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The scrubland, super-heroine against drought
The scrubland, super-heroine against droughtReporterre - Apr 19, 2023
As water shortages set in across France, let's take a walk through the scrubland. This typical environment of the Mediterranean rim abounds with plants adapted to drought. However, it remains threatened.
It stings, it scratches, it scratches. Under an already bright sun, our spring ride quickly takes on the air of an obstacle course. Slalom between the kermes oaks with serrated leaves and the scorpion broom, take care not to stumble on the rockeries, watch for the beneficial shade of a pine tree. “Welcome to the garrigue! said Thibault Suisse with a smile. Our guide for the day is a botanist with the Écologistes de l'Euzière, an association in Hérault which does, among other things, environmental education.
"The particularity of this environment is that it is semi-arid", explains the naturalist. And that is precisely what brings us here, to this bushy massif a few kilometers from Montpellier: in these times of chronic drought, the Mediterranean region, which has lived without much water for millennia, is a model. Tomorrow perhaps, other areas of France will look like these bare and amazing hills. n these times of chronic drought, the scrubland, which has existed for millennia without much water, is a model in France.
The habit does not make the monk, goes the saying. And the scrubland, under its surly appearance, hides a multitude of species with superpowers. To survive here, the vegetation has indeed had to adapt to the lack of water, the scorching summers, the fires...
Small, leafy and shiny
First singularity, “the plants here do not lose their leaves, explains Thibault Suisse. They keep them all year round to be able to photosynthesize and develop as soon as the conditions are optimal”. Many Mediterranean plants germinate and flower in the fall, when most of their continental counterparts prefer spring or summer. Another originality is their size: "The smaller we are, the less water we need", specifies the naturalist.
Faced with droughts, it is also — and above all — a question of keeping water, in other words, of not sweating too much. “Many species have developed the 'K-Way technique', points out our guide. Their leaves are coated with a thin film of wax, called a cuticle. » With their shiny foliage, the kermes oak or the holm oak sweat less in summer.
Another unstoppable trick: “Thyme or rosemary have very thin leaves, juniper cade has rather a needle,” describes the naturalist. The Phoenician juniper has opted for scales. » Different options for the same result: reducing the evapotranspiration surface.
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The 10 greatest environmental victories of the decade
The 10 greatest environmental victories of the decadeMr Globalization - Feb 19, 2023
The fight to save planetary ecosystems is difficult and often in vain.
It happens however that by dint of stubbornness the militants end up wresting some resounding victories from the public authorities.
We retrace the ten greatest successes of the last decade.
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“Too many beehives in town”. When Helping Bees Disappoints Them
Mr Globalization - Feb 01, 2023
Bees in town? We see this phenomenon developing more and more in urban areas and, above all, in companies. But if the insertion of hives in the city started from an ecological intention aiming to protect pollinating insects, it is today very contested.
“If the bee were to disappear from the surface of the globe, man would only have 5 years to live”. This quote from Albert Einstein takes on its full meaning in the current environmental context. It also alerts to the importance of these insignificant insects for many of us, but ultimately vital to the survival of human and non-human species, as well as their ecosystems. How can such small living beings be of such magnitude in the face of the climate crisis we are going through?
Bees are our allies
Pollinators contribute directly to food security, the UN reminds us via its program for the environment. If this category includes animals such as monkeys, birds or rodents, it is especially known for insects.
According to beekeeping experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: 75% of global food production depends on pollinating insects. Although the wind promotes pollination, between 60% and 90% of wild plants require the help of pollinating insects, such as bees, in order to reproduce. And to speak the economic language of our current models, according to the NGO Greenpeace, pollination represents 265 billion dollars of service rendered in the world.
In fact, the global production of honey per year amounts to around 1,6 million tonnes, with around 81 million active hives around the globe (May 2019 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES)).
If these figures are impressive by their scale, they are partly explained by a historical phenomenon of the insertion of bees. The latter, contrary to what one thinks, does not date from yesterday, because in the Middle Ages, already, the human exploited the hives in town. In recent decades, particularly due to global warming, many scientists are sounding the alarm on the urgency of conserving biodiversity. It is therefore in an ecological approach that the phenomenon of integration of bees has resumed and is increasing.
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Danger. Consolidation of the electric car market is coming!
Danger. Consolidation of the electric car market is coming!Insolentiae – Jan 18, 2023
Tesla has just launched a price offensive with price reductions of up to 8.500 euros on the Model 3 in France.
Why such discounts?
Because it is a 17% drop in selling prices that we are talking about for the flagship vehicles of the Tesla brand.
So what's going on?
We spoke with David Jacquot about my analysis of the situation which is not insignificant in my opinion.
What Elon Musk has just done by embarking on the price war is to launch… the consolidation of the electric vehicle market and this will be hard on many manufacturers.
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The environmental struggles targeted by the Ministry of the Interior
Mr Globalization - Jan 17, 2023
This strange habit of the French “security services” of communicating, without appearing to do so, about their intentions, once again sounds like a test for a new repressive salvo.
