“We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable,” says Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades.   

Monsanto increased some corn seed prices last year by 25 percent, with an additional 7 percent hike planned for corn seeds in 2010. Monsanto brand soybean seeds climbed 28 percent last year and will be flat or up 6 percent in 2010

Monsanto is responsible for more than 50 Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites and hundreds of toxic chemicals that contaminate every living thing on Earth.

More recently, Monsanto, (Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear), has moved on to harassing farmers who (they believe) refuse to abide by an agreement not to collect any of the seeds generated by plants that Monsanto considers its intellectual property (GMO’S) 

Despite Monsanto’s hype, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), aren’t meant to feed the world or survive the evermore frequent droughts and floods brought on by global warming.  They are designed to sell Monsanto’s patented Roundup resistant or Bt seeds and pesticides now spliced into millions of acres of corn, cotton, soy, canola, sugar beets and alfalfa.  A 2009 study showed that, over the last 13 years, Roundup Ready crops have increased herbicide use by 383 million pounds.

The USDA has approved GMO alfalfa, but that approval has been overturned by a California judge at the request of farmers, environmentalists, and consumer activists.

When GM alfalfa and other Monsanto crops are planted in the open environment, they contaminate non-GMO and organic varieties as well as plant relatives. Any farmer whose crops are inadvertantly cross-pollinated with GMO crops is fined by Monsanto.  Organic crops that are accidentally cross-pollinated are no longer organic, and years of careful planting by organic farmers are futile.

This is more dangerous than the existing GMOs on the market (corn, soy, canola, cotton, and sugar) because alfalfa is a perennial, therefore  it’s pollinated by bees.  Those bees will spread GMO’s to everything they touch.  The contamination of organic alfalfa, and possibly several other foods, is a serious threat to public health and safety.

Alfalfa, which is used for livestock feed and can be planted in spring or fall, is the nation’s fourth largest crop and is grown on about 23 million acres in the country.

GMO alfalfa has not been adequately tested, NOBODY truly knows the effect it (and the millions of pounds of pesticides) will have on the animals that eat it, or the people who eat the animals.

You can help stop this madness by  clicking on the following link: TAKE ACTION

Since 53% of Americans say they would avoid GMOs if labeled, let’s make the Non-GMO Shopping Guide hugely popular and quickly achieve the tipping point.

Remember, when Europe achieved its tipping point of consumer rejection, within a single week nearly every major food company committed to stop using genetically modified (GM) ingredients.

Go to:  The non-GMO shopping Guide to download Tips for Avoiding GMOs along with 16 food Product Categories listing both GMO and Non-GMO brands.

There’s a section called Why Should I Avoid GMOs, and also How Can I Help, which gives everyone ways to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply.

A Pocket Guide is available as a download or to order and share with friends.

Watch this video, then pass it on to everybody.

Everything You HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods from Jeffrey Smith on Vimeo.

Depleted uranium is a by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel.  It has been used in armor-piercing ammunition and in armor for fighting vehicles.

Fine particles of depleted uranium are created when munitions made with the material strike a target.

A new study published in the journal Health Physics indicates that soldiers may absorb depleted uranium particles through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination.

U.S. veterans who were exposed to depleted uranium during the 1991 Gulf War have continued to excrete the potentially harmful chemical in their urine for years after their exposure.

More than 1,000 tons have been used in Afghanistan and more than 3,000 tons in Iraq.

D.U. is causing permanent disability and death for hundreds of thousands of American veterans who served in the Middle East.

Depleted uranium contamination causes virtually every known illness from acute skin rashes, severe headaches, muscle and joint pain, and general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection, depression, cardiovascular disease, brain tumors, and every other type of cancer. Uranium replaces calcium, destroying teeth and bones.

Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of those DU materials.

In May, 1997, the International Action Center published a book of essays and lectures on depleted uranium: the contamination of the planet by the United States military. In addition to exposing the deadly duplicity of the Department of Defense, the book documents the genocide of Native Americans and Iraqis by military radiation, the connection between depleted uranium and Gulf War Syndrome, the underestimated dangers from low-level radiation, the legal ramifications of DU production and use, and the growing movement against DU.

