Keep a nice lawn.

Colin and I went away for two weeks in July this past summer, and we had hot temps while we were gone. The result was a scorched lawn in front of our house. We weren't too bothered -- it's just dirt and some plants after all, a temporary thing. But we were suddenly the talk of the Hilltop.

"Looks like fertilizer burn to me."

"You could use a little water, I bet."

"Got a few bear patches huh? Guess you don't need to mow so often now, haha."

Time to Plant the Seed

OH-kay. We got more comments on our pathetic lawn than we did comment our LED Christmas lights. (No one sent us the Hilltop memo that we were supposed to have electric candles in the window! How was I to know???)

Well, fortunately autumn and the perfect grass growing season is here. The air is cool and the time is ripe for overseeding. By the way, we did consider planting our veggie garden in the front yard, but feared we would never be spoken to again and forever be named the weird couple down the road growing pumpkins in the gutter.

I have to be shamefaced and admit that Colin and I were lured into the using a lawn service for the last year. Maybe we wanted to fit in, but I think it was the neighbor, Todd (oh the shame of suburban peer-pressure!) He had gorgeous grass and we attriubuted it to Lawn Doctor. After we discovered our neighbor was some kind of alien turf grower, obsessed with the perfect lawn, we decided that we needed to go back to our better -- less herbicidal -- instincts and try to care for the lawn ourselves.

My dad, with the help of good seed and fertilizer, has always been able to keep a gorgeous lawn. Since I don't have him in residence, I am using the guidelines I've found on HGTV's Organic Gardening website. I love this site, FYI. The videos are very informative and useful.

I also can't wait to try out skim milk on my roses to prevent black spot. Skim milk is weird.

Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, usually because it is perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.

Pest control is at least as old as agriculture, as there has always been a need to keep crops free from pests. In order to maximize food production, it is advantageous to protect crops from competing species of plants, as well as from herbivores competing with humans.

The conventional approach was probably the first to be employed, since it is comparatively easy to destroy weeds by burning them or plowing them under, and to kill larger competing herbivores, such as crows and other birds eating seeds. Techniques such as crop rotation, companion planting (also known as intercropping or mixed cropping), and the selective breeding of pest-resistant cultivars have a long history.

Many pests have only become a problem because of the direct actions of humans. Modifying these actions can often substantially reduce the pest problem. In the USA, raccoons caused a nuisance by tearing open refuse sacks. Many householders introduced bins with locking lids, which deterred the raccoons from visiting. Houseflies tend to accumulate wherever there is human activity and it is virtually a global phenomenon, especially where food or food waste is exposed. Similarly, seagulls have become pests at many seaside resorts. Tourists would often feed the birds with scraps of fish and chips, and before long, the birds would become dependent on this food source and act aggressively towards humans.

In the UK, following concern about animal welfare, humane pest control and deterrence is gaining ground through the use of animal psychology rather than destruction. For instance, with the urban Red Fox which territorial behavior is used against the animal, usually in conjunction with non-injurious chemical repellents.

Chemical pesticides date back 4,500 years, when the Sumerians used sulfur compounds as insecticides. The Rig Veda, which is about 4,000 years old, also mentions the use of poisonous plants for pest control. Ancient Chinese and Egyptian cultures are known to have used chemical pest controls. But it was only with the industrialization and mechanization of agriculture in the 18th and 19th century, and the introduction of the insecticides pyrethrum and derris that chemical pest control became widespread. In the 20th century, the discovery of several synthetic insecticides, such as DDT, and herbicides boosted this development. Chemical pest control is still the predominant type of pest control today, although its long-term effects led to a renewed interest in traditional and biological pest control towards the end of the 20th century.

Types of pest control

Organic pest and insect control

While chemical pesticides may kill insects effectively, some may also be toxic to human beings and lead to severe environmental degradation if their use is not properly managed. By comparison, natural pesticides, which are usually eco-friendly, are more conducive to environmental sustainability and more beneficial to public wellness. Many species have anti-insect properties but are non-toxic to humans, including Arisaema jacquemontii, which has been demonstrated to have an anti-cancer potency.

Elimination of breeding grounds

Proper waste management and drainage of still water, eliminates the breeding ground of many pest.

Garbage provides food and shelter for many unwanted organisms, as well as an area where still water might collect and be used as a breeding ground by mosquitoes. Communities that have proper garbage collection and disposal, have far less of a problem with rats, cockroaches, mosquito, flies, and other pest, than those that do not.

Open-air sewers are ample breeding ground for various pests as well. By building and maintaining a proper sewer system, this problem is eliminated.

Poisoned bait

Poisoned bait is a common method for controlling rat populations, however is not as effective when there are other food sources around, such as garbage. Poisoned meats have been used for centuries for killing off wolves, birds that were seen to threaten crops, and against other creatures.

Field burning

Traditionally, after a sugar cane harvest, the fields are all burned, to kill off any insects, or eggs, that might be in the fields.

Hunting

Historically, in some European countries, when stray dogs and cats became too numerous, local populations gathered together to round up all animals that did not appear to have an owner and kill them. In some nations, teams of rat catchers work at chasing rats from the field, and killing them with dogs and simple hand tools. Some communities in the past have employed a bounty system, where a town clerk will pay a set fee for every rat head brought in as proof of a rat killing.

Traps

Traps have been used for killing off mice found in houses, for killing wolves, and for capturing raccoons and stray cats and dogs for disposal by town officials.

Poison spray

Spraying poisons by planes, hand held units, or trucks that carry the spraying equipment, is a common method of pest control. Throughout the United States of America, towns often drive a town owned truck around once or twice a week to each street, spraying for mosquitoes. Crop dusters commonly fly over farmland and spray poison to kill off pest that would threaten the crops. Many find spraying poison around their yard, homes, or businesses, far more desirable than allowing insects to thrive there.

Destruction of infected plants

Forest services sometimes destroy all the trees in an area where some are infected with insects, if seen as necessary to prevent the insect species from spreading. Farms infested with certain insects, have been burned entirely, to prevent the pest from spreading elsewhere.

