Producing more. Conserving more. Improving farmers’ lives. That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto is all about. (You can see the full add here)

What!?! Are you joking?!!?! Which is what exactly went through my head when I first heard these ads airing on NPR. This I have to say is first rate “Green Washing”, and probably the best I have ever seen. And I was even more shocked to hear it run on NPR of all places! But I guess they have a bottom line to meet. I used to make yearly donations to NPR and then stopped. I have reconsidered several times about renewing my “membership” and donation, but my decision has now been made. I will divert my dollars to other projects that I believe in like the Center of Food Safety, a project I firmly believe in.

Just to give you a brief background on Monsanto, up until two decades ago it was a chemical company that produced chemical warfare, specifically agent orange. Today it is the biggest seed corporation in the world and controls the worlds seed supply through genetic engineering and patents. It is also the market leader in genetically modified US corn, soybean and cotton seeds. In a previous blog, I discuss why Monsanto could be a sitting target for an antitrust enforcement by the Obama administration because they have their farmers in an iron grip with their contracts (but I’m not holding my breath with Michael Taylor, former Monsanto executive, appointed by Obama as the FDA’s food czar or “senior advisor to the commissioner”).

As Marc David, Nutritionist and Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, stated in one of my Green Club interviews, GMO’d foods are a huge genetic experiment of which we don’t know the repercussions. I agree. And if you want to know how GMO’d foods are affecting our children’s health in the form of food allergies you can listen to my interview with, Robyn O’Brien, author of The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It

In a recent video put out by the Center of Food Safety, Vandana Shiva founder and director of Navdanya in India, leader in the Slow Foods Movement (which is at the top of my favorite food movements), and author of the recently released book, Soil not Oil, shares the heartbreaking story of farmers pressed into deep debt, and some driven to suicide, by the economy of biotech crops.

Over the next month, CFS will be bringing you videos from experts with whom they work closely in the trenches—Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, Anna Lappé, and CFS’s Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell—to help reveal the real truth about the bogus claims put forth by Monsanto and other biotech companies. I will be closely watching these videos to learn more about what’s going on with our food supply and hope you will too!

The Center for Food Safety is on the front lines fighting against the corporate take-over of our food, farms, and future; advocating REAL, sustainable, solutions to the problems of the biotech industrial agriculture model.

If you want to get involved and help keep our food supply green, organic and sustainable, become part of the solution and say no to industrial and GMO’d agriculture by taking action and make a donation to the Center For Food Safety. Join more than 85,000 members across the country saying no to industrial agriculture, and yes to True Food!

As a number, 350 may not mean much to you, but it’s extremely important to those following the climate-change crisis. 

According to the Citizens Climate Lobby, 350 parts per million (ppm) is the carbon-dioxide limit each nation must achieve to keep global temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels. The current atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is 389 ppm—a number that’s climbing 2 parts a year. 

Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) has asked President Obama to reach agreement on this goal with other world leaders at next month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. He and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) are circulating a letter in the House that calls upon Obama to take action. Click here to read the full text. 

“Global leaders can negotiate with one another, but humanity cannot negotiate with the earth’s climate,” says Citizens Climate Lobby Founder and President Marshall Saunders. “It will not compromise. We must yield or face the wrath of nature.”

For Your Organic Bookshelf: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

According to Time Magazine, our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

It’s a fact: what we choose to buy and eat can help contribute to a better, healthier way.

Organic foods are more gentle on Mother Earth. Consider why:

• Organic farmers leave soil and crop residue in the ground rather than digging it up (known as the ‘no-till’ method). That means organic farmers release less CO₂ into the air by sequestering it in the earth.
• Organic farming uses 50% less energy overall than traditional farming.
• Smaller-scale organic farms use 60% less fossil fuel per unit of food than conventional industrial farms.²

If we turned all of our farmland in this country to organic and regenerative methodologies, where we’re putting basically cover crops or compost back into the soil and not using chemical fertilizers, we could mitigate 25 percent of our emissions in this country alone.
-Timothy LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute. Read the transcript or view the video of LaSalle’s response to critics who say organic farming is unsustainable and produces smaller crop yields.

So yes – support, buy and eat organic.

Other top tips for a global warming diet include:

• Eat grass-fed beef only: cows and ruminant chewing animals that graze on healthy  pastures reduces greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and overall energy consumption.
• Go meatless one night a week: This is a great money saving tip and will create room in your budget to add more organic veggies to your diet.
• Eat local: the closer the origins of your food, the less transportation and corresponding carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And the more likely your produce has been vine ripened which makes for delicious foods!
• Eat in season: foods that are in season are usually in abundance and can be more affordable delicious!
• Eat lower on the food chain: choose foods that consume fewer other foods and eat as much of a plant-based diet as possible (choosing organic, of course!)

