Chemical Lawn Care Products Face Ban in NJ

By Scott Fallon
North Jersey - NJ, September 8, 2010
Straight to the Source

Lawns may turn more brittle and yellow, but lakes, bays and marshes could become a lot cleaner under a bill making its way through Trenton that would ban many lawn care products on the shelf today. A bill in the Legislature would limit the nitrogen in turf fertilizers to a level exceeded by nearly every product on the market. It also would regulate when and where fertilizer could be used.  A bill in the Legislature would limit the nitrogen in turf fertilizers to a level exceeded by nearly every product on the market. It also would regulate when and where fertilizer could be used.

Called the most comprehensive and prohibitive legislation of its kind in the nation by supporters and opponents alike, the bill calls for a sea change in the way New Jerseyans apply fertilizer to their lawns. The bill comes out of a package of legislation intended to restore Barnegat Bay, heavily polluted by fertilizer runoff, but its impact would be statewide.

The most contentious part of the bill limits the amount and type of nitrogen in fertilizer to a level that can't be met by any of the products currently offered by the world's largest lawn care retailer.

"For that standard to be met, every product on the market would need to change," said Chris Wible, director of environmental stewardship for Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, which is lobbying against certain provisions in the bill.

The bill also bans phosphorus to maintain lawns, a move that has already been made by many lawn care companies. It would also ban anyone from applying fertilizer to turf:

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Will Trader Joe's Finally Do Right by Farmworkers?

By Leslie Hatfield
Grist, September 3, 2010
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Before you head over to Trader Joe's to stock up on cheap snacks for your Labor Day weekend festivities, stop and consider shopping somewhere else. Labor Day was enacted not as a general holiday to rest in honor of laborers, but in response to the tragic deaths of striking workers. And good old cheap Joe -- which just agreed to stop selling eggs from Jack DeCoster's vile operations -- is one of the remaining holdouts in this decade's most high-profile, life-or-death farmworkers' rights campaign.  

Two weeks ago, my coworker Karen and I left the office a little early and walked across Manhattan to the Trader Joe's store in Chelsea, where a small group had gathered making signs and chatting. Among them were members of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a grassroots group working to improve wages and working conditions for farmworkers. Over the course of about 45 minutes, dozens more people filled the sidewalk in front of the store, including labor activists from the Jewish Labor Committee, Just Harvest USA and the Farmworker Solidarity Alliance, as well as local youths and a handful of musicians from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.

Trader Joe's, along with Publix, Kroger, and the Dutch-held Ahold grocery chain (which includes Giant, Stop & Shop, Martin's, and Peapod), are the most recent targets of CIW's Fair Food Campaign. Over the last nine years the Coalition, together with partner organizations like the Student/Farmworker Alliance, has managed, through well-organized consumer campaigns and sometimes boycotts, to convince some of the food industry's largest corporations (including Taco Bell/Yum Brands, McDonald's, Subway, Whole Foods, and Compass -- see Grist's Tom Philpott's coverage) to agree to the tenets of Fair Food: an extra penny a pound for tomatoes (nearly doubling the wages for pickers, who've not seen a raise since the mid-1970s), a labor Code of Conduct, greater transparency in the supply chain, and incentives for growers that respect human rights.   

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Children's Products Contain Hazardous Metals

Report: Children's products may contain hazardous metals
By CNN Wire Staff
CNN, SEpt. 7, 2010
Straight to the Source

Report: Children's products may contain hazardous metals

September 7, 2010

(CNN) -- Rain coats, hair barrettes and jewelry seem harmless. But Consumer Reports magazine says a series of tests uncovered "worrisome levels" of potentially hazardous metals in such children's products currently on store shelves.

 In its October 2010 issue, which hits newsstands Tuesday, the magazine says a metal-and-rhinestone hair barrette, a clover-shaped cell phone charm and a vinyl children's rain coat contained heavy metals.

 Cadmium and lead levels are the focus of the magazine's report, which is based on tests of more than 30 products using an initial screening method called X-ray fluorescence and outside laboratory analyses.

 While lead has drawn attention from product safety advocates for years, cadmium -- a metal commonly found in paint and batteries -- has become a larger concern recently. And the magazine argues that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission needs to develop regulations to limit its use.

