Overpopulation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation 

 

This article is about overpopulation in biology in general. For the human overpopulation, see human overpopulation.

Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon that occurs when a species’ population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may occur from increased birth rates, less predation or lower mortality rates, and large scale migration. As a result, the overpopulated species as well as other animals in the ecosystem begin to compete for food, space, and resources. The animals in an overpopulated area may then be forced to migrate to areas not typically inhabited, or die off without access to necessary resources.

Background

In ecology, overpopulation is a concept used primarily in wildlife management. Typically, an overpopulation causes the entire population of the species in question to become weaker, as no single individual is able to find enough food or shelter. As such, overpopulation is thus characterized by an increase in the diseases and parasite-load which live upon the species in question, as the entire population is weaker. Other characteristics of overpopulation are lower fecundity, adverse effects on the environment (soil, vegetation or fauna) and lower average body weights. Especially the worldwide increase of deer populations, which usually show irruptive growth, is proving to be of ecological concern. Ironically, where ecologists were preoccupied with conserving or augmenting deer populations only a century ago, the focus has now shifted in the direct opposite, and ecologists are now more concerned with limiting the populations of such animals.

Supplemental feeding of charismatic species or interesting game species is a major problem in causing overpopulation, as is too little hunting or trapping of such species. Management solutions are increasing hunting by making it easier or cheaper for (foreign) hunters to hunt, banning supplemental feeding, awarding bounties, forcing landowners to hunt or contract professional hunters, using immunocontraception, promoting the harvest of venison or other wild meats, introducing large predators (rewilding), poisonings or introducing diseases.

A useful tool in wildlife culling is the use of mobile freezer trailers in which to store carcasses. The harvest of meat from wild animals is a sustainable method of creating a circular economy.

Immunocontraception is more ethical for animal rights activists, but it has proved completely impractical.

Well studied species

Deer

In Scotland the program of having landowners privately cull the overpopulation of red deer in the highlands has proved an abject failure. Scotland's deer are stunted, emaciated, and frequently starve in the Spring. As of 2016 the population is now so high, that 100,000 deer would need to be culled each year only to maintain the current population. A number of landowners have proven unwilling to accede to the law, requiring government intervention anyway. It has been necessary to contract professional hunters in order to satisfy landowner legislation regarding the annual cull. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash is spent on the annual cull. As of 2020, 100,000 deer are shot each year. Compounding the problem, some landowners have used supplemental feeding at certain shooting blinds in order to ease sport hunting.

Overpopulation can have effects on forage plants, eventually causing a species to thus alter the greater environment. Natural ecosystems are extremely complex. The overpopulation of deer in Britain has been caused by legislation making hunting more difficult, but another reason may be the proliferation of forests, used by different deer species to breed and shelter. Forests and parks have caused Britain to be much more forested than it was in recent history, and may thus perversely be causing biodiversity loss, conversion of heath habitat to grassland, extirpation of grassland and woodland plants due to overgrazing and the changing of the habitat structure. Examples are bluebells and primroses. Deer open up the forest and reduce the amount of brambles, which then has knock-on effects on dormice and certain birds which nest near the ground, such as the capercaillie, dunnock, nightingale, song thrush, willow warbler, marsh tit, willow tit and bullfinch. Populations of the nightingale and the European turtle dove are believed to be primarily impacted by muntjac. Grouse populations suffer due to smashing into the fencing needed to protect against deer. On the other hand common redstart and wood warblers may benefit from the more open understory created by the deer.

A significant amount of the environmental destruction in Britain is caused by an overabundance of deer. Besides ecological effects, overpopulation of deer causes economic effects due to browsing on crops, expensive fencing needed to combat this and protect new afforestation planting and coppice growth, and increasing numbers of road traffic incidents. Deer are in fact the most lethal animals of Britain, killing approximately 20 people a year from road accidents. In Scotland, the cost of road accidents due to these animals is estimated to be £7million, and such collisions cause injuries to 50 to 100 people a year. High populations cause stripping of the bark of trees, eventually destroying forests. Protecting forests from deer costs on average three times as much as planting the forest in the first place. The NGO Trees for Life spent weeks planting native trees in Scotland, aiming to rebuild the ancient Caledonian Forest. After winter snowdrifts in 2014/2015 flattened the deer fences, more than a decade's growth was lost in a matter of weeks. In 2009 – 2010 the cost of forest protection in Scotland ran to £10.5m.

Some animals, such as muntjac, are too small and boring for most hunters to shoot, which poses additional management problems.

In the United States the exact same problem is seen with white-tailed deer, where populations have exploded and become invasive species in some areas. In continental Europe roe deer pose a similar problem, although the populations were formerly much less, they have swelled in the 20th century so that although two and a half million are shot each year by hunters in Western Europe alone, as of 1998, the population still appears to be increasing, causing problems for forestry and traffic. In an experiment where roe deer on a Norwegian island was freed from human harvest and predators, the deer showed a doubling of the population each year or two. In the Netherlands and southern England roe deer were extirpated from the entirety of the country except for a few small areas around 1875. In the 1970s the species was still completely absent from Wales, but as of 2013, it has colonized the entire country. As new forests were planted in the Netherlands in the 20th century, the population began to expand rapidly. As of 2016 there are some 110,000 deer in the country.

Birds

Aquaculture operations, recreation angling and populations of endangered fish such as the schelly are impacted by cormorant populations. Open aquaculture ponds provide winter or year-round homes and food for cormorants. Cormorants' effect on the aquaculture industry is significant, with a dense flock capable of consuming an entire harvest. Cormorants are estimated to cost the catfish industry in Mississippi alone between $10 million and $25 million annually. Cormorant culling is commonly achieved by sharp-shooting, nest destruction, roost dispersal and oiling the eggs.

Geese numbers have also been called overpopulated. In the Canadian Arctic region, snow geese, Ross's geese, greater white-fronted geese and some populations of Canada geese have been increasing significantly over the past decades. Lesser snow geese populations have increased to over three million, and continue to increase by some 5% per year. Giant Canada geese have grown from near extinction to nuisance levels. Average body sizes have decreased and parasite loads are higher. Before the 1980s, Arctic geese populations had boom and bust cycles (see above) thought to be based on food availability, although there are still some bust years, this no longer seems the case.

It is difficult to know what the numbers of geese were before the 20th century, before human impact presumably altered them. There are a few anecdotal claims from that time of two or three million, but these are likely exaggerations, as that would imply a massive die-off or vast amounts harvested, for which there is no evidence. More likely estimates from the period of 1500 to 1900 are a few hundred thousand animals, which implies that with the exception of Ross's geese, modern populations of geese are many millions more than in pre-industrial levels.

Humans are blamed as the ultimate cause for the increase, directly and indirectly, due to management legislation limiting hunting introduced specifically in order to protect bird populations, but most importantly due to the increase in agriculture and large parks, which has had the effect of creating vast amounts of unintentional sanctuaries filled with food. Urban geese flocks have increased enormously. City ordinances generally prohibit discharging firearms, keeping such flocks safe, and there is abundant food. Geese profit from agricultural grain crops, and seem to be shifting their habitat preferences to such farmlands. Ironically, the creation of wildlife refuges may have exacerbated this: as geese overpopulations destroyed the Scirpus salt marsh habitats that they were originally restricted to, this has speeded their conversion to adopt new feeding habitats, while maintaining roosting sites in refuges. The creation of wildlife refuges to protect wetland habitats in the continental United States from the 1930s to 1950s seems to have had the effect of disrupting the migration routes, as geese no longer fly as far south to Texas and Louisiana as they once did. Reduction of goose hunting in the US since the 1970s seems to have further had the effect of protecting populations. In Canada hunting has also decreased dramatically, from 43.384% harvest rates in the 1960s to 8% in the 1990s. Nonetheless, when kill rates were compared to populations, hunting alone does not seems to be solely responsible for the increase -weather or a not yet completed shift in habitat preference to agricultural land may also be factors. Although hunting may have formerly been the main factor in maintaining stable populations, ecologists no longer consider it a practical management solution, as public interest in the practice has continued to wane, and the population is now so large that the massive culls needed are unrealistic to ask from the public. Climate change in the Arctic would appear to be an obvious cause for the increase, but when subpopulations are correlated with local climatic increases, this does not seem to hold true, and furthermore, breeding regions seem to be shifting southwards anyway, irrespective of climate change.

