How to increase consumer responsibility

How to increase consumer responsibility:

According to Time author Brian Walsh, more than simply a case of penny-wise/pound foolish, the dangerous game of cheap food production is costing us--big time--both morally and from the standpoint of the health and the well being of the planet.

The farming practices employed for growing animals and food crops for the sake of affordable crispy, salty, fatty goodness are becoming hard to reconcile. As a society of consumers we may have lost touch with the great cost of what we consume. Here are some common-sense practices that we can all employ:

1. The first step is becoming informed about what we eat, no, I don’t mean simply reading the nutritional information on the side of a package. Research the food sources that you consume and the companies that produce and package them. Becoming informed about their cruelty free, fair wage and environmental protection practices--if any--and voting with your dollars.
2. Deciding that we can and should delay gratification before we impulse buy. We should employ the courage of our convictions to supply our pantry in a thoughtful healthy-minded way. It is also a good example to set when raising a new generation of consumers that we care about our health and environment.
3. I am not preaching but I practice and suggest practicing being grateful about what and whom we consume. Realizing that some form of life is ending so that we can be nourished and paying tribute to that life is key. Some acknowledgment of this as a daily practice, can be very grounding and liberating.
4. Supporting local organic, sustainable farmers is a key factor in toppling the industrial farming machine. Keeping our eyes fixed on achieving the goals of permaculture and sustainability and not being swayed by or tempted to give in to lethargy, despair and worst of all inaction.
5. Cutting down on our consumption of meat is so important if we care about ourselves and this world, people like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Mark Bittman and a growing collective of world scientists are not kidding when they say that what we are consuming is killing us and the planet.

Take two or three or even five and call me in the morning! Have a beautiful, sustainable day!

Killer consumption doesn't end with food - it also includes all the products we desire, all the items we use to clean our house, the very clothes we wear...Know the true costr of everything in your home, everything you buy and everything you are thinking of buying.

Is Farming the New American Dream?

Is Farming the New American Dream?:

In this economic climate, why is farming becoming a desirable life for young people who have the luxury of choice?
...here is a growing number of young people opting out of school altogether, or on the flip side, actually up and leaving the corporate world after years to start farms, collectives, co-operatives, and even communes. There are kids quitting their high-level jobs in the city, moving to small-scale farms or homesteads in Vermont, and haying their butts off for no pay other than a roof and food (like my friend who worked at the #1 restaurant in NYC, and now picks squash blossoms in South Royalton, VT). And there are a number of flush youths who are cashing in their trust funds--in some cases--for cows.
Some might say it's a passing trend, like flannel shirts in Williamsburg. Some might say it's because there's a dearth of "real" jobs, and farming is a good interim experience until the economy perks up. But perhaps it's something more profound: you know, a deeper desire to get back to the agrarian life. Or, a more emotional reaction--a re-establishment of home values, a switch in the long-term goals of the entitled, and a deepening need for connection to one's food, and work ethic. Perhaps we're looking at a new world of homesteading, manual labor, and life on the land. A life of farming, in other words.

Digging in the dirt and eating a freshly pulled carrot - a perfect way to connect with the natural world.

Let's hope Cramer is right

Jim Cramer Thinks Food, Inc. Could Inflame The Justice Dept To Take On Monsanto

Last week, Jim Cramer did a fascinating segment on the seed giant and Roundup herbicide producer, Monsanto. He posits that Monsanto could be a prime target for a Justice Department antitrust action for their monopoly on seeds.

Tom Brennan writes on Cramer's segment:
A series of competition-crushing acquisitions made this biotech disguised as an agriculture outfit the market leader in genetically modified US corn, soybean and cotton seeds. And Monsanto maintains strict agreements with its farmer clients that leave them virtually no choice but to feed at the corporate trough. Plus, the company plans to push through a 42% price increase on its new seeds, and there's nothing these farmers can do about it.

Cramer states he thinks "the government is worried about about the family farmer being destroyed by Monsanto's practices" and Monsanto's action of raising seed prices is "begging the Justice Department to go after them [.....] They are tempting the wrath of Obama."

Cramer also says, Monsanto "better hope the guys at [The] Justice [Department] don't go to the movies" and see the documentary Food, Inc. which takes on Monsanto's practices, along with many other aspects of our industrialized food system.

I think we should send DVDes of "Food" to everyone in Congress, Justice and...

Farmer Obama

Setting Up A Farmers Market Outside The White House

One of the things that we're trying to do now is to figure out, can we get a little farmers' market -- outside of the White House -- I'm not going to have all of you all just tromping around inside -- (laughter) -- but right outside the White House -- (laughter) -- so that -- so that we can -- and -- and -- and that is a win-win situation.