In conclusion, there are many ways to get rid of the vermin that plague our homes. However, the best way for the modern citizen to go about this would be to go to Repairfinders.com. On repairfinders.com, you will find many extermination companies in your area that will make sure that your home or business is pest free. All it takes is a couple minutes of your time to browse through all the businesses listed in your area. So if you are having a problem, hop on and get it solved. Jack is over and out.

As some of you are already aware. l am a member of the human-canary clan who suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, a condition which can limit a person's life-style in many ways. I moved to the coast to escape the everyday chemicals I came in contact with while working in Seattle. By the time I left Seattle, I was having to wear a respirator while driving in rush hour traffic.

Since moving to the coast seven years ago, I have usually been able to avoid contact with chemicals. Being deprived of my safe, chemical-free cabin, my respite from a world rife with toxins, has caused me great distress and a sense of displacement.

Just after the spraying commenced, I shut my cat inside, checked on my 87 year mother who didn't want to leave her cabin and headed out to wait out the spraying with some friends in Neahkahnie

Two hours after the spraying had begun , I tried twice to reach my mother, who did not answer the phone. I decided to drive back to check on her. It turned out to be a phone cord that wasn't working. I fixed it.

Relieved, I removed the tarps from our small gardens so the plants wouldn't be damaged by the heat of the sun. Because I couldn't smell any obvious chemical odors, and the G.D. people had told us they would be spraying only about an hour, I estimated that approximately 2 hours had elapsed since they had finished, I went to my cabin and started writing on my computer.

Within about an hour I began to feel the familiar symptoms of a chemical exposure coming on: weird muzzy feeling in the back of my head and neck, losing the ability to concentrate and other warning signs of impending collapse. I had difficulty thinking clearly but I realized I shouldn't drive so I started staggering down the hill to the clinic. I made it to the front counter and tried, through my slurred speech, to ask for a doctor and then I collapsed onto the floor.

Soon after I hit the floor, I started having full-body seizures. Dr Rinehart came out and began to ask me some questions and noted that he had other patients with chemical sensitivity. The staff took me into another room and I continued to experience symptoms of neurological impairment: inability to talk or think clearly; all my limbs were limp and unresponsive; unable to hold up my head; a continuation of mild to severe seizures; eyelids couldn't open.

Staff people had trouble reaching my daughters. I had more seizures and trembling while waiting for my daughters to arrive.

After they arrived and we headed down Hospital Road then onto 101, leaving Wheeler behind, with the windows wide open, I slowly began to recover my motor abilities and be able to talk and regain muscular function. Eventually, I recovered most of my
cognitive abilities. I spent the next two days away from Wheeler.

Since I returned to Wheeler Thursday, I've been experiencing a scratchy burning sensation in my throat and an ongoing lethargy. Today, I'm feeling very tired and not quite fully awake. I'm having trouble sleeping through the night.

Now, more than ever, I am committed to creating legislation that will provide sensible restrictions regarding the use of toxic chemicals applied adjacent to residential neighborhoods and their watersheds. As part of the this effort it is in our best interests to document ANY physical reactions anyone has had to the spraying. Some of the complaints we have heard so far, include an asthma attack, hives, eczema, extreme exhaustion, heart arrhythmia, anxiety/panic, and post traumatic stress. If you have had unusual symptoms following this spraying, please journal them in detail.

In addition, detailed observations of the actual spraying and time periods of spraying and where, would be particularly helpful. I was under the impression that all of the spraying would be done in approximately one hour. It started directly behind us at about 8am but I have heard a report from someone else that they were still spraying after noon, which means I had returned home during active spraying. Be sure to observe vegetation in your yard and neighborhood as well as the behavior of pets and wildlife near you.

Herbicide protestors demonstrate in the shared parking lot of Wheeler’s Rinehart Clinic and Nehalem Valley Care Center. From left are Angelina Martin, of Wheeler; Judy Stone-Aaen, Wheeler; Mike Ehlen, Neahkahnie; Lee Schore, Wheeler; Tom Bender, Neahkahnie; and Lane deMoll, Neahkahnie. Maia Holliday, of Wheeler, stands behind Ehlen.

Group recoils at forest spraying
Timber company says herbicide is legal, protects seedling trees

LeeAnn Neal
Headlight-Herald Staff

WHEELER - Sobbing, Maia Holliday took leave of the cabin she calls home.

"It's horrible," she said, of the helicopter herbicide application being conducted that morning, a mere few hundred feet from the hill upon which she lives. "You can smell the chemicals. I don't know if I can come back."

Tuesday morning, having tarped her garden and sealed her windows and door, Holliday left Wheeler and the whup-whup sound of helicopter propeller blades, to drive to a friends' house in Neahkahnie to wait out the spraying.

She wasn't alone. "Lord knows I won't be staying in my home tonight," said Angelina Martin on Monday evening upon learning that Green Diamond Resources - the company that owns 7,000 acres of local commercial timberland, a solid block of which abuts the City of Wheeler - planned to spray the following morning. "Neither will my pets."

Holliday, Martin and a few dozen other Nehalem Bay area residents are aghast that Green Diamond is legally permitted to employ a helicopter to spray herbicide on a clear-cut so close to a residential zone. Their fears include the health risks associated with inhalation of poison as well as the effects it could have on the environment.

"The herbicide could make its way down the creek into the bay," said Holliday. "Some of these chemicals are known to be lethal to amphibians and salmonids."

A coalition - which includes Wheeler residents, as well as those who live in Nehalem, Manzanita and outlying areas - is aiming to change the law. "We have the right to protect ourselves, our homes and our children," said Judy Stone-Aaen, of Wheeler. "We need to pass local, state and federal laws that stop this wholesale rape of our land, animals and rights."

Several years ago, the last time Green Diamond (formerly Simpson Timber Co.) sprayed, "My asthma was the worst it had been in 20 years," Stone-Aaen continued. "My immune system is also taking a hit, some type of mysterious rash which has been diagnosed as 'environmental.' I'll bet there are lots more of us with similar problems."

