Leftish

DECISION TOMORROW:  EMERGENCY PETITION TO STOP RADIOACTIVE EYEGLASSES, KITCHENWARE, TOYS, etc.  Stop the Department of Energy plans to use 14,000 tons of radioactive scrap metals in the manufacturing of consumer products. 

U.S. Dept of Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to dump 14,000 tons of radioactive scrap metal into the marketplace for use in the manufacturing of consumer products.¹ This means that your everyday purchases, such as silverware, zippers, belt buckles, eyeglass frames, jewelry, watches, toys, pet bowls, and leashes could soon be made with radioactive scrap metal.

This action is being fast-tracked, with little regard for public comment. The deadline for a decision is this Monday, February 11.

That’s why I created an emergency petition on SignOn.org to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, which says:

Stop the Department of Energy plans to use 14,000 tons of radioactive scrap metals in the manufacturing of consumer products. There is no safe level of radiation. Keep nuclear waste out of my home and workplace!

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Maureen Headington

On December 21, the FDA released its long-awaited Environmental Assessment on genetically engineered  salmon — the last step before it can approve Aquabounty’s genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. This would make it the first-ever genetically engineered animal that could sneak onto our dinner plates — because it won’t be labeled.

The FDA is accepting comments until February 25. Please tell the FDA to keep this risky fish off our plates. Genetically engineered salmon is a bad deal for both consumers and the environment.

HEMP FACTS 

1) Hemp is among the oldest industries on the planet, going back more than 10,000 years to the beginnings of pottery. The Columbia History of the World states that the oldest relic of human industry is a bit of hemp fabric dating back to approximately 8,000 BC.

2) Presidents Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp. Americans were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic. The federal government subsidized hemp during the Second World War and US farmers grew about a million acres of hemp as part of that program. 

3) Hemp Seed is far more nutritious than even soybean, contains more essential fatty acids than any other source, is second only to soybeans in complete protein (but is more digestible by humans), is high in B-vitamins, and is 35% dietary fiber. Hemp seed is not psychoactive and cannot be used as a drug. See TestPledge.com 

4) The bark of the hemp stalk contains bast fibers which are among the Earth’s longest natural soft fibers and are also rich in cellulose; the cellulose and hemi-cellulose in its inner woody core are called hurds. Hemp stalk is not psychoactive. Hemp fiber is longer, stronger, more absorbent and more insulative than cotton fiber. 

5) According to the Department of Energy, hemp as a biomass fuel producer requires the least specialized growing and processing procedures of all hemp products. The hydrocarbons in hemp can be processed into a wide range of biomass energy sources, from fuel pellets to liquid fuels and gas. Development of bio-fuels could significantly reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power. 

6) Hemp grows well without herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides. Almost half of the agricultural chemicals used on US crops are applied to cotton. 

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE…

[NOTE* from Leftish: I wish I knew how I could get MORE people to CARE about this VERY SERIOUS ISSUE.  WE ARE LOSING THE BEES!!  What will happen to POOH BEAR if we LOSE all the BEES???]

As a growing body of research points to a link between colony collapse disorder and the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, a backyard gardener in Virginia has taken to the Internet in a grassroots effort to have Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides taken off the market.

Susan Mariner, who grew up working the garden with her father and grandmother, says the value of pollinators was impressed upon her from an early age.

“My grandmother taught me that bees are ‘our partners in the garden,’” she remembers.

Today, Mariner has her own suburban backyard garden, where she and her children grow edible crops, as well as what she calls a “Honey bee haven”: a section planted with colorful wildflowers and other plants that attract native pollinators. In the past several years, she says, her favorite winged visitors have made fewer appearances in the garden.

“I started watching bees as a young child in my father’s and my grandmother’s gardens and apple trees, which were awash in Honey bees when in bloom,” she says. “These days, when my children and I spend all day outside surrounded by thousands of blooms in our garden, we are thrilled to see a single Honey bee visit.”

Mariner says the decrease in pollinators has changed the way she and her neighbors garden. “Because there are so few pollinators, in recent years we have been forced to hand-pollinate many of our plants, something which would have been unthinkable to my grandmother. Many of my gardening neighbors have stopped growing plants that require insect pollination altogether.”

Increasingly, however, researchers are finding that the activities of Mariner’s other neighbors—those who are, in her words, “unwittingly coating their properties in neonicotinoids to achieve a picture-perfect lawn”—may be contributing to a dearth of pollinators.

Mariner used Change.org, a free petition-hosting website that harnesses social media in the name of activism, to launch a petition calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to ban Bayer’s neonicotinoid-based products. With each signature, Change.org sends an email to the person or persons targeted by the petition—in this case, three key EPA administrators. Mariner’s petition garnered a massive response, boasting over 138,000 signatures as of April 26, 2012.

Mariner says she’s thrilled with the reception her petition has received. “I’ve been extremely encouraged to see that once people learn that one-third of our food is pollinated by bees and that bees are in crisis, they are anxious to help and automatically begin spreading the word to others.”

Within days of Mariner’s petition going live, a team from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that they’d gathered still more evidence of an imidacloprid-CCD link. Over 23 weeks beginning in summer 2010, the researchers monitored bees in four different yards in Worcester County, Mass. Each yard had four bee hives treated with varying levels of imidacloprid, as well as one control bee hive. After 12 weeks of dosing, all the bees were alive, but after 23 weeks, 15 of the 16 treated bee hives had died off, with the highest-dose bee hives perishing first. The Harvard study will appear in June’s Bulletin of Insectology.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE…