Save your own seeds

Monsanto trying to take over world seed supply

He who controls the seed controls the food supply; and he who controls the food supply controls the world. There is no question that Monsanto is on a mission to monopolize the conventional seed market. In fact, they are steadfastly working towards the goal of creating a world where 100% of all commercial seeds are genetically modified and patented- basically a world where natural seeds are extinct.
Unfortunately for the global community Monsanto is accomplishing their purpose. They currently own 90% of the world’s patents for GMO seed including cotton, soybeans, corn, sugar beets and canola. 
Yep, the creators of chemicals that will go down in history for their toxicity and horrific side effects, is attempting to take over the world’s seed supply. Ask yourself- do you really want companies such as BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Syngenta, and Dow involved with your food? Sadly, to a large extent they already are. These Monsanto chemical and GMO cronies all share genetically engineered traits and create the patented herbicides and pesticides that GMO crops require to thrive.

Grow your crops now with heirloom and organic/non-GMO seeds.  Then save your own seeds - start your own seed library

Oil money and politics

Iowa Energy Forum: Another Oil Industry Astroturf Group To Watch Out For

America's great polluting industries have been creating fake grassroots groups (astroturf, in you're new to the lingo) to give their viewpoint a folksy community quality for some time. Think Progress has another one to watch out for, the Iowa Energy Forum.
Financed by the American Petroleum Institute provides at least part of the funding, according to their own rhetoric the Iowa Energy Forum is "a growing community of concerned citizens committed to two goals: achieving energy security for our country and holding our elected officials accountable for shaping energy policies."

Just in time for the politicos vying for those Iowa Caucus votes.  Yes, those polticos urging "drill, drill, drill" and a complete obliteration of the EPA.

Time to live differently

From James Howard Kunstler:

By the by, many observers were amused by last week's cute trick of releasing sixty million barrels of oil from the world's strategic reserves at the rate of two million-a-day in an effort to pretend that the world doesn't have a basic oil production problem. It is, of course, at the bottom of the world's financial disarray, because if you can't increase energy inputs that feed an industrial economy you don't get growth and then the whole idea of compound interest falls apart because it is predicated on a perpetual increase in wealth. Hence, debt collapses in on itself. The world is caught up in an epochal contraction now, and it manifests in situations like the Greek emergency. But soon it will be a universal emergency.
The lesson, if I may be tendentious for moment, is that the human race is welcome at any time to begin living differently, at a smaller scale, much more locally, with fewer automatic machines doing all the work for us, and more time spent on useful and necessary activities than on television fantasies. Got a problem with oil? Don't imagine that you're going to run WalMart - or, for that matter, Goldman Sachs - on wheat-straw distillates. Something is in the air this week and it is making a lot of people very nervous.

I've given in

Couldn't keep up with hand picking the bugs off the squash, cukes and beans.  So I decided to try Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew.  Anyone have any luck with this?  My pepper/garlic/soap spray was ineffective.

With the name, how bad could it be?


After all, it has the same name as my favorite Joel song.

Growing Dinners

Really like the last question and answer in this piece from Ode:

Does gardening change the way you eat?


"My son said this to me at the dinner table the other day: 'Mom, these are the best potatoes I've ever tasted. Do we have more?' I had to tell him no, that we'd used all of them and food doesn't grow out of thin air. The supplies aren't endless, and we need to remind ourselves of that often. It's important to me that we savor our dinner. Gardening is a way to get a sense of place and ownership. I know that sounds deep, but it's really fun, too."

Pee Plants

Public Urinal Feeds Plants With Pee

The idea of urine separation to ward off peak fertilizer is not exactly new. But while some of us get to pee on our garden mulch, or urinate on our compost heaps, infrastructure for large-scale urine collection in an urban environment still seems a ways off. But here's a more decentralized option from designer Eddie Gandelman in the form of a public urinal that filters pee on site, and uses it to feed plants.


