24 May

Policy Plate: Farm Bill Debate and Ag Pollution Continue

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Agriculture, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Conservation, Food and Farming, Sustainability.

Source:  Environmental Working Group – Posted by Don Carr in 2012 Farm Bill, Policy Plate on May 23, 2012

While the Senate and House Agriculture Committees debate how drastically they will cut proven farm bill conservation programs, widespread industrial agriculture pollution continues to take its toll. An ABC News affiliate in Baltimore reports this morning that the Maryland Department of the Environment found at least 6,000 dead fish washed ashore Monday in two Maryland counties:

MDE officials have been watching algae blooms since March and say that it is likely that one of the blooms caused the fish kill. Continue reading

24 May

Los Angeles Says No To Plastic Bags – Isn’t it time for Weston to do the same!!

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Conservation, Recycling, Sustainability.

By a vote of 13 to 1, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines. Over the next 12 months, some 7,500 stores must phase out plastic bags.

After a four-month environmental review of the bag ban, an ordnance will go into effect. Larger stores will then have six months to phase out the use of the bags while smaller ones will have twelve months. Retailers must charge 10 cents per paper bag starting one year from the date on which the plastic bag ban goes into effect.

48 other California cities including San Francisco and San Jose already have plastic bag bans. Los Angeles’s decision to “just say no” to plastic is of huge significance, as it it the US’s second-largest city.

Environmentalists and clean-water advocates are hailing the ban as, indeed, a major victory in stopping the scourge that plastic bags have become, adding to the trash that clogs landfills, waterways and the ocean. The Los Angeles Times quotes attorney H. David Nahai, a former top executive at the Department of Water and Power:

Plastic harms our environment. It is a threat to the coastal economy. It is a danger to marine life and it is an unconscionable burden to taxpayers who have to foot the bill for cleanups year after year.

Plastic bag manufacturers have objected to the ban, arguing that it destroys jobs.

While the City Council steered clear of an additional ban on paper bags, Councilman Paul Koretz noted that, in two years, city officials would conduct a study to consider banning the use of paper bags, too. According to Jennie R. Romer of plasticbaglaws.org, “Los Angeles County’s 10-cent fee on paper bags has led to a 94% reduction in the use of those bags.”

Could a plastic bag ban in the US’s largest city, the New York, be next?
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/los-angeles-says-no-to-plastic-bags.html#ixzz1vnQDGoy3

 

20 May

Solar Windows: Turning Buildings into Energy Producers

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Alternative energy sources, Clean Energy, Conservation, Sustainability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Dave Levitan, via Yale Environment 360

If you picture the glittering glass skyscrapers that dot America’s cities, it becomes clear why the idea of using that vast window space to generate solar power is gaining traction. In 2009 alone, 437 million square feet of windows were installed in non-residential buildings in the United States. That many square feet of standard solar panels would generate around 4 gigawatts of power, roughly the total installed solar capacity in the U.S. today.

Such potential is leading engineers and entrepreneurs to more intensively explore the idea of turning windows into solar-power producers. Solar windows, a subset of the growing field known as building-integrated photovoltaics, are based on the concept that a window doesn’t need to be 100 percent transparent, and a solar panel doesn’t need to be 100 percent opaque. Several ways currently exist to turn a window into a power-generating device, from thin-film silicon, to dye-sensitized solar cells, to tiny organic cells. Continue reading

18 May

Chemical gene damage carries across generations

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Food and Farming, Genetically Modified Organisms, Sustainability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by:  Kristin Schafer , Pesticide Action Network, in their “Ground Truth” publication

Part of my job here at PAN is keeping track of the latest research about how pesticides are harming children’s health. This has kept me too busy of late, as studies seem to be coming fast and furious linking pesticides with childhood asthma, autism, birth defects, cancer and more.

One recent study gave me serious pause. We already understand that some chemicals can change how our genes function; now researchers know that this damage can be passed from one generation to the next. I’m no scientist, but I understand enough to know that compromising the DNA of future generations is not a good idea.