Many people ask me if I eat locally conventionally grown foods, in other words foods sprayed with pesticides. My answer: no. Please don’t ask me to eat foods that have been sprayed with toxic chemicals, even if it is grown locally. If I told you to make a beautiful fresh garden vegetable soup and, oh by the way, pull out the ant and roach spray and lightly give your veggies a fine mist before cooking to ward off any pests that come crawling along your kitchen counter, would you do it? Probably not.

What are your favorite global warming diet tips?  Share them with others – we love hearing from you!

¹Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin, “Diet, Energy, and Global Warming,” Earth Interactions 10 (May 2005)
²Ready, Set, Green; Eight Weeks to Modern Eco Living, Graham Hill & Meaghan O’Neill

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has launched a national campaign that asks top U.S. chefs and well-known foodies to take a Save Our Seafood pledge.

In signing the pledge, chefs agree to stop using fish and seafood on the aquarium’s Seafood Watch “Avoid” list.

Let’s support restaurants whose chefs have signed on, including:

• Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, Chicago)
• Susan Spicer (Bayona, New Orleans)
• Rick Moonen (rm seafood, Las Vegas)
• Michelle Bernstein (Michy’s, Miami)
• Suzanne Goin (Lucques, Los Angeles)
• Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger (Border Grill and Ciudad, Los Angeles)
• Michel Nischan (The Dressing Room, Westport, CT)

For a full list of chefs and foodies who have signed the pledge, click here.

Chefs who are interested in signing on can call (877) 229-9990 (toll-free) or e-mail the aquarium.

Suggested Reading

• Good News About Our Sustainable Seafood Supply
• Which Fish Is Fit to Eat?
• Border Grill and Ciudad: Serving It Up Bold, Spicy and Organic

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) are holding public hearings this week on the country’s first greenhouse gas emissions limits for passenger vehicles.

Hearings began today in Detroit and will continue in New York City on Friday and Los Angeles on Tuesday. You can thank President Obama for pushing this environmental agenda, in concert with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, automakers, the United Auto Workers Union and eco-conscious organizations.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), passenger cars and light trucks emit “nearly 20% of the nation’s greenhouse gases, in the form of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons. In April, EPA provisionally found that these four contaminants and two other greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare.”

The proposed standards would apply to new cars produced from 2012 to 2016. The EDF cites the following benefits:

• Breaking Our Oil Addiction and Strengthening National Security. The vehicles subject to the proposed standards are responsible for about 40% of all U.S. oil consumption. The standards would reduce our oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels, while achieving a 5% annual improvement in fuel efficiency for U.S. passenger cars.
• Reducing Global-Warming Pollution. Vehicles covered by the proposed standards account for 60% of heat-trapping emissions from the transportation sector and about 20% of all U.S. heat-trapping gases. These emissions have increased by more than 1% annually. The proposal would cut carbon dioxide pollution from passenger vehicles approximately 21% by 2030, reducing emissions by 950 million tons.
• Saving Money at the Pump. Families can save more than $3,000 over a vehicle’s lifetime.

Photo:

Turning the Tide: The State of Seafood, a new report from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, reveals that international efforts to protect the ocean’s ecosystem and our sustainable seafood supply are paying off.

Chalk it up to “a growing consensus on how best to manage fisheries and fish-farming operations, and new commitments by consumers, major buyers and the fishing community,” the report notes.

“Ocean life is still in decline, and we clearly need to take urgent action to turn things around,” says Julie Packard, the aquarium’s executive director. “The good news is that we know what it will take and that key players are working more closely than ever to solve the problems. I’m confident that we can and will create a future with healthy oceans.”

Recent improvements in seafood management include: 

• A scientific study that unified marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists on a set of principles for restoring ocean ecosystems and commercial fish populations
• Significant new commitments from major seafood buyers—including retailers like Walmart and North America’s largest food-service companies—to shift to sustainable seafood offerings
• Growth in the supply of sustainable seafood certified by reputable international organizations, notably the Marine Stewardship Council
• Policies adopted by governments around the world to better manage fisheries and fish-farming; reduce the rate at which wildlife is caught and killed accidentally in fishing gear; and protect critical ocean habitat vital to maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems

Turning the Tide: The State of Seafood includes a Super Green list of wild and farmed seafood choices, prepared collaboratively with the Environmental Defense Fund and the Harvard School of Public Health. The aquarium will update the list every 2 years.

Click here to download a sustainable seafood guide for your area.

Former Vice President Al Gore’s follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth will be released on Nov. 3.

