Blog

A brief in support of conservation compliance

February 28, 2013

Conservation compliance – an effort to link federal subsidies for farmers’ crop insurance premiums to protection of wetlands and highly erodible land – is still a hot issue as Congress … Read more

Walz backs 'Sodsaver' crop insurance limit

February 20, 2013

U.S. Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota has introduced a “Sodsaver” bill that would reduce the federal subsidy for crop insurance on land converted from native grasslands to row crops. The … Read more

No Raids, No Shifts, No Gimmicks

February 8, 2013

Conservation Minnesota, which has been publishing detailed analyses of state spending on conservation and the environment since 2002, has issued its latest report. It is an accounting of how the … Read more

Ikes set Summit on water Feb. 23

February 7, 2013

This year’s Summit, sponsored by the Minnesota Division of the Izaak Walton League, will be Saturday, Feb. 23, at Normandale Community College in Bloomington. The theme is Watershed-Water Management Solutions: … Read more

A moderating view on global temperature rise

February 7, 2013

So…are some reputable scientists starting to say that climate change is real, it’s human caused and its consequences will be severe, but that the global temperature increase from accumulating greenhouse … Read more

Minnesota moose herd down by a third

February 7, 2013

Minnesota’s slumping moose population has fallen further, and the Department of Natural Resources responded by suspending next fall’s moose hunting season. The moose population in Northeastern Minnesota dropped 35 percent … Read more

PFOS levels decline in the Mississippi

January 29, 2013

Levels of a chemical once manufactured by the 3M company — perfluorooctane sulfate, or PFOS — are declining in the Mississippi River fish below the Twin Cities, but the levels … Read more

Thoreau, Leopold and climate change

January 21, 2013

Old journals that recorded events in phenology — the first spring blooms on flowers, the migrations of waterfowl, when lakes freeze up in the winter and when the ice goes … Read more

Read and comment on climate change forecast

January 21, 2013

A draft National Climate Assessment that predicts the impact of global warming in the U.S. by 2050 was released last week by a huge team of scientists. A Pioneer Press … Read more

Take this bark and call me in the morning

January 15, 2013

A factory in Two Harbors, Minn., is using a process developed at the University of Minnesota’s Natural Resources Research Institute in Duluth to extract chemicals from birch bark. The bark … Read more