30
April
2008
Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R’ Us are phasing it out, and Canada’s moving toward a ban. What’s it all about? Bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic chemical found in some plastics that’s linked to cancer and reproductive problems.
EWG’s innovative research has pushed BPA into public view and led to congressional investigations. We’ll continue to fight to get it out of canned food, plastic, and baby formula cans.
In the meantime, get more info and tips with our BPA Cheatsheet.
What are the possible health effects?
In April of 2008, the National Toxicology Program raised concerns that exposure to BPA during pregnancy and childhood could impact the developing breast and prostate, hasten puberty, and affect behavior in American children.
How do I minimize my exposure?
* Limit canned foods. BPA leaches into canned food from the lining. When possible, and especially when pregnant or breastfeeding, limit the amount of canned food your family eats. Particularly avoid canned soup, pasta, and infant formula.
* Avoid polycarbonate plastic. Hard, translucent plastic marked #7 is probably polycarbonate, which leaches BPA, especially when heated. Ditch your polycarbonate water bottles in favor of a stainless steel bottle. Don’t microwave plastic — use ceramic or glass instead.
* If you’re formula feeding your infant, consider using powdered formulas packaged in non-steel cans. Also, choose baby bottles made from glass or specially-marked plastics that don’t leach BPA (like polypropylene or polyethylene).
Posted: Is it really organic ?
29
April
2008
Food accounts for 13% of all Greenhouse Gas emissions.
Red meat and dairy are responsible for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions from food for an average U.S. household.
Replacing red meat and dairy with chicken, fish, or eggs in your diet for one day per week reduces emissions equal to 760 miles per year of driving.
Switching to vegetables one day per week cuts the equivalent of driving 1160 miles per year.
Posted: Climate Change, Is it really organic ?
28
April
2008
By Volker Mrasek - Der Speigel
Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?
The Lena River flowing through Russian Siberia and empties into the Arctic Ocean. This satellite image shows the river delta, where methane concentrations are unexpectedly high.
The Lena River flowing through Russian Siberia and empties into the Arctic Ocean. This satellite image shows the river delta, where methane concentrations are unexpectedly high.
It’s always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor — hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure — could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of melting are underway. They’ve studied largest shelf sea in the world, off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
In the permafrost bottom of the 200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons. “This submarine hydrate was considered stable until now,” says the Russian biogeochemist Natalia Shakhova, currently a guest scientist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks who is also a member of the Pacific Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok.
The permafrost has grown porous, says Shakhova, and already the shelf sea has become “a source of methane passing into the atmosphere.” The Russian scientists have estimated what might happen when this Siberian permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes. They believe the methane content of the planet’s atmosphere would increase twelvefold. “The result would be catastrophic global warming,” say the scientists. The greenhouse-gas potential of methane is 20 times that of carbon dioxide, as measured by the effects of a single molecule.
Shakhova and her colleagues gathered evidence for the loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor in a measuring campaign during the Siberian summer. The seawater proved to be “highly oversaturated with solute methane,” reports Shakhova. In the air over the sea, greenhouse-gas content was measured in some places at five times normal values. “In helicopter flights over the delta of the Lena River, higher methane concentrations have been measured at altitudes as high as 1,800 meters,” she says.
The methane climate bomb is also ticking on land: A few years ago researchers noticed higher concentrations of methane in northern Siberia. The Siberian permafrost is known as one of the tipping points for the earth’s climate, since the potent greenhouse gas develops wherever microorganisms decompose the huge masses of organic material from warmer eras that has been frozen here for thousands of years.
“A Wake-Up Call for Science”
Data from offshore drilling in the region, studied by experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), also suggest that the situation has grown critical. AWI’s results show that permafrost in the flat shelf is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast, the temperature of sea sediment was -1 to -1.5 degrees Celsius, just below freezing. Permafrost on land, though, was as cold as -12.4 degrees Celsius. “That’s a drastic difference and the best proof of a critical thermal status of the submarine permafrost,” said Shakhova.
Paul Overduin, a geophysicist at AWI, agreed. “She’s right,” he said. “Changes are far more likely to occur on the sea shelf than on land.”
Climate change could give an additional push to these trends. “If the Arctic Sea ice continues to recede and the shelf becomes ice-free for extended periods, then the water in these flat areas will get much warmer,” said Overduin. That could lead to a situation in which the temperature of the sea sediment rises above freezing, which would thaw the permafrost.