 "We're concerned it's going to start showing up a lot in other products, such as children's jewelry, or hair barrettes or other products," said Don Mays, Consumer Reports' senior director of product safety and technical policy. "The problem here is that young children in particular have a tendency to put jewelry in their mouth, a necklace, a little pendant, they have a tendency to suck on it."

 The magazine says lead levels in a green clover-shaped cell phone charm sold at the retailer Claire's "caused the greatest concern." The charms tested by the magazine contained 100,000 parts per million of total lead -- a quantity that would be illegal if it were considered a children's product.

 "Although the charm is not marketed specifically to children 12 and under, it could appeal to that age group or it could be accessible to them if a parent or older child has one," the magazine's analysis says.

 Messages left by CNN Tuesday at the Florida and Illinois offices of Claire's were not immediately returned. However, in May, Claire's issued a voluntary recall of a charm bracelet following reports of high levels of cadmium, according to statements posted on its website. The bracelet had been removed from Claire's stores in January.

 "Within weeks of these reports, Claire's Stores added procedures requiring all of its suppliers to test for cadmium in children's jewelry," the company said. Testing requirements were already in place for lead and nickel content, according to the statement.

 Claire's noted there are no U.S. standards addressing the presence of cadmium in children's jewelry, and said it encouraged the development of such standards.

 Consumer Reports says samples of a Revlon Couture Hair Accessory Barrette tested positive for high levels of total cadmium, though potential for significant cadmium exposure through normal use is low.

 Even so, Mays says, children could put the barrettes in their mouths.

 "The barrette is not marketed to children, but it could interest and be accessible to them," the magazine claims.

 Representatives from Revlon did not immediately return calls from CNN seeking comment.

 Even when companies change their products to comply with lead limits, older versions the company has replaced might remain on store shelves, the magazine says, suggesting that may have happened with a Kidorable bumblebee raincoat marketed to toddlers and preschoolers.

 The company told "Consumer Reports" that it reformulated the coat in 2008 to comply with a new consumer product safety law and began labeling its raincoats and backpacks as lead-free in January 2009. And versions of the coat purchased by the magazine's testers in January and May 2010 contained trace levels of lead well below federal limits.

 But the magazine's testers were still able to purchase older versions of the coat in December 2009 and found lead levels that were higher than the legal limit.

 The magazine says consumers should look for the newer products and "take a pass on non-labeled hand-me-downs or coats from yard sales."

 The magazine also advises consumers to use do-it-yourself screening kits, stop children from playing with cheap metal jewelry and check children's toys against government recall lists.

CNN's Karin Caifa contributed to this report.

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Farm Land Grabs in Poor Countries Set to Increase

By Hilaire Avril
IPS, September 8, 2010
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After weeks of rumors sparked by the leaking of a draft World Bank position paper on so-called land grabs in poor countries, the international financial institution has officially released its report on the surge in farmland purchases and leasing which have elicited controversy for over two years.

Acquisitions of vast tracts of fertile land in Africa by foreign governments and companies eager to secure affordable food resources in highly volatile commodity markets stirred public attention when the South Korean company Daewoo bought more than a million hectares of farmland in the east African island state Madagascar.

The World Bank report, titled "Rising Global Interest in Farmland. Can It Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits?" and released on Sep 8, cautions that "an astonishing lack of awareness of what is happening on the ground" exists -- even by the public sector institutions mandated to control this phenomenon.

It estimates that 2009 saw 45 million hectares of farmland deals going through and predicts that, "given commodity price volatility, growing human and environmental pressures, and worries about food security, this interest will increase, especially in the developing world".

At the beginning of Sep 2010, riots over steep increases in the price of bread left seven people dead and hundreds injured in Maputo, the capital of the southern African country Mozambique, sparking fears of another food crisis like the one that affected several African countries two years ago.

That same week, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation announced that, "surging wheat prices drove international food prices up five percent (in Aug 2010) in the biggest month-on-month increase since November 2009."

Several huge farmland investment deals have been decried for bringing uncertain benefits to recipient countries, and sometime for leading to smallholders' eviction from their land and adversely affecting local livelihoods.

The World Bank report reckons that "one of the highest development priorities in the world must be to improve smallholder agricultural productivity, especially in Africa". 


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Who Dares Question the Industrial Food System Over GM Salmon?

By Dan Kennedy
Guardian - UK, September 7, 2010
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Click here to take action on this issue! For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Resource Center on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign page.

With fish stocks around the world depleted by overfishing and disrupted by climate change, farm-raised salmon stands as a viable if not entirely appetizing alternative.

Last Friday, though, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a potentially dangerous step. The agency ruled that salmon whose genes have been altered so that they grow more rapidly than their wild counterparts are safe for human consumption. In so doing, the FDA opened the door for salmon to become just another unhealthful cog in the industrial-food machine. And it may have foisted upon the public yet another cancer risk.

According to a report in the New York Times, FDA scientists found that the altered fish, developed by AquaBounty Technologies, based in the Boston area, were unlikely to escape into the environment and cross-breed with native schools of Atlantic salmon. The agency also found that even though the genetically altered salmon carry elevated levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a suspected carcinogen, those levels are so minute that they pose no health risk.

Precautions aside, it requires considerably more than the customary level of naivety to believe wild salmon wouldn't be contaminated by their laboratory-designed cousins. If AquaBounty's progeny ever come to market, it would only be a matter of time before some unforeseen accident undid everyone's best intentions.

But it is the IGF-1 about which we truly ought to be concerned, because the FDA's finding is evidence of an unacceptably narrow focus. The substance occurs naturally in salmon and other animal products, and the agency tells us that the genetically altered fish contains only a tiny amount more. Yet, by considering such matters one at a time, the FDA may well be introducing us to many tiny risks that start adding up to a very real risk. 


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Meat Eating Can be an Environmentally Friendly Choice

By Bonnie Azab Powell
Grist, September 7, 2010
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As a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorize veganism as a response to animal suffering or a health fad. But, faced with these figures, it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue. -George Monbiot, "Why vegans were right all along," Dec. 2002

Guardian columnist and well-known environmentalist George Monbiot ate the above words yesterday -- with a dash of salted crow, one imagines. In a column titled "I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat -- but farm it properly," he tells how a book released in England this week has persuaded him that meat eating per se isn't environmentally irresponsible, it's the current industrial farming model that is.

Cows on grassMonbiot himself is not vegan. In 2008 he wrote that he gave up all animal products "for about 18 months, lost two stone, went as white as bone and felt that I was losing my mind. I know a few healthy-looking vegans, and I admire them immensely."

We all do. Vegans have long been the ornery saints squatting cross-legged at the intersection of the food and environmental movements; only recently have things like vegan cupcakes crossed over to widespread, Food Network-validated success.

But now those who have been arguing for a more moderate, catholic approach, one that sees pasture-based livestock raising as an equally green choice to eschewing meat altogether, have new ammunition.        


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A Call for Direct Action in the Climate Movement

By Bill McKibben, Philip Radford, Rebecca Tarbotton
Grist, September 3, 2010
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For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Environment and Climate Resource Center or our Food Agenda 2020 Campaign page.

Dear Friends,

God, what a summer. Federal scientists have concluded that we've just come through the warmest six months, the warmest year, and the warmest decade in human history. Nineteen nations have set new all-time temperature records; the mercury in Pakistan reached 129 degrees, the hottest temperature ever seen in Asia. And there's nothing abstract about those numbers, not with Moscow choking on smoke from its epic heat wave and fires, not with Pakistan half washed away from its unprecedented flooding.

But that's just the half of it. It's also the summer when the U.S. Senate decided to keep intact its 20-year bipartisan record of doing nothing about global warming. Global warming is no act of God. We're up against the most profitable and powerful industries on earth: the companies racking up record profits from fossil fuels. And we're not going to beat them by asking nicely. We're going to have to build a movement, a movement much bigger than anything we've built before, a movement that can push aback against the financial power of Big Oil and Big Coal. That movement is our only real hope, and we need your help to plot its future.

We've got some immediate and crucial priorities. For instance, groups around the world are joining together on 10/10/10 for a Global Work Party, demonstrating that we already know many of the solutions to the climate crisis. That will be a good day not just to put up solar panels, but also to shame our political leaders, to say to them, "We're getting to work. What about you?" Meanwhile, around the country, lawyers and community groups are doing yeoman's work fighting off new coal plants, activists are persuading banks to stop loaning to corporate villains, city councils are figuring out how to make their towns more efficient and resilient. This is the basic work of any movement, the foundation on which hope for long-term progress rests.


