The Miraculous Web of Life Sustains ALL Species on Planet Earth – Healthy Ecosystems, Healthy Humans. WITHOUT NATURE WE DO NOT EXIST. PERIOD. To the degree Nature is sick, so are we. We humans must reintegrate into the greater web of life as a species within it and not separate from it, by returning to respect and restoring balance and harmony to that which supports all life on this planet ... Nature ... #GDP should be replaced by #EcoEconomics ... Putting front and center the concerns for how we are destroying and objectifying the natural world for profit #Conservation #Ecosystems #Wildlife #Forests #Environment #Biodiversity #Ecoeconomics #CSR #GDP #Anthropocene
Natural Capital can be defined as the world’s stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things.
“Offsetting treats nature such as forests or rivers as if it were an exchangeable item you buy in the supermarket. Destroying one forest or river with a promise of protecting another fails to recognise that they are part of a wider ecosystem and intrinsic to human and cultural landscapes. Destruction of complex and site specific biodiversity cannot be offset. It is time to be clear that offsetting will not tackle biodiversity loss but may impoverish communities.” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/11/22/no-to-biodiversity-offsetting/
Biodiversity offsetting is a simple idea that makes no sense whatsoever (except for corporations that profit from destruction): Nature can be destroyed in one place as long as it is conserved somewhere else does not equal maintaining healthy, balanced ecosystems
Redd Monitor, October 21, 2014 - ▶ STOP BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS: THOUSANDS SIGN LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION. More than 9,000 people and 67 organisations have signed on to aletter urging the European Commission to drop its plans for biodiversity offsetting. Biodiversity offsets would “harm nature and people” and “give power to those who destroy nature for profit”, the letter states. http://www.redd-monitor.org/2014/10/21/stop-biodiversity-offsets-thousands-sign-letter-to-the-european-commission/
▶ LAND GRABS: HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBEhttp://sco.lt/5YJpKb
-▶ MEGA MINING, FOREIGN LAND GRABS DESTROYING LOCAL COMMUNITIES, ENVIRONMENT AND ECOSYSTEMShttp://sco.lt/8nJQf3
VIDEO
FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
Ensia, August 12, 2014 -▶ ECOSYSTEMS ARE NOT MACHINES.If we want to save the world, we need to treat nature more as an organism and less as disposable and replaceable technology. http://ensia.com/voices/ecosystems-are-not-machines/
-▶ CLOUD FORESTS FADING IN THE MIST, THEIR TREASURES LITTLE KNOWNhttp://sco.lt/6F54E5
Our Planet ▶ THE LIVING PLANET REPORT 2012 - United Nations Environment Programme : Nature is The Basis of Our Well-Being and Our Prosperity
"We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal. We are using 50 per cent more resources than the Earth can provide, and unless we change course that number will grow very fast – by 2030, even two planets will not be enough. "But we do have a choice. We can create a prosperous future that provides food, water and energy for the 9 or perhaps 10 billion people who will be sharing the planet in 2050." Jim P. Leape Director General, WWF International
May 15, 2013 Science Daily ▶ NEONICOTINOID INSECTICIDES LEAD TO STARVATION OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS : New Study reveals honeybees aren't the only organisms suffering from the adverse effects of neonicotinoid insecticide use: the toxic chemicals are also killing freshwater invertebrates http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515203015.htm
Summit Voice, September 17, 2014 -▶ PESTICIDE POLLUTION RISING IN URBAN STREAMS AND RIVERS.Streams in agricultural areas are polluted at about the same level as they were 1990s, but pesticide pollution is increasing in urban streams, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study spanning about 20 years. A huge number of rivers and streams around the country are still polluted with pesticides that can kill bugs and other aquatic organisms at the base of the food chainhttp://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/09/17/environment-pesticide-pollution-rising-in-urban-streams/
-▶ NEW STUDY: UNEQUIVOCAL EVIDENCE: WIDESPREAD IMPACTS OF NEONICOTINOIDS 'IMPOSSIBLE TO DENY' Neonicotinoid pesticides are causing significant damage to a wide range of beneficial species and are a key factor in the decline of bees, say scientists http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27980344
National Geographic May 08, 2014 -▶ AFRICA'S SILENT SPRING IS UPON US. POISONING OUR WILDLIFE WITH PESTICIDES - AN EPIDEMIC The use of highly toxic pesticides to poison wildlife can be best described as silent, cheap, easy, and effective. It is so effective that a number of species of African wildlife are in decline due to poisoning. These include lions, hyenas, eagles, and especially vultures. http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/05/08/africas-silent-spring-is-upon-us/
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE VULTURES? THE VETERINARY DRUG THAT KILLED TENS OF MILLIONS OF BIRDS IN ASIA - THE WEB OF LIFEhttp://sco.lt/7BzRdB
======================
MONARCH BUTTERFLY MIGRATION PLUNGES
THE PERFECT STORM: GMOs, PESTICIDES AND EXTREME WEATHER
Agricultural chemicals affect invertebrates in streams and soil, even at 'safe' levels. Agricultural pesticides have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss in two new research papers.
Pesticide use has sharply reduced the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1..... http://www.nature.com/news/pesticides-spark-broad-biodiversity-loss-1.13214
GARDENERS BEWARE
Deadly Pesticide 'Bee Friendly' Pretreated Plants/Seeds Sold to Consumers - Unlabeled, Unregulated http://sco.lt/6oDPd3
▶GMO GRASS/PESTICIDES: COMING TO A LAWN NEAR YOU - UNLABELED Because Roundup will kill everything except the grass engineered to stand up to it, lawns all over the country will be green, lush—and toxic. And you won’t know it. http://www.nationofchange.org/gmo-grass-coming-lawn-near-you-1401027434
▶ REPORT: HOW WORLDWIDE USE OF NEONICOTINOID PESTICIDE IS DESTROYING WILDLIFE, POLLUTING WATERWAYS
▶ HIGHLY TOXIC, HIGHLY PERSISTENT PESTICIDE AND GLOBAL LOVE OF BANANAS POISONING COSTA RICA'S CROCODILES AND OTHER AQUATIC ANIMALS. Paul Grant, a wildlife biologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, analyzed the blood samples of caiman for 70 different pesticides. The results concerned him.
The samples contained nine pesticides, of which only two are currently in use. The remaining seven are "historic organic pollutants," says Grant.
These are pesticides like DDT, dieldrin, and endosulfan — chemicals that have been banned, some of them for nearly a decade. But they persist in the environment and build up in the bodies of animals.
These chemicals are also found in significant levels in all sorts of aquatic mammals, including and and in different parts of the world.
▶ UN CONFERENCE TAKES HISTORIC STRIDES TO STRENGTHEN CHEMICAL PESTICIDE SAFETY GLOBALLY FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said that in many countries intensive crop production has depleted agriculture's natural resource base, jeopardizing future productivity. "To fight hunger and eradicate poverty, we will need to find more sustainable ways to produce 60 percent more food by 2050," he said. However, he recognized that chemical pesticides would continue to be part of farming in many parts of the world in future. ... http://www.unep.org/newscentre/default.aspx?DocumentID=2716&ArticleID=9501&l=en
Mongolia is in the midst of a dramatic economic boom as huge foreign mining operations swoop in to reshape the country. Some predict Mongolia's GDP will double in a decade. But this economic overhaul could put further pressure on Mongolia's traditional way of life, devastating environment...no regulations, no oversight
Reuters, January 27, 2015 ▶ HERDER KILLS HIMSELF IN INNER MONGOLIA TO PROTEST LAND GRAB. The suicide adds to evidence that tensions are deepening in Inner Mongolia, where minority ethnic Mongolians are demanding better protection of their lands, rights and traditions. http://www.trust.org/item/20150127040736-edzzu/?source=leadCarousel
IC Magazine, December 24, 2014 ▶ DUST, DISPLACEMENT, INTIMIDATION: MONGOLIAN HERDERS ARE UNDER PRESSURE BY IRON ORE MINE CORPORATION. Whether it is animals getting sick of road dust, the loss of winter camps or the loss of access to water, the Tayan Nuur iron ore mine, owned by the Mongolian company Altain Khuder (financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has brought severe challenges to nomadic herder families in the Gobi Altai mountains.
Corporate Watch, September 22, 2014 ▶ FOREIGN MINING PR DRIVE IN MONGOLIA. Mining companies are on a charm offensive in Mongolia, attempting to convince Mongolians that the foreign corporate takeover of large swathes of the Gobi desert will benefit local communities...http://www.corporatewatch.org/news/2014/sep/22/mining-pr-drive-mongolia
April 12, 2013 New York Times
▶ TIBET: DEADLY TIBETAN LANDSLIDE DRAWS ATTENTION TO CHINESE MINING. The deaths have thrown a spotlight on the Gyama mine, one of the largest and most contentious in Tibet. Hailed by the central government in Beijing as a flagship project, the copper, gold and molybdenum mining operation is hated by many Tibetans, who are furious at the environmental degradation it and other mines have caused on the Tibetan plateau.