“We don’t have any data on that — those are just suspicions,” the Canadian scientist said. Natalia Shakhova also passed on the question of whether to expect a gradual gas emission or an abrupt burst of large quantities of methane. “No one can say right now whether that will take years, decades or hundreds of years,” she said. But one cannot rule out sudden methane emissions. They could happen at “any time.”
One thing is clear, though: The thawing of the Arctic sea floor will create “new potential sources for methane … which no one had reckoned with until now,” said Laurence Smith, a professor for geography at the University of California in Los Angeles. Smith is researching North Pole frost zones and expects that a thawing of the permafrost will “supply fuel for methane engines.”
The first methane rocket thruster was tested by the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2007, and methane from manure has been collected as “biogas” to heat and power homes (more…) in experimental German towns.
In any case, the team taking part in the Siberian study installed a number of probes in the Laptev Sea, a central part of the broad Siberian shelf sea. These probes are measuring the temperature on the upper edge of the submarine permafrost. Overduin wants to pull up the probes in August. Then, for the first time, scientists will have access to a full year’s worth of data on the conditions of the sea floor.
For her part, Shakhova thinks researchers should be doing a lot more. She says too little is known about the fragile shelf sediment and the methane it stores, which could be explosive for the environment. “Actually,” she says, “this is a wake-up call for science.”
Posted: Climate Change
27
April
2008
San Francisco Chronicle
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/08/BA6P101C4R.DTL
Environmental and farmworker advocates have sued the Bush administration for allowing the continued use of four pesticides, saying the government brushed aside its own findings that the chemicals are dangerous to workers, children and wildlife.
The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision in 2006 to reauthorize the four pesticides sprayed on fruit and vegetable fields in California.
A 1996 federal law required the EPA to reassess the safety of all pesticides used on foods and decide by 2006 whether to approve their use. Patti Goldman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the agency found that four substances posed risks to human health but concluded their cost savings to growers outweighed the dangers.
“These four pesticides put thousands of farmworkers and their families at risk of serious illness every year,” said Goldman, of the nonprofit firm Earthjustice.
EPA spokesman Tim Lyons said the agency would review the lawsuit and respond in court. Lyons declined to comment on the EPA’s decision to approve the pesticides, but said, “Our mission is to protect the environment and human health.”
California officials have classified one of the pesticides, ethoprop, as a cancer-causing substance. The state requires manufacturers to disclose that risk on product labels but cannot ban the pesticide because of the EPA approval. The suit said the pesticide, used mainly on potatoes, sugarcane and tobacco, has been linked to fish kills and has also drifted from fields into rural communities.
Another substance, methidathion, was listed as an air contaminant by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation earlier this year because of potential health hazards. It is used on artichokes, oranges, almonds, peaches and olives, mostly in California.
The other two pesticides are methamidophos, used mostly on potatoes and cotton, and oxydemeton-methyl, used on broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, corn, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. The suit said both have been associated with bird kills. Methamidophos has been banned or severely restricted in several countries, and oxydemeton-methyl is linked to birth defects, according to the suit.
“We’re relying on EPA’s findings that the risks were too high,” said Goldman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer.
She said federal law allows the agency to approve continued use of risky pesticides based on offsetting benefits, including cost savings. But Goldman said the EPA failed to address the particular danger each pesticide poses to children, or to take adequate account of the potential harms to birds and fish as well as farmworkers.
The suit seeks a court order requiring the agency to re-evaluate the pesticides. Plaintiffs include the United Farm Workers, the Teamsters, Pesticide Action Network North America, Beyond Pesticides and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Posted: Is it really organic ?
25
April
2008
Hello friends, someone is spamming this blog with gambling and slot machine comments and causing me to spend precious time deleting their comments.
We are getting about 20 to 30 a day for the past 3 days.
Because of this invasion, we are forced to block comments for the time being.
We apologies for this action, but until these unethical people stop their harrassment, we have no option…….our blog will continue and we hope it is useful to those who read it…so, thankyou for your time and for reading our blog.
Posted: Climate Change, Is it really organic ?, Probiotics, Skin Care, Antioxidants
24
April
2008
Give back some of that nourishment & nurturing…
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Packed in an organza bag with a gorgeous gift card with your personal message.
All delivered to your mother’s door.
Happy Mothers’ Day!
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Posted: Is it really organic ?, Skin Care
24
April
2008
The market for organic cosmetics is growing and industry commentators predict “2008 will be a defining year for the natural cosmetics industry.”