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Co-op Grocers to Stop Organic Cosmetics Fraud

Thank you to the thousands of Organic Consumers Association members who have been participating in our Coming Clean campaign to get organic retailers to clean up their health & beauty care aisles. We've been trying to clean the shelves of cosmetics and personal care products that claim to be organic but aren't certified to USDA standards. Many of these mislabeled organic body care products (including popular brands such as Avalon, Nature's Gate, Jason's, and Giovanni's) contain few (or in some cases no) organic ingredients and are routinely laced with petroleum-based and problematic chemical ingredients.

This week, after receiving 6,000 letters from OCA members, the National Cooperative Grocers Association alerted their 134 retail coops that, as of June 2011, they expect all "organic" claims on body care products to comply with USDA National Organic Program standards for products that are "USDA Organic" and "Made With Organic Ingredients," and NSF/ANSI 305 standards for products that "Contain Organic Ingredients."

NCGA's organic cosmetics integrity policy is essentially the same as the one announced by Whole Foods Market earlier this summer.

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Genetic Engineering: A Worldwide Experiment on People, Agriculture and Nature

Greenpeace
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For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Resource Center on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign page.

Genetic engineering is a threat to food security, especially in a changing climate. The introduction of genetically manipulated organisms by choice or by accident grossly undermines sustainable agriculture and in so doing, severely limits the choice of food we can eat.

Once GE plants are released into the environment, they are out of control. If anything goes wrong - they are impossible to recall.

GE contamination threatens biodiversity respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world's fundamental keys to survival.

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Square Lohkoh - French Hip Hop Against Monsanto

Square Lohkoh
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For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Resource Center on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign page.

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Organic House? Hemp Concrete Used for Carbon-Negative Construction

CNN, Aug 25, 2010
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A house built with hemp makes a green alternative to standard construction. WLOS' Karen Wynn reports.

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Whole Foods Rolls Out New Sustainable Packaging Guidelines

Enviromental Leader, September 9, 2010
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Whole Foods Market has rolled out new responsible packaging guidelines to all of its more than 2,100 body care and supplement suppliers company wide. All new body care and supplement suppliers must meet the packaging guidelines before their products can be sold in one of the company's more than 300 locations in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

To spearhead the change, the supermarket chain has switched to 100 percent post-consumer recycled (PCR) content bottles for several of its store-brand supplements and 365 brand body care items are packaged in bottles with 50 percent PCR content HDPE (high-density polyethylene).

A recent study from Global Industry Analysts projects that the global market for sustainable packaging will reach $142.42 billion by 2015.

Whole Foods has been working with 25 of its largest personal care product suppliers on the new guidelines since 2008, which went into effect on September 1, 2009. Suppliers were given one year to transition to more eco-friendly packaging.

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The Biodiverse Diet: One Day, Four Meals, and 53 Species

By Stephen Hale
Grist, September 8, 2010
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There is nothing more fundamental about our relationship with Nature than the species we eat.

One evening, while trying to discern exactly what was in the bean casserole my traveling wife had kindly left in the fridge, I wondered: What is the biodiversity of my diet? How many plant and animal species do I consume regularly? And where did they come from?

Later, I compiled a species list from one typical day for four meals: breakfast (cereal and toast), lunch (yogurt and a wrap), afternoon snack (cookie and tea), and dinner (scallops, broccoli, salad, and a brownie). Then, using food labels and knowledge of where I bought the food, I tracked down their origin and ecological niche. I looked up scientific names and kingdoms in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. I knew where the local food came from, and for other items, where the food label did not specify the source, I determined foreign ones by knowledge of what does not grow in the U.S. (e.g., cacao) and presumed the rest were of U.S. origin.

I calculated that in 24 hours, I ate 53 species spanning four biological kingdoms and five continents.

If variety is the spice of life, we Homo sapiens are the spiciest of species. Our flexibility to change food sources and our ingenuity in finding and processing food has given us a broader diet than any other species. That allowed our ancestors to expand across almost the entire land area of Earth. We developed agriculture and ways of preserving and transporting food. We developed ways to process food sources that would otherwise be inedible. We have reached into almost every corner of Earth for food. Our technology and globalization have brought more species of food to more human societies than at any point in the 200,000 to 250,000 years our own species has been on the planet. 