It gives suddenly D.C. more access to good, fresh food, but it also is this enormous potential revenue-maker for local farmers in the area. And -- and that -- those kinds of connections can be made all throughout the country, and -- and has to be part of how we think about health.

Farmer's markets in every town - veggie gardens in every yard.

Big Oil Companies Behind "Citizen" Protests Of Climate Bill

Big Oil Companies Behind "Citizen" Protests Of Climate Bill: "

HOUSTON -- Hard on the heels of the health care protests, another citizen movement seems to have sprung up, this one to oppose Washington's attempts to tackle climate change. But behind the scenes, an industry with much at stake -- Big Oil -- is pulling the strings.

More on Energy

It is time for the rest of us to pressure our officials for a sane change to our policies - clean up our planet and start with home!

McKibben and Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bill McKibben
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

"We're past the point where you can make the math work one lightbulb at a time."

FDA Might Crack Down on Bisphenol A

FDA Might Crack Down on Bisphenol A

The lumbering Food and Drug Administration is finally showing signs of taking action on bisphenol A, better known as BPA..

Finally. How many have been jeopardized by their slow response?

A Civilizational Tipping Point

A Civilizational Tipping Point

By Lester R. Brown

In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds or tipping points in nature. In my latest book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I state that scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery.

We know there were social tipping points in earlier civilizations, points at which they were overwhelmed by the forces threatening them. For instance, at some point the irrigation-related salt buildup in their soil overwhelmed the capacity of the Sumerians to deal with it. With the Mayans, there came a time when the effects of cutting too many trees and the associated loss of topsoil were simply more than they could manage.

The social tipping points that lead to decline and collapse when societies are overwhelmed by a single threat or by simultaneous multiple threats are not always easily anticipated. As a general matter, more economically advanced countries can deal with new threats more effectively than developing countries can. For example, while governments of industrial countries have been able to hold HIV infection rates among adults under 1 percent, many developing-country governments have failed to do so and are now struggling with much higher infection rates. This is most evident in some southern African countries, where up to 20 percent or more of adults are infected.

A similar situation exists with population growth. While populations in nearly all industrial countries except the United States have stopped growing, rapid growth continues in nearly all the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Nearly all of the 80 million people being added to world population each year are born in countries where natural support systems are already deteriorating in the face of excessive population pressure, in the countries least able to support them. In these countries, the risk of state failure is growing.

Read more of this story »

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Tipping points reached? I think so.

Word of the day: Kombucha

From Wikipedia:

Kombucha is a fermented tea that is quaffed for medicinal purposes. Kombucha is generally fermented using a visible solid mass of microorganisms called a "kombucha culture".

Kombucha proponents[9] claim many advantages such as better experience with foods that 'stick' going down such as rice or pasta, increased energy, sharper eyesight, and better skin condition.

I have been drinking GT's Kombucha for over two yaers now and love it. Now, thanks to Anais who posted a link to Love Your Mother, I have the recipe to create my own "shroom" from my bottle of GT's Kombucha. "Production" started today. Let's see, we'll have to try: straight. ginger, grape, orange, ginger-mint....

Word of the day: Consumerism

From Wikipedia:

Consumerism is the equation of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement called Enoughism.
Veblen's subject of examination, the newly emergent middle class arising at the turn of the twentieth century, comes to full fruition by the end of the twentieth century through the process of globalization.[1]
In economics, consumerism refers to economic policies placing emphasis on consumption.

Can we achieve a balance with nature when the want for the latest drives so many? Can our land survive the amount of "throw-aways" because of our lust? Do we really need that 200 inch plasma/LED/nuetron-activated TV that has voice activated controls? Do we really need the latest to see the drivel that is on TV today?

Word of the day: Ecotopia

From Wikipedia:

Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston is the title of a seminal novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture, and the green movement in the 1970s and thereafter.

The citizens of Ecotopia shared a common aim: they were looking for a balance between themselves and nature. They were “literally sick of bad air, chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising. They turned to politics because it was finally the only route to self-preservation[2].” In the mid-20th century as “firms grew in size and complexity citizens needed to know the market would still serve the interests for those it claimed to exist[3]”. Callenbach’s Ecotopia targets the fact that many people did not feel that the market and the government were serving them in the way they wanted them to. This book was “a protest against consumerism and materialism, among other aspects of American life[4]”.

This word begs the question of the day : Will we ever reach that ecological utopia? Or at least find a balance between nature and our lives?