According to a recent report from Organic Monitor, this is the year widespread adoption of natural & organic standards will begin, clearing the currently blurred lines between legitimate natural / organic products and pseudo products.
Regulatory activity is intensifying in the EU and leading European certification agencies will unveil a new European standard in June 2008, after working on the harmonisation of private standards for over a year. Standards implementation is due by the end of the year leading to uniform regulation of certified natural & organic cosmetic products for the first time.
Organic cosmetic growth in the U.S is strong and Austrade predicts retail sales of natural and organic skincare, hair care and cosmetics in the US will reach around $7.9 billion by 2009.
The growth of separate private standards in the US is reportedly of some concern, with a number of representative groups developing their own regulatory guides for release this year.
The impact of natural & organic standards on the cosmetics industry will be debated at the upcoming Natural Beauty Summit America (New York, May 15-17).
Improvements to the regulation of cosmetics in Australia in the past year include the addition of a distinct cosmetic standard to the Australian Organic Standard (AOS).
“The AOS now includes a well regulated and precise set of requirements for cosmetics, compared to previous strongly food based standards,” says BFA cosmetic sub-committee chair Akiko Nicholls.
“Meeting these new requirements does present a greater challenge to cosmetics manufacturers, but there are Australian Certified Organic clients who have overcome those challenges and (in doing so) are delivering products at a high standard actively sought by consumers.”
Eliza McGivern, marketing manager of Australia’s Sydney Essential Oil Co. says the business, which specialises in trade sales of personal care and cosmetic ingredients, is experiencing growth. But she adds there are obstacles to overcome before cosmetics can enjoy the rapid climb experienced by the organic food sector.
“Growth of organic cosmetic products has been weak in comparison to organic food, as the manufacturing standard has only recently been made specific to cosmetics.”
“Nevertheless, demand for the product is increasing and manufacturers are investing in more R&D to make compliant product that also meets the aesthetic demands of the consumer,” she says.
Ms. McGivern says other challenges in the cosmetic sector include:
• Ingredient availability and cost - “availability depends on the season and seasonal
price rises can occur on top of products already at a premium”
• Product development – “organic (natural) ingredients perform uniquely and cannot
simply be substituted for conventional cosmetic chemical ingredients, so extensive
R&D is necessary”
• Marketing claims – “Products touted as ‘contains organic’ are not truly compliant
organic products. Those who do pursue and achieve fully compliant certified status
can find themselves competing on an unlevel playing field in the marketplace and we
do see evidence of this”
Ms. Nicholls says preservatives and emulsifiers have presented particular problems in cosmetics regulation.
“We have formed the BFA Cosmetics Sub-committee which allows us to assess ingredient proposals and issues on a case by case basis. Our organic cosmetic standard is still developing and we welcome industry feedback,” she says.
Ms. McGivern says the approval of several emulsifiers and preservatives will open up sector opportunities.
“Production of organic cosmetic products will increase and a full assortment of personal care products will be available at the highest certification level,” she predicts.
International cosmetic opportunity has organics covered
Austrade have reported substantial opportunities for the export of all natural, organic and high end luxury cosmetic products to key markets.
These markets include Spain – where specialty cosmetics retail sales have risen 13 per cent since 1998 - and France, where there is reportedly an increasing trend for ‘cosmebio’ (organic cosmetic labels). Environmental concerns are of prime importance to cosmetic and toiletries manufacturing companies in France with a key focus on recycling, biodegradable products and packaging, and replacement of harmful ingredients.
Some opportunities are reported in the Phillipines (one of Asia’s fastest growing markets for cosmetic and wellness products). Austrade says Filipinos are starting to appreciate organic and all natural products – however, say heavy introductory marketing such as educational seminars and free samples are required.
In the U.S, growth in retail sales of natural and organic skincare, hair care and cosmetics is expected to be strong (retail sales predicted around $7.9 billion by 2009).
Health warnings, environmental concerns, ethical buying concerns, therapy awareness and organic attitudes have all contributed to growth in popularity.
What other trends are there in cosmetics?
According to Austrade, niche category lines are faring well. Organic could be marketed in combination with the following trends:
- Increasing popularity of men’s lifestyle products
- Rising sales of anti-ageing products to baby boomers
- Increasing popularity of distinct youth products
- Ultra niche products including those containing botanical extracts, plant acids, enzymes,
herbs, vitamins, proteins, and food ingredients.