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U.S. Energy Use Declined 5% in 2009

The Washington Post, September 7, 2010
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A bright spot in the nation's flickering economy is that Americans used less energy last year than in 2008, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which recently published its findings online.

"Part of the reason is

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Scientists Believe BPA is Risky—it's Just a Matter of Agreeing on How Much

By Tom Laskawy
Grist, September 8, 2010
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On the heels of Canada's recently announced ban on bisphenol-A (BPA), The New York Times has a substantial report reviewing the state of the science regarding the safety of this substance. Used primarily to line food and drink cans, some studies have shown BPA to be a hormone disruptor and a potential factor in the rise of obesity. Even the FDA has acknowledged we should reduce our exposure to it.

The Times piece is dedicated to comments from scientists, rather than from industry spokespeople, which is all to the good, though I'm not crazy about the headline: "In Feast of Data on BPA Plastic, No Final Answer." The good news is that the thrust of the article undercuts this declaration quite a bit.

It's true that the piece is chock full of scientific circumspection -- many scientists are waiting for definitive results before declaring an unequivocal position on the BPA controversy, including whether low-dose exposure to the chemical truly represents a health risk. But most scientists quoted in the article chalked up much of the uncertainty to details of the experimental techniques used, rather than to real doubts about the underlying hypotheses. In fact, the only denials mentioned were from industry and the Republican party -- and no corporate or GOP spokesperson seemed willing to offer a quote on the subject.

The real takeaway from this latest review is that just about everyone is waiting for the completion of the two-year, government-sponsored National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences safety studies that are currently under way. As Times reporter Denise Grady put it, "disputes arise in part because scientists from different disciplines -- endocrinologists versus toxicologists, academic researchers versus those at regulatory agencies -- do research in different ways that can make findings hard to reconcile." Once again: It's the process, not the facts themselves, that keeps the BPA "debate" alive.





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Six Things You Should Know Before Defying the Real Food Police

By David Gumpert
Grist, September 8, 2010
Straight to the Source

Resistance has a glorified history in this country, beginning with the founding fathers, and extending to the labor and civil rights movements last century. We honor one of the resisters, Dr. Martin Luther King, with a national holiday.

The ranks of food resisters are now expanding rapidly. Driven by increasingly harsh crackdowns by local and federal agencies on small producers and distributors of unpasteurized (raw) milk and other nutrient-dense foods, growing numbers of individuals involved in this part of the food chain are publicly refusing to abide by government edicts and shutdown orders.

But the reality for today's rebels is far from glorious. Max Kane, the owner of a buying club in Wisconsin that distributes raw milk, is facing jail if his appeal on a contempt of court conviction last December is denied. He had several times refused orders from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection to provide information about the farmers who supply his milk and the names of his raw milk customers.

Stewart, the manager of Rawesome Foods, which was raided June 30 by agents from five federal, state, and local agencies, is facing the possibility that the private food club he helped found five years ago could be demolished and plowed under by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety any day. Rawesome was served with a "Substandard Order" last month after it defied a closure order by public health authorities following the raid.

Brigitte Ruthman, owner of a 32-acre farm in the Massachusetts Berkshires, could lose her dairy after she was served in August with a cease-and-desist order for running a one-cow herd share serving three shareholders with raw milk, and announced her intention to resist. (For more on creative raw-milk arrangements, see my recent post.) 

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Where the Salmonella Really Came From

By Barry Estabrook
The Atlantic, September 8, 2010
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It's been nearly one month since the nationwide recall of 550 million eggs, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still hasn't figured out where the salmonella that sickened 1,470 people originated.

Well, I know where it originated, and I am about to reveal it here, both to save the FDA further trouble and to warn the public that the food safety bill currently before the Senate (which may be fast-tracked as election-wary lawmakers return from their break) might not prevent future food contamination epidemics. In fact, it could even cause serious harm to conscientious farmers whose meat, poultry, and produce has never sickened anybody.

