Obese people who consume increased amounts of fructose, a type of sugar that is found in particular in soft drinks and fruit juices, are at risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NFALD) and its more severe forms, fatty inflammation and scarring.
Now researchers at Duke Univ. Medical Center…
March 10, 2012 | GMO, Monsanto and Government, Sustainability
In a massive blow to multinational agribiz corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer, and Dow, Peru has officially passed a law banning genetically modified ingredients anywhere within the country for a full decade before coming up for another review. Peru’s Plenary Session of the Congress made the decision 3 years after the decree was written despite previous governmental pushes for GM legalization due largely to the pressure from farmers that together form the Parque de la Papa in Cusco, a farming community of 6,000 people that represent six communities. They worry the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will compromise the native species of Peru, such as the giant white corn, purple corn and, of course, the famous species of Peruvian potatoes. Anibal Huerta, President of Peru’s Agrarian Commission, said the ban was needed to prevent the ”danger that can arise from the use of biotechnology.”
While the ban will curb the planting and importation of GMOs in the country, a test conducted by the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users (ASPEC) at the time of the ban’s implementation found that 77 percent of supermarket products tested contained GM contaminants. ”Research by ASPEC confirms something that Peruvians knew all along: GM foods are on the shelves of our markets and wineries, and consumers buy them and take them into their homes to eat without knowing it. Nobody tells us, no one says anything, which involves a clear violation of our right to information,” Cáceres told Gestión. GMOs are so prevalent in the Americas that it is virtually impossible to truly and completely block them, whether through pollination or being sneaked in as processed foods.
“There is an increasing consensus among consumers that they want safe, local, organic fresh food and that they want the environment and wildlife to be protected,” wrote Walter Pengue from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, in a recent statement concerning GMOs in South America. “South American countries must proceed with a broader evaluation of their original agricultural policies and practices using the precautionary principle.”
Note: This decree was signed into effect on April 15th 2011
Source: http://www.occupymonsanto360.org (http://s.tt/18OeH)
Every living thing affects its surroundings. But humanity is now influencing every aspect of the Earth on a scale akin to the great forces of nature.
There are now so many of us, using so many resources, that we’re disrupting the grand cycles of biology, chemistry and geology by which elements like carbon and nitrogen circulate between land, sea and atmosphere. We’re changing the way water moves around the globe as never before. Almost all the planet’s ecosystems bear the marks of our presence.
Our species’ whole recorded history has taken place in the geological period called the Holocene – the brief interval stretching back 10,000 years. But our collective actions have brought us into uncharted territory. A growing number of scientists think we’ve entered a new geological epoch that needs a new name – the Anthropocene.
Probably the best-known aspect of our newfound influence is what we’re doing to the climate. Atmospheric carbon dioxide may be at its highest level in 15 million years. But this is just one part of the story; we’re changing the planet in countless ways. Nutrients from fertilizer wash off fields and down rivers, creating stretches of sea where nothing grows except vast algal blooms; deforestation means vast quantities of soil are being eroded and swept away. Rich grasslands are turning to desert; ancient ice formations are melting away; species everywhere are vanishing.
These developments are all connected, and there’s a risk of an irreversible cascade of changes leading us into a future that’s profoundly different from anything we’ve faced before. Little by little, we’re creating a hotter, stormier and less diverse planet.
The Anthropocene is a decisive break from what came before. Scientists are still debating exactly when it began – was it when our distant forebears started to farm the land? With the industrial revolution? With the dawn of the atomic era, even?
Whenever the new epoch started, we’re living in it now. And if our descendants look back in thousands of years’ time, they’ll see the evidence of our actions written everywhere in the rocks.
More on the origin of the concept:
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Nestled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the Salatin family’s Polyface Farm encompasses 550 acres of woodland and pasture. A working farm, it has also become a mecca for the local foods movement. (All photos © Erica Bleeg.)
By Erica Bleeg
Walking through cow pastures and hog paddocks is part of my research. I teach two university courses on writing about food, and have a keen interest in where it’s sourced. Spring is the time to see a farm’s operations in full swing, so I recently headed over to Polyface, a Swoope, Va. farm that thrives without using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, hormones, or antibiotics.
Once known predominantly among readers of the trade journal Stockman Grass Farmer, Polyface’s owner, Joel Salatin, has gained a broader audience through trumpeting his humane and ecologically sound approach to agriculture. The 55-year-old Salatin has also made a mission of cultivating new farmers. For every farmer under 35, there are six over 65, and the USDA predicts that within the next 20 years a quarter of all farmers will retire. “There’s a brain-drain of knowledge about agriculture,” said Salatin.