On Tuesday, December 20, at the start of the warmest Christmas holidays ever recorded, the newspaper Le Parisien published the good pages of a mysterious report by Territorial Intelligence, "leaked" on purpose, under the noisy title The worrying radical shift of environmental activists. Faced with this open announcement of the criminalization of environmental activism, the only one capable of stopping the bulldozers of deadly capitalism, Les Uprisings of the Earth wrote a forum and a call for solidarity that Mr Mondialisation supports and relays.
This "radical turn" of ecologists would therefore be the result of the hidden maneuvers of a group of "ultra-left" recently converted to the environmental cause, slyly concealed under the sign "Les Uprisings of the Earth", and not the sign the radical nature of the situation in which we are all caught up to our necks.
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Fertile Disobedience - website
Fertile Disobedience - websiteFertile Disobedience - Jan 12, 2023
Fertile disobedience is a movement whose absolute will is to preserve living beings and regenerate ecosystems when they have been degraded; this by all means.
Three fundamental pillars anchor the philosophy of fertile disobedience:
- Integrate in Nature
- Aggravate the territories
- Do not wait for laws to change to act
The human species is not condemned to degrade the environments that shelter it.
We can all become guardians of the Living.
And precisely, we invite you to become its guardians.
“A day will come when our society will be judged not by the way it has dominated nature, but by how wild it has been able to safeguard. »
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Letter to my son
Letter to my sonInternational Network - Dec 24, 2022
My son, Friday, instead of going to high school, you participated in the demonstration for the defense of the climate and the saving of the planet.
You can't imagine how proud I was to see you involved in such an essential cause. Deeply moved by so much maturity and nobility of soul, I was totally won over by the relevance of your fight. Also, I inform you that I have decided to be unfailingly supportive and, from today, to do everything to reduce the carbon footprint of the family.
So, to start, we'll get rid of all the Smartphones in the house. And then also television. You won't mind, of course, if your console suffers the same fate: it's said to generate polluting electronic waste that poisons the rivers of Southeast Asia.
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Light habitat: a fairy tale too good to be true?
Reporterre - 21 Sep 2022
Stay or go? This is the response expected by a couple in Brittany, who have built a straw-earth house.
On trial on September 19, he will be fixed on his fate on October 3. A case illustrating the complexity that surrounds light habitats.
With its mud-straw walls and rounded shapes, Amalia and Harald's home looks like a hobbit's house, straight out of a movie. Nestled in an old quarry, the house overlooks a little corner of paradise where goats, geese, chickens and dogs live together freely. Protected from animals by a fence, a space is devoted to market gardening in permaculture. Tomatoes, squash and butternut: the fairy tale continues in this vegetable garden, where everything is abundance and profusion. “It's the magic of compost made in dry toilets! jokes Amalia, picking juicy, sweet-tasting tomatoes. However, the adventure could soon stop.
On September 19, Harald and Amalia were summoned before the criminal court of Quimper: they are accused of having made arrangements on a non-constructible zone without authorization from the town hall. Their house risks being destroyed, and their beautiful project abandoned. Without a lawyer, and unprepared for the workings of justice, the couple struggled to make themselves heard during the hearing: "It was a total fiasco...", testifies Amalia on the telephone, her voice still trembling at the out of court. How did they get there? To understand, you have to go back three years.
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Site: Reconnect with nature and discover the uses of plants
Site: Reconnect with nature and discover the uses of plantsFeuillandrole – August 15, 2022
The Feuillandrôle association has been organizing training in medicinal and edible plants, botanical outings and courses around natural practices since 2013.
Created in 2013, the Feuillandrôle association aims to promote ecological and autonomous initiatives, and in particular to reconnect with nature through knowledge of wild plants and natural practices.
It is currently led by Françoise Philidet, herbalist, trainer and lecturer, graduate of the ELPM (Lyonnaises School of Medicinal Plants). For 25 years, in Savoie within the Calenduline association and in Hérault, with the Feuillandrôle association, she has trained hundreds of people wishing to reconnect with the plant world or perfect their knowledge of plants. Her past as a teacher and then as a biodynamic farmer as well as her ecological and health commitments allow her to offer a global vision of man and the living world. Speakers from the region or elsewhere join it regularly to offer courses around well-being and natural knowledge.
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Jellyfish invade sick oceans
Reporterre - Jul 27, 2022
Gelatinous organisms are proliferating in several places around the world, disrupting ecosystems. These pullulations are a symptom of the degradation of the oceans due to human activities.
For several decades, jellyfish outbreaks have been increasing around the world. During “blooms”, invasions, they sometimes devour the larvae of other species, reducing their population to a trickle.
One of the most illustrious examples is that of the Benguela Current, off the coast of Namibia. Biomass of jellyfish has exploded there since the 1990s. In 2006, it was estimated at 13 million tonnes, three times that of fish in the region.
This once productive area is now a “ghost town”, where jellyfish have supplanted the vast majority of other living organisms.
“Jellyfish are like germs in an open wound, causing infection. They are only a symptom. A red flag, the alarm signal that the oceans are in distress. »