FDA officials who examined the farms behind the current rash of egg-induced sicknesses were shocked to discover evidence of manure-along with rodents, flies, cats, and birds-in the facilities, which housed 7.7 million caged hens. I, too, maintain a flock of laying hens, although mine is only a dozen strong. My chickens sleep in an abandoned horse stable and spend their days running loose, pecking and scratching around the property. They are no strangers to manure, flies, cats, birds, and the occasional rodent. But my eggs have never sickened anyone. Hens have been living in proximity to insects, mice, and other wildlife for millennia. What is new are the huge facilities containing millions of caged birds that never see the light of day. 

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Could Eucalyptus Trees be the Kudzu of the 2010s?

Global Justice Ecology Project, August 25, 2010
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There was a time in the South whenplanting kudzu was not viewed as botanical vandalism, but as acommunity-spirited gesture. The vine, imported from Asia, was intendedto control erosion and provide forage for livestock.

Some things just don't work out.

Todaykudzu is an invasive pest throughout the South, where it can grow up toa foot a day. It smothers trees, houses and if you move too slowly itmight even smother you. Pretty much the only thing that will eat amature kudzu vine is goats. If you lack goats, eradicating it takesyears of herbicidal dousing.

Whichleads us to a muddle-headed idea from an S.C.-based company: to plant330 acres of eucalyptus trees genetically modified to withstand coldweather. The idea is that the tree, native to Australia, could be usedcommercially to make paper and as fuel for power plants. TheSummerville, S.C.-based ArborGen, says the hybrid it would use can'teasily reproduce.

Peoplethought kudzu was a good idea, too. The problem of invasive plants isgrowing as fast as, well, you know. It's not just kudzu. Have you evertried to get rid of wisteria gone wild? Japanese honeysuckle, Englishivy or privet?

The majorharm from invasive plants isn't that they're landscaping annoyances;it's that they crowd out and smother native species. That means birdsand other animals that rely on those native plants die out, too. Awhole ecosystem fails.

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Creating Food Sovereignty for Small-Scale Farmers

By Ronit Ridberg
World Watch Institute, July 7, 2010
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Affiliation: Visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.

Location: San Francisco

Bio: Raj Patel has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the LA Times, NYTimes.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and most recently, The Value of Nothing.

Photo credit: Andrea Ismert, www.rajpatel.org

Can you please explain the concept of food sovereignty, and what policies and programs will help encourage it?

Food sovereignty is about communities', states' and unions' rights to shape their own food and agricultural policy. Now that may sound like a whole lot of nothing, because you're actually not making a policy demand, you're just saying that people need to be able to make their own decisions. But, actually, that's a huge thing. Because in general, particularly for smaller farmers in developing countries, and particularly for women, decisions about food and agricultural policy have never been made by them. They've always been imposed.

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Fair World Project: New Voice for Fair Trade Movement in Organic Sector and Beyond

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) launched the Fair World Project (FWP) today to promote fair trade in commerce, especially in organic production systems in developing countries as well as at home, and to protect the term "fair trade" from dilution and misuse for mere PR purposes. The OCA's new project fills the critical need for a watchdog of misleading fair trade claims, and a cheerleader for dedicated fair trade mission-driven companies. Through FWP, OCA will focus on promoting projects that connect the environmental and health benefits of organic agriculture with the social benefits derived from fair trade.

The Fair World Project's inaugural publication of For a Better World will debut at the Fair Trade Futures Conference, September 10-12 at the Boston Marriott Hotel-Quincy. Fifty thousand copies will be distributed to fair trade outlets such as co-ops and organic markets nationwide. The publication features candid articles on the fair trade movement, including different approaches to fair trade certification, exceptional fair trade projects abroad and at home in the West, as well as how to reintegrate fair trade back into the organic movement.

"As demand from conscious consumers expands the market for fairly traded products we must ensure that claims made by companies hold up to fair trade standards and that marketing and labeling of these products are accurate," says Dana Geffner, Executive Director of the Fair World Project. "With new fair trade certifiers joining the movement, seasoned certifiers enabling questionable opportunistic fair trade claims and "fairwashing" practices more common, the Fair World Project aims to discuss and dissect," adds Geffner.

The FWP intends to encourage critical thinking rather than blind faith regarding fair trade claims and certification schemes. Through publications, events, and targeted campaigns the group articulates and advances the issues involved in fair trade, with the goal of helping consumers, business owners, employees and activists make informed decisions about where and on what to spend their money and resources

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Rejection

They say that you can learn a lot about yourself and life from your own children. I'd say that they're absolutely right.

