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Why Your Organic Milk May Not Be Organic
Unveiling the Glyphosate Conspiracy
Big Dairy Continues War Against Farmers and Raw Milk
Walmart and True Value Pledge to Phase out Bee-Toxic Pesticide
Why It’s Time to Stop Punishing Our Soils with Fertilizers
Why Aged Cheese and Mushrooms Are So Good for Your Heart (and Make You Live Longer Too)
Anti-Protest Bills Would ‘Attack Right to Speak Out’ Under Donald Trump
Parents-to-be beware: If you live in 10 of Pennsylvania’s most heavily fracked counties, your baby has a 29-percent greater risk of dying within the first 0 – 28 days of birth, than if you live elsewhere.
An epidemiological study published recently in the Journal of Environmental Protection revealed for the first time that fracking kills babies. The study examined early infant deaths 0-28 days before and after the drilling of fracking wells, using official data from the U.S. Centre for Disease Control to compare the immediate post-fracking four-year period (2007-2010) with the pre-fracking four-year period (2003-2006). According to the study:
There were about 50 more babies died in these 10 counties than would have been predicted if the rate had been the same over the period as all of Pennsylvania, where the incidence rate fell over the same period.
Think it’s about time to ban fracking? Or at the very least, regulate the chemicals that fracking dumps into local waterways? Sadly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still protecting the frackers—not the babies.
Monsanto and industrial agriculture would have you believe that their GMO monoculture crops are the answer to world hunger. That’s a flat-out lie.
In fact, small-scale farmers, working only 25 percent of the world’s farmland, produce 80 percent of the food for developing countries. Yet those farmers are increasingly vulnerable to mounting threats, including climate change.
And unlike heavily subsidized corporate agribusiness, small farmers get little or no government or market support to help them overcome challenges or market their goods.
Wouldn’t it be great if you and I could help the world’s farmers, the farmers who use agroecological practices that build healthy soil and strong local economies? Now we can—thanks to Grow Ahead, a new an online lending and funding program that connects individuals and organizations directly to small-scale family farmer organizations.
The new program, launched by Fair World Project (a project of OCA), makes it easy for consumers and organizations to support small farmers by providing critical resources, including farmer-led trainings which have a proven track record of success in farming communities.
Just think what we could do if we all pitched in just a little.
“Maybe we’re on the cusp of some great cracking. Instead of just paying lip service to community, while living for autonomy, I get the sense a lot of people are actually about to make the break and immerse themselves in demanding local community movements.” – David Brooks, “The Great Affluence Fallacy,” New York Times, August 9, 2016
In an article that speaks to the “money can’t buy happiness” theme, conservative columnist David Brooks contrasts the communal nature of 18th-century Native American tribes with the parallel “buddingly commercial” society of European settlers:
As time went by, the settlers from Europe noticed something: No Indians were defecting to join colonial society, but many whites were defecting to live in the Native American one.
Brooks’ commentary focuses primarily on the social-consumer aspect of society, not so much the political. He talks about the relationship between “community” and happiness. But you’ve probably noticed that almost every discussion about today’s dangerous and discouraging political climate also includes a growing emphasis on community, and on the need to get involved in community activism and local politics.
In the coming months, you will hear us asking you to get involved—in person—in your community. By supporting local, organic and regenerative producers and brands. But also by participating in local politics, either by campaigning for local initiatives or for local candidates who support the issues that are important to you.
Please consider a donation today to help us build out a massive on-the-ground army of consumers and citizens committed to reclaiming our country from greedy corporations and the politicians who pander to them.
Let’s “make the break and immerse” ourselves in “demanding local community movements.” Thank you!
Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)
Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)
Support OCA’s Regeneration International Project (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic, regenerative agriculture and climate change)
On May 20, 2017, activists in 300 cities on six continents will participate in the sixth annual International March Against Monsanto.
Since last year’s march, there’s been no shortage of reports implicating Monsanto in everything from colluding with EPA officials to bury the truth about Roundup’s health risks, to influencing university scientists to write favorable reports about Roundup and glyphosate.
In the past year, Monsanto has been hit with multiple lawsuits, including those filed on behalf of more than 800 people who have been diagnosed (or whose family members have been diagnosed) with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after being exposed to Monsanto’s Roundup.
In April, a panel of five International Monsanto Tribunal judges slammed Monsanto over violations of international human rights.