Bloomberg, May 28, 2014 ▶ MONGOLIA SELLS OUT TO MEGA MINING GIANTS: SEES PALTRY $1 BILLION "INVESTMENT" FOR DOUBLING MINING AREA TO ONE FIFTH OF THE COUNTRY.New mining law amendments would increase Mongolia’s area available to mining and exploration to 20 percent from around 8 percent, by lifting a 2010 ban on new licenses. The period of exploration would also increase from nine years to 12 years. No protections for environment, indigenous peoples or waterhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-29/mongolia-sees-1-billion-investment-from-doubling-area-for-mines.html
DW.DE April 01, 2014 ▶ MONGOLIA'S MINING BOOM RAISES SERIOUS ENVIRONMENT CONCERNS. With an abundance of minerals and one of the world's fastest growing economies, Mongolia is a hotspot for mining companies. But, lawmakers are struggling to ensure the environment doesn’t pay a heavy price.http://www.dw.de/mongolias-mining-boom-raises-environment-concerns/a-17534285
MAKE YOUR MONEY AND RUN :- FOREIGN MINING SAPS A THIRSTY GOBI DESERT - The Oyu Tolgoi largest copper-gold mine in the world operating in the southern Gobi desert in Mongolia has become a symbol of a looming crisis: a limited water supply that could be exhausted within a decade, seriously threatening the lives and livelihoods of the local population. Inter Press Servicehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/mining-saps-a-thirsty-desert/
TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP:
Obama's New Secretive Global Trade Pacts Are A Global Corporate Coup d'etat http://sco.lt/8kt4ZF
HuffPost Arts and Culture, February 18, 2015 ▶PHOTOS OF MONGOLIA'S DESERTIFICATION REVEAL SHOCKING EFFECTS OF CHANGING CLIMATE. To this day, at least 25% of Mongolia's population lives a nomadic life, and in doing so, they remain fiercely dependent on open land for survival. However, due to the fluctuation in climate in recent years, changes to the landscape have rendered this lifestyle difficult, if not impossible, to maintain. Over the course of the past 30 years, approximately a quarter of the country has turned to desert, with around 850 lakes and 2,000 rivers having dried out. If this pattern persists, the Mongolian tradition that's existed for thousands of years will become extinct.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/10/daesung-lee_n_6648868.html
▶ MEGA MINING, FOREIGN LAND GRABS DESTROYING LOCAL COMMUNITIES, ENVIRONMENT AND ECOSYSTEMShttp://sco.lt/8nJQf3
VIDEO
▶ ***** FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS -- CREATING POVERTY, DEPENDENCE ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/5vdZgH
▶ BOLIVIA FIRST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD TO GIVE LEGAL RIGHT TO THE EARTH. Bolivia pilots new social and economic model based on protection of and respect for nature. Bolivia is to become the first country in the world to give nature comprehensive legal rights in an effort to halt climate change and the exploitation of the natural world, and to improve quality of life for the Bolivian people. http://sco.lt/83jybZ
▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT? http://sco.lt/5I5UeX
ERADICATING ECOCIDE AND GENOCIDE WHY BUSINESS LEADERS MUST STEP UP TO THE CHALLENGE http://sco.lt/56vkOH
pdjmoo's insight:
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ALL NUCLEAR SHOULD BE HALTED UNTIL WE HAVE FOUND A WAY TO NEUTRALIZE THE RADIOACTIVE WASTE - FOR THE SAKE OF OUR ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN HEALTH AND ALL LIFE ON PLANET EARTH
August 29, 2018 New Scientist
BAD IDEA: FLOATING NUCLEAR PLANTS COULD HERALD A NEW ERA OF CHEAP, SAFE ENERGY
The price of renewables is at rock bottom, making nuclear power look pointlessly expensive. But new atomic plants could be cheap - and safer too
April 24, 2011 Guardian NUCLEAR WASTE: "KEEP OUT OUT FOR 100,000 YEARS Few architects have to design anything to last more than 100 years, so how do you build a nuclear waste facility to last for millennia? And what sign do you put on the door? http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/apr/24/nuclear-waste-storage
These are the best nuclear movies, documentaries and animations of the International Uranium Film Festival that received the festival's awards from 2011 to 2016
Ecowatch, February 02, 2014 ▶ 50 REASONS WE SHOULD FEAR THE WORST FROM FUKUSHIMA :Defined by seven decades of deceit, denial and a see-no-evil dearth of meaningful scientific study, the glib corporate assurances that this latest reactor disaster won’t hurt us fade to absurdity. Fukushima pours massive, unmeasured quantities of lethal radiation into our fragile ecosphere every day, and will do so for decades to come.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/02/50-reasons-fear-fukushima/
The Columbian, December 16, 2014 ▶ HANFORD TANKS STILL DETERIORATING. Hanford, near Richland in eastern Washington, contains 177 nuclear waste tanks, some of which have leaked. The nation's largest collection of radioactive waste is left over from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. The GAO report said that both the older single-walled tanks and newer double-walled tanks are deteriorating. Some tanks date to the 1940s and are long past their designed lifespans.http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/dec/16/hanford-tanks-still-deteriorating/
National Geographic ▶ HALF LIFE: THE LETHAL LEGACY OF AMERICA'S NUCLEAR WASTE. What's to be done with 52,000 tons (47,174 metric tons) of dangerously radioactive spent fuel from commercial and defense nuclear reactors? With 91 million gallons (344.5 million liters) of high-level waste left over from plutonium processing, scores of tons of plutonium, more than half a million tons (453,592 metric tons) of depleted uranium, millions of cubic feet of contaminated tools, metal scraps, clothing, oils, solvents, and other waste? And with some 265 million tons (240 million metric tons) of tailings from milling uranium ore—less than half stabilized—littering landscapes?
Guardian Environment, October 19, 2009 ▶ NUCLEAR WASTE LANDFILL THREAT: LANDFILL SITES MAY BE USED TO DUMP RADIOACTIVE WASTE. Government poised to allow nuclear power generators to put atomic waste in ordinary sites to cut cost of decommissioning old reactorshttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/19/nuclear-waste-landfill-threat
Reuters, July 28, 2014 ▶ U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY DEFENDS POSSIBLE GERMAN NUKE WASTE IMPORTSU.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Monday defended his agency's controversial move to consider processing spent nuclear fuel from Germany at South Carolina's Savannah River Site nuclear facilityhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/28/us-nuclear-south-carolina-idUSKBN0FX1WA20140728
The Ecologist, July 20, 2014
▶ NUCLEAR WASTE -- THE UNANSWERED QUESTION THAT WON'T GO AWAY.Nuclear waste - the unanswered questions that won't go away. The recent closure of five US power stations is forcing the industry to confront big questions about radioactive waste, writes Paul Brown. Who is to pay the mounting costs of managing the wastes and keeping them secure? And precisely where will be their final resting place?http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2482078/nuclear_waste_the_unanswered_questions_that_wont_go_away.html
▶ NEW MEXICO NUCLEAR WASTE SITE HALTS SHIPMENTS TO TEXAS. New Mexico nuclear waste dump, which saw a radiation leak in February, has halted shipments of toxic waste barrels to a commercial Texas facility amid concerns that chemical reactions could trigger another release there, officials said on Friday. A probe found the February 14 accident may have been linked to improperly prepared and packaged drums of toxic waste accepted from the Los Alamos National Laboratory by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), its managers said in a statement.... http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/10/new-mexico-nuclear-waste-site-halts-shipments-of-toxic-materials-to-texas/
June 22, 2013 NBC News ▶ USA FEDS: NUCLEAR WASTE MAY BE LEAKING INTO SOIL FROM HANFORD SITEThe tanks are now beyond their intended life span. The Energy Department announced last year that AY-102 was leaking between its two walls, but it said then that no waste had escaped. Two radionuclides comprise much of the radioactivity in Hanford's tanks: cesium-137 and strontium-90. Both take hundreds of years to decay, and exposure to either would increase a person's risk of developing cancer http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/22/19088481-feds-nuclear-waste-may-be-leaking-into-soil-from-hanford-site?lite
▶ PROBLEM WITH A WEST TEXAS RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMP GET BURIED. The preferred method for getting rid of radioactive waste is to bury it deep underground and hope to never see it again. Texas’ approach to regulating radioactive waste is similar. Instead of a public airing, problems with a burgeoning West Texas nuclear dump often get buried.... http://www.texasobserver.org/problems-with-a-west-texas-radioactive-waste-dump-get-buried/
Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2014 ▶ CAUSE OF NEW MEXICO NUCLEAR WASTE ACCIDENT REMAINS A MYSTERY. 55-gallon drum of nuclear waste, buried in a salt shaft 2,150 feet under the New Mexico desert, violently erupted late on Feb. 14, 2014 and spewed mounds of radioactive white foam.
The flowing mass, looking like whipped cream but laced with plutonium, went airborne, traveled up a ventilation duct to the surface and delivered low-level radiation doses to 21 workers.
A new book from National Geographic photographer Gerd Ludwig documents the worst nuclear disaster in history with sobering but stunning images. Ludwig visited Chernobyl nine times in 20 years to tell the stories of the lives of the victims, the exclusion zone and the abandoned city of Pripyat. The book also contains an essay from former president Mikhail Gorbachev on how the accident changed the course of the world's history by accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union
What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled? The historic nuclear accident at Chernobyl is now 25 years old. Filmmakers and scientists set out to document the lives of the packs of wolves and other wildlife thriving in the “dead zone” that still surrounds the remains of the reactor....http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/radioactive-wolves/full-episode/7190/
High Country, December 11, 2014 ▶ FOR PUBLIC LANDS, A MIXED BAG IN 2014 DEFENSE BILL. Here’s a listing of some of the major public-lands proposals in the defense bill.
IC Magazine, December 09, 2014 -▶ ARIZONA DEFENDERS FACE IMMINENT LAND GRAB OF SACRED LANDS BY FOREIGN MINING COMPANIES.Congress is set to approve the giveaway of 2,400 acres of National Forest lands, including the burial, ceremonial and medicinal lands of the San Carlos Apaches, to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of British-Australian Rio Tinto Mining Corp., a company with a long history of environmental and human rights abuses in developing countries.https://intercontinentalcry.org/arizona-defenders-face-imminent-land-grab-26496/
▶ FOSSIL-FUEL EXTRACTION ON YOUR PUBLIC LAND YIELD MASSIVE ECONOMIC BOON, WELL - SORT OF...http://ow.ly/fXmYN
CommonDreams, August 29, 2014 ▶ FEDS SET TO OPEN FRACKING FLOODGATES IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC LANDS, BASED ON ONE FLAWED STUDY.The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has put the ecosystems, water resources, and residents of California at urgent risk, expert critics are warning, by accepting a failed scientific review of the dangers of fracking in the state as a basis to begin issuing permits on public lands for the controversial gas drilling technique as soon as next year.http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/29/feds-set-open-fracking-floodgates-california-based-one-flawed-study
FRACKING AMERICA
THE GIGANTIC PUBLIC LAND GRAB
MAKING DEALS FOR PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT GAS DRILLING ON OUR PRISTINE PUBLIC LANDS
HeraldNet, October 12, 2014 ▶ CALIFORNIA DAIRY RANCHERS ASK FOR HELP WITH HUNGRY ELK.“The public doesn’t want these elk relocated, fenced into an exhibit, shot, sterilized or any of the other absurd proposals from ranchers who enjoy subsidized grazing privileges in our national seashore,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20141012/NEWS02/141019656/California-dairy-ranchers-ask-for-help-with-hungry-elk
▶ STEP RIGHT UP, BIG COAL, FOR AMERICA'S BIG COAL GIVEAWAY. It’s bad enough that the federal government leases out public lands to private companies to be torn up and mined for coal. Even worse is that the feds are ripping off taxpayers in the process, leasing the coal tracts at way-below-market prices, through a totally inept program, according to a new federal study.http://grist.org/news/step-right-up-big-coal-for-americas-big-coal-giveaway/
Summit Voice, June 12, 2013 ▶ ARE THE FEDS (ON YOUR BEHALF) GETTING SHORT-CHANGED ON WYOMING COAL LEASES? A report by the Department of Interior’s Inspector General found that U.S. taxpayers are likely losing tens of millions of dollars on bids from mining corporations as a result of a federal leasing program that undervalues the price of coal...http://summitcountyvoice.com/2013/06/12/are-feds-getting-short-changed-on-wyoming-coal-leases/
We have to stop subsidizing these multi-billion profit multi-nationals. Who says Monsanto and crew don't run our government? The generically engineered and biotechnology cartels have tied the slick pr for biofuels (heavily subsidized by US Government) to their generically engineered seed and crops, chemicals and pesticides. Now they want our prestine public federal lands, free of charge, to destroy our ecosystems and all life within them for the hyped need for biofuels that increasingly are showing up to destroy our environment, create heightened CO2 when burned exacerbating climate change; while taking millions from our taxes and cornering the biomass markets worldwide.
Bombay Financial Express, May 26, 2014 ▶ DIGITAL DUMP IS INCREASING.Our world is filled with old and obsolete gadgets, which means that smarter and more efficient technologies for recycling e-waste are desperately needed.http://www.financialexpress.com/news/digital-dump-is-increasing/1254377
EurActive
▶ FITTING e-WASTE INTO THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY. SPECIAL REPORT / Phones, computers, washing machines - integrating a few core principles, such as the waste hierarchy, into the manufacturing of these products can reduce their environmental impact and allow for a functioning circular economy, according to analystshttp://www.euractiv.com/sections/circular-economy/fitting-e-waste-circular-economy-302645
Nation of Change, February 04, 2014 -▶ HOW AMERICA HELPED BUILD AFRICA'S E-WASTELAND. ... an estimated population of 40,000 men, women and children living in shacks built from scrap metal. It is the world’s largest dumpsite for electronic waste. By refusing to implement Basel Ban measures, America can trade its e-waste to whomever it desires. This has given America the unique freedom to export asbestos, lead acid batteries and cadmium contaminated sludge “to developing countries ill equipped to deal with such wastes.”http://www.nationofchange.org/how-america-helped-build-africa-s-e-wasteland-1391523813
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia WHAT IS ELECTRONIC WASTE?