Staff, volunteers and residents of Nehalem Valley Care Center are equally apprehensive. More than 40 of them signed a petition asking Green Diamond to forego spraying.

"We have 50 beds for our skilled care center residents and about 50 employees as well," said Katherine Mace, NVCC activity director. "The care center is directly below one of the clear-cuts that is scheduled to be sprayed by controversial chemicals that have a potential of causing health problems in humans and wildlife. As an employee of the care center and resident of Wheeler, I'm very worried about chemical drift exposure, especially if they spray with helicopters or if it is foggy when they spray from the ground."

In an effort to stop future spraying so close to a city, the coalition is drafting what it hopes are the seeds of a bill limiting clear-cutting and chemical spraying near residential areas, to be presented to the Oregon Legislature. They plan to present their proposal to the joint legislative Environment and Natural Resources Committee during its Sept. 12 meeting in Newport.

In the mean time, though, the spraying is perfectly legal, and Green Diamond will do what it can to manage its resources, according to Patti Case, company spokeswoman.

During the past year, Green Diamond harvested 220 acres of trees behind Wheeler to salvage timber downed during the December 2007 windstorms. Winds toppled some trees and left others scarred or leaning on one another, said Case.

The company plans to replant the clear-cut by January but wants to ensure that seedlings will not be choked out by underbrush, including elderberry, which can "overtop the trees," said Case. "Trees grow slower than brush species. If you don't do something about that, the trees will never grow."

That's where herbicide comes in, said Case. "We do that so the little trees get a chance to grow."

Green Diamond contracted with Western Helicopter, of Newberg, to apply Transline on elderberry, and Accord, Oust and Escort on Himalayan blackberry and salmonberry. The latter "will rob sunlight, water and nutrients from the trees," said Case.

The herbicidal chemicals are "specifically approved for use by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Oregon Department of Agriculture," said Case. "There's a lot of hyperbole on the Web regarding pesticides and herbicides."

As for fears about helicopter application versus the more controlled hand-spraying, Case said, "The helicopter directs the chemical very specifically to the area using GPS (global positioning system)."

In addition to the helicopter, Green Diamond dispatched people to hand-spray near streams "so we can get conifer growing there," said Case.

Green Diamond had planned to spray on Aug. 22 but agreed to delay the action at the request of state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose).

That day, at Holliday's urging, Johnson led a meeting of concerned residents, Green Diamond representatives, the Wheeler City Council, Tillamook County Commissioner Mark Labhart and Oregon Department of Forestry and Oregon Department of Agriculture officials.

"Communities are important to us," said Mitch Parker, Greed Diamond logging contract supervisor. "Community is one of our core values. I think if you look at our record, it will show that."

However, regarding spraying, Parker said, "We're professionals; we know what we're doing. ... In the past, we've gone in there with the same operator and the same techniques."

At the close of the meeting, Johnson laid out the community's options.

"I can tell by some of your reactions you're disappointed with the outcome of this meeting," she said. "Green Diamond is operating within the law. If you want to change the law, I'm the person you need to talk to. I'm the vehicle by which you can introduce this to the Legislature."

Monday afternoon, Green Diamond informed the city that it was planning to spray around 7:30 a.m. the following morning. The city in turn spread the word through printed notices.

Holliday coordinated a last-minute demonstration wherein about one dozen local residents carried signs, flags and drums from the Rinehart Clinic and Nehalem Valley Care Center, to City Hall and eventually to the Wheeler waterfront.

"We are an informed populace that is awake, aware and vigilant in protecting ourselves and our environment from dubious forests practices like massive clear-cutting and herbicide spraying," said Holliday.

Article from the Tillamook Headlight Herald newspaper >> ]]> http://coastalconcern.wordpress.com/?p=11 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:04:27 +0000 lunadauhnn http://coastalconcern.fr.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/an-ode-to-herbicide/ by Maia Holliday

On those that run,

On those that crawl,

On those that fly,

On creatures all.

Every leaf

And every fern,

Every bush;

All will burn.

On butterflies,

And bumbly bees,

On wild flowers

And little trees.

On tiny mice

And tiny voles

Right down into

Their hidey-holes.

.

Brown deer browsing

Will have to eat

Plants coated with

A chemical treat.

While shiny trout dream

Their shiny dreams

Rains wash it into

Their shiny streams.

Down the creeks

To the river it flows

Into the bay

And the ocean it goes

Into our gardens,

Onto our pets,

All over our village,

While everyone frets..

Please sirs, no spraying!

We've all had enough

Of this perilous, dangerous,

Poisonous stuff!

Cancel your ‘copter

And let us all be!

We prefer our environment

To be chemical-free!

Ann Mowing, on her Favorite Blue Tractor

Last week my dad and I drove around the farm, as we do many evenings. He was looking to see if he needed to spray for weeds. Spraying is done with a small airplane and, though they try to spray on still days, there is always the possibility of it drifting. I've seen trees turn brown following an aerial application. I cringe every time Dad even mentions spraying. My sister and I are looking for other solutions to the weed problem.

There are weeds in the pasture and the dried bed of a flood control lake - lots of them: sump weed and cockleburs. I asked Dad if we could mow the the weeds. He agreed. So, Pat and I spent this morning mowing.

Mowing is an enjoyable experience. We are in nature doing something to help the farm. There are lots of field rats scurring around to find a safe place to hide in the grass. The barnswallows are circling around overhead snagging the bugs that fly up ahead of the tractor. The Oklahoma breeze keeps you cool even on hot days. It's a simple task and a small part of farming. But it is a way to connect with Earth and do our part. Maybe one day soon this farm will be pestide free. That is our hope.

Sign up with positive intentions and related issues for this topic at www.worldpeacehologram.org

Please share research, comments and insights before and after this session to support creating greater support for all of us on the planet.

Thank you!

photo credit

What’s playing this week:

1. China wants a Hummer - "Cheap gas prices in China bolster SUV sales. Find out how walk-able your neighborhood is. People Cube helps offices become sustainable."

