As early as 1998, the dangers of genetically modified food (GMOs) have been recognized by numerous scientific studies. Yet, no mainstream media included stories warning of these studies. Even today, the general North American public remains ignorant of their daily food’s dangers due to the mainstream press’s continual disregard of the topic.
The media research group Project Censored brought this issue to light by admitting it in its 2007 database. Annually, the American media research organization Project Censored records the twenty-five most underreported stories of the year, in hopes of exposing significant (and ignored) stories to the public and informing them on key issues that would not otherwise be brought to their attention. Underreported stories submitted must be reliable and of major significance to the population.
This article tracks the coverage GM food’s dangers since its induction into Project Censored’s database, searching in American mainstream press, Canadian and foreign mainstream press.
A number of eminent scientists, economists and writers variously argue strongly FOR a global Carbon Tax that will directly put a price on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and enable urgently required rapid transformation to a non-carbon economy.
They variously argue AGAINST carbon pricing based on a Kyoto Protocol-based Cap-and Trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of which the pro-coal Australian Government’s carbon pollution-increasing and misleadingly named Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is a spectacularly flawed, irresponsible, anti-social, anti-humanity, anti-environment, anti-Planet and disastrous example.
Thus the pro-coal Australian ETS involves a rigged auction involving only major polluters and then extraordinarily hands most of the receipts back to the major polluters. The proposed Australian ETS is estimated to mean an increase in Australian domestic and exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 80% on 2000 levels by 2050 (see my letter in the leading Australian newspaper The Age, 14 June, 2009).
Well, we hear plenty from ignorant and dishonest politicians about their pet Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). Indeed such a scheme is a key part of the Obama Administration Waxman-Markey energy, climate and cap-and-trade Bill that has just passed the US House of Representatives and now faces the US Senate.
But what do top climate scientists and climate economists say? Below are some key comments made by experts who press for a direct, global Carbon Tax rather than failed, worse than ineffective, dishonest, risky and market manipulatable Carbon Trading (for detailed, extensive and updated documentation of such views see the website of the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group).
Switching to nontoxic skin care, body care, even makeup is easy enough. With plenty of truly exceptional all natural product lines on the market today, you can swap out your moisturizer, body wash and mascara with no trouble at all. But, when it comes to hair care, it can get a little more difficult. In the past, few natural hair care lines lived up to the performance of their conventional, toxin-laden counterparts. These au naturel shampoos and conditioners left hair waxy, stringy and feeling a little bit like straw. Something their chemical cousins combat with harsh synthetic detertgents (like, sodium laurel sulfate), propylene glycol and silicones. What is a girl (or boy) who wants silky hair without the chems to do?
Rare El’ements Salon Inspired Eco-Luxury Hair Care has totally taken care of this problem. Not only does this indulgent hair care system leave hair strong, silky and smooth, but also helps to protect color. Amazing!
This past Friday the House of Representatives in USA voted yes to the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a cap-and-trade energy bill, by a vote of 219 to 212. This historic climate change bill will require limits on pollution responsible for man-made climate change and it will help USA create a green economy, if it also gets thumbs up in the Senate.
“After a tense debate, in which the margin of success or failure never moved beyond a handful of votes, the House of Representatives passed the most sweeping climate change policy ever considered by Congress early Friday evening, the Huffington Post reports.
The outcome had remained up in the air up until the actual vote, with the White House and the president himself engaging in a heavy lobbying campaign aimed at restoring Democratic Party unity that seemed to be fracturing.”
President Barack Obama said in his weekly address that this new bill will help “create green jobs, ensure clean air for our children, move towards energy independence and combat climate change.”
“As I became aware of the mounting global water crisis, I realized that it represented a clash of cultures – between a culture that values water as a shared sacred source of all life and a corporate culture that regards water as a commodity to be bought and sold.”
Quote from Shalini Kantayya, director of A Drop of Life – a futuristic sci-fi flick about the mounting water crisis winning Best Short Film at Palm Beach International as well as the Audience Choice Award at the IUOW Film competition. Will check it out some time (two years late anyway).
“Would you like a bag with that?”, asks the girl at the grocery store check-out. You glance at the couple of items purchased, and think of the walk home. She sees you hesitating and adds “It’s okay; these plastic bags are biodegradable. In fact, they’re made of corn!”
“Perfect!”, you think. Or is it?
The Good
This specific type of plastic is called PLA, or Polylactic acid. Simply put, PLA is created by fermenting the starch of corn kernels. Plastic made from PLA look and feel exactly like regular plastic, and PLA plastic bags are just as durable and lightweight as their non-PLA counterparts.