DR. VANDANA SHIVA: "RIGHTS OF NATURE" TRIBUNAL PRESIDENT presents closing statement at the first Ethics Tribunal in Quito January 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Tl02_bcbw
IC Magazine, December 11, 2014 -▶ PANEL FINDS CORPORATIONS, UNITED NATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS GUILTY OF VIOLATING NATURE'S RIGHTS
Earth, October 10, 2014 -▶ BOLIVIA GIVES LEGAL RIGHT TO THE EARTH. Law of Mother Earth sees Bolivia pilot new social and economic model based on protection of and respect for nature. Bolivia is to become the first country in the world to give nature comprehensive legal rights in an effort to halt climate change and the exploitation of the natural world, and to improve quality of life for the Bolivian people. http://sco.lt/5DoTRp
ANOTHER VIDEO Global Alliance RIGHTS OF NATURE & INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (22:14)
Ensia, August 12, 2014 -▶ ECOSYSTEMS ARE NOT MACHINES. If we want to save the world, we need to treat nature more as an organism and less as disposable and replaceable technology.http://ensia.com/voices/ecosystems-are-not-machines/
-▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT?http://sco.lt/72Hsf3
Guardian August 02, 2014 ▶ AUSTRALIAN PM, TONY ABBOTT, LAUNCHES GREEN ARMY RECRUITING 15,000 YOUNG AUSTRALIANS. About 15,000 young Australians will be mobilised for the government’s Green Army and get their hands dirty on environmental projects for a weekly wage of up to $500. The Abbott government’s Green Army initiative will involve 1500 projects implemented over the next three years.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/02/tony-abbott-green-army-recruiting-drive
Earthblog, August 04, 2014 NEW SCIENCE SUGGESTS MORE LAND-BASED ECOSYSTEMS LOST THAN BIOSPHERE CAN BEARAn important scientific journal article published today finds that 66% of Earth’s land area must be maintained as natural and agro-ecological ecosystems to sustain a livable environment. Yet about 50% have already been lost, threatening global biosphere collapse http://www.ecointernet.org/2014/08/04/biosphere_collapse/
▶ PALM OIL BONANZA FOR CORPORATIONS WHILE DESTROYING FORESTS AND ALL LIFE WITHIN THEMhttp://sco.lt/5VN27l
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- ▶ NO TO BIODIVERSITY OFFSETTING: CONSERVING OUR BIODIVERSITY IS BECOMING DEPENDENT ON IT DESTRUCTIONhttp://sco.lt/6ZjXGr
-▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT?http://sco.lt/72Hsf3
▶ THE COMING CLIMATE CRASH: LESSONS FROM THE 2008 RECESSION http://sco.lt/6tNs8H
-▶ THE NEW CORPORATE COLONIALISM. DESTRUCTION OF PLANETARY LIFE, INDIGENOUS LAND AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE NAME OF "GROWTH" http://sco.lt/5nT3OT
Pambazuka, July 24. 2014 -▶ GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: WHICH WAY AFRICA? African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
Good, January 07, 2015 ▶ THE MOST ISOLATED, UNCONTACTED TRIBES ON EARTH WANT TO STAY THAT WAY.The Sentinelese are one of about 100 uncontacted tribes left in the world, most of which live clustered in remote West Papua and the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Peru. But many of these other uncontacted tribes are not totally isolated, as cultural rights organization Survival International points outhttp://magazine.good.is/articles/isolated-sentinelese-people
Survival International, September 09, 2014 ▶ MISSIONARY CONTACTS RISK HIGHLY VULNERABLE UNCONTACTED AMAZON TRIBE. A highly vulnerable uncontacted tribe in Peru’s southeastern Amazon has been contacted by a missionary, raising fears that the Indians have contracted fatal diseases which could wipe them out. Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, and local Amazon Indian organization FENAMAD, warned of the dangers of “human safaris” and increasing encounters between outsiders and the uncontacted Indianshttp://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10418
▶ “MASSACRE" REPORTED BY UNCONTACTED INDIANS OF BRAZIL AS RARE VIDEO EMERGES. The uncontacted Indians appeared young and healthy, but reported shocking incidents of a massacre of their older relatives.http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10374
Survival International, July 2, 2014 ▶ 'VIOLENT ATTACKS' CAUSED UNCONTACTED INDIANS TO EMERGE.Seven uncontacted Indians made contact with a settled Ashaninka community near the Brazil-Peru border in June. Authorities have treated them after an outbreak of flu.http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10361
-▶ AMAZON RAINFORESTS: DEFORESTATION, MINING RISES AGAIN IN BRAZIL'S AMAZON IMPACTING ECOSYSTEMS, CLIMATE, DEVASTATING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES . http://sco.lt/9FG1Lt
▶ LAND GRABS: HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBEhttp://sco.lt/5YJpKb
VIDEO
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
-▶ HUNTERS SWEAR OFF KILLING IN BID TO PRESERVE IRANIAN WILDLIFENineteen hunters in Iranian Kurdistan have sworn off killing animals by breaking their rifles and setting fire to their traps in public. They hope that many more will soon join them in in their effort to preserve Iran's fragile wildlife from the ravages of over-hunting ...http://observers.france24.com/content/20140317-iranian-hunters-rifles-protect-species
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NO SAFE HAVEN
MIGRATING BIRDS BEING MASSACRED BY THE MILLIONS IN MIDDLE EAST AND AROUND THE WORLDhttp://sco.lt/8Y8tmb
Summit County Citizens Voice, September 2, 2014 ▶ EXTINCTION CRISIS: REPORT HIGHLIGHTS FROG SPECIES ON BRINK OF EXTINCTION.Among them, the mountain yellow-legged frog, with 90 percent of remaining populations supporting fewer than 10 frogs. “Frogs have successfully thrived on our planet since the time of the dinosaurs, but now the mountain yellow legged frog and 30 percent of all amphibian species are facing extinction due to human actions,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity, ..http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/09/28/report-highlights-species-on-brink-of-extinction/
Mongabay, October 30, 2014 - ▶ PET TRADE LIKELY RESPONSIBLE FOR NEW KILLER SALAMANDER FUNGUS. Scientists say that a second fungal disease could spell disaster for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of species. A new paper published today in Science finds that this new disease has the potential to wipe out salamanders and newts across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Americas. http://news.mongabay.com/2014/1030-hance-salamander-fungus.html
Summit Voice, October 17, 2014 - ▶ AMPHIBIANS NOW FACING HUGE VIRAL THREAT - INTRODUCED BY HUMANS. The viral outbreak could have wider significance, as emerging diseases threaten all animal groups, including humans. Viruses sometimes cross species barriers , for instance Ebola, which jumped from bats and other wild animals to humans, according to the research paper published in Current Biology.http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/10/17/biodiversity-amphibians-now-facing-huge-viral-threat/
VIDEO KQED Quest CALIFORNIA'S DISAPPEARING FROGS Around the world, frogs are declining at an alarming rate due to threats like pollution, disease and climate change. Frogs bridge the gap between water and land habitats, making them the first indicators of ecosystem changes. Meet the Bay Area researchers working to protect frogs across the state and across the world. http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/disappearing-frogs/
The Dodo, October 07, 2014 ▶ MAINE PROFESSOR FINDS OUT WHY 200,000 FROGS DIES IN HIS BACKYARD POND. Postmortem analysis revealed evidence of deadly ranavirus, a disease responsible for mass deaths of amphibians around the globehttps://www.thedodo.com/frog-deaths-massive-200000-753710138.html
Frogs Are Green, September 02, 2014 ▶ HAWAII'S INHUMANE FROG POLICY. The Hawaiian government has passed laws to vilify coqui frogs as a noisy environmental menace. According to the law, coquis frogs are pests by definition, and anyone enjoying them does so at his own peril. For many people in Hawaii, as in Puerto Rico, the coqui frog is considered an adorable creature, singing at night and improving the environment by eating insect pests. They can get loud in large numbers, but for those who enjoy the sounds of wildlife, the coqui chirp is soothing and creates a white noise that aids sleep.http://frogsaregreen.org/hawaiis-inhumane-frog-policy/
- ▶ IT'S TIME THE PESTICIDE/CHEMICAL INDUSTRY OWNED UP: THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR PESTICIDES ARE CAUSING AN ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHEhttp://sco.lt/7qvjPt
- ▶ BATS: WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME HAS KILLED UP TO 6.7 MILLION BATS: PESTICIDES WEAKEN IMMUNE SYSTEMShttp://sco.lt/7xPkeH
Anchorage Daily News, December 24, 2013
▶ SCIENTISTS DISCOVER ALASKA HOTSPOTS OF ABNORMAL FROGS.Scientists consider frogs to be barometers for the health of wetlands because they absorb liquid and gas through their skin, so they literally breath their environment. Deformities are related to a combination of now-banned pesticides still in the atmosphere seeping into the frogs, along with metals in the water where frogs live...http://www.adn.com/2013/12/24/3245721/scientists-find-that-alaska-has.html
Mongabay, April 04, 2014 - ▶ THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SALAMANDER: RESEARCHERS FIND ANOTHER CASUALTY OF CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION, HABITAT LOSS.Many amphibian populations around the world are currently experiencing precipitous declines, estimated to be at least 211 times normal extinction rates. Scientists believe these declines are due to a multitude of factors such as habitat loss, agricultural contamination, and the accidental introduction of a killer fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidisi), among others.http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0404-morgan-shrinking-salamanders.html
- ▶ BIODIVERSITY IS VITAL TO MAINTAINING ECOSYSTEM AND HUMAN HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/5gy5Q1
Nearly thirty percent of all the amphibians in the world are facing extinction. While it may sound surprising, the greatest threat to any animal on the planet is mankind. Humans are perched solidly at the top of the food chain, and our nation's youth must understand the incredible responsibility that comes with that power....http://frogsaregreen.org/guest-post-teaching-kids-about-frogs/
-▶ ECO-CIVILIZATION: CHINA'S BLUEPRINT FOR A NEW ERA, PDF
Eco-civilization: China's blueprint for a new era, provides international readers with an overview of key policy guidelines and priorities the country’s new leadership will adopt, focusing on its pioneering low carbon ‘eco-civilization’ concept, which will have a profound impact on China’s future economy. This is the first time that eco-civilization has been elevated to such a high-level, not only in parallel with, but also cutting across economic, political, cultural, and social systems. http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/China-Ecocivilisation.pdf
HuffingtonPost (Reuters) April 15, 2014
▶ CHINA TO PRIORITIZE ENVIRONMENT OVER ECONOMY AND DEVELOPMENT Smog-hit China is set to pass a new law that would give Beijing more powers to shut polluting factories and punish officials, and even place protected regions off-limits to industrial development. While some details of the fourth draft are still under discussion, it has been agreed that the principle of prioritising the environment above the economy will be enshrined in law, according to scholars who have been involved in the process. The fourth draft is due to be completed within weeks. ...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/china-expected-to-elevate-environment_n_5150010.html
The Guardian, January 07, 2015 -▶ CHINA ENCOURAGES ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS TO SUE POLLUTERS.Groups that work to fight polluters judicially will gain special status and have court fees reduced, Supreme People’s Court says
Triple Pundit, November 13, 2014 ▶ CHINA'S 20% RENEWABLES COMMITMENT A CHALLENGE TO U.S. UTILITIES, China’s massive commitment to renewable energy will create economies of scale that will shatter current price levels around the world. Its success will bring to scale the technologies and processes required to integrate renewable energy into an electrical grid. China is on a path that will push the U.S. electric utility industry over a renewable energy cliff.http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/11/chinas-20-renewable-energy-commitment-challenges-u-s-electric-utility-industry/