It’s been known for some time that a range of pollutants can strip or add chemical tags to DNA, locking the expression of these genes on or off and changing how they function. These changes are called “epigenetic tags,” and have been linked to various health effects including early puberty, disrupted ovarian function, and death of sperm-forming cells.

Overriding the reset button

What’s news from this recent study is that some chemicals can override the genetic “reset button” that usually protects a developing fetus from such changes.

In the normal course of things, any genetic changes parents have accumulated over the course of their lifetime are erased, and the genes go back to the original programming. A fascinating evolutionary trick.

But researchers at Washington State University in Pullman found that when pregnant rats were exposed to permethrin, DEET or any of a number of industrial chemicals (including common ingredients in plastics), the mother rats’ great grand-daughters had higher risk of early puberty and malfunctioning ovaries — even though those subsequent generations had not been exposed to the chemical.

The study’s leader, Dr. Michael Skinner, told Science News that every chemical tested resulted in these transgenerational effects, suggesting that “epigenetic changes are not some unique quirk of any one chemical,” and that many pollutants likely have the potential to override the fetal reset button.

Cutting edge science

For me, these so-called “epigenetic effects” are hard to wrap my mind around. So I’m very much looking forward to a conference on the topic coming up later this month, sponsored by our partners at the Children’s Environmental Health Network.

CEHN is pulling together an impressive cadre of researchers working to understand exactly how pollutants are compromising our DNA, how the damage gets passed along, and what it means for the health of future generations.

The Contribution of Epigenetics in Pediatric Environmental Health will be held here in San Francisco, May 30 – Jun 1. I’ll be listening in, along with my PAN colleague (and fellow mom) Dr. Medha Chandra. We believe that the more we understand about how we are compromising the DNA of future generations with today’s policies, the better case we can make that real change is needed, and soon. Hope to see you there.

 

18 May

Bee kills in the corn belt: What’s GE got to do with it?

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Food and Farming, Organic Gardening, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Genetically Modified Organisms, Sustainability, Conservation, Agriculture.

By:  Heather Pilatic

Source:  Ground Truth, Pesticide Action Network Publication

In the last few weeks beekeepers have reported staggering losses in Minnesota, Nebraska and Ohio after their hives foraged on pesticide-treated corn fields. Indiana too, two years ago. What’s going on in the Corn Belt?

No farmer in their right mind wants to poison pollinators. When I spoke with one Iowa corn farmer in January and told him about the upcoming release of a Purdue study confirming corn as a major pesticide exposure route for bees, his face dropped with worn exasperation. He looked down for a moment, sighed and said, “You know, I held out for years on buying them GE seeds, but now I can’t get conventional seeds anymore. They just don’t carry ‘em.”

This leaves us with two questions: 1) What do GE seeds have to do with neonicotinoids and bees? and 2) How can an Iowa corn farmer find himself feeling unable to farm without poisoning pollinators? In other words, where did U.S. corn cultivation go wrong?

The short answer to both questions starts with a slow motion train wreck that began in the mid-1990s: Corn integrated pest management (IPM) fell apart at the seams. Rather, it was intentionally unraveled by Bayer and Monsanto.

Honey bees caught in the cross-fire

Corn is far from the only crop treated by neonicotinoids, but it is the largest use of arable land in North America, and honey bees rely on corn as a major protein source. At least 94 percent of the 92 million acres of corn planted across the U.S. this year will have been treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam (another neonicotinoid).

As we head into peak corn planting season throughout the U.S. Midwest, bees will once again “get it from all sides” as they:

  • fly through clothianidin-contaminated planter dust;
  • gather clothianidin-laced corn pollen, which will then be fed to emerging larva;
  • gather water from acutely toxic, pesticide-laced guttation droplets; and/or
  • gather pollen and nectar from nearby fields where forage sources such as dandelions have taken up these persistent chemicals from soil that’s been contaminated year on year since clothianidin’s widespread introduction into corn cultivation in 2003.