The nutrient subsidy provided by foraging in agricultural land has made the overall landscape use by geese unsustainable. Where such geese congregate local plant communities have been substantially altered; these chronic effects are cumulative, and have been considered a threat to the Arctic ecosystems, due to knock-off effects on native ducks, shorebirds and passerines. Grubbing and overgrazing by geese completely denudes the tundra and marshland, in combination with abiotic processes, this creates large desert expanses of hypersaline, anoxic mud which continue to increase each year -eventually these habitat changes become irreversible remaining in this state for decades. Biodiversity drops to only one or two species which are inedible for geese, such as Senecio congestus, Salicornia borealis and Atriplex hastata. Because grazing occurs in serial stages, with biodiversity decreasing at each stage, floral composition may be used as an indicator of the degree of goose foraging at a site. Other effects are destruction of the vegetation holding dunes in place, the shift from sedge meadows and grassy swards with herbaceous plants to moss fields, which can eventually give way to bare ground called 'peat barrens', and the erosion of this bare peat until glacial gravel and till is bared. In the High Arctic research is less developed: Eriophorum scheuchzeri and E. angustifolium fens appear to be affected, and are being replaced by carpets of moss, whereas meadows covered in Dupontia fisheri appear to be escaping destruction. There does not appear to be the damage found at lower latitudes in the Arctic. There is little proper research in effects on other birds. The yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) appears to be extirpated from areas of Manitoba due habitat loss caused by the geese, whereas on the other hand the semipalmated plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) appears to be taking advantage of the large areas of dead willows as a breeding ground.

In the wintering grounds in continental USA, effects are much less pronounced. Experimentally excluding geese by means of fencing in North Carolina has found heavily affected areas can regenerate after only two years. Bulrush stands (Schoenoplectus americanus) are still an important component of the diet, but there are indications the bulrush is being impacted, with soft mudflats gradually replacing areas where it grows.

Damage to agriculture is primarily to seedlings, winter wheat and hay production. Changing the species composition to species less palatable to geese, such as Lotus may alleviate losses in hay operations. Geese also feed on agricultural land without causing economic loss, gleaning seeds from corn, soya or other grains and feeding on wheat, potato and corn stubble. In Québec crop damage insurance for the hay industry began in 1992 and claims increased yearly; actual compensation paid by the government, including administrative costs, amount to some half a million dollars a year.

The fact that Arctic regions are remote, there is little public understanding for combatting the problem, and ecologists as yet do not have any effective solutions for combatting the problem anyway. In Canada, the most important hunters of geese are the Cree people around Hudson Bay, members of the Mushkegowuk Harvesters Association, with an average kill rate of up to 60.75 birds per species per hunter in the 1970s. Kill rates have dropped, with hunters taking only half as much in the 1990s. However, total numbers of kills have increased, i.e. there are more hunters, but they are killing less per person. Nonetheless, per household the kills are approximately the same, at 100 birds. This indicates that stimulating an increase in native hunting might be difficult to achieve. The Cree population has increased. Elders say the taste of the birds has gotten worse, and they are thinner, both possibly effects due to the overpopulation. Elders also say that hunting has gotten more difficult, because there are less young and goslings, which are more likely to fall for decoys. Inuit peoples and other peoples to the north do much less hunting of geese, with kill rates of 1 to 24 per species per hunter. Per kilogram, hunters save some $8.14 to $11.40 from buying poultry at stores. Total kill numbers from hunters elsewhere in the USA and southern Canada has been falling steadily. This is blamed on a decline in people interested in hunting, more feeding areas for the birds, and larger flocks with more experienced adult birds which makes decoying difficult. Individual hunters are bagging higher numbers, compensating lower hunter numbers.

Management strategies in the USA include increasing the bag limit and the number of open hunting days, goose egg addling, trapping and relocation, and egg and nest destruction, managing habitat to make it less attractive to geese, harassment and direct culling. In Denver, Colorado, during moulting season biologists rounded up 300Canada geese (of 5,000 in the city), ironically on Canada Day, killing them and distributing the meat to needy families (as opposed to sending it to a landfill), to try to curb the number of geese, following such programs in New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Maryland. Complaints about the birds were that they had taken over the golf courses, pooped all over the place, devoured native plants and scared citizens. Such culls have proven socially controversial, with intense backlash by some citizens. Park officials had tried dipping eggs in oil, using noise-makers and planting tall plants, but this was not sufficient.

In Russia, the problem does not seem to exist, likely due to human harvest and local long-term cooling climate trends in the Russian Far East and Wrangel Island.

It is also possible that the population growth is completely natural, and that when the carrying capacity of the environment is reached the population will stop growing. For organisations such as Ducks Unlimited, the resurgence of goose populations in North America can be called one of the greatest success story in wildlife management. By 2003 the US goose harvest was approaching 4 million, three times the numbers 30 years ago.

Pets

Overpopulation in domestic pets is the surplus of pets, such as cats, dogs, and exotic animals. In the United States, six to eight million animals are brought to shelters each year, of which an estimated three to four million are subsequently euthanized, including 2.7 million considered healthy and adoptable. Euthanasia numbers have declined since the 1970s, when U.S. shelters euthanized an estimated 12 to 20 million animals. Most humane societies, animal shelters and rescue groups urge animal caregivers to have their animals spayed or neutered to prevent the births of unwanted and accidental litters that could contribute to this dynamic.

In the United States, over half of the households own a dog or a cat. Even with so much pet ownership there is still an issue with pet overpopulation, especially seen in shelters. Because of this problem it is estimated that between 10 and 25 percent of dogs and cats are killed yearly. The animals are killed humanely, but the goal is to greatly lower and eventually completely avoid this. Estimating the overpopulation of pets, especially cats and dogs, is a difficult task, but it has been a continuous problem. It has been hard to determine the number of shelters and animals in each shelter around even just the US. Animals are constantly being moved around or euthanized, so it is difficult to keep track of those numbers across the country. It is becoming universally agreed upon that sterilization is a tool that can help reduce population size so that less offspring are produced in the future With less offspring, pet populations can start to decrease which reduces the amount that get killed each year.

Population cycles

Main articles: Population cycle and Lotka–Volterra equations

In the wild, rampant population growth of prey species often causes growth in the populations of predators. Such predator-prey relationships can form cycles, which are usually mathematically modelled as Lotka–Volterra equations.

In natural ecosystems, predator population growth lags just behind the prey populations. After the prey population crashes, the overpopulation of predators causes the entire population to be subjected to mass starvation. The population of the predator drops, as less young are able to survive into adulthood. This could be considered a perfect time for wildlife managers to allow hunters or trappers to harvest as much of these animals as necessary, for example lynx in Canada, although on the other hand this may impact the ability of the predator to rebound when the prey population begins to exponentially increase again. Such mathematical models are also crucial in determining the amount of fish which may be sustainably harvested in fisheries, this is known as the maximum sustainable yield.

Predator population growth has the effect of controlling the prey population, and can result in the evolution of prey species in favour of genetic characteristics that render it less vulnerable to predation (and the predator may co-evolve, in response).

In the absence of predators, species are bound by the resources they can find in their environment, but this does not necessarily control overpopulation, at least in the short term. An abundant supply of resources can produce a population boom followed by a population crash. Rodents such as lemmings and voles have such population cycles of rapid growth and subsequent decrease. Snowshoe hares populations similarly cycle dramatically, as did those of one of their predators, the lynx. Another example is the cycles among populations of grey wolves and moose in Isle Royale National Park. For some still unexplained reason, such patterns in mammal population dynamics are more prevalent in ecosystems found at more arctic latitudes.

Some species such as locusts experience large natural cyclic variations, experienced by farmers as plagues.

Determining population size/density

When  determining whether a population is overpopulated a variety of factors must be looked at. Given complexity of the issue, often it is determined by scientist and wildlife management as to what constitutes such a claim. In many cases scientists will look to food sources and living space to gauge the abundance of a species in a particular area. National parks collect extensive data on the activities and quality of the environment they are established in. This data can be used to track whether a specific species is consuming larger amounts of their desired food source over time.

