Peru Bans GMOs
Biodiversity, GMOs, Health & Disease, News, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 13, 2012
Back in 2009, Wikileaks released some diplomatic cables from the U.S. which revealed a list of priority countries for ‘GMO outreach’. Peru was amongst those on the hit list.
Well, now it seems Peru has opted out….
Comments (2)Peak Meat: U.S. Meat Consumption Falling
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Livestock — by Earth Policy Institute March 8, 2012
by Janet Larsen, Earth Policy Institute
U.S. meat consumption has peaked. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that meat eating across the country fell from the 2004 high point of 184 pounds (83 kilograms) per person to 171 pounds in 2011. Early estimates for 2012 project a further reduction in American meat eating to 166 pounds, making for a 10 percent drop over the eight-year period. For a society that lives high on the food chain, this new trend could signal the end of meat’s mealtime dominance.
Total U.S. meat consumption peaked in 2007 at 55 billion pounds and has fallen each year since. In 2012, consumption is expected to drop to 52 billion pounds, the lowest level in more than a decade.
Comments (3)Grow your own Drugs
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants — by Sunny Soleil March 1, 2012
Pharmaceutical companies have been raiding nature’s larder for years and isolating ingredients to make high cost, patented, chemical drugs to cure our ails. My friend Florence who is 99 tells me that there is a plant for every ailment and James Wong agrees.
An ethno-botanist and gardener, James Wong explains, in the videos below, how many of the ingredients in commercially available drugs can be found in your garden or on a country walk. Cornflowers have been used for hundreds of years for eye ailments while almost every pain killer on the market contains something extracted from the common poppy. In these two videos he shows us how to prepare a marigold skin clearing acne gel, elderflower throat lozenges,eczema cream from wild violets. Wong also demonstrates preparation of Syrup of Figs for Constipation, Goji Berry Chicken Soup for Colds and Flu, Hops Pillow for Insomnia & Kiwi and Papaya Face Masks.
Part I
Farmer Faces Possible 3-year Prison Term for Feeding Community
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Society — by Liz Reitzig February 27, 2012
Press Release
February 24, 2012
Contact: Liz Reitzig, Co-founder, Farm Food Freedom Coalition
301-807-5063, lizreitzig (at) gmail.com www.RawMilkFreedomRiders.com
Farmer Faces Possible 3-year Prison Term for Feeding Community — Customers and Other Supporters Stand with Farmer
Baraboo, WI—Food sovereignty activists from around North America will meet at this tiny town on March 2 to support Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger and food sovereignty. Hershberger, who has a court hearing that day, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land him in prison for three years with fines of over $10,000. The Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) targeted Hershberger for supplying a private buying club with fresh milk and other farm products.
Comments (1)The Fight of the Century
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Richard Heinberg February 22, 2012
As economies contract, a global popular uprising confronts power elites over access to the essentials of human existence. What are the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and how is it likely to play out?
by Richard Heinberg (Article originally published on www.postcarbon.org)
1. Prologue
As the world economy crashes against debt and resource limits, more and more countries are responding by attempting to salvage what are actually their most expendable features — corrupt, insolvent banks and bloated militaries — while leaving the majority of their people to languish in “austerity.” The result, predictably, is a global uprising. This current set of conditions and responses will lead, sooner or later, to social as well as economic upheaval — and a collapse of the support infrastructure on which billions depend for their very survival.
Nations could, in principle, forestall social collapse by providing the basics of existence (food, water, housing, medical care, family planning, education, employment for those able to work, and public safety) universally and in a way that could be sustained for some time, while paying for this by deliberately shrinking other features of society — starting with military and financial sectors — and by taxing the wealthy. The cost of covering the basics for everyone is within the means of most nations. Providing human necessities would not remove all fundamental problems now converging (climate change, resource depletion, and the need for fundamental economic reforms), but it would provide a platform of social stability and equity to give the world time to grapple with deeper, existential challenges.
Comments (1)Natural Hair Care and Small Steps Towards Sustainability
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants — by Niva Kay
In this article I would like to share with you the transition Yotam and I went through from conventional hair care to a completely zero waste, home made, natural hair care regime.
I think this process is also a mirror to many other parallel transitions we have been doing in our lives on our way to sustainability, and that our society still needs to go through.
Any step you take on this path is blessed, but knowing that there is more that you can do can help in taking yourself further.
Here are the steps we’ve gone through:
Comments (7)Roundup in City-Dwellers’ Urine
Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Jeffrey M. Smith February 21, 2012
Studies have already found Monsanto’s toxic herbicide Roundup in groundwater, in streams, and even in the rain and air of US agricultural areas. It’s been found in our blood and even crosses the placental barrier to enter our unborn fetuses. So are we surprised that a German university study has now found significant concentrations of Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate in the urine of city dwellers?
Perhaps we should be surprised at the amount: all the samples had concentrations of glyphosate at 5 to 20 times the limit for drinking water.
Comments (3)USAID to Incorporate Permaculture in Aid Work
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 17, 2012
 USAID Permaculture Technical Brief (580kb PDF) |
The growing food crisis has struggled to stay in the headlines since being highlighted broadscale in the mainstream media back in 2008, but it moves apace regardless, and I can assure you it will continue to do so, likely at a frightening rate. A 2012 Save the Children report shares that "Half a billion children could grow up physically and mentally stunted over the next 15 years because they do not have enough to eat" (BBC).
