demanding more antibiotic-free meat. At McDonald's, so is a group of nuns. The world's largest burger chain and its fast-food brethren have made commitments to remove antibiotics from chicken, but plans to curb the use of antibiotics in beef and pork have been far less common. It's a far more complex and expensive proposition, and fast-food chains are largely taking a wait-and-see approach before changing the way their burgers and bacon are made. [node:read-more:link]
This research, conducted in 2016, estimated the effects of increasing the minimum wage in rural and urban Pennsylvania from $7.25 to either $9.00 or $10.10 per hour, assuming that such a change will be implemented in 2017. In terms of socio-demographic characteristics, there were many similarities between rural and urban minimum wage earners in Pennsylvania. They were mostly female, white, younger, never married, with a high school diploma or less, English speaking, driving to work, and commuting less than 15 minutes to work. [node:read-more:link]
The Great Recession continues to reverberate in rural America and is the most likely cause of the slight decline in population from 2015 to 2016. But in other ways, rural counties appear to be headed back to “normal” population gains. All in all, it’s another wait-and-see year for rural population trends. On one hand, the rural population decreased again. It’s a problematic trend, because it usually means fewer people working, fewer kids in school, fewer people shopping and doing the other things that contribute to the local economy. [node:read-more:link]
Current wildfire policy can't adequately protect people, homes and ecosystems from the longer, hotter fire seasons climate change is causing, according to a new paper led by the University of Colorado Boulder. Efforts to extinguish every blaze and reduce the buildup of dead wood and forest undergrowth are becoming increasingly inadequate on their own. Instead, the authors -- a team of wildfire experts -- urge policymakers and communities to embrace policy reform that will promote adaptation to increasing wildfire and warming. [node:read-more:link]
President Trump is still promising to bring back coal jobs. But the underlying reasons for coal employment’s decline — automation, falling electricity demand, cheap natural gas, technological progress in wind and solar — won’t go away. Meanwhile, last week the Treasury Department officially (and correctly) declined to name China as a currency manipulator, making nonsense of everything Mr. Trump has said about reviving manufacturing.So will the Trump administration ever do anything substantive to bring back mining and manufacturing jobs? [node:read-more:link]
