This Earth Day, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your continued support! We are honored by how many of you have joined and supported us in our efforts towards a just and sustainable food supply that supports both healthy people and a healthy planet.

One of the primary reasons CFS challenges agricultural biotechnology and other forms of industrial agriculture is the ties these technologies have to the continued—and often increased—use of toxic pesticides. As people who care about the environment, most of us have read (or have at least heard about) Rachael Carson’s seminal work on the subject, Silent Spring (1962), which alerted the world to the dangers of chemical pesticides.

In honor of Earth Day, CFS invites you to join us in celebrating the life and legacy of Rachel Carson. All this week and the next, A Sense of Wonder, a film about Carson starring Kaiulani Lee, is airing on PBS stations across the country. The documentary-style film takes the form of two interviews with Rachel Carson during the last year of her life, as she battles breast cancer and her critics in the wake of publishing Silent Spring.

As a scientist, a writer, and a woman, Rachel Carson has inspired generations. As an activist she fought governmental negligence and unbridled corporate interest. Through her scientific integrity and elegant prose she became one of the 20th century’s most prescient scientific authors. And as an individual she battled economic adversity, family tragedy and gender stereotyping. She also reminds us that we each have not only the ability to make a creative difference in this world-we also have the responsibility to do so.

That responsibility is one the Center for Food Safety takes very seriously, and we thank you for your support and your dedication to our food, our farms, and our environment. Together, we are creating a new food future!

Filed under: Uncategorized

View full post on The True Food Network

by Umbra Fisk

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

I’ve
been following the discussion of GINKs and birth control on Grist the
last week or so. In your most recent post, I thought there was a pretty big
type of birth control missing: Fertility Awareness Method (FAM)—which is not to
be confused with the “rhythm method” or natural family planning
(NFP). FAM is extremely “green” as it requires no rubbers or chemicals; it is
also extremely empowering to women and supports personal health. If you haven’t
read it already, I highly recommend Toni Weschler’s book Taking Charge of Your Fertility as a primer on FAM. I originally
picked up the book in my research on trying to conceive, but the book is
actually more about learning about women’s cycles and how to prevent or
facilitate pregnancy. After reading it, I truly believe it is a must-read for
all women. (BTW, the author is a Seattle girl.)

Amanda
R.
Seattle

A. Dearest Amanda,

You are not the only FAM
supporter to chide me about not including the Fertility Awareness Method as one
of the environmentally conscious birth control options in my April
12 column.

I stand corrected. According
to Planned Parenthood, FAM is as effective a birth control method as
condoms—resulting in 15-25 pregnancies per 100 women each year. And as you
point out, FAM is even more eco-friendly.

For those readers who aren’t
in the know about FAM, it’s a pretty simple system. The idea is if you keep your vagina
sperm-free during that most fertile time of the month, you’ll remain baby-free.
You can maintain the no sperm zone either by abstaining or by using some kind
of barrier method of birth control (condom, diaphragm, cervical cap). That’s
the easy part. The hard part is knowing when the most fertile time is. Of
course, it’s different for every woman. FAM requires an investment of time to
track your own ovulation schedule, which is typically done by monitoring your basal
body temperature and cervical mucus on a daily basis. To learn much more about
the FAM approach, I also highly recommend Toni Weschler’s book. It’s got all the
nitty gritty FAM details, and it’s a great read—whether you’re trying to get
pregnant or trying to avoid it.

Fertily,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Which
is more ecologically friendly—grilling out using charcoal or propane?

Tomm G.
Waukesha,
Wis.

A. Dearest
Tomm,

Ah, yes, The grilling
season is upon us. What I wouldn’t give for a grilled veggie kabob and a frosty
glass of lemonade right now. But about your BBQ pondering…

Simply stated: Go with gas
(that is, unless you feel adventurous and want to make your own solar oven!). It’s far easier to control the temperature of a
gas grill (no more burgers burnt to a crisp), and gas grills produce about half
as much CO2 as charcoal grills. And you’ll save yourself the pain (literally)
from all those headache-inducing volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) that
charcoal gives off.

If you
absolutely must have charcoal in your grill (I’m not a fan of the charcoal-y
taste, but to each his own), at least ditch the petrol-based conventional
briquettes for ones made from more sustainable materials such as coconut shells
or wood scraps. And please forgo the plastic lighters and fossil fuel lighter
fluids. An electric fire starter or chimney starter work
just as well.