A renewable resource, PLA or “corn plastic” is 100% compostable. Under the right conditions, PLA breaks down in about one to six months in a commercial composter.
The Bad
But wait… what about in a landfill? As we all know, unless recycled, plastic bags that are used for groceries end up in city landfills, not commercial composters. In order to biodegrade, the PLA must receive sufficient amounts of oxygen, water, light and soil, which are not usually present in a landfill. Thus, it can take corn plastic just as long as regular plastic to break down—up to one thousand years. Unfortunately, that means that using corn plastic bags to line trash cans is no better than using regular plastic.
The key moral imperative of the Synthesis Report is “Inaction is inexcusable”.
In December 2009 the governments of the world will discuss their responses to the climate emergency facing the planet. Civilized, educated , humanitarian people dread the outcome which is likely to be grossly deficient. However in March 2009 2,500 participants (mostly climate science researchers) gathered for the scientific Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (“Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark).
The must-read Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (“Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) has just been released.
This is a vital synthesis of current climate science from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that involved 2,500 professional participants, most of them climate science researchers. All were welcome and the program and abstracts of the papers presented are available here.
The key moral imperative of the Synthesis Report is “Inaction is inexcusable”.
The Australian Green senator Christine Milne, the first female leader of a political party in Tasmania’s history, delivered this speech to the Australian National Press Club this past week.
Key quote from the speech:
“The truth is the climate nightmare is real and happening now. We are destroying the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and the snow caps. We are eroding our beaches, and our coastal cities will face managed retreat due to sea level rise. We are drying our food bowl, the Murray Darling, beyond repair, jeopardising rural communities and our food security.
Many of our Asia Pacific neighbours are struggling with rising seas and extreme weather which threatens a refugee crisis beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
The Himalayan glaciers, which feed all the major rivers of Asia — the Ganges and Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Yellow and Yangtze — are melting away. Once they are gone, a third of the world’s people face a parched, hungry and, most likely, violent future.”
You know there are certain ingredients that you don’t want in your cosmetic products. But you may not know all of the name variations or even exactly why certain ingredients are harmful.
Well, leave it to Stephanie Greenwood at Bubble & Bee Organic to come up with an easy, convenient and (even) fun way to keep you in the know on toxic ingredient education. With “Today’s Chemical” (Stephanie’s new chemical ingredient education service) you can ask a question about toxic ingredients in cosmetics, learn about chemicals and get recipes for homemade beauty products. Read the rest of this entry »
“Nevertheless the climate sceptics are unfazed and essentially all governments around the world are committed to continuing to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide…”
An overwhelming global scientific consensus says that man-made global warming is happening NOW. Indeed for the latest see the report from President Obama’s science advisers that states that massive climatic disruption is already affecting the United States and that projects that the average U.S. temperature could rise by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century (see “White House: climate change damage happening now. Obama’s first global warming report most dire yet: Ill effects already here, will get worse”). Thus White House report report co-author Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland:
“There are in some cases already serious consequences. This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now.”
Nevertheless the climate sceptics are unfazed and essentially all governments around the world are committed to continuing to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration above the present level of circa 390 parts per million (ppm) to even more dangerous levels.
In contrast, in climate criminal Australia (one of the world’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluters) climate activists and leading climate scientists are calling for urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. The Australia-based Climate Emergency Network, the Canberra Climate Action Summit (over 140 Australia-wide climate action groups), the influential Yarra Valley Climate Action Group and 300.org all say – informed by the latest science from America’s Dr James Hansen (NASA GISS), Australia’s Professor Barry Brook (climate science, University of Adelaide) and others – that for a safe and sustainable existence for all people and all species the atmospheric CO2 of our warming-threatened planet must be urgently reduced from the current circa 390 ppm to 300 ppm (click here for details and documentation).
Green Blog has daily updates and posts from authors around the world. Get our latest posts, commentaries
and articles by RSS-feed or by adding your
Email to our newsletter.
Switching to nontoxic skin care, body care, even makeup is easy enough. With plenty of truly exceptional all natural product lines on the market today, you can swap out your moisturizer, body wash and mascara with no trouble at all. But, when it comes to hair care, it can get a little more difficult. In the past, few natural hair care lines lived up to the performance of their conventional, toxin-laden counterparts. These au naturel shampoos and conditioners left hair waxy, stringy and feeling a little bit like straw. Something their chemical cousins combat with harsh synthetic detertgents (like, sodium laurel sulfate), propylene glycol and silicones. What is a girl (or boy) who wants silky hair without the chems to do?
The Australian Green senator Christine Milne, the first female leader of a political party in Tasmania’s history, 