2. Eco pirates: Swiss Enviro summer Camp - "This summer, Switzerland's biggest ever youth environmental protection camp was held outside Bern. The week - organised by the conservation organisation pro natura – offered children from all over the country various ecological activities, boat tours and treasure hunts"

3. TPMtv: A Chat with Van Jones - "The closing keynote speaker of the Netroots Nation convention in Austin last month was environmental and social justice activist Van Jones. Following his Sunday morning speech TPMtv caught up with Mr. Jones and asked him about the perception of the environmental movement in the black community and how to alter that perception for the better in creating a full-blown eco-populism movement."

4. TERRA 440: Gimme Green Part Two - " From the limitless subdivisions of Florida to sod farms in the arid southwest, Gimme Green peers behind the curtain of the $40-billion industry that fuels our nation's largest irrigated crop: the lawn."

5. TERRA 440: Gimme Green Part One - "A humorous look at the American obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets and our outlook on life."

Check out all of seattleDIRT’s DIRTy Movies here.

Can you believe it’s already July?  The favorite daughter’s corn (all 24 stalks—remember it’s her first garden adventure) are way taller than knee high.  Her two tomato plants are huge; the pumpkin plants absolutely covered with blossoms.  The kids are so anxious to see the fruits of Mom’s labors. What fun this is!

                So how is your vegetable garden fairing?

§  You may be surprised to know that you will want to water soon, if you haven’t started already.  Gardens - vegetable and flower -need about one inch of water per week.  Remember it’s best to water thoroughly early in the day. 

§  Fertilize leafy vegetables and sweet corn when the plants are about half their mature size. Peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans should be fertilized when they have started producing fruit. Spread about two cups of a low-nitrogen fertilizer about six inches from the plant for every 100 feet of row.  Never put fertilizer directly on the fruit.

§  Continue to monitor for pests, add additional mulch if needed and remove weeds to prevent competition for water and fertilizer.

§  If you feel you must use a weed killer be careful to not get any on your ground cover.  Herbicides will kill any plant they touch.  A helpful hint is to cut the top and bottom from a milk jug, cover the weeds with the milk jug and spray the weeds inside the container.  Once the herbicide is dry, move the jug on to the next group of weeds.

§  Does your garden have a hot spot—lots of sun and dry?  There is still time to fill in. Plant some annuals.  Zinnias, Sunflowers, Dusty Miller and Cleome are both heat and drought resistant.  Deadheading (removing dead flower heads) will increase flower production.

Do enjoy your garden where the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor will be a tasty and safe special treat for the entire family. 

Another reminder – if you would like to become a Linn County Master Gardener  contact the Extension Office at (319) 377-9839 for information regarding the program.

This report provides the best practice advice for potato outgrade control, which can act as a reservoir for blight infection.

The report focused on minimizing the impact of potato outgrades. This included easy access to outgrade piles away from potato crops and farm buildings, site piles on land not intended for any crop or any potato crop in the future, not to risk polluting watercourses, locate piles away from ditches and rivers or groundwater etc.

Control measures emphasised on adopting a zero tolerance approach to green foliage on outgrade piles by tackling it early; relying on a late application of glyphosate or diquat + paraquat is a high risk strategy as blight may already have spread by this point. The report also provides a strategy for the prevention of green foliage and highlight regulations for agricultural waste management in the UK.

Growers’ advice to reduce the impact of blight through cultural methods and the use of herbicides to control volunteer potatoes.

Volunteer potatoes act as a primary infection source by over-wintering infected tubers, and provide unprotected foliage that can act as an entry point throughout the season for blight. They can also act as a reservoir or a host for other problems such as spraing, potato cyst nematodes (PCN), black scurf, black dot, powdery scab etc. Volunteers are also a host for aphids and aphid transmitted potato viruses. The report provides facts backed by evidence from trials about the problem and describes cultural and chemical methods of control as no single herbicide treatment is entirely effective.

An integrated control strategy was suggested emphasising on optimising tuber size distribution, applying maleic hydrazide, setting the harvester to lift smaller tubers where possible, keeping returned tubers near the soil surface, following with a competitive crop, hitting volunteers whenever possible, using selective herbicides in the following crops, using pre-harvest glyphosate, cleaning up stubbles with glyphosate and watching out for volunteers in shaded crops like winter oilseed rape and maize.

To many, if not most, scientists, the principle is irrational and unscientific: you can never prove something is safe with 100 percent certainty, and you need to balance the risks of banning something against the risks of not banning something. There are always two sides to this equation, and what seems, intuitively, to make sense may result in consequences far worse than the problem you were aiming to address.

This could well be the result if the European Union decides to push ahead this year with introducing the precautionary principle into regulating pesticides, switching the way they are regulated from risk to hazard assessment. This means that instead of having to demonstrate that the pesticide in question poses a high probability of being actually toxic as it is used, it simply needs to be demonstrated in a lab as having the inherent potential for toxicity. The problem is that both these concepts are interrelated: just when does the inherent potential for toxicity turn into a measurable probability for an adverse effect? Everything is poisonous if you consume enough of it - but that doesn't mean everything is poisonous in the way that we use or consume it. Naturally-occurring pesticides in plants can be every bit as toxic as synthetic pesticides, but that doesn't mean we are being poisoned by the presence of either.

But there is a more immediate problem: the United Kingdom is refusing to endorse the legislation because the EU hasn't conducted an impact assessment of the regulation on food production. As the U.K.'s regulatory body for pesticides, the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) notes,

"Without such an assessment, the EU risks taking measures which would have significant adverse impacts on crop protection but secure no significant health benefits for consumers."

The United Kingdom's objection is not merely theoretical. The PSD's conducted an impact assessment of what the new regulations could mean for British agriculture and its analysis is alarming: 15 percent of current pesticides could be banned resulting in 20 to 30 percent yield losses for cereal crops. The PSD warns that:

"If the full potential impact of the current Parliament proposals were realised, conventional commercial agriculture in the UK (and much of the EC) as it is currently practised would not be achievable, with major impacts on crop yield and food quality."