Metal of Dishonor-Depleted Uranium: How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with DU Weapons
Depleted Uranium - Deadly, Dangerous and Indiscriminate

Electronic waste, or e-waste as it is commonly referred to, is unwanted, obsolete, or unusable electronic products such as computers and computer peripherals, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereo equipment, and hand-held cell phones. 

A typical 17-inch computer monitor contains approximately 2.2 pounds of lead while a 27-inch color television contains up to 8 pounds of lead. The 500 million computers that became obsolete between 1997 and 2007  contained nearly 1.6 billion pounds of lead.

Even though there is an international treaty banning the export of hazardous waste, the United States is one of only a few countries which have not ratified it.  Other countries which refuse to comply include Haiti and Afghanistan.

In “Digital Dumping Ground,” airing Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS, Peter Klein and his team expose an industry that is polluting the environment and poisoning the people who live and work among the waste, scavenging for scrap metals.  CLICK HERE for local listings

According to Dr Andy Thorpe of Portsmouth University, a herd of 200 cows produces more greenhouse gas in a year than a family car produces to drive 3,000 miles.

Dr Thorpe added that while CO2 emissions have increased by 31 per cent in the past 250 years, methane has increased by 149 per cent over the same period.

Farm animals create methane emissions in 2 ways. Animals like cows, sheep and goats are ruminants, which means that they are grass-eaters.and during their normal digestion process they create methane. However, factory-farmed animals which are fed corn, chicken litter (feces, feathers and bedding) blood, ground up pigs and chickens and of course “downed” animals, produce much greater amounts of methane due to the fact that grain, meat and garbage is not their normal diet and they cannot digest it very well. Unlike grass-fed animals, factory farmed are sickly and require millions of pounds of antibiotics just to stay alive.

Another way that livestock produce methane is from their manure.  When cows, pigs and chickens are raised on factory-farms large quantities of manure are produced.  Livestock manure management is done by using large waste treatment systems and holding tanks. In these tanks the manure decomposes but because the tanks are closed there is no oxygen. When the manure decomposes without oxygen large quantities of methane are produced.  Pastured animals, on the other hand, do not create this problem because the manure decomposes naturally.

Factory-farmed livestock generates 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain, and 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

It’s not the animals themselves that are at fault, it’s the way and the amount of livestock that is raised that is the problem.  If we simply raise animals in a pasture in the sunshine eating their normal diet of grass, the greenhouse gasses are greatly reduced, plus the cows and people who eat them are far healthier.  However, most importantly, we need to CUT DOWN on our consumption of meat.

If each one of us cuts back on our animal consumption by only 10%, approximately one billion animals would be spared a lifetime of suffering each year.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

GRASS-FED MEATS

Computers, TV’s, monitors and other electronic equipment contain  substances such as lead and cadmium in circuit boards; lead oxide and cadmium in monitor cathode ray tubes (CRTs); mercury in switches and
flat screen monitors; cadmium in computer batteries; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in older capacitors and transformers; and brominated flame retardants on printed circuit boards, plastic casings, cables and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cable insulation that release highly toxic dioxins and furans when burned to retrieve copper from the wires.

Where does all this stuff go when we’re ready to “upgrade” or just buy the “latest, greatest and newest”?

Since manufacturers refuse to eliminate hazardous materials or design for dis-assembly and government policies fail to hold manufacturers responsible for end-of-life management of their products, the US has found a suitable dumping ground: The developing countries of Asia.  Few of us realize that the obsolete computer we pay someone to take, in hopes it would be recycled, might end up in China or some other far-off Asian destination.

Vast amounts of E-waste material, both hazardous and simply trash, is burned or dumped in the rice fields, irrigation canals and along waterways. The poorest workers in the  E-waste recycling and disposal operations found in China, India, and Pakistan are exposed to toxins that are extremely polluting and
very damaging to human health. Examples include open burning of plastic waste, exposure to toxic solders, river dumping of acids, and widespread general dumping.  For more information and possible solutions go to the full report entitled Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia.

