Reflections on Growing Power (Civil Eats): Once held up as a model for urban farming, the Milwaukee nonprofit Growing Power shuttered last year. What can the food movement learn from its demise?
Shrinking Salton Sea (KUNC): Amid an 18-year drought in the Southwest, a receding man-made lake in California could pose a threat to farming in the Colorado River basin.
Uncertain future for greater sage-grouse (Mother Jones): “One weird western bird is again at the center of a battle between conservationists and the federal government.” Wildlife and environmental groups say the Trump administration is refusing to honor a bipartisan plan, reached during the Obama years, to protect the ground-dwelling bird.
White House chides Zinke, Pruitt for travel (CNN): Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt were among four cabinet officials privately called to the White House for a scolding about questionable ethical behavior. Zinke and Pruitt face investigations over travel.
Diet is the story of evolution (Smithsonian): In the long run, “what we eat shapes our evolutionary path.” Even the color of human skin may shift, at least in part, under the influence of diet.
Trump elevates climate skeptic to cabinet (Inside Climate News): President Trump’s choice for his new secretary of state, CIA chief Mike Pompeo, “signals a hardening against international engagement on climate change.” As a congressman, Pompeo was a skeptic of climate change and said the Paris accord was a concession to radical environmentalists.