One of the key scientific problems the PSD has with the European Union legislation is that it stresses the need to protect people from endocrine disruption without offering "study guidelines" or "assessment criteria" for determining what chemicals, realistically, are likely to cause disruption. The absence of scientific clarity here could mean that triazole compounds , the leading fungacide for treating the major disease in wheat, could be banned, with a potential for 20-30 percent loss in crop yields. The PSD identifies numerous other front-line fungacides, herbicides and insecticides which might be banned and for which there appears to be few if any alternatives presently available.

The other problem identified by the PSD's impact assessment is that if the European Union dramatically reduces the range of chemicals currently available to farmers, it could undermine resistance management and pest management. If farmers have a smaller arsenal of weapons against crop diseases and pests, these weapons will have to be used in ever greater quantities, and that will speed up resistance in both. The effects could be devastating beyond Europe, says the PSD:

"The scale and magnitude of the potential losses, particularly from the [European] Parliament’s proposals, would undermine both resistance management and IPM [Integrated Pest Management]. The former could also have implications for pest management on a global scale if resistance strains selected as a result of intensive use of surviving active substances spread from Europe, either directly or via the transport of plant material or food produce."

In other words, in order to protect the public from what might be purely hypothetical risks, the EU could not only cripple European agricultural output but endanger the world's food supply at the same time.

If that sounds overblown,  it is entirely in keeping with the logic of EU regulation - using the precautionary principle to evaluate the use of the precautionary principle. After all, the most important thing to remember about precautionary thinking is that it is inherently hazardous.

	மூழ்கிய கப்பலின் அருகே மீட்புப் பணியாளர்கள்

பிலிப்பைன்ஸில் அண்மையில் மூழ்கிய ஒரு படகிலிருந்து நூற்றுக்கணக்கான சடலங்களை மீட்கும் பணியைச் செய்யத் தடையாக அப்படகிலிருந்த விஷ இரசாயனத்தை அகற்றுவதற்கு தற்போது ஒரு சிறப்பு நிபுணர் அணி முயற்சித்துவருகிறது.

கடந்த சனிக்கிழமை சூறாவளியில் சிக்கி மூழ்கிய அப்படகின் அடித்தளத்தில் இருந்து பத்து டன்கள் அளவிலான பூச்சிக்கொல்லி மருந்தை பாதுகாப்பாக வெளிக்கொணர இந்த நிபுணர் அணி முயலும்.

இந்தப் படகு மூழ்கிய சமயத்தில் அதில் எண்ணூற்றுக்கும் அதிகமானவர்கள் இருந்தனர்; ஆனால் 60 பேருக்கும் குறைவானவர்களே உயிர்பிழைத்ததாகத் தெரியவருகிறது.

நேற்று வெள்ளிக்கிழமைதான் படகில் இரசாயனம் இருப்பது தெரியவந்து சடலங்களை மீட்கும் பணி நிறுத்தப்பட்டிருந்தது.

   Experts say 60% to 70% of processed foods on U.S. grocery shelves have genetically modified ingredients. The most common genetically modified foods are soybeans, maize, cotton, and rapeseed oil. That means many breakfast cereals, snack foods, and foods made with cottonseed and canola oils could likely have genetically modified ingredients. These ingredients appear frequently in animal feed as well.

What is more shocking is that a new USDA-funded survey shows that researchers from the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers’ Cook College found that only 52% of Americans realized that genetically modified foods are sold in grocery stores and only 26% believed that they have ever eaten genetically modified foods.

What is genetically modified (GM) food?

Genetically modified food uses modern biotechnology or ‘gene technology’, which is also called as Genetic engineering, which allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one plant species to other and then used to grow GM plants and food crops.

Genes from animals and other plants are literally shot into the cells of plants to create “super crops” that are larger, more resistant to bugs, and have longer shelf lives. One example may be to take genes from a fruit fly and inject them into a tomato, attempting to make the tomatoes repel the flies. And guess what, now we’re eating the genes of that fruit fly. And you didn’t even know it…

Why are GM crops grown?

The fundamental aim of GM foods to increase crop production and conquer world hunger. GM foods are developed and marketed with a belief that these foods are cheaper to grow, have better nutritional value, are more insect resistant and more resistant to plant diseases caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses. There is a belief that GM foods will result in lesser quantities of herbicides used.

Insect resistance is overcome by incorporating the gene for toxin production from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) into the food plant. This toxin is currently used as an insecticide in agriculture and is safe for human consumption. GM crops that permanently produce this toxin have been shown to require lower quantities of insecticides in specific situations, e.g. where pest pressure is high.

Virus resistance is achieved through the introduction of a gene from certain viruses, which cause disease in plants. Virus resistance makes plants less susceptible to diseases caused by such viruses.

Why are GM foods potentially dangerous?

 Health experts, Green peace and several consumer health activists are worried that GM foods will have:

• Direct health effects on the body
• Tendencies to provoke allergic reaction
• Specific components may have toxic properties
• The stability of the inserted gene is questionable
• Nutritional effects associated with genetic modification are not known
• If it will cause any unintended effects which could result from the gene insertion
• It may create Antibiotic resistance
• A Bit Different to the way Nature Works
• It may lead to the “creation of “super” weeds and other environmental risks.
• Long Term Effects of GM foods are Unknown
• GM foods have not been adequately tested

GM foods can potentially threaten our very existence as a race. We have all got to get together to force our respective governments to take a more holistic approach to this problem and look at it from the safety, food security, social and ethical aspects. A coordinated international initiative should be evolved so that GM foods are more systematically re-evaluated for potential human hazard.

 I would like your response on this article.

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Unfortunately, I don't have influence on their weekend diet but my daughter is buying organic foods and we belong to an organic CSA which supply the family with vegetables and fruits.  The boys are thriving on these foods and I have seen the same remarkable changes in my health when I stay away from chemical laden foods.

Please read the article below and get the word out.  If you want to experiment on your own children or grandchildren - I invite you to do so with an open mind and notebook.  Let me know if you see the same positive results when your kids eat organic and live in a non-toxic environment.

ON ALERT Robyn O’Brien, at home with her children in Colorado, advises parents to throw out nonorganic processed foods.