Our older son Joshua, now four and a half years old, is sweeter and more gentle than we could have wished for. These days, he lives to experience new and exciting things with his family. Things like riding the subway in Toronto for the first time, discovering the magic of helium balloons, and meeting new characters and worlds through trips to our library.

read more

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What Is the Future of U.S. Agriculture?

By Ashley Koff
Huffington Post, August 11, 2010
Straight to the Source

How does the state of our agriculture today compare to 20 years ago? How similar are our farming and health care issues? Can they even be separated? Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chuck Benbrook, Ph.D., chief scientist at The Organic Center, to discuss the findings in a provocative new report.

The study compared the findings, conclusions and recommendations in the 1989 NAS/NRC report "Alternative Agriculture" and the June 29, 2010 NAS/NRC report "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century." The later report assesses and updates the former, and since Benbrook served as the executive director on NAS/NRC board that produced the "Alternative Agriculture" report, I find his perspective on the updates particularly insightful. My interview follows:

AK: Since 1989 what do you see as the biggest changes that have occurred or are occurring in agriculture?

CB: On the public health side, the dramatic upward trajectory in the rates of obesity and diabetes is triggering a long overdue awakening of interest in health promotion, as opposed to disease treatment. We are finally beginning to take seriously the notion that what and how we grow food, and what we eat, impacts health outcomes. The growing frequency and severity of reproductive and neurological problems -- especially autism, ADHD and other learning disabilities in children -- have focused more science on the impacts of chemicals in food. Pressure will continue to grow on farmers, the food industry and government to clean up the food supply. About time.


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Baltimore Moves Toward Healthier School Lunches

By John-John Williams IV
The Baltimore Sun, August 12, 2010
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Brad Herling received a surprisingly warm reaction several years ago when he banned cupcakes and candy during holiday parties in the name of health at Clarksville Elementary School in Howard County.

He's being welcomed with equally open arms this school year as he prepares to lead Centennial Lane Elementary School in the same direction. Parents at his new school have been waging their own war on childhood obesity with a campaign to limit the number of sweet and high-fat snacks served during lunch.

"It will be a perfect match," said Megan Roth, president of the Centennial Lane PTA. "We are a school that is going that way. We already had very few parties where kids brought snacks in. Our community has strong feelings about getting our kids healthier."

At a time when the nation's schools have adopted the strictest health standards in history, some school systems and nutrition groups have asked for and have achieved more stringent restrictions.

Some like Centennial Lane Elementary in Ellicott City have introduced more healthful snacks to students instead of the sweets and other treats. Baltimore City has adopted "Meatless Mondays" and has shifted to an effort to serve locally grown organic food. In Baltimore County, a parent group is pushing for more healthful foods. And nationally, the country's first lady is leading an effort to get children to eat more fruits, vegetables and low-fat foods.


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Greenland Ice Sheet Faces 'Tipping Point in 10 Years'

By Suzanne Goldenberg
Guardian -UK, August 10, 2010
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The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today.

Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University

"Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet.

The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.

"What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said.


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State Races Put Climate Pacts in Jeopardy

By Darren Samuelsohn
Common Dreams, August 11, 2010
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States have set the pace over the past decade as the nation's leaders in implementing climate change policy, but much of their work could be on the line this fall.



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Is Environmental Injustice Morphing Little Girls’ Bodies?

By Michelle Chen
Color Lines, August 10, 2010
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The beginning of adolescence is a tough time for any girl. It's harder when you're growing up in a tough neighborhood and go to a rough school. And it's really hard when you face all the surging hormones and other tribulations of puberty before you even reach your eighth birthday.

If this sounds unnatural, it's the reality for many young girls of color who experience early signs of puberty at alarming rates. The latest research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that an array of social and environmental factors may be causing girls' bodies to develop prematurely. The New York Times reports that the potential causes flagged by researchers include exposures to chemical contaminants and obesity. The study-supported by the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers-looked at 1,239 girls screened in Manhattan, Cincinnati and San Francisco. It reveals stark racial disparities.