New Scientist, December 16, 2014 -▶ "GREAT GREEN WALL" HELPS CHINA TACKLE DESERTIFICATION: China has planted a "Great Green Wall" of trees across the north of the country in a bid to prevent the spread of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts -- and the strategy appears to be working. "Vegetation has improved and dust storms have decreased significantly in the Great Green Wall region, compared with other areas," says Minghong Tan of Beijing's Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429994.900-great-wall-of-trees-keeps-chinas-deserts-at-bay.html#.VJA1WsaHenj
The Climate Group, September 04, 2014 ▶ CHINA WILL LAUNCH WORLD'S BIGGEST CARBON MARKET IN 2016.China will launch its eagerly awaited national Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2016. Once implemented, this market for carbon permit trading will become the biggest in the world, helping the largest greenhouse emitting nation to axe pollution. http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/news-and-blogs/china-will-launch-worlds-biggest-carbon-market-in-2016/
-▶ COULD A CHINESE CARBON CAP PAVE THE WAY FOR A GLOBAL CLIMATE DEAL?http://sco.lt/7knIW1
Earth Policy Institute, June 16, 2014 ▶ SOLAR POWER: CHINA LEADS WORLD TO SOLAR POWER RECORD IN 2013 In the last two years, countries around the world have added almost as much new solar photovoltaics (PV) capacity as had been added since the invention of the solar cell. Nearly 38,000 megawatts of PV came online in 2013, a new annual record. In all, the world’s installed PV generating capacity is now close to 140,000 megawatts—enough to power each home in Germany. Falling costs and effective policies continue to drive tremendous growth in solar power. http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C47/solar_power_2014
CHINA'S GENERATION GREEN Waste, Food Safety, Pollution & The China Dream
This series is about the generation that has inherited the waste, and a few members of that generation who are openly and actively trying to change the trajectory of the country to avoid disaster. Toronto Star,http://projects.thestar.com/chinas-generation-green/
▶ HOW CHINA'S YOUNG IDEALISTS ARE TURNING TO THE SOIL
Guardian Environment, December 20, 2014 ▶ 10 THING TO KNOW ABOUT CHINA, LATIN AMERICA AND THE ENVIRONMENT. New book argues Chinese firms’ presence in Latin America focuses on the most environmentally-damaging sectors
FastCoExist, August 26, 2014 ▶ IN BEIJING YOU CAN PAY FOR TRAIN RIDES WITH PLASTIC BOTTLES. Across the world, there are many ways to encourage recycling. Tax breaks, virtual points, deposit payments--there's no shortage of ideas. Recently, we even came across a machine in Istanbul that gives out dog food in return for a bottle or two. Beijing is now taking its own approach by giving free train rides and mobile phone top-ups to people redeeming used plastic. Machines in 34 locations take bottle deposits and calculate their worth, issuing a credit to the person's mobile account or transit pass. Sensors scan the bottle's weight and composition, then prompt users to choose their option.http://www.fastcoexist.com/3034720/in-beijing-you-can-pay-for-train-rides-with-plastic-bottles
Treehugger, March 08, 2014 -▶ BUILDING A BUBBLE-like BIOME IN BEIJING COULD LET RESIDENTS BREATHE CLEAN AIR. Beijing's notorious air pollution has reached beyond hazardous levels in recent years, with the city covered in thick, toxic smog for a good part of the year. While the Chinese government has implemented various pollution-battling policies like car bans and the planting of green roofs, others like London-based design firm Orproject have gone down the road of more extreme design measures -- suggesting the building of bubble-like biomes, sealed from outside pollution, that would allow residents to actually breathe clean air.http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/beijing-bubbles-biome-clean-air-orproject.html
Ag Professional, August 01, 2014 -▶ CHINA ADOPTS STRICTER PESTICIDE RESIDUE STANDARD.The new standard includes 3,650 indices detailing the maximum allowable residue for 387 pesticides on 284 types of food, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Health and Family Planning Commission, which jointly issued the standard. Compared with the current standard that took effect in 2012, the new standard contains 1,357 new indices covering 65 new pesticides and 43 new types of food. The standard covers vegetables, fruits, grain, edible oil, sugar, soft drinks, nuts, eggs and meat. It includes juice and preserved fruits for the first time.http://www.agprofessional.com/news/China-adopts-stricter-pesticide-residue-standard-269591991.html
Come April of 2015 China is ready to set a new law that gives Beijing more power against factories that are polluting the environment. This new law will allow them to punish business officials and place protected regions off-limits to industrial development. This new law states that the environment is a priority and will give the power to environmental enforcers to “veto” production in the industries until they have met their targets. They are also looking to eliminate the punishment of maximum fine as companies will pay this fine and still continue on with their same procedures.
I think that it is important for people to see a CSR program within their government and I feel that it is too strongly geared towards strictly corporations. We have seen in some cases such as the United States where ultimately the corporations run the show but the government needs to take responsibility as they have put themselves in the position to take care of the people and they need to live up to it.
I believe that getting rid of the fine penalty will be very beneficial for Beijing, you see too many cases where through a cost/benefit analysis companies will chose to take the risk of a maximum fine as they will still make more profit. An alternate solution such as a shutdown of the company whether it is permanent or temporary will be a greater threat and result in a greater desired outcome and better cooperation
We all have our opinions, principles and philosophies about life and we must be very careful about infringing on those of others. Every person should be able to follow that inner voice without external influences constantly telling them they’re wrong. However there is one choice we could all make right now that would transform our world to benefit all living things and the Earth itself.
That is, choosing nature and each other above all else. So many of us have been deschooled on this concept that it may take decades for the scales to tip so that we all start respecting our world again.
-▶ ECO-SPIRITUALITY: TOWARDS A VALUES-BASED ECONOMIC STRUCTURE http://sco.lt/92y1Ef
A TED VIDEO Louie Schwartzberg: TED.com "HIDDEN MIRACLES OF THE NATURAL WORLD" We live in a world of unseeable beauty, so subtle and delicate that it is imperceptible to the human eye. To bring this invisible world to light, filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg bends the boundaries of time and space with high-speed cameras, time lapses and microscopes. http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_hidden_miracles_of_the_natural_world
-▶ KEEPING NATURE IN OUR FUTURE: HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS ESSENTIAL FOR ECONOMIC AND PLANETARY SURVIVAL http://sco.lt/99SfhJ
Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek discusses the ‘naturalization’ of capitalism and how ecology became a new field of capitalist investment. He also argues that the ultimate consequence of recent developments in biogenetics will be the ‘end of nature’ – anyone cares to introduce the good man into nextnature thinking? According to Žižek ecological apartheid will divide our urban society. Capitalism is not in control of nature and due to techno-scientific interventions the essence of the ecological order will be lost. http://www.nextnature.net/2009/02/ecology-a-new-opium-for-the-masses/
It does not take a Ph.D for commonsense to tell us that without Nature We Do Not Exist. If we were to foster, nurture and respect our natural world providing Her with Her needs, instead of focusing on ravishing Her for our wants, desires and profits - we would have a much more balanced world emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. To the degree the natural world is out of balance and "sick" so are we. To the degree we humans degrade and abuse Her, we degrade and abuse our own human race and all other species within the great web of life.
Let us return to simplicity of reconnecting to the source of our sustenance every moment of every day and let Nature teach us the path back to commonsense and sensibility
Yale Environment 360, July 02, 2014 ▶2047 : WHERE WILL EARTH HEAD AFTER ITS 'CLIMATE DEPARTURE'? The term “climate departure” has an odd ring, but its meaning is relatively straightforward. It marks the point at which the earth’s climate begins to cease resembling what has come before and moves into a new state, one where heat records are routinely shattered and what once was considered extreme will become the norm.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/interview_camilo_mora_where_will_earth_head_after_its_climate_departure/2783/
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 26, 2014 - ▶ ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT TO WORSEN OVER TIME AS RESOURCES BECOME HARDER TO REACH. Even if current appetites for new things remained stable, the world is headed for more environmental destruction as resources become harder to reach. HAVING PICKED MOST of the 'low hanging fruit', humans are now putting more effort into extracting useful materials, and a new study says the associated environmental impacts are only going to grow. http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/03/25/3970411.htm
Guardian Environment, March 18, 2014 ▶ THE GLOBAL TRANSITION TIPPING POINT HAS ARRIVED: VIVE LA REVOLUTION. What we are seeing, as I've argued in detail before, are escalating, interconnected symptoms of the unsustainability of the global system in its current form. While the available evidence suggests that business-as-usual is likely to guarantee worst-case scenarios, simultaneously humanity faces an unprecedented opportunity to create a civilisational form that is in harmony with our environment, and ourselves. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/18/transition-tipping-point-revolution-doom
Guardian Environment, March 18, 2014 ▶ CLIMATE CHANGE IS PUTTING WORLD AT RISK OF IRREVERSIBLE CHANGES, SCIENTIST WARN. The world is at growing risk of “abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes” because of a warming climate, America’s premier scientific society warned on Tuesday. In a rare intervention into a policy debate, the American Association for the Advancement of Science urged Americans to act swiftly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and lower the risks of leaving a climate catastrophe for future generations... http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/18/climate-change-world-risk-irreversible-changes-scientists-aaas
The Guardian, March 17, 2014 ▶ TOXIC TRAIL: HOW A LANDMARK SUPERFUND CLEANUP PROGRAM LEAVES ITS OWN TOXIC LEGACY.
Below some of the world’s most expensive real estate, in the heart of Silicon Valley, pipes and pumps suck thousands of gallons of contaminated water every hour from vast underground toxic pools.
Giant industrial filters trap droplets of dangerous chemicals at the surface, all in the hope of making the water drinkable again and protecting the workers of tech giants such as Google and Symantec from toxic vapors. Often the original mess is almost untreatable. In Silicon Valley’s case, it would take 700 years of continuous treatment to make the groundwater drinkable. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2014/mar/-sp-toxic-waste-silicon-valley-trail
I don't give a lot of energy to speaking about 'the collapse' of our civilization as I try to connect with people not from fear but from creativity. Yet I post this study as it came out from NASA and its pretty grounded in regards to the state of the environment.
