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Are there heavy metals lurking in your fruit juice?

Yes, according to a recent analysis by Consumer Reports (CR). CR tested 45 fruit juices in four popular flavors—apple, grape, pear and fruit blends—sold in the U.S. and found “elevated levels” of arsenic, cadmium and lead.

The levels were “concerning,” according to CR. Even more worrisome? Toxic heavy metals were found in nearly half of the juices tested.

Chlorpyrifos, manufactured by DowDuPont, is a neurotoxic organophosphate pesticide that’s been linked to severe birth defects, brain damage and mental disorders in children.

Yet despite these known risks, and despite new evidence suggesting that Dow knew for decades how toxic chlorpyrifos is to children, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still allows chlorpyrifos to be sprayed on more than 50 fruits, vegetables and nuts, including strawberries, almonds, oranges, broccoli and apples.

If the EPA won’t do its job, it’s time for Congress to act.

TAKE ACTION: Ask your member of Congress to cosponsor the Ban Toxic Pesticides Act of 2019 ( H.R.230), a bill to ban chlorpyrifos.

The GND twin resolutions were unveiled yesterday. Already, some lawmakers and media outlets are calling the GND  “unrealistic” and “unaffordable,” despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Powerful corporations—especially the fossil fuel, agribusiness, chemical and pharmaceutical industries—want to kill the GND before it can get off the ground.

The only way the GND will fly, is if we build a powerful social movement to lift it up.

So far criticism of the GND has focused not on whether we need a GND to head off our climate crisis, but whether it’s possible to do what global scientists agree we must do to avoid catastrophe: reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 45-percent within 12 years, and by 100-percent by 2050. Some critics don't think we can do it.

Those critics are right—if all we focus on is reducing emissions.

That’s why it’s critical, especially in this early stage, to get the word out that in addition to reducing emissions, we must draw down and sequester the carbon already in the atmosphere.

The Green New Deal (GND) has arrived! 

Now that we’ve passed the dangerous tipping point of 350 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (we’re at 410 ppm), we have to figure out a way to draw down that CO2—or we will continue to suffer the cascading impacts of global warming even after we’ve eliminated greenhouse gas emissions.

The safest and most effective way we have of doing this is to increase the carbon content of our soils in farmland, pasture land, forests, wetlands and coastal marine ecosystems. This can be done on working lands through regenerative organic agriculture techniques that increase fertility and control pests by replacing chemicals with management practices. These include holistic planned grazing, composting, no-till, cover cropping, diverse crop mixes and rotations, and the incorporation of crops that return nutrients and organic matter to the soil.

This is the piece of the puzzle that most climate activists and legislators are unaware of. That’s why it’s so important that this is included in the GND, and why we need to get Congress to support it!

WASHINGTON, D.C. - February 7, 2019 - Food & Water Watch and Organic Consumers Association (OCA) have sued Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. for deceptive marketing and advertising of Pilgrim’s Pride chicken products. The suit was brought in D.C. Superior Court, under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.

Nonprofits Food & Water Watch and OCA, represented by Richman Law Group and Animal Equality, allege that Pilgrim’s falsely claims that the birds used in its products are fed “only natural ingredients,” “treated humanely” and produced in an environmentally responsible way, when in fact Pilgrim’s systematically raises, transports and slaughters chickens in inhumane factory-farm conditions that include the routine use of antibiotics, synthetic chemical disinfectants, genetically modified crops growth-promoting drugs, and other unnatural substances.