BiG TeA PaRtY

The Food Chain
Shortages Threaten Farmers’ Key Tool: Fertilizer

Source: The New York Times
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN

XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.

The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.

Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.

Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.

Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.

Some kinds of fertilizer have nearly tripled in price in the last year, keeping farmers from buying all they need. That is one of many factors contributing to a rise in food prices that, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, threatens to push tens of millions of poor people into malnutrition.

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Spring Cleaning

The Problem With Cleaning Products

By ELIZABETH FIEND 4/10/8

When the earth is tilted so that the sun is directly over the equator at high noon, this is the vernal equinox. In this momentary balance of light and dark, we are halfway between summer and winter. Mid-points have been celebrated through out the ages and around the world. In ancient Babylon, the New Year occurred at the spring equinox. The ancients of America oriented their giant earthwork mounds to equinox sunrise points. Celtic Pagans lit fires at dawn to cure ills, renew life and protect crops. Today, we party in Cancun.

Or we clean.

This season of renewal brings with it the tradition of spring cleaning, making now as good a time as any to switch to all things natural. I’m talking about cleaning products — for your home and your body. All types of non-toxic cleaners for your home are now available in conventional supermarkets: glass, drain, dishwasher, dish soap, laundry, shower, even toilet bowl cleaners. Most are competitively priced or cost just a tad bit more than chemical-based cleaners. Theses natural cleaners are conveniently located right next to the toxic ones, or maybe on a shelf not quite at eye level.

Instead of the toxic, nonrenewable or harmful-to-the-environment ingredients like petroleum, butyl cellosolve, chlorine bleach, and the cancer-causing fragrance ingredient phthalates, the new non-toxic cleaners are made from ingredients like corn, grain alcohol, palm kernel, and citrus and coconut oils. And they really work. Hypo-allergenic, with no perfumes or dyes, they smell nice too. To my nose, they smell way, way better.

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Anniversary of Three Mile Island Reminds Us, Nuclear Power is Still Not the Answer
Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program

Source: Public Citizen

WASHINGTON, DC -The anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident is a somber reminder of the fatal flaws of nuclear power and the unresolved dangers nuclear energy poses. However, despite the lessons learned from that catastrophe, the Bush administration is attempting to jump-start an industry that has been stagnant for almost three decades.

It’s almost as if the Bush administration forgot what happened March 28, 1979, when feedwater pumps failed at Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., leading to a partial core meltdown and the release of significant amounts of radiation. Prior to this event, mounting public concern and disastrous cost overruns led to the cancellation of most proposals for new reactors. Three Mile Island was the final blow.

Almost 30 years later, the flaws that halted interest in nuclear power have not changed. Cost, security, safety and waste proliferation are lingering problems that have yet to be resolved. Nuclear power is still dependent on taxpayer handouts for survival; plants still face safety shortcomings and lack of protection from terrorist attacks. Nuclear power is not a clean energy source, producing low- and high-level radioactive waste at every step of the process – from uranium mining to energy production.

What has changed since Three Mile Island? The nuclear industry has targeted not just ratepayers to bear the financial risk of these boondoggles, but is looking to saddle all taxpayers with the cost of guaranteeing the loans used to build new nuclear reactors.

Despite the president’s endorsement, nuclear power is not a solution to global warming. We have a 10-year window before global warming reaches its tipping point and major ecological and societal damage becomes unavoidable, says NASA scientist James Hansen. Even if a nuclear energy project was given government approval today, it would take about 10 years for the plant to start delivering electricity. The attempt to revitalize nuclear power is distracting us from cleaner, safer alternatives, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Let’s remember Three Mile Island so that we don’t make the same mistakes.

March 27, 2008

THREE MILE ISLAND a HISTORY

Source: Super70s.com

By Patrick Mondout

At four in the morning on March 28, 1979, a malfunction in the cooling system at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station led to the most serious commercial nuclear accident in US history and paved the way for reforms in the way nuclear power plants are operated and regulated. It also made Americans question the safety of nuclear power and helped make The China Syndrome - which had been released three weeks earlier - one of the biggest movies of the year.

About Three Mile Island

The Three Mile Island (TMI) Nuclear Generating station is located on 814 acres on an island in the Susquehanna River some 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania near some farmland. There are four separate generators at TMI and it was #2 that failed (it has been closed since then).

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BATTLEFIELD EARTH

The War on Pollution or Pollution from War

This week marks the fifth Anniversary of our involvement in the war on Iraq. This is just one war of many. The impact of war goes far beyond the actual battle.

BY ELIZABETH FIEND

Sadly, we hear each day about the horrible human toll of war — the body counts, the amputees learning to cope, the countless and nameless children ravaged by the violence, rendered orphans or worse. War is hell on earth, of course. But war is also hell on The Earth, too. You may not be aware of just how toxic and devastating is the footprint that the military-industrial complex leaves behind on Battlefield Earth.