Finally, take good care of
your grill. That way you prolong its life and save all the materials and energy
that go into producing a new one. Here’s a little DIY grill-care tip: Got an
onion lying around that’s past its eating prime? Cut it in half and rub the cut
side over the grill’s grates to remove any burnt-on food particles. You can compost
the onion. Then use my old standby—baking soda and water—to remove grease,
and rub a little cooking oil on the grates to prevent rust.

Charredly,
Umbra

On Earth Day, I posed the question to readers, “What can you commit to doing—not
just as an individual in your own home, but in your community, neighborhood,
apartment building, school, or office—to work toward a brighter green future?”—I was inspired by the responses, so I wanted to share a few with you. What are
you committing to do? Let me know in the comments area below.

“Our island community is
already under assault by tons and tons of garbage. As a member of a wonderful
but challenged community, I pledge to continue to work to build support for and
sustain the ‘papergoodless’ initiative that I helped to initiate at
our children’s school, which means at all parent faculty monthly meetings,
executive board meetings, and board meetings throughout the year, reusable
dishware is used to serve lunch/refreshments in lieu of using disposable
paper/plastic products.” —MamaRose

“I have already committed
to improving school lunches in our school district by getting them to offer
vegan options and more local produce. I am also trying to get the school that
my kids attend to plant a garden and grow some of the produce themselves.”
—Rhonda H.

“We have encouraged our
neighbors to begin using the limited curbside recycling in our neighborhood. A
couple of weeks ago, our family of four placed no trash for pickup, only
recyclables, and I had three neighbors ask how we do it. I described our system
of recycling, buying products with the least packaging, reusing, and
composting.” —Jill S.

Related Links:

Save Bette Midler, er, Mother Nature! [VIDEO]

Scientists show ‘growing’ fuel is waste of energy

Republican Opinions on Environmentalism have Shifted Drastically in the Past 10 Years

View full post on Grist – the Latest from Grist

There’s a logical fallacy called argumentum ad novitatem or the appeal to novelty, i.e. if something is new and clever it must be worthy of attention. It’s the fallacy that the mainstream media inevitability falls into when discussing bicycles. Witness an article in the LA Times, Going Beyond the Basic Bike, wherein we learned about the treadmill bike pictured above–a bargain at $2,011–the kids can use it in a science fair project to simulate inefficient energy transfer! But they’ll also have to bust out the Foucault and Baudrillard to explain how a simulation of running becomes a means of locomotion. [Update: a reader points out that the treadmill bike is a joke--kinda proves my point considering that the LA Times took it seriously.]
 

The article goes on to, I suspect, regurgitate a press release the Tribune Company received from the inventors of the StreetStrider, “Only $1,699″ with “special financing available.” I bet the folks at Goldman Sachs are busy packaging that financing right now.

Then we have the RowBike, created by Scott Olson, “inventor of the Rollerblade,” the RowBike is yours for a cool $1,188.

Memo to the Times: I can guarantee that anyone foolish enough to buy any of these things will soon relegate them to the dusty rear of the garage along with other late night infomercial impulse purchases.Now, can we please, for once, have a review of a practical, inexpensive commuter bike in a mainstream publication? Even the bicycling magazines get caught in the novelty of $30,000 carbon fiber road bikes. Can we treat the bike reviews with the same level of seriousness and utility that we do cars and computer reviews? Can we drop all the other “green” argumentum ad novitatem, such as endless stories about vertical vegetable gardens and algae energy schemes while we’re at it?

Support Homegrown Evolution by visiting our bookstore.

View full post on Homegrown Evolution

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since we launched The Green Fork but there it is, 473 blog posts later.  Two years ago today we set out to gild the lily that was the Eat Well Guide by not only steering you toward good food, but insisting upon its importance.  That year, we kicked things off with 20 Ways to Green Your Fork.  Last year, I hurriedly typed out an Earth Day post from the hallway of a hotel in San Jose at the annual W.K. Kellogg conference, gathering quotes from such sustainable food advocates as Michael Pollan, Joan Gussow and Anna Lappe, reporting that it had been a landmark year in the sustainable food movement, which it certainly had.

This year, I set out to throw together a mixed (good and bad) list of people and organizations to watch over the next year.  I solicited my colleagues at Grace for some of their favorites, and I gathered their suggestions, but when I sat down to write the intro to the list, I couldn’t really get into it.