GE corn & neonicotinoid seed treatments go hand-in-hand

Over the last 15 years, U.S. corn cultivation has gone from a crop requiring little-to-no insecticides and negligible amounts of fungicides, to a crop where the average acre is grown from seeds treated or genetically engineered to express three different insecticides (as well as a fungicide or two) before being sprayed prophylactically with RoundUp (an herbicide) and a new class of fungicides that farmers didn’t know they “needed” before the mid-2000s.
A series of marketing ploys by the pesticide industry undergird this story. It’s about time to start telling it, if for no other reason than to give lie to the oft-repeated notion that there is no alternative to farming corn in a way that poisons pollinators. We were once — not so long ago — on a very different path.

Read the full blog on Huffington Post.

17 May

The Staggering Plight of the Honeybee

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Agriculture, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Conservation, Food and Farming, Genetically Modified Organisms, Organic Gardening, Sustainability.

Article written by Dr. Mercola, May 15, 2012
Bees have been dying off around the world for more than a decade now, a phenomenon that has been named “Colony Collapse Disorder,” or CCD.

The U.S. and the U.K. both reported losing a third of their honeybees in 2010. Italy lost half. The die-offs have spread to China and India, in addition to many other countries.

A third of the U.S. food supply requires the assistance of the honeybee.

The collapse of bee colonies is probably multifactorial, rather than a response to one type of toxic assault.

Although experts don’t yet understand all of the underlying factors and how they interact to cause our pollinators to disappear, they agree about one thing: if we allow this to continue, our already-limited global food supply is at risk, which means more than 7 billion humans occupying this planet are at risk as well.

The common honeybee pollinates 130 different crops in the U.S. alone, including fruits, vegetables and tree nuts.

Without our bees, almonds, pumpkins, watermelons and other varieties of melon, and even vanilla, could completely disappear.

Haagen-Dazs donated $250,000 to research into bee colony collapse disorder because it says the honeybees are responsible for 24 of its 60 ice cream flavors, including strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.

As usual, at the core of the problem is big industry, which is blinded by greed and enabled by a corrupt governmental system that permits the profit-driven sacrifice of our environment. Unfortunately, this motivation reflects an extreme shortsightedness about the long-term survival of the human race, as well as of our planet. Not only are commercial agricultural practices harming honeybee colonies, but your own health is being compromised by deceptive marketing practices about the “honey” you buy, some of which isn’t really honey at all, despite what it says on the label. Continue reading

8 May

Connecticut Fears Monsanto – Bill to Label GM Ingredients Dead Due to Lawsuit Worries

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Food and Farming, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Genetically Modified Organisms, Sustainability, Conservation, Agriculture.

Mat McDermott   Business / Environmental Policy

May 8, 2012

Remember all the cheering when Connecticut legislators proposed a bill requiring the labeling of genetically modified ingredients in food? Well, you can start booing. Loudly.

As the Fairfield Green Food Guide reports, legislators have gotten cold feet, removing the entire part of the bill requiring labeling of the GM ingredients, fearing lawsuit by the big corporate behemoth Monsanto.

Representative Richard Roy, one of the bill’s original sponsors says,

The labeling provision was eliminated from the bill due to fears that it opened the state up to a lawsuit. The attorneys for the leadership and Governor’s office felt the Constitutional rights of Monsanto gave them the power to successfully sue the state. Their main duty was to protect the welfare of the state.

Weak willed trembling nebbishness, your epitome is here.

Protecting the welfare of the state? Very nearly every other developed nation in the world mandates the labeling of genetically modified ingredients, but not the United States, that nation wholly in the hands of corporations, to the point that states fear them as being more powerful.

Recently, Vermont had planned on labeling GM ingredients but too backed off over threat of lawsuit of Monsanto.