This is done typically in four ways, the first being “total counting”. Researchers will use aerial photography to count large populations in a specific area such as deer, waterfowl, and other “flocking” or “herd” animals. Incomplete counts involve counting a small subsection of a population and extrapolating the data across the whole area. This method will take into account the behavior of the animals such as how much territory a herd may cover, the density of the population, and other potential factors that may come into question.

The third method is “indirect counts” ; this is done by looking at the environment for signs of animal presence. Typically done by counting fecal matter or dens/nesting of a particular animal. This method is not an accurate method, but gives general counts of a population in a specific locale.

Lastly the method of mark-recapture is used extensively to determine general population sizes. This method involves the trapping of animals after which some form of tag is placed on the animal and it is released back into the wild. After which, other trappings will determine population size based on the number of marked versus unmarked animals.

Fish populations

similar methods can be used to determine the population of fish however some key differences arise in the extrapolation of data. Unlike many land animals in-land fish populations are divided into smaller population sizes. Factors such as migration may not be relevant when determining population in a specific locales while more important for others such as the many species of salmon or trout. Monitoring of waterways and isolated bodies of water provide more frequently updated information on the populations in specific areas. This is done using similar methods to the mark-recapture methods of many land animals.

Introduced species

Main articles: Introduced species and Invasive species

The introduction of a foreign species has often caused ecological disturbance, such as when deer and trout were introduced into Argentina, or when rabbits were introduced to Australia and when predators were introduced in turn to attempt to control the rabbits.

When an introduced species is so successful that its population begins to increase exponentially and causes deleterious effects to farmers, fisheries or the natural environment, these introduced species are called invasive species.

In the case of the Mute swan, Cygnus olor, their population has rapidly spread across much of North America as well as parts of Canada and western Europe. This species of swan has caused much concern for wildlife management as they damage aquatic vegetation, and harass other waterfowl, dislocating them. The population of the Mute swan has seen an average increase of around 10-18% per year which further threatens to impact the areas they inhabit. Management of the species comes in a variety of ways. Similar to overpopulated or invasive species, hunting is one of the most effective methods of population control. Other methods may involve trapping, relocation, or euthanasia.

Criticism

In natural ecosystems, populations naturally expand until they reach the carrying capacity of the environment; if the resources on which they depend are exhausted, they naturally collapse. According to the animal rights movement, calling this an 'overpopulation' is more an ethics question than a scientific fact. Animal rights organisations are commonly critics of ecological systems and wildlife management. Animal rights activists and locals earning income from commercial hunts counter that scientists are outsiders who do not know wildlife issues, and that any slaughter of animals is evil.

Various case studies indicate that use of cattle as 'natural grazers' in many European nature parks due to absence of hunting, culling or natural predators (such as wolves),may cause an overpopulation because the cattle do not migrate. This has the effect of reducing plant biodiversity, as the cattle consume native plants. Because such cattle populations begin to starve and die in the winter as available forage drops, this has caused animal rights activists to advocate supplemental feeding, which has the effect of exacerbating the ecological effects, causing nitrification and eutrophication due to excess faeces, deforestation as trees are destroyed, and biodiversity loss.

Despite the ecological effects of overpopulation, wildlife managers may want such high populations in order to satisfy public enjoyment of seeing wild animals. Others contend that introducing large predators such as lynx and wolves may have similar economic benefits, even if tourists rarely actually catch glimpses of such creatures.

In regards to population size, most of the methods used give estimates that vary in accuracy to the actual size and density of the population. Criticisms of theses methods generally fall onto the efficacy of methods used.

Human overpopulation

Main article: Human overpopulation

Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates against the background of high fertility rates. It is possible for very sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated if the area has a meagre or non-existent capability to sustain life (e.g. a desert). Advocates of population moderation cite issues like quality of life and risk of starvation and disease as a basis to argue against continuing high human population growth and for population decline.

Biodynamic agriculture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture

World map of biodynamic agriculture (hectares)

Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture very similar to organic farming, but it includes various esoteric concepts drawn from the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). Initially developed in 1924, it was the first of the organic agriculture movements. It treats soil fertility, plant growth, and livestock care as ecologically interrelated tasks, emphasizing spiritual and mystical perspectives.

Biodynamics has much in common with other organic approaches – it emphasizes the use of manures and composts and excludes the use of synthetic (artificial) fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include its treatment of animals, crops, and soil as a single system, an emphasis from its beginnings on local production and distribution systems, its use of traditional and development of new local breeds and varieties. Some methods use an astrological sowing and planting calendar. Biodynamic agriculture uses various herbal and mineral additives for compost additives and field sprays; these are prepared using methods that are more akin to sympathetic magic than agronomy, such as burying ground quartz stuffed into the horn of a cow, which are said to harvest "cosmic forces in the soil".

No difference in beneficial outcomes has been scientifically established between certified biodynamic agricultural techniques and similar organic and integrated farming practices. Biodynamic agriculture lacks strong scientific evidence for its efficacy and has been labeled a pseudoscience because of its reliance upon esoteric knowledge and mystical beliefs.

As of 2020, biodynamic techniques were used on 251,842 hectares in 55 countries, led by Germany, Australia and France. Germany accounts for 41.8% of the global total; the remainder average 1750 ha per country. Biodynamic methods of cultivating grapevines have been taken up by several notable vineyards. There are certification agencies for biodynamic products, most of which are members of the international biodynamics standards group Demeter International.

History

Origin of a theory

Rudolf Steiner, occultist philosopher and founder of "anthroposophic agriculture", later known as "biodynamic".

Biodynamics was the first modern organic agriculture. Its development began in 1924 with a series of eight lectures on agriculture given by philosopher Rudolf Steiner at Schloss Koberwitz in Silesia, Germany (now Kobierzyce in Poland). These lectures, the first known presentation of organic agriculture, were held in response to a request by farmers who noticed degraded soil conditions and a deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers. The 111 attendees, less than half of whom were farmers, came from six countries, primarily Germany and Poland. The lectures were published in November 1924; the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course.

Steiner emphasized that the methods he proposed should be tested experimentally. For this purpose, Steiner established a research group, the "Agricultural Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners of the General Anthroposophical Society". Between 1924 and 1939, this research group attracted about 800 members from around the world, including Europe, the Americas and Australasia. Another group, the "Association for Research in Anthroposophical Agriculture" (Versuchsring anthroposophischer Landwirte), directed by the German agronomist Erhard Bartsch, was formed to test the effects of biodynamic methods on the life and health of soil, plants and animals; the group published a monthly journal, Demeter. Bartsch was also instrumental in developing a sales organisation for biodynamic products, Demeter, which still exists today. The Research Association was renamed the Imperial Association for Biodynamic Agriculture (Reichsverband für biologisch-dynamische Wirtschaftsweise) in 1933. It was dissolved by the National Socialist regime in 1941. In 1931 the association had 250 members in Germany, 109 in Switzerland, 104 in other European countries and 24 outside Europe. The oldest biodynamic farms are the Wurzerhof in Austria and Marienhöhe in Germany.

In 1938, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer's text, Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening, was published in five languages – English, Dutch, Italian, French, and German; this became the standard work in the field for several decades. In July 1939, at the invitation of Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne, Pfeiffer travelled to the UK and presented the Betteshanger Summer School and Conference on Biodynamic Farming at Northbourne's farm in Kent. The conference has been described as the 'missing link' between biodynamic agriculture and organic farming because, in the year after Betteshanger, Northbourne published his manifesto of organic farming, Look to the Land, in which he coined the term 'organic farming' and praised the methods of Rudolf Steiner. In the 1950s, Hans Mueller was encouraged by Steiner's work to create the organic-biological farming method in Switzerland; this later developed to become the largest certifier of organic products in Europe, Bioland.

Geographic developments

Today biodynamics is practiced in more than 50 countries worldwide and in a variety of circumstances, ranging from temperate arable farming, viticulture in France, cotton production in Egypt, to silkworm breeding in China. Demeter International is the primary certification agency for farms and gardens using the methods. In 2020 Demeter International and the International Biodynamic Association joined to become the Biodynamic Federation - Demeter International.