With this in mind, it’s excellent news that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID — "the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid" Wikipedia) is moving to incorporate permaculture design into its aid work for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). They’ve just released a technical brief (right) to help expedite this.
From the document:
Comments (10)2nd National Sustainable Food Summit, Sydney, Australia (April 2012)
Conferences, Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Deforestation, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Cheryl Samarasinghe February 14, 2012
Editor’s Note: I would encourage all well-spoken permaculturists who can make it to Sydney for this event to go along and contribute your thoughts — to help show how permaculture can shift our planetary orbit onto a safer trajectory….
What: 2nd National Sustainable Food Summit
When: 2-4 April, 2012
Where: Dockside, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Last year, in April 2011, over 340 delegates including public health, primary producers and members of the business, government, education, community and not-for-profit sectors came together in Melbourne to share ideas that could inform a vision for Australia’s food system in 2030.
The Inaugural National Sustainable Food Summit generated extraordinary consensus for the need to collaborate and continue the conversations necessary to transform Australia’s food system.
The 2nd National Sustainable Food Summit has been designed to progress the discussion from 2011 — which focused on the limits and challenges to our current system — to begin to examine what new frameworks and emerging solutions will help support a sustainable and resilient food system for Australia now and in the future.
Comments (1)Under Industry Pressure, USDA Works to Speed Approval of Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Crops
GMOs, Health & Disease — by Mike Ludwig January 25, 2012
by Mike Ludwig, Truthout
For years, biotech agriculture opponents have accused regulators of working too closely with big biotech firms when deregulating genetically engineered (GE) crops. Now, their worst fears could be coming true: under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process.
This would eliminate a critical level of oversight for the production of GE crops. Regulators are also testing new cost-sharing agreements that allow biotech firms to help pay private contractors to prepare mandatory environmental statements on GE plants the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering deregulating.
The USDA launched the pilot project in April and, in November, the USDA announced vague plans to "streamline" the deregulation petition process for GE organisms. A USDA spokesperson said the streamlining effort is not part of the pilot project, but both efforts appear to address a backlog of pending GE crop deregulation petitions that has angered big biotech firms seeking to rollout new products.
Comments (0)Anonymous Took Down Monsanto Website
Biodiversity, GMOs, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
It’s not as good as seeing all of Monsanto’s plants and chemicals getting taken ‘offline’, but at least I can get a little mischevious pleasure from learning that Monsanto has been on the hit-list of the Anonymous team. The following video apparently shows how Monsanto was taken offline (Note that I’m a bit slow on the uptake on this one — as the video is from the middle of last year — but since I’m in an anti-GMO mood today, I thought I’d run it anyway):
Anonymous DDOS attack on Monsanto.com
Here’s an Anonymous message to Monsanto, with transcript below:
Comments (4)Question What’s Inside – Anti GMO Music Video
GMOs, Health & Disease — by Rob Herring
Download for iTunes here
(50% of the 99 cent fee goes to support the Institute for Responsible Technology’s
work to battle the GMO takeover of the world.)
Living, Green and Circular
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Financial Management, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho January 13, 2012
The new Truly Green Economy needs to be modeled after and embedded within the circular economy of nature to generate and regenerate wealth for people and planet.
Note: A fully illustrated and referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members website and is otherwise available for download here.
The linear economy and the circular economy
The world’s economy is on the brink of financial meltdown, thanks to the corrupt Wall Street money and banking system unleashed by deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s [1] (“Shut Down Wall Street!” SiS 53). Emerging from the ruins is a new socially accountable economy that can provide good jobs at living wages, and generate real wealth for people and communities, at least in the United States [2] (New Economy Now, SiS 53). But that is not enough, we need a truly green circular economy working with and within nature to generate and regenerate wealth for people and planet.
Until a few years ago, very few people would take green or circular economy seriously. Not anymore; governments and businesses are now outdoing environmental groups in claiming the green circular economy for themselves. So perhaps it is time to put down some goal posts to make sure we get there.
Comments (2)Pine Pollen – How to Pick Your Own Superfood
Food Plants - Perennial, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants, Nuclear, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Sunny Soleil January 4, 2012
Most of us know about pine needle tea as a rich source of Vitamin C, but now white pine pollen is to being promoted as a highly nutritious superfood powder. But who needs to buy it when you can pick your own?
Arthur Haines shows you how and when to harvest pine pollen with strategies for gathering sufficient to make tinctures or use as food. Haines also goes into detail about the nutritional chemistry of pine pollen which is rich in non-enzymatic anti-oxidants like pro vitamin A, B Complex, C, D and E plus a host of minerals and amino acids. Apparently pine pollen is also a great defence against radioactive Cesium that is appearing in dairy and other foods in the US.
Part I
The Hidden Epidemic Destroying Your Gut Flora
GMOs, Health & Disease — by Dr. Mercola December 24, 2011
by Dr. Mercola
Dr. Don Huber is an expert in an area of science that relates to the toxicity of genetically engineered (GE) foods. (Alternative terms for GE foods include genetically modified (GM), or "GMO" for genetically modified organism.) His specific areas of training include soil-borne diseases, microbial ecology, and host-parasite relationships. Dr. Huber also taught plant pathology, soil microbiology, and micro-ecological interactions as they relate to plant disease as a staff Professor at Purdue University for 35 years.
Comments (4)