Beginning wasn’t easy for Salatin. After a stint as a newspaper reporter, he returned to the family farm in 1982. “It was nip and tuck,” he remembered. “We lived on $300 a month.” Now Polyface brings in about eight summer interns in their teens and twenties to help with the season’s blaze of production, and two full-time apprentices work year-round. Salatin’s son, Daniel, lives on the farm with his wife and three children and manages the operation, often directing Salatin the Elder on chores.
Polyface rents an additional 1,200 acres where younger farmers live and work as independent contractors, borrowing equipment and raising livestock that feed Polyface’s business. “They can begin with zero capital,” said Salatin. Two such contractors have since successfully launched their own businesses. “In the end,” said Salatin, “This germinates new young farmers.”
Joel Salatin encourages visiting college students to smell the mix of manure and wood chips lifted from a hog paddock. The hogs aerate it while rooting with their snouts, transforming what could be toxic waste into rich, nearly odorless fertilizer.
Just two to three months old, pigs huddle together for warmth on a brisk April morning. At nine months and weighing about 300 pounds, they’ll be “ready to go,” says 26-year-old apprentice Noah Beyeler, farm talk for “ready for slaughter.” Polyface sells about 50 percent of all pig shoulders and hams to nearby Chipotlerestaurants.
With the aid of a forklift, apprentice manager Eric Barth, 26, moves a 308-pound hog feeder toward the barn paddock. Expensive equipment contributes to steep upfront costs for new farmers. According to a surveyconducted by the National Young Farmers’ Coalition, 78 percent of farmers cite lack of capital as the biggest challenge to beginners, followed by access to land and credit.
Eric Barth, Daniel Salatin, and Noah Beyeler select pigs whose post-slaughter weight appears to be less than 100 pounds, typical for barbeque. These would fill orders from the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and an Arlington, Va. restaurant. Polyface also sells its meat and eggs in an on-site store. Seeing these men capture pigs recalls a Ralph Waldo Emerson observation Michael Pollan cites in The Omnivore’s Dilemma: “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
Homemade pens keep broiler chickens on grass and safe from predators. The broilers go out on pasture at three weeks of age; they’ll grow for about five more weeks before reaching processing weight. Here Daniel Salatin refills their water supply. In the last three weeks of life the broilers grow over an ounce a day, he says, and “if any stress—like not enough water or feed—interrupts that growth process, you can’t get that back.”
Barred Plymouth Rock hens roam the pasture that cattle grazed only the day before. The hens follow the cattle, picking protein-rich grubs from cow patties, aerating the soil as they peck, and fertilizing it with their own nitrogen-dense droppings. In the backdrop is one of Joel Salatin’s inventions, the portable eggmobile where hens lay eggs in interior cubbyholes.
Unlike cattle finished on manure-laden feedlots, and fed a potentially poisonous mix of corn and antibiotics, the cattle at Polyface feed on grass, their natural diet.
“What you never, ever want to do is violate the law of the second bite,” Joel Salatin once advised Michael Pollan. A single bite at the top of the grass is optimal for stimulating regrowth. To prevent overgrazing, the cattle at Polyface are moved almost daily to fresh pasture, a process that takes Daniel less than five minutes.
Daniel points to two cattle bringing up the back: “See how the mother cow walks a little and then she’ll stop, waiting for her calf to catch up?”
Of continuing the work of his father’s business, “I’ve never thought of doing anything different,” Daniel says. The chore he most enjoyed as a child was herding cattle. Here, his two sons lend a hand.
Joel Salatin, a Christian, considers his work “a ministry in every sense of the word, except we’re for profit. We are in the healing business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the culture. Ultimately, if our work is not healing, it’s not worth doing.”
Edible Ethics: Examining the True Cost of Food
A marked shift toward unsustainable agricultural practices has occurred in the United States within the past fifty years, which poses a serious threat to environmental stability and to human and animal welfare. Edible Ethics: Examining the True Cost of Food is an interactive guide that illustrates the hidden consequences of this increasingly industrialized food system. Through deconstruction of the complex processes involved in food production, I hope to provide insight into the lasting effects of the current system, and to persuade you to support a necessary return to a more sustainable agricultural system.
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Had Willy Wonka had been fascinated by industrial ecology instead of cocoa beans, his factory may have looked something like The Plant, Chicago’s first entirely self-sustaining “vertical farm.”
The Plant occupies a former meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse in the Union Stock Yards, transforming a huge brick building that once specialized in bringing red meat to the masses into a green space all about urban farming without waste. The interior that looks like something straight out of a scientific-environmental fantasy.
Tenants include aquaponic farms (think vegetables on water beds flourishing under colored UV lights), a tilapia fish farm, beer and Kombucha tea breweries, a mushroom garden, and a host of independent bakers and caterers that will work together in a communal kitchen space. Future plans include living walls and rooftop gardens.
