The new "dirty dozen" list of produce
A new report published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) might make you re-think that “apple a day” — if it’s conventionally grown using pesticides.
Read the article HERE
I don’t think I will be eating apples anymore O.o…
New report: Monsanto pesticides do more damage than good, costing tax payers billions
green.blogs.nytimes.comSolid reporting on this one.
Superweeds, Superpests: The Legacy of Pesticides
“The rapid adoption of a single weed-killer for the vast majority of crops harvested in the United States has given rise to superweeds and greater pesticide use, a new study suggests. And while crops engineered to manufacture an insect-killing toxin have reduced the use of pesticides in those fields, the emergence of newly resistant insects now threatens to reverse that trend.
Farmers spray the herbicide glyphosate, widely sold under the Monsanto brand Roundup, on fields planted with seeds that are genetically engineered to tolerate the chemical. Found in 1.37 billion acres of corn, soybeans, and cotton planted from 1996 through 2011, this “Roundup Ready” gene was supposed to reduce or eliminate the need to till fields or apply harsher chemicals, making weed control simple, flexible, cheap, and less environmentally taxing.
In fact, this system has led farmers to use a greater number of herbicides in higher volumes, according to the study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe.”
I was just reading a new list of foods highest in pesticides and was starting to freak out a little, because apples and celery top the list, and obviously, almost everything I eat is going to risk chemical exposure, regardless of the extent or duration. THEN I remembered reading the FDA’s “Food Fit for Human Consumption” guidebook … if you haven’t read it, don’t. Seriously, don’t read it unless you want to be too terrified to eat. But my point is, our bodies are resilient to all this crap. So, I’m not freaking out anymore.
reading today (and to remember for tomorrow)
The best collaborative discussion of cap and trade v carbon tax available
Delegating your environmental conscience: Perhaps the difference between a change in behaviour and a change in attitude. They aren’t mutually exclusive, but if you aren’t engaged yourself, does it change your overall impact? The problem is, however, that these services (more environmentally friendly dry cleaning, carbon offsets for travel) should be provided/offered by the traditional market. This creates a separate market for environmental goods/services that not only sets it clearly apart from the mainstream, but makes it more difficult to later integrate. Clean water and clean air shouldn’t be a niche; they’re issues everyone cares about to some degree and it does a diservice to have them be labeled as a “different” product. We need every travel agency offering to book ecotourism tours or able to arrange offsets - not only those labeled “eco.”
Australia moves ahead with its new carbon tax and at $22.90/tonne of CO2 equivalent it remains just below BC’s $25/tonne requirement. Fitting considering the recent Berkeley study providing the definitive conclusion on climate change.
And an economist piece that is impressively optimistic and pragmatic about why energy efficient should be a given.
40-50% of bees in the United States have died in the past year
nytimes.comA mysterious malady that has been killinghoneybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.
A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor.
The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.
“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.