• In the United States, biodynamic farming dates from 1926. From 1926 through to 1938, 39 farmers and gardeners in USA pursued biodynamic practices. The Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association was founded in 1938 as a New York state corporation.
• In Great Britain, biodynamic farming dates from 1927. In 1928 the Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation was founded in England; this is now called the Biodynamic Agriculture Association. In 1939, Britain's first biodynamic agriculture conference, the Betteshanger Summer School and Conference on Biodynamic Agriculture, was held at Lord Northbourne's farm in Kent; Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was the lead presenter.
• In Australia, the first biodynamic farmer was Ernesto Genoni who in 1928 joined the Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners, followed soon after by his brother Emilio Genoni. Ernesto Genoni's first biodynamic farm was at Dalmore, in Gippsland, Victoria, in 1933. The following year, Ileen Macpherson and Ernesto Genoni founded Demeter Biological Farm at Dandenong, Victoria, in 1934 and it was farmed using biodynamic principles for over two decades. Bob Williams presented the first public lecture in Australia on biodynamic agriculture on 26 June 1938 at the home of the architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin at Castlecrag, Sydney. Since the 1950s research work has continued at the Biodynamic Research Institute (BDRI) in Powelltown, near Melbourne under the direction of Alex Podolinsky. In 1989 Biodynamic Agriculture Australia was established, as a not for profit association.
• In France the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) was formed in 1972 with five founding members, one of which was the Swedish Biodynamic Association.
• The University of Kassel had a Department of Biodynamic Agriculture from 2006 to March 2011.
• Emerson College (UK) was founded in 1962 and named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and transcendentalist. Since then it has held courses inspired by the philosophy and teachings of Rudolf Steiner, including on biodynamic agriculture.
• In Canada, there are currently three biodynamic organizations, The Society for Biodynamic Farming and Gardening in Ontario, The Biodynamic Agricultural Society of British Columbia and the Association de Biodynamie du Québec that are members of Demeter Canada.

Biodynamic method of farming

In common with other forms of organic agriculture, biodynamic agriculture uses management practices that are intended to "restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony". Central features include crop diversification, the avoidance of chemical soil treatments and off-farm inputs generally, decentralized production and distribution, and the consideration of celestial and terrestrial influences on biological organisms. The Demeter Association recommends that "(a) minimum of ten percent of the total farm acreage be set aside as a biodiversity preserve. That may include but is not limited to forests, wetlands, riparian corridors, and intentionally planted insectaries. Diversity in crop rotation and perennial planting is required: no annual crop can be planted in the same field for more than two years in succession. Bare tillage year round is prohibited so land needs to maintain adequate green cover."

The Demeter Association also recommends that the individual design of the land "by the farmer, as determined by site conditions, is one of the basic tenets of biodynamic agriculture. This principle emphasizes that humans have a responsibility for the development of their ecological and social environment which goes beyond economic aims and the principles of descriptive ecology." Crops, livestock, and farmer, and "the entire socioeconomic environment" form a unique interaction, which biodynamic farming tries to "actively shape ...through a variety of management practices. The prime objective is always to encourage healthy conditions for life": soil fertility, plant and animal health, and product quality. "The farmer seeks to enhance and support the forces of nature that lead to healthy crops, and rejects farm management practices that damage the environment, soil, plant, animal or human health....the farm is conceived of as an organism, a self-contained entity with its own individuality," holistically conceived and self-sustaining. "Disease and insect control are addressed through botanical species diversity, predator habitat, balanced crop nutrition, and attention to light penetration and airflow. Weed control emphasizes prevention, including timing of planting, mulching, and identifying and avoiding the spread of invasive weed species."

Biodynamic agriculture differs from many forms of organic agriculture in its spiritual, mystical, and astrological orientation. It shares a spiritual focus, as well as its view toward improving humanity, with the "nature farming" movement in Japan. Important features include the use of livestock manures to sustain plant growth (recycling of nutrients), maintenance and improvement of soil quality, and the health and well-being of crops and animals. Cover crops, green manures and crop rotations are used extensively and the farms to foster the diversity of plant and animal life, and to enhance the biological cycles and the biological activity of the soil.

Biodynamic farms often have a cultural component and encourage local community, both through developing local sales and through on-farm community building activities. Some biodynamic farms use the Community Supported Agriculture model, which has connections with social threefolding.

Compared to non-organic agriculture, BD farming practices have been found to be more resilient to environmental challenges, to foster a diverse biosphere, and to be more energy efficient, factors Eric Lichtfouse describes being of increasing importance in the face of climate change, energy scarcity and population growth.

Biodynamic preparations

In his "agricultural course" Steiner prescribed nine different preparations to aid fertilization, and described how these were to be prepared. Steiner believed that these preparations mediated terrestrial and cosmic forces into the soil. The prepared substances are numbered 500 through 508, where the first two are used for preparing fields, and the other seven are used for making compost. A long term trial (DOK experiment) evaluating the biodynamic farming system in comparison with organic and conventional farming systems, found that both organic farming and biodynamic farming resulted in enhanced soil properties, but had lower yields than conventional farming. Regarding compost development beyond accelerating the initial phase of composting, some positive effects have been noted:

• The field sprays contain substances that stimulate plant growth including cytokinins.
• Some improvement in nutrient content of compost is evident from the ingredients included, but not necessarily as a result of the practices and exact preparations as Steiner described them.

Although the preparations have direct nutrient values, modern biodynamic practitioners believe their benefit is to support the self-regulating capacities of the biota already present in the soil and compost. Critics of the practice have pointed out that no evidence or logic underlies the practices themselves, which instead are dependent on magical thinking and debunked theories of Steiner himself. There is no evidence that biodynamic practices have any benefit beyond the direct nutrients they add as fertilizer, which may itself be of smaller benefit than other traditionally organic or commercial fertilizers.

Field preparations

Field preparations, for stimulating humus formation:

• 500: A humus mixture prepared by filling a cow's horn with cow manure and burying it in the ground (40–60 cm below the surface) in the autumn. It is left to decompose during the winter and recovered for use as fertilizer the following spring.
• 501: Crushed powdered quartz stuffed into a cow's horn and buried in the ground in springtime and taken out in autumn. It can be mixed with 500 but is usually prepared on its own. The mixture is sprayed under very low pressure over the crop during the wet season, as a supposed antifungal.

Compost preparations

The compost preparations Steiner recommended employ herbs which are frequently used in alternative medical remedies. Many of the same herbs Steiner referenced are used in organic practices to make foliar fertilizers, green manure, or in composting. The preparations Steiner discussed were:

• 502: Yarrow blossoms (Achillea millefolium) stuffed into the urinary bladders from red deer (Cervus elaphus), placed in the sun during summer, buried in the ground during winter, and retrieved in the spring.
• 503: Chamomile blossoms (Matricaria recutita) stuffed into the small intestines of cattle, buried in humus-rich earth in the autumn, and retrieved in the spring.
• 504: Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) plants in full bloom stuffed together underground surrounded on all sides by peat for a year.
• 505: Oak bark (Quercus robur) chopped in small pieces, placed inside the skull of a domesticated animal, surrounded by peat, and buried in the ground in a place near rain runoff.
• 506: Dandelion flowers (Taraxacum officinale) stuffed into the mesentery of a cow, buried in the ground during winter, and retrieved in the spring.
• 507: Valerian flowers (Valeriana officinalis) extracted into water.
• 508: Horsetail (Equisetum).

Planting calendar

The approach considers that there are lunar and astrological influences on soil and plant development—for example, choosing to plant, cultivate or harvest various crops based on both the phase of the moon and the zodiacal constellation the moon is passing through, and also depending on whether the crop is the root, leaf, flower, or fruit of the plant. This aspect of biodynamics has been termed "astrological" and "pseudoscientific" in nature.

Seed production

Biodynamic agriculture has focused on the open pollination of seeds (with farmers thereby generally growing their own seed) and the development of locally adapted varieties.

Biodynamic certification

The Demeter biodynamic certification system established in 1924 was the first certification and labelling system for organic production. As of 2018, to receive certification as biodynamic, the farm must meet the following standards: agronomic guidelines, greenhouse management, structural components, livestock guidelines, and post-harvest handling and processing procedures.

