Anti-GMO Movement in Europe Offers Lessons for the U.S.

By Lisa Marshall
If European states can ban genetically modified crops, why not America? See how global activism drove the charge against GMOs abroad-and how we can apply the same principle in the United States.

Get a group of people together to talk about the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gobbling up American soil and, chances are, someone will bring up "what happened in Europe."

How is it that our neighbors across the pond were able to swiftly enact mandatory labeling laws and essentially ban genetically modified (GM) crops in six European states, while here in the United States we let the biotech machine plow on? What lessons can we learn from the Europeans?

Georgina Silby has some ideas.

Silby was among the legions of infuriated youth who took to European streets upon learning about the specter of genetic engineering in the mid-'90s. These young activists donned tomato costumes (or nothing at all) for their protests by day, dug up GM test crops by night and formed alliances with stakeholders around the globe. Their efforts generated what has eluded activists here so far: Media attention and mass-market consumer outrage.

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Van Jones Jumpstarts New Progressive Movement to Confront and Push Back American Conservative and Corporate Dominance

Tonight, in New York City's venerable Town Hall, Van Jones, arguably the most visible progressive "organizer" in America, and surely one of the country's best orators, steps up to assume a bigger role -- that of major progressive strategist and visionary. Tonight is Jones' opening gambit in a large-scale, ambitious effort to create what many hope will be the progressives answer to the Tea Party.

Jones, with major support from MoveOn.org and other groups, will present a big-picture vision for mobilizing progressive forces of many types and stripes under the patriotic umbrella brand of the "American Dream Movement." The goal is nothing less than a broad "open source" movement of millions who, via organizing, house parties, events, technological savvy, and electoral activity, will attempt to shift America's focus away from the budget-cut mentality and the protection of big corporations and banks, to the human and economic support of tens of millions of unemployed and downsized Americans, including returning war vets and young people. (The event, which also features musical group the Roots, will be streamed live beginning at 8:15pm EDT on many Web sites, including AlterNet. Tune in tonight.)

There is much anticipation for this moment, and more than a little skepticism. Many have been wringing their hands, wondering why progressives seem so impotent in the face of the Tea Party. We've been hugely disappointed in the Obama administration for not mounting a more populist, people-oriented challenge to the corporate and banking dominance of our economic system, which has resulted in both the bailout of the banks, and the obscene shift of wealth to an increasingly small number of super-rich Americans. Jones hopes to offer an answer.

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Will the Real Food Movement Please Stand Up?

Farmer Bob Comis recently suggested that the food movement is suffering from "multiple personality disorder." He argued that several vocal factions -- foodies, locavores, and "smallists" -- tend to dominate the food movement discussion, unrealistically distracting us from our ultimate objective: bringing affordable, organic food to all as part of a broader commitment to social justice.

For decades now, organic farmers and sustainable food activists of all stripes have been vexed by the question: Is this a movement? Can it scale and have meaningful impact?

At one eloquent and entrepreneurially-impeccably-credentialed end of the spectrum stands farmer Joel Salatin:

 Don't let them confuse you. Organic farming is not an industry. It is a movement. It is part of a movement that began when the first indigenous peoples fought against the Conquistadors. It is fighting back against the modern Conquistadors, the multinational corporations, those who would patent and genetically modify life and destroy diversity.

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The New Agtivist: Joan Gussow, Mother of the Sustainable Food Movement

By Paula Crossfield

Few would argue that Joan Dye Gussow is the mother of the sustainable food movement. For more than 30 years, she's been writing, teaching (she is emeritus chair of the Teachers College nutrition program at Columbia University), and speaking about our unsustainable food system and how to fix it. (This excellent article by journalist Brian Halweil showcases her work in detail.) Now more than ever, her ideas have wings. Michael Pollan, for example, has said, "Once in a while, when I have an original thought, I look around and realize Joan said it first."

Gussow lives what she teaches, growing most of her own food year-round in her backyard. TheNew York Timesprofiled her last spring as she was rebuilding her garden after it was destroyed by a flood. When I asked her about her newly rebuilt garden, she said, "It's given me 10 additional years of life, at least!"

I spoke to her recently about how far we've come, the future of the food system, and her new book, Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables.

Q: You've been talking about food, energy, and the environment for decades. Do you have hope we might finally see big change in the food system?

A: I must say that compared to the reception my ideas got 30 years ago, it's quite astonishing the reception they're getting now. I am excited to see the kinds of things that are going on in Brooklyn, for example. People are butchering meat and raising chickens -- it's become the sort of "heartland" of the food movement. But whether or not there's going to be sea change in the whole system is so hard to judge.

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A Call for Direct Action in the Climate Movement

By Bill McKibben, Philip Radford, Rebecca Tarbotton
Grist, September 3, 2010
Straight to the Source

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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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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Why Did the Climate Bill Die? Because We Still Don’t Have a Real Climate Movement

By Kelsey Wirth, Larry Shapiro, Philip Radford
Grist Magazine, Aug 5, 2010
Straight to the Source

We now know the U.S. Senate will not pass climate-changelegislation this year. Postmortems havepointed to a number of challenges: the lack of leadership from the White House,unified GOP opposition to the Senate cap-and-trade bill, the structure andrules of the Senate, and the complicated nature of cap-and-trade legislation.

There has been one major omission in much ofthis analysis: the absence of pressurefrom Americans across the country demanding that serious action be taken toaddress climate change. Few Americans arecurrently engaged in this great societal challenge in a way that would generatethe necessary political will to act. Itis the absence of this public pressure, above all else, that has resulted in thecurrent state of political inaction.

Take the most broadly transformational politicalacts in the history of the U.S. -- the signing of the Emancipation Proclamationand the approval of the 14th Amendment in the 1860s, women's suffrage in 1920,the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of the mid-1960s, the establishmentof the EPA and the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act in the early 1970s, toname a few. They all required some formof political leadership, but that leadership was exercised in response to theabolitionist, women's suffrage, civil rights, and environmental movements of the time, social movementsthat forced the issues into our national conscience and made inaction politicallyuntenable. These social movements consistedof large numbers of people, united by a strong sense of shared values and moralpurpose, who stood up to the deeply held assumptions and powerful vestedinterests of their times.

Environmental organizations and foundations spentwell over $200 million in the attempt to enact climate change legislation. Several of these organizations builtalliances with some of the largest corporations in America in an effort topromote a watered-down bill. And eventhis effort failed. Why?

The top answer is that we failed to build a socialmovement equal to the task. In theabsence of a real climate movement, we are likely to continue to see eveninadequate half-measures fail again and again. Only a broad-based social movement aroundclimate change can get the job done, fueled by the same passion and underpinnedwith the same moral conviction that characterized the historical movements thatended slavery, promoted suffrage, secured civil rights, and mandated a cleanerand healthier environment.

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