
Environment & Climate
The Organic Revolution: Change the System, Not the Climate
What if there were an organic technology that could cut greenhouse emissions in half and literally suck down and sequester carbon dioxide in living soil - bringing the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm - the level scientists warn us we must acheive in order to avert a climate catastrophe?
Cook Organic, Not the Planet. Boycott Factory-Farmed Foods.
If you believe all the headlines, in a few short years or even less time, the way meat is grown will radically change. Brewing like tanks full of dividing cells will replace farms and factory farms raising livestock, thus no more animals will be slaughtered, all environmental issues- including climate change and water scarcity- will be resolved, world hunger will no longer exist, and deforestation will no longer be necessary.
Read moreToday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) released their much-anticipated Green New Deal with the goal of creating millions of jobs by expanding renewable energy and de-carbonizing the economy over the next 10 years.
Read moreAnimal waste and fertilizer runoff are two of the largest contributors to water pollution and contamination. Rising productivity on industrial factory farms is single-handedly impairing drinking water supplies across the country, polluting with key culprits like nitrogen, phosphate, insecticides and pesticides.
Read moreThe 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
Read moreAmerican consumers willingly pay more for foods labeled as “natural,” “organic” or “humane.” Food companies took notice long ago, adding such pledges to all manner of products. But it can be challenging for shoppers to figure out whether those promises are real or empty branding.
Read moreWASHINGTON, 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
Read moreAs many in the United States agriculture community breathed a sigh of relief that the recently passed Farm Bill isn’t as bad as it could be, our neighbors to the south are moving forward quickly and decisively with bold new plans to transform their food and farm system. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador took office on December 1 with an inaugural address outlining 100 promises for the transformation of the country’s government and economy.
Read moreFrom the air, the Grand Valley Water Users Association canal — 10 feet wide and 8 feet deep — tracks a serpentine 55-mile-long path across the mountain-ringed landscape of Mesa County, Colorado. It’s a line that separates parched, hard-baked desert and an agricultural nirvana of vast peach and apple orchards and swaying fields of alfalfa.
The future of this thin brown line that keeps the badlands of the Colorado desert at bay, however, is growing more uncertain by the day.
Read moreEditor's note: Organic Consumers Association partially funds Regeneration Vermont.
Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture took what some legislators are calling “a sneaky route” in its attempts to eliminate the pesticide-usage progress reports that are required to be filed annually by the state’s Pesticide Advisory Council (VPAC).
Tucked deep in an omnibus bill addressing the viability of commissions and councils like VPAC (H.16), the Ag Agency successfully lobbied to insert language that did away with VPAC’s obligation to issue annual progress reports “with respect to the
Read moreAt the 4,000-acre San Juan Ranch near Saguache, the practice of humane animal handling requires an affinity with the animals. It is an approach and strength that Julie Sullivan believes women are uniquely equipped to bring to ranching.
“We raise young women to be relational, to be more conscious of other people’s needs and concerns,” she said. “Young men often think they have to prove themselves and cowboy up. We don’t cowboy up around here, so we get cattle that follow us around.”
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