As the oft-shared Facebook protest photo proclaims, if Monsanto is so proud of it’s genetically modified products why are they afraid to label them? Their usual talking point is that they are no different than the non-genetically modified version, at least in terms of safety. Forget the fact that Monsanto very actively opposes independent tests on its products, and those tests that have been independently done at minimum raise very serious questions about GM crops safety for humans, with harm to the environment in terms of development of super weeds and resistant pests solidly proven.

Oh, I know why biotech firms oppose labeling in the US: Because over half of people would not buy a GM food, if they knew that’s what it was — and a nearly 90% of people want to know.

As for the constitutionality worries, FGFG quotes Tara Cook-Littman, of Right to Know CT:

The constitutional argument is absurd, and everyone knows it. As long as Connecticut lawmakers had a legitimate state interest that was reasonable related to the labeling of products produced from the process of genetic engineering, the GMO labeling bill would be considered constitutional by any court of law. It appears that the biotech industry’s influence was in place all along, waiting for this tactic to be deployed at the last minute, with no time to argue before the vote.

I have to say I can barely contain my rage over this.

Make no mistake who controls the United States. It is not the people. Nor is it the 1%, at least on a personal level. It is the corporations, and this is just one further example of it.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

Oh wait, corporations in all their psychopathy feel no shame.

4 May

Fetal exposure alters brain structure, say scientists

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Agriculture, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Food and Farming, Sustainability.

Source:  Pesticide Action Network

When a pregnant woman is exposed to low levels of a commonly used pesticide, the architecture of her developing infant’s brain may be irreversibly damaged. This according to researchers who for the first time used MRI testing to see structural evidence of harm from exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos during fetal development.

Researchers report that the changes in brain structure they observed were consistent with the learning and developmental effects (including reduced IQs) that have been linked to chlorpyrifos. The effects were observed at exposure levels well below those considered harmful by EPA.

The scientists scanned the brains of 40 New York City children, ages 5 to 11, whose mothers had participated in a larger study measuring pesticide exposure during pregnancy. Twenty children whose mothers had been exposed to higher levels of chlorpyrifos were compared with 20 children with lower exposure levels. Continue reading

3 May

Genetically modified crops’ results raise concern

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Agriculture, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Conservation, Food and Farming, Genetically Modified Organisms, Organic Gardening, Sustainability.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Article by:  Carol Lockhead
Photo Credit:  Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

A harvester works through a field of genetically modified corn near Santa Rosa. Approval of a new corn may lead to heavy use of a 1940s-era herbicide.

 Washington — Biotechnology’s promise to feed the world did not anticipate “Trojan corn,” “super weeds” and the disappearance of monarch butterflies.

But in the Midwest and South – blanketed by more than 170 million acres of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton – an experiment begun in 1996 with approval of the first commercial genetically modified organisms is producing questionable results.

Those results include vast increases in herbicide use that have created impervious weeds now infesting millions of acres of cropland, while decimating other plants, such as milkweeds that sustain the monarch butterflies. Food manufacturers are worried that a new corn made for ethanol could damage an array of packaged food on supermarket shelves.

Some farm groups have joined environmentalists in an attempt to slow down approvals of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, as a newly engineered corn, resistant to another potent herbicide, stands on the brink of approval. Continue reading

2 May

Subsidy Buffet for Agribiz, Table Scraps for Good Food

Posted by Weston Sustainability Committee in Agriculture, Chemicals and Pesticides, etc., Conservation, Food and Farming, Genetically Modified Organisms, Organic Gardening, Sustainability.

Posted by Kari Hamerschlag in 2012 Farm Bill, Food, Subsidies on May 1, 2012 |

 

The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week (April 20) falls far short of providing farm and food policies Americans want. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible should be a top priority in the farm bill. They’re going to be sorely disappointed. If it passes, this agribusiness-as-usual proposal will largely perpetuate our broken food and agriculture system, leaving in its wake a long legacy of poor health and degraded soil, water and habitat, especially in the industrial agriculture heartland. Continue reading

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