-▶ WALL STREET TAKES AIM AT FARMLAND: THREATENING FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD AGRICULTURE http://sco.lt/9HBsPZ
LAND GRABS
HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBEhttp://sco.lt/5YJpKb
MintPress News, April 01, 2015 -▶ GEORGE SOROS LOOKS TO CO-OWN UKRAINE AND AFRICA.The Hungarian-born economic hitman may be more interested in helping his, and other investor’s, pockets, rather than the people of Ukraine. http://www.mintpressnews.com/george-soros-looks-to-co-own-ukraine/203866/
GRAIN, October 23, 2014 ▶ HARVEST OF HARDSHIP: YALA SWAMP LAND GRAB DESTROYS KENYAN FARMERS' LIVELIHOOD.Dominion Farms arrived in Kenya's Yala Swamp basin in 2004 with big promises. The company claimed it would turn a defunct state demonstration farm into a modern rice plantation, provide locals with good jobs, and build hospitals and schools. The American owner of the company, Calvin Burgess, presented himself as a 'man of God', on a mission to bring US-style progress to Africa. The locals, sold on this grand vision, decided – with some hesitation and dissent – to allow Dominion to farm on 3,700 ha of their lands...http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5061-harvest-of-hardship-yala-swamp-land-grab-destroys-kenyan-farmers-livelihoods
▶ CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE IS CORPORATE GREEN-WASHING - AGRAhttp://sco.lt/8Ry4Wn
WATCH "BIG MEN" (1:23:00) Big Men provides an unprecedented inside look at the global deal making and dark underside of energy development in Ghana, Nigeria, Africa — a contest for money and power that is reshaping the world. http://www.pbs.org/pov/bigmen/full.php
HuffPost Politics, November 28, 2014 ▶ OBAMA'S PLAN TO 'POWER AFRICA' GETS OFF TO A DIM START.As with many African aid projects, rights groups have criticized Power Africa as mostly being a vehicle to subsidize U.S. companies.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/28/obama-africa-aid_n_6234774.html
World Development Movement
▶ THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA. - INFOGRAPH
In the nineteenth century scramble for Africa, European colonial powers took control of the continent’s land, resources and people. Today’s multinational corporations, aided by governments, are taking control over Africa’s food system.http://www.wdm.org.uk/new-scramble-africa-food-monsanto-syngenta-yara/
THE 21st CENTURY CORPORATE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA World Development Movement -▶ STOP THE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF AFRICA'S FOOD. Under the guise of tackling hunger, initiatives like the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, will help corporations take control over Africa’s land, seeds and markets - at the expense of small farmers. Join our campaign to oppose this twenty-first century corporate scramble for Africa. - See more at: http://www.wdm.org.uk/food#sthash.dgDwkdF0.dpufhttp://www.wdm.org.uk/food
WATCH
"LAND RUSH - WHY POVERTY?:
THE UGLY RISE OF MONOCULTURE FARMING AND GLOBALIZED FOOD
-▶ FROM GROWING PROFIT TO GROWING FOOD: CHALLENGING CORPORATE RULEhttp://sco.lt/7Dg37p
Inter Press Service, August 04, 2014 ▶ THE 'GLOBAL' LAND RUSH.The first years of the twenty-first century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale.Today, enthusiasm for agriculture borders on speculative mania. When the price of food spiked in 2008, pushing the number of hungry people in the world to over one billion, it spiked the interest of investors as well, and within a year foreign land deals in the developing world rose by a staggering 200 percent.http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/the-global-land-rush/
Pambazuka, July 24. 2014 -▶ GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: WHICH WAY AFRICA? African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
▶ GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS NOT THE SOLUTION FOR "FEEDING THE WORLD"http://sco.lt/9Gdbxh
Pambazuka -Voices for Freedom and Justice in Africa
▶ HOW COMPANIES FRAME ISSUES OF FOOD AND GLOBAL HUNGER FOR THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST AND BOTTOMLINE PROFITS
There is a new, but deceptive, foreign drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Yet helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner means introducing low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming.
History is riddled with examples of the poor dying of hunger when food was plentiful. Classic amongst these is the famine which wracked the West African Sahel during the early 1970s. While people were dying of hunger in Senegal, Mali and Niger, peanuts — a key sauce ingredient and source of protein across the region — were being exported to Europe....
...The rise of philanthrocapitalism in the US, where former and current business leaders, through the strength of their foundations, have increasingly come to influence the shape and direction of US international development programmes. Central to the philanthrocapitalist worldview is a belief that private enterprise is the fundamental agent of progressive change and that business acumen trumps other forms of expertise...http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85291
-▶ THE CORPORATE 'PHILANTHROCAPITALISTS' TAKEOVER OF AFRICAN AND GLOBAL FOOD SECURITYhttp://sco.lt/6CHP3R
Mongabay, August 20, 2014 LOOMING MINING 'TSUNAMI' SET TO TAKE AFRICA BY STORM. A new report published by a team of scientists from James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, documents a surging tide of foreign interest in mining in Africa and cautions that the sector’s unchecked development and expansion could devastate the environment.http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0820-gfrn-john-cannon-africa-mining-tsunami.html?n3ws1ttr
AFRICA - SOLD
OBAMA PUTS G8, BIG 6 BIOTECH CHEMICAL GMO GIANTS IN CHARGE OF "ENDING HUNGER" IN AFRICA
farmlandgrab.org, August 04, 2014 ▶ CORPORATE INFLUENCE THROUGH THE G8NA AND OBAMA'S NEW ALLIANCE FOR FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION IN AFRICA. In recent times, new partnerships models between governments, business and civil society are increasingly gaining attention. One prominent example is the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition" (G8NA), inaugurated at the G8 summit 2012 in the United States.
This working paper concludes that the approach and objectives of the G8NA are highly problematic. The initiative serves as an enforcing mechanism for corporate driven blueprints for agriculture and sidelines national plans and international standards. It is dominated and tailored towards the interests of big corporate actors and is based on a reductionist approach of agricultural “development”. And lastly, the G8NA is poorly institutionalized and disregards fundamental principles of transparency participation and accountability. http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/23793
INDEPTH REPORT
GRAIN, September 16, 2014 AFRICA'S AG GIANTS "GREEN" REVOLUTION THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AFRICA' BURGEONING CHEMICAL FERTILISER RUSH
Action Aid Report, May 23, 2014 ▶ GLOBAL POLICIES ENCOURAGE LAND GRABBING AND WORSEN HUNGER AND POVERTY.“Allowing land to become vehicles for wealthy corporations and individuals to become richer while pushing vulnerable rural people into poverty and hunger is unjust, unwise and unethical,” it said in the report.http://www.trust.org/item/20140523061928-bn12w/
▶ A PRIVATE AFFAIR: REPORT SHOWS HOW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE INSTITUTIONS BENEFIT THE RICH IN WESTERN COUNTRIESThe European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) launched today the study A Private Affair in which it shows how the world’s biggest multilateral lenders are using billions of euros of loans in developing countries to finance Western-based companies while excluding governments and citizens of countries they are meant to assist from decision-making.
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
AN INCREDIBLE WATCH "ECHO" AN ELEPHANT TO REMEMBER" (53:10) PBS Nature: Intro & Full Episode Echo, Africa’s most famous elephant, was the subject of many films and the matriarch of perhaps the most studied wild elephant herd in the world. In May of 2009, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied Echo and her family http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/echo-an-elephant-to-remember/introduction/5755/
-▶ MASSIVE PALM OIL PLANTATION WILL "CUT THE HEART OUT" OF CAMEROON'S RAINFOREST, DESTROYING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES AND WILDLIFE HABITAThttp://sco.lt/8lmMBF
DOCUMENTARY DEEPWATER DISASTER - BP OIL SPILL (59:07) Published on Jan 28, 2013 BBC Horizon reveals the untold story of the 87-day battle to kill the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout a mile beneath the waves - a crisis that became America's worst environmental disaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWh9jDei-og
ClimateProgress, February 13, 2015 UNUSUAL STRING OF BOTTLENOSE DOLPHIN DEATHS LINKED TO BP OIL SPILLhttp://ow.ly/J3Xdu
Summit County Citizens Voice, January 30, 2015 FIVE YEARS ON: STUDY FINDS MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF OIL FROM DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER BURIED IN GULF OF MEXICO. Five years after BP’s failed Deepwater Horizon drill rig spewed 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a significant amount of that oil remains buried in seafloor sediments. A new study by a Florida State University researcher estimates that about 6 to 10 million gallons of oil are still there, perhaps decomposing slowly, but probably affecting Gulf ecosystems. “This is going to affect the Gulf for years to come,” said researcher Jeff Chanton. “Fish will likely ingest contaminants because worms ingest the sediment, and fish eat the worms. It’s a conduit for contamination into the food web,” he said sediments
RT Business, March 04, 2015 BP CEO GETS 35% PAY RISE IN 2014 - FREEZES PAY OF ITS 84,000 WORKFORCE AROUND THE WORLD.Dudley's remuneration rose from $10.17 million in 2013 to $12.74 million last year, according to BP’s annual report released Tuesday. He also received $9.8 million in share awards. In January the company cuts its capital spending program and imposed a salary freeze, weeks after axing hundreds of jobs in Scotland and thousands more globally as a result of falling oil prices and profits. http://rt.com/business/237617-bp-dudley-remuneration-rise/
BP was banned from preforming any work in the US in 2012 and now the suspension has been lifted. They are back in the oil game. They had to pay a $4.5 billion fine, admit to lying about the damages, plead guilty, and now they are back in business. Their incident caused the death of 11 workers and the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. Their attempts to make it better were pathetic. It is interesting how people can put a dollar value to the damage and death of people and a huge mass of water and fish population.
This was a huge example of poor corporate social responsibility and the damages are still taking its toll. Reading about the research on how the fish and sea creatures are still being affected 5 years later. The response that the BP representatives are giving in respect to the research on how the fish's hearts are being affected just shows that they are still not practicing good corporate social responsibility and it is sad to see how little a company will take care for their mistakes and the world they live in.
-▶ WIND TURBINE- BIRD DEBATE FLARES WITH NEW MASSIVE FATALITY FIGURE. A published study has concluded that 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats were killed by wind power in 2012. The figure on birds – which includes 83,000 raptors – is about 30 percent higher than the 444,000 estimate by a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist in 2009, when the U.S. had about half as much installed wind capacity....http://www.earthtechling.com/2013/07/wind-bird-debate-flares-with-new-fatality-figure/
May 14, 2013 Associated Press
-▶ OBAMA ADMINISTRATION GIVES WIND INDUSTRY A PASS FOR KILLING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PROTECTED BIRDSIs it OK to slaughter hundreds of thousands of birds every year in the name of clean energy? Is it OK for a luxury home developer to kill California condors in its quest for profits? http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-impact-wind-farms-get-pass-eagle-deaths
WATCH QUEST TV BIRDS, BLADES AND THE BRUTAL BUSINESS OF CLEAN ENERGY
Summit Voice, February 16, 2014 -▶ NEW STUDY UPS ESTIMATE OF WIND TURBINE BAT DEATHS TO 600,000 — By the latest conservative estimate, at least 600,000 bats were killed by energy producing wind turbines in 2012, with the highest fatality rates in areas near the Appalachian Mountains.
-▶ OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO ALLOW EAGLE DEATHS - TO AID WIND POWER. Under pressure from the wind-power industry, the Obama administration said Friday it will allow companies to kill or injure eagles without the fear of prosecution for up to three decades.
Bloomberg Sustainability, February 19, 2014 -▶ U.K. OFFSHORE WIND EXPANSION SCRAPPED BY CONCERN FOR BIRDS.“Renewable energy, like every other industry, must be developed in harmony with the natural environment,” RSPB Head of Energy Policy Harry Huyton said in an e-mailed statement. “Critical to this is avoiding damaging developments in sites that are particularly special for nature.”
Bloomberg Sustainability, February 19, 2014 -▶ U.K. OFFSHORE WIND EXPANSION SCRAPPED BY CONCERN FOR BIRDS.“Renewable energy, like every other industry, must be developed in harmony with the natural environment,” RSPB Head of Energy Policy Harry Huyton said in an e-mailed statement. “Critical to this is avoiding damaging developments in sites that are particularly special for nature.”