The term Biodynamic is a trademark held by the Demeter association of biodynamic farmers for the purpose of maintaining production standards used both in farming and processing foodstuffs. The trademark is intended to protect both the consumer and the producers of biodynamic produce. Demeter International an organization of member countries; each country has its own Demeter organization which is required to meet international production standards (but can also exceed them). The original Demeter organization was founded in 1928; the U.S. Demeter Association was formed in the 1980s and certified its first farm in 1982. In France, Biodyvin certifies biodynamic wine. In Egypt, SEKEM has created the Egyptian Biodynamic Association (EBDA), an association that provides training for farmers to become certified. As of 2006, more than 200 wineries worldwide were certified as biodynamic; numerous other wineries employ biodynamic methods to a greater or lesser extent.

Effectiveness

Research into biodynamic farming has been complicated by the difficulty of isolating the distinctively biodynamic aspects when conducting comparative trials. Consequently, there is no strong body of material that provides evidence of any specific effect.

Since biodynamic farming is a form of organic farming, it can be generally assumed to share its characteristics, including "less stressed soils and thus diverse and highly interrelated soil communities".

A 2009/2011 review found that biodynamically cultivated fields:

• had lower absolute yields than conventional farms, but achieved better efficiency of production relative to the amount of energy used;
• had greater earthworm populations and biomass than conventional farms.

Both factors were similar to the result in organically cultivated fields.

Reception

In a 2002 newspaper editorial, Peter Treue, agricultural researcher at the University of Kiel, characterized biodynamics as pseudoscience and argued that similar or equal results can be obtained using standard organic farming principles. He wrote that some biodynamic preparations more resemble alchemy or magic akin to geomancy.

In a 1994 analysis, Holger Kirchmann, a soil researcher with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, concluded that Steiner's instructions were occult and dogmatic, and cannot contribute to the development of alternative or sustainable agriculture. According to Kirchmann, many of Steiner's statements are not provable because scientifically clear hypotheses cannot be made from his descriptions. Kirchmann asserted that when methods of biodynamic agriculture were tested scientifically, the results were unconvincing. Further, in a 2004 overview of biodynamic agriculture, Linda Chalker-Scott, a researcher at Washington State University, characterized biodynamics as pseudoscience, writing that Steiner did not use scientific methods to formulate his theory of biodynamics, and that the later addition of valid organic farming techniques has "muddled the discussion" of Steiner's original idea. Based on the scant scientific testing of biodynamics, Chalker-Scott concluded "no evidence exists" that homeopathic preparations improve the soil.

In Michael Shermer's The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, Dan Dugan says that the way biodynamic preparations are supposed to be implemented are formulated solely on the basis of Steiner's "own insight". Skeptic Brian Dunning writes "the best way to think of 'biodynamic agriculture' would be as a magic spell cast over an entire farm. Biodynamics sees an entire farm as a single organism, with something that they call a life force."

Florian Leiber, Nikolai Fuchs and Hartmut Spieß, researchers at the Goetheanum, have defended the principles of biodynamics and suggested that critiques of biodynamic agriculture which deny it scientific credibility are "not in keeping with the facts...as they take no notice of large areas of biodynamic management and research". Biodynamic farmers are "charged with developing a continuous dialogue between biodynamic science and the natural sciences sensu stricto", despite important differences in paradigms, world views, and value systems.

Philosopher of science Michael Ruse has written that followers of biodynamic agriculture rather enjoy the scientific marginalisation that comes from its pseudoscientific basis, revelling both in its esoteric aspects and the impression that they were in the vanguard of the wider anti-science sentiment that has grown in opposition to modern methods such as genetic modification.

Steiners theory was similar to those of the agricultural scientist Richard Krzymowski, who was teaching in Breslau since 1922. The environmental scientist Frank M. Rauch mentioned in 1995, concerning the reprint of a book from Raoul Heinrich Francé, another source probably used by Steiner.

According to a scientific paper of Holger Kirchmann in 2021, the auras and forces mentioned by Steiner are not known to science. His statement (hypothesis) of “living forces” affecting crops cannot be tested, and is thus not falsifiable. However, when a hypothesis is not falsifiable, this is a sign of pseudoscience.

A research team from the Botanical Garden and Department of Experimental and Social Sciences Education of the Faculty of Teacher Training of the University of Valencia warned in 2021 about the risk of pseudoscience in relation with myths or beliefs about the influence of the moon on agriculture. The findings of this scientific review of over 100 papers (including scientific articles, papers and higher education textbooks) have been published in the journal Agronomy. They found that there is no reliable, science-based evidence for any relationship between lunar phases and plant physiology in any plant–science related textbooks or peer-reviewed journal articles justifying agricultural practices conditioned by the Moon. Nor does evidence from the field of physics support a causal relationship between lunar forces and plant responses. Therefore, popular agricultural practices that are tied to lunar phases have no scientific backing.

Edward R. Murrow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_R._Murrow 

 

Edward R. Murrow
Murrow in 1961
Born	Egbert Roscoe Murrow April 25, 1908 Guilford County, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	April 27, 1965 (aged 57) Pawling, New York, U.S.
Resting place	Glen Arden Farm 41°34′15.7″N 73°36′33.6″W
Alma mater	Washington State University
Occupation	Journalist radio broadcaster
Years active	1935–1965
Known for	On-the-spot radio reports from London and other locations in Europe during World War II. Series of television news reports that led to the censure of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Spouse(s)	Janet Huntington Brewster ​ ​ (m. 1935)​
Children	1
Signature

Edward Roscoe Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965), born Egbert Roscoe Murrow, was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe for the news division of CBS. During the war he recruited and worked closely with a team of war correspondents who came to be known as the Murrow Boys.

A pioneer of radio and television news broadcasting, Murrow produced a series of reports on his television program See It Now which helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, Bill Downs, Dan Rather, and Alexander Kendrick consider Murrow one of journalism's greatest figures.

Early life

Murrow was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow at Polecat Creek, near Greensboro, in Guilford County, North Carolina, to Roscoe Conklin Murrow and Ethel F. (née Lamb) Murrow. His parents were Quakers. He was the youngest of four brothers and was a "mixture of Scottish, Irish, English and German" descent. The firstborn, Roscoe Jr., lived only a few hours. Lacey Van Buren was four years old and Dewey Joshua was two years old when Murrow was born. His home was a log cabin without electricity or plumbing, on a farm bringing in only a few hundred dollars a year from corn and hay.

When Murrow was six years old, his family moved across the country to Skagit County in western Washington, to homestead near Blanchard, 30 miles (50 km) south of the Canada–United States border. He attended high school in nearby Edison, and was president of the student body in his senior year and excelled on the debate team. He was also a member of the basketball team which won the Skagit County championship.

After graduation from high school in 1926, Murrow enrolled at Washington State College (now Washington State University) across the state in Pullman, and eventually majored in speech. A member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, he was also active in college politics. By his teen years, Murrow went by the nickname "Ed" and during his second year of college, he changed his name from Egbert to Edward. In 1929, while attending the annual convention of the National Student Federation of America, Murrow gave a speech urging college students to become more interested in national and world affairs; this led to his election as president of the federation. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1930, he moved back east to New York.

Murrow was assistant director of the Institute of International Education from 1932 to 1935 and served as assistant secretary of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, which helped prominent German scholars who had been dismissed from academic positions. He married Janet Huntington Brewster on March 12, 1935. Their son, Charles Casey Murrow, was born in the west of London on November 6, 1945.

Career at CBS

Murrow joined CBS as director of talks and education in 1935 and remained with the network for his entire career. CBS did not have news staff when Murrow joined, save for announcer Bob Trout. Murrow's job was to line up newsmakers who would appear on the network to talk about the issues of the day. But the onetime Washington State speech major was intrigued by Trout's on-air delivery, and Trout gave Murrow tips on how to communicate effectively on radio.

Murrow went to London in 1937 to serve as the director of CBS's European operations. The position did not involve on-air reporting; his job was persuading European figures to broadcast over the CBS network, which was in direct competition with NBC's two radio networks. During this time, he made frequent trips around Europe. In 1937, Murrow hired journalist William L. Shirer, and assigned him to a similar post on the continent. This marked the beginning of the "Murrow Boys" team of war reporters.

