How Corporations Greenwash Kids

Posted on April 20, 2012 by lzerbe| 3 Comments

 

By Kai Olson-Sawyer, Leslie Hatfield, and Jennifer Bunin, EcoCentric
Main Image for: Green Lessons: What Corporations Are Telling Kids and What Kids Are Saying about Environmental Issues

Somewhere, over the rainbow…everything is slightly more pastoral when you’re drilling it. Continue reading →

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Children's Health, Clean Energy, Climate Destabilization

The Low-Down on BPA

Posted on April 20, 2012 by lzerbe| 6 Comments

by Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University

BPA has become a classic example of how point of view influences decisions about low-dose chemicals in the food supply for which the science is uncertain.

If you are a believer in the “precautionary principle,” any suggestion of harm is enough to support banning BPA until it is proven safe. Continue reading →

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Children's Health, Food Politics, Healthy Home & Garden, Men's Health, Women's Health

Tagged ,

Pesticide News Every Family Needs to Know

Posted on April 19, 2012 by lzerbe| 1 Comment

by Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network

Spring has sprung, and farmers across the country are preparing for planting season. One of their biggest headaches will be dealing with the millions of acres of cropland that have been infested with superweeds and with new generations of superbugs. These superpests have evolved as the direct — and inevitable — consequence of Monsanto’s aggressive promotion of its genetically engineered “RoundUp-Ready” and insecticidal seed packages over the past 15 years.  Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Children's Health, Men's Health, Pesticides & GMOs, Women's Health

Tagged , ,

Keeping children safe from everyday toxins

Posted on April 18, 2012 by emain| Leave a comment

By Deirdre Imus, president and founder of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at Hackensack University Medical Center

As parents, we try to keep our kids safe every moment of their lives. Whether by instilling in them the difference between good and evil or by making sure they know to look both ways before crossing the street, protecting children comes in many different forms.

For more than a decade, I’ve been working tirelessly to keep my kid and yours safe from the harm inflicted by environmental factors—whether floating in the air, swimming through the water supply, or injected into our foods. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Children's Health, Healthy Home & Garden

World’s Largest Rooftop Farm Gets More Space AND Bees!

Posted on April 18, 2012 by emain| Leave a comment

by Chris Hunt, EcoCentric

The arrival of spring tends to prompt a shift in collective attention toward soil and seeds, the warmer weather and longer days inspiring everyone from the large-scale farmer to the casual backyard gardener to plant and grow.  In most places, people look down to the ground.  But in New York City, we’re just as likely to look up to the sky – because here, many of our favorite farms are now on rooftops. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Organic Food, Sustainable Farming

Doo Doo Chicken: the New Pink Slime

Posted on April 13, 2012 by lzerbe| Leave a comment

By Walker Foley, communications assistant at Food & Water Watch

Some consumer advocates are marking a swift victory after Beef Products Inc. announced the shutdown of three of its four factories last week. But pink slime is just the frothy tip of the repulsive, risky, potentially unsafe meat iceberg floating in our food supply.

In case you’ve been out of the country for the past two weeks and missed the pink slime hysteria, here’s the gist. In 2002, USDA microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein dubbed BPI’s lean, finely textured beef trimmings (LFTB) “pink slime.” Zirnstein’s neologism lay dormant for the next 10 years until mainstream media and consumer activists rallied around the term and asked not, “Where’s the beef,” but, “What’s the beef?” Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Food Politics

Tagged

Changing the autism diagnosis?

Posted on April 12, 2012 by emain| Leave a comment

By Deirdre Imus, president and founder of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at Hackensack University Medical Center

April is National Autism Awareness Month, a time when families, friends and advocates highlight the challenges of autism, a complex disorder of brain development characterized by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Children's Health

Danger in the Poultry Aisle

Posted on April 6, 2012 by lzerbe| 2 Comments

by Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University

Apparently as a result of a need to cut costs, the USDA is changing the way its inspectors oversee chicken processing.

As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post puts it, this is

a proposal to allow chicken slaughterhouses to inspect themselves — eliminating those pesky federal monitors who have the annoying habit of taking diseased birds out of the food supply.

Even if the Obama administration were inclined to bring down capitalism with an orgy of overregulation, there isn’t enough money in the budget to enforce the rules on the books.  That’s what the chicken fight is about: Spending cuts…are a form of de facto deregulation (my emphasis). Continue reading →

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Children's Health, Food Politics, Men's Health, Women's Health

Tagged

The New GMOs: What You Need to Know

Posted on April 6, 2012 by lzerbe| 3 Comments

By Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network

As if the disaster of RoundUp resistant superweeds sweeping our farmland weren’t enough, Monsanto is now preparing to launch an even greater disaster: a new soybean engineered to be resistant to the older, more toxic weedkiller, dicamba. The seed — which Monsanto plans to market in 2014 if approved — will also come stacked with the company’s RoundUp Ready gene, and is designed to be used with Monsanto’s proprietary herbicide “premix” of dicamba and glyphosate. Continue reading →

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Children's Health, Men's Health, Pesticides & GMOs, Women's Health

Tagged , ,

Solar: Is It Even Safe?

Posted on March 28, 2012 by lzerbe| 2 Comments

by Pierre Bull, Air & Energy policy analyst at Natural Resources Defense Council

Many people have asked me lately, “What goes inside solar panels and does any of it pose a health risk?”  A report released today by the corporate watchdog group,  As You Sow , titled, Clean & Green: Best Practices in Photovoltaics, gives a fair and comprehensive overview of the health and safety risks with regard to solar photovoltaic manufacturing and end of life management. The report discusses:

  . . .  in non-scientific language, the process of manufacturing PV panels, the risks involved, and how companies mitigate those risks. It focuses on practices and policies companies use to mitigate risks from hazardous compounds, reduce environmental impact, and responsibly manage their supply chains. Continue reading →

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Clean Energy, Climate Destabilization, Low-Impact Living

Tagged , ,