Posted over at design site Tuvie, the When Nature Calls urinal is in the concepting stages right now. While us TreeHuggers may focus on the tantalizing idea of resource efficiency and offsetting fertilizer needs, the primary motivation of the designer seems to be making public toilets a more pleasant place to be, and pee:


By setting up the restroom in pod format with 4 urinals on every pod, the users can enjoy more space and privacy. This system as well paves way for both peeing and watering the plants. Approved by a professor of toxicology, the project employs 3 processes. The urine thus collected is filtered, which is then used for the plants. Peeing, besides being a waste process becomes a nurturing one, which appears to be a great advantage here. This idea will certainly make the very notion of urination a better experience.
We're not the only ones to wonder if this could be taken a step further though. Michael Hines over at Trend Hunter writes about When Nature Calls, suggesting that restaurants and bars could could grow vegetables or fruits, cutting "costs and carbon at the same time." Of course some fairly careful monitoring would need to be done to ensure that the systems' filter mechanisms can get rid of potential pathogens or medications. And whether or not the public would be ready to accept such a direct and immediate connection between human waste and food remains to be seen—however safe it proved to be.

Any article that justifies my peeing in my garden is an important one and must be shared!  Now if I can somehow create a privacy urinal in my garden...

Lab space as kitchen

Artificial meat could slice emissions, say scientists

Meat grown artificially in labs will be a greener alternative for consumers who can't bear to go vegetarian but want to cut the environmental impact of their food, according to new research.


The study found that growing meat in the lab rather than slaughtering animals will generate only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional livestock production.


The researchers believe that their work suggests artificial meat could help to feed the growing world population while reducing the impact on the environment.


According to the analysis by scientists from Oxford University and Amsterdam University, lab-grown tissue would produce greenhouse gases at up to 96% lower levels than raising animals. It would require between 7% and 45% less energy than the same volume of conventionally produced meat such as pork, beef and lamb or mutton, and could be engineered to use only 1% of the land and as little as 4% of the water associated with conventional meat.

Shades of Oryx and Crake.  Like some plastic lettuce with that chicken breast?

DEP and Cougars

Elusive Connecticut Mountain Lion Finally Found, Unfortunately Dead

The eastern cougar has been extinct for more than 100 years, according to biologists, but this hasn't kept people living around Greenwich, Connecticut, from calling local conservation officers with reports of mountain lion sightings. For months, the Department of Environmental Protection fielded calls but paid little attention, stating that the likelihood an actual mountain lion was roaming the suburban area was slim.


Then, on June 11, they received a call they could not ignore: A motorist reported hitting a large cat that was now dead on the side of the road.


When officers arrived on the scene, they found a 140-pound male mountain lion—also known as a cougar—confirming the existence of a big cat in the area. For residents who had reported sightings it was a moment of vindication.


Jeremy Joyell, of Bristol, Connecticut, had reported a mountain lion sighting in 2004. "When I saw [a mountain lion had been discovered] today I felt better," he commented, "because those of us that have seen them know damn well what we saw."


Just because a mountain lion turned up within the historical range of the eastern cougar, however, does not mean that the species has survived extinction. To make its final decision, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated 108 confirmed cougar sightings in the region from 1900 to 2010. After this review, they concluded that none of the cougars spotted in these cases were native to the Northeast. Rather, they had originated in South America or the West Coast.


This latest mountain lion, Department of Environmental Protection officers said, was no different. They believe that the cat had either been released or escaped from captivity.

Released by...?  Love the rumors that the cougars were purchased and released by the DEP.  Wonder if this was their answer to our deer population issue?

Farts and whiskey

Image via WikipediaThe Carbon Footprint of Whisky, and How to Reduce It

Liquor can have a negative impact on more than just your health, the massive waste problem of tequila being a prime case in point. Whisky-making too can be a pretty energy-intensive and wasteful process, but steps are being taken to address this. We've already seen some researchers developing biofuels from the byproducts of whisky making. Now the Independent newspaper visits a distillery making electricity from its own waste, and running a battery-powered car on the end product. And it's all thanks to the magic of anaerobic digestion or, as company owner Mark Reynier describes it, fart power:

As Reynier delicately puts it: "Our farting microbes are farting methane to power our generator which in turn feeds into the distillery's electrical distribution network."
Reynier, who now runs his Nissan Leaf electric car off the system, says the system provides 100 per cent of the distillery's power.

Visit the distillery (Bruchladdish) on Facebook. Better yet, support them by going to the liquor store, buying and then enjoying a shot or three.

A Promise Not Kept

With One Week To Go, Will the White House Keep Its Promise to Install Solar Panels?

Last October, as the result of some savvy campaigining from my friends at 350.org, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the White House would "lead by example" by installing solar panels by the start of the 2011 summer. With one week until summer officially kicks off, the White House has yet to make it good on its commitment. 350.org is putting together another push to get the Obama Administration over the finish line and it needs your help.


I have it on good word that DOE is working overtime to create excuses for inaction.

Make your voice heard here!
Solar now, no delay, no games.

Food containers are dangerous to our health

Styrofoam cups and plastic containers - get rid of them.

Formaldehyde, Styrene Added To U.S. Health Department's Carcinogens List

Formaldehyde, a preservative used in labs and mortuaries, and styrene, the chemical used to make styrofoam cups and food containers, were among six chemicals that were added today to the U.S. health department's list of chemicals that are known to cause cancer or could raise the risk of cancer.

So that cup for that morning coffee on the go better be in a ceramic or stainless mug.
But what about that plastic cup, spoon, container... Read this and be scared:

USCC Fights to Keep Potentially Penis-Deforming Chemicals in Our Plastic

The US Chamber of Commerce is using its vast lobbying muscle to try to block the regulation of some toxic chemicals that are routinely being used in consumer plastics. And yes, scientists have discovered that some of those chemicals have been found to mutate male genitalia. In other words, the Chamber of Commerce is fighting to keep chemicals believed to deform the human penis widely available to the American public.


A wide body of scientific research has linked these chemicals, including phthalates and Bisphenol A (BPA), to declining birth rates, stillbirths, and an increasing number of birth defects. Many of the chemicals under review for increased regulation have already been banned in Europe and Canada. In fact, studies have shown that these plastic chemicals are directly linked to an alarming rate of male genital birth defects such as hypospadias, a condition in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside, rather than at the end, of the penis.

Plastics? A great future? For who?

Where's the backbone?

Obama is a Pushover on the Environment: Ex-Interior Secretary

Bruce Babbitt was the Secretary of the Interior under President Bill Clinton. He knows firsthand the dangers of failing to push back against corporate and political interests that seek to overturn environmental safeguards and exploit the nation's invaluable natural resources. He himself admits to at times having failed to be tough enough on the conservation front, and letting big business and industry-friendly Republicans trample environmental concerns. But so far, Obama has been a total pushover. Babbitt said as much during a recent interview, and I'm inclined to agree.


Here's his surprising statement, via the LA Times:


President Obama has failed to answer Republican attacks on environmental safeguards "forcefully and persuasively" and to articulate his own vision for conserving American wilderness and water, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt charged Tuesday ...
Babbitt is giving voice to disappointment among many environmental advocates. Since the midterm elections, the administration has delayed or weakened several regulations bitterly opposed by congressional Republicans and business lobbyists, and given credence to the GOP contention that regulations -- especially environmental ones -- stifle growth ...


More recently, Babbitt said, the administration has acquiesced to riders that conservatives placed on the interim budget, including one that took the gray wolf off the endangered species list in several states and another that gutted a program meant to reduce overfishing.

Need more politicos to talk like this.  Let's hope the admin listens and changes course.  But somehow elections and lobbyists always seem to win over health and sanity.

Where is the droid app?

What's That Tree? Try Smithsonian's New App To See

If you've ever wondered what type of tree was nearby but didn't have a guide book, a new smartphone app allows users with no formal training to satisfy their curiosity and contribute to science at the same time.


Scientists have developed the first mobile app to identify plants by simply photographing a leaf. The free iPhone and iPad app, called Leafsnap, instantly searches a growing library of leaf images amassed by the Smithsonian Institution. In seconds, it returns a likely species name, high-resolution photographs and information on the tree's flowers, fruit, seeds and bark.