Radio

Murrow gained his first glimpse of fame during the March 1938 Anschluss, in which Adolf Hitler engineered the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. While Murrow was in Poland arranging a broadcast of children's choruses, he got word from Shirer of the annexation—and the fact that Shirer could not get the story out through Austrian state radio facilities. Murrow immediately sent Shirer to London, where he delivered an uncensored, eyewitness account of the Anschluss. Murrow then chartered the only transportation available, a 23-passenger plane, to fly from Warsaw to Vienna so he could take over for Shirer.

At the request of CBS management in New York, Murrow and Shirer put together a European News Roundup of reaction to the Anschluss, which brought correspondents from various European cities together for a single broadcast. On March 13, 1938, the special was broadcast, hosted by Bob Trout in New York, including Shirer in London (with Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson), reporter Edgar Ansel Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News in Paris, reporter Pierre J. Huss of the International News Service in Berlin, and Senator Lewis B. Schwellenbach in Washington, D.C. Reporter Frank Gervasi, in Rome, was unable to find a transmitter to broadcast reaction from the Italian capital but phoned his script to Shirer in London, who read it on the air. Murrow reported live from Vienna, in the first on-the-scene news report of his career: "This is Edward Murrow speaking from Vienna.... It's now nearly 2:30 in the morning, and Herr Hitler has not yet arrived."

The broadcast was considered revolutionary at the time. Featuring multipoint, live reports transmitted by shortwave in the days before modern technology (and without each of the parties necessarily being able to hear one another), it came off almost flawlessly. The special became the basis for World News Roundup—broadcasting's oldest news series, which still runs each weekday morning and evening on the CBS Radio Network.

In September 1938, Murrow and Shirer were regular participants in CBS's coverage of the crisis over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, which Hitler coveted for Germany and eventually won in the Munich Agreement. Their incisive reporting heightened the American appetite for radio news, with listeners regularly waiting for Murrow's shortwave broadcasts, introduced by analyst H. V. Kaltenborn in New York saying, "Calling Ed Murrow ... come in Ed Murrow."

During the following year, leading up to the outbreak of World War II, Murrow continued to be based in London. William Shirer's reporting from Berlin brought him national acclaim and a commentator's position with CBS News upon his return to the United States in December 1940. Shirer would describe his Berlin experiences in his best-selling 1941 book Berlin Diary. When the war broke out in September 1939, Murrow stayed in London, and later provided live radio broadcasts during the height of the Blitz in London After Dark. These live, shortwave broadcasts relayed on CBS electrified radio audiences as news programming never had: previous war coverage had mostly been provided by newspaper reports, along with newsreels seen in movie theaters; earlier radio news programs had simply featured an announcer in a studio reading wire service reports.

World War II

Murrow lived in a flat on Hallam Street, near Great Portland Street, in London during the War

Murrow's reports, especially during the Blitz, began with what became his signature opening, "This is London," delivered with his vocal emphasis on the word this, followed by the hint of a pause before the rest of the phrase. His former speech teacher, Ida Lou Anderson, suggested the opening as a more concise alternative to the one he had inherited from his predecessor at CBS Europe, César Saerchinger: "Hello, America. This is London calling." Murrow's phrase became synonymous with the newscaster and his network.

Murrow achieved celebrity status as a result of his war reports. They led to his second famous catchphrase, at the end of 1940, with every night's German bombing raid, Londoners who might not necessarily see each other the next morning often closed their conversations with "good night, and good luck." The future British monarch, Princess Elizabeth, said as much to the Western world in a live radio address at the end of the year, when she said "good night, and good luck to you all". So, at the end of one 1940 broadcast, Murrow ended his segment with "Good night, and good luck." Speech teacher Anderson insisted he stick with it, and another Murrow catchphrase was born.

When Murrow returned to the U.S. in 1941, CBS hosted a dinner in his honor on December 2 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. 1,100 guests attended the dinner, which the network broadcast. Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a welcome-back telegram, which was read at the dinner, and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish gave an encomium that commented on the power and intimacy of Murrow's wartime dispatches. "You burned the city of London in our houses and we felt the flames that burned it," MacLeish said. "You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew that the dead were our dead, were mankind's dead. You have destroyed the superstition that what is done beyond 3,000 miles of water is not really done at all."

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred less than a week after this speech, and the U.S. entered the war as a combatant on the Allied side. Murrow flew on 25 Allied combat missions in Europe during the war, providing additional reports from the planes as they droned on over Europe (recorded for delayed broadcast). Murrow's skill at improvising vivid descriptions of what was going on around or below him, derived in part from his college training in speech, aided the effectiveness of his radio broadcasts.

As hostilities expanded, Murrow expanded CBS News in London into what Harrison Salisbury described as "the finest news staff anybody had ever put together in Europe". The result was a group of reporters acclaimed for their intellect and descriptive power, including Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, Cecil Brown, Richard C. Hottelet, Bill Downs, Winston Burdett, Charles Shaw, Ned Calmer, and Larry LeSueur. Many of them, Shirer included, were later dubbed "Murrow's Boys"—despite Breckinridge being a woman. In 1944, Murrow sought Walter Cronkite to take over for Bill Downs at the CBS Moscow bureau. Cronkite initially accepted, but after receiving a better offer from his current employer, United Press, he turned down the offer.

Murrow so closely cooperated with the British that in 1943 Winston Churchill offered to make him joint director-general of the BBC in charge of programming. Although he declined the job, during the war Murrow did fall in love with Churchill's daughter-in-law, Pamela, whose other American lovers included Averell Harriman, whom she married many years later. Pamela wanted Murrow to marry her, and he considered it; however, after his wife gave birth to their only child, Casey, he ended the affair.

After the war, Murrow recruited journalists such as Alexander Kendrick, David Schoenbrun, Daniel Schorr and Robert Pierpoint into the circle of the Boys as a virtual "second generation", though the track record of the original wartime crew set it apart.

On April 12, 1945, Murrow and Bill Shadel were the first reporters at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. He met emaciated survivors including Petr Zenkl, children with identification tattoos, and "bodies stacked up like cordwood" in the crematorium. In his report three days later, Murrow said:

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words.... If I've offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I'm not in the least sorry.

— Extract from Murrow's Buchenwald report. April 15, 1945.

Postwar broadcasting career

Harry S. Truman and Edward R. Murrow, This I Believe series, 1951–1955

Radio

In December 1945 Murrow reluctantly accepted William S. Paley's offer to become a vice president of the network and head of CBS News, and made his last news report from London in March 1946. His presence and personality shaped the newsroom. After the war, he maintained close friendships with his previous hires, including members of the Murrow Boys. Younger colleagues at CBS became resentful toward this, viewing it as preferential treatment, and formed the "Murrow Isn't God Club." The club disbanded when Murrow asked if he could join.

During Murrow's tenure as vice president, his relationship with Shirer ended in 1947 in one of the great confrontations of American broadcast journalism, when Shirer was fired by CBS. He said he resigned in the heat of an interview at the time, but was actually terminated. The dispute began when J. B. Williams, maker of shaving soap, withdrew its sponsorship of Shirer's Sunday news show. CBS, of which Murrow was then vice president for public affairs, decided to "move in a new direction," hired a new host, and let Shirer go. There are different versions of these events; Shirer's was not made public until 1990.

Shirer contended that the root of his troubles was the network and sponsor not standing by him because of his comments critical of the Truman Doctrine, as well as other comments that were considered outside of the mainstream. Shirer and his supporters felt he was being muzzled because of his views. Meanwhile, Murrow, and even some of Murrow's Boys, felt that Shirer was coasting on his high reputation and not working hard enough to bolster his analyses with his own research. Murrow and Shirer never regained their close friendship.

The episode hastened Murrow's desire to give up his network vice presidency and return to newscasting, and it foreshadowed his own problems to come with his friend Paley, boss of CBS.

Murrow and Paley had become close when the network chief himself joined the war effort, setting up Allied radio outlets in Italy and North Africa. After the war, he would often go to Paley directly to settle any problems he had. "Ed Murrow was Bill Paley's one genuine friend in CBS," noted Murrow biographer Joseph Persico.