Which machine creates the most air pollution per hour of operation: the typical car, or gasoline-powered lawn mower?

A single two-stroke engine such as those found in lawnmowers produces pollution equivalent to that of 30 to 50 four-stroke automobiles.

The EPA estimates that one hour of operation by a 70-horsepower two-stroke motor emits the same amount of hydrocarbon pollution as driving 5,000 miles in a modern automobile!

The two-stroke motor, found on 75 percent of all boats and personal watercraft (jet skis), generates 1.1 billion pounds of hydrocarbon emissions each year.

Every year, marine two-stroke motors spill 15 times more oil and fuel into waterways than did the Exxon Valdez.

Two-stroke engines are highly inefficient users of fuel: up to 40 percent of the fuel and oil goes out of the exhaust pipe unburned. This exhaust is packed with oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, hydrocarbons and fine dust - all toxic contributors to air pollution.

The 2-stroke engine emits significant amount of particulate matter (PM), un-burnt hydrocarbons (HC), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx).

It is estimated that particulate emissions from a single 2-stroke motorcycle is comparable to those from a diesel truck or bus.

The following machines typically use two-stroke engines:

Gasoline-powered landscaping equipment such as lawnmowers and trimmers

many outboard motors

chain saws

leaf blowers

some snowmobiles

smaller motorcycles

Congressional Bill HR 875 was introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, whose husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto.

Go to this site (CLICK HERE) and Read about Monsanto, TAKE THE TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON.

1. Contact your Congressional members at 202-224-3121 and ask them to oppose HR 875 and S 425.
2. Sign the Natural Solutions Foundation’s petition to Amend the Food Safety Modernization Act H.R. 875 [and Substitutes], by adding a “Natural and Family Food and Farming Exclusion Amendment”
3. Find out who sits on your states agriculture and farming committee and contact them with your concerns.
4. Contact your local elected officials and let them know your position on legislation and why.
5. Attend a local Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) meeting, this is a good start to learning about what is going on in farming, as well as getting involved with local and state initiatives .
6. Support the Farmers Legal Defense Fund

There is enough STUFF already! For the most part it is incredibly wasteful to keep buying more and more new stuff when you can get used…OK…pre-owned, for a lot less money.  Our landfills are full, our Earth is dying, we need to stop making more STUFF and start re-cycling what we have.

I almost always go to the Salvation Army or Goodwill or other “thrift” shop first when I need something, then Craigslist is my next choice.  Just a few days ago I found this other classified site, OLX which is somewhat like Craigslist except that it has a lot more features and it’s worldwide.  It’s free, and if you have items you need to find a home for (instead of throwing in the trash) you can add pictures and videos to your listings.

You can also display your listings on Facebook, or Myspace.
You can click here to go to the site

The point of pesticides is to kill living things.   

Using common sense, we can assume that poisons that kill are probably not very healthy to ingest.  If you’d like to know which fruits and veggies have the most and least pesticides you can print out a guide from Environmental Working Group’s Shoppers’ Guide To Pesticides.

Peaches contain the highest levels of pesticides, while onions are the lowest.
War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Studies in Environment and History)

While the wealthy pour clean, fresh water on their lawns, approximately 4,500 children die every day from the consequences of unsafe water and inadequate hygiene, and more than 1 billion people still have no clean water to drink according to WHO’s 2005 figures.

Here are some interesting facts about our biggest waste of drinkable water, the kind of water that people all over the world are dieing for:

The EPA estimates that the total amount of residential lawn in the United States ranges around 40 million acres, making turf grass the nation’s biggest irrigated crop.

Americans pour as much as 238 gallons of water per person, per day onto lawns during the growing season.

The U.S. lawn industry is a $70 billion annual business.

America’s 50 million or so lawnmowers burn through 800 million gallons of gas every year.

Source: United States EPA