- Cosmeceuticals – one of the strongest trends in the cosmetics market, also subject to
confusion and ambiguity in regulation and labelling. Cosmeceuticals are ‘functional
products’, aiming to combine personal care with some of the benefits of medical or over-
the-counter/ drug products. Some cosmeceuticals are naturally derived and some are
synthetic.
Posted: Is it really organic ?, Probiotics, Skin Care, Antioxidants
23
April
2008
The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government(British) brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world’s poor.
What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world’s rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a “crime against humanity”. It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by 2010, in line with European Union policy.
The message could not have been clearer if the Prime Min ister, Gordon Brown, had personally put a torch to a pyre of corn and rice in Parliament Square: even as you take to the streets to protest your empty bellies and hungry children, we will burn your food in our cars. The UK is not uniquely implicated in this scandal: the EU, the United States, India, Brazil and China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data confirms today’s dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase.
Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop. American cars now burn enough corn to cover all the import needs of the 82 nations classed by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as “low-income food-deficit countries”. There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.
The threat posed by biofuels affects all of us. Global grain stockpiles - on which all of humanity depends - are now perilously depleted. Cereal stocks are at their lowest level for 25 years, according to the FAO. The world has consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the past eight years, and supplies, at roughly only 54 days of consumption, are the lowest on record.
The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has already warned that 100 million people could be pushed deeper into poverty because of food price rises caused directly by this imbalance between supply and demand. Even consumers in rich countries are suffering. We now pay higher prices for our food in order to subsidise the biofuels industry, thanks to measures such as the renewable fuels directive.
This is not just a short-term price blip, but the beginnings of a major structural change in the world food market. Population pressure - still something of a taboo subject - is also certainly playing a part. With the world population growing by 78 million a year, and expected to reach nine billion by the middle of the century, there are simply many more mouths to feed.
In addition, rapid economic growth in India and China has created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers, all demanding western-style diets high in meat and dairy products, thereby vastly increasing the quantity of grain required for livestock production.
Weather plays a major role, too: the FAO’s latest food situation brief reports that, in 2007, “unfavourable climatic conditions devastated crops in Australia and reduced harvests in many other countries, particularly in Europe”, while Southern Africa and the western United States have been hit hard by severe drought. Rising oil prices also increase the cost of food, as fossil fuels are important throughout the agricultural process, from tractor diesel to fertiliser production.
Inconsistency
The most important structural change, however, is the increasing interlinking of world energy and food markets. Once, food was just for people. Now rising demand for transport fuel - particularly in rich countries - is sucking supply away from the world food market and increasing the upward pressure on prices. In the words of Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP): “We are seeing food in many places in the world priced at fuel levels,” with increasing quantities of food “being bought by energy markets” for biofuels.
Rising oil prices feed back into the process. With food and fuel markets intertwined, increases in the price of oil are shadowed by increases in the price of grain. The real-world result from this structural shift may be that hundreds of thousands of people starve in the next few years - unless policies promoting biofuels are urgently reversed.
This is not to suggest that government targets on biofuels are driven by some kind of malicious desire to starve the world’s poor. Indeed, both Brown and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, have expressed concern about the food supply crisis and the role of biofuels in causing it. But for these two political leaders to voice their concerns while allowing the increased use of biofuels in the UK to be pushed forward - all in the same week - is nothing short of bizarre.
As Oxfam’s Robert Bailey puts it: “This inconsistency at the highest levels simply beggars belief.” The aid agency calculates that the RTFO represents a £500m annual subsidy from motorists and taxpayers to the biofuels industry - more than double the amount the WFP is urgently seeking from donor countries to try to mitigate the impact of food price rises on the world’s poor.
The EU, meanwhile, persists in the erroneous belief that biofuels can help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The main reason for its speedy introduction of the replacement fuel initiative was as a sop to motor manufacturers who were lobbying hard against proposed higher fuel economy standards. With biofuels, the EU hoped, it could cave in to the car industry while still getting reduction in emissions.
Yet recent research suggests otherwise: two major studies published in Science magazine in February showed clearly that once the agricultural displacement effects of the new fuels on rainforests, peatlands and grasslands are taken into account, emissions are many times worse than from conventional mineral petrol. In other words, it would be better for the climate if we just went back to fossil fuels. Biofuels are not a “necessary but painful” way of saving the climate; they are a calamitous mistake by almost every criterion, whether social, ethical or environmental.
