India Wakes up to the Menace of Chemically-Enhanced Veggies

India Today - June 24-'12

Several studies have established the fact that the level of harmful chemicals in India's edible crops is perilously high because of excessive exposure to pesticides or other growth enhancers. Now, the Delhi government is planning to weed out this health hazard by detecting the specific contaminants in vegetables and fruits with the help of mega scanners right at the entry point. Full story here.

The National Farmers' Union Rejects Completely Martha Hall-Findlay’s Anti-Supply Management Report

NFU News Release - June 22, 2012

Ottawa: “Former Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall-Findlay has made public both her opposition to, and her lack of understanding of Canada’s supply management system for dairy in the report she presented in a press conference yesterday,” said Paul Slomp, National Farmers Union (NFU) Youth Vice President. “Her report is full of misinformation, skewed statistics, contradictions, and reprehensible arguments calling to eliminate supply management in order to gain points in behind-closed-doors international trade negotiations.”

Biodiversity and the Environment: Silent Spring For Us?

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - Centre for Research on Globalization

With her 1962 book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson got DDT and other synthetic pesticides banned and saved bird life. Today it is humans who are directly threatened by  technologies designed to extract the maximum profit at the lowest private cost and the maximum social cost from natural resources. Full story here.  

Bumblebees on an 
organic acreage. 
PLT photo

Mexico Saves Coral Reef From Over-Development!

Dear Larry,

VICTORY! Cabo Pulmo coral reef saved! Mexican President Felipe Calderón just put an end to plans that would have imperiled the marine paradise of Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, home to the only living hard coral reef in Mexico’s Gulf of California. Please thank President Calderón for doing the right thing!

Mexican President Felipe Calderón has just rejected plans for a massive resort complex that could have devastated the marine paradise of Cabo Pulmo, its coral reef and the local community.

This is a huge victory for NRDC and all the local, national and international groups that waged a strong multi-year campaign urging officials to abandon the destructive proposal called Cabo Cortés.

Tens of thousands of BioGems Defenders like you stood strong in vocally opposing this mega-tourism scheme.

Please send a message to President Calderón and thank him for stopping Cabo Cortés in its tracks.

 

The Great "Locavore" Debate

"Q" CBC Radio

PLT photo  

 Between farmer's markets and a new trend of grocery stores advertising "local food," locavorism seems to have gone mainstream.  But is it really as good for you, and the environment, as you think?  Pierre Desrochers, one of the authors of The Locavore's Dilemma is joined by Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America for a Q debate. Listen to the podcast here.

Manitoba Schools to Teach Sustainability: Selinger to Rio Summit

By: Nick Martin Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba students will have a new Grade 12 course on sustainable development, and every school will have a sustainability plan, Premier Greg Selinger said today at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. Full story here.

Tell Brazil Rio+20 Host: “The World We Want” Is Not 60 Amazon Rainforest Destroying Dams

ACTION ALERT PLEASE SEND, SHARE, LIKE, FORWARD!
By Rainforest Portal http://www.rainforestportal.org/ – a project of Ecological Internet June 20, 2012

TAKE ACTION
To protect the Amazon with sustainable development based upon standing rainforests:
  http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=brazil_xingu

Brazil’s government – host of the “Rio+20” UN Conference on Sustainable Development devoted to sustainable development and sustaining ecosystems – is planning to build 60 dams on tributaries to the Amazon -- including the controversial $11 billion Belo Monte project. Industrial destruction of intact primary rainforest ecosystems based upon ecocide and genocide is not “the world we want” – a motto of Rio+20. These plans for massive Amazon dam construction reveal Brazil’s meaningless rhetoric regarding environmental sustainability and sustainable development, as they hypocritically continue destroying key regional and global ecosystems. Brazil’s deceptive doublespeak regarding sustaining ecology must not be allowed to stand unchallenged during Rio+20. Stand with brave indigenous protestors who recently dismantled a portion of Belo Monte’s construction, as we call upon all Rio+20 delegates to demand Brazil cancel Belo Monte and other Amazon rainforest destroying dams, embracing instead a program of sustainable development based upon standing primary rainforests.

TAKE ACTION 
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=brazil_xingu