VIDEO 56:44 "THE NEXT FRONTIER: ENGINEERING THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREEN" This entertaining one-hour documentary takes the viewer around the world in search of technologies and policies that will address the serious problem of excessive carbon dioxide emissions and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. It features interviews with some of the top energy and economic experts along with educators and high-level government officials, all striving to develop clean energy solutions and alternatives to burning fossil fuels. http://www.thenextfrontiermovie.com/
-- MORE ON IMPORTANCE OF BIRDS AND THEIR FATE ---
-▶ ****STATE OF THE WORLD'S BIRDS REPORT INDICATES A PLANET IN PERILhttp://sco.lt/4yq6z3
-▶ ****NO SAFE HAVEN: MIGRATING BIRDS BEING MASSACRED BY THE MILLIONS AROUND THE WORLDhttp://sco.lt/6pozuT
-▶ WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME, WINDFARMS HAVE KILLED UP TO 6.7 MILLION BATS - http://sco.lt/5dc13Z
-▶ ****WETLANDS VITAL IN SUPPORTING HUMAN LIFE AND BIODIVERSITYhttp://sco.lt/6Nfjcn
-▶ PRICING CARBON, CARBON STORAGE, OFFETS: FAILED STRATEGIES THAT WON'T SAVE THE CLIMATE OR THE PLANEThttp://sco.lt/7UBKIj
-▶ FOOD OR FUEL? RESEARCH SUGGESTS BIOFUELS WILL COST THE EARTHhttp://sco.lt/5D24ET
Clean, Renewable Energy should not further harm the environment or our ecosystems. We have to be mindful of the absolute need to preserve and maintain our fragile environment that all species play their part in. Birds are crucial to this ecosystem and we are losing them by the millions. We must begin to think differently from our conditioned military industrial mindset, top-down GDP mindset where big business controls our energy and food.
If we don’t watch out, agriculture could destroy our planet. Here’s how to grow all the food we need with fewer chemicals.
N. Nitrogen. Atomic number seven. Unnoticed, untasted, it nevertheless fills our stomachs. It is the engine of agriculture, the key to plenty in our crowded, hungry world.
Enter modern chemistry. Giant factories capture inert nitrogen gas from the vast stores in our atmosphere and force it into a chemical union with the hydrogen in natural gas, creating the reactive compounds that plants crave. That nitrogen fertilizer—more than a hundred million tons applied worldwide every year—fuels bountiful harvests.
Yet this modern miracle exacts a price. Runaway nitrogen is suffocating wildlife in lakes and estuaries, contaminating groundwater, and even warming the globe’s climate. As a hungry world looks ahead to billions more mouths needing nitrogen-rich protein, how much clean water and air will survive our demand for fertile fields?...http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/fertilized-world/charles-text
UN Food and Agricultural Organization, February 16, 2014 ▶ FERTILIZER USE TO SURPASS 200 MILLION TONS IN 2018
Summit County Citizens Voice, February 26, 2015 ▶ INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZER RUNOFF IS LITERALLY CHOCKING SOME LAKES TO DEATH RISKING HUMAN EXPOSURE TO DANGEROUS TOXINS The immoderate use of fertilizers in the last half century is literally choking some lakes to death and raises the risk of human exposure to dangerous toxins, scientists said after studying the proliferation of blue-green algae. http://summitcountyvoice.com/2015/02/26/scientists-document-the-rise-of-blue-green-algae-in-lakes-around-the-world/
Summit County Citizens Voice, February 15, 2015 ▶ GULF OF MEXICO DEAD ZONE CLEANUP TARGET PUSHED BACK -- BY 20 YEARS !! -- THE POWER OF BIG AG.In a classic example of government double-speak, the EPA announced this week that Mississippi River Basin states want to speed the reduction of nutrients that cause a huge Gulf of Mexico dead zone, but that they’re pushing back their target date for a cleanup by 20 years.http://summitcountyvoice.com/2015/02/15/gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-cleanup-target-pushed-back/
Common Dreams, February 07, 2015 ▶ WHO SHOULD CLEAN UP BIG AG's MESS?
EarthJustice, August 06, 2014 ▶ IN FLORIDA, TOXIC ALGAE IS A YEAR-ROUND FIGHT In Florida, Toxic Algae is a Year-Round Fight. Recently, people in Toledo, Ohio, got a taste of the water problems that regularly plague Florida after a toxic algae outbreak left about a half a million Ohioans without a municipal drinking water supply. The likely culprit: agricultural pollution.http://earthjustice.org/blog/2014-august/toledo-s-algae-is-old-toxic-florida?utm_source=crm&utm_content=button
Emmy Award Winning 1 hr Film - University of Minnesota
▶ "TROUBLED WATERS: A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORY" ▶ This excellent one hour documentary examines the "unintended consequences" of farming practices on water quality, soil loss and the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Knitting together federal energy, farm and environmental policies, the film makes a compelling case for the revamping of US agricultural policy. Through beautiful photography and inspiring narrative, the film puts deliberate emphasis on solutions and provides a hopeful blueprint for progress and positive change...http://www.rememberthispoint.com/?p=212
▶ HUMAN ACTIVITY IS LINKED TO MASS DOLPHIN DEATHS. "The immune systems of many marine mammals, especially coastal species like bottlenose dolphins, can be negatively affected by factors such as agricultural runoff, persistent organic pollutants (e.g., PCBs, DDT) and other contaminants,"http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/359799
-▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/63qRl3
Earth Policy Institute, January 08, 2014 ▶ MANY COUNTRIES REACHING DIMINISHING RETURNS IN INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZER USE. Despite this U.S. advantage in fertilizer use efficiency over China, over-application poses serious pollution problems in both countries. Fertilizer runoff from the U.S. Corn Belt, for example, contributes heavily to an annual oxygen-starved “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico—an area where sea life cannot exist, which in some years grows to the size of New Jersey.http://www.earthpolicy.org/data_highlights/2014/highlights43
VIDEO The Vancouver Sun, June 09, 2014 ▶ THREAT TO CRITICAL WATERWAYS REVEALS A U.S.-CANADA DIVIDE. They are the invisible waterways. Laced with farm manure, choked with invasive grasses and often seasonally dry, their subtle meanderings go unnoticed and unappreciated. There are hundreds of them in the Fraser Valley, providing critical habitat for endangered fish and frogs against a tide of government neglect, poor farming practices and public ignorance.http://www.vancouversun.com/Threat+critical+waterways+reveals+Canada+divide/9919381/story.html
- ▶ IT'S TIME THE PESTICIDE/CHEMICAL INDUSTRY OWNED UP: THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR PESTICIDES ARE CAUSING AN ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHEhttp://sco.lt/7qvjPt
▶ PESTICIDE/CHEMICAL REGULATION OVERHAUL NEEDED TO PROTECT WILDLIFE, ECOSYSTEMS AND FOOD CHAINhttp://sco.lt/5oplFx
Scientific American, May 12, 2014 ▶ DRUGS, CHEMICALS SEEP DEEP INTO SOIL FROM SEWAGE SLUDGE FERTILIZER.The researchers looked for 57 “emerging” contaminants that are increasingly showing up in the environment. Ten were detected in the soil at depths between 7 and 50 inches 18 months after the treated sludge was applied. None was in the field’s soil beforehand. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drugs-chemicals-seep-deep-into-soil-from-sewage-sludge/
The econimic contrast between Africa, the United States, and China is staggering. From using by far excessive amounts of fertilizer in China, measured in hundreds of pounds per acre, to Africa, where the amount used is measured in handfuls. Overuse of fertilizer is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed. Algal blooms flowing down rivers have the potential to cripple the economies of sea-driven towns.
Mongabay, October 14, 2014 ▶ INDIA PLANS HUGE PALM OIL EXPANSION, PUTS FORESTS AT RISK Palm oil, a ubiquitous ingredient in supermarket products ranging from shampoos and cosmetics to processed foods, comes at a huge environmental cost. Between 1990 and 2010, palm oil monocultures replaced over 3.5 million hectares of forest in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. This large scale deforestation has resulted in a massive loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, best illustrated perhaps by the annihilation of orangutan populations. Moreover, conversion of large peatlands to oil palm plantations releases millions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Mongabay, September 23, 2014 ▶ DISSOLVING PULP: THE THREAT TO INDONESIA'S FORESTS YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF.Pull out some of your favorite items of clothing, check the label, and if you see Rayon, viscose, modal, or tencel among the fabrics it’s made of, you’re wearing a textile made from chemically dissolving pulp. And that could mean you’re wearing forest destruction. http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0923-gfrn-gaworecki-dissolving-pulp.html
Mongabay, August 11, 2014 ▶ INDONESIA'S CHILDREN SEE RAVAGED ENVIRONMENT IN THEIR FUTURE. A generation ago, Borneo was one of the wildest places on the planet, a stronghold for species like orangutan, pygmy elephants, Sumatran rhinos, and clouded leopards among tens-of-thousands of other. But decades of logging and oil palm plantations has changed the landscape of Borneo forever: in fact a recent study found that the island has lost 73 percent of its intact lowland forest and 30 percent of its total forest cover since 1973. In the face of this large-scale environmental destruction, a new study in PLOS ONE finds that Indonesian Borneo's children have a pessimistic view of their future, predicting rising temperatures, wildlife declines, and continued destruction of the island's great rainforests. http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0811-hance-kalimantan-children.html
▶ OIL PALM PLANTATIONS REPLACING FORESTS IN KALIMANTAN, INDONESIA. A paper published this week in Nature Climate Change confirms that the expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has come largely at the expense of the country’s forests. Between 1990 and 2010, 90% of oil palm plantations in Kalimantan were established on forested land (47% intact, 22% logged, 21% agroforests)....http://www.redd-monitor.org/2012/10/10/oil-palm-plantations-replacing-forests-in-kalimantan/
Mongabay, August 11, 2014 ▶ INDONESIA: ACEH'S LARGEST PEAT SWAMP AT RISK FROM PALM OIL. Oil palm plantations and other developments are threatening Rawa Singkil Wildlife Preserve—Aceh's largest peat swamp, and home to the densest population of Sumatran orangutan in the Leuser Ecosystemhttp://news.mongabay.com/2014/0810-lbell-singkil-peat-swamp.html
-▶ PALM OIL COMPANIES IGNORING COMMUNITY RIGHTS, NEW STUDY SHOWS,Members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) are violating the rights of local communities in tropical forests and failing to live up to social and environmental commitmentshttp://news.mongabay.com/2013/1107-dparker-palm-oil-rights.html?n3ws1ttr
▶ SUMATRAN RAINFORESTS RAVAGED ALONG WITH ALL LIFE WITHIN IT - FOR INVASIVE PALM OILhttp://sco.lt/6Sdg13
▶ HOW PALM OIL IS DRIVING THE SUMATRAN TIGER TO BRINK OF EXTINCTION = It’s in your mascara, your laundry detergent and even your Oreo cookies — the world is addicted to palm oil. Indonesia is the largest exporter, but production there comes at a huge cost. Oil-palm plantations have savagely encroached on the nation’s diverse rainforests, and slash-and-burn clearance for new plantations recently engulfed much of Southeast Asia in acrid smog... http://world.time.com/2013/10/31/palm-oil-is-killing-the-sumatran-tiger/
SPECIAL REPORT
June 30, 2013 The Ecologist PALM OIL'S FORGOTTEN VICTIMS
▶ INDONESIA LOST 8.8M HA OF FOREST IN THE 2000s, GENERATING 7 BILLION TON OF CO2. Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation could have been reduced by hundreds of millions of tons had a moratorium on new concessions in high carbon forest areas and peatlands been implemented earlier, reported a researcher presenting... http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1202-indonesia-ghg-emissions.html#0hG6kD3B6XQl5wRf.02
West Papua Daily, May 02, 2014 ▶ PAPUA NEW GUINEA: 226 THOUSAND HECTARES OF VIRGIN FOREST IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA WILL BE “CLEARED” FOR CORPORATE PALM OILhttp://sco.lt/4nrVYn
"It is better to die from bullets than from hunger"
September 15, 2013 The Real News - ▶ PHILLIPINES: CORPORATE AND MILITARY FORCES DESTROYING LAND, FORESTS AND LIVELIHOODS IN LAND GRABS - Corporate agri-businesses like U.S.-based Dole, Del Monte, Monsanto, along with international and Philippine mines, are polluting waterways and destroying the surrounding farms. Chinese, European, Canadian, and Filipino mines are stripping away the mountains to get at what some estimate to be the largest iron deposit in the world. There also some of the most significant gold, nickel, and copper reserves in Asia. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10725
▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENT DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT?http://sco.lt/5I5UeX
UNPRECEDENTED STUDY:
LANGUAGE AND CULTUE DISAPPEAR WITH ECOSYSTEM AND BIODIVERSITY LOSShttp://sco.lt/8PcKsD
The Guardian, December 13, 2013 ▶ INTERACTIVE: THE WORLD'S REMAINING GREAT FORESTS - The Earth was once covered in ancient forests, 80% of which have been either destroyed or degraded, according to conservationists. Half of that has been in the last 30 years http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2007/dec/13/forests
▶ ERADICATING ECOCIDE AND GENOCIDE: WHY BUSINESS LEADERS MUST STEP UP TO THE CHALLENGEhttp://sco.lt/56vkOH
▶ ECOCIDE: A PLAGUE OF DEFORESTATION SWEEPS ACROSS SOUTHEAST ASIA WITH TERRIBLE LOSS OF WILDLIFE AND BIODIVERSITYhttp://sco.lt/4lJ5ZR
VIDEO:
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEM, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHT, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
June 17, 2013 Guardian Global Development - John Vidal ▶ LA VIA CAMPESINA, WORLD'S LARGEST POLITICAL MOVEMENT, TO CHALLENGE MULTI-NATIONALS ON POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, LAND GRABS AND DEFORESTATION
FRACKING THREATENS HUMAN HEALTH, THE ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE: The world’s quest for cheaper fuel in the form of natural gas is coming at a much higher price than fossil fuel industry officials want to acknowledge. It’s due to water depletion, polluting chemicals, complacency about contaminated waste and potential hazards that could adversely impact many living things within the scope of the fracking project. http://www.examiner.com/article/fracking-threatens-human-health-the-environment-and-wildlife
-▶ AN ENVIRONMENTAL & HUMAN HEALTH NIGHTMARE: Marcellus Energy Fracking Development Could Pave Over An Area of 1.3 million acres of land, impacting 1.1 million acres of forests, ecosystems, biodiversity and drinking water for 22 million peoplehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/natural-gas-marcellus_n_4855927.html
Alliance Earth THE HIGH COST TO AFRICA OF AMERICA'S CHEAP GAS
Largely uncontrolled gas companies in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are already drilling and fracking in much of the park, endangering precious water and environmental resources. In Botswana’s longest running court battle the San Bushmen finally won the right to access these water sources and remain in their ancestral land. If the gas industry operates like it does in the USA their victory and the survival of this ancient culture is in question.