This year I wasn’t riding quite as high as last, even though the White House gardeners built hoop houses this winter, and the USDA launched the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program (also, Mario Batali’s Earth Day menu looks amazing).  Truth be told, I’ve long had reservations about Earth Day.  I feel like it’s been given the Christmas treatment and become completely commercialized.  Privately, I’ve rolled my eyes at Earth Day, saying that it’s too corporate, too precious, too. . .overdone.

(Yes, in launching The Green Fork on Earth Day, we did — purposefully — use Earth Day as a “news hook” to promote our new endeavor, but it’s not like we were opening a gimmicky restaurant chain).

Anyway, I just couldn’t get into the spirit.  So I did some reading about it.

It’s easy for people under 50 to imagine that first Earth Day, 40 years ago today, as a gathering of a bunch of idealistic hippies, but in many ways, things were just as serious then as they are today.  Sure, most people didn’t know how rapidly we were approaching peak oil or the climate tipping point, but they were living under the threat of nuclear war.  There were virtually no environmental regulations, so factories were spewing pollutants willy-nilly into the air and water ways. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had raised major eyebrows over rampant pesticide use with its release in 1962, but the US wouldn’t ban DDT until 1972. Rivers caught fire. Forget the fact that everyone was still driving gas-guzzling V-8s, there was still lead in gasoline.

My friend and colleague Regina Weiss tells me that back then, you couldn’t see stars at night in New York City for all the smog (light pollution was a factor too, but that probably hasn’t changed) but that she can, now, and she thinks about that when she’s walking home at night and it gives her hope that things really are getting better, at least in fits and starts.

You rarely get this impression from movies about that time period — at least, not that the environmental situation was so drastic — but things were serious and it was clear there was change to be made.  To be sure, there were people who’d know this for years and been suffering as modern Cassandras doing activism work on one issue or another, but that first Earth Day (credited to US Senator Gaylord Nelson, who originally called it the National Environment Teach-In) is said to have shown the activists that they all had something in common, thus galvanizing the modern environmental movement.

Anybody who does environmental activism these days can probably attest to a need for such a coming together today.  Go ahead, shake your head at the egregious greenwashing you’ll see this week.  Give a side-eye glance at the government agencies you don’t think are doing enough.  But maybe we can still come together over Earth Day, the way we come together with our families, warts and all, during the holidays.

Maybe Earth Day was the catalyst for the movement, but more likely, it symbolized the critical mass that had been reached around some of these issues — in any case, there’s no doubt that policies started changing soon after.  Nixon passed the Clean Air Act Extension, which gave more teeth to the original CAA, the EPA was formed and required to enforce it and the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972.  Gas lost its lead in the ’80s. At some point, the stars came back out in New York.

I really wanted to end this with a mixed bag (The Good, the Bad and the Questionable, I was going to call it, and in addition to the good guys, I was going to list off the greenwashers and the junk scientists and the just plain bad ideas) of “ones to watch” for Earth Day, but I can’t muster the cynicism.

Don’t worry, it always comes back.

Thanks for reading The Green Fork these last two years, we hope you’ve enjoyed the ride even half as much as we have.  In the spirit of coming together, a quick roundup of great efforts to get us out of this mess.  I know I didn’t even scratch the surface here so please, feel free to suggest a few of your own in the comments.

So Many People Doing Such Great Work

Farmer Jane Monsanto may think that all women who live on farms are wives and mothers (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but in fact, there are more women entering into farming than men, by a lot.  Farmer Jane, a new book by Temra Costa, will tell us all about it.  Look for our review soon.

Let’s Move Who knew what the organic garden on the White House Lawn would grow into, and how quickly?  Michelle Obama has claimed her issue, and it is childhood obesity.

Farm Corps This brilliant new program, just announced, will organize volunteers around the country to work in school food systems, helping staff source local food and helping teachers develop good food curricula.

La Via Campesina Anna Lappe gushed about them last year, and with good reason — the international peasant movement has long fought against corporate control of the food supply and this week, organized over 100 actions around the world for the International Day of Peasant’s Struggle.

FEEST I first heard about FEEST — Food Empowerment Education and Sustainability Team — at a W.K. Kellogg gathering last December (The Kellogg Foundation helps fund FEEST).  The Seattle-based, youth-run program runs a weekly organic dinner and a monthly community potluck.