Agent Orange, rocket fuel, lead, mercury, petroleum, asbestos, countless carcinogenic solvents. This toxic stew settles into the soil in which we grow our food, seeps down into the water we drink and floats unseen in the air we breathe making us sick — terribly sick – and killing many of us, or leading to birth defects, cancer, miscarriages, and kidney and thyroid disease.

Twenty-nine million Americans – that’s about one in every 10 — live within 10 miles of a toxic military site. That is, a site that’s already been labeled under the Superfund Program as being a top priority for toxic-waste cleanup. There are many, many, more sites that haven’t yet been certified.

The military-industrial complex has a long track record of leaving a mess all around the country and all around the world. In San Diego alone, the Navy is responsible for creating 100 toxic sites.

Jet fuel was dumped around the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nevada. As radioactive materials seeped in to the ground water, cancer followed.

In Denver, tons of asbestos-laced soil left over from the Lowry Air Force Base had to be dug out of the ground before a new housing development could be built. The Air Force refused to pay the $15 million bill for the removal, claiming the risks from asbestos weren’t high enough to warrant cleanup.

Breast cancer rates are startlingly high among people who lived near the 1951-1962 atomic tests in Nevada and Utah. Regardless, the Bush administration has raised the possibility of resuming nuclear testing in Nevada.

“I Belong to a Clan of One-Breasted Women,” by Terry Tempest Williams, is a heart-breaking essay about a Mormon family who witnessed those atomic tests. The story begins: “My mother, my grandmothers, and six aunts have all had mastectomies. Seven are dead. The two who survive have just completed rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.”

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Many people feel that all-natural cleaning products don’t work as well as toxic chemical cleaners. No matter that many commonly used cleaning products can burn your skin, injure your pet, pollute the air in your house, contaminate tap water, or even kill your (child that really happens!).

Is it really more important to get a coffee stain out of your favorite blouse than it is to have an unpolluted water supply? Which is better: a spotless bathtub or safe air to breathe?

Besides, in many cases, natural household cleaners DO work just as well as their toxic cousins, or so close that it’s hardly worth complaining. Why not at least give it a TRY, when the stakes are so high?

If you’re thinking that buying all-natural, non-toxic cleaning products will be too expensive, then check this: the article I’ve selected includes some recipes for cleaning products you can make yourself out of stuff you probably already have in your kitchen cabinet. Green cleaning doesn’t have to drain your bank account! Happy cleaning and GO GREEN!! Love, VaLerie K

A green home is good enough to eat

Using natural products to clean a house spares environment,
protects your health – and smells positively edible

by Catherine Porter
The Toronto Star

I cleaned my house with salad dressing the other day.

The recipe for all-natural wood cleaner and polish called for nothing but olive oil and vinegar.

It felt bizarre – like wearing dental floss as jewelery. But it worked beautifully. The console in the front hall still gleams like a church pew.

I didn’t want to eat it, despite my predilection for salad. If I did, that would be okay.

Which is the whole point of green cleaning.

“There are over one million poisonings a year in North America, and 60 per cent are children under six, most of whom have eaten household cleaners,” says Rob Grand, the owner of the green retail store Grassroots.

Getting rid of all the chemical cleaners in my house was my next step in lightening my ecological footprint. True, it’s not as big a step as, say, ditching my car. But it’s easier. And it makes a difference – not just to my health but to the environment.

Cleaning products and services are the leading source of toxic air pollution in our homes, according to the Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, published by the U.S.-based non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists.

They’re also causing water pollution. Hormone-disrupting chemicals from antibacterial soaps and cleaning agents – among other things – were [found last year] in San Francisco Bay during a year-long study by the Environmental Working Group, an American non-profit agency.

One of the chemicals, triclosan, has been shown to feminize fish.

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Has Earth entered a new epoch? Geologists think so.

By Robert C. Cowen | Columnist

Source: The Christian Science Monitor Online

Geologists wonder if they should add a new epoch to the geological time scale. They call it the Anthropocene – the epoch when, for the first time in Earth’s history, humans have become a predominant geophysical force. Naming such a new epoch would also recognize that humans now share responsibility with natural forces for the state of our planet’s ecological environment.

Geologists have been using the term informally for at least half a decade. Now members of the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London have laid out the case for giving the term official scientific status.

Presenting that case in the February issue of GSA Today magazine, the team notes that “since the start of the industrial revolution, Earth has endured changes sufficient to leave a global stratigraphic signature.” It is different from anything found in the entire geological record up to that point. That means the team expects future geologists examining this record will recognize a distinct break with the Holocene (”recent whole”) epoch that covers the past 10,000 years.

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GENETIC ENGINEERING (GM or GMO) of plants and animals has caused allergic reactions and even death in humans. It’s killed beneficial insects and is creating herbicide tolerant weeds and pesticide resistant insects.

Splicing genes and dicing DNA may someday end world hunger, cure disease and protect the environment. But what offers promise in the lab is troubling in the open fields of the world’s farms. Once a mistake is unleashed into the environment there is no certainty it can EVER be undone.

FRANKENFOODS, foods made through genetic modification, are here! Genetically engineered crops have only been planted since 199