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis is available for preorder at Amazon, which is offering a 34% discount (retail price: $26.99; Amazon price: $17.81). An abridged audiobook (CDs) is also available (retail price: $29.99; Amazon price: $19.79). 

The book is printed on locally produced and sourced 100% recycled paper, with low-VOC inks.

“An Inconvenient Truth reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved,” says Gore, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work. “Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis.”

As with An Inconvenient Truth, Gore will donate 100% of the new book’s proceeds to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to spreading awareness of the climate crisis.

From Our Organic Blog

• Warming Up to Al Gore
• “An Inconvenient Truth” for Kids
• Al Gore Receives Nobel Peace Prize
• Holland Goes Greener, with a Little Help from Al Gore

Sunday marked the beginning of Animal Action Week, an International Fund for Animal Welfare campaign to teach both children and adults about biodiversity, habitat and ecosystems.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, an IFAW honorary board member, is promoting the campaign, which provides schools with a free education pack and Under One Sky: Why Animals Matter, a 15-minute film he narrates. Click here for access to educational downloads. You’ll also find a wide selection of downloadable Animal Fact Sheets—great tools to share with your kids.

Students may enter an art contest, with the winning design to appear on next year’s campaign poster. Families are also encouraged to sign a global pledge to make lifestyle choices that better protect the environment we share with animals.

“Animals and their vital habitat face more threats than ever before,” DiCaprio says. “Animals, like people, need a home that provides food, water, shelter and space. It’s our responsibility to protect animals and our planet’s vital ecosystems if we want to leave a better world for future generations.”

For Your Organic Bookshelf: The Animal Ethics Reader

What unites former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and international artists like Fergie, Lily Allen, Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Marion Cotillard and Milla Jovovich?

A global musical petition that demands climate justice.

A new cover of Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning is designed to send a message to world leaders who will participate in the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.

Each free download will count as a signature on a “digital petition” for an ambitious, fair and international answer to the global-warming crisis. More than 1.3 million people have signed on thus far.

“Climate change is the greatest humanitarian challenge facing mankind today,” Annan says. “And it is a challenge that has a grave injustice at its heart. It is the major developed economies of the world which contribute the overwhelming majority of global greenhouse emissions. But it is the poorer and least developed nations that are hit hardest by its impact.

“By downloading ‘Beds Are Burning’ for free from major music download platforms on the Internet, people from around the world will be adding their names to this growing global petition—joining the campaign for climate justice and becoming a climate ally. This will be the first time ever that a musical petition has been created to demand decisive action from our world leaders.”

“Music is the universal language, capable of transcending cultures, generations, religions and races,” adds song producer Alexandre Sap. “A song or an artist truly has the power to translate a message or a movement more than any politician or world leader can on a global scale. This will create a voice for all of us who deserve to have a say leading up to Copenhagen in December. The goal is to draw enough attention to an event that will affect everyone’s lives on the planet.”

You may download the song from the Time for Climate Justice website, Amazon or iTunes. 

For Your Organic Bookshelf: Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children and Our Grandchildren

Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, director of documentaries like The Civil War and Baseball, trains his lens on The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, a six-episode series that premieres Sunday on PBS. (Click here to view a preview. You may also purchase the DVD boxed set or companion book on Oct. 6.) 

Sadly, well-known parks like Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Acadia (right) are beginning to show their age, and they’re now threatened by funding shortfalls, pollution, climate change and encroaching developers. 

This hasn’t stopped committed individuals from fighting for the parks’ survival: 

• Maxine Johnston, dubbed the “Godmother” of Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, worked tirelessly for 50 years to help protect some 100,000 acres of highly diverse wildlife habitat.
• Former Miami Herald reporter Juanita Green, featured in Burns’s film, wrote stories that were instrumental in creating and protecting Biscayne National Park. In the 1960s, the park was threatened by a proposal to dredge a channel through the bay and turn the area into a city.

 So, what can you do to help? 

1. Visit and explore one of our 391 national parks. Share your experiences with others to build support.
2. Join the movement without leaving home. Sign up for news and action alerts. Write to President Obama, and contact your congressional representatives and other decision makers. Voice your concerns about park conservation.
3. Reduce your carbon footprint. Global warming’s effects are already visible at national parks. At Glacier National Park, glaciers are disappearing faster than scientists predicted. In parks across the country, native trees and animals are losing ground because changing temperature and weather patterns affect the availability of food, water and shelter. Visit the Do Your Part! For Climate Friendly Parks website, which  helps you calculate your carbon footprint. Set goals for buying local foods, reducing automobile use and saving energy at home.

Photo courtesy of ARA