Users make the final identification and share their findings with the app's growing database to help map the population of trees one mobile phone at a time.


Leafsnap debuted in May, covering all the trees in New York's Central park and Washington's Rock Creek Park. It has been downloaded more than 150,000 times in the first month, and its creators expect it to continue to grow as it expands to Android phones.

When will this be out for Droids?  I want this!!!

STORMS BREWING

For decades, climate scientists have predicted that, as global temperatures rose, the side effects would include deeper droughts, more intense flooding, and more ferocious storms. The details of these forecasts are immensely complicated, but the underlying science is pretty simple. Warm air can hold more moisture. This means that there is greater evaporation. It also means that there is more water, and hence more energy, available to the system.
What we are seeing now is these predictions being borne out. If no particular flood or drought or storm can be directly attributed to climate change—there’s always the possibility that any single event was just a random occurrence—the over-all trend toward more extreme weather follows from the heating of the earth. As the cover of Newsweek declared last week, “weather panic” is the “new normal.” The larger problem is that this “new normal” won’t last. Each additional ton of carbon dioxide that’s spewed into the atmosphere contributes to further warming, thus increasing the risk of violent weather. The day after the President visited Joplin, Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency, in Paris, announced that, despite the economic slowdown, global CO2 emissions last year rose by a record amount, to almost thirty-one billion metric tons. “I am very worried,” Birol said. “This is the worst news on emissions.”


When Obama took office, he appointed some of the country’s most knowledgeable climate scientists to his Administration, and it seemed for a time as if he might take his responsibility to lead on this issue seriously. That hope has faded. The President sat on the sidelines in 2009 and 2010 while congressional leaders tried to put together majorities in favor of climate legislation. Since the midterm elections, Obama has barely mentioned climate change, and just about every decision that his Administration has made on energy and the environment has been wrong. In March, the Administration announced that it would be opening up new public lands in Wyoming for coal mining. In April, the White House delayed plans to impose stricter controls on the mining technique known as mountaintop removal. In May, the Administration put on hold rules aimed at cutting pollution from power plants at places like paper mills and refineries. Also in May, the President announced plans to increase domestic oil production by speeding up permits to drill off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. “Is Obama’s call for more drilling bad messaging masquerading as cynical policy—or vice versa?” the liberal blog Climate Progress asked.

Start doing what is in the best interest of the Planet.  Stop going for the "vote" or cozying up to the lobbyists.   Start giving us some green hope.

Still sprout your own

German Bean Sprouts, E. Coli Outbreak, Not Linked

In a surprising U-turn, German officials said initial tests published Monday provided no evidence that sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany were the cause of the country's deadly E. coli outbreak.


The Lower-Saxony state agriculture ministry said 23 of 40 samples from the sprout farm suspected of being behind the outbreak have tested negative for the highly aggressive, "super-toxic" strain of E. coli bacteria. It said tests were still under way on the other 17 sprout samples.


"The search for the outbreak's cause is very difficult as several weeks have passed since its suspected start," the ministry said in a statement, cautioning that further testing of the sprouts and their seeds was necessary to achieve full certainty.

Still doesn't change things.  Grow and sprout your meals.  Know your food's source.

Sprout your own

E coli outbreak linked to bean sprouts

German bean sprouts were yesterday identified as the likely source of the E coli outbreak that has killed 22 people, caused chaos among Europe's vegetable growers and sparked a diplomatic row between Russia and the EU.


The state of Lower Saxony issued an urgent warning to stop eating bean sprouts on Sunday as it believes them to be the link between all the restaurants and food outlets in the outbreak. "We've a very strong lead linking a bean sprout company to the cases of E coli infection," said Gerd Lindemann, the state's agricultural minister.


Many of the restaurants in the outbreak had the sprouts delivered from Uelzen, a town in Lower Saxony in north Germany. A factory there produces 18 sorts of sprouts, from alfalfa and aduki bean sprouts, to sprouts from radish and sunflower seeds. Their cultivation in large steam drums at 38C creates ideal conditions for various types of bacteria to grow.