But the most ambitious part of the building is its focus on producing “net-zero waste” in its 93,500-square-foot space. Spent grains from the beer brewery will feed the tilapia. The waste produced by the fish will feed the mushroom garden or be converted nitrates to feed the hydroponic plants. Those plants will clean the water through natural processes and be cycled back into the fish tanks. Taken together, the system will make the building completely self-sustainable. With the help of a few machines, including an anaerobic digester (similar to a waste-eating mechanical “stomach” that produces biogas) and a combined heat and power system, the building hopes to go off the grid within the next four years.
“Industrial ecology—the concept of using other people’s waste as input—is fascinating. In nature, there’s no waste, but there is so much waste in human consumption and development,” says Melanie Hoekstra, The Plant’s director of operations. “This is an obvious problem that we can resolve with a building that can do so many things. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s really close.”
The building, which was purchased in July 2010, is currently undergoing renovations by a team of volunteers. The Plant plans to have five tenant spaces ready for lease by the end of this year and the renewable energy system running by next June. The building will be fully functional in 2016, creating 125 jobs in the neighborhood diverting more than 10,000 tons of food waste from landfills each year.
“You can do this in any building—any old manufacturing building as long as there’s space to take heat,” Hoekstra says. “The most important thing is using the resources that you already have around you.”
Photos courtesy of The Plant and Rachel Swenie
Source: http://www.good.is/
Progress
Process. Layout.
Sketching process.
Mapping and sketches of final design.
Sketching progress.
Some Really Happy Cows. This is how animals should be treated. The consequences of industrial farming can be horrible, but organic/free range farming is how it should be.
Evo Morales is Bolivia’s first indigenous president, and he’s bringing some back-to-the-earth philosophy to the country. Bolivia is set to pass The Law of Mother Earth, a sweeping piece of legislation that, as Vice-President Alvaro García Linera says, “establishes a new relationship between man and nature.”
The new law, part of a restructuring of Bolivia’s legal system, has its roots in indigenous Andean beliefs. It makes humans equal to all other living things and establishes 11 new rights for nature, including the right to life, the right to pure water and clean air, and the right to not have cellular structure genetically modified. The law also refers to Pachamama, an Andean deity, as “the source of life […] in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s unclear how the law will be enforced. Obviously, making mosquito swatting a crime would be a little crazy. But with climate change on track to raise temperatures in the country by as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years and turn wide swathes of Bolivia into a desert, you can’t blame Morales for trying to get something on the books to protect his country. And maybe others could follow Bolivia’s lead. Here in the states, we don’t necessarily need a law that recognizes Pachamama, but something to prevent coal companies from blowing up Appalachia would be nice.
(Source: GOOD)
Blue Gold: World Water Wars
Starts out with an account of a man who survived without water for seven days. (1906 about Pablo Valencia)
- This film is not about the Environment, it is about saving ourselves.
Jim Olson— Environmental Attorney
When we search for life on other planets- the fist thing we look for is water… Ancient Societies molded life around water (Egyptians & Romans)
Then Talks about THE CRISIS
- In Kenya, Global Crisis Forum:
Maude Barlow (Co-Author “Blue-Gold” & National Chairperson The Council of Canadians)— It wasn’t supposed to happen— As we were taught
3% of the Earth’s Water is Freshwater.
Cut Scene to Mexico/ USA border: Most contaminated River in USA is along the border
Octavio Rosas Landa (Centro De Analisis Social, Information Y Formacion Popular, AC (CASIFOP)) 25,000 L per Second of human Waste flow in this river- even human remains, and dead animals. Then this water goes to the crops.
Contamination is causing Cholera and water diseases= killing more children than any
Wetlands would naturally filter the contaminants out - However »
We are now depleting and mining the water faster than groundwater can replenish itself. This is an URGENT CONCERN.
Robert Glennon (Author “Water Follies”) - Ubar, in Southern Oman… There was a Civilization that just disappeared. Finally figured out it was because the civilization was offsetting the watertable while pumping groundwater. The ground Collapsed!
We now pump appox. 30 BILLION GALLONS of groundwater Every Day.
Agricultural Industry has Unlimited rights to water. However Farmers can also lose water rights if they stop using the aquifer. So they Pump more. »
Some water returns to the water table- but most of it doesn’t. This is a problem.
Soil is eroding- and hardening- draining the land of it’s moisture and life. Deforestation is also a huge contributor.The Trees retain water.
Dr. Michal Kravcik ( Hydrologist- Director NGO People and Water) Crust of the soil is changing.