▶ UNEP OGONILAND OIL ASSESSMENT REVEALS EXTENT OF SHELL OIL'S CONTAMINATION.The environmental restoration of Ogoniland in Nigeria could prove to be the world's most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to... ...http://www.unep.org/newscentre/default.aspx?DocumentID=2649&ArticleID=8827
Decades of oil exploration and spills have caused widespread environmental damage in the Niger Delta
Al Jazeera English, November 14, 2014 ▶ SHELL ADMITS 2008 NIGERIA OIL "SPILL" WAS LARGER THAN 'ANTICIPATED' PRIOR TO COURT ACTION. The legal action is being closely monitored by both the oil industry and environmentalists for precedents that could have an impact on other international pollution claims. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/11/shell-nigeria-oil-spill-2014111402559200478.html
WATCH "BIG MEN" (1:23:00) Big Men provides an unprecedented inside look at the global deal making and dark underside of energy development in Ghana, Nigeria, Africa — a contest for money and power that is reshaping the world. http://www.pbs.org/pov/bigmen/full.php
▶ GOI IS GONE: OIL-FOULED WATERS SPOIL NIGER DELTA AS HOMES ABANDONED Goi is gone, given over to nature. Residents of the former fishing and farming community of 3,000 in the Ogoni region of southeast Nigeria, fed up with the third and largest oil spill in five years, packed up and left the village in 2009-2010..
“We had to move because if we caught fish and opened it up, we found oil; if we harvested cassava, we found it soaked with crude,” Eric Dooh said under the shade of wild date palms by his abandoned tin-roof home. “Our well where we got water became contaminated with crude and we decided to seal it up.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/oil-fouled-waters-spoil-niger-delta-as-homes-abandoned.html
Jan 30, 2013 The Guardian Environment - John Vidal
VIDEO Guardian Global Development, October 5, 2014 ▶ £1bn A MONTH: THE SPIRALING COST OF OIL THEFT IN NIGERIA: It's a crime with international repercussions, and second only to the drugs trade for the money it earns. And it threatens to destabilise Africa's second-largest economyhttp://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/oct/06/oil-theft-costs-nigeria
▶ ECUADOR TO SELL A THIRD OF ITS AMAZON RAINFOREST TO CHINESE OIL COMPANIEShttp://sco.lt/8Q38K1
Boulder Weekly, March 13, 2014 ▶ AMERICA'S DIRTIEST SECRET:The oil and gas industry’s contamination problems are so large, they have been deemed impossible to prevent or clean up by both industry and government. An unimaginable tonnage of contamination is being placed into our environment every year thanks to lax regulation of exploration and production wasteshttp://www.boulderweekly.com/article-12516-americarss-dirtiest-secret.html
▶ 2010 BP DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER CONTINUES TEO IMPACT GULF'S ECOSYSTEMS - 5 YEARS ON BPhttp://sco.lt/7IEs4X
Yalakom, December 23, 2014 THE EU TAKES A STEP FORWARD TO PREVENT CULTURE INTOXICATION FROM DICLOFENAC. The direct connection between diclofenac ingestion and vulture mortality is indeed well established. Poisoning occurs when the birds feed on livestock animals treated with the drug generally less than 9-10 days before dying. Diclofenac is an analgesic, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that has been widely used to treat both humans and animals since it was first developed by Ciba-Geigy, now Novartis, in 1973.
▶ EUROPE'S VULTURES UNDER THREAT FROM DRUG THAT KILLED TENS OF MILLIONS OF BIRDS IN ASIA.After an ecological disaster in India, wildlife groups call for ban on vets using diclofenac in Italy and Spain. Wildlife groups have launched a Europe-wide campaign to outlaw a newly approved veterinary drug that has caused the deaths of tens of millions of vultures in Asia. They say that the decision to allow diclofenac to be used in Spain and Italy not only threatens to wipe out Europe's vultures but could harm other related species, including the golden eagle and the Spanish imperial eagle, one of the world's rarest raptors.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/07/european-vultures-threat-diclofenac-vets-spain-italy
New Scientist, October 22, 2014 -▶ BAN OF VULTURE-KILLING DRUG IN INDIA IS WORKING. Vulture populations in India have plummeted by more than 99 per cent since the 1990s. In 2004, scientists linked these deaths to kidney failure resulting from feeding on the carcasses of animals that had been treated with the drug. Following pressure from conservationists, the Indian government banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006.http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26431-ban-of-vulturekilling-drug-in-india-is-working.html
Yale Environment 360, August 11, 2014 -▶ THE LINK BETWEEN THE SLAUGHTER OF AFRICA'S VULTURES AND ELEPHANTS. Vultures are being killed on an unprecedented scale across Africa, with the latest slaughter perpetrated by elephant poachers who poison the scavenging birds so they won’t give away the location of their activities.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/africas_vultures_threatened_by_an_assault_on_all_fronts/2792/
▶ AFRICA'S VULTURES THREATENED BY AN ASSAULT ON ALL FRONTS.Vultures are being killed on an unprecedented scale across Africa, with the latest slaughter perpetrated by elephant poachers who poison the scavenging birds so they won’t give away the location of their activities.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/africas_vultures_threatened_by_an_assault_on_all_fronts/2792/
-▶ THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE HAS ISSUED A PERMIT TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE TO KILL OVER 90 SPECIES OF BIRDS within New York State this year, ANIMAL has learned. The birds slated for killing include owls, herons, hawks, and woodpeckers, in addition to the slaughter of Canada geese that has been widely publicized... http://focusingonwildlife.com/news/dozens-of-bird-species-could-be-slaughtered-in-new-york/
===========================
WIND TURBINES:
IS IT OK TO SLAUGHTER HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BIRDS, BATS EVERY YEAR IN THE NAME OF CLEAN ENERGY?
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS KILLED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
- ▶ SATAO IS GONE: KENYA' BIGGEST ELEPHANT BRUTALLY KILLED BY POACHERS: THE PRICE HE PAID FOR HAVING HUGE TUSKS.Satao lived in Tsavo East National park in northern Kenya and was celebrated as one of the last surviving great tuskers, bearers of genes that produce bull elephants with huge tusks reaching down to the ground. This news follows hard on the heels of the slaughter of another legendary tusker, Mountain Bull, deep inside the forests of Mt. Kenya .
The New Yorker, July 07, 2014 - ▶ ELIZABETH KOLBERT: HOW TERRORISM IS THREATENING AFRICAN ELEPHANTS. Satao, a bull elephant who lived in the arid plains northwest of Mombasa, had tusks so long that when he walked they nearly scraped the ground -- was butchered for his tuskshttp://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2014/07/07/140707taco_talk_kolbert
International Fund For Animal Welfare, April 29, 2014 - ▶ ELEPHANTS NEED US: SPEAKING OUT AS ONE FOR ELEPHANTS. A full-page open letter to the President signed by some of the most recognizable names and groups in conservation, music, business, and Hollywood.http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/news/speaking-out-one-elephants
-▶ 62% OF ALL AFRICA'S FOREST ELEPHANTS SLAUGHTERED IN 10 YEARS (Warning: Graphic Images) http://sco.lt/80mNeb
Huffington Post Green, June 13, 2014 - ▶ 68+ ELEPHANTS MASSACRED IN CONGO'S GARAMBA NATIONAL PARK IN JUST 2 MONTHS. RABAT, Morocco (AP) — At least 68 elephants, some 4 percent of the population of one of Africa's oldest parks, have been slaughtered by poachers over the last two months using chain saws and helicopters, the non-profit group managing the park has warned. A 2012 census found just 2,000 elephants in Garamba Park, down from 20,000 in the 1960s. One particular sophisticated group is shooting the elephants with high powered rifles from a helicopter and then taking off their tusks with a chain saw. They are removing the elephants' brains and genitals as well.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/elephants-massacred-congo_n_5491566.html
AN INCREDIBLE WATCH "ECHO" AN ELEPHANT TO REMEMBER" (53:10) PBS Nature: Intro & Full Episode Echo, Africa’s most famous elephant, was the subject of many films and the matriarch of perhaps the most studied wild elephant herd in the world. In May of 2009, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied Echo and her family http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/echo-an-elephant-to-remember/introduction/5755/
▶ POACHERS KILL 300 ELEPHANTS WITH CYANIDE IN WATERING HOLES, IN WORST MASSACRE IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 25 YEARS
In 2011, at least 17,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks...