ROBYN O’BRIEN likes to joke that at least she hasn’t started checking the rearview mirror to see if she’s being followed.

But some days, her imagination gets away from her and she wonders if it’s only a matter of time before Big Food tries to stop her from exposing what she sees as a profit-driven global conspiracy whose collateral damage is an alarming increase in childhood food allergies.

Ms. O’Brien has presented her views, albeit in a less radical wrapper, on CNN, CBS and in frequent print interviews. Frontier Airlines and Wild Oats stores distribute the allergy-awareness gear she designed.

Her story is one of several in a new book, “Healthy Child, Healthy World” (Dutton, March 2008), whose contributors include doctors, parents and celebrities like Meryl Streep.

Sitting at the table in her suburban kitchen, with her four young children tumbling in and out, Ms. O’Brien, 36, seems an unlikely candidate to be food’s Erin Brockovich (who, by the way, has taken Ms. O’Brien under her wing).

She grew up in a staunchly Republican family in Houston where lunch at the country club frequented by George and Barbara Bush followed Sunday church services. She was an honors student, earned a master’s degree in business and, like her husband, Jeff, made a living as a financial analyst.

Ms. O’Brien was also the kind of mom who rolled her eyes when the kid with a peanut allergy showed up at the birthday party. Then, about two years ago, she fed her youngest child scrambled eggs. The baby’s face quickly swelled into a grotesque mask. “What did you spray on her?” she screamed at her other children. Little Tory had a severe food allergy, and Ms. O’Brien’s journey had begun.

By late that night, she had designed a universal symbol to identify children with food allergies. She now puts the icon, a green stop sign with an exclamation point, on lunch bags, stickers and even the little charms children use to dress up their Crocs. These products and others are sold on her Web site, AllergyKids.com, which she unveiled, strategically, on Mother’s Day in 2006.

The $30,000 Ms. O’Brien made from the products last year is incidental, she said. Working largely from a laptop on her dining room table, she has looked deep into the perplexing world of childhood food allergies and seen a conspiracy that threatens the health of America’s children. And, she profoundly believes, it is up to her and parents everywhere to stop it.

Her theory — that the food supply is being manipulated with additives, genetic modification, hormones and herbicides, causing increases in allergies, autism and other disorders in children — is not supported by leading researchers or the largest allergy advocacy groups.

That only feeds Ms. O’Brien’s conviction that the influence of what she sees as the profit-hungry food industry runs deep. In just a few dizzying steps, she can take you from a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese to Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds to Donald H. Rumsfeld, who once ran the company that created the sweetener aspartame.

Through creative use of e-mail, relentless inquiry and a persona carefully crafted around the protective mother archetype, Ms. O’Brien has emerged as a populist hero among parents who troll the Internet for any hint about why their children have food allergies.

“You have changed my life ... my diet ... my health ... my spirit ... and I thank YOU,” a father who had lost his teenage daughter to anaphylactic shock told her by e-mail.

Ms. O’Brien encourages people to do what she did: throw out as much nonorganic processed food as you can afford to. Avoid anything genetically modified, artificially created or raised with hormones. Don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t pronounce.

Once she cleaned out her cupboards, she said, her four children started behaving better. Their health problems, which her doctor attributed to allergies to milk and other foods, cleared up.

“It was absolutely terrifying to unearth this story,” she said over lunch at a restaurant in Boulder, Colo. “These big food companies have an intimate relationship with every household in America, and they are making our children sick. I was rocked. You don’t want to hear that this has actually happened.”

But has it?

Record numbers of parents are heading to doctors concerned that their children are allergic to a long list of foods. States are passing laws requiring schools to have policies protecting children with food allergies. But no one knows why the number of allergies seems to be on the rise, or even if they are rising as fast as some believe.

Ms. O’Brien and leading allergy researchers agree that few reliable studies on food allergies exist. The best estimates suggest that 4 to 8 percent of young children suffer from them, though the reactions tend to grow less serious and less frequent as children grow older.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the number of deaths linked to food allergies at 12 in 2004, the most recent year for which data are available. However, its statisticians point out that such figures are drawn only from doctors’ notations on death certificates.

“It’s a soft number, and it might well be an understatement,” said Arialdi Miniño, a statistician at the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Dr. Elizabeth Gleghorn is the director of pediatric gastroenterology at the Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Calif. She has been in practice for 20 years, and has noticed a recent increase in eczema, which can indicate food allergies. But she doesn’t think food allergies are increasing dramatically.

Often, a child might have intolerance to a food and not a true allergy. But the Internet has afforded more ways for parents to inform themselves and do their own diagnosing, which could add to the popular impression that food allergies are rising at alarming rates, Dr. Gleghorn said.

Many health professionals, though, agree that something is changing. Among the amalgam of theories that weigh the effects of genetics and environment, the hygiene hypothesis intrigues many researchers. It holds that children are being exposed to fewer micro-organisms and, as a result, have weaker immune systems.

“But this alone cannot account for the massive relative increase in food allergy compared with other allergic disease such as asthma,” said Dr. Marc E. Rothenberg, the director of allergy and immunology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the second-largest pediatric research facility in the country.

ROBYN O’BRIEN likes to joke that at least she hasn’t started checking the rearview mirror to see if she’s being followed.

But some days, her imagination gets away from her and she wonders if it’s only a matter of time before Big Food tries to stop her from exposing what she sees as a profit-driven global conspiracy whose collateral damage is an alarming increase in childhood food allergies.

Ms. O’Brien has presented her views, albeit in a less radical wrapper, on CNN, CBS and in frequent print interviews. Frontier Airlines and Wild Oats stores distribute the allergy-awareness gear she designed.

Her story is one of several in a new book, “Healthy Child, Healthy World” (Dutton, March 2008), whose contributors include doctors, parents and celebrities like Meryl Streep.

Sitting at the table in her suburban kitchen, with her four young children tumbling in and out, Ms. O’Brien, 36, seems an unlikely candidate to be food’s Erin Brockovich (who, by the way, has taken Ms. O’Brien under her wing).