Murrow returned to the air in September 1947, taking over the nightly 7:45 p.m. ET newscast sponsored by Campbell's Soup and anchored by his old friend and announcing coach Bob Trout. For the next several years Murrow focused on radio, and in addition to news reports he produced special presentations for CBS News Radio. In 1950, he narrated a half-hour radio documentary called The Case of the Flying Saucer. It offered a balanced look at UFOs, a subject of widespread interest at the time. Murrow interviewed both Kenneth Arnold and astronomer Donald Menzel.

From 1951 to 1955, Murrow was the host of This I Believe, which offered ordinary people the opportunity to speak for five minutes on radio. He continued to present daily radio news reports on the CBS Radio Network until 1959. He also recorded a series of narrated "historical albums" for Columbia Records called I Can Hear It Now, which inaugurated his partnership with producer Fred W. Friendly. In 1950 the records evolved into a weekly CBS Radio show, Hear It Now, hosted by Murrow and co-produced by Murrow and Friendly.

Television and films

As the 1950s began, Murrow began his television career by appearing in editorial "tailpieces" on the CBS Evening News and in the coverage of special events. This came despite his own misgivings about the new medium and its emphasis on pictures rather than ideas.

On November 18, 1951, Hear It Now moved to television and was re-christened See It Now. In the first episode, Murrow explained: "This is an old team, trying to learn a new trade."

In 1952, Murrow narrated the political documentary Alliance for Peace, an information vehicle for the newly formed SHAPE detailing the effects of the Marshall Plan upon a war-torn Europe. It was written by William Templeton and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr.

In 1953, Murrow launched a second weekly TV show, a series of celebrity interviews entitled Person to Person.

Criticism of McCarthyism

See It Now focused on a number of controversial issues in the 1950s, but it is best remembered as the show that criticized McCarthyism and the Red Scare, contributing, if not leading, to the political downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy had previously commended Murrow for his fairness in reporting.

On June 15, 1953, Murrow hosted The Ford 50th Anniversary Show, broadcast simultaneously on NBC and CBS and seen by 60 million viewers. The broadcast closed with Murrow's commentary covering a variety of topics, including the danger of nuclear war against the backdrop of a mushroom cloud. Murrow also offered indirect criticism of McCarthyism, saying: "Nations have lost their freedom while preparing to defend it, and if we in this country confuse dissent with disloyalty, we deny the right to be wrong." Forty years after the broadcast, television critic Tom Shales recalled the broadcast as both "a landmark in television" and "a milestone in the cultural life of the '50s".

On March 9, 1954, Murrow, Friendly, and their news team produced a half-hour See It Now special titled "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy". Murrow had considered making such a broadcast since See It Now debuted and was encouraged to by multiple colleagues including Bill Downs. However, Friendly wanted to wait for the right time to do so. Murrow used excerpts from McCarthy's own speeches and proclamations to criticize the senator and point out episodes where he had contradicted himself. Murrow and Friendly paid for their own newspaper advertisement for the program; they were not allowed to use CBS's money for the publicity campaign or even use the CBS logo.

The broadcast contributed to a nationwide backlash against McCarthy and is seen as a turning point in the history of television. It provoked tens of thousands of letters, telegrams, and phone calls to CBS headquarters, running 15 to 1 in favor. In a retrospective produced for Biography, Friendly noted how truck drivers pulled up to Murrow on the street in subsequent days and shouted "Good show, Ed."

Murrow offered McCarthy the chance to respond to the criticism with a full half-hour on See It Now. McCarthy accepted the invitation and appeared on April 6, 1954. In his response, McCarthy rejected Murrow's criticism and accused him of being a communist sympathizer [McCarthy also accused Murrow of being a member of the Industrial Workers of the World which Murrow denied]. McCarthy also made an appeal to the public by attacking his detractors, stating:

Ordinarily, I would not take time out from the important work at hand to answer Murrow. However, in this case I feel justified in doing so because Murrow is a symbol, a leader, and the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose individual Communists and traitors.

Ultimately, McCarthy's rebuttal served only to further decrease his already fading popularity. In the program following McCarthy's appearance, Murrow commented that the senator had "made no reference to any statements of fact that we made" and rebutted McCarthy's accusations against himself.

Edward R. Murrow at work with CBS, 1957

Later television career

Murrow's hard-hitting approach to the news, however, cost him influence in the world of television. See It Now occasionally scored high ratings (usually when it was tackling a particularly controversial subject), but in general, it did not score well on prime-time television.

When a quiz show phenomenon began and took TV by storm in the mid-1950s, Murrow realized the days of See It Now as a weekly show were numbered. (Biographer Joseph Persico notes that Murrow, watching an early episode of The $64,000 Question air just before his own See It Now, is said to have turned to Friendly and asked how long they expected to keep their time slot).

See It Now was knocked out of its weekly slot in 1955 after sponsor Alcoa withdrew its advertising, but the show remained as a series of occasional TV special news reports that defined television documentary news coverage. Despite the show's prestige, CBS had difficulty finding a regular sponsor, since it aired intermittently in its new time slot (Sunday afternoons at 5 p.m. ET by the end of 1956) and could not develop a regular audience.

In 1956, Murrow took time to appear as the on-screen narrator of a special prologue for Michael Todd's epic production, Around the World in 80 Days. Although the prologue was generally omitted on telecasts of the film, it was included in home video releases.

Beginning in 1958, Murrow hosted a talk show entitled Small World that brought together political figures for one-to-one debates. In January 1959, he appeared on WGBH's The Press and the People with Louis Lyons, discussing the responsibilities of television journalism.

Murrow appeared as himself in a cameo in the British film production of Sink the Bismarck! in 1960, recreating some of the wartime broadcasts he did from London for CBS.

On September 16, 1962, he introduced educational television to New York City via the maiden broadcast of WNDT, which became WNET.

Fall from favor

Murrow's reporting brought him into repeated conflicts with CBS, especially its chairman William Paley, which Friendly summarized in his book Due to Circumstances Beyond our Control. See It Now ended entirely in the summer of 1958 after a clash in Paley's office. Murrow had complained to Paley he could not continue doing the show if the network repeatedly provided (without consulting Murrow) equal time to subjects who felt wronged by the program.

According to Friendly, Murrow asked Paley if he was going to destroy See It Now, into which the CBS chief executive had invested so much. Paley replied that he did not want a constant stomach ache every time Murrow covered a controversial subject.

See It Now's final broadcast, "Watch on the Ruhr" (covering postwar Germany), aired July 7, 1958. Three months later, on October 15, 1958, in a speech before the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago, Murrow blasted TV's emphasis on entertainment and commercialism at the expense of public interest in his "wires and lights" speech:

During the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: Look now, pay later.

The harsh tone of the Chicago speech seriously damaged Murrow's friendship with Paley, who felt Murrow was biting the hand that fed him. Before his death, Friendly said that the RTNDA (now Radio Television Digital News Association) address did more than the McCarthy show to break the relationship between the CBS boss and his most respected journalist.

Another contributing element to Murrow's career decline was the rise of a new crop of television journalists. Walter Cronkite's arrival at CBS in 1950 marked the beginning of a major rivalry which continued until Murrow resigned from the network in 1961. Murrow held a grudge dating back to 1944, when Cronkite turned down his offer to head the CBS Moscow bureau. With the Murrow Boys dominating the newsroom, Cronkite felt like an outsider soon after joining the network. Over time, as Murrow's career seemed on the decline and Cronkite's on the rise, the two found it increasingly difficult to work together. Cronkite's demeanor was similar to reporters Murrow had hired; the difference being that Murrow viewed the Murrow Boys as satellites rather than potential rivals, as Cronkite seemed to be.

Throughout the 1950s the two got into heated arguments stoked in part by their professional rivalry. At a dinner party hosted by Bill Downs at his home in Bethesda, Cronkite and Murrow argued over the role of sponsors, which Cronkite accepted as necessary and said "paid the rent." Murrow, who had long despised sponsors despite also relying on them, responded angrily. In another instance, an argument devolved into a "duel" in which the two drunkenly took a pair of antique dueling pistols and pretended to shoot at each other. Despite this, Cronkite went on to have a long career as an anchor at CBS.

