Ron Meador
MinnPost
Contact Ron
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Ron:
With parasitic mites in ascendance, honeybee losses reach a grim new high
A principal researcher says he worries about commercial beekeepers, not their honeybees, disappearing if trends continue. → Read More
Once a world leader in creating public lands, U.S. now leads in shrinking them
The driver is industrial use, like mining and logging, and the pace of lifting protections is accelerating. → Read More
New energy finance still flows heavily to the same old fuels, global study finds
The world is off-track for long-term sustainability, and maybe for meeting short-term demand growth as well. → Read More
Air pollution may damage every organ in the human body, research review finds
Fine particulates are linked to cataracts; also, they may travel directly from nose to brain, bypassing lungs. → Read More
What’s driving amphibian decline? The world’s worst disease for biodiversity
A pair of fungi are implicated in 501 species declines, exceeding the havoc caused by rats — and house cats. → Read More
Now we know how much global warming is reducing the world’s seafood harvest
The study finds an overall decline in sustainable fish catch of 4.1 percent worldwide. It represents an annual loss in seafood production of about 1.4 million metric tons, or a bit over 3 billion pounds. → Read More
The ‘Green New Deal’ isn’t all that new — but maybe this idea’s time has come
Thomas L. Friedman gets credit for coining the term in 2007, but others were thinking along these lines still earlier. → Read More
Of Teflon and A-bombs, Chicago’s buried river and other great reads
Three tales of things buried beneath the earth. → Read More
It’s hard to find much of a ‘green wave’ in this year’s voting on ballot initiatives
People tend to vote for more parks, if the cost isn't too high. Progress on mining, energy or climate is harder. → Read More
A new way of seeing species extinction, and humans’ impact on other mammals
Some species count more than others in our 'evolutionary history' — should we save them first? → Read More
New outlook on global warming: Best prepare for social collapse, and soon
Key trends are accelerating, with major catastrophes in less than 10 years, a British sustainability expert says. → Read More
Great reads on algal poison factories, American climate refugees, and more
A Minnesota transplant in a South Carolina lab untangles natural toxins more deadly than sarin gas. → Read More
New data show that key seasonal patterns are changing around the globe
While Minnesota summers and winters are both getting warmer, the most significant temperature change is taking place during the summer. → Read More
Rising sea levels threaten to drown domestic internet
Within the next 15 years, persistent coastal flooding will submerge more than 4,000 miles of the fiber-optic conduits that carry internet traffic in the United States. → Read More
From a vanishing porpoise to advanced organic farming, some great new reads
Do you know the word “endling,” for the last survivor of a species going extinct?I did not, until I read Ben Golfarb’s terrific saga for Pacific Standard’s June/July issue about the doomed vaquita and the seagoing radicals who are trying to save it. It leads a selection of good recent reads I can recommend for holiday consideration: → Read More
Lawsuits on mining leases near BWCA resist governance by memo and whim
Two more lawsuits were filed this week against the Trump administration’s about-face on Twin Metals Minnesota’s mineral leases at the edge of the Boundary Waters, bringing the total to three.The documents bring some clarity and concision to the tangled procedural history of the leases’ renewals, cancellation and re-granting. → Read More
Flooding surges in U.S. coastal cities, thanks to relentlessly rising sea levels
The incidence of high-tide flooding — also called “sunny day flooding,” “nuisance flooding” or “saltwater flooding” — has increased by 50 percent in just the last eight years, a new report says. → Read More
As Lyme goes global, a new book sees it as 'first epidemic of climate change'
Ticks can, and sometimes do, deliver two, three, or four diseases in one bite. So resourceful are infected ticks that two feeding side by side on the same animal may pass pathogens one to the other and never infect the host. So clever is the Lyme pathogen that infected ticks are more efficient at finding prey than uninfected ticks. → Read More
Great reads on ending hunger, losing permafrost and engineering coral
I’m not sure all environmental debate will distill into just two contending paradigms, let alone two embodying individuals. Still, it’s an impressive effort Charles C. → Read More
CDC reports a surge in insect-borne illness, and Lyme disease leads the way
With our warming climate as a key driver, the nation’s spreading population of deer ticks is likely to cause 300,000 to 400,000 cases of Lyme disease this year, new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest. → Read More