Friends of Family Farmers This Oregon-based group of sustainable agriculture advocates spent the fall and winter organizing community meetings around the state, gathering information for their Agricultural Reclamation Act, and also educating eaters — how brilliant does “InFARMation (and Beer!) sound?

Cooking Up a Story These guys often let us cross-post their amazing videos.  Their site is a great place to get inspired and witness some of the innovative farming methods people are coming up with.

INFORM A green nonprofit here in NYC that does interesting, snappy short videos – The Secret Life of Paper, The Secret Life of Cellphones – next up is The Secret Life of Beef.  Meatless Monday’s Chris Elam calls it “a clear, simple and accessible way to make sense of a complex problem, and how we’re all part of the solution.”

Meatless Monday With cities around the globe jumping on the Monday bandwagon much to the chagrin of the American Meat Institute and for some reason (do I smell industry dollars?) conservative talk show hosts, I’m sure we’ll see more Monday action in the coming year.

Citizens Campaign for the Environment CCE is running a number of great campaigns at the moment, including stop power plants from sucking up aquatic life from rivers to cool their systems, effectively killing billions of fish every year.

Eat Well Guide We couldn’t not promote Eat Well on Earth Day, could we?  The team here has been putting together local food maps for events like South by Southwest and Anna Lappe’s book tour, and as always, there’s more on the way!

* A note to our loyal readers: one day in the near future, we’ll be shutting down shop here at The Green Fork, but don’t panic; we’re actually moving into a bigger place, one where we can cover not just food issues, but water and energy issues as well.  We’re keeping the details close for now, but don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when it’s time, and we’ll be giving Green Fork readers a sneak peek when we get ready to go public.

View full post on Green Fork Blog

Fundred is a public art project that aims to engage people in dialogue about home, the soil and how we choose to express ourselves.

Everyone and anyone, students, teachers, artists, parents and celebrities, are all making their own Fundred Dollar Bills–original, hand-drawn interpretations of U.S. $100 bills. The goal is to collect over 3 million of these unique artworks. This cumulative total of 300,000,000 Fundred Dollars supports the equivalent cost (in U.S. Dollars) required to make safe every lead contaminated property in New Orleans, so that every child is protected.

In as little as 20 minutes you can create and donate a unique Fundred Dollar Bill artwork that will be picked up by a special armored truck and carried to Washington D.C. where a request will be made to our legislators for real change. Your creative contribution, along with 3,000,000 other individuals, will send a powerful message to Congress that we care about the health of future generations. This is a cool project, a great learning opportunity for all ages, with profound implications for the health of our planet and children.

Sound interesting? Learn more about creating your own Fundred session here.

If you liked it, share it!

View full post on www.HOMEGROWN.org

Thank you for coming out to Earth Day Fest 2010 at Full Circle Farm! It was a wonderful day at the farm, and bigger and better than last year – we just keep growing! Everyone had a great time, whether participating in the kids’ activities, playing in the wild zone, petting the animals, learning about bees, visiting vendors, doing a little farm yoga or learning about the farm. We want to send a special thank you to Sunnyvale Mayor Hamilton for coming out, and to the Kaye Bohler Band for the great music. Great thanks to our sponsors, Kaiser Permanente and Sandisk.

And, if you did not pick up a Full Circle Farm t-shirt or green bag, you can buy one at the farm stand which is open Wed and Friday 2-7 and Sunday 11-3. Thank you for your support!

View full post on Full Circle Farm

We are just a little over a month away from our biggest event of the year!  Our third annual Earth Day Fest will be taking place on April 18^th from 10a.m – 2p.m.  This year’s theme “We Got It Growin’ On” will be a day to celebrate the incredible growth of not only our Farm and Gardens but more importantly the growing community spirit and interest in growing sustainable food and adopting responsible practices.

The day will be jam-packed with kids  activities, entertainment, presentations and demonstrations of eco-friendly products and programs.  We will have tours of the Farm, a petting zoo, guest speakers; and will be showing off the over 100 new fruit trees added to our history orchard.

We are still looking for volunteers to help with planning the event as well as staffing the various venues during our celebration.

If you would like to help us with:

• Volunteer recruiting and coordination
• Marketing and advertising
• Fundraising
• Traffic control
• Or any other aspect you are passionate about…

Please email us at events@fullcirclesunnyvale.org

Regards,

Rebecca

View full post on Full Circle Farm