As citizens and consumers, we must continue to stand up to Monsanto and other corporate criminals, But even as we resist the corporate takeover of our government and regulatory agencies, we must also talk about solutions—including how we can regenerate everything from our health to our economies and communities, by building a new Regeneration Movement.
That message—Resist and Regenerate—is the message we hope you’ll bring to your local March Against Monsanto this year.
On February 24, Trump signed Executive Order 13777, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.” Trump falsely claimed that the intent of the task force created by the order was to “alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens” on the American people.
But make no mistake—the real goal of Trump’s executive order is to get rid of regulations that protect you and your family from things like pesticides and poisons. Trump’s priority is to protect corporate profits—not the American people.
To comply with the order, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs is soliciting public comments on which regulations—regulations that were put in place to protect Americans from toxic chemicals—the agency should repeal, replace or modify.
It’s no coincidence that when Trump signed the executive order, he handed the signing pen to Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical. It’s also no coincidence that Trump’s EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, wasted no time overturning the Obama administration’s proposed ban on one of Dow’s top-selling poisons, chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate pesticide. (Pruitt’s move prompted a lawsuit by environmental groups).
There’s little doubt the under Trump and Pruitt, the “Environmental” Protection Agency is fast morphing into a taxpayer-funded “Corporation” Protection Agency.
Just last week, Trump appointed the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) former senior director of regulatory science policy to a new position at the EPA: deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. And as if putting a chemical industry lobbyist in charge of chemical safety weren’t bad enough, the EPA last week also dismissed at least five scientists on its scientific review board. Pruitt told the media he will replace the scientists with industry representatives who “understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community.”
In other words, the government agency in charge of protecting you from poisons will now protect corporations from regulations.
It’s clear that under Trump, the EPA is abandoning its mission to “protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals.” We need to speak up.
TAKE ACTION:Tell the EPA: Preserve Laws to Protect Human Health from Toxic Pesticides
Sign the online petition or text Dow to 97779 to sign it
Hardly a day goes by that you aren’t hit with a new attack on your health, safety and/or economic well-being by some greedy corporation, aided by a crooked, indentured politician.
It’s tempting to watch the drama unfold and play out in Washington, D.C. But it’s critical that we address the attacks by working at the local, grassroots level. It’s time to get personal.
We’re all guilty of relying on technology as our only means of political participation. We sign online petitions, share critical information, conduct research without leaving the comfort of our own homes.
But it’s not enough anymore. We need to get out, talk to people, knock on doors, circulate petitions by hand. We need to organize in our own communities, face-to-face, with our neighbors.
We think Meetup.com, an online tool, can play a key role in helping us all bridge the gap between online and on-the-ground activism.
Since we launched #Resist and #Regenerate on Meetup.com, you’ve helped us create nearly 200 local Meetup groups, with over 2200 members. And we’re growing fast.
The concept is simple: Start a #Resist and #Regenerate group on Meetup, reach out and invite local activists and concerned citizens to a meeting, identify a local issue or local candidate, and start working together—in your own backyard.
This might be the most important initiative we’ve ever launched. But we need you to take the concept, and run with it. As fast as you can.
Join a #Resist & #Regenerate Meetup near you
Start a #Resist & #Regenerate Meetup group in your community
Grassroots mobilization and mass protest against the Trump junta have reached an all-time high. Yet our growing Anti-Trump resistance is still relatively weak when it comes to explaining exactly what it is we are fighting for.
Are we talking about a return to Establishment Democratic Party rule, a slight revision of the status quo we experienced during the Obama and Clinton administrations? Or are we talking about a genuine grassroots “Political Revolution” as called for by Bernie Sanders, now the most popular politician in the U.S.?
We’ve protested against Trump’s corporate cronies and swamp cabinet; against dirty oil pipelines and fracking; against rollbacks of environmental, food safety, health and consumer protection regulations; against the slaughter of civilians in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq; against racist police and immigration policies; against laws designed to marginalize workers, poor people and minorities; and against anti-choice and homophobic cabinet and Supreme Court appointments and legislation.
Now, it’s time to work for something. It’s time to connect the dots between all of our burning issues, and unite our single-issue constituencies under a common vision and strategy for societal Regeneration—we cannot afford to return to the Democratic Party Establishment’s business-as-usual politics.