The girls who developed breasts early, as young as age seven, were disproportionately Black and Latina. Black 8-year-olds were more than twice as likely as white girls to develop breasts. As the NYT reports:

 At 7 years, 10.4 percent of white, 23.4 percent of black and 14.9 percent of Hispanic girls had enough breast development to be considered at the onset of puberty.

 At age 8, the figures were 18.3 percent in whites, 42.9 percent in blacks and 30.9 percent in Hispanics. The percentages for blacks and whites were even higher than those found by a 1997 study that was one of the first to suggest that puberty was occurring earlier in girls.


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Wall Street Backs Away From Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Top 4 US Banks Curb Loans for Destructive Practice; Cut Financing for Massey Energy
Rainforest Action Network (RAN), August 11, 2010
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SAN FRANCISCO - Within the last two years, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo along with Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley have successively passed public policies limiting their financial relationships with coal operators that practice mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. These banks were the lead financiers of the practice prior to their policy shifts. Last month, Wells Fargo became the fourth top US bank to adopt a position limiting MTR financing. These policies signal a sector-wide shift away from a mining practice that has become increasingly controversial and a move toward more environmentally conscious fossil fuels financing.  

The move comes as a response to more than three years of national pressure spearheaded by the environmental action group Rainforest Action Network (RAN). In 2007, RAN began with a campaign focused on Bank of America, the lead financier of MTR coal mining companies at the time. The group has gone on to work with all of the largest banks in the country to encourage the entire industry to shift its policies. This shift in the banking sector is consistent with a national move away from the mining practice, which recently both scientists and the federal government have confirmed causes irrevocable harm to landscape and water quality.  

"Money talks - and it is saying loud and clear that mountaintop removal coal mining is a bad investment. With the move away from mountaintop removal coal mining, our country's top banks are showing that they know they can do well while doing good for our environment and our public health," said Rebecca Tarbotton, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network. "We are seeing a sector-wide shift away from an increasingly controversial practice that is devastating Appalachian communities and the mountains and streams they depend on."  

One of the major impacts of these mountaintop mining policies is that the banks are no longer financing Massey Energy, the leading MTR coal company in the country that was involved in the April 5 Upper Big Branch mine explosion where 29 miners tragically died. In particular, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, all of which have had substantial financing relationships (underwriting bonds or providing loans) with Massey Energy since January 2005, no longer finance the notorious company.  

As examples: Based on Bloomberg data, Bank of America, which was one of the 'syndication agents' on a $175 million revolver loan to Massey in March 2008, is no longer on the deal or any others with the company.  JPMorgan, similarly, underwrote $180 million in debt securities in 2008 to Massey and was also the lead manager on a $233 million share deal (joint with UBS) that same year. JPMorgan no longer has any financial ties to the company.  

"When the top four banks in the country back away from Massey Energy and other leading mountaintop mining operators, it sends a clear signal that these companies have a high risk profile and that other banks should beware," continued Tarbotton. "Bottom-line, as access to capital becomes more constrained it will be harder for mining companies to finance the blowing up of America's mountains."

Bank of America was the first bank to issue a public policy limiting its MTR financing back in December 2008. They were followed by Citi in August 2009, Credit Suisse in September 2009, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan in May of this year and Wells Fargo just last month. While each banks' policies differ, they all demonstrate concern about the environmental and investment risks associated with mountaintop mining, and all of the banks have made clear moves away from companies who primarily focus on this form of extraction.

With the nation's leading banks moving away from MTR, coal operators are looking toward new banks for financing. Currently, PNC and UBS are the lead financiers of the practice. PNC finances mining companies responsible for almost half of all mountaintop removal coal mined in the US. Mountaintop removal coal makes up 7 percent of the nation's total coal use, but many argue the practice, which requires blowing the tops off of mountains and dumping the debris into nearby streams and valleys, has an outsized impact on Appalachia's environmental and public health. Since 1992, nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been filled at a rate of 120 miles per year with toxic surface mining waste. The estimated scale of deforestation from existing Appalachian surface mining operations is equivalent in size to the state of Delaware.      

In the coming months, RAN will continue to monitor the impacts of these bank policies on curbing mountaintop removal mining.

 ### Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is headquarted in San Francisco, California with offices staff in Tokyo, Japan, and Edmonton, Canada, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime, and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children.    

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