After the end of See It Now, Murrow was invited by New York's Democratic Party to run for the Senate. Paley was enthusiastic and encouraged him to do it. Harry Truman advised Murrow that his choice was between being the junior senator from New York or being Edward R. Murrow, beloved broadcast journalist, and hero to millions. He listened to Truman.

After contributing to the first episode of the documentary series CBS Reports, Murrow, increasingly under physical stress due to his conflicts and frustration with CBS, took a sabbatical from summer 1959 to mid-1960, though he continued to work on CBS Reports and Small World during this period. Friendly, executive producer of CBS Reports, wanted the network to allow Murrow to again be his co-producer after the sabbatical, but he was eventually turned down.

Murrow's last major TV milestone was reporting and narrating the CBS Reports installment Harvest of Shame, a report on the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States. Directed by Friendly and produced by David Lowe, it ran in November 1960, just after Thanksgiving.

Summary of television work

• 1951–1958 – See It Now (host)
• 1953–1959 – Person to Person (host)
• 1958–1960 – Small World (moderator and producer)

United States Information Agency (USIA) Director

Murrow resigned from CBS to accept a position as head of the United States Information Agency, parent of the Voice of America, in January 1961. President John F. Kennedy offered Murrow the position, which he viewed as "a timely gift." CBS president Frank Stanton had reportedly been offered the job but declined, suggesting that Murrow be offered the job.

His appointment as head of the United States Information Agency was seen as a vote of confidence in the agency, which provided the official views of the government to the public in other nations. The USIA had been under fire during the McCarthy era, and Murrow reappointed at least one of McCarthy's targets, Reed Harris. Murrow insisted on a high level of presidential access, telling Kennedy, "If you want me in on the landings, I'd better be there for the takeoffs." However, the early effects of cancer kept him from taking an active role in the Bay of Pigs Invasion planning. He did advise the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis but was ill at the time the president was assassinated. Murrow was drawn into Vietnam because the USIA was assigned to convince reporters in Saigon that the government of Ngo Dinh Diem embodied the hopes and dreams of the Vietnamese people. Murrow knew the Diem government did no such thing. Asked to stay on by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Murrow did so but resigned in early 1964, citing illness. Before his departure, his last recommendation was of Barry Zorthian to be chief spokesman for the U.S. government in Saigon, Vietnam.

Murrow's celebrity gave the agency a higher profile, which may have helped it earn more funds from Congress. His transfer to a governmental position—Murrow was a member of the National Security Council, a position for life—led to an embarrassing incident shortly after taking the job; he asked the BBC not to show his documentary "Harvest of Shame," in order not to damage the European view of the USA; however, the BBC refused as it had bought the program in good faith. British newspapers delighted in the irony of the situation, with one Daily Sketch writer saying: "if Murrow builds up America as skillfully as he tore it to pieces last night, the propaganda war is as good as won."

According to some biographers, near the end of Murrow's life, when health problems forced him to resign from the USIA, Paley reportedly invited Murrow to return to CBS. Murrow, possibly knowing he could not work, declined Paley's offer.

Death

A chain smoker throughout his life, Murrow was almost never seen without his trademark Camel cigarette. It was reported that he smoked between sixty and sixty-five cigarettes a day, equivalent to roughly three packs. See It Now was the first television program to have a report about the connection between smoking and cancer. During the show, Murrow said, "I doubt I could spend a half hour without a cigarette with any comfort or ease." He developed lung cancer and lived for two years after an operation to remove his left lung.

Murrow died at his home in Pawling, New York, on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. His colleague and friend Eric Sevareid said of him, "He was a shooting star; and we will live in his afterglow a very long time." CBS carried a memorial program, which included a rare on-camera appearance by William S. Paley, founder of CBS.

Honors

• Murrow was repeatedly honored with the Peabody Award, jointly and individually.
• In 1947 Murrow received the Alfred I. duPont Award.
• In 1964, Murrow was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• 1964: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
• He was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on March 5, 1965, and received similar honors from the governments of Belgium, France, and Sweden.
• He received "Special" George Polk Awards in 1951 and 1952.
• In 1967, he was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his Edward R. Murrow – A Reporter Remembers, Vol. I The War Years.
• The Edward R. Murrow Award, given annually by the Radio Television Digital News Association is named in his honor; it is presented for "outstanding achievement in electronic journalism"
• The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University is named in his honor.
• The Edward R. Murrow Park in Washington, D.C. is named in his memory.
• Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York is named after him.
• Murrow Boulevard is a large thoroughfare in the heart of Greensboro, North Carolina.
• The last remaining Voice of America broadcast transmitting site in the United States, the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station, is named after him.
• A statue of native Edward R. Murrow stands on the grounds of the Greensboro Historical Museum.
• In 1984, Murrow was posthumously inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
• In 1996, Murrow was ranked No. 22 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time" list.
• The Edward R. Murrow Park in Pawling, New York was named for him.

Legacy

Murrow's record at the radio studios of Kol Yisrael in Jerusalem, 2016

After Murrow's death, the Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy was established at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Murrow's library and selected artifacts are housed in the Murrow Memorial Reading Room that also serves as a special seminar classroom and meeting room for Fletcher activities. Murrow's papers are available for research at the Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts, which has a website for the collection and makes many of the digitized papers available through the Tufts Digital Library.

The center awards Murrow fellowships to mid-career professionals who engage in research at Fletcher, ranging from the impact of the New World Information Order debate in the international media during the 1970s and 1980s to current telecommunications policies and regulations. Many distinguished journalists, diplomats, and policymakers have spent time at the center, among them David Halberstam, who worked on his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1972 book, The Best and the Brightest, as a writer-in-residence.

Veteran journalist Crocker Snow Jr. was named director of the Murrow Center in 2005.

In 1971 the RTNDA (Now Radio Television Digital News Association) established the Edward R. Murrow Awards, honoring outstanding achievement in the field of electronic journalism. There are four other awards also known as the "Edward R. Murrow Award", including the one at Washington State University.

In 1973, Murrow's alma mater, Washington State University, dedicated its expanded communication facilities the Edward R. Murrow Communications Center and established the annual Edward R. Murrow Symposium. In 1990, the WSU Department of Communications became the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication, followed on July 1, 2008, with the school becoming the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. Veteran international journalist Lawrence Pintak is the college's founding dean.

Several movies were filmed, either completely or partly about Murrow. In 1986, HBO broadcast the made-for-cable biographical movie, Murrow, with Daniel J. Travanti in the title role, and Robert Vaughn in a supporting role. In the 1999 film The Insider, Lowell Bergman, a television producer for the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes, played by Al Pacino, is confronted by Mike Wallace, played by Christopher Plummer, after an exposé of the tobacco industry is edited down to suit CBS management and then, itself, gets exposed in the press for the self-censorship. Wallace passes Bergman an editorial printed in The New York Times, which accuses CBS of betraying the legacy of Edward R. Murrow. Good Night, and Good Luck is a 2005 Oscar-nominated film directed, co-starring and co-written by George Clooney about the conflict between Murrow and Joseph McCarthy on See It Now. Murrow is portrayed by actor David Strathairn, who received an Oscar nomination. In the film, Murrow's conflict with CBS boss William Paley occurs immediately after his skirmish with McCarthy.

In 2003, Fleetwood Mac released their album Say You Will, featuring the track "Murrow Turning Over in His Grave". On the track, Lindsey Buckingham reflects on current news media and claims Ed Murrow would be shocked at the bias and sensationalism displayed by reporters in the new century if he was alive.

Works

Filmography

• Around the World in 80 Days (1956) as Prologue Narrator
• The Lost Class of '59 (1959) as himself
• Montgomery Speaks His Mind (1959) as himself
• Sink the Bismarck! (1960) as himself (final film role)
• Murrow (1986) made-for-cable biographical movie directed by Jack Gold, originally broadcast by HBO
• Good Night, and Good Luck, 2005 historical drama portraying the conflict between Murrow and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, especially relating to the anti-Communist Senator's actions with the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, directed by George Clooney

Books

• Rise of the Vice Presidency by Irving G. Williams, introduced by Edward R. Murrow (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1956)