So it is not only Grow Your own, it is also Sprout Your Own. Know where your food/meal comes from.

Re-marketing Sevin

So it seems that there is a marketing push for Sevin.  The ad I heard talked about how it has been used for generations.  But others things were used for generations: DDT, Red Dyes, lead paint..And if it is so safe why does the label talk about wearing long sleeves, rubber gloves, toxicity to aquatic invertebrates...?

!2 Step Program

The Right’s Environmental Wish List

Today one could look at the 3-D Act, (for Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy and Deficit Reduction), sponsored by David Vitter of Louisiana in the Senate and by Rob Bishop of Utah in the House, as a mosaic of Republican long-term goals like drilling for fossil fuels and reining in environmental regulation (or, in environmentalists’ view, rolling back crucial protections).


“Rising energy costs, unemployment and a $14 trillion dollar national debt are among the biggest challenges that our country is currently facing,” Representative Bishop said when the measures were introduced. “This legislation uniquely addresses all three by allowing for the development of domestic resources, which in turn will create thousands of well-paying jobs and begin immediately paying down our $14 trillion dollar debt.”


That said, here is an abbreviated look at the bills’ 12-step program:


1. Put oil and natural gas leasing on the Outer Continental shelf on a fast track, holding lease sales every nine months and making them dependent on commercial expressions of interest (rather than, say, ecosystem requirements) to determine what parcels should be leased. Ensure that a year after the bill becomes law, there will be three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Virginia.


2. Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to an “environmentally sound program for the exploration, development and production of the oil and gas resources of the Coastal Plain.” A generation of environmentalists have fought against this outcome, pitting themselves against a dogged but ultimately failed efforts of Ted Stevens, the late Alaska senator. Senator Stevens’s political heirs would like to make his dream come true.


3. Expedite lease sales for companies seeking to extract oil and natural gas from complex geologic formations like oil shale and tar sands in the West.


4. Set a nine-month deadline for the environmental review of any federal action like such leasing. Missed deadlines mean that the action is deemed acceptable — “of no significant impact,” in bureaucratic terms — and final.


5. Prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying carbon dioxide or methane from agricultural activities — like manure-waste ponds filled by livestock in confined feedlots — as a pollutant. No state (are you listening, California?) could get federal permission to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from passenger vehicles.


6. Allow state governors to declare emergencies, which, once declared, require federal officials to ignore the provisions of the Endangered Species Act when dealing with the emergency. Examples given involve “flood control” and “water supply.” The latter was a major issue in California’s agricultural sector during recent years of drought, when supplies of fresh water for agriculture were curbed while supplies of water for endangered fish were preserved.


7. Allow mountaintop removal mining to proceed at Spruce Mine in Logan County, W. Va. It had been blocked by a decision by water regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency who were concerned about filling local stream beds with what miners call “overburden” and others call tons of soil and debris.


8. Reinstate the oil and gas leases in Utah that were purchased in the last years of George W. Bush’s administration. One of the Obama administration’s first acts was to rescind them.


9. In California’s dry central valley, ensure that no federal scientific report — the term of art is “biological opinion” — requiring water for endangered fish be allowed to interfere with farmers’ rights to their historical maximum allocations.


10. Expedite approval of construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States. (Nebraska’s congressional delegation just asked for the opposite, a delay, to ensure they have time to examine the pipeline’s potential for contaminating the huge Ogallala Aquifer as the pipeline crosses it in Nebraska.)


11. Give Shell oil a long-delayed license to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea above Alaska.


12. Prohibit federal agencies from paying legal fees to environmental groups that prevail in lawsuits challenging the government’s environmental stewardship if the result of their actions “prevents, terminates or reduces” access to energy, minerals, timber, land for grazing and water for farming, or “eliminates or prevents one or more jobs.”

This is not your everyday 12 step program.  The one of the past brought one to a better life - better control.  This 12 step program leads to a total mess.

Reading these steps it is clear that the lobbyists were very busy.  Heck, Shell's lobbyist was successful enough to get the company's name mentioned.