She grew up in a staunchly Republican family in Houston where lunch at the country club frequented by George and Barbara Bush followed Sunday church services. She was an honors student, earned a master’s degree in business and, like her husband, Jeff, made a living as a financial analyst.

Ms. O’Brien was also the kind of mom who rolled her eyes when the kid with a peanut allergy showed up at the birthday party. Then, about two years ago, she fed her youngest child scrambled eggs. The baby’s face quickly swelled into a grotesque mask. “What did you spray on her?” she screamed at her other children. Little Tory had a severe food allergy, and Ms. O’Brien’s journey had begun.

By late that night, she had designed a universal symbol to identify children with food allergies. She now puts the icon, a green stop sign with an exclamation point, on lunch bags, stickers and even the little charms children use to dress up their Crocs. These products and others are sold on her Web site, AllergyKids.com, which she unveiled, strategically, on Mother’s Day in 2006.

The $30,000 Ms. O’Brien made from the products last year is incidental, she said. Working largely from a laptop on her dining room table, she has looked deep into the perplexing world of childhood food allergies and seen a conspiracy that threatens the health of America’s children. And, she profoundly believes, it is up to her and parents everywhere to stop it.

Her theory — that the food supply is being manipulated with additives, genetic modification, hormones and herbicides, causing increases in allergies, autism and other disorders in children — is not supported by leading researchers or the largest allergy advocacy groups.

That only feeds Ms. O’Brien’s conviction that the influence of what she sees as the profit-hungry food industry runs deep. In just a few dizzying steps, she can take you from a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese to Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds to Donald H. Rumsfeld, who once ran the company that created the sweetener aspartame.

Through creative use of e-mail, relentless inquiry and a persona carefully crafted around the protective mother archetype, Ms. O’Brien has emerged as a populist hero among parents who troll the Internet for any hint about why their children have food allergies.

“You have changed my life ... my diet ... my health ... my spirit ... and I thank YOU,” a father who had lost his teenage daughter to anaphylactic shock told her by e-mail.

Ms. O’Brien encourages people to do what she did: throw out as much nonorganic processed food as you can afford to. Avoid anything genetically modified, artificially created or raised with hormones. Don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t pronounce.

Once she cleaned out her cupboards, she said, her four children started behaving better. Their health problems, which her doctor attributed to allergies to milk and other foods, cleared up.

“It was absolutely terrifying to unearth this story,” she said over lunch at a restaurant in Boulder, Colo. “These big food companies have an intimate relationship with every household in America, and they are making our children sick. I was rocked. You don’t want to hear that this has actually happened.”

But has it?

Record numbers of parents are heading to doctors concerned that their children are allergic to a long list of foods. States are passing laws requiring schools to have policies protecting children with food allergies. But no one knows why the number of allergies seems to be on the rise, or even if they are rising as fast as some believe.

Ms. O’Brien and leading allergy researchers agree that few reliable studies on food allergies exist. The best estimates suggest that 4 to 8 percent of young children suffer from them, though the reactions tend to grow less serious and less frequent as children grow older.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the number of deaths linked to food allergies at 12 in 2004, the most recent year for which data are available. However, its statisticians point out that such figures are drawn only from doctors’ notations on death certificates.

“It’s a soft number, and it might well be an understatement,” said Arialdi Miniño, a statistician at the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Dr. Elizabeth Gleghorn is the director of pediatric gastroenterology at the Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Calif. She has been in practice for 20 years, and has noticed a recent increase in eczema, which can indicate food allergies. But she doesn’t think food allergies are increasing dramatically.

Often, a child might have intolerance to a food and not a true allergy. But the Internet has afforded more ways for parents to inform themselves and do their own diagnosing, which could add to the popular impression that food allergies are rising at alarming rates, Dr. Gleghorn said.

Many health professionals, though, agree that something is changing. Among the amalgam of theories that weigh the effects of genetics and environment, the hygiene hypothesis intrigues many researchers. It holds that children are being exposed to fewer micro-organisms and, as a result, have weaker immune systems.

“But this alone cannot account for the massive relative increase in food allergy compared with other allergic disease such as asthma,” said Dr. Marc E. Rothenberg, the director of allergy and immunology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the second-largest pediatric research facility in the country.

Could it be that a toxic food environment has made children’s immune systems go haywire? It’s hard to find an expert in the field who supports Ms. O’Brien’s theory. “I don’t think it can be proven, so I can’t say scientifically one way or the other,” Dr. Gleghorn said.

Mix the lack of hard data with an increasingly complex food landscape, and you’ve got Robyn O’Brien.

“Food allergies just become a focus for a broader fear about the food system,” said the author Michael Pollan, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine.

Mr. Pollan, in both “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and his new book, “In Defense of Food” (January, Penguin), shares many of Ms. O’Brien’s views about industrialized agriculture. He also has a niece with a peanut allergy. So Ms. O’Brien sent him an e-mail message, and a correspondence began.

Ms. O’Brien took his responses as an endorsement of her work, and then mentioned his support in messages to other people. Mr. Pollan, who said he has no idea if her theories are accurate, asked her to stop telling people he was working with her.

Leveraging brief e-mail exchanges with notable people is an important method that Ms. O’Brien uses to build her universe. The unlikely mix includes members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s staff; Mary Alice Stephenson, a host of “America’s Most Smartest Model”; and, recently, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a regular on Oprah Winfrey’s show.

“The fact that people like him and Malcolm Gladwell, presidential campaigns, celebs take the time to reply means a lot as it gives me hope that people are still engaged,” she said in an e-mail message to this reporter.

While some of her contacts, like Mr. Gladwell, an author and a writer for The New Yorker, don’t remember her, the strategy has worked. Nell Newman, who runs the organic arm of Newman’s Own products, spoke up on her behalf on the national news. Deborah Koons Garcia, the widow of Jerry Garcia and director of the documentary “The Future of Food,” invited her to lunch.

But her biggest asset might be a relentless drive to wind together obscure health theories, blog postings and corporate financial statements. She then posts her analyses on her Web site.