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's Utterly Disappointing Worldview

Ethan Nichtern: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's Utterly Disappointing Worldview:

"There is a Whole Foods across the street from the Interdependence Project in New York's East Village, the Buddhist-inspired nonprofit organization which I direct. Some nights, after teaching or participating in a class on meditation and Buddhist psychology, or after yoga practice, I head there on my way home, to buy convenient, healthy food for one of those 10 pm diners New Yorkers know all too well. Since our organization works directly with issues of responsible consumption and environmental activism, it's always nice to be able to find local and organic produce, even if it traumatizes my slender wallet to shop regularly at 'Whole Paycheck.' Five-dollar pre-washed spinach from the North Fork of Long Island! It's late, I'm exhausted; what could be better?

Of course on the surface, a Buddhist shopping at Whole Foods makes a lot of sense (almost to a degree of neo-hippy caricature). I practice, study and teach a tradition of mental health and wellbeing, a path for people to systematically learn to take care of our own minds and extend that care-taking to others around us. A healthy diet and an interest in eating both local and organic foods are -- for me -- the physical extensions of that mental mindfulness practice.

However, the Buddhist teachings on the truth of interdependence don't allow us to stop at the level of individual health and wellbeing. The more we pay attention to reality, the more we see the total impossibility of taking care of our own bodies and minds without taking care of others. The more we see interdependence -- that our lives do not happen in a vacuum, separate from the lives of others -- the more we realize that our own health is inextricably bound up with the health of others. If you are healthier, then I am healthier, and vice versa. This is true physically, this is true psychologically, and this is true comunally.

A few years ago I wrote a book about updating the Buddhist philosophy of interdependence for the 21st century, called One City: A Declaration of Interdependence. In researching where the term interdependence has surfaced outside of Buddhist thought, I came across Whole Foods' mission statement on their website, which, serendipitously, is also called a 'Declaration of Interdependence.' Read it -- it's uplifting and full of good intentions on taking care of oneself and taking care of each other. An excellent corporate mission statement for sure. At that time, I was heartened by the thought that -- during the dark and separatist cynicism of the Bush era -- interdependence was still making deep inroads into corporate America.

Then this week I read Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey's Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, which struck me as a highly fearful and regressive take on the healthcare debate, which is undoubtedly one of the most interdependently pressing issues of our time. Mr. Mackey's Wall Street Journal piece might alternatively be titled 'A Declaration of I, Me, and Mine.'

The world view on display in that piece of writing is one of selfish individualism, mistrust for the very notion representative government itself, and continued support for a system of profit on anabolic steroids. The piece is also amazingly dismissive of the most interdependently-minded president we've had in a long time, taking the term 'Obamacare' straight from Rush Limbaugh's play book. The cognitive dissonance between the worldview that seems to inform Mr. Mackey's views on healthcare, and the 'Declaration of Interdependence' on his company's website are too much for me to continue to support, at least for now.

As a Buddhist practitioner, I work hard to identify and slowly transform my own internal hypocrisies. Most of them take the following form: I declare good intentions to benefit myself and others. Yet, I fall prey to deep-seeded destructive habits and fearful self-obsessions instead. As a practice, whenever I recognize a destructive habit or a cognitive dissonance, I set an intention to work mindfully and diligently to open myself to a larger, more compassionate and less fixated worldview. This work is slow and difficult, and I look like a hypocrite myself a large percentage of the time. But unless I choose to recognize my own hypocrisies, the work of positive transformation never begins at all. An extension of this practice is to not support the obvious hypocrisies of a friend (and my wallet, at least, has definitely befriended Mr. Mackey for years), especially when the friend is in a position of enormous power and influence.

So until Mr. Mackey learns that truly declaring interdependence means we take care of each other no matter what - a declaration best furthered in the healthcare debate by supporting a single-payer plan, or, at the very least, a strong public option - I am not going to support his cognitive dissonance on interdependence with any more of my hard-earned local-organic-neo-hippie-spinach money.

We are all interdependent. And therefore we must take care of each other and support policies that promote real interdependence. Especially those of us who go so far as to proclaim interdependence as a corporate mission statement.

In the meantime, anybody have a good CSA in Brooklyn?

More on Wall Street Journal

And this just a few days after I gave Mackey a thumbs up for his truth in advertising statements about the junk they sell. Which Mackey will show up today?

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Crazy Train derailed

ExxonMobil Pleads Guilty To Killing Birds

Exxon Mobil Corp. pleaded guilty to killing migratory birds in five states, and will pay about $7,000 for each bird killed, Justice Department officials said Thursday.

ExxonMobil pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of approximately 85 migratory birds, most of which died after exposure to natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities. Birds died in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas between 2004 and 2009.

Wonder if Forbeswill reconsider naming Exxon "green company of the year?" For some reason, I doubt it. The crazy train is derailed but will be uprighted and ready to roll in a few minutes folks.

How Far Does Your Bottle Of Water Travel To Reach You?

How Far Does Your Bottle Of Water Travel To Reach You?: "

We charted the miles per bottle for nine top water brands.

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My water comes from my tap into my Sigg. How about you?