Zimbabwe Hwange National Park...seen from the air to be littered with the deflated corpses of elephants, often with their young calves dead beside them, as well as those of other animals. There is now deep concern that the use of cyanide – first revealed in July, but on a scale that has only now emerged – represents a new and particularly damaging technique in the already soaring poaching trade...http://www.treehugger.com/endangered-species/poachers-kill-300-elephants-cyanide-worst-massacre-southern-africa-25-years.html
The Dodo, May 08, 2014
-▶ CHINA STEPS UP: PLEDGE A WHOPPING $100 MILLION TO STOP POACHINGChina, a notorious source of demand for a massive illegal wildlife trade, is stepping up its game to save wildlife with a massive $100 million donation to combat poaching in Africa. The Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, announced the fund during a visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. The fund is not a moment too soon -- an estimated 22,000-35,000 elephants are killed every year by poachers, while last year poachers killed over 1,000 rhinos in South Africa alone...https://www.thedodo.com/china-steps-up-politician-pled-542006018.html
- ▶ A WORLD WITHOUT ELEPHANTS - UNBEARABLE: POACHING TO EXTINCTIONhttp://sco.lt/7F7mXR
VIDEO BBC News, September 04, 2014 THE ELEPHANT THAT FLEW.
A baby elephant is filmed standing in a small aircraft, eye-to-eye with the pilot, Gary Roberts - an American nurse and missionary. The orphaned calf is the only survivor of a 100 elephant massacre by poachers. This is how Roberts did his best to keep the animal alive.http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29060814
▶ PERMACULTURE IS THE SILVER-GREEN BULLET FOR THE MIDDLE EAST“Permaculture made total common sense to me,” insists Nadia Lawton, “it also fitted with my life ethics a a Muslim.” While the first part of Nadia’s statement may not be considered unique, her remark about Islam is. Permaculture is defined as the design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems that have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It basically looks at growing in a holistic framework which promotes sustainability, the conservation of resources and biodiversity....http://www.greenprophet.com/2012/01/interview-nadia-lawton-talks-about-permaculture-in-the-middle-east/
United Nations Environmental Programme, March 05, 2014
-▶ UNEP AND UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE) AGREE TO COOPERATE ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES. United Nations Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of Environment and Water, Dr Rashid Ahmed Mohammed Bin Fahad, signed a wide-ranging agreement to cooperate on urgent environmental issues. -
People are becoming less and less self-sufficient around the world, these local communities that were previously growing everything themselves and knew how to build their own houses out of natural materials are completely dependent on big foreign powers and import from other countries. All around the world, whether you're in South America, in North America, in Europe, in Asia, people are experiencing weather patterns that are out of the norm. The planet needs permaculture.
Common Dreams, May 23, 2014 ▶ PERMACULTURE POISED TO CONQUER THE CARIBBEAN.No fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides but a bold vision to save a region from climate change and resource scarcityhttp://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/23
The Wildlife Trusts, February 27, 2014 - ▶ U.K. - FARMING WITH WILDLIFE AT THE HEART OF NEW FUNDING SCHEME:Farming with wildlife, not against it, is essential to our future food security. Farmers and land managers who deliver benefits for wildlife will receive funding in a new environmental land management scheme. http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/2014/02/27/farming-wildlife-heart-new-funding-scheme
▶ PESTICIDES/CHEMICALS ARE KILLING OUR PLANET: DECIMATING ECOSYSTEMS, POLLINATORS, DRAGONFLIES AND OTHER BENEFICIAL INSECTShttp://sco.lt/8B0MVN
▶ WALL STREET BANKS EYE AMERICAN FARMLAND, THREATEN FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD AGRICULTUREhttp://sco.lt/4nG6Ur
EcoWatch, February 22, 2014
-▶ STOP FEEDING THE BEAST AND START FEEDING THE PEOPLE. We have a system of predatory agriculture in which corporations pursue private gain relentlessly regardless of the social consequences. Social consequences can be defined as anything from polluting our water, land and air to impacting the health of our families to making the business of farming economically unsustainable.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/22/stop-feeding-beast-start-feeding-people/
▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/686Qi1
Summit County Citizens Voice, November 24, 2014 -▶ ENVIRONMENT: MORE THAN 100 SCIENTISTS CALL ON PRESIDENT OBAMA TO PROTECT BEES FROM PESTICIDE THREATS. The 108 scientists — whose areas of expertise include entomology, agronomy, ecology, ecotoxicology — called on Task Force co-chairs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Gina McCarthy and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Secretary Tom Vilsack to place a moratorium on use of neonicotinoid pesticides in the United States, and increase investment, research and funding for growers to adopt alternatives. EPA has refused to finish its review for clothianidin and thiamethoxam, as well as other neonicotinoids, before 2018. Almost a year after Europe successfully implemented a moratorium on neonicotinoids, federal policymakers in the U.S. have yet to take any substantive action http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/11/24/environment-more-than-100-scientists-call-on-president-obama-to-protect-bees-from-pesticide-threats/?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=
We speak with scientist Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical’s manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study their product, atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect — that atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans — it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes’ reputation and prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union.... http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/21/silencing_the_scientist_tyrone_hayes_on
▶ AGRICHEMICAL GIANT, SYNGENTA, FAULTS EU BEE PESTICIDE BAN : AN INDUSTRY IN DENIALhttp://sco.lt/4nspjV
A CRIMINAL ATTACK ON OUR PLANET
Guardian Environment, June 23, 2014
-▶ TOXIC INSECTICIDES PUT WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES AT RISK, SAY SCIENTISTS. Regulations on pesticides have failed to prevent poisoning of almost all habitats, international team of scientists concludes. The world’s most widely used insecticides have contaminated the environment across the planet so pervasively that global food production is at risk, according to a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemicals’ impacts. The researchers compare their impact with that reported in Silent Spring, the landmark 1962 book by Rachel Carson that revealed the decimation of birds and insects by the blanket use of DDT and other pesticides and led to the modern environmental movement. Billions of dollars’ worth of the potent and long-lasting neurotoxins are sold every year but regulations have failed to prevent the poisoning of almost all habitats, the international team of scientists concluded in the most detailed study yet. As a result, they say, creatures essential to global food production – from bees to earthworms – are likely to be suffering grave harm and the chemicals must be phased out...http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/insecticides-world-food-supplies-risk
-▶ FROGS FEMINIZED BY PESTICIDE "ALTRAZINE". Atrazine, one of the most widely used farm pesticides in the United States, has feminized male frogs and other animals in some scientific studies. But research examining potential effects in people is relatively sparse. http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/atrazine-health
Guardian Environment, July 09, 2014 -▶ CRIMINAL: NEONICOTINOID AGRICULTURAL INSECTICIDES, DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, BIODIVERSITY AND YOUR HEALTH - LINKED TO RECENT FALL IN FARMLAND BIRD NUMBERS.Peer-Reviewed Research, published in the leading journal Nature has revealed pervasive pollution by these nerve agents now threatening all food production.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/09/neonicotinoids-farmland-birds
-▶ WIDESPREAD IMPACTS OF NEONICOTINOIDS 'IMPOSSIBLE TO DENY': UNEQUIVOCAL EVIDENCENeonicotinoid pesticides are causing significant damage to a wide range of beneficial species and are a key factor in the decline of bees, say scientistshttp://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27980344
▶ REPORT: HOW WORLDWIDE USE OF NEONICOTINOID PESTICIDE IS DESTROYING WILDLIFE, POLLUTING WATERWAYS
-▶ NEONICOTINOIDS: MINNESOTA PASSES BILL TO LABEL GARDEN PLANTS FOR POLLINATORS. Under the bill passed by Minnesota’s House and Senate last week, plants may not be labeled as beneficial to pollinators if they have been treated with detectible levels of systemic insecticides.http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=13312
IUCN, June 24, 2014 ▶ SYSTEMIC PESTICIDES POSE GLOBAL THREAT TO BIODIVERSITY, ECOSYSTEMS AND HUMAN HEALTH.The conclusions of a new meta-analysis (800 Scientists) of the systemic pesticides neonicotinoids and fipronil (neonics) confirm that they are causing significant damage to a wide range of beneficial invertebrate species and are a key factor in the decline of bees.http://www.iucn.org/news_homepage/?16025/Systemic-Pesticides-Pose-Global-Threat-to-Biodiversity-And-Ecosystem-Services
100 Reporters, February 15, 2012 ▶ THE BAIT AND SWITCH TACTICS OF THE PESTICIDE/CHEMICAL INDUSTRY: FDA OVERSIGHT? WEIGHING THE PARTS, IGNORING THE WHOLE.The chemicals the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registers for use have little connection with the frequently more toxic substances sold by the millions of pounds to unsuspecting American consumers. In the EPA’s process for registering chemicals...pesticide makers win approval for specific active ingredients, and then mix those chemicals with a number of other ingredients. The result is a far different formulation that has bypassed government safety reviews and is then sold to the public. “Virtually no pesticide is registered by the EPA. The EPA only registers the active ingredient.” http://100r.org/2012/02/epa-oversight-weighing-the-parts-ignoring-the-whole/
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Beyond Pesticides, October 22, 2013 ▶ SOARING PESTICIDE USE AND POISONING LINKED TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROP PRODUCTIONhttp://sco.lt/8iunRp
-▶ GENETICALLY ENGINEERED U.S. COTTON GROWERS WANT UNLICENSED, HIGHLY TOXIC PESTICIDE USE ON 3 MILLION ACRES - FURTHER POISONING SOIL, WATER AND ALL LIFE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT -- EXCEPT THE COTTONhttp://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2031904
-▶ EUROPEAN UNION: BAYER, SYNGENTA PESTICIDES HALVE BEES POLLEN GATHERING ABILITY, RESEARCH SHOWS. A two-year EU ban of three neonicotinoids, the most widely used insecticides in the world, began in December, following research that showed harm to honey and bumblebees. The neonicotinoids are "systemic" pesticides, being applied to seeds so that the chemical spreads within the plants. Over three-quarters of the world's food crops require insect pollination, but bees have declined in recent decades due to loss of flower-rich habitat, disease and pesticide use.http://www.euractiv.com/cap/pesticides-halve-bees-pollen-gat-news-533220
Bleeding Heartland, July 02, 3013 -▶ TIME FOR TOM VILSACK, US SEC. OF AGRICULTURE, TO SHOW LEADERSHIP ON GMO WEED CONTROL. As the USDA considers the biotech industry's "next silver bullet solution" for herbicide-resistant weeds, Vilsack should think hard about the risks, "rather than just believing people who have some shiny new product to sell" Vilsack's record raises doubts about whether he is up to this task.http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/7011/time-for-tom-vilsack-to-show-leadership-on-weed-control
Huffington Post Green, June 17, 2014 -▶ CHINA'S REJECTION OF GMO CORN HAS COST U.S. UP TO $2.9 BILLION. The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) estimated in a report that rejections of shipments containing Syngenta AG's Agrisure Viptera corn resulted in losses of at least $1 billion, based on an economic analysis that included data supplied by top global grain exporters.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/gmo-corn-china_n_5162921.html
-▶ PESTICIDE/CHEMICAL REGULATION OVERHAUL NEEDED TO PROTECT WILDLIFE, ECOSYSTEMS AND FOOD CHAINhttp://sco.lt/813dw1
▶ SYNGENTA'S NEXT TARGET: JACKSON COUNTY, OREGONLast week, Swiss-based pesticide corporation Syngenta dumped tens of thousands of dollars into a county election in Southern Oregon. Sound familiar? It should. Still reeling from their recent defeat in Kaua'i, Syngenta and the rest of the "Big 6" don’t want to lose any more fights around pesticides and GMOs.http://www.panna.org/blog/syngenta-GE-jackson-county-oregon
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