Reversing the damage
The industry claims that “second-generation” biofuels, using by-products such as corn stalks and woodchip as a feedstock, will be able to redress the balance. But if this technological advance is achieved (and that is by no means certain) it could usher in an even worse scenario: the annihilation of the world’s forests. If all plant life was seen as potentially convertible for transport fuel, there would be nothing to stop what was left of the planet’s biosphere from being strip-mined to keep rich motorists on the road. There is no simple solution. Much of the increased biofuel demand comes from the US, where Democratic and Republican politicians alike have talked themselves into a dead-end search for “energy security” - with US-grown corn top of the list.
But the UK and the EU can reverse some of the damage by immediately ditching their own biofuels policies and providing vital aid funding, principally through the WFP, to help prevent widespread starvation in the short term. Politicians need to realise that there is no such thing as “sustainable biofuels”, either now or in the future. As for investors, they need to realise that pouring money into biofuels is a bad bet: subsidies will be quickly withdrawn when policymakers face up to the reality of their ghastly error.
In the meantime, millions face starvation and death from increasing hunger and malnutrition. There is no time to lose.
2008: the year of food riots
Egypt Thousands of demonstrators in Mahalla el-Kobra loot shops and throw bricks at police during protests at rising food prices and low salaries, as part of nationwide strike
Haiti At least four people killed in the southern city of Les Cayes after food prices rise 50 per cent in the past year
Côte d’Ivoire Police injure more than ten protesters as several hundred demonstrators demand government action to curb food prices
Cameroon Riots last four days and result in at least 40 deaths. Unrest is due to high fuel and food prices. Worst riots in country for 15 years
Mozambique At least four people killed and 100 injured following fuel price rises
Senegal Violent demonstrations in Dakar as prices of rice, milk and oil soar. Senegal imports almost all its food
Yemen Five days of rioting and a hundred arrests after the price of wheat doubled over two months. Protesters set up roadblocks in Sana’a and Aden
…and in Mauritania, Bolivia, Indonesia, Mexico, India, Burkina Faso, and Uzbekistan
Research by Jax Jacobsen
Posted: Climate Change
22
April
2008
Greenpeace commissioned Moscow-based BBDO Russia for a series of ads to raise awareness about genetically-modified organisms. The text in the ad, cropped out of the above image, says, “The DNA of genetically modified plants may contain the genes of insects, animals or even viruses. These products may potentially cause harm to your health. Look for the ‘GMO-free’ sign on the package.”
Posted: Is it really organic ?
21
April
2008
Greenpeace is calling on the Independent Commission Against Corruption to conduct an inquiry into the process behind the approval of growing genetically engineered (GE) canola in NSW.
The call comes after we found that the committee set up to investigate whether GE canola should be grown in NSW was stacked with pro-GE advocates.
According to two of the committee members, dissenting members’ concerns were down-played, marginalised and not reflected in the minutes of the meeting. Furthermore, it was not publicly revealed that the committee was split on the recommendation to approve planting GE canola.
Environmental scientist Jo Immig and canola grower Juliet McFarlane, who both sat on the committee, said the go-ahead to plant GE canola should not have been given. They argue that the segregation of GE and non-GE canola cannot be guaranteed and non-GE farmers have no legal protection if their crops are contaminated by GE.
Appallingly, Primary Industries Minister Ian McDonald’s decision to introduce GE canola into the state is effectively beyond reproach, since he introduced legislation to ensure that his decision to approve the crop could not be challenged in court. This is unprecedented for legislation of this nature and Greens MP Ian Cohen has accused the minister of “treating the parliament as his own fiefdom.”
The NSW government established the committee to “assess whether industry is prepared and capable of segregating genetically modified (GM) and non-GM food crops”. However, the committee is cloaked in secrecy - with the identity of committee members not being publicly revealed. Committee members can face prison sentences of up to three months for divulging committee discussions. Having such a gag order on a public committee is also unprecedented.
The government was required by law to record the pecuniary (vested) interests of the committee in a book that could be viewed by the public, however, this is stored in Tamworth.
On two occasions Mr Cohen unsuccessfully asked minister McDonald to provide the names of the committee and declarations of pecuniary interest. It is clear why the minister did not want to reveal them - the book shows that the majority of committee members have vested interests in GE crops. This is tantamount to letting the fox look after the chickens.
Immig said that the representatives on the committee were quite clearly very pro-GE people. “It’s hard to imagine that the committee would come up with any other outcome other than to eventually approve, or suggest to the minister that he approve the genetically modified canola,” she said.
Posted: Is it really organic ?