Vandana Shiva (Author “Water Wars”, Physicist, Ecologist, Activist)
We have replaced permeable ground with sidewalks… This started after WW2. In 50 Years there will most likely be a collapse in the world’s water Resources.
Dr. Peter Warshall ( Environmental practice consultant)
Dams Have changed the Water system…
- This Quest to conquer nature. Over 50,000 Dams worldwide.
Helen Sarakinos( Dams Programs Manager of River Alliance of Wisconsin)
- The purpose of Rivers is to carry nutrients to the Sea. Critical to the Watershed. Leading to desertification.
A Dam is Choking the viens of the world and will cause a Massive Heart attack.
Renewable supply is in the Hydrological Cycle. What is that Renewable supply.
THE POLITICS!!! (water is becoming a privatized product)
- Wenonah Hauter (Executive Director of Food and Water Watch)- Margaret Thatcher said water is privatized. UN named water as a good.
The World Bank worked their way into water.
WTO- and the QUAD- this is the new colonialism.
Olivier Hoedmann (Corporate Europe Observatory, CEO)
All of these Privatized Water companies- Buy the water rights to an area. Algos De Balboa=Suez, Aquas De Tunari= Bechtel, Vivendi=Veolia, RWE/Thames, Perrier=NESTLE. They use different names because of their bad record… they Advertise….
Problems in Atlanta…. with Water.
French water has been widely privatized- except for in a few cities such as Grenoble, France. They are able to maintain the water supply with No problem- at low costs for over a century. SUEZ bribed the city Mayor!
Ric Davidge (Former Director of Water of Alaska under Ronald Reagan/ CEO of World Water SA focusing on Bulk water sales and exports)
Into Mexico City… (Vincente Fox- former Prez of Mexico, was the general manager for CocaCola latin america sector)
Dasani= Coke … Coke colonizes the world »
PROOF that Coca Cola make money off of water»
THE only way to ensure that you have water is to hunt and get it yourself. Now they are looking toward DeSalination
DeSalination = Taking the salt out of water.
Jack Simes (external coordination Manager, Yuma Arizona Bureau of Reclamation & DeSalination Plant)
Only rich countries can do this…
87 corporations building DeSal plants. And the biggest one of all is GE»
Water is the Hottest Property
Jon Steinhaus ( VP of Waterkeepers of Wisconsin) Preventing Nestle from opening a bottling plant. Nestlie moved to Michigan. Then got sued by the Citizens of Michigan.
BOTTLED WATER Takes the ecology away from area. When you take water out of it’s natural system …. and it doesn’t come back- it depletes from the community. LAWS must be changed.
Ecosystem is disrupted! Diversity is Disrupted!
In Kenya- One of the driest places on earth- They grow and export Roses.
Joan Thorpe Root (Documentarian and Activist) Was Murdered.
In Ghana:
Al- Hassan Adam ( Ghana coalition Against the Privatization of Water) They are forced to buy water through the pumps. They are metered, and at an expensive rate. So they go to the river infested with cholera.
Virginia Setshedi (Founder of Anti-Privatisation Forum in Johannesburg)
They are taking away the Humaneness. A shack caught on fire- and two girls died because they did not have water tokens to put the fire out)
Ryan Hreljac (founder Ryan’s Well Foundation)
Developing countries are forced to grow cash crops, tea/ Coffee.
Dr George Morara Ogendi (Professor of environmental Geology, Arkansas State University)
The WTO has forced developing countries to remove tariffs on exports- which makes it hard to get out of debt… etc.
» American corporations really make money off of developing countries.
THE WATER WARS
- the Chinese symbol for control also means water.
- Southern CALIFORNIA… LA is part of a hydraulic system.
Water WARS—- Water of Kavery River, India… The farmers needed the water on both sides of the river. So many water wars are presented as religious conflicts. But in reality it is resources that are precious.
» Brazil Reserves.
Dr. Rosinjha (Congressman of Curtiba, Brazil) American Military was stationed in Paraguay.
THE WAY FORWARD
- The Bolivian Gov. Kicked Betchel out the county.
To revitalize the groundwater by digging holes ! So easy. and Not depleting it again!
And fixing cement/asphalt roads with porous ones that enable groundwater to exist. »
Bolinas, California limited the growth of the city to the water shed.
In Uruguay, They changed the constitution because privatized water was overpriced and contaminated. This is what needs to happen. The Right to water and Air must be Added to the Constitution.
Edible Ethics is a collection of videos, articles, book and documentary reviews about clean food and clean energy. This blog is a personal reflection of my journey through Senior Thesis at Parsons: The New School for Design.
In the end, I hope to consolidate facts and figures into a comprehensive information graphic that makes the food-system transparent to anyone who cares about their personal health and the environment's health. Enjoy!
