Finnish Biologist Writes Detailed Explanation of Why They Definitely Don't Use Rakes to Prevent Forest Fires and It Is Simply Awesome. https://t.co/njTNuP98vh via @TPM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 19, 2018
Did anyone ever figure out what the Oval Office Squatter thought he was talking about?
… My short non-biologist summary would be this: it’s fairly wet and cold in Finland so it’s pretty different. They don’t use rakes to avoid forest fires. Their big problem is bog fires. Many of the best parts of JI’s letter are cris de coeur, insisting on the non-role of rakes in any part of Finnish forage management.
On behalf of all TPM Readers, thank you to TPM Reader JI and we’re sorry about the Trump thing…
On that, we can certainly agree.
Also informative, and infinitely more depressing, is the new report from ProPublica/NYTimes — “Palm Oil Was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead It Unleashed a Catastrophe”:
… The dirt road was ruler straight, but deep holes and errant boulders tossed our tiny Toyota back and forth. Trucks coughed out black smoke, their beds brimming over with seven-ton loads of palm fruit rocking back and forth on tires as tall as people. Clear-cut expanses soon gave way to a uniform crop of oil-palm groves: orderly trees, a sign that we had crossed into an industrial palm plantation. Oil-palm trees look like the coconut-palm trees you see on postcards from Florida — they grow to more than 60 feet tall and flourish on the peaty wetland soil common in lowland tropics. But they are significantly more valuable. Every two weeks or so, each tree produces a 50-pound bunch of walnut-size fruit, bursting with a red, viscous oil that is more versatile than almost any other plant-based oil of its kind. Indonesia is rich in timber and coal, but palm oil is its biggest export. Around the world, the oil from its meat and seeds has long been an indispensable ingredient in everything from soap to ice cream. But it has now become a key ingredient of something else: biodiesel, fuel for diesel engines that has been wholly or partly made from vegetable oil…
Sunday Morning (Garden-Adjacent) Open ThreadPost + Comments (141)