She chides top allergy doctors who are connected to Monsanto, the producer of herbicides and genetically modified seeds. She asserts that the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, the nation’s leading food allergy advocacy group, is tainted by the money it receives from food manufacturers and peanut growers.

Anne Muñoz-Furlong founded the network in 1991 after her daughter was found to have milk and egg allergies. She said the group now has 30,000 members and a $5.6 million budget.

Although Kraft did help the organization start its Web site and other food manufacturing companies and trade groups sponsor some of its programs, that support has amounted to about $100,000. Mrs. Muñoz-Furlong said that she and doctors on her medical board do not believe that genetically modified foods cause food allergies because most children with allergies react to specific foods, like eggs or milk.

And, she said, communicating regularly with industry can help get the word to parents about potential allergens in products, and supporting research to identify causes of allergies helps consumers more than companies.

She also cautioned against taking the advice of people who have no medical training or run Web sites not certified to have reliable medical information. “She’s a dot-com,” Mrs. Muñoz-Furlong said of Ms. O’Brien. “It’s completely different than a dot-org. From the very beginning our intent was education.”

(Ms. O’Brien did recently start a nonprofit foundation to support research that is not tied to the food industry.)

On the days when Ms. O’Brien grows discouraged at being David against the Goliath of Big Food, she turns to the people who believe her.

Erin Brockovich, whose brother died of a food allergy years ago, was a legal file clerk who helped land a record judgment against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for contaminating drinking water. She is an environmental consultant who is popular on the inspirational lecture circuit.

Ms. Brockovich said her new friend does a great job of arming everyday people with facts, so they can take a stand.

“You don’t have to be a doctor or a scientist to look into whether our food supply is safe,” she said. “Being obsessed doesn’t mean she’s crazy. Frankly, I think it takes a little bit of being crazy to make a difference in this world.”

Sticker labels on the fruits actually tell you how the fruits have been grown — whether they were organically grown or conventionally grown with pesticides and herbicides; oh, and let’s not forget about the genetically engineered fruits.

Conventional Fruit Labels

Four digits and does not start with 9

** mostly starting with the digit 4

Organic Fruit Labels

Five digits and starts with number 9

Genetically Modified Fruits

Start with the digit 8

** this is good to know because stores aren’t obligated to tell you if a fruit has been genetically modified (grrr….)

Okay, so if you come across an apple in the store and it’s labeled 4922, it’s an conventional apple grown with herbicides and harmful fertilizers. If it has a sticker 99222, it’s organic and safe to eat.

If it says 89222, then RUN!!!! It has been genetically modified (GMO).

So next time you go shopping, remember these critical numbers and know how to avoid purchasing inorganic and GMO fruits.

Shop Safely for your health.         http://stores.ebay.ca/BEAUTYJUST4YOU

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Choosing to eat local organic vegetables is better for my health. I'm not ingesting herbicides and pesticides and the farm which grows it isn't polluting both their land and water by using chemicals. Bonus, the vegetables taste like food, not cardboard. I choose seafood based on country of origin preferring not to eat shrimp polluted with antibiotics and chemicals, raised in their own filth. We eat a lot less shrimp these days as a result. Nowadays we eat more beans, more tofu, some organic chicken and sustainably caught fish.

Choosing products made out of organically grown materials also means you're exposed to fewer chemicals and so is the land it's grown on. If you repeatedly expose yourself to chemicals, your body will eventually react, not in a good way. Over the years I have developed acute sinusitis which means my sinuses will instantly plug up if exposed to chemical smells. A perfume counter can trigger a reaction while a woman wearing perfume will not. It's not predictable and pretty annoying when it happens. Having been tested for allergies, I discovered the only thing I'm allergic to is "Balsam of Peru", a carrying agent for fragrance. Ah fragrance, that wonderful soup of chemicals. But I digress.

I'm a clean freak so I used to get sucked in by new product claims. Now I make my own cleaner. I use 3½ cups water, ½ cup vinegar and 3-4 drops of Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap in a spray bottle to clean just about everything. I don't need to buy a separate window cleaner, disinfectant, and all purpose cleaner nor do I have to worry about what's in the Material Safety Data Sheet for each cleaner. I know what's in my cleaner. More importantly, I know what's not in it.

Combining errands is both a timesaver and an environment saver since you're being economical both with your time and your car. Who doesn't want more time for themselves? Who doesn't want to spend less on gas? Is there anyone who says, please, sir, may I have some more smog? It takes a little more work because you have to be organized. An upcoming trip to Tucson includes a doctor's appointment, getting the car serviced, a visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store to exchange my iPod and picking up wine at Beverages & More which I bought online with a $10 coupon. My husband is good at avoiding those annoying left-hand turns that the Garmin always seem to want us to make - less time idling while waiting for a break in traffic. UPS does it, so can we. Getting rid of errands in the first place helps too: use online banking or shop at a grocery store with a bank inside; buy stamps online (grocery stores frequently sell books of stamps as well); get movies by mail from Netflix or Blockbuster; for dry cleaning, you can 1) use a drop off/pick up at home dry-cleaning service, 2) use a dry cleaning service located with another store, such as a grocery store or 3) don't buy clothing that requires dry-cleaning in the first place, my personal favorite. If it says dry-clean only, back on the rack it goes.

Turn off the T.V. and spend time with your husband, your children, your friends. You'll save electricity and build relationships. I could go on but you get the drift.

De-toxing your life is a start to de-toxing the rest of the world.

Related Posts:

• Arsenic and Chicken
• Life is Like a Box of Produce
• Podrunner Intervals - Hit Your Stride
• Poison Shrimp Cocktail 
• Running Errands, Literally 

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• persistent, toxic herbicides and pesticides, increasingly linked to birth defects, cncer and other health problems

• genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which have not yet been tested for their impact on the environment or human health

• ionizing radiation

• sewage sludge- a source of asbestos, bacteria, fungi, heavy metals and industrial solvents

• antibiotics, which contribute to drug-resistant bacteria, and growth hormones

SOURCE: The National Organic Program, www.ams.usda.gov/nop, 1/07

Nous sommes ce que nous mangeons par Jane Goodall chez Actes Sud (23 euros)