which came first?

And more importantly, was it humanely raised, and how did it taste?

For them's that's interested, here's a decent story about a local farm which is the largest producer of cage-free eggs in New England, and the growing movement towards cage-free, as well as free-range, pasture-raised, and organic chickens and eggs. Much of the large-scale factory farming today involves a variety of cruel and inhumane practices and techniques towards the animals involved, and has the economic effect of forcing smaller farmers, who can't compete with mega-farms, out of the market. Just in general, but particularly as Peak Oil effects make it increasingly uneconomical to ship food long distances, a healthy local farm economy is going to be important in every region. The kinds of trends mentioned in the story are just a start, but they give me hope. I'll happily pay an extra buck for a dozen eggs to support a local farmer who treats his chickens humanely.

Actually, we get our summer eggs from one of my partner's co-workers, who's been trying to convince us to turn our chicken coop from a wood shed and generator house back into a henhouse. Eh, not this year...raising chickens is something I'm happy to let others do for now, there's a fairly good reason they're called "fowl." ;>

Forests into Condos

Nothing hugely surprising here, but a decent article, focusing also on the positive responses to changes in forest ownership -- including local community, government and conservation organization purchase of woodlands. It is perhaps somewhat ironic that a large part of the solution to saving forests from being chopped into lots for development may come from managed logging.

Timberlands in Turmoil

America's timberlands are in turmoil. From the remote backwoods to groves near small towns, forests are shrinking: 35 acres here, 500 there. The decline is so incremental it masks a crisis. Viewed from a national perspective, however, the pace of the losses is staggering:

The United States loses 1 million acres of forests annually, an area larger than all of Rhode Island, according to the U.S. Forest Service's Forests on the Edge: Housing Development on America's Private Forests, which also reports:

13 million acres lost since 1992, almost the size of West Virginia.
23 million acres gone by 2050, an area larger than all of Maine.

The culprit